TechTarget Revolutionizes ABM and Sales Productivity with Latest Release of Priority Engine Purchase Intent Platform

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May 4, 2018

BounceX Raises $37M in Growth Round to Fuel People-Based Marketing Cloud

BounceX Secures Series B Round Led by Battery Ventures to Help Marketers Unlock the First New Scalable Revenue Channel in 10 Years

BounceX, the leading People-Based Marketing (PBM) cloud, announced $37 million in Series B funding led by Battery Ventures with participation from existing investors, Contour Venture Partners, Cross Creek Capital, Primary Venture Partners, Jason Finger and Rho Ventures. Founded in 2012, BounceX was named the Fastest Growing Software Company in America by Inc.com in 2016 and has quadrupled its revenue since.

Also Read: TechTarget Revolutionizes ABM and Sales Productivity with Latest Release of Priority Engine Purchase Intent Platform

Over the next two years, the company is planning to expand to 600 employees globally with a concentration in its NYC and UK offices. Today, over 350 companies work with BounceX, including world-leading enterprises such as Uniqlo, Neiman Marcus, Forever21, Samsonite, Hugo Boss, Avis and JetBlue.

BounceX created the People-Based Marketing cloud and is the first new revenue channel for marketers with scale in 10 years. “I found BounceX to be incredibly uncommon. I am constantly being offered these ‘amazing solutions that are going to solve everything,’ but, almost always, they fall short. This isn’t the case with BounceX; they consistently double the performance they promise,” says Neal Zamore, SVP Global Digital Customer Experience at Avis.

Also Read: Permira Funds to Acquire Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions Business

Outside of Google, Facebook and batch-and-blast email, there hasn’t been a new option for driving meaningful revenue in over a decade, We’re also impressed with the company’s ability to expand into new categories like financial services and travel while adding new products, accelerating growth and remaining capital efficient. BounceX is a company truly delivering tangible benefits to customers,” says Neeraj Agrawal, a general partner at Battery Ventures.

As part of the investment, Agrawal will join the BounceX Board of Directors. Battery Ventures has been a longtime investor in the marketing technology sector.

“Marketing is about growing the business. There are thousands of vendors out there, but few drive meaningful results and almost all take up the time, effort and energy of already-strapped marketing departments. BounceX was conceived to replace non-performing technologies by identifying a brand’s consumers and providing the most relevant digital experience based on their behaviors,” says Ryan Urban, CEO of BounceX.

Also Read: ContentlyOne Unveiled to Deliver Intelligent Content for the Entire Customer Journey

Permira Funds to Acquire Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions Business

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May 4, 2018

Permira Funds to Acquire Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions Business

Permira to Create New Company Specifically Focused on Service Provider Video Operators and their Customers

Permira, the global private equity firm, and Cisco, announced that a company backed by the Permira Funds has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cisco’s Service Provider Video Software Solutions (SPVSS) business. Following the close of the transaction, the Permira Funds will create a new, rebranded company focused on developing and delivering video solutions for the Pay-TV industry.

The new company will encompass a broad portfolio, including Cisco’s Infinite Video Platform, cloud digital video recording, video processing, video security, video middleware, and services groups. Highly-regarded video industry leader Dr. Abe Peled, former Chairman and CEO of NDS and adviser to the Permira Funds, will serve as Chairman of the new company. The sale of the Cisco SPVSS business has been approved by Cisco’s Board of Directors.

Also Read: ContentlyOne Unveiled to Deliver Intelligent Content for the Entire Customer Journey

“This is a unique opportunity to lead and shape the video industry during its transition with the flexibility as a private company. The new company will have the scale, technology innovation, and world-class team to deliver outstanding go-to-market execution, customer engagement, and new end-user experiences. Cisco has built a profitable business in the video space with innovations to capitalize on IP distribution and cloud-based services. These combined assets provide a significant new opportunity for the new company. I am thrilled to be working again in this area with Permira who is committed to innovation and support for our Pay-TV customers, and look forward to the ongoing working relationship with Cisco in support of our mutual customers,” said Dr. Peled.

Also Read: Bynder Announces Integration and Partnership with Hootsuite

“We are proud of our innovation in video and the customer momentum that the Service Provider Video group has built. With the leadership team and Abe as Chairman, the new company is well-positioned to drive this work forward and continue to deliver the solutions that meet the current and future needs of service provider video customers. Service providers remain a key customer segment for Cisco, and we look forward to continuing to partner with them to deliver new revenue-generating services and experiences,” said Chuck Robbins, Chairman and CEO, Cisco.

Cisco will retain the video and media technology related to its core business in networking, multi-cloud, security, data, and collaboration. The transaction is expected to close in Cisco’s Q1 FY19, subject to any regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.

Also Read: TripleLift and White Ops Forge Partnership to Fight Fraud in Native Advertising

ContentlyOne Unveiled to Deliver Intelligent Content for the Entire Customer Journey

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May 3, 2018

ContentlyOne Unveiled to Deliver Intelligent Content for the Entire Customer Journey

ContentlyOne is First All-in-One Solution to Help Marketers Master Content for the Entire Customer Journey

At the Marketo Summit, Contently announced ContentlyOne. ContentlyOne is the industry’s first all-in-one content solution. ContentlyOne is designed to empower marketers with the tools and expertise needed to master content for the entire customer journey. Included in ContentlyOne are three comprehensive, unified offerings: a leading content marketing platform, on-demand talent found only at Contently and expert services from the pioneers of content.

According to Lindsay Lyons, Director of Brand Content at Dell Technologies, “ContentlyOne has given us the tools and know-how to create breakthrough content that reaches our target audiences and drives valuable engagement.”

Like Contently’s other blue-chip clients, Dell Technologies’ customer-centric content marketing strategy and leadership have been widely recognized. They were recently nominated for two Digiday Content Marketing Awards—Best Branded Content Site and Best Branded Podcast—as well as a Webby award for Best Branded Podcast.

Joe Coleman, CEO and co-founder of Contently, said, “Our clients increasingly come to us to align disjointed content teams, graduate from content chaos, and create customer-centric content that engages their audiences. Dell Technologies is proof of how ContentlyOne can drive world-class marketing.”

Currently, Contently helps global enterprises create engaging and accountable content that delivers a superior customer experience.

It’s clear that marketers are struggling with content. According to Beckon, five percent of content is earning 90 percent of total consumer engagements. What’s more, only 25 percent of organizations have formalized their approach to managing content, according to SiriusDecisions.

As CMO Council writes in “Establishing and Enriching the Content Supply Chain”: “While content is the backbone of nearly every aspect of the customer journey, organizations are still failing to give it the attention it deserves.”

CEO of Contently added, “We hear brands loud and clear when they say that their biggest challenge is breaking through the noise and creating meaningful audience engagement. Engaging and accountable content is clearly the answer, but marketers lack a strategic solution to achieve alignment, scale and optimize content across all their marketing objectives. ContentlyOne was designed as a direct response to marketers’ cry.”

Contently is enhancing its leading content marketing platform to meet the challenges of today’s marketer. Through features such as campaigns and content publishing hubs, the platform has evolved to service the entire content lifecycle. Since content is the atomic unit of all marketing activity, the Contently content operating system is expanding to integrate with more of the enterprise marketing stack, such as Adobe Experience Manager, Marketo, and Salesforce.

Contently is implementing machine learning capabilities throughout the content creation process to surface actionable insights on strategy, process, and governance.

ContentlyOne is, therefore, now the industry’s latest only product that integrates technology, talent, and strategy into one unified approach for achieving content mastery.

Bynder Announces Integration and Partnership with Hootsuite

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May 3, 2018

Bynder Announces Integration and Partnership with Hootsuite

New Tool Connects Social Media Channels Directly to Creative Brand Assets, Making Visual Content Management Online more Agile, Streamlined and Consistent

Bynder, the global leader in digital asset management (DAM), announced a new Marketplace integration with Hootsuite, the world’s most widely used social media management platform. The integration connects Hootsuite dashboards with creative assets stored in Bynder’s portal, enabling users to easily access files for social media content development without the need to download, resize and re-upload each file.

“Our vision is to power download-free workflows, where assets can be seamlessly shared from one platform to the next without the need for downloads or attachments. We’re creating a connected ecosystem of intelligent endpoints. Hootsuite is the latest addition to our roster of integrations that can help marketers work faster and smarter with the ability to immediately create, edit and use assets across their social media environments where exceptional visual content is one of the keys to success,” said Chris Hall, founder and CEO of Bynder.

Also Read: GroupM ‘State of Digital’ Report: Time with Online Media to Surpass Linear TV in 2018

Users save time by eliminating the need to import new creative files to Hootsuite. The plugin loads Bynder’s compact portal view directly into the Hootsuite platform allowing users to search for, select and resize the right image for each social post. Hootsuite users can view all available assets in the tool and can use intelligent AI-powered search and filtering functions to find assets based on existing Bynder metadata. The integration also supports brand consistency and version control, guaranteeing that only the most recent and approved versions of creative files are available in social media content creation.

Also Read: Blis Honored As Gold Stevie Award Winner In 2018 American Business Awards

“We have noticed that with the expanding need to capture audience attention on social media, the use of visual content has increased enormously. The Bynder and Hootsuite integration allows creative teams to leverage creative content across media channels quicker and more effectively. As social media continues to grow as an incredibly valuable extension of a brand, teams must be confident in their ability to quickly develop creative, effective and consistent experiences for their audiences. This integration will help our users continue to achieve this,” said Jeremy Wood, VP Product Marketing, Hootsuite.

Also Read: UnGagged @Las Vegas & London: Going Beyond The Conventional

nFusz Joins Marketo’s LaunchPoint Accelerate Partner Ecosystem With Next-Generation Interactive Video Platform

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May 3, 2018

nFusz Joins Marketo’s LaunchPoint Accelerate Partner Ecosystem With Next-Generation Interactive Video Platform

nFusz, the Hollywood-based digital technology company, announced at the Marketo Marketing Nation Summit, that it has joined the Marketo LaunchPoint Accelerate Partner Ecosystem, the industry’s first MarTech partner accelerator, and completed the integration of notifiCRM, its interactive video marketing technology, into the Marketo Engagement Platform.

notifiCRM’s seamless integration with Marketo is designed to enhance marketing content and dramatically improve conversion rates for Marketo customers through interactive video messaging that does the selling for you. notifiCRM’s direct integration with the Marketo Engagement Platform allows marketers to enjoy higher conversion rates by leveraging the power of nFusz’ interactive video technology. With notifiCRM, marketers can insert clickable calls-to-action in their existing sales and marketing videos and access real-time video analytics including pixel tracking.

The available in-video interactive features include click-to-buy, click-to-call, click to schedule a meeting, and many more — all of which allow customers and prospects to interact with, and respond to, the sales and marketing content while the video is still playing, without leaving the video, and while customer and prospect interest levels are piqued. The videos are viewable on any device without the need to download any additional software or player.

Also Read: OpenX Expands Mobile and Video Product Leadership Team with New Hiring

The collaboration provides Marketo customers with detailed video messaging data analytics that are fully synchronized across the nFusz and Marketo platforms, providing Marketo customers with powerful automated sales and marketing tools. Marketo sales representatives will offer the integrated notifiCRM product to current and future Marketo customers.

“We are thrilled to welcome nFusz as a member of the Marketo LaunchPoint Accelerate Ecosystem. Video has become an essential tool for all marketers and nFusz’s next-generation interactive video platform is the tool all forward-thinking marketers need in order to stay ahead of this burgeoning trend,” states Shai Alfandray, Marketo’s Vice President, Global Head of ISVs, LaunchPoint Ecosystem.

“We’re very excited that our interactive video sales technology is now part of the Marketo Engagement Platform, the pre-eminent marketing solution for marketing professionals all over the world. This partnership gives marketing professionals access, through their familiar Marketo interface, to the power of our interactive video sales and marketing tool to create more effective customer engagement and drive conversion rates to new levels,” states Rory J Cutaia, CEO of nFusz.

Also Read: Women In Tech: Nielsen Ranks Higher In Diversity For The Fifth Consecutive Year

TripleLift and White Ops Forge Partnership to Fight Fraud in Native Advertising

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May 3, 2018

TripleLift and White Ops Forge Partnership to Fight Fraud in Native Advertising

TripleLift Is Bringing IVT Prevention to the Forefront of Its Services and Adopting Stricter Guidelines That Align with Growing Buyer Demands for 3P Measurement Standards

TripleLift, a leading native advertising platform, has announced a partnership with White Ops. This native advertising partnership now becomes the first native exchange to offer third-party verified pre-bid fraud prevention across its entire inventory. By leveraging White Ops’ pre-bid prevention product, MediaGuard, TripleLift will now prevent fraudulent traffic across its platform, ultimately providing TripleLift clients with cleaner inventory.

Publishers leverage TripleLift’s technology to create a new revenue stream through monetizing their in-feed inventory.

At the time of this announcement, Eric Berry, CEO of TripleLift, said, “In today’s ad ecosystem even the largest brands and most premium publishers can fall victim to unscrupulous behaviors of cyber-criminals. Quality and safety have always been at the heart of what we do, and although we have always outperformed the industry average, this partnership reinforces our commitment to a fraud-free ecosystem. It provides peace of mind to both our advertisers and our publishers by stopping bot traffic before it reaches the market.”

TripleLift is bringing IVT prevention to the forefront of its services and adopting stricter guidelines that align with growing buyer demands for 3P measurement standards. As a result, TripleLift is now providing Pre-Bid Fraud Prevention to help maintain a clean marketplace for buyers. Publishers will only be paid for validated traffic sold to buying partners.

“TripleLift has been a leader in the rapidly growing native advertising space,” said Sandeep Swadia, CEO of White Ops.

Sandeep added, “This partnership is a testament to TripleLift’s strong conviction to provide its customers with a clean and fraud-free digital ad ecosystem. White Ops’ pre-bid fraud prevention solution offered by TripleLift is unique in the market.”

Currently, TripleLiftprovides industry-recognized programmatic native advertising platform. The company’s technology allows brands to amplify their content through in-feed native ads that match the unique look and feel of thousands of publishers.

Consensus Snap™ Launches With Instant Video for B2B Sales Communication

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May 3, 2018

Consensus Snap™ Launches With Instant Video for B2B Sales Communication

Consensus, the SaaS company at the forefront of Demo Automation, announced their newest product Consensus Snap™. Snap enables sales reps to engage multiple stakeholders quickly by instantly recording, sending, and tracking screenshot video demos on the fly.

“Customers are eight times more likely to respond to a personalized video, and more likely to share the video so that sales reps can quickly discover and engage the entire buying group,” said Garin Hess, Founder and CEO.

Record your video, then copy a custom link into an email, LinkedIn message, or anywhere else your prospect is. Consensus Snap then tracks when and how they engage, and more importantly, who they share it with so you can discover and engage stakeholders in the buying group.

Consensus Snap is a Chrome plugin that launches an easy-to-use screen recording and editing tool. Sales professionals record anything on their screens, such as PowerPoints, proposals, spreadsheets, or software demonstrations.

Hess says he got a question by email one morning from an internal champion at Oracle. “I launched Consensus Snap and in a few minutes sent out a video explanation rather than typing a long email.”

Within 24 hours the video had been shared with 12 different stakeholders, 11 of them engaging for a total of more than 76 minutes.

“This led to an appointment with a top decision maker and resulted in closing two additional deals,” Hess explained.

“Consensus helps sellers engage the entire buying group for each opportunity improving the chances of closing each deal. Their newest solution, Consensus Snap, is an exciting twist. It allows sales reps to record personalized video messages to answer questions or step prospects through a proposal,” said Nancy Nardin, Founder & CEO of Smart Selling Tools.

According to WordStream, given the choice of reading about a product or watching a video about it, 59% of executives would choose video. Tubular Insights notes that 54% of executives share videos with colleagues on a weekly basis. The goal of sales reps is to get in front of those decision makers in a format they are most likely to engage with and share with other members of buying groups.

Also Read: SEMrush Raises $40 Million to Further Refine Search Analytics Using AI/ML

“There’s a misperception that video in sales is time-consuming, slow to produce, and expensive. But we’re proving that that couldn’t be farther from the truth,” says Brian Zurcher, Product Manager.

The beauty of Consensus Snap lies within its simplicity. Sales professionals can use the screen recording or webcam features of Snap to walk them through a product feature, ROI analysis, or proposal agreement.

“We use it internally all of the time now. My favorite is sending proposals alongside a video explanation,” says Rex Galbraith, VP of Sales.

Once the personalized video is sent, Consensus tracks when your prospect views it, who they share it with, and when those stakeholders view it.

Also Read: Cloud Propulsion Makes SaaS Soar

Women In Tech: Nielsen Ranks Higher In Diversity For The Fifth Consecutive Year

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May 3, 2018

Global Data and Analytics Leader Receives Honor for Global Initiatives; Hiring, Retaining and Promoting Women, Minorities, People With Disabilities, LGBT and Veterans

Nielsen has earned the #19 ranking on the 2018 DiversityInc Top 50 list for corporate diversity and inclusion, moving up 13 places. This is Nielsen’s fifth consecutive year moving up on the annual ranking of companies that excel in hiring, retaining and promoting women, minorities, people with disabilities, LGBT+ and veterans.

“Nielsen’s results to date prove that leveraging our diversity of cultural backgrounds, experiences, talents and skills makes our company stronger and more useful to our clients and stakeholders. Diversity is key to our growth and ability to innovate,” said Nielsen CEO Mitch Barns.

“Measurement and accountability are key components of Nielsen’s diversity and inclusion strategy and have been critical to our improvements in workforce representation, promotions, recruitment, retention and supplier diversity spend,” added Barns.

Nielsen reports a nine percentage point increase in the racial diversity of its workforce over the past five years. Similarly, its global female representation in senior leadership is 33.8% — which is higher than other global companies, where percentages of females in senior management range between 24% and 29%*.

“Nielsen’s business is predicated upon people—their preferences, choices and behaviors. Global population shifts are causing those behaviors to change at a rapid pace. Our investments in diverse talent and programming, advance our ability to help clients anticipate and respond to those shifts,” said Nielsen Chief Diversity Officer Angela Talton.

As the leading global provider of insights and comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior, Nielsen’s nuanced understanding of an increasingly diverse market’ influence on consumer trends is driven largely by our diverse and inclusive workforce.

In the US, Nielsen’s Diverse Intelligence Series utilizes the breadth of Nielsen’s measurement portfolio and the diversity within our workforce to produce reports that showcase the unique purchasing and media consumption habits of multicultural and diverse consumers. In 2017, the series focused specifically on the influence of multicultural women on mainstream culture, media representation and consumption.

Also Read: AI Leader Faraday Secures $2 Million In New Funding; Adds Industry Experts to Its Team

Today, 70% of the countries where Nielsen operates have at least one Employee Resource Group. Nielsen’s commitment to inclusion is also represented by the key milestones that our global ERGs achieved in 2017. Both the Sustaining Active Black Leadership and Empowerment (SABLE) and PRIDE (LGBT+) ERGs celebrated 10 year anniversaries. Last year, Nielsen also launched two new ERGs. Nielsen Generation (N-GEN), our eighth ERG, launched in China, is designed bring together legacy associates with associates earlier in their career. Multinational Organization Supporting An Inclusive Culture (MOSAIC), our ninth ERG, launched in the U.K. was created to recognize, celebrate and leverage the diversity of our associates.

The DiversityInc Top 50 list, issued yearly since 2001, recognizes the nation’s top companies for diversity and inclusion management. These companies excel in such areas as hiring, retaining and promoting women, minorities, people with disabilities, LGBT and veterans.

*according to Catalyst, a global nonprofit that advocates for inclusive workplaces for women

Also Read: SEMrush Raises $40 Million to Further Refine Search Analytics Using AI/ML

OpenX Expands Mobile and Video Product Leadership Team with New Hiring

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May 3, 2018

OpenX Expands Mobile and Video Product Leadership Team with New Hiring

OpenX Welcomes Senior Hires from Viacom, Hulu, and Adcolony; Demonstrates How Mobile and Video Growth Continues to Surge in Q1 of 2018 Outpacing Overall Industry Growth

OpenX, a leading independent advertising technology provider, shared deeper insights into the rapid growth of its mobile and video business today and announced it has appointed a trio of industry veterans in product development and management to support the company’s thriving mobile and video business units. Sophia Chung joined as Vice President of Product to spearhead mobile app development initiatives, with an emphasis in the rewarded video, and Roy Firestone and Treven Ho have joined as senior director of product and senior product manager to advance the company’s video strategy globally.

OpenX’s Mobile and Video Inventory Grew Significantly

The mobile and video business continued to see rapid growth at OpenX in both volume and revenue in Q1 of 2018. As more premium publishers and app developers refine their partnerships to fewer more trusted mobile exchanges that have invested in industry leading quality initiatives, OpenX’s mobile inventory more than doubled year-over-year in Q1 with video inventory surging nearly 300%.

OpenX also announced that mobile comprised a majority of all revenue for the business in the month of April, further highlighting the success of the company’s mobile-first investments.

John Gentry, President at OpenX, said, “OpenX entered 2018 as a mobile-first company in inventory, connecting the world’s most respected brands with more than 2,000 of the most popular mobile apps used today. In April we succeeded in becoming mobile first in revenue as more publishers and app developers turned to the OpenX mobile exchange to help their businesses grow.”

John added, “With these new hires and the dozens more we’ll make through the year, we will continue developing the technology and products that grow our leadership in mobile and expand our reach into the new and emerging sectors, like OTT, CTV, AR, and VR, shaping the future of advertising.”

Sophia Chung, Vice President, Product at OpenX. said, “I’ve watched OpenX evolve over the years to meet the growing demand for sophisticated, high-quality advertising solutions that have been built specifically for a mobile world.”

Read More: Cloud Propulsion Makes SaaS Soar

Sophia added, “The number one priority on every app developer’s advertising agenda is to ensure they work with trusted partners that deliver high-quality experiences for their users. I’ve seen first hand how mobile advertising can move the needle for brands, publishers and app developers alike and given OpenX’s long-standing commitment to putting quality first, I’m thrilled to join the company at such an exciting time for the future of mobile product development.”

Prior to OpenX, Sophia Chung specialized in rewarded video products at AdColony and guided the design of hyperlocal mobile display ad products at YP.com. In total, she brings a decade of mobile ad tech experience to OpenX. Chung’s addition to OpenX will amplify the company’s efforts to bring rich media and premium video on mobile platforms, driving growth in supply/demand integrations.

Read More:

OpenX Sets the Ball Rolling on Fast-Track Video Advertising for Mobile-First Companies

Roy Firestone joins OpenX as product leader for video bringing deep experience in premium video ad products. Roy’s track record of innovating digital ad formats stretches back more than twenty years and includes extensive work for Nickelodeon/Viacom which ultimately led to his development of a patented interactive virtual video ad unit.

Roy spearheaded a successful premium video program that allowed publishers to bring their ideas to market at scale for Los Angeles start-up Panache and served as senior director of product at Engage BDR where he grew the company’s mobile and desktop video business 400 percent in under a year.

Recommended Read: Interview with Nikos Acuña, Chief Visionary, Sizmek

The company also announced that Treven Ho would be joining Firestone on the OpenX video product team from her previous leadership role at streaming giant Hulu. At Hulu, Ho successfully directed the ad product team to create and launch new interactive video ads designed to deliver engaging user experiences and increase ad spend across all platforms. Prior to Hulu, Treven’s ad tech experience started at Yahoo, where she managed a range of ad monetization products in search and display.

Roy Firestone, said, “Video ad formats are evolving and emerging at a rapid speed and OpenX has positioned itself to be a clear leader in this field, especially with the company’s focus on quality. I’m looking forward to helping the company continue to drive innovation and capitalize on the huge opportunity in programmatic video.”

Currently, OpenX powers highly relevant advertising at global scale, delivering quality and value to brands, publishers, and consumers across every type of connected screen and ad format.

Engaging Millennials Beyond Financial Milestones

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David Brown

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May 3, 2018

Another Tax Day has come and gone. For some, April 17 loomed large.

Its passing was met with relief. For millennials, which next year are expected to become the largest generation at 73 million strong,¹ it’s one of assorted financially related events that remain cloudy. Only 22 percent of millennials are aware how life events like getting married, having children or buying and selling a home impacts filing their taxes.² What’s more, this important demographic that grew up during the financial crisis with volatile markets the norm is, as a result, somewhat cautious and conservative about financial matters. About 66 percent of people between the ages of 21 and 32 have absolutely nothing saved for retirement, according to the National Institute on Retirement Security. Clearly, millennials can benefit from the advice and solutions financial services companies offer; establishing and sustaining motivation and commitment with this valuable customer through useful content can be a powerful step towards making this a reality. Indeed, 47 percent of millennials say they would be more likely to trust a financial services company if it created useful content.³ In our view, trust is the prerequisite for motivation and commitment.

Also Read: Disruptive Innovation: SaaS Companies Are Migrating To Purchase Convenience

Gaining Millennials’ Trust Through Tailored Content

Compared to older generations, millennials lack financial knowledge and yet, they are entering their prime earning and savings years. So it’s no wonder that 84 percent seek financial advice.⁴ How they get it is key. As digital natives, technology and online platforms are an important aspect of financial advice — 57 percent say they would even change their bank relationship if the technology solution were better. Recent studies show that millennials accessed their financial institution 8.5 times via a mobile app or browser versus 3.1 times for the non-millennial segment. They also were more than four times more likely to connect with their banking organization via email than their non-millennial counterparts.⁵In addition, with social media an everyday part of their lives, expectations for communication and transparency are significant. Interactions with financial brands need to be ongoing and clearly beneficial — not simply transactions fueled by product offers.

Also Read: If AI is Going to Make You a Better Marketer, You Need to Know These Four Things

Millennials are Individuals — Not Just a Demographic

For any company — financial or otherwise — understanding your customer demographics should be a given. And while there may be common threads running through millennials’ financial needs and wants, they are all individuals with unique preferences and should be treated as such. Ally Bank learned this, for example, when it launched “Do It Right,” a community-centric content experience rich with educational articles around topics like understanding investment lingo and managing credit card debt. As the new content Ally created replaced older blogs, they observed that it was challenging for visitors to access the most relevant information for their needs. To take their customer engagement to the next level, Ally started using OneSpot’s machine-learning powered individualization platform, which enabled the company to deliver content recommendations on the site based on each visitor’s historical preferences and real-time behavior, and reached people through paid digital media and retargeting in desktop and mobile as well — all the channels their audience embraces. With this individualized approach, Ally’s content kept visitors engaged on their website longer and was also able to recirculate previously posted content for additional consumption based on relevant interests. Ally’s editorial team worked with OneSpot and used our technology to perform topical analysis and gain deeper insights on what content characteristics and specific pieces of content were truly resonating — empowering them to develop a roadmap for the most impactful content areas for expansion.

Also Read: How App Science Will Lead to Better Predictive AI

Among Ally website visitors, OneSpot’s individualized content recommendations increased the number of highly engaged individuals (visitors who viewed three or more pieces of content in their sessions as compared to unengaged visitors who viewed less content). These highly engaged visitors were three times more likely to click on high-value calls-to-action for Ally like “Open an Account.” They also scrolled 74 percent down the page and spent at least a minute reading the content they were shown, on average. By focusing on providing valuable and educational content tailored to the individual level and delivering these unique experiences at scale, Ally has strengthened its relationship with millennials and become a valued, trusted resource to this audience.

Provide Value, Align with Values and Create Emotional Bonds

When we’re looking to nurture new, mutually beneficial friendships, we don’t simply call and leave the same voicemails for everyone. We have conversations to share points-of-view, secrets, passions and what is important to each of us, and through repeated interactions, create trusted one-to-one bonds. The takeaway for financial services companies is that though seasonal events, milestones and holidays can indeed be compelling touchpoints for engaging content, the nuances of our individual financial concerns and needs are just as important. Becoming a constant and relevant resource to educate and support customers year-round with individualized content tailored to their particular needs can lay the foundation for lifelong and trusting financial services engagement.

Also Read: Blockchain in Advertising: The Implications for Every Player in the System

Cloud Propulsion Makes SaaS Soar

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Abhinandan Ghosh

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May 3, 2018

SaaS Models Are Now An Established Technology Across Most Organizational Functions

Currently, we are witnessing a huge deluge of business information, leaving them with no scope to slow down or surge ahead. Testimony to this stalemate is that almost 90% of all data available for business purposes was generated in the last couple of years. As a result, we find the cloud industry undergoing a revolution. SaaS models are now an established technology across most organizational functions including finance, marketing and sales, HR, and IT. License-based software has become passe. Oracle, Adobe, Salesforce, Microsoft, and the likes have embraced the cloud revolution. Their software suite is now mostly subscription-based. Data analytics are cloud-native too!

Here’re some facts that mark the meteoric rise of SaaS and the cloud movement:

Over 67% of SaaS companies accomplished churn rates of 5% or more (Totango)
An average of 16 SaaS apps are used by companies today (BetterCloud)
73% of organizations will have almost all their apps as SaaS by 2020 (BetterCloud)
Post-2022, almost 86% of companies will run purely on SaaS (BetterCloud)
By 2022, the global SaaS market is expected to touch $164.29 billion (World Future Shift)

Companies are growing more customer-centric, focusing on delivering personalization and context to each interaction to better understand their needs along the buying journeys. Whether you’re a marketing or sales leader or an entrepreneur, the customer is in the thick of it all. Cloud movement and SaaS serve your customers or end-users.

Then & Now

Remember the time when you connected to your organization’s intranet systems to access data and apps stored on central servers? Late 90’s right? Early days for businesses adopting SaaS were all about welcoming changes in recruitment, payrolls, and CRM. From then on, SaaS, almost synonymous with ‘cloud computing’ today, has evolved exponentially. There’re thousands of SaaS apps that provide a host of solutions tailor-made to match towering customer expectations.

Vendors are either developing their own SaaS products or acquiring SaaS companies:

Microsoft introduced – Microsoft Flow and Microsoft Teams
Amazon introduced Chime
Adobe announced Adobe Sign
Oracle acquired NetSuite for $9.3 billion
Salesforce acquired MuleSoft for $6.5 billion
GE acquired ServiceMax for $915 million
Salesforce acquired Quip for $582 million
Oracle acquired Opower for $532 million
Atlassian acquired Trello for $425 million

The Salesforce-MuleSoft deal is the latest in the list above. Add to that the recent DocuSign IPO and you’ll know the dominant state of SaaS today.

SaaS Impact on Business

Financial Planning

The complexities of ERP are daunting which is why organizations are migrating workloads to the cloud. There’s a lot of buzz around cloud-based Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). EPM is now a mainstay of day-to-day operations for many businesses. The biggest benefit of cloud-based EPM is that it aids in-depth, long-term financial planning. That leads to accomplishment of long-term goals.

Cloud shift rate for SaaS through 2016 to 2020 is 37% (Gartner)

Technology Outlook

Cloud has an innate advantage. It offers a platform for users to communicate, manage, and collaborate as per their business functions. For instance, marketing teams can come together to create a community exclusively for marketing attribution or revenue management. Sales teams can create Sales Intelligence communities.

86% of end users admit that SaaS apps enable them to succeed more than desktop options (BetterCloud)

Thus, if not on the cloud, you’re missing out on a great deal. Sharing business processes and information among vendors help enhance technology adoption. All of this happens through a common platform.

Competitive Integrations

Cloud integrations encompass a variety of services. These integrations have changed the manufacturing space. Simple, user-friendly integrations on mobile apps to sophisticated drone control apps or voice controls. There’re a lot of integrations added to the cloud every time products or services are redesigned or launched. Cloud integrations are now a must-have in your business arsenal to ignite manufacturing success.

Workforce Collaborations

Perhaps the greatest SaaS impact is on how we work. SaaS apps have enabled seamless communications making business functions and processes simplified and transparent. Recruitment, project management, T&D, customer support, and the likes have undergone a complete facelift.

38% of companies are running completely on SaaS (BetterCloud)
SaaS-enabled workplaces use an average of 34 apps (BetterCloud)
SaaS apps for workplace communications have reduced emails by 48.6% (Slack)
Scheduled meetings reduced by 30% with Google Apps (Whirlpool)

Some SaaS apps that have altered workplaces:

Communication –

Slack | Glip | Skype for Business | Google Hangouts | Go ToMeeting

Ticketing –

Zendesk | Freshdesk | Salesforce (Desk.com) | JIRA

Project Management –

Trello | Asana | Basecamp | Wrike | Smartsheet

Storage –

Dropbox | Box | Egnyte | Microsoft OneDrive | Google Drive

Productivity –

Lucidchart | Quip | Amium | Stride | Cage

Human Resources –

Workday | BambooHR | Namely | Zenefits | Gusto

Data Analytics: Crest of Intelligence

Digital technologies in the business world have ensured that customer satisfaction is now a top-drawer priority. To dig the most out of customer behavior along with business profitability and performance, cloud-based analytics (BI software) is what you need. Cloud analytics not only facilitates brisk meritable decisions. It also helps in simplification of complex tasks and significant cost reduction.

Few SaaS-powered data analytics (BI) providers:

Tableau | IBM Cognos | Qlik Sense | TIBCO Spotfire | Sisense

Next-level Marketing Automation

Marketers face the challenge of creating lively and handy content which covert prospects to customers. During campaigns, aspects such as social and email require automation. Enter cloud-based marketing automation which helps marketers ideate, implement, and track campaign results.

Some cool ones:

Hootsuite | Optimizely | Act-On | Hotjar | Wistia

SaaS Benefits

Speed thrills – SaaS assures scalability of data analytics and incredibly fast processing power. This brings down project completion times.
Cost optimization – SaaS is a subscription-based model so you pay just for what you use. Also, there’re no additional investments required for infrastructure.
Scalability – SaaS infrastructure is inherently scalable in nature. It allows you to adapt according to the dynamics of your customer demands and business needs.
Accessibility – A big upside of SaaS. A device and internet is all you need to do what you want to.
Security – Contrary to initial beliefs that SaaS isn’t secure, one of the primary reasons for SaaS adoption is security.
Timely and automatic updates – With feedback and community reviews readily available, SaaS helps IT teams to focus on more critical tasks with regular and automatic updates.

SaaS of Tomorrow

There’s no stopping the cloud revolution. SaaS is enterprise and mobile – omnipresent. Expect SaaS models to get smarter with deep learning (and other AI elements). The SaaS tech and models of the future will cater to more critical business angles like customer churn. Expect the SaaS models of tomorrow to optimize your cross-selling operations as well. In addition to that, there will be an influx of ‘all-in’ SaaS apps.

SEMrush Raises $40 Million to Further Refine Search Analytics Using AI/ML

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May 3, 2018

SEMrush Raises $40 Million to Further Refine Search Analytics Using AI/ML

SEMrush Is Dedicated to Continue Helping Marketers All over the World Build and Execute Winning Marketing Strategies Using Machine Learning Algorithms for Search Analytics

SEMrush, the leading competitive intelligence and end-to-end analytics platform for digital marketing professionals, announced that it has raised a total of $40 million in funding led by Greycroft, Siguler Guff, and e.ventures. SEMrush is the industry standard to improve insights, analytics, and measurement for digital marketers.

At the time of this announcement, Oleg Shchegolev, CEO and co-founder of SEMrush, said, “In today’s increasingly connected world, many companies win or lose based on their marketing strategy, specifically their digital strategy. In 2017, digital ad spend finally surpassed TV. While competition in digital marketing intensifies, SEMrush is dedicated to continue helping marketers all over the world build and execute winning marketing strategies.”

Dylan Pearce, Partner at Greycroft, said, “SEMrush has emerged as the global leader in digital marketing software and a must-have solution for virtually all competitive companies. With its world-class technical talent, we believe SEMrush can become the next great technology platform.”

SEMrush to Expand Its Machine Learning Powered Market Intelligence Capabilities and Proprietary Database

The funding will allow SEMrush to expand its Machine Learning powered market intelligence capabilities and proprietary database. The database supports more than 125 countries through many signals and data sources. These comprehensive data sets include search engine marketing (SEM) data such as one of the world’s largest backlink indexes, user behavior data, social media performance metrics, and brand mentions.

SEMrush’s software combines and analyses these signals to provide users with actionable insights. This enables clients to answer complex questions such as, “How can my page load or bounce rate impact my ranking in search engines?”, “What backlinks might be bad for my website?”, or “What title or topic should I choose to make my article perform?”

SEMrush Will Also Expand to Additional Platforms Such as Amazon and Baidu

Roman Simonov, Managing Director of Siguler Guff, said, “As the firm grows at high-pace, this funding round will take the company to the next level in terms of products offered and verticals covered.”

Roman added, “Siguler Guff is proud to be the first institutional backer of the company and recognizes the tremendous commercial value that SEMrush brings to its clients, small and large, in over 150 countries.”

SEMrush will also expand to additional platforms such as Amazon and Baidu, as new and existing platforms become vital to any digital marketing strategy. Furthermore, the funding will drive strategic acquisitions, enable SEMrush to scale the executive team, and support its best-of-breed technical expertise.

Nick Wilsdon, Product Owner, Search, Vodafone Group, said, “The most important thing I can have really is data. Data is my currency. I need to support initiatives, business cases – any tools that give me the insight I find incredibly useful. Then when it comes to measuring these initiatives, the reporting comes in handy. SEMrush is a very solid package that delivers exactly that.”

SEMrush was recently recognized as the Best SEO Software Suite in the US, UK and won the European Search Awards 2017.

AI Leader Faraday Secures $2 Million In New Funding; Adds Industry Experts to Its Team

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May 3, 2018

Faraday Brings Advanced Customer Analytics Capabilities to the Shopify App Store

Faraday’s Practical Approach to AI Drives Revenue for Consumer Brands by Optimizing Customer Lifecycles

Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform provider Faraday secured more than $2 million in new funding and added top talent to its team of leading data scientists and business software experts. The latest round of funding, from new and existing investors, supports the company’s unique approach to AI, which is cost-effective, easily implemented, automated, and delivers meaningful results that drive revenue for B2C companies.

Faraday enables consumer brands to leverage big data and apply automated, predictive modeling at every step of the customer lifecycle to gain instant, accurate insights into each phase of the process. Faraday’s B2C clients are then able to better identify and understand their prospects and customers, and optimize marketing campaigns efficiently and effectively.

John Replogle

Investors in this round of financing include Intercap, FreshTracks Capital, and independent investor John Replogle, former president and CEO of consumer products industry leaders Seventh Generation and Burt’s Bees. Faraday was recently recognized as the best-funded tech startup in Vermont by CB Insights in January 2018.

“If my decades leading consumer brands have taught me anything, it’s that knowledge is everything,” said Replogle. “I invested in Faraday because they make data and AI work immediately for B2C in a way I’ve never seen before. They’re the future.”

“AI is often too complicated and expensive for companies to implement effectively,” said Jason Chapnik, chairman and CEO of Intercap, Inc. “Faraday has nailed it with a highly automated and practical AI platform that any consumer-focused company can quickly implement with incredible results.”

Also Read: Artificial Intelligence Learns and Builds Conversational AI Chatbots Autonomously

The company has hired two industry-leading experts: Rob Trail, Senior Vice President of Sales and Customer Success; and data scientist Dr. Sean Kelly.

Trail previously served as General Manager of CRM at Boston-based Bullhorn, where he helped grow the company from 14 employees to more than 700, and built and scaled SaaS platforms for B2B companies and customer-facing teams.

Dr. Kelly previously served as a forward deployed engineer at Palantir Technologies, the leader in mission-focused data analytics. At Faraday, Dr. Kelly is working with data scientist Dr. Narine Hall to further enhance Faraday’s AI platform.

“I’m thrilled Rob and Sean have joined Faraday, along with our other 8 new hires over the past year,” said Andy Rossmeissl, CEO of Faraday. “AI is hard but increasingly mandatory for consumer brands—and we make it easy. Our ability to scale helps our clients grow even faster.”

Faraday start-up client Burrow, a modern direct-to-consumer furniture company, attests to the effectiveness and cost efficiency of Faraday’s AI solution, stating AI coordinates 1 in 3 of its sales. “Faraday showed us that AI is the future,” said Kabeer Chopra, Burrow’s co-founder and chief product officer. “Now we use their platform to understand critical behavioral factors we would have missed before. We’ve learned that details like pet ownership, hobbies, housing characteristics, and life events play a huge role in the furniture buying process.”

Actifio Joins with The Instillery To Bring the Power of Multi-Cloud Data Management Down Under to Australia, New Zealand, Other Markets

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May 3, 2018

Actifio Enables HUB24 to Transform Wealth Management with Smarter and Faster Data Access

The Instillery Has Established a Strong Alliance With Actifio, the Copy Data Management Pioneer Leading the Way in Multi-Cloud Environments and Operation

Actifio, the Data-as-a-Service company, announced an expanded strategic alliance with The Instillery as it continues its global push to bring its data-as-a-service platform with multi-cloud and data management capabilities to companies seeking ways to successfully execute their digital strategies.

Headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, The Instillery provides large enterprises and government departments across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom with a set of productized consulting, migration and co-pilot operate managed services to help them leverage the power of automation and the cloud in our current era of digital transformation. As these organizations review the various cloud providers and cloud-native management tools available, The Instillery has established a strong alliance with Actifio, the copy data management pioneer leading the way in multi-cloud environments and operation. The Actifio platform enables customers to freely move data among private, hybrid and public cloud platforms – keeping it fully protected while enabling full visibility along with DevOps or other operational practices requiring instant self-service access to real business data regardless of where it is located.

Also Read: Actifio Names Datatrend Technologies Channel Partner of the Year

Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins, Founder & CEO of The Instillery, said, “To exploit the well-documented benefits of cloud, quite simply we need to enable data portability, whether that’s on-premise, local IaaS or between public providers such as AWS, Azure & GCP. My team here at The Instillery is absolutely stoked to formalize and expand our strategic partnership with Actifio as our exclusive partner in the data-as-a-service arena. As my technical team reviewed multiple vendors in this space, it was clear that Actifio’s ease of use and ability to deliver cloud adoption at pace and scale in an economical fashion is perfectly aligned with our company’s mission. Actifio is definitely the real deal in a market full of traditional storage vendors that overpromise on their public capability.”

Actifio Names Datatrend Technologies Channel Partner of the Year — Ash Ashutosh

Ash Ashutosh, Co-founder and CEO of Actifio, said, “As we expand our global reach, this exciting alliance with The Instillery represents our commitment to the Australia and New Zealand region as we empower these businesses with the technology solutions they need to implement their digital strategies and succeed in an efficient manner. By aligning on our data-driven approach, we’re proud to bring the next level of data mobility to this growing technology-focused community.”

Recommended Read: Actifio Expands Global Management Team

Attunity Named to CRN’s 2018 Big Data 100 List for Sixth Consecutive Year

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May 3, 2018

Attunity Named to CRN's 2018 Big Data 100 List for Sixth Consecutive Year

Annual List Recognizes IT Innovators at the Forefront of Data Management, Business Analytics, and Infrastructure Technologies and Services

Attunity Ltd, a leading provider of data integration and Big Data management software solutions, announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Attunity to its 2018 Big Data 100 list for the sixth consecutive year. This annual list recognizes IT innovators who are raising the bar for data management and challenging established IT practices.

Companies today continue to struggle with managing the exploding volume, speed and variety of information they produce on a daily basis. Solution providers are vigilant to provide assistance with innovative tools, technologies and services that can convert data into meaningful, usable analytics.

To recognize those who help to overcome these challenges, the CRN editorial team has identified the IT vendors at the forefront of data management, business analytics and infrastructure technologies and services. The resulting Big Data 100 list is a valuable guide for companies seeking out key big data technology suppliers.

Also Read: Trends in Marketing Technology Budgets Could Impact Data Quality and Hygiene

Attunity’s software solutions are built to help alleviate customers’ data integration and big data management pain points with efficiency, speed and cost-effectiveness. The three key data management solutions, Attunity Replicate, Compose and Visibility, are designed for universal data ingest and replication, agile data warehouse automation and data usage and analytics insight, respectively.

Bob Skelley

“The IT community is now able to collect massive volumes of valuable data — a veritable treasure trove of information for growing businesses,” said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. “But reaping the benefits of these huge information streams is a complex and delicate process requiring expertise in data capture, storage, organization, tiering, security and analysis. The vendors on CRN’s 2018 Big Data 100 list have demonstrated an exceptional ability to help solution providers and their customers tackle this enormous project. The innovative products and services they have brought to market enable companies to not only manage large amounts of data but to extract real value from it.”

Itamar Ankorion

“We are honored by this repeated recognition of our leadership in the Big Data integration and management space,” said Itamar Ankorion, Chief Marketing Officer at Attunity. “We will continue to innovate now and into the future to meet the aggressive goals of our prospects and valued customers who are leading strategic data initiatives and deserve the very best technology on the market to do so.”

Passage AI Secures $7.3 Million in Series A Funding Led by Blumberg Capital

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May 3, 2018

Cutting-edge AI That Powers Conversational Interfaces Exceeded $1 million In Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) Within 6 Months Of Launching Its Product

Passage AI, a pioneer in AI-powered conversational interfaces, announced a $7.3 million Series A round of financing, led by Blumberg Capital. Founded in 2016 by three Silicon Valley veterans with an extensive background in deep learning and artificial intelligence, Passage AI is at the forefront of bringing AI-powered conversational interfaces into the retail, telecommunications, automotive and education industries. The latest investment brings Passage AI’s total funding to $10.3 million and will help the company aggressively expand into these industries and international markets. Bruce Taragin, managing director at Blumberg Capital, will join Passage AI’s Board of Directors.

Bruce Taragin

“Passage AI’s offering is well-timed with the rapidly increasing demand for AI-driven solutions that reduce costs, improve employee engagement and deliver superior customer service. The market demand has resulted in Passage AI being one of the fastest growing early-stage SaaS companies we’ve ever seen. Additionally, the accuracy and ease of use of Passage AI has captured attention — and dollars — from blue chip G2000 companies. We are excited to work with Passage AI to fuel continued growth in the conversational AI sector,” said Bruce Taragin.

Companies from all industries are evaluating how to improve their business operations through the use of AI technologies. Research and Markets estimate the virtual digital assistant market will exceed $15 billion by 2021. With Passage AI, companies can address a variety of use cases, automating routine and often mundane tasks and providing instantaneous responses to common questions. Passage AI’s award-winning conversational AI platform has demonstrated 95 percent or higher accuracy in field tests. The company was named a 2018 TiE50 award winner, surpassed $1 million in ARR and counts some of the largest companies in the world as its customers.

Ravi N. Raj

“This partnership with Blumberg Capital means we can continue to accelerate our goal of becoming the leader in conversational AI,” said Ravi N. Raj, CEO and co-founder of Passage AI. “We are focused on bringing highly useful, accurate and easy-to-deploy chatbots to organizations everywhere. With this additional funding, we can continue hiring talented employees and rapidly growing our customer base both in the U.S. and internationally.”

Passage AI has created a bot-building tool that utilizes AI and natural language processing technologies, requires no coding and can be deployed anywhere in as little as two weeks. Its sophisticated deep learning model enables Passage AI bots to more readily understand a user, regardless of how they express themselves. Passage AI understands natural language text and speech, creating an intelligent conversational interface capable of better identifying intents, extracting the most useful, pertinent and timely information, understanding and responding to queries and searching through vast amounts of data.

Also Read: Build, Train And Deploy: How AI Chatbots Can Transform the Customer Experience

Synthio Brings on Global B2B Marketing Leader Colin Day as Advisor

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May 3, 2018

Synthio Brings on Global B2B Marketing Leader Colin Day as Advisor

Atlanta-based B2B Contact Data Platform Brings on B2B Marketing Executive and Thought Leader Colin Day as an Advisor

Synthio, an automated B2B contact data platform with contact data cleansing, enrichment and origination capability, today announced the appointment of global B2B marketing powerhouse Colin Day as an advisor to Synthio.

Colin Day

“Data is the cornerstone of the modern marketing department and Synthio is the leading provider in the space. Throughout my career, data has always been a passion— something used to drive business decisions,” said Day. “I am truly excited for the opportunity to work with Sean O’Leary, Aaron Biddar and Team Synthio as they embark upon the next phase of development and build upon the organization’s leadership position to empower their customers to engage with insight beneath a changing and challenging regulatory spotlight.”

Also Read: Synthio’s B2B Contact Data Platform Receives Marketo Certification for Integration

Colin brings an immense amount of value and vision to the table, with an extensive track record delivering high-impact global marketing campaigns and driving sales performance through marketing insights, technological transformation and campaign leadership, most recently as the VP of Global Marketing Operations at FIS Global.

“After working with Colin as a customer and watching him utilize our platform to tackle the challenges associated with GDPR compliance, I knew without a doubt that we had to bring him on board and leverage his immense expertise,” said Aaron Biddar, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Synthio. “His knowledge of global data compliance—the GDPR in particular—will be invaluable for both Synthio and our customers as we all prepare to comply with the demands of the GDPR later this month.”

Colin’s stellar reputation in the B2B marketing space precedes him, with a decorated list of accolades under his belt. In 2017 alone, Colin was the recipient of Marketo’s Marketing Nation Revvie Award for Transformer of the Year, SiriusDecisions’ Programme of the Year Award, and the Constellation Research Super Nova Digital Transformation & Sales Effectiveness Award Winner.

How App Science Will Lead to Better Predictive AI

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Joe Camacho

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May 3, 2018

Every company wants to be able to predict the behavior of its customers, both to ensure the efficacy of their advertising and to sell more products in general. Artificial intelligence has often been touted as the way to give advertisers the ability to see in the future, so to speak, or at the very least detect the general trends amongst their target audiences that will then inform the way companies advertise and reach out to consumers. Any system that relies on AI, however, is only as good as the data you give it. Needless to say, it’s imperative that you input only the best data available, which means going beyond Nielsen surveys and information gathered from a select few, and embracing sources of information (such as mobile phones) that present a more holistic and nuanced view of each individual consumer.

App Science Will Help Brands

Many retailers already use some form of predictive analytics to determine how much inventory they need to stock, employees they need to hire, and so on. But that level of sophistication has so far been lacking when it comes to digital advertising. With app science, advertisers can take the millions of data points collected from people’s phones, and turn that cacophony of information into insights that will help brands reach people at the right time and place.

App science can identify not only the apps you’ve already downloaded, but also use that information and other data points to infer future behavior. For example, say you notice that someone has recently downloaded a whole host of car apps on their phone – apps for comparing models, finding insurance, and buying used cars, for instance. That, coupled with location data that places this person at or near several car dealerships in the past month, is a pretty strong indicator that this person is looking to purchase a car. If an algorithm is able to flag in-market car buyers early enough in the process, perhaps even before they visit a dealership, auto companies might be able to capitalize on that information and serve that person ads for new cars.

Also Read: Mobile CX Trends: Time for Marketers to Press for More Control

Real-Time Data is the Key

With app science, advertisers have the ability to look at data from hundreds of millions of devices, allowing them to build out more comprehensive models of human behavior. Instead of looking at self-reported survey data, they now have access to both historic and near real-time observed data that can tell them where their audience goes, what they do, what websites they visit, and so on, information that can then be used to build out consumer profiles and improve the targeting and delivery of their campaigns.

Our mobile phones reveal so much about our lives – from what time we wake up in the morning to where we get our morning coffee to how long it takes us to get to and from work. As a result, they can help create a richer understanding of how we as consumers interact with the things around us, which in turn helps advertisers determine the right messaging and approach.

The growth of e-commerce has found many industries scrambling to maintain their competitive advantages and stay afloat. Advertising that is optimized for each consumer, both in terms of the substance of the ad (the product being advertised and the creative itself) as well as the channel it’s being served on and the time it’s being shown, will help companies stand out amongst the constant deluge of online advertising.

Also Read: Mobile Gaming Apps Provide Higher Brand Engagement Than Social Apps

Pattern Recognition Will Enable Better Targeting

The ultimate goal of app science is to find correlations and patterns that will enable marketers to predict what consumers need before they know they need it – for example, knowing that someone is going to want to buy a car in the near future before they even visit the dealership. Certain life stages – having a baby, changing jobs, getting married – naturally lend themselves to certain purchasing patterns, and we want to use app science to identify when someone is going through one of those life stages and send them the appropriate ads, before competitors do.

This is precisely what predictive analytics is supposed to do – use data to map out future behavior. Armed with enough data and the right technology, whole industries will be better able to target people based on app science and predictive analytics.

Also Read: Mobile CDN: What Is It and Why Is It Essential for Mobile Apps?

TechBytes with Omri Mendellevich, CTO and Co-Founder, Dynamic Yield

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May 3, 2018