CleverTap Strengthens Its Partner Ecosystem by Getting Best-Of-Breed Mobile Marketing Solutions Under One Roof

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March 15, 2018

Voci Closes $8 Million Series B Funding to Fuel Rapid Growth in Voice of the Customer and Compliance Analytics

Voci, Turns the Biggest and Least Accessible Customer Data into Actionable Insights for All Departments and Enterprises

Voci, the leading provider of enterprise speech-to-text transcription and analytics, announced the close of its $8M Series B Round. The Series B round was led by Grotech Ventures (Grotech) and Harbert Growth Partners (Harbert). Voci plans to use this capital to accelerate sales and marketing while continuing its focus on delivering best-in-class technology for businesses seeking insights from their voice-based customer interactions.

Voci, a Carnegie Mellon spinoff, is the leading provider of software that delivers actionable insights from recorded or live voice. Its patented technology employs Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning algorithms to deliver highly accurate transcriptions, as well as insights related to gender, sentiment, emotion, and speaker biometrics. Voci can process up to 150 hours of speech in 1 hour on a single 1u machine.

Also Read: Tethr Secures $15M in Funding to Grow AI-Driven Conversation Intelligence Platform

“Customer experience is very important to our company’s success, and Voci has allowed us to turn the recorded audio from our customer interactions from an obligatory cost into a true asset. Voci’s advanced technology, completeness, and open architecture allow us to deploy speech analytics on our own terms. With Voci, we are able to take all audio from our retail environment, which has no skills-based routing and bucket those calls into specific subsets for auditing and review. This allows us to find the data immediately, a function that was impossible in the time prior to using Voci,” said Jonathan Diedrich, Director Customer Communication, Check Into Cash.

“Most companies are sitting on a goldmine of audio recordings that can deliver monetizable insights to sales, marketing, operations and compliance leaders. Limited and inflexible technologies have prohibited these insights from being surfaced, and Voci is delivering technology that changes the way people think about speech analytics.” said, Steve Fredrick, General Partner at Grotech Ventures.

Also Read: ABM Update: DiscoverOrg Scoops Strategic Investment from The Carlyle Group

“Speech analytics has been out-of-reach for most companies and departments due to heavy fixed costs and ongoing services requirements. Voci delivers insights to virtually every department that relies on voice-based customer interactions by combining fast and accurate transcription with a flexible and open architecture,” said Tom Roberts, General Partner, Harbert Growth Partners

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Grotech and Harbert. This influx of capital will accelerate our goal of being the world’s premier solution for speech-to-text transcription in terms of capacity, quality, and scalability,” said Anthony Gadient, CEO, Voci Technologies.

Zoom.ai Announces Integration with Google Hangouts Chat

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Shalaka Nalawade

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March 15, 2018

After Last Month’s Integration with Microsoft Teams and Office 365, Zoom.ai Announces Integration with Google Hangouts Chat

Zoom.ai, a SaaS start-up, utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to enrich work experience, recently announced an integration with Google Hangouts Chat.

Explaining the application of Chat in his blog post, Scott Johnston, Director of Product Management, Google, writes, “From direct messages to group conversations, Chat helps teams collaborate easily and efficiently. With dedicated, virtual rooms to house projects over time—plus threaded conversations — Chat makes it simple to track progress and follow up tasks.”

Google Hangouts Chat can help you:

Easily work with other G Suite apps. Upload items from Drive, collaborate on Docs, Sheets or Slides, join online meetings with Hangouts Meet, or use Google’s powerful search to look up room members, past conversations and shared files.
Use artificial intelligence to speed up workflows. When your teams collaborate in Chat, you can speed up manual work, like booking conference rooms, searching for files and more using artificial intelligence.
Collaborate with colleagues around the globe. Chat currently supports 28 languages and each room can support up to 8,000 members. It’s available on desktop for Windows and MacOS, as well as iOS and Android so you can easily collaborate on the go.
Have peace of mind with embedded security. Chat builds on G Suite’s security-first ecosystem and offers an enterprise-grade solution that’s reliable and compliant. With integrated support for Vault, admins can archive, preserve, search and export Chat-specific data.

Also Read: Zoom.ai Integrates Its Automated AI Solution With Microsoft Teams and Office 365

Zoom.ai is a chat-based productivity solution inside of Chat that helps employees offload and automate everyday tasks. This includes support in an exhaustive search for files, scheduling meetings, generating documents and much more.

“From direct messages to team conversations, Chat provides a centralized, integrated experience that makes team collaboration easy and efficient. Coupled with your Zoom.ai automated assistant Chat will enrich your enterprise work experience by enabling users to access AI-powered productivity tools, in-depth insights and data stored in the cloud all in a single interface,” informs Anita Chauhan, Marketing Manager at Zoom.ai.

Zoom.ai Integrates Its Automated AI Solution With Microsoft Teams and Office 365 — Roy Pareira

Roy Pereira, CEO and founder of Zoom.ai, adds, “This integration of Zoom.ai with Google Hangouts Chat is an ideal collaboration that is helping to drive our vision of the future of work. Providing Google Hangouts Chat users with Zoom.ai’s automated assistant will help enterprise employees automate simple tasks and improve communication within their existing solutions, allowing them to offload more tasks in less time.”

Last month Zoom.ai announced the integration of Zoom’s AI-driven automation platform with Microsoft Teams and Office 365. It provides users an access to AI-powered productivity tools, in-depth insights, and data stored in the cloud all in a single interface.

Interview with Bertram Schulte, Chief Digital Officer, SAP

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March 15, 2018

[vc_wp_text]“Customer Data Management will be the key driver – whoever gets customer data right, has a chance to get digital right (especially in an AI/ML world).”[/vc_wp_text]

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/bertramschulte” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/bertram/”]

Tell us about your role and how you got here? What galvanized you to be a part of an enterprise tech company?

I serve as the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) at SAP, running the digital business and helping provide customers one seamless, digital experience. Since May 2017, I have been overseeing digital customer strategy for SAP across sales, customer success, support, and marketing. It’s a role that taps into my roots in marketing, multimedia, and e-commerce, developed during my long career with SAP; a career that began with companies including Apple Europe, Siemens-Nixorf, and Louis Vuitton. While at Siemens, I helped create their first e-commerce shop. I joined SAP in 2005, holding positions including Vice President of Strategy Management, Director of Business Operations and Director of Demand Planning & Marketing Analytics.

From July 2014 until April 2017, I served as SAP’s senior vice president and chief of staff, for the Products & Innovation Executive Board Office. In this role, I was part of the Global Leadership Team and helped define the technology, product and investment strategy for SAP, supporting bid deals and customer escalations.

What’s been a driving force during my entire career has been a desire to put the customer first. Just because SAP is a global company doesn’t mean we can’t simplify the buying process and provide top-notch service for every individual.

What would you say is the biggest driver for the change in the marketing and sales automation industry?

In my perception, it is scale – we do not engage with the top 2,000 CIOs globally anymore, but with more than 2,000,000 developers, plus other users and multipliers. All of them now demand their unique B2B buying journeys match the ease and simplicity of their B2C experiences. That’s why we expanded our scope to truly enable our customers to conduct business digitally with SAP across all business areas. Our organization is designed to scale our current capabilities and will allow us to digitally enable SAP sales processes. At the heart of our efforts lie SAP App Center, SAP Store, and integration with SAP.com. All of our digital channels are uniquely positioned to capitalize on SAP’s market position and are designed to scale.

How do you see digital experience platforms evolving with the maturity of AI/ML and voice? What challenges do you foresee marketers will face? How do you prepare for an AI-centric ecosystem as a business leader?

AI/ML helps us to manage the challenge of scale. In the past, we could rely on individual salespeople to tailor information, guiding and interacting with every customer. Now that we increasingly interact directly with every user and developer, AI/ML will help us to democratize this kind of service to everyone. The best preparation for an effective AI/ML world is the (re)design of data flows, data structures, and access to data. Data is the new oil – the more that can be exposed, the more value can be generated.

How do you see the technology evolving around omnichannel analytics experience and customer data management in the coming years?

SAP Digital is ready to help bring digital transformation to the rest of SAP by giving customers what they want and expect: a direct, omnichannel experience to purchase SAP and partner offerings.

Take our “No-Touch” Direct Purchasing method. A customer that is looking for an analytics solution, for example, can check out SAP.com, find a full product section with transparent pricing, purchase the product, and receive a purchase confirmation and provisioning information.

The “No-Touch” motion is powered by a new digital customer experience. Software product pages hold all relevant information and next steps in one place, so it is easy for customers to find the information, select the product and make a purchase decision. Clear calls-to-action lead into a fully integrated try-and-buy experience right on the product page. This allows for a seamless user journey leading to purchase.

Managing omnichannel requires the management of customer interactions consistently across all channels. This requires unified policies for things like pricing, discounts and terms and conditions to remove channel conflict, but also one view and understanding of the customer across all channels. Customer data management will be the key driver – whoever gets customer data right, has a chance to get digital right (especially in an AI/ML world).

Tell us about the new standards of B2B businesses and their idea of optimizing customer journeys?

It’s no secret the B2B market is changing, but it’s our job to respond appropriately and continue to deliver great products and service. According to a 2017 Forrester report, B2B e-commerce will reach $1.2 trillion and account for 13.1% of all B2B sales in the US by 2021.

And B2B buyers who research their purchases online will rise from 38% to 55% over the next four years, and 64% of B2B buyers research half or more of their work purchases online before buying. So, what does this mean? If B2B sales are growing, and the majority of the buyers are already online doing research, SAP will now enable the customers to buy what they want, when they want it.

Which was your best digital transformation campaign?

Some of the most successful digital transformation campaigns start internally. For example, with our SAP Cloud Platform, the increasing number of available services made pricing, packaging and purchasing rather complex for customers – specifically at the beginning of a project. The challenge was to make all of this much simpler while increasing flexibility, agility, control and transparency for our customers. To do so, we’ve transformed the SAP Cloud Platform offering along three dimensions:

Commercial model: from selling specific services to the “access to everything” (as the only material)
Pricing: from subscription to consumption based on a fully transparent price-list
Delivery: from a static multi-year provision to an elastic low-touch, self-service environment

We transformed the SAP innovation engine itself and are far from done.

At SAP, how do you help companies transform customer relationships through the digital landscape?

Take MR Search, for example. Founded in 2009, MR Search is a boutique recruitment agency, based in Paris, focused on hiring candidates in the technology field—primarily those with expertise in digital and ERP technology and sales. To match openings with the right candidates, they tackle the job via many channels, including social networks, hunting on the open web, operating their own network, writing ads and via social communication to target the best candidates. And, now … WorkConnect by SAP.

MR Search started working with the free-trial version of WorkConnect when it was introduced in 2017. After the trial period, MR Search upgraded to the standard paid edition, which allows the company to post 10 openings per month. WorkConnect helped transform MR Search and its customers.

How should B2B marketers leverage customer data and content marketing for better audience reach and targeting?

I think social media plays into this. By leveraging customer data and piloting specific targeting approaches, companies can zero in on their customers to raise campaign awareness. Whether it’s targeting @usernames to reach customers with similar interests (Follower Targeting), targeting users who follow similar handles (Lookalike Targeting) or Geotargeting, B2B marketers can leverage customer data for a superior reach and better connect with their audience.

What marketing and sales automation tools do you use?

We’ve built and run SAP’s digital business using our own marketing and commerce offerings from SAP Hybris. From the SAP Store and digital transaction capability on SAP.com to powering the new consumption-based commercial model for SAP Cloud Platform, SAP Digital runs SAP Hybris.

In addition, we’re integrating SAP Digital with sales automation functionality. With the introduction of a new Pricing App, our AEs get online notifications if a deal can be transacted digitally. The Pricing App will save our AEs time and improve sales effectiveness on initial orders with standard payments.

How do you bring together people and technology at one place?

It’s natural that people will want to feel connected to the larger community. But that feeling doesn’t always have to be in person. A customer-centric design and empathetic buying journey in SAP App Center or SAP Store ensures that our users never feel alone.

For instance, our Customer Success Center team is striving for a simple and accurate digital experience for our customers that provides personalized online self-services. The team started development activities to enable online renewal of cloud subscriptions on the SAP Store, all embedded in the overall SAP.com user experience. We use design thinking, focus groups and agile, iterative development cycles to make sure that customers enjoy the experience and our developers know exactly what to build.

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

My health app, which is connected to sensors and other gadgets. They allow me to measure my blood pressure, activity level, sleep, and weight. I love to see the results. It makes me feel like I have a little control over my health.

What’s your smartest work-related shortcut or productivity hack?

It’s not revolutionary, but I favor 90-minute periods of intense work and concentration, followed by a 20- or 30-minute break to recover. Long periods of work without a break is unproductive and can cause burnouts. A rested mind is a productive mind. And Haribo Gold-bears – they also do magic.

What are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by the Israeli author, Yuval Noah Harari. In true digital fashion, I do most of my reading on a Kindle (preferably in the combination of reading and audiobooks).

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t be afraid to take risks, especially in academics. I was always the responsible kid, but if I had to do again, I’d have been more daring and tried a variety of school subjects when I was younger. Taking risks is a good thing.

Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:

William Ruh, Chief Digital Officer of GE or Dr. Helmuth Ludwig, Chief Digital Officer of Siemens.

Thank you Bertram! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.

Also Read: Webinar World TechBytes with Fred Isbell, Senior Marketing Director, SAP

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Bertram” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b685ef9-b2fd”]

Experienced and passionate technology strategist with strong footprint in marketing/sales, analytics, performance optimization, finance and operations with a total of +22 years work experience in consultancy and in high-tech companies reaching from start-ups to Fortune 100s in global functions and international projects on all continents.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About SAP” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b685ef9-b2fd”]

As a market leader in enterprise application software, SAP helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile devices, SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 296,000 customers in 190 countries to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably.

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[mnky_heading title=”MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmartechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com%2Fcategory%2Fmts-insights%2Finterviews%2F|||”]

The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.

Lionbridge Expands Executive Team, Names Ken Watson As Chief Technology Officer

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March 15, 2018

Lionbridge Expands Executive Team, Names Ken Watson As Chief Technology Officer

Ken Watson Brings over Two Decades of Global Technology Experience, Will Lead Technology and Innovation as CTO at Lionbridge

Lionbridge Technologies, the world’s most trusted global digital communications company helping brands deliver seamless, cross-cultural experiences, announced it has named Ken Watson as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO). As they continue along a path of rapid evolution, innovation, and growth, Watson will support the company’s technology transformation.

Also Read: Marketing Evolution Adds Smart TV Data Through Partnership with Inscape

Lionbridge Strengthens Executive Team with New CMO and CRO — John Fennelly

“We are extremely pleased Ken decided to join Lionbridge. We are rapidly pivoting to a technology-enabled services business and Ken will only help accelerate our transformation “Ken is a collaborative leader who brings the right mindset and skills to Lionbridge. His long track record of creating innovative solutions and delivering them is exactly what we were looking for,” said John Fennelly, CEO, Lionbridge.

Also Read: Highspot and SalesLoft Push Modern Sales Engagement to a New Level

Watson brings over two decades of global technology experience, having most recently served as CTO of Ipreo, a market leading FinTech company. He also previously held roles at the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and Microsoft. Watson was an 11-year Microsoft veteran, leading engineering teams in the Developer Tools division and delivering growth in EMEA, UK, and Australian consulting businesses.

“At the core of connecting and engaging people worldwide are two foundational elements: language and technology. Advances in AI and machine learning, coupled with Lionbridge’s deep knowledge of disseminating brand messages in all languages and cultures, will be critical for global brands looking to deliver on-brand, in-voice, customer experiences to diverse communities. I’m excited by the opportunity to lead Lionbridge‘s technology teams as they support businesses on their own paths to digital transformation,” said Ken Watson.

Recommended Read: Eight Predictions for 2018

Skedulo Launches Independent Platform, Helps Transform Customer Experience

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March 15, 2018

Skedulo Launches Independent Platform, Transforms Customer Experience

Expanding Beyond the Salesforce and Service Now Ecosystems, Skedulo Now Offers Intelligent Mobile Workforce Management Connected to Any System of Record

Skedulo, the leader in intelligent mobile workforce management, unveiled a new, independent version of its platform for operations teams and their mobile workforces that enables users to better manage the movement of their workers and meet ever-growing customer service and support expectations. Skedulo’s new, independent platform expands the company’s product offering beyond native solutions to Salesforce and ServiceNow, making the category-leading solution available to companies with field service management needs outside of those ecosystems.

Today’s workforce has changed, and it’s a problem for businesses. Work is no longer a place you go, but a thing you do. International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that by 2020, mobile workers in the U.S. will surpass 105 million, accounting for almost 75% of the total workforce. We are all on the go and workforces are fluid, producing pain points for companies today. Additionally, the manual scheduling process of a complex work environment has created challenges including delays in delivering or receiving critical business information, pain and inefficiency managing employee schedules against customer needs, and excessive costs.

Also Read: Skedulo Named a Top 25 Salesforce Solutions Provider

Skedulo’s mobile workforce management platform optimizes the customer service experience by simplifying complex scheduling and dispatching of employees and contractors, and giving those workers a productivity tool in the palm of their hands to arrive on-time and do their work effectively on-site.

The platform includes robust features, functions, and capabilities that for the first time will empower any business to intelligently manage every detail of their increasingly complex and rapidly growing workforces. Skedulo is a scalable, easy-to-use and automated system comprised of a web and mobile app with functionality spanning workforce management, scheduling, and dispatching, mobility, plus communication and collaboration.

Also Read: Small Businesses Can Grow and Innovate Faster Thanks To Salesforce Essentials

Using Skedulo, mid-market and enterprise businesses can now:

Easily and intelligently manage all the details about your mobile workforce, including individuals’ profiles, skills, certifications, territories, and locations.
Use business logic and automation to match the best qualified among available workers to jobs and shifts, including regularly or irregularly recurring schedules.
Use Skedulo’s recommendation and optimization engine, Mastermind, to intelligently balance complex schedules against multiple business priorities, including reducing costs and inefficiencies while increasing customer and worker satisfaction.
Dispatch schedules and updates to smartphones via SMS or notification.
Provide the moment guidance and support to mobile workers as they interface with customers on-site, even when offline.
Seamlessly connect their mobile workforce management platform to any CRM or ERP.

Also Read: Mpire Refreshes Brand Following APAC Launch

“Integration and strong partnerships with Salesforce and ServiceNow continue to be an important part of our strategy – and the success of our customers. We are however equally excited to expand and work with the many tens of thousands of companies to transform the customer experience through enhanced scheduling and mobile work. With the introduction of our independent platform, we can now deliver hassle-free, intelligent scheduling and productivity tools that enable easier configuration and greater scalability to any company, no matter what CRM or ERP you use,” said Matt Fairhurst, CEO, Co-founder of Skedulo.

“Skedulo is the first company to explore and comprehensively address the challenges of the modern mobile workforce beyond traditional industries that fit within the Field Service technology category of manufacturers and heavy industry and solve entire mobile workforce management lifecycles. Today Skedulo is revolutionizing mobile workforce management, but our superior technology and platform approach has the potential to transform the way every company works and solve pain points for all workers, not just field service. Skedulo brings an efficient and competitive solution for scheduling needs, helping customers move beyond outdated manual scheduling and into an era of speed, simplicity, and efficiency,” added Fairhurst.

Recommended Read: 10 Tips for Naming Your Company

Serenova Launches Skylight for CRM: CCaaS Integration for Salesforce and Zendesk

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March 15, 2018

Serenova Launches Skylight for CRM: CCaaS Integration for Salesforce and Zendesk

Serenova’s Skylight: A New Agent Experience Extends CxEngage’s Omnichannel Functionality to CRM for Increased Agent Productivity and a Personalized Customer Experience

Serenova, a leading contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) and workforce optimization (WFO) provider, released Skylight for CRM with key integrations to Salesforce and Zendesk. The all-new agent experience, included in the latest release of CxEngage, embeds omnichannel interaction and routing capabilities directly into the customer relationship management solution (CRM) to provide agents a single workspace for supporting customer interactions. By combining the advanced CRM functionality and data exchange between Serenova and leading CRM platforms from Salesforce and Zendesk, agents gain the ability to respond to customers based on their full history in any channel – or pivot seamlessly from one to another, as needed, to improve the customer experience.

Also Read: Small Businesses Can Grow and Innovate Faster Thanks To Salesforce Essentials

Customers are increasingly connecting with businesses via digital channels such as chat, mobile applications, SMS, or social media like Facebook Messenger. However, agents struggle with multiple systems that don’t connect to each other, which causes frustrations for the customer as they have to repeat the same information. With Skylight for CRM, the contact center solution is embedded directly within the agent’s CRM interface and interaction data is connected to each customer’s record. With fewer clicks and applications to switch between, agents increase productivity and accuracy – all while being able to support a higher volume of interactions.

Also Read: Adobe’s Survey Highlights the Importance of DMPs

“Customer experience – the totality of customer interaction with your company – has become a primary battleground for organizations, and yet, many are not equipped with the right tools to provide the best service possible. Serenova provides robust pre-built integrations with leading CRM solutions, so agents have the information they need to make customers happy. Based in the cloud, Skylight for CRM can be up and running quickly with plug and play deployment for companies using Salesforce or Zendesk. With one unified agent workspace, contact center agents have what they need to do their job without having to switch back and forth between applications,” said Matt Despain, chief product officer, Serenova

Skylight for CRM offers key contact center functionality directly in the CRM system, including:

Matching inbound and outbound call information with CRM data;
Providing agents the ability to control calls, including, click-to-connect functionality;
Saving call logs automatically when a call ends;
Displaying CRM data via screen pops when interactions are made or received; and
Incorporating call data into the CRM’s reports.

All-Star Speakers for Emma’s Fourth Annual Marketing United Conference

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Shalaka Nalawade

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March 15, 2018

The Onion’s Mike McAvoy, CNN’s Mel Robbins, and New York Times Best-Selling Author Bob Goff join the likes of Google’s Daniel Sieberg, Voicera’s Cory Treffiletti, Mel Robbins, Jay Acunzo of the ‘Unthinkable’ Podcast and Others

Emma, a provider of best-in-class marketing software and services, is hosting its fourth annual Marketing United Conference. This is the most anticipated marketing event of the year! What with world-class speakers, hands-on learning, and an unbeatable venue in Nashville, Marketing United Conference is set to be your best bet for getting better at your job in 2018.

The conference will take place April from 9 to 11, 2018 at the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville. And this year’s theme, “Tell Your Story,” is said to help equip marketers with best practices for getting the most out of social, video, content, brand, email and more.

While Day One will be a welcome party that will help participants break the ice, Day Two is when the fun begins. After the Opening Remarks by Wellford Dillard, CEO, Emma, award-winning author and columnist Kindra Hall will be speaking about ‘The irresistible power of strategic storytelling’. This will be followed by ‘Going Digital: Effective Storytelling in the Age of Social Media’, an address by Arun Chaudhary, official White House videographer for ex-president Barack Obama.

Cynthia Price, vice president of marketing at Emma, added, “This speaker lineup is an absolute marketing dream team, and I can’t wait to see what happens when they all take the stage. We’re also lucky to have a terrific venue like the Country Music Hall of Fame right in our backyard as the home for Marketing United. It’s a place that combines Nashville’s rich history and creative spirit with some of the most stunning views of the city.”

Some of the interesting sessions include:

Satire in a World of Fake News – The Onion’s Mike McAvoy will discuss how satire is the cure for making consumers smarter and holding media organizations accountable for publishing the best journalism.
The 5 Second Rule – Achieve Breakthrough Performance in Your Career & Life- CNN legal analyst Mel Robbins will explore the science-backed secret to change: the power of five-second decisions.
Choosing to Love Audaciously – Bob Goff, author of the New York Times best-selling book “Love Does,” will connect with audiences in a powerfully inspirational yet down to earth manner. He’ll inspire attendees to stop simply dreaming about change and start doing it.
Why A.I. Voice Is the Future of Branded Communications – Voicera CMO Cory Treffiletti will speak about how regardless of industry, every brand is driven by the same thing: their customers. And thanks to ongoing advancements in technology, artificial intelligence is emerging as a powerful vehicle for marketers to better serve their customers.
The Battle for the Inbox: How to Stop Bad Email Once and for All – Colby Cavanaugh, SVP of Marketing, Emma, will get tactical and cover ways to boost subscriber engagement including Segmentation, Design, and Automation.

Other conference highlights include sessions and keynotes by:

Jay Acunzo, host, “Unthinkable” podcast
Travis Wright and Stewart Rogers, hosts of VentureBeat’s VB Engage podcast
Allen Gannett, Founder and CEO, Trackmaven
Chris Sietsema, Digital Marketing Consultant, Teach to Fish Digital
Daniel Sieberg, Senior Marketing Manager, Google
Paul Beck, CMO, storybooth
Aaron Dun, SVP Marketing, SnapApp

“We were blown away by the response to the first Marketing United. It really became a rallying point for marketers who want to get better at what they do and who share our view that great marketing starts with being genuinely helpful to your customers. Marketing United is a big part of our commitment to the broader marketing community and a natural extension of our belief that we do our best work when we do it together,” said Clint Smith, co-founder and CEO of Emma.

Marketing United 2016 also offers an opportunity for attendees to give back through an interactive, virtual reality experience with Emma customer charity: water, a nonprofit whose mission is to bring clean drinking water to every person on the planet.

Also Read: Have Your Best Email Marketing Year Ever by Focusing on Engagement

Marketo’s New Accelerate Partners Help Marketers Intelligently Engage Through Every Stage of Buyer’s Journey

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March 15, 2018

Marketo’s new class of partners, includes Ceros, CleverTouch, Folloze, Lattice Engines, LeanData, nFusz, and PFL.com.

Marketo, the leading provider of engagement marketing software and solutions, welcomed seven new partners to Marketo Accelerate, the MarTech industry’s first partner accelerator. This new class of partners, including Ceros, CleverTouch, Folloze, Lattice Engines, LeanData, nFusz, and PFL.com, integrate into the Marketo Engagement PlatformTM to allow marketers to create and deliver personalized experiences to their customers across all channels throughout the buyers’ journey.

Also Read: Marketo Announces “The Fearless Marketer” as the Theme of Marketing Nation Summit 2018

Shai Alfandary

“Marketers have surpassed being a cost center and are now truly revenue drivers. Each new partner who joins our ecosystem increases the ability of marketers to more closely align with sales and deliver results. These seven companies are great examples of that,” said Shai Alfandary, vice president, global head ISVs & Launchpoint ecosystem, Marketo.

Also Read: Dialpad Launches Call Center to Help Modern Businesses Build a Superior Customer Experience

From lead routing, data-driven insight into KPIs and attribution, to auto-personalized content, interactive design and videos, AI for audience engagement, and customized direct mail, Ceros, CleverTouch, Folloze, Lattice Engines, LeanData, nFusz, and PFL.com allow marketers to more intelligently engage with customers at all stages of the funnel.

Also Read: Marketo Moves into a New Office in Denver with a Clear ‘Purple’ Vision for 2018

Announced last year, Marketo Accelerate is part of Marketo’s robust, best-in-class partner ecosystem, Launchpoint. The program provides partners with full access to the Marketo Engagement Platform, sales enablement activities, co-marketing activities, and more to drive growth for their business. Marketo, Inc., offers the leading Engagement Platform that empowers marketers to create lasting relationships and grow revenue. Consistently recognized as the industry’s innovation pioneer, Marketo is the trusted platform for thousands of CMOs thanks to its scalability, reliability, and openness.

Allbound Triples Business, Grows Leadership Team as Partner Programs Fueled by Modern Software Are Imperative to Success

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March 15, 2018

Growth Spurred by Customer Results as PRM Software Becomes Critical to MarTech Stack

Allbound, the leading next-generation partner relationship management (PRM) platform, announced the results of a record fiscal year, tripling annual recurring revenue (ARR) year-over-year while surpassing 100 customers. With the announcement, some of the leading companies in the world have chosen Allbound as their top vendor to deliver value for their channel partners, resellers, and distributors.

Mike Chadwick

“The performance demonstrates that regardless of size, industry or geography, indirect sales and channel partner programs are a top priority for businesses and software to manage those programs is just as critical. The PRM space is quickly becoming a critical component of companies’ marketing and sales technology stacks, much like customer relationship management (CRM) software did nearly two decades ago,” said Mike Chadwick, CEO, Allbound.

Allbound’s growth has in large part been fueled by the success of their customers, as recently displayed from their recognition as the leader in the Partner Management Software category by customer review website, G2Crowd. To align with their growth and maintain their industry-leading levels of customer satisfaction, Allbound has more than doubled the size of their customer success team over the past quarter.

“We’re thrilled about the company’s performance in 2017, but more than that, we’re excited to partner with some of the most innovative brands in the world to help drive success for their partners and customers,” said Scott Salkin, Allbound founder.

Also Read: Allbound Appoints Mike Chadwick as New CEO, Announces Additional Fundraising

In addition to new business growth, Allbound also announced the hiring of several key employees expanding the company’s leadership team. Jen Gray has joined Allbound as Vice President of Marketing and Denise Newberry as Director of Customer Success.

Gray joins Allbound from leading Silicon Valley referral software company, Extole, where she served most recently as Director of Marketing and Business Development. As Vice President of Marketing, Gray will be responsible for global go-to-market and demand generation strategies as Allbound looks to further accelerate its growth.

Newberry joins the company from leading physical therapy SaaS company, WebPT (https://www.webpt.com/), where she served as the Manager of Member Success. As Allbound’s Director of Customer Success, Newberry will oversee the strategy and execution of the company’s full customer lifecycle, from onboarding and implementation through continuous value-added activities and renewal management.

“Jen and Denise are two of those rare talents who bring both sharp operational excellence and strategic thinking to all aspects of our business – we’re lucky to have them on our team,” said Chadwick.

Recommended Read: Interview with Scott Salkin, CEO & Founder – Allbound

GlobalWide Media Joins TUNE Certified Partner Program to Advance Mobile Marketing Standards

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March 14, 2018

GlobalWide Media Joins TUNE Certified Partner Program to Advance Mobile Marketing Standards

The Latest Partnership with TUNE’s HasOffers Platform to Provide Increased Value for Partners and Customers

GlobalWide Media (GWM), a leader in data-driven digital marketing, has announced that it has joined the TUNE Certified Partner Program. The program, run by TUNE, the leader in mobile marketing measurement, honors integrated advertising partners who have demonstrated their commitment to upholding unbiased and trustworthy standards in mobile marketing.

Recommended Read: Five DIY Activities to Become a B2B Content Rockstar

At the time of this announcement, Ryan Buma, Chief Commercial Officer at TUNE, said, “The TUNE Certified Partner Program establishes and furthers industry best practices for mobile marketing. GlobalWide Media has demonstrated its commitment to providing mobile marketers with the utmost level of transparency, service, and value, we’re pleased to welcome them to the program. I applaud their commitment and dedication to helping mobile marketers, and the industry as a whole, succeed.”

GlobalWide Media Joins a League of Committed Mobile Marketing and Mobile Advertising Companies

As a member of the TUNE Certified Partner Program, GWM joins a group of mobile marketing and advertising companies who support mobile marketing best practices for the benefit of all marketers. This certification furthers GWM’s efforts in support of brand safety, quality inventory and transparency.

By supporting mobile marketing best practices, GWM is arming marketers with the necessary insights to select the best advertising partners to meet marketing campaign goals.

“To maintain a leadership position in the digital advertising space, it’s imperative to be an active participant in the growth and advancement of industry best practices as a whole, in order to provide the most value to our clients,” said Bjorn Hougaard, SVP of Sales and Media Strategy at GlobalWide Media.

Bjorn added, “We are proud to join forces with fellow advertising partners who are committed to implementing and upholding unbiased, trustworthy standards for mobile advertisers and to be recognized as one such mobile marketing partner.”

Read More: Fireside Chat with Shawn Schwegman

GWM completed a rigorous evaluation process defined by TUNE, which evaluates and scores a company’s ability to adhere to mobile marketing best practices across both technical, practical and customer support requirements. As a result, GWM has demonstrated their commitment to implementing the highest of industry standards for mobile marketers and advertisers alike.

TUNE Certified Partner Program: An Overview

Established in July 2015, this certification was the first in the industry to outline standards for mobile marketing, helping marketers to find trusted advertising partners while promoting more transparency within the industry. To maintain the integrity and quality of the program, TUNE performs annual and on-demand certification compliance reviews to ensure all existing Certified Partners continue to meet program requirements.

GWM has also partnered with Tune’s HasOffers platform to provide unique data insight into user acquisition, engagement and retention, offering increased value to customers and partners. The new partnership with TUNE provides an opportunity for clients and partners to take advantage of the HasOffers platform, with easy access to GWM’s high-quality inventory.

Currently, GWM is recognized as a global data-driven digital marketing leader, providing premium media solutions for the world’s leading brands and agencies. GlobalWide Media connects advertisers with custom audiences through direct response and brand campaigns, activating proprietary and first-party data.

HIRO Media, the World’s First Safe SSP, Presents Exclusive Roundtable During Advertising Week Europe

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March 14, 2018

HIRO Media’s Event to Explore Issues, Trends, and Opportunities That Are Top of Mind for Brands, Agencies, and Publishers

HIRO Media, the world’s first safe SSP, is proud to bring together thought leaders and influencers from all sides of the digital advertising industry – Brands, Publishers, Agencies and Advertising Technology – for an exclusive Advertising Week Europe event in London.

Also Read: GDPR Will Drive A Coach And Horses Through The Online Advertising Ecosystem

The Programmatic & Media industries are changing rapidly. Programmatic trading is set to reach 67% of the digital display market by 2019, according to research from Zenith. Over the next two years, the value of these ads will increase at an average of 21% a year, from $57.5bn in 2017 to $84.9bn in 2019.

This momentum marks a transformation in programmatic from a tool to sell off remnant inventory to the go-to system for sales in premium environments. Canada, the US, and the UK remain the leaders in the space, with 81%, 78% and 77% of the digital display is comprised of programmatic respectively in 2017. In fact, legacy ad formats are not as lucrative as before. This is true not only for print ads but also digital display, which is being squeezed by ad blocking and heightened competition caused by programmatic ads.

Also Read: Why Does the Programmatic Auction Type Matter

Furthermore, for publishers, access to audiences has been ceded to platforms. Publishers’ old value proposition to brands – access to audiences – is dissipating with the rise of social platforms with massive user bases, and not to mention the many popular digital publishers sprawled across the internet. These emerging forces have also disrupted legacy publishers’ control over audiences.

With more and more ad dollars shifting from traditional media buys to programmatic, agencies of all kinds are widely looking for ways to stay competitive and retain their valued clients.

Also Read: HIRO Media Unveils New Safe SSP Platform to Extend Its Real-Time Ad Filtering Technology

To wit, social advertising in all formats is gaining traction and will be among the key drivers of digital ad growth in the next five years. Social ad revenue is poised to climb to $30.8 billion by 2021, up from $15.5 billion this year. Artificial intelligence augmented and virtual reality, and sponsored content will also help propel further digital ad growth in the next decade.

Confirmed speakers include:
● Christian Dankl, CEO of AdVoD at ProSiebensat1
● Terry Honsby, Director of Programmatic and Ad Product, Trinity Mirror
● Leon Siotis, Managing Director, UK & Southern Europe at SpotX
● Yoav Arnstein, Facebook Publisher Solutions, Audience Network, EMEA
● Pauliina Jamsa, Global Senior Online Marketing Manager at Siemens
● Guy Kedar, Sr. Partner, Head of Innovation, Wavemaker UK
● Ofer Oved, Chief Strategy Officer, HIRO Media

ABM Update: DiscoverOrg Scoops Strategic Investment from The Carlyle Group

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March 14, 2018

Latest Partnership Would Help DiscoverOrg Accelerate Growth and Innovation in Sales and Marketing Operations

DiscoverOrg, a leading Sales and Marketing Intelligence provider and a Top 150 MarTech RADAR company, has announced that it has received a strategic minority investment from global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group along with additional investment to come from 22C Capital. TA Associates will maintain a significant equity stake in DiscoverOrg.

Patrick McCarter, Carlyle’s Co-Head of US Buyout Technology, Media & Telecom and Managing Director, said, “The DiscoverOrg team has built the industry-leading intelligence platform for sales and marketing teams across the globe. Consistent revenue generation requires accurate and actionable data, and that is what DiscoverOrg delivers. We are delighted to partner with the management team to accelerate growth and foster innovation.”

Todd Crockett, TA’s Co-Head of the North America Services Group and Managing Director, added, “Since the start of our partnership with DiscoverOrg in 2014, the Company has consistently executed against its growth strategy and positioned itself as a clear leader in the middle of the large and fast-growing sales and marketing technology market. We are thrilled to partner with Carlyle to build upon that foundation and support DiscoverOrg in its next chapter of growth.”

Randall Winn, 22C Capital Managing Member and former CEO of Capital IQ, noted, “We are exceptionally pleased to have been involved in DiscoverOrg’s success over the last few years as the team has built a truly unique data platform and developed into a world-class company. We are excited to be in a position to continue to work with DiscoverOrg and invest in Henry’s vision.”

Henry Schuck, DiscoverOrg CEO, said, “The confidence that Carlyle, TA, and 22C have shown in

DiscoverOrg is a testament to the incredible value that we are creating for sales and marketing teams everywhere.”

Equity for the investment came from Carlyle Partners VI, a $13 billion US buyout fund. Raymond James & Associates and Cascadia served as financial advisors to DiscoverOrg. Goodwin Procter LLP served as legal advisors to DiscoverOrg and TA Associates. Debevoise & Plimpton served as legal advisors to Carlyle.

Read More: Is GDPR Really Changing Ad Tech?

ScaleX.Ai Announces Personalization at Scale, Powered by Artificial Intelligence

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March 14, 2018

ScaleX Acquires the FlowEngine AI for ABM Technology Suite

ScaleX.Ai Announced a Smarter, Faster, and Better Way to Accelerate Sales and Increase Revenue Through their Personalization at Scale Suite.

ScaleX.ai, the leader in personalization at scale, powered by artificial intelligence, announced a smarter, faster, and better way to accelerate sales and increase revenue through the ScaleX.ai Sales Personalization at Scale Suite.

Also Read: Voicera Secures $20 Million Series A Financing Backed by Leading VC, Enterprise and Collaboration Players

The ScaleX.ai Personalization at Scale Suite, Powered by Artificial Intelligence, includes:

AI-Powered BDR Selection Technology
AI-Powered Personalization at Scale
Predictive Intelligence
Coaching as a Service
Conversation Acceleration
Social Selling
ScaleX Dashboard and Reporting

Also Read: What We Learned From MarTech CEOs in 2017

“As the Senior Director of Global Sales and Business Development for a public Unified-Communications-as-a-Service company, I learned that SDRs and BDRs are usually great at one core competency, which is either phone, email, or social, and usually not all three. By de-coupling email and social from the BDR and having a bot personalize the outbound messaging, BDRs can now focus on sales conversations while bots can do what they are good at – personalizing messages that convert to meetings at an unbelievably high rate,” said Chad Burmeister, Co-Founder, CEO, ScaleX.

Also Read: Marketing Strategies Turn to Mobile for Data and the Role of AI in 2018

Companies curious about testing the power of artificial intelligence in sales need look no further than ScaleX.ai. Whether supporting a team of 1 or 1,000, this AI offers a 3-month pilot program that has consistently delivered 60 – 125 meetings to prove the value of personalization at scale, powered by artificial intelligence.

ScaleX.ai delivers personalization at scale, powered by artificial intelligence (TM). Whether you are looking to bring 10X more productivity to your internal sales team, or partner with a company that consistently delivers 25-50 meetings per month per BDR, ScaleX has a solution.

Recommended Read: Progress Launches AI-Driven Native Chatbot

Adobe’s Survey Highlights the Importance of DMPs

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 14, 2018

Adobe's Survey Highlights the Importance of DMPs

Adobe’s Survey Showcased, Why DMP Is a Technology That’s Here to Stay

Modern Marketers can’t imagine going about their daily activities without Data Management Platforms (DMP). DMPs allowed marketers to effectively channelize their marketing efforts to be, timely, accurate, and intelligible while guaranteeing customer experience. DMP showcased why it is a technology that’s here to stay. Despite only being less than a decade old, it has become the main factor that decides whether your campaign will succeed or your competitors. Using DMPs has enabled marketers to understand their audiences better, which let them tweaks their campaigns and maximize ROI.

Also Read: Media Is Hard and We Suck at It; And, How to Be Better in 2018

Adobe conducted a survey that encompassed 500 US marketing and IT professionals to understand the intersection of DMPs with the customer experience and the impact it has on their journey.

Key findings include:

Experience-based DMPs are the future: More than 2/3 of survey respondents note that DMPs that lead with experiences are most valuable, vs. one focused solely on media. Additionally, 77% believe that an experience-based DMP is important to their organization’s success.
Providing a best-of-class DMP experience is crucial, and many may be rethinking their strategy – likely due to first-generation DMP shortcomings: More than half (51%) of those surveyed who currently leverage a DMP, note they are likely to switch DMPs in the next two years; employees who work in the IT field are most likely (61%) to make the change. Additionally, 71% of organizations expect their audience management budget to increase.
Managing a DMP in-house is still standard; CDP’s following suit: While there’s been much debate over the role of agencies in adding value to data management given their media expertise, 50% of those surveyed note they manage a DMP in-house, while 25% leverage an agency. Customer Data Platforms, gaining traction and media notoriety in recent months, seem to be taking on a similar pattern, as 39% of respondents claim to manage their CDP in-house, with 22% say an agency owns CDP management.
IT teams are taking ownership over DMPs: Nearly half (47%) of survey respondents note that the IT team owns and manages (or will own/manage) the DMP for their brand. Those at organizations with an annual revenue on the high-end (over $250 million) skew more towards IT managing their DMP – 56% vs. 39%. However, successful DMP practices require cross-functional collaboration. Not surprisingly, the teams most involved with DMP strategy include IT, analytics, media and CRM.
Data management is the new data science: The need for DMP skills will be in demand over the next 5 years as 79% of respondents note that DMP skills will be essential for any digital marketing in the future and that DMP skills will rise in the next half-decade.

Also Read: Adobe Named a Leader in Enterprise Marketing Software Suites and Cross-Channel Campaign Management by Independent Research Firm

“While the DMP market isn’t new, we’ve noticed an incredible growth pattern and shift in the marketplace in the last few years. The DMP has evolved from a nice-to-have to a must-have, for any brand looking to create a compelling customer experience. We have great insight internally into who is driving disruption leveraging the DMP, what strategy is most efficient and effective as well as what the future looks like – but we wanted to get an outside perspective on what really matters to those brands, that understand the importance of investing in a DMP,” said Ali Bohra, the director of strategy and product marketing with Adobe Audience Manager, who was quoted by Forbes.

True Influence Helps Marketers to Build Smarter Leads Fueled by Dun & Bradstreet Data

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March 14, 2018

True Influence Helps Marketers to Build Smarter Leads Fueled by Dun & Bradstreet Data

InsightBASE Platform Creates Highly Targeted Leads with Intelligent Company Data

True Influence, the leading provider of lead solutions, announced the newest release of its InsightBASE lead acceleration platform. This enhanced platform is driven by a partnership with Dun & Bradstreet which enables True Influence to access information from the world’s largest commercial database. By analyzing 16K+ attributes of entities of all sizes around the world, combined with web activity, intent data, and more, the True Influence platform curates the most predictive information for a customer, informing specific segmentation and targeted campaigns that help marketing and sales teams run more efficient programs.

Also Read: Terminus Has a New CMO; Sangram Vajre Is Now Chief Evangelist

“To drive accurate, fact-based leads, it is critical that marketing and sales teams have relevant, personalized engagements with their prospects. Our InsightBASE platform capabilities support the need for marketing and sales teams to activate scalable lead growth. It gives their teams data-driven insights about their high-value company prospects and gives them the ability to take automated actions on that information,” said Brian Giese, CEO, True Influence.

Also Read: How will AI Feed Account Based Marketing?

The newest release of True Influence’s InsightBASE drives three principal benefits to increase the breadth and depth of high quality leads:

Data from Dun & Bradstreet integrated within the solution.
Company and contact matching, powered by a patent-pending True Influence Relevance Engine technology, enables companies to better match incoming lead and account data, thus creating more accurate lead scoring.
Enhanced operationalization of Artificial Intelligence (AI) through improved targeting.

“The role of marketing is increasingly complex. Not only are they expected to drive leads, but they are expected to drive return on investment. With Dun & Bradstreet data fueling True Influence InsightBASE sales and marketing teams can access data-driven insights to identify high-impact leads,” added Giese.

TwentyThree Scoops $2.5 Million Credit Facility; Plans to Further Expand Its 800% YoY Growth in the US

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March 14, 2018

TwentyThree Scoops $2.5 Million Credit Facility; Plans to Further Expand Its 800% YoY Growth in the US

New Funding Will Allow TwentyThree to Further Their Growth and Ambition into the US to Bring Video Marketing Platforms to All Marketers

TwentyThree, a leading Video Marketing Platform, has announced that it has raised a $2.5 million credit facility. As an organically grown European SaaS company, TwentyThree has 40+ employees, a 13,000 square foot office in Copenhagen, recently opened an office in San Francisco, is challenging North American competitors, partnered and integrated with market-leaders such as HubSpot, and seen rapid market adoption since its breakthrough video marketing platform launched in 2016.

The world’s best marketers need a video marketing platform to make better-informed decisions about video across the entire marketing funnel.

At the time of this announcement, TwentyThree CEO and Founder, Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, said, “This funding will allow us to further our growth and ambition to bring video marketing platforms to all marketers. I am frequently asked about what funding stage we are in, and I often flip the question to how sustainable our business is.”

Thomas added, “For me, it is about building a long-term business that focuses on its customers and employees.”

Video marketing platforms are seeing adoption in 2018, but overall, still, trail compared to other MarTech categories. TwentyThree aims to change that – as the only European video marketing platform – by offering a product that empowers marketers to analyze video beyond vanity metrics, integrate with their existing tech stack, run video across every social platform, and generate leads with video.

“As a serial entrepreneur, I look at the current tech industry, which is full of young talent, and I do think it is an important relay the message that founders can build a business organically to fit the market you’re serving,” added Thomas, who previous to TwentyThree, built and sold collaboration platform Podio to Citrix. “We believe it’s important to showcase this type of growth, that there is a different way.”

Currently, TwentyThree’s platform is used by hundreds of marketing teams and enterprise companies around the world, and in the past year alone, has hosted 1.5 million videos, measured 1.7 billion impressions, and tracked 650 million video plays.

The credit facility was raised from a European growth fund and European bank. The facility will enable TwentyThree to expand in the U.S market, hire top-talent, and continue to build the best product for its customers.

AdSpruce Places the User at the Forefront of the Adtech Revolution

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March 14, 2018

AdSpruce Places the User at the Forefront of the Adtech Revolution

AdSpruce Has Revealed an Updated Line-Up of Ad Spots That Offer a Faster, Focused and Friendlier Ad Experience, Which Falls in Line with Its “User-First” Philosophy

Built on creative studio technology of AdSpruce and ad server via a proprietary, made-for-mobile delivery platform, the updated ad line-up provides new features and functions based on industry research and consumer feedback in order to provide a truly user-first advertising experience.

The improvements come as many in the ad industry battle against the growing adoption of ad-blocking technology, with consumers citing low quality and intrusive ad experiences as the primary reason for using ad blockers. This, in turn, creates a massive problem for publishers and content owners who, according to a 2016 report by Juniper Research, are predicted to lose $27 billion in ad revenue by 2020 globally.

Also Read: The Two Mobile Trends That Cannot Be Denied

Bad adverts can be a problem for users, if an ad had been poorly created, poorly optimized or poorly delivered, then users face unwelcome and bad experiences. With ads that have slow load time and high data usage because they have not been optimized for the mobile web and ads that have been so badly designed they leave an unpleasant experience with the user. This is potentially damaging to both the publisher and advertising brand’s image.

“Delivering engaging ad experiences across 15,000 different mobile devices in low bandwidth environments has been our philosophy since day one. New standards from IAB and the Better Ads Coalition are a good thing for the industry. We focus on emerging markets where ad experiences and brand love varies wildly across countries. Better ads globally that engage users and deliver better value to all parts of the value chain is the ultimate goal,” said Ian Mullins, AdSpruce, CEO.

Also Read: Mobile Performance Marketing Platform Yeahmobi Joined the IAB Tech Lab

AdSpruce looks to solve these problems of poor ads by offering better ads, for the publisher and user. The AdSpruce HTML5 Ad studio only creates ad types of the highest quality standards, and are delivered with the user’s experience in mind. Every advert that is served is optimized for the device it is shown on.

Four Takeaways From Last Week’s Webinar World

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Maggie Norby-Adams

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March 14, 2018

Last week, marketers from around the world gathered at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco’s Union Square to learn more about the increasing role of webinars in digital marketing. The second annual Webinar World, hosted by On24, featured keynotes by executives from On24, Forrester, Gimlet Media, Heinz Marketing, and TOPO Inc, and breakout sessions focused on webinar best practices, marketing strategy, and webinar execution.

Here were some major takeaways from the event —

Webinars Can Play A Role At Each Stage Of The Buyer’s Journey

Presenters at 2018’s Webinar World showed a range of goals and strategies for their webinar promotion and content. One thing that stood out among these differences, was the ability to use webinars to engage people at each stage of the buyer’s journey. Each stage requires a different promotion strategy and a unique approach to live content.

According to Annie Lei, CRO of the live stream audience development platform AmpLive and presenter of “You’ve Planned The Perfect Webinar — Here’s How To Make Sure People See It,” top-of-the-funnel webinars should be eye-catching and distributed to new audiences. That way, you can capture the attention of your target audience on a large scale, increase brand awareness, and deliver your message to people who haven’t heard it before. Nurturing content, on the other hand, can be more technical and promoted to your existing contacts and followers. In general, technical content like product demos are better for people toward the end of the buyer’s journey, when they’re making a decision about purchasing your product.

Also Read: Webinar World TechBytes with Annie Lei, Chief Revenue Officer, AmpLive

Webinars Are Going Global

Alright, #Webinerds. It’s time for our #WebinarWorld 2018 award ceremony! pic.twitter.com/v7hLkcRcDM

— ON24 (@ON24) March 7, 2018

With tools like On24, lots of companies are finding ways to overcome the challenges of streaming live to people in other countries, and scaling their content across the globe. Oracle’s Karim Mokhnachi, VP of South & ECEMEA Marketing, argued for a stronger international webinar strategy in his session, “The Role of Webinars in a Successful Global Digital Marketing Strategy.” Through tools that provide easy subtitle uploads and “simu-live” event hosting, differences in language and time zone are no longer substantial barriers to reaching global audiences. When companies have to reach audiences in other countries, simu-live webinars allow for more personal interaction and engagement than blog posts, emails, or static ads can provide.

Also Read: Webinar World TechBytes with Aaron Dun, Senior Vice President, Marketing, SnapApp

Webinars Are A Valuable Tool for Account-Based Marketing

In the B2B world, reaching target accounts with is one of the most important challenges marketers face. Account-specific webinars can play an important role in teaching teams at larger companies how to use your product. They can also make companies feel like you value their business. You can even use your live content to put your company on the radar of professionals at target accounts that haven’t yet engaged with your content elsewhere. This is thanks to a new partnership between On24 and AmpLive, announced by On24’s CEO and CTO during their Keynote on Tuesday afternoon. The specific feature that will help marketers use live content to capture the attention of specific accounts is called account-based distribution. It leverages a massive data pool to make sure specific job titles at over 8000 target companies see webinar content while it’s live.

Also Read: Webinar World TechBytes with Amy Holtzman, VP, Marketing, Splash

Webinar Producers Need To Be Storytellers

In his keynote, “The Power Of Storytelling in a Digital World,” Gimlet Media CEO and Co-Founder Alex Blumberg walked the Webinar World audience through a series of snippets of interviews and finished produced audio. He argued that good storytelling has a rhythm with regular points of interest each minute, and displays emotional honesty. Good storytelling is what makes people feel connected to your content and keeps them engaged, but it takes time, editing, and a thoughtful ear.

Also Read: Webinar World TechBytes with Fred Isbell, Senior Marketing Director, SAP

SourceMedia Debuts New Suite of Branded Content Products

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March 14, 2018