Alight Analytics Launches-ChannelMix, Sports Marketing Analytics Solution

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March 13, 2018

Highspot and SalesLoft Push Modern Sales Engagement to a New Level

SalesLoft Will have Analytics and Pitch Capabilities with the Aid of New Highspot Everywhere Integration

Highspot, powering modern businesses with the industry’s highest-rated sales enablement platform, announced a new partnership with SalesLoft featuring the only native sales enablement integration directly within the platform. By doing so, the two companies create a seamless experience between sales enablement and sales engagement, empowering sellers to engage buyers with the most effective content for any sales situation, and deliver robust analytics along the entire sales process.

The native integration was demonstrated on stage at SalesLoft’s annual Rainmaker user conference and is listed within the newly announced App Directory program. It further extends the value of Highspot Everywhere technology integration program, designed to seamlessly integrate sales enablement processes throughout any organization.

Also Read: Highspot and LearnCore Integrate Sales Training and Enablement Capabilities

“Sales organizations today are looking to work smarter, more efficiently, and leverage analytics to better tailor their sales conversations no matter where they work. We’re excited that this native integration further extends the value of Highspot Everywhere, giving sellers the ability to leverage the content they know works, while still gaining the analytics expect from Highspot, directly within their SalesLoft workflow,” said Isaac Roybal, senior director product marketing, Highspot.

Also Read: IBISWorld Launches Call Prep Insights on Salesforce AppExchange

Sales representatives can leverage the power of Highspot directly within Salesloft by inserting content into email cadence campaigns, taking the full advantage of the Highspot content engagement analytics and user tracking capabilities.

“Partnering with Highspot, and adding them as a marquee partner within SalesLoft’s App Directory, SalesLoft delivers a new dimension of value when it comes to sales content performance and analytics. With Highspot’s native integration built directly into Salesloft, out customers can seamlessly leverage Highspot without ever leaving the SalesLoft experience. It’s a win-win for our current and future customers.” said Sean Kester, Vice President Product Strategy, SalesLoft.

Recommended Read: Is Data Slowing Down Your Sales Rep?

Shutterstock Expands Leadership Team

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March 13, 2018

David Petts as Chief Revenue Officer, Lou Weiss Comes in as Chief Marketing Officer, Both Joining Lisa Nadler Who Became Chief Human Resources Officer in 2017

Shutterstock, Inc., a leading global technology company offering a creative platform for high-quality assets, tools and services, announced the expansion of its leadership team with three hires over the last six months. David Petts as Chief Revenue Officer, Lou Weiss joins the company as Chief Marketing Officer and Lisa Nadler, who joined the company in 2017, as Chief Human Resources Officer.

Shutterstock Celebrates Over 1 Billion Image, Video and Music Licenses Sold — Jon Oringer

“We are delighted to have brought in a team of seasoned professionals, with years of experience in their respective fields, to help steer the company for sustainable and scalable growth. Lisa, David and Lou’s combined experience will be instrumental as we continue to evolve our business from a marketplace to a creative platform. They each have a clear understanding of our strategy around building a robust platform, enhancing the network effects exhibited throughout our product, focusing on customer success and attracting and retaining talent that enables the successful execution of our business strategy,” said Jon Oringer, founder and CEO of Shutterstock.

Lisa Nadler, Chief Human Resources Officer: Lisa brings to Shutterstock an exceptional level of human resources and organizational development expertise as well as experience in finance and general management. As CHRO of Shutterstock, Lisa is building a strong, resilient, and global team, introducing training and development programs for all disciplines, and navigating the dynamic challenges of a growing company while continuing to build organizational capability. Most recently, Lisa led the HR function at Sotheby’s, and prior to that at companies including Cablevision and Madison Square Garden.

Also Read: Shutterstock To Invest $15 Million in China’s Leading Social Network Platform ZCool

David Petts, Chief Revenue Officer: David has a proven track record of revenue growth and profit improvements for some of the most recognizable names in technology including HP/Compaq, Nokia and ShoreTel. He has multiple years of experience building and leading high-performing teams around the world in addition to diverse ‘go-to-market’ operations that align with geographically-specific dynamics. Most recently, David was SVP, Worldwide Sales & Customer Success at ShoreTel, where he was responsible for the global customer-facing organizations, managing all aspects of the customer lifecycle. Prior to ShoreTel, he held various leadership roles including SVP Sales, Marketing & Services – Enterprise Solutions at Nokia, VP Software – Americas at HP and VP Industry Standard Servers – Americas at HP.

Also Read: Shutterstock Announces Beta Launch of Advanced Composition Aware Search Using Deep Learning Technology

Lou Weiss, Chief Marketing Officer: Lou brings over 20 years of global digital and brand marketing experience across multiple industries to the team. Most recently, Lou served as President & CMO at Plated, where he was brought in to drive growth in the newly popular meal-kit category. With the customer always being top of mind, he led the effort to create an integrated and unique customer experience via differentiated brand positioning. This led to the successful sale of Plated to Albertsons Companies in September 2017. Previously, Lou held a variety of executive roles at the Vitamin Shoppe, including 7 years as CMO and most recently as EVP, Chief Marketing & Merchandising Officer. During his tenure, top-line revenue scaled to over $1.2 billion and e-commerce revenues tripled. Lou was a member of the management team that led the company through a successful IPO in 2009.

Atento’s Solutions Based on Cognitive Technology Create a More Satisfactory and Efficient Customer Experience

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March 13, 2018

Atento's Solutions Based on Cognitive Technology Create a More Satisfactory and Efficient Customer Experience

The Use of Cognitive Technology Is Part of Atento Digital’s Specialized Offer to Maximize the Opportunities Offered by Digitalization Throughout the Client’s Life Cycle

Atento S.A., the leading provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing services (CRM/BPO) in Latin America, and one of the top five providers worldwide incorporates cognitive technology into its customer experience services and solutions to increase final consumer satisfaction and the effectiveness of the business processes related to the client.

A clear example of this is Atento’s cognitive customer care solution that combines Keepcon’s semantic technology with Atento’s omnichannel customer service platform to respond in an automated manner and in real time to routine customer demands through all types of interaction channels, including social networks.

The solution is integrated into the customer service strategy of each company and uses the Keepcon semantic engine to manage the first point of contact with the customer — either through social networks or other communication channels — and respond to demands via bots. In the case of social networks, Keepcon’s semantic capabilities can predict and optimize the management of demands thanks to its ability to understand the content in terms of both meaning and sentiment.

Also Read: noCRM.io Launches an Alternative to CRMs Targeting SMBs

The solution also incorporates the automated prioritization and intelligent routing of interactions that require attention from a human agent. In addition, the use of this technology generates business intelligence that can improve the operational efficiency of the contact center. The level of effectiveness of automatic responses and intelligent routing considerably increases through the customization of the semantic solution for each industry and each company’s value offer. The final result is a shorter response time, improved customer satisfaction and reduced costs.

This solution is already being implemented by Atento’s clients in sectors such as telecommunications or fast moving consumer goods, generating drastic reductions in response times, more effective segmentation and routing of customer inquiries, more relevant responses and freeing up agents’ time so they can focus on high added-value tasks.

In the words of Mariano Castaños, Atento’s Global Commercial Director, “We are very excited about the opportunities and benefits we can offer companies by incorporating cognitive technology into their customer management processes. A large part of the demand today focuses on the application of cognitive technology to customer care services, but the opportunities offered by the use of this technology can be extended to all processes relating to the client.”

Also Read: Nucleus Research Recognizes Infor in CRM Value Matrix

Atento offers the use of cognitive technology based on Keepcon’s semantic engine in all its services related to the client’s life cycle: sales; customer care; back office; collections; and technical support. Keepcon’s cognitive capabilities are also integrated into the high value-added end-to-end solutions that form Atento’s value offer for each industry.

Atento Digital provides tools for digital marketing, and front- and back-office customer relationship management process automation, as well as a solid omnichannel platform for greater efficiency and improved results in acquiring, managing and retaining customers. It also offers solutions for advancing in digital transformation processes while fully leveraging existing systems. Atento Digital’s proposal incorporates the use of cognitive technology based on Keepcon’s semantic engine and comprises a wide a range of solutions including 100% online sales, digital customer service, digital technical support, or digital debt collection. All these services are offered via Atento’s omnichannel platformboth traditional and digital channels. Atento’s digital proposal also includes consultancy services, and the use of analytics and automation tools to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of customer-related processes.

The Two Mobile Trends That Cannot Be Denied

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Gareth Noonan

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March 13, 2018

In 2018, Mobile is the new reality. It’s not a trend. It’s not a channel. It’s too big to be either of those things.

With nearly 80 percent of the world’s internet users now accessing the web via mobile phones — totaling more than 2.7 billion people regularly using apps and the mobile web worldwide — mobile is simply how things are now.

But just as our industry once watched mobile as a trend unto itself — as an observable portion of a larger whole — we’re now seeing two massive forces rise up within mobile advertising as we know it, reshaping the reality of marketing in a mobile world. Here at Smaato, during an in-depth analysis of ad impressions on the Smaato platform for our Q4 2017 Global Trends in Mobile Advertising Report, the following two trends stood out as undeniably dominant influences within the advertising ecosystem.

In-App Dominates Mobile Web

In 2017, apps captured an astounding 96 percent of mobile ad spending on the Smaato platform. That’s a dramatic increase over 2016’s 80 percent in-app spending share, and it mirrors a much broader global industry trend toward in-app environments.

Compared to mobile web, in-app ads also boasted higher eCPMs, more user engagement and increased advertiser demand in Q4 2017. That’s not terribly surprising given current patterns in consumer time spent. According to AppAnnie, consumers spend nearly three hours per day in-app. That’s seven times more time than they’re spending on the mobile web.

That’s good news for advertisers, particularly in light of recent news items such as the cookie blocker in Apple’s latest version of Safari and Google’s new ad filter in Chrome. Both items have caused their fair share of consternation among advertisers. But based on the stats highlighted above, brands can take heart: on the devices where consumers are spending the majority of their overall media time (i.e. their mobile devices), they’re spending the overwhelmingly vast majority of that time in an environment where cookies and ad blockers do not come into play.

Video Advertising Is Soaring on Mobile

The video advertising freight train isn’t slowing down in the slightest. In 2017, mobile video really took off on the Smaato platform, with a 14-fold increase in ad requests over the previous year. This greatly dwarfs the two-fold growth we saw in non-video mobile ad requests, impressive as that growth was. And, much like with in-app, eCPMs for mobile video also saw significant growth on the Smaato platform, rising 70 percent from 2016 to 2017.

This mirrors larger industry trends, as video represents the fastest-growing overall online advertising market. About 80 percent of brands are planning to increase their spend on video advertising in the coming year, and these increased spends wisely recognize the continued growth in digital video viewership, which is being driven heavily by consumption on mobile devices.

The hunger for video ad placements doesn’t seem to be confined to a singular format. While we saw instream pre-roll and interstitial video ad spending experience the strongest growth in Q4 (102 percent and 97 percent growth, respectively), we also saw healthy growth in outstream video (60 percent) and rewarded video (32 percent).

Yes, just as the world has become mobile-first, the mobile world has become both video-first and app-first. Smart marketers are ensuring their ad spends mirror current shifts in consumer behavior, and that’s a trend we expect will continue.

Also Read: Decoding The State of Programmatic Advertising and Ad Formats in 2018

Small Businesses Can Grow and Innovate Faster Thanks To Salesforce Essentials

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March 13, 2018

Small Businesses Can Grow and Innovate Faster Thanks To Salesforce Essentials

Essentials Delivers New Easy-To-Use Sales and Service Apps Backed by the Power of Salesforce Trailhead, Einstein AI, Lightning and AppExchange

Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, announced Salesforce Essentials — easy-to-use, intelligent apps for small business teams, built on the world’s #1 CRM platform. The first Essentials apps — Sales Cloud Essentials and Service Cloud Essentials — are available now, enabling every small business to grow and innovate faster with the power of Salesforce.

“There are more than 125 million small businesses around the world all working toward one common goal—growth. With Essentials, we’ve taken the full power of Salesforce and tailored it to the unique needs of small businesses. Essentials is easy to set up and use—and it’s future-proof, so small businesses can add new capabilities quickly and easily as they grow,” said Mike Rosenbaum, EVP, CRM Applications, Salesforce.

Also Read: Sephora Selects Salesforce to Power Digital Shopping Experiences in Europe

Small business teams spend 23 percent of their workdays1 on average manually inputting data—time that should be spent finding, winning and keeping more customers. Essentials helps small businesses save time with sales and service apps that are easy to set up, learn, use, maintain and add new capabilities as their businesses grow.

Essentials takes advantage of all the Salesforce innovation that is delivered in three major releases per year. It’s the same trusted CRM platform used by 83 percent of Fortune 500 companies, now optimized for small businesses.

With Essentials, small businesses can:

Get started fast and learn easily with Trailhead: 62 percent of small businesses2 say training would help them improve their operations, but they’re constrained by costs and time. Trailhead, Salesforce’s interactive, online learning environment, is free and guides Essentials customers through a fast, fun and easy setup. In addition, Trailhead gives anyone, regardless of their education level or background, the opportunity to develop skills that span Salesforce products, app development and even business skills such as public speaking.
Work smarter with Einstein artificial intelligence built in: Essentials includes Einstein Activity Capture, which automates manual data entry to make sales and service reps more productive. When reps receive emails and calendar events, Einstein automatically adds messages to the appropriate record in Salesforce, freeing up the rep’s time to focus on engaging with customers. All of the captured messages provide a rich history of engagement with each customer, giving all team members the context they need to make the next customer interaction more personalized and productive.
Work faster with Lightning and the Salesforce Mobile App: Built on the Salesforce Lightning framework, Essentials has a consumer-like experience optimized for any device so customers can work the way they want, increasing productivity. Relevant information is surfaced in one unified console, modernizing processes and making workflows more intuitive. In addition, users can easily customize their consoles by simply dragging and dropping components most relevant to them.
Scale as they grow with a complete platform: Small businesses often make technology buying decisions based on what they need now rather than what they will need in the future, costing them more time and money on upgrades and integrations in the long run. Because Essentials is built on the world’s #1 CRM platform, small businesses don’t have to worry about outgrowing their CRM—they can add more advanced capabilities quickly and easily. In addition, customers can use the Small Business Hub on the AppExchange, the world’s leading enterprise cloud marketplace for business apps and solutions, to access apps that integrate with Essentials, extending the power of the Salesforce Platform.

Also Read: Salesforce Einstein Analytics Unveils Conversational Queries to Simplify Data

Sales Cloud Essentials

Sales Cloud Essentials enables small sales teams to get up-and-running fast, work smarter and sell more. With Lightning Sales Console, sales reps have a complete view of their customers—including activity history, key contacts, customer communications and internal account discussions—in one place and accessible from any device using the Salesforce Mobile App. In addition, reports and dashboards make it easy to keep track of company performance. By increasing efficiencies in the sales process, reps will have more time to spend building customer relationships.

“Sales Cloud Essentials is a great place to start if you’re new to CRM. The setup assistant was incredibly helpful, making the product feel intuitive, easy to customize and powerful for sales right out of the box. Now we can turn our data into action and easily add new functionality as we grow,” said Kenny Hodge, director of business development at Handstand Innovations.

Also Read: Small Businesses Benefit From Selling Through Amazon, Etsy, or eBay in Addition to Online Stores

Service Cloud Essentials

Service Cloud Essentials makes it easy for small service teams to set up their helpdesks instantly and provide customers with faster, more personalized customer service. With the Lightning Service Console, service agents have a 360-degree view of every customer interaction in one unified desktop view, ensuring they’re equipped with the context needed to resolve issues faster, with greater accuracy and from a single location—whether customers reach out via phone, email, Twitter or Facebook. In addition, the Service Cloud Mobile app will empower agents to provide personalized customer service from anywhere.

“As a small business, our support team often needs to answer sales-related questions in addition to typical customer support questions. I really like that Salesforce Essentials provides a comprehensive view of customers, with sales and service data in one place, so that support reps can easily access the information they need to deliver fast and personalized service,” said Justin Mauldin, customer support advocate at TrackVia, Inc.

Also Read: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency Picks Salesforce as Digital Modernization Platform

“The adoption of new technology can contribute to bottom line growth, but for smaller companies, setting up a CRM can seem overwhelming. Salesforce Essentials will help small businesses accelerate time to value with an out-of-the-box sales and service CRM that makes it easy for them to get started fast and acquire, manage and service more customers,” said Rebecca Wettemann, VP Research, Nucleus Research.

Marie Rosecrans, SVP of small business marketing at Salesforce, added, “Small businesses are the cornerstone of innovation and economic growth. That’s why we’re so excited about Salesforce Essentials and the opportunity to help every small business tackle the unique needs and challenges they will face as they grow.”

NETGEAR Joins Swrve Series D Funding Round After Successful Deployment of Swrve’s Customer Interaction Platform

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March 13, 2018

NETGEAR Has Invested In the Leading Customer Interaction Platform After Improving Upsell Metrics Using Swrve

NETGEAR, a leading provider of networking devices for online game-play, the smart home, and the small business environment, has joined Swrve’s Series D funding round. NETGEAR will contribute to the round that was initially led by Summit Bridge Capital and involved a number of previously existing investors. Swrve is a MarTech 150 RADAR Company.

Christopher S. Dean — ***Christopher Dean***

At the time of this announcement, Christopher Dean, CEO, Swrve, said, “Obviously we are hugely excited to welcome NETGEAR to the Swrve investor family.”

Chris added, “There’s no greater endorsement than a commitment to invest in our business on the back of a successful project. We were delighted to deliver for NETGEAR, and we’re even more delighted to have them on board and part of the team.”

NETGEAR is a pioneer in the “Internet of Things” and home networking space. With the Arlo range of smart home security cameras, customers can “keep watch over what they love” from wherever they are and can control this experience directly via the mobile app on iOS, Android and Amazon Fire platforms. Mobile apps are, of course, a central aspect of that strategy, putting “easy-to-use” management of multiple devices into the consumer’s hand.

Read More: Is GDPR Really Changing Ad Tech?

The decision to invest in the future of Swrve comes in the wake of a successful project during which Swrve was used by NETGEAR to help migrate customers from the basic to premium tiers of the company’s Arlo home security app and service.

Within a campaign delivering discount codes to existing basic tier customers, Swrve was able to both deliver notifications at the optimal time for each user (defined as the time of day when that specific individual was most likely to respond) and also A/B test the message creative in order to optimize effectiveness and deliver the best possible engagement levels.

Recommended Read: The Big 5: Top MarTech Updates from Last Week

By using Swrve’s Intent Targeting Engine, NETGEAR was able to send notifications and in-app messages to precisely those users most likely to respond to an upgrade offer. And by creating a multi-screen ‘native mobile’ experience, Swrve enabled NETGEAR to keep prospects within the upgrade process and minimize drop-off.

Tejas Shah, CIO, NETGEAR, said, “Working with Swrve was a pleasure from start to finish. We were very impressed with both the product and the team, and for us it was an easy decision to invest. We look forward to a long and profitable relationship with everyone at Swrve.”

Currently, Processing over 12 billion events daily, Swrve’s next-generation customer interaction platform helps enterprises maximize engagement and monetization by empowering marketers to deliver bespoke mobile experiences to every customer. Swrve provides a comprehensive set of tools that include audience targeting, real-time segmentation, conversations, push notifications, in-app messaging, A/B testing, predictive models, real-time data orchestration, and rich analytics across all marketing channels.

Swrve partners with leading brands, agencies, and technology partners – including The Guardian, Condé Nast, Warner Brothers, Salesforce, Oracle, and Marketo – and is installed in hundreds of apps across industries, such as retail, media, travel/hospitality, entertainment, sports, games, and banking.

Evergage Named a Top Rated A/B Testing and Personalization Tool on TrustRadius for Second Year in a Row

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March 13, 2018

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Evergage Named a Top Rated A/B Testing and Personalization Tool on TrustRadius for Second Year in a Row

Winners Are Based on Reviews and Satisfaction Scores from Real-World Users – Who Highlighted Their Successes With Evergage

Evergage, the real-time personalization platform company, recently announced that, for the second year in a row, it is has been named a Top Rated A/B Testing and Personalization Tool on TrustRadius, the most trusted review site for business technology. TrustRadius awards are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based on satisfaction scores independently provided by verified end-users.

Every year, TrustRadius recognizes the best software products within multiple market segments. Top-Rated solutions are determined based on users’ in-depth reviews and feedback and their likelihood to recommend the solution to peers. Reviewers on TrustRadius praised Evergage’s ease of use for marketers, individual-level data and unified profiles, account-based marketing (ABM) capabilities, testing features and ability to increase conversions, among other benefits.

Also Read: Evergage, Sophelle and One Step Retail Solutions Form Alliance – Enabling Retailers to Deliver Personalized Customer Experiences

“As more organizations focus on improving customer and visitor experiences, A/B testing and personalization tools have become increasingly sophisticated at leveraging data for segmentation, targeting, personalization at the individual level, unified views of each customer and predictive capabilities. Based solely on unbiased user feedback, Evergage has once again earned a Top Rated award in this evolving category,” said Megan Headley, research director at TrustRadius.

Also Read: TrustRadius Announces the 2018 Top Rated Marketing Automation Software According to User Reviews

Evergage empowers B2B and B2C marketers to provide 1:1 personalization in real time across websites, web and mobile apps, onsite search and email campaigns. The company delivers personalized experiences to more than 3 billion people based on deep behavioral analytics, a full customer data platform and machine learning. Robust, integrated A/B and multivariate testing and attribution capabilities enable marketers and other business users to easily compare experiences with unprecedented granularity and optimize results.

Andy Zimmerman, Chief Marketing Officer at Evergage — Andy Zimmerman

“This award is meaningful to us because it represents the voice of our customers and underscores their successes with our platform. Customer feedback plays a driving role in our product development and innovation, and we’re proud to see our users generate impactful business benefits using Evergage for personalization,” said Evergage CMO Andy Zimmerman.

Five DIY Activities to Become a B2B Content Rockstar

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March 13, 2018

Five DIY Activities to Become a B2B Content Rockstar

In Our Primer On Mastering B2B Content Marketing, We Outline Time-Tested and Verified Strategies To Drive Traffic To Your Website.

If the content is king, then the intent driving that content is the ‘king maker’. In 2018, content marketing strategies are directed at customers who are not only willing to purchase but also influence others in the community to drive actions via recommendations, reactions, promotions, and contribute UGC (User-Generated Content).

Fact-Checking Content Marketing Trends

According to the B2B Content Marketing 2018 report by CMI and MarketingProfs, forty-seven percent of the respondents (B2B marketers from North America) outsource marketing activities around their content. While quality and accuracy of content form the core of their marketing activities, the rise of intent marketing has pushed the boundaries for modern content marketers.

78% of the CMOs believe that Content Marketing is the future of marketing, says Demand Metric.
Nearly 805 B2B marketers rely on custom content as their central activity to boost their marketing performance.
67% marketers fail to plan to develop a content marketing strategy within 1-2 years due to small time size, according to CMI. Lack of time is the second most-viral reason for them to believe that content marketing plans fail.
Spiceworks claims that nearly 50% are slightly sure, or totally unsure about tracking the ROI of their content marketing!

If you are struggling to strategize your content marketing goals, or wish to improve your ROI on content marketing, this primer is your compass for 2018, to help you become a B2B Content Rockstar.

Magnify the Churn of Your Original, Organic Content

To become a B2B Content Rockstar in 2018, your primary goals should be to build a content calendar around topics that are easy to find and are useful and relevant to customers that use your services. Don’t bait customers to read what they already know. Rather, delight them with something that is based on pure data and research.

Remember, no amount of paid promotion of bad content is going to turn it into good, viral content. At least, not in B2B tech!

The Power of Product Reviews, Recommendations, and Testimonials

Nothing beats the power of product reviews. At MarTech Series, our product review blogs fetch significantly more unique traffic than any other piece of content.

We learned from the MarTech RADAR 150 Companies that they are successful in their content marketing strategies by virtue of the volume of information customers have about them on product review platforms.

Aptrinsic actually expanded their Product Experience Platform to achieve exactly that! Content, when tagged with Product Experience and Reviews platforms, enables product leaders to engage their accounts, and key personas within them, in a more coordinated way. As a result, their customers enjoy a more consistent and cohesive experience.

The new product launches and expansion details could be covered extensively in a three-pronged strategy, via on-spot interviews, TechBytes interviews, PR coverage, or even guest posts, where the product managers and Chief Technology Officers evangelize the benefits that the products offer.

When your customer or a publisher group talks about the product, and you backlink the piece to your Newsroom or blog section, you invariably increase the mileage of your in-house content.

Events and Webinars: Take a Cue from the Six Thinking Hats

B2B Events are the lifeline of your content marketing strategy.

I always felt that Edward de Bono was a master psychologist, and that his writings are a ready reckoner for all modern content marketers. To become a Rockstar Content Marketer, your magnitude of growth depends on the number of events that you cover in every month, quarter and year.

How many attendees and speakers did you interview?

How many hooks did you offer to your audience that would be interested or impressed to attend the event?

Do you have a plan to cover the key takeaways from the event?

Taking inspiration from the ‘Six Thinking Hats’ philosophy, a content marketer should focus on covering events and webinars to build a content management calendar that piles up abundant information, stirs emotions based on instinctive reactions, walks the conservative line of B2B engagements, and offers an Optimistic (Yellow Hat), Creative way to provoke action from the readers.

Video Updates and Live Streaming

Given the damage that Fake News has on brand reputations, content marketers have hesitated to try out syndicated video content. With new-age advertising standards and brand safety measures, content rockstars are exploring Live Streaming channels to amp up their marketing prowess. With influencers backing their efforts, videos are the most legitimate way to increase traffic and generate verifiable results in a much shorter time.

Images, Chats, and Newsletters

Content that has images has a higher chance of engaging the audience. Visually attractive assets also make great additions in newsletters and email marketing templates. While still in the nascent stage, chat boxes and virtual assistants, popping out of content, provide an unmatched opportunity to marketers to drive intent straight into your content workshops.

We love social media promotions for content marketing. But, we would reserve that primer for you in our subsequent editions. Stay tuned…

Rakuten Marketing Survey: Global Organizations Anticipate 26 Percent Marketing Budget Loss in 2018

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March 13, 2018

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Rakuten Marketing Survey: Global Organizations Anticipate 26 Percent Marketing Budget Loss in 2018

Rakuten Marketing Survey’s Report, Identifies Marketers’ Fear of Budget Waste as E-commerce Continues to Expand Globally

Rakuten Marketing, the leading technology company that enables brands to increase sales through data-driven performance marketing, announced results from its newest global report. The Rakuten Marketing “What Marketers Want in 2018: Five Strategic Opportunities for 2018” survey polled over 1,000 marketers across the US United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Asia-Pacific (APAC) and found a common fear of budget waste as e-commerce continues to expand globally.

Also Read: Ugam Joins the Newly Launched Qualtrics Partner Network

US respondents anticipate at least 30 percent of their 2018 marketing budgets will be lost as a result of poor strategic planning and/or incorrect channel focus. In addition to this, top concerns for US marketers in 2018 include:

Proving the value of marketing – 44 percent of U.S. marketers stated this as a threat in 2018.
Establishing a positive perception of marketing as an organizational discipline – 42 percent of U.S. marketers expect this to be a threat in 2018.
Managing consumer expectations and ensuring brand safety/protecting reputation – 41 percent of U.S. marketers stated both of these factors as a threat in 2018.
GDPR and e-privacy laws were considered the lowest threats to U.S. marketers in 2018.

Additional insights from the report show marketers are shifting 2018 budget priorities for content, holiday sales periods, and social media. For US marketers, investment priorities include video, with 68 percent stating this as a priority, written content (63 percent), and image-led content (58 percent). US marketers expect to allocate 20 percent of their budget to social media marketing; 19 percent to search engine optimization (SEO), and 18 percent to display advertising. Social media is expected to have the highest budget allocation with Facebook investment reaching $124k, followed by Instagram with $94k, Twitter with $74k, and LinkedIn with $70k.

Also Read: Progress Launches AI-Driven Native Chatbot

Marketer interest in expanding their marketing campaigns to foreign markets varies widely across all respondents, with Europe (42 percent) and Asia-Pacific (43 percent) topping the list for marketers. The US follows a close third with 36 percent of respondents indicating investment interest here. For US marketers, 33 percent designated the United Kingdom as their top foreign expansion target, followed by France (31 percent) and Singapore (27 percent).

Non-Western sales periods will also take precedence with US marketers. Twenty percent of U.S. respondents state plans to prioritize Chinese New Year in 2018 and 15 percent indicate Singles’ Day will be a priority. Forty-six percent stated plans to keep marketing campaigns constant throughout the entire year.

Also Read: 5 Mistakes That Can Be Disastrous to Your B2B Sales and Leads

Responses in the Rakuten Marketing “What Marketers Want in 2018: Five Strategic Opportunities for 2018” report were based on four respondent profiles that factored workplace persona, geography, and position level or responsibility. Marketer profile definitions are as follows:

Architects – Experienced data analysts focused on marketing legality and audience engagement accuracy. These marketers work with legal issues and marketing data and analytics and pride themselves on their data interpretation skills (23 percent globally). Architects make up two percent of US respondents.
Adapters – Marketing optimization specialists value measurement and thrive on driving performance from insights. They view customer sensitivity among their best skills (21 percent globally) and make up 11 percent of US respondents.
Advocates – Influencer specialists and old school networkers who focus on relationships internally and externally. Advocates tend to identify with a wide range of marketing skills but are likely to focus on storytelling (11 percent globally), customer sensitivity (17 percent globally) and creativity (32 percent globally). Advocates make up 32 percent of US respondents.
Advancers – Marketers who leverage new technologies and prioritize winning new authority for marketing within the organization. They view channel management (11 percent globally) and creativity (38 percent globally) as their strongest skills and make-up 55 percent of US respondents.

“The fact that more than half of US consumers are Advancers demonstrates the need that marketers in this industry must continuously adapt. To keep up with rapidly changing consumers, marketers are exploring new technologies, exercising creativity, and managing multiple channels to create better consumer experiences in 2018,” states Stuart Simms, president, Rakuten Marketing.

Recommended Read: Ad Blockers: Take a Page from Video Game Advertisers

Ternio Joins IAB, Hyperledger, Linux Foundation and AdLedger to Help Push Blockchain Standards in Digital Advertising

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March 13, 2018

Ternio Joins IAB, Hyperledger, Linux Foundation and AdLedger to Help Push Blockchain Standards in Digital Advertising

Ternio Is a Blockchain-Based Digital Advertising Company That Brings Transparency to the Digital Advertising Ecosystem Through a Verifiable and Decentralized Asset Which Ensures Contract Terms Are Met

Ternio, the first company to provide a scalable blockchain solution for programmatic digital advertising, announced it has joined four different organizations to help accelerate the creation and adoption of blockchain standards in programmatic digital advertising. These groups include the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), Hyperledger, Linux Foundation and AdLedger Consortium.

“Ternio is situated at the intersection of blockchain and digital advertising. Our membership in these organizations enables us to bring a macro view of the industry and best practices to help set a standard between these two communities,” said Bryant Maroney, CTO, co-founder, Ternio.

Also Read: Customer Data Is the Next Competitive Battleground Shaping the Future of Digital Marketing

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) empowers the media and marketing industries to thrive in the digital economy. Its membership is comprised of more than 650 leading media and technology companies that are responsible for selling, delivering and optimizing digital advertising or marketing campaigns. The trade group fields critical research on interactive advertising, while also educating brands, agencies and the wider business community on the importance of digital marketing. In affiliation with the IAB Tech Lab, it develops technical standards and best practices.

Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in advertising, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing, and technology. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger under the foundation.

Also Read: Ad Blockers: Take a Page from Video Game Advertisers

The AdLedger Consortium is a non-profit foundation governed by its members. The consortium will be run by volunteer contributions made to the foundation in the form of expertise, technical resources, and technology infrastructure. The mission of AdLedger is to support an ecosystem where advertisers and publishers can regain control of their data assets, improve ad targeting capabilities and keep more of their margins currently lost to the rising costs associated with distrust and layers of intermediaries.

“It is great to have Ternio join AdLedger. By increasing efficiencies and enabling a more transparent advertising supply chain, blockchain can potentially reduce cost and fraud for publishers and buyers. AdLedger is looking forward to Ternio’s contributions in the collaborative effort to bring greater transparency to digital media,” said Christiana Cacciapuoti, executive director, AdLedger.

Recommended Read: The Most Effective Way to Sell, Backed by Science

AI to End Brand Safety Crisis? AnyClip Got the Answers…

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March 13, 2018

AI to End Brand Safety Crisis? AnyClip Got the Answers...

AnyClip’s Content Platform Provides Contextually Targeted Ultra-Premium Video Content to Advertisers and Publishers

AnyClip, an AI-driven video content and data monetization pioneer, has announced the launch of AnyClip’s Content Platform, an unmatched premium video content and Brand Safety solution for advertisers and publishers. The Platform provides advertisers the unprecedented ability to gain real-time insights into content, ensure Brand Safety, and contextually target ultra-premium content while allowing publishers to enrich their sites with perfectly matched premium content – increasing revenue and improving user engagement and experience.

Gil Becker

At the time of this announcement, Gil Becker, President and CEO of AnyClip, said, “After more than two years of extensive research and development, we are thrilled to announce the launch of AnyClip’s Content Platform and offer our industry a much-needed Brand Safety stamp.”

Currently, AnyClip applies the most advanced AI technology to video, analyzing and understanding video content and context in real-time. By producing endless data and deep insights about any video content, AnyClip solves Brand Safety, provides first-ever content segmentation, and enables superior video consumption and targeting. AnyClip Luminous™ is the world’s first AI-driven content analysis engine to cut, tag, analyze, and categorize video content, producing metadata and deep insights about each clip in real-time.

Gil added, “The Platform addresses the pain points of the entire video ecosystem – publishers can forgo pricey content and access rich premium content that perfectly matches the context of their pages at no cost. Advertisers can sleep at night with our Brand Safety assurance and enjoy a new world of contextual relevance and superior segmentation. Content owners, who want to increasingly monetize on existing platforms, can monetize their assets at scale with little effort. We’re excited to pave the way to the future of digital video.”

Industry experts affirm that Brand Safety issues, with brand ads appearing alongside objectionable content, can have serious repercussions for brands. In a recent survey, 78% of marketers said that Brand Safety failures had damaged their brand’s reputation. Last month, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, stated that “2018 is the year when social media must win trust back.” Brand Safety has become the single largest problem facing advertisers, with no real solution in sight. Until now.

Sam Macrae

Sam Macrae, Digital Performance and Analysis Executive of Time Out, North America, said, “AnyClip’s Platform strengthens the connection with our already highly engaged audience at no cost. It also increases time on page and provides a new and safe way to monetize our premium video content. The video insights and analytics we receive about our own content are the results of a truly beneficial relationship.”

AnyClip’s Content Platform utilizes an enormous, premium, and up-to-date library of content from leading sports, news, and entertainment content producers. The Platform is powered by Luminous™, the first AI charged real-time video analysis engine to truly understand video content and context by identifying and tagging video content.

In addition to ensuring Brand Safety by flagging and filtering out inappropriate content such as nudity, violence, profanity, alcohol, guns, tobacco, etc., Luminous offers unmatched celebrity and brand identification and can thoroughly identify and analyze video according to sentiments and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) categories, such as food and beverage, travel, fashion, etc.

The massive amounts of metadata and meaningful insights produced by Luminous greatly benefit advertisers and publishers. Advertisers who join the Platform enjoy a walled garden of safe, positive, and contextually-relevant premium content and unprecedented content targeting.

Publishers joining the Platform embed the Luminous Recommendation Engine (LRE), a premium video content and advertising unit, powered by a smart recommendation engine. LRE compares and matches video metadata with webpage metadata and automatically enriches pages with relevant premium video content from AnyClip’s content library. The inclusion of perfectly-matched premium video significantly improves user experience, enhances user engagement, and can boost advertising revenue.

Progress Launches AI-Driven Native Chatbot

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March 13, 2018

Progress Launches AI-Driven Native Chatbot

Progress’s NativeChat, Offers 15x Faster Development, Native Support for 72 Languages and Ability to Integrate with Web, Mobile and Social Channels for a Seamless Digital Customer Experience

BEDFORD, the leading provider of application development and deployment technologies, announced the availability of Progress NativeChat, the artificial intelligence-driven platform for creating and deploying chatbots. Unlike other chatbot technologies, NativeChat is based on patent-pending CognitiveFlow technology that can be trained with goals, examples, and data from existing backend systems, similar to the process of training new customer service agents.

Also Read: Genesys Unveils New Customer Experience Marketplace to Drive Unparalleled Business Performance

With NativeChat, organizations can now easily give their customers the ability to converse and transact in a natural way, on the channel of their choice, without the need for human interaction
Chatbots solve many pressing customer service challenges for organizations – freeing overloaded call center employees to focus on critical business needs by offloading transactional requests, reduction in cost, increased customer satisfaction and more. However, the creation and deployment of chatbots can be complex, with limited results, if not done right. NativeChat removes many of the complexities of chatbot development, speeding time to market, because of its ability to self-learn as interactions evolve.

“Chatbots are most powerful when they are intelligent and context-aware, directly pulling data and insights from systems of record. NativeChat makes it easy to create chatbots on top of existing systems that interact with users in a natural way and improve contextual understanding, accuracy, and forecasting in conversations,” said Dmitri Tcherevik, Chief Technology Officer, Progress.

Also Read: Mobile World Congress 2018: What’s Next for Industry Innovation?

NativeChat can be integrated into self-service web portals and mobile apps, enabling customer self-service across any channel. Customers can also communicate using NativeChat through social channels such as Facebook messenger and other live chat technologies, furthering their ability to engage in the ways that they are most comfortable. NativeChat also integrates with any enterprise system that supports REST APIs.

“We evaluated several chatbot technologies and selected Progress NativeChat because of the CognitiveFlow technology enabling the bot to hold human-like discussions. We were able to build our proof of concept digital chatbot in just weeks. Given this early success, and our focus on technology that transforms the way we do business, we’ll be looking at NativeChat as the potential platform for our new robo-agent service,” said Harry Singh, Global Vice President, PowerCurve Software Products, Experian.

Also Read: Voice of the Customer Program, An Alternative to Focus Groups

Progress NativeChat can:

Support both transactional and FAQ-style interactions
Understand natural conversations in 72 human languages, and comes with an optional built-in Natural language Processing engine powered by Facebook
Replicate existing web and mobile forms
Be trained from existing FAQ pages and materials
Be up and running in as little as two weeks and is as simple to train as a service agent
Adapt, learn and review chat history without developer support
Easily integrate with any enterprise systems supporting REST APIs
Integrate out-of-the-box with the Progress Kinvey serverless cloud application platform
Integrate out-of-the-box with the Progress Sitefinity web content management platform and the NativeScript. native mobile application development technology

NativeChat Is the First Product to Come out of Progress Labs, the Innovation Incubator Inside of Progress. Progress Labs Enables the Best and Most Innovative Ideas Coming from Anywhere Within the Company to Be Nurtured and Funded, Driving Innovation in the Progress Portfolio and Delivering New Value for Progress Customers and Partners. Other Progress Labs Projects Currently Being Pursued Involve Augmented and Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Edge Computing for IoT, New AI-Based Applications and More.

360° Video Ads Drive Higher Purchase Intent Compared To Traditional Video Ads

By

MTS Staff Writer

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March 13, 2018

360° Video Ads Drive Higher Purchase Intent Compared To Traditional Video Ads

Biggest Pitfall For Effective 360° Video Ads Is Simple Branding, According To New Research From YuMe, MAGNA, The IPG Media Lab

MAGNA, the intelligence, investment and innovation unit within IPG Mediabrands, and IPG Media Lab, the media futures and advisory arm of IPG Mediabrands, in partnership with YuMe by RhythmOne, a proven partner for video advertising leadership and innovation, announced the results of a media trial examining consumers’ perspective on 360° video advertising from innovative brands BMW, Royal Caribbean and PBS.

The resulting report, The 360° Effect: Understanding Immersive Video, reveals the opportunities this ad format provides marketers and the challenges they will face in maximizing its value. The report also offers insight into how marketers should utilize this new video ad format to drive brand KPIs.

Also Read: When it Comes to Ad Blocking, Personalization is the New Scale

While most brands have yet to utilize 360° video for marketing purposes, many consumers are already familiar with the format. Consumers show a strong interest in 360° videos created by brands, with the majority (69%) intending on interacting with brand videos in the future. Consumers’ primary interest in a brand created 360° video is related to their desire for entertainment and new experiences. Marketers need to not only deliver on high expectations for fun but also move the needle on the metrics that drive brand growth.

“While 360° video ads are the most accessible immersive video ad experiences for consumers – available across mobile, PCs and VR headsets – marketers must artfully balance entertainment with branding to achieve optimal brand metrics. Our study reinforces the opportunity that marketers have to drive purchase intent with 360° video ads, provided they properly incorporate brand messages to encourage higher recall,” said Devin Fallon, VP of Analytics, YuMe by RhythmOne.

Also Read: How Contextual Blocking Tactics Can Ensure Brand Safety at the Page Level

“This research has not only helped us better understand the user experience for 360° video ads, but also the common pitfalls marketers may face in driving important metrics such as brand favorability and purchase intent. Consumers are welcoming of this advertising format because it provides a fun and engaging experience. We need to ensure that we deliver on those expectations and our KPIs at the same time,” said Kara Manatt, SVP, Intelligence Solutions Strategy at MAGNA.

Also Read: Unleashing Digital Video’s Potential for One-to-One Marketing

Key insights include:

Consumer Preference

Consumers are eager to experience 360° video even when created by brands. However, they have high expectations for fun and excitement, which were reported as the top reasons for engaging with 360 video in the future. 88% of those who found 360° “entertaining” intend to interact with 360° video ads in the future.
Early tech adopters are most likely to engage with and enjoy 360° video, making it a big opportunity for brands targeting tech-savvy consumers.
Providing simple instructional cues provided the best user experience. Some consumers didn’t engage with the video because they weren’t sure what to do.

Also Read: Addressability in OTT Is More Than Just Checking The Box

Marketer Takeaways

Overall, 360° video can be an effective format in delivering against brand KPIs above and beyond traditional video; however, challenges persist in creating memorable experiences given the inherent distractions of the format.
The payoff is big once consumers recalled the brand, with +7% purchase intent increase on smartphones and 12% lift in agreement that the brand “has a unique story to tell” compared to a traditional video ad.
While VR headset environments serve as the ideal platform, smartphone was the next best option. 360° video outperformed on smartphones compared to the same ad on PC, with a10% lift in purchase intent.
Contextual targeting can make a difference – pairing a 360° ad with content that is also 360° improves branding impact. The same ad is viewed as 8% more relevant compared to running in front of standard (non-360°) content.

Also Read: 3 Innovations Driving Out-of-Home in 2018

“360-degree video is a true discovery experience – showcasing multiple facets of the brand offering instead of being limited to just one or two messages. This provides brands with an ability to tap into consumer passions while allowing them to choose their own journey through the experience,” said UM’s Global Chief Innovation Officer, Chad Stoller.

In conducting the media trial, a total of 2,159 consumers were recruited from a representative online panel. The survey directed participants to a media experience of their choosing on PC, smartphone, or smartphone-enabled VR device, where they were able to view a webpage and watch video content based on their interests. Each participant was randomized into a test cell that determined what type of pre-roll video they saw – control, standard video ad, or 360° video ad. Afterwards, participants completed a survey that measured traditional branding metrics and qualitative feedback.

Beating the Big Guys Is All About Brand Loyalty

By

Armand Thiberge

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March 13, 2018

There’s an imbalance in the sales and marketing industry today between small business and the industry giants of the world. With deeper pockets, wider budgets, and seemingly limitless tools at their fingertips, competing against the “big guys” can seem like an insurmountable task. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With the right solutions and customer insights, smaller businesses can be just as competitive at winning over their customers.

Regardless of the size of your business, the most effective way to drive customer loyalty in today’s modern marketing landscape is giving customers what they want, when they want it, and through the proper channel. That’s why SendinBlue recently conducted a consumer survey of over 700 US millennials, currently the most sought-after consumer demographic, to find out their preferences regarding marketing communications and promotions from brands.

Armed with this knowledge, small and medium-sized businesses can outshine their larger competitors with more targeted and personalized marketing campaigns tailored exactly to what their customers are looking for.

Also Read: Marketers Cannot Overlook Mobile Casual Gamers Anymore!

Here are the key insights from the survey that brands should adopt to be more competitive in the marketplace.

Deliver to Their Inbox

While it may seem as though there’s a new marketing channel popping up every day, millennial consumers indicated they still prefer the more traditional route of email when it comes to receiving marketing messages from brands. In fact, 63 percent of our survey respondents cited email as the best way for brands, particularly retailers, to communicate with them. The second closest channel, text messaging, was far behind at 14 percent.

That’s a big gap, and it gets even bigger when it comes to social media, which ranked third with 12 percent of the votes. Snail mail was last with only 7 percent of millennial respondents saying they preferred this channel.

Another good sign for email was the number of times millennials visited their inbox throughout the day. When asked how frequently they checked their email, 69 percent of respondents said they were in their inbox multiple times per day. An impressive 20 percent revealed that they’re in their inbox too many times to count. Compare that to traditional mail, which gets checked once on a good day, and you’ll understand why email makes more sense for reaching customers with your marketing messages.

Also Read: From Cookies to Ad IDs, Why Email Is Key

Give Them What They Want

The key to effective outreach is giving customers what they’re looking for. For millennials, in particular, it’s all about a good deal to keep them coming back for more. Close to 60 percent of respondents revealed that they want a site-wide or product category-wide promotional offer in order to take action. They also appreciate it when your promotional outreach is focused and personalized based on their past shopping habits.

Millennials know brands are capable of collecting their data, and in turn, they expect it to be put to good use in ways that most benefit them. This means recommendations based on past purchases and notices when an item they left in their cart goes on sale. That additional 25 percent off could be the nudge they need to complete their purchase.

The Payout

While trying to figure out what a customer wants may seem like a shot in the dark, utilizing these survey insights along with your own audience insights brings the process much closer to a science. Millennials are a loyal generation and this translates over to the brands they follow. Seventy-five percent of respondents said simple perks like free shipping or two-day delivery are what drives brand loyalty to retailers. That’s not a big dent in your company’s bottom line, but it goes a long way in the hearts and minds of customers, which can have a substantial effect on earnings.

If your company is just starting out and those types of incentives seem unrealistic to offer, keep it more cost-effective by making more of an effort to personalize your messages instead. Close to half of respondents said that receiving relevant, personalized information based on their previous shopping preferences enhanced their brand loyalty as well.

At the end of the day, it’s about caring for your customers’ needs and wants, and showing them that they’re your top priority. A little love goes a long way in the brand/customer relationship and it’s what will allow for small businesses to stay competitive and win back business from the bigger players.

Also Read: Email Is Hard – Here’s How To Make It Easier

TechBytes with Fatima Nadine Khan, Chief Privacy Officer, Demandbase

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March 13, 2018

Fatima Nadine Khan
Chief Privacy Officer, Demandbase

GDPR could be the most disruptive event of the year for marketers. Last year, marketers spoke about the power of Intent Data and the way it could change the face of Customer Data Platforms and marketing performance forever. But, then came the long list of questions on the privacy of data! Today, every fifth company in the tech industry has either hired a legal counsel or added a Chief Privacy Officer to manage the probable disruptions. To get answers to all our questions on GDPR and the impact on privacy standards, we interviewed Demandbase’s Chief Privacy Officer, Fatima Nadine Khan.

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Tell us about your journey as a Privacy Officer in the tech industry?

I began my career interested in privacy issues faced by technology companies. It’s been especially exciting to work with adtech/martech companies because they face a lot of scrutiny, yet still manage to consistently adapt to this dynamic area of law by providing innovative solutions to resolve concerns about privacy. For example, companies have implemented just-in-time notices for mobile, alternative SDKs, and more granular privacy choices. As both consumer and regulatory concerns continue to increase, the last few years have served as a starting point for privacy and it will only become more important in the future.

How do you see a Chief Privacy Officer working in sync with the Chief Marketing Officer, and the Chief Technology/Digital Officer in the organization?

It is essential for the CPO to work in sync with the CMO and CTO of an organization on data strategy. The three roles have the overlapping goal of ensuring a company’s valuable data assets are protected. The CPO establishes the company’s approach to privacy and advises other stakeholders on how to accomplish business goals while respecting the law and privacy principles.

Would GDPR be the biggest disruption to data management and marketing intelligence ecosystems? How is Demandbase preparing for this disruption?

GDPR is definitely a disruption to the data management and marketing intelligence ecosystems. That said, this disruption should be viewed positively because it presents companies with a new opportunity to innovate by providing law-friendly privacy solutions to customers. Demandbase is preparing for this disruption by creating a compliance plan that includes addressing privacy concerns such as data subject access rights, re-evaluating internal processes, and increasing transparency for customers and individuals.

Should the DMPs, CDPs, and Account-based Marketing platforms get ready to tight their data privacy regulations in 2018?

The penalties under the GDPR are steep and DMPs, CDPs, and ABM platforms will need to take stock of their data inventory and make sure that any data collection, use, and sharing is done in compliance with the GDPR. The whole industry will have to take steps to adapt and comply with the new regulatory requirements.

Apart from GDPR, what other data privacy regulations and standards should global companies tune into?

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continuously enforces privacy law through the FTC Act in addition to regularly providing updated guidance on emerging privacy issues. Companies should stay up-to-date with FTC guidance and look to their industry for any self-regulatory guidelines established by industry associations, such as the Digital Advertising Alliance.

Do you think that the use of AI/ML technologies would help better manage and comply with the data privacy regulations? How do you leverage AI/ML as a Chief Privacy Officer?

AI/ML technologies can certainly help CPOs comply with privacy regulations on an operational level through assessing data inventory and discovering non-obvious data relationships. These types of automated assessments will allow CPOs to achieve a deeper understanding of the data and find trends that may not be feasible or available through implementing existing standard procedures.

Thanks for chatting with us, Fatima.
Stay tuned for more insights on marketing technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

Also Read: TechBytes with Christopher Golec, CEO, Demandbase

Interview with Lissa Daniels, VP, Demand Generation, Marketing Operations and Analytics, Looker

By

Rohan Jagan

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March 13, 2018

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

[mnky_testimonial_slider slide_speed=”3″][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“Technology is going to help us all get more personal. Data, behavioral intent and AI can help us all make the experience more personal for our leads and customers.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

Tell us a little bit about your role at Looker?

I head up the team that fills and optimizes the marketing lead funnel. Our first goal is to feed our sales development team with the highest quality leads possible. Those leads need to turn into happy customers. We spend our time testing and trying all that we can. Then we spend a good bit of time analyzing to see if the leads do what we want.

What draws you to the MarTech Conference?

It is the best martech conference in the area. It is where marketers who think technology, data and feeding sales team can come together and talk to each other and more than one vendor.

Which sessions at the Martech Conference would you recommend to and Why?

‘’From Data to Impact: How Red Hat Marketing Decides the Next Best Action”, looks very interesting. I love getting frameworks for how to choose the next best thing to do. Ultimately my intuition is what usually tells me what to do, but I train my intuition with data. Data can usually only answer one question at a time, and deciding what to do next is rarely a single question and answer. So, intuition and the human brain is best at balancing all the elements and weighing needs and possible outcomes.

“How to Manage GDPR and Legal Hurdles that Stall and Kill Your Martech Strategy” looks like an important session to go to because, well, we need to treat our prospects and customers with respect.

What is the one piece of advice you have for B2B marketers in 2018?

Keep testing and trying new stuff and retry the stuff you tried a few years back. The market is always changing, your product is always changing, never give up.

How do you see the B2B Marketing landscape evolving, in the years to come?

Technology is going to help us all get more personal. Data, behavior intent and AI can help us all make the experience more personal for our leads and customers. It does make it more work for the marketer. We need to understand the cohorts of prospects and customers really well so we can curate that personal experience, without that understanding and curation, technology is not as effective as it can be.

Which sectors is Looker looking to target to expand its reach in 2018?

We are working to expand our reach across industries, use cases, regions and the people who engage with data. So basically everywhere 😉

What startups are you watching/keen on right now?

Intellimize for website testing and the new Customer Data Platforms. I am curious to see how these evolve for better marketing coordination.

What is the most important metric of a digital marketing campaign that Performance Marketers should track?

Ah, there is no single metric. Data answers one question at a time. It also depends on the goal of the company and the program. I am spending time looking at ROI and contribution to bookings. Whereas 2 yrs ago, I simply focused on lead to meeting conversion rate (how we verified that we gave quality leads to SDRs)

What does your Martech stack currently consist of?

Marketo at the core connects to Salesforce.com connects to Looker. We then have other point tools, Intellimize for web testing, Drift for web chat, Clearbit for data augmentation, and On24 for online events

How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?

As with anything, understand your goals, brand, and market. Then decide what the best way to go to market, and if AI is a way, test it out.

One word that best describes how you work.

Efficient.

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

Well at work, I could not live without Looker. Seriously, I am in that every day. If not doing my own exploration, I am looking at dashboard folks on the team have created.

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

I print out my daily calendar each evening and mentally review the following day. I list my goals for the day. Then I carry it around with me. I realize I can do that electronically, but paper stares at me, a screen can be hidden too easily.

What are you currently reading?

I listen to a lot of audio books, it helps me get outside walking or going the gym. I like mystery books. I do not read many business books. The best ones I have read are The One Minute Manager and Nudge.

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

Early on at Looker, the VP of Marketing simply told me ‘If something works, just do it again.” That gave me the OK to just try everything and if it worked do it again, if it did not work, move on. It was the start of our ‘test, optimize, expand or stop’ mentality in DG.

Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?

I think I listen really well to others. And then I love to do, learn and try new things.

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

Register For MarTech Conference With Promo Code – martechseries10 To Avail a 10% Discount

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Lissa is a collaborative and analytical marketing professional with expertise in demand generation and marketing operations. She has a track record in driving high-impact marketing and has consistently met aggressive business goals. Lissa also has experience building demand generation engines for growing startups and mature companies. As a trusted leader and insightful mentor, Lissa is dedicated to building partnerships across the organization.

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looker
Looker is a complete data platform that offers data analytics and business insights to every department, and easily integrates into applications to deliver data directly into the decision-making process. Looker is powering data-driven cultures at more than 1200 industry-leading and innovative companies such as Sony, Amazon, The Economist, Spotify, Etsy, Lyft and Kickstarter. Looker is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, with offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boulder, London and Dublin, Ireland. Investors include CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Meritech Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures, First Round Capital, Sapphire Ventures and Goldman Sachs.

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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.

Episerver Announces Intelligent Content Personalization

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March 13, 2018

Episerver Announces Intelligent Content Personalization

Episerver Advance Rounds out the Episerver Personalization Suite, Drawing on Cognitive Artificial Intelligence to Support Unprecedented Content Personalization at Scale

Episerver, the company transforming digital experiences, today announced the launch of Episerver Advance to help organizations deliver individualized content to visitors everywhere they digitally engage.

Episerver Advance helps marketers and merchandisers solve the modern challenge of delivering relevant content to people when and where they need it. Transcending the capabilities of traditional product recommendations, Episerver Advance draws on cognitive artificial intelligence (AI) to apply rich metadata tags to content assets automatically, and then sequence the delivery of those assets based on deep analysis of data as well as a visitors real-time activity to ensure they see the best content to support their inferred intent or goals.

Also Read: Episerver Study: Nine in 10 Consumers Are Comfortable With Brands Knowing More About Them

As a person interacts with a brand, AI-powered algorithms work behind the scenes to analyze all of an organization’s content as well as the clues the visitor provides about what they are looking for in order to present the most optimal content in the moment. Meanwhile, marketers can spend this time developing great content versus laboring over how to tag it for optimal performance or when and where to share it.

Episerver Unveils Complete Keynote Lineup for Ascend 2018 — James Norwood

“Personalization is now table stakes for marketers, but they’re often lacking the tools they need to deliver effective personalized content throughout the digital journey. With the release of Episerver Advance, we are solving the last and most complex piece of the personalization puzzle and delivering on our promise to help organizations create individualized experiences for their customers and visitors wherever and whenever they engage,” said James Norwood, chief marketing officer and executive vice president, strategy at Episerver.

Also Read: Episerver Announces a New Visitor Intelligence Product and Releases a Headless API

The launch of Episerver Advance, completes Episerver’s Personalization Suite, which also includes Episerver Personalized Find for AI-based search rankings, Episerver Reach for event-trigger based messaging, such as personalized email, SMS and push notifications, Episerver Perform for personalized product recommendations, and Episerver Insight — released last month — for customer journey analysis and persistent visual visitor intelligence.

Also Read: Episerver Named a Visionary in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms

Supported by Episerver’s behavioral big data store, Episerver Advance presents tailored content at different points in a person’s online journey to increase revenue and positively affect loyalty. Providing a relevant experience for both first-time visitors and repeat customers can result in lower bounce rates and higher conversion rates. In fact, 44 percent of people often abandon purchases because of disappointing online shopping experiences.

Episerver’s personalization suite helps organizations of all kinds to deliver individualized content, intelligent campaigns and experience-driven commerce as part of the Episerver Digital Experience Cloud.

Mediavine Launches Exclusive Video Adhesion Ad Unit

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March 13, 2018

Mediavine Launches Exclusive Video Adhesion Ad Unit

The Custom-Built Video Adhesion Unit Brings Together Advertisers, Publishers, and Users in a New Way Through High-Viewability Mobile Native Experiences

Mediavine has launched a custom-built, patent-pending ad unit exclusive to the company: the video adhesion player. The unit, currently in beta testing, is the first of its kind and is Mediavine’s first piece of advertising technology to receive a provisional patent.

The video adhesion player is a mobile native experience that showcases publishers’ original videos to users, providing publishers the opportunity to monetize with highly sought-after video ads on every page view in a user-friendly format. The player uses video header bidding capabilities from Prebid.js to integrate with advertising partners’ video demand.

Also Read: Mediavine Publisher Network Confirmed as Google Certified Publishing Partner

The video adhesion unit will take the place of the company’s pre-existing mobile adhesion banner ad unit when a video advertisement wins the marketplace auction. By keeping the new unit the same location as the existing mobile adhesion unit, Mediavine found a way to provide the user with useful, engaging content while allowing continued interaction with the site.

The result of beta testing has been 90 percent viewability and high engagement.

“Mediavine’s unit seamlessly integrates AppNexus video demand with Mediavine inventory and delivers it to the user in a novel way. The integration also speaks to the power of using an open platform for video header bidding, like Prebid.js, allowing Mediavine to easily customize a powerful new user experience for their own video player while tapping into video demand from multiple partners. This kind of innovation adds to the value of our partnership with Mediavine, and we look forward to seeing them evolve their technology further with a goal of creating a better video internet,” said Eric Hoffert, SVP, Video Technology, AppNexus.

Also Read: AppNexus Sees Steep Rise in Video Business, with 230% Growth of RTB Video Spend

“Video adhesion has proven itself to be the perfect trifecta of balancing our publishers’ needs to monetize their videos, hitting advertisers’ goals for campaigns, and providing a less invasive experience for the user while adhering to the Initial Better Ads Standards as set by the Coalition for Better Ads. This unit is the ideal case study for how we aim to do business at Mediavine – bringing together the publisher, advertiser, and user in new, innovative ways that benefit everyone in the advertising chain,” said Phil Bohn, Senior Vice President, Sales and Revenue, Mediavine.

Also Read: Mediavine Achieves 86% Ads.txt Ad Request Rate

In addition to the new patent-pending video adhesion player, Mediavine offers native ad units, pre-roll video instream inventory, and custom content and packages that can be created for any advertiser across the company’s nearly 2.5 billion monthly impressions.

Recommended Read: Fast Forward Your Video Content Strategy in 2018

Telemundo Deportes Initiates 100-Day Countdown to the FIFA World Cup, Unveils Sponsors and Digital Partners

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March 13, 2018