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

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March 6, 2018

Infosys Research: Digital Disruption is Steering Enterprises from Core Modernization to Delivering Customer Delight

Digital Disruption Accelerates Improvements in Business Processes, Elevation in Customer Satisfaction, and Increase in Revenue and Business Growth

Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology, and next-generation services, released global research that provides insights into how and why organizations are adopting and investing in new digital technologies and strategies. The research report ‘How enterprises are steering through digital disruption’, was compiled by interviewing 1,000 senior IT and business decision-makers in organizations across seven countries.

Currently, enterprises are using digital technologies across a variety of areas in their core IT management (79 percent), business process management (60 percent) and customer relationship management (62 percent). This establishes digital-ready enterprises as those that are continuously investing in reinventing their businesses from the core including processes and systems, with as much enthusiasm as their customer touchpoints and journeys. The research also found that respondents’ organizations are looking to utilize digital technologies (if they haven’t already) across knowledge management (33 percent), operational intelligence (31 percent) and product development (28 percent).

Also Read: Harvard Professor Stefan Thomke Joins Optimizely Advisory Board as Company Momentum Continues

Disruptive digital technologies continue to equip enterprises to consume and analyze data to improve business, both by reimagining processes and experiences. 67 percent of organizations that participated in the study are leveraging big data analytics. Over half of these organizations have already made investments in deep learning algorithms of AI.

The research also revealed that customer-centric technology investments are among the top three priorities for all industries except Manufacturing and CPG. Life Sciences leads the way (86 percent investing in technology for patient centricity during clinical trials), followed by Retail (79 percent investing in augmented reality for virtual stores) and Banking (75 percent investing in opti-channel for better customer experience). These technologies are also among the top priorities in Insurance (to encourage insurance buying behavior), Utilities (for omnichannel customer engagement), healthcare (to predict the onset of health conditions) and Automotive (for connected cars).

Ravi Kumar S, President and Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Infosys, said, “The digital era presents enterprises with the unprecedented opportunity to reinvent their business from the core by continuously steering towards a more digital future guided by AI-powered insights to target the right opportunities to deeply automate, improve and even reimagine, both processes and experiences. A digital mindset enabled by rapid skill development and talent refactoring is vital to accelerate this transformation.”

Also Read: MarketStar Outlines Strategies for AdTech, Digital Media Companies

Key Findings

The technology trends highlighted below are expected to have the most positive impact on the organizations within the next three years.

Cybersecurity:

Almost 64 percent of respondents’ organizations have implemented cybersecurity to improve existing business operations, 53 percent to solve new business problems, whereas just 28 percent implemented cybersecurity to create new opportunities.
67 percent respondents from the automotive industry use cybersecurity for improving business, 57 percent to solve new business problems and 33 percent to create new opportunities.
38 percent of the life sciences sector respondents rank cyber security for protection of patient and trial data as the top trend.

The growth of data and its uses:

41 percent respondents in the banking industry believe that data analytics for deep personalization of products is the top trend that will have the most positive impact on their organization within the next three years.
The importance of understanding customer behavior is also apparent within the utility sector with 35 percent of respondents believing that investment in consumer analytics will have a positive impact on business.
52 percent of retail respondents believe that aligning marketing, campaigns and offers program spending with data analytics is a top trend.
For 38 percent respondents’ organizations in the insurance sector, the use of big data for a 360-degree view of the customer and to increase wallet share is seen as one of the top three trends.

Also Read: Four Tips to Design an Analytics Product that Democratizes Data

Modernization of processes:

This is seen as a key trend within the automotive industry to invest in digital supply chains, with 45 percent respondents ranking it among the top three trends, and 25 percent ranking it first. Of those that see investments in digital supply chain as a key trend, respondents estimate over 16 percent increase, in their organization’s global annual revenue as a result of improving this.
Almost 39 percent respondents within CPG cite investments in technologies to increase supply chain visibility.
Over 43 percent respondents from the healthcare industry believe that improving and modernizing electronic health record (EHR) systems is a top trend.

Automation & collaboration:

Digital technologies can be used with insurance products to update risk calculations immediately and provide more accurate underwriting outcomes. This may be a contributing factor for intelligent automation of underwriting being identified (by 38 percent) as a top trend in the insurance sector.
Almost 38 percent of respondents in the banking industry believe that open banking APIs can increase collaboration with other industry players and accelerate innovation. Further, 34 percent believe that by collaborating with technology partners, organizations in the banking industry have the potential to provide paperless trade finance to implement solutions using Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT).

Dynamic Yield Partners with ResponseTap to Create Engaging, Personalized Call Center Experiences

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March 6, 2018

Dynamic Yield Partners with ResponseTap to Create Engaging, Personalized Call Center Experiences

Partnership Between Dynamic Yield and ResponseTap Creates Cohesive Customer Journey Across Web, Apps, Email and Now Phone

Dynamic Yield, a leading Omnichannel Personalization technology stack and ResponseTap, Europe’s leading Call Intelligence platform, today announced a partnership that will allow brands to sync call center sessions to the rest of a user’s online experience.

Colton G. Perry — *Colton Perry, VP Channel, Dynamic Yield*

At the time of this announcement, Colton Perry, VP Channel at Dynamic Yield, said, “While digital and self-service continues to grow, call centers remain a major point of customer experience and interaction for brands across many verticals such financial services, travel and hospitality, media and telecommunications, online retail, and others.”

Colton added, “We’re excited to partner with ResponseTap to close the loop on customer interactions within call centers and add this channel to the Dynamic Yield platform.”

Currently, ResponseTap takes call tracking to another level and amplifies the depth and breadth of data across the end-to-end customer journey, creating relevance and insight at every click. The addition of the telephone call to your online metrics lets you see the whole journey, adding valuable sales attribution back to marketing while improving the overall customer experience.

With this partnership, ResponseTap will send information on call center interactions to Dynamic Yield which can then use that information to power relevant digital experiences. Furthermore, call center agents will receive real-time data allowing them to create concierge, 1:1 experiences for every customer.

Amongst the customers benefiting from applying the ResponseTap integration in their Dynamic Yield setup is Click & Go, one of Europe’s largest travel providers.

“The integration of ResponseTap with Dynamic Yield has enabled us to begin to close the attribution loop on website-to-phone call volume, conversions, and revenue associated with those calls,” said Peter Cullen, CMO of Click & Go.

Peter added, “The audience-based personalization technology provided by Dynamic Yield puts Click&Go in an excellent position to serve the appropriate regional phone number to the right profile of the user at the optimal moment, thus better qualifying the user for faster conversion if the user chooses to complete their booking by phone.”

“We only partner with the best,” says Nick Ashmore, VP of Marketing at ResponseTap.

Nick added, “For too long businesses have been guessing when it comes to reporting on and optimizing their inbound phone calls. With this partnership, we’re recognizing the ever-increasing importance of personalization across channels.”

Sample use cases made possible by the partnership include–

Deploy personalized onsite promotions and messaging based on call center interactions
- If a user inquires about an insurance package but doesn’t purchase on the phone, deploy a 15% off coupon onsite
Serve personalized recommendations based on call center interaction
- Recommend hotels onsite in a user’s travel destination after she books a flight over the phone
Trigger personalized email based on call-center interaction
Identify and tailor call center experiences for high high-value customers
Personalize web layout to emphasize phone support information for users with affinity towards purchasing on the phone

Currently, Dynamic Yield’s personalization technology stack helps marketers increase revenue by automatically personalizing each customer interaction across the web, mobile web, mobile apps and email. The company’s advanced customer segmentation engine uses machine learning to build actionable customer segments in real time, enabling marketers to take instant action via personalization, recommendations, automatic optimization & real-time messaging – in a single platform.

Impact Radius Unveils ‘Dynamic Payouts’ for Influencer Marketing Campaigns

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March 6, 2018

Impact Radius Unveils ‘Dynamic Payouts’ for Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Updated Feature from Impact Radius Manages Performance Marketing Relationships, Including Detailed Reports on Marketing Campaigns, Analysis, Tracking and Commission Payouts

Impact Radius has announced a key update to its Partner Manager Suite called “Dynamic Payouts”. Impact Radius is a natively-integrated suite of products for performance partnership marketing, ad fraud detection, media attribution, and analytics. By launching the new feature, the Partner Manager suite provider is enabling marketers to designate payouts in line with the specific value they want partners to drive. In turn, this produces stronger growth and increased efficiency, as marketers can tap into the true value of each partner relationship.

Through advanced analytics, automation of critical marketing workflows, real-time fraud protection and delivery of actionable insights, Impact Radius is raising marketing investment confidence to a new level.

Why Do Marketers Need Dynamics Payout from Impact Radius

With the rise of so many unique partnerships among content partners, including influencers, advertisers need the ability to structure different types of deals from how traditional affiliates are compensated. Sometimes an influencer who played a role in a consumer’s purchase decision was at the “top of the funnel” and doesn’t receive credit for their role in the sales conversion.

Dynamic Payouts enables users of the Impact Radius platform to more equitably account for partners that influenced and contributed to a sale but didn’t actually close it.

At the time of this announcement, Todd Crawford, Co-Founder & VP of Strategic Initiatives at Impact Radius, said, “What value means for one brand is often different from what it means for another.”

Todd added, “Dynamic Payouts is a smarter way to compensate partners, enabling advertisers to pay for what they value most, which is the spirit of performance-based relationships. Advertisers will now be able to compensate their partners in a fair and transparent way while maximizing value to their brand.”

Expanded Capabilities Available for Marketers to Leverage Partner Manager Suite

Partner Manager is Impact Radius’ offering that manages all performance marketing relationships. Dynamic Payouts is an update to Partner Manager’s Insertion Contracting capability and enables users of Impact Radius’ Partner Manager Suite to more equitably account for partners that influenced and contributed towards sales of goods or services.

Impact Radius has significantly improved the process of payouts by allowing users to set payouts based on more than 100 factors, such as customer status, margin, or the partner’s position in a conversion path which, in turn, incentivizes partners to drive higher-value sales.

Cori Pivar, Associate Director, Rise Interactive, said, “I think this release is going to change the affiliate industry, opening the door to traditional influencers who shy away from affiliate marketing because of the traditional last click model.”

Cori added, “There is a huge opportunity in the affiliate space to grow relationships with influencers, and this release will help us set up rules to ensure top of funnel partners are paid out correctly and fairly.”

Rise Interactive’s clients on the Impact Radius platform include Atkins, eFollett, Hickory Farms, Harry’s, RCN, and Ulta.

“The new IO system from Impact Radius will allow us to look at partnerships in ways we have never done before,” said Mike Currey, Affiliate Manager, T-Mobile.

Currently, Impact Radius is transforming the way advertisers handle media and performance marketing partnerships. The natively integrated suite of products enables digital brands and agencies to maximize their return on global marketing spend by providing a single trusted view into the consumer journey – including all marketing touch points, from initial ad impression through acquisition, and across all devices and channels.

Location is Most Important When it Comes to Digital Marketing

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Shawn Schwegman

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March 6, 2018

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One of the largest names in banking, JPMorgan Chase, got really smart about programmatic advertising last year. They realized that only 3% of websites they were placing ads on were leading to activity beyond impressions. They were spending advertising dollars on roughly 400,000 websites, and right now they’re spending money on just 5,000 websites. Is this impacting their results? No. Their performance did not change at all. You are probably thinking, “What?!” JPMorgan Chase learned what many companies are learning the hard way: “location” online is everything. Something changed when companies started transitioning to digital formats. They stopped paying attention to where ads were placed and focused almost exclusively on audience-based targeting. Now, savvy companies like Chase are realizing there is another, more important, piece to this equation.

Also Read: Mobile Proximity Marketing is Where it’s At – 5 Steps to Making it Work

Location Is #1

Marketers from years past relied heavily on location when talking about where to place a billboard or a physical store location, but now the majority of these marketers are failing to consider the location online while targeting display – i.e.: what websites they are running their ads on. Are you ever browsing on an automotive blog and see an ad for children’s toys and wonder “why in the world are they targeting me HERE?” MarketingWeek says that only 9% of display ads are viewed for more than one second. This is a CEO’s nightmare, as it screams “wasted money.”

What if your search ads were as irrelevant? You’d probably think Google was broken if you searched for “cell phones” and it showed you a bunch of results for diet food. So why should advertising be any different? CNBC reports that 58% of consumer packaged goods ads, and 51% of shopping and retail ads aren’t reaching the right audience. You wouldn’t see a billboard for a new convertible while driving through Alaska during winter, so why would you want to see something so irrelevant on the websites you’re visiting? And if you’re thinking that you’re getting some traction from those websites, we have some bad news. MediaPost says that 60% of website banner ad clicks are accidental. That means that 60% of people coming to your website from an ad don’t care about your product at all. In fact, 36 percent of ads are “run in places no human will ever have the opportunity to see.”

Also Read: Five Smart Campaigns To Make The Most Of GeoLocation

Put Your Focus On The Right Funnels

You’re likely familiar with marketing funnels, and your marketing team likely spends a large amount of time deciding which funnel to prioritize. But, change your way of traditional thinking, and think of display not just as part of the marketing funnel, but as its own funnel altogether. When done properly, display ads can be used for top-of-funnel awareness and last-click conversions. Thinking about display ads in this way helps marketers understand the larger network effect as it relates to the marketing funnel.

Design location targeting to map to your display funnel – top, middle and bottom. Be pessimistic at the bottom, and even middle, of your funnels, but optimistic at the top. Websites that convert should be moved to your whitelist for bottom and middle. The hard problem is that most of the websites you should be using are outside your scope of view.

Also Read: Location Will Be Used To Enhance More Aspects Of The Shopping Journey

How Do We Fix This?

Targeting the right customers online is only half the battle. To achieve the highest return on investment, marketers must go beyond simply knowing who to target. Targeting where customers buy online, plus knowing your target customer, yields massive lifts in revenue.

Location matters far MORE than audience because it represents purchase (or buying) intent. Start by identifying the right location – utilize audience insights, an AI-based customer acquisition platform, and a little bit of common sense. Then, identify the right location. Fueled by AI, leveraging a software platform to help acquire customers will help you better understand the “network effect” and make better decisions with your marketing dollars.

Being smart about where you’re putting your marketing dollars, and having an adaptive marketing plan, is the key to increasing your marketing performance and eliminating wasted spend. Smart marketers understand this and realize that they have to leverage new technologies, specifically AI-based products, to ensure they’re reaching the customers who are most likely to buy. This not only eliminates wasted spend on non-converting ads but allows marketers to find new prospects and grow market share. Quality, rather than quantity, traffic delivers incremental results and leaves sellers and consumers in a much more favorable place.

Also Read: Hitting The Spot with Location Data

Waterline Data Launches New Platform to Address Big Data’s Growing Volume and Complexity

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March 6, 2018

Waterline Data Launches New Platform to Address Big Data's Growing Volume and Complexity

New GDPR Application for the Waterline Data Platform Provides Deep-Level Automated Assistance with GDPR Compliance

Waterline Data, a global leader in data cataloging solutions and applications, recently unveiled the Waterline Metadata Discovery Platform, a highly scalable solution designed to help the petabyte enterprise dramatically accelerate the discovery, governance and use of big data. Based on advanced data virtualization technology, the new solution serves as a platform for multiple applications, from data cataloging for analytics to the newly launched GDPR compliance application.

“As the second largest bank in Germany, Commerzbank has a huge data estate spanning multiple business units across multiple countries. The Waterline Data platform is crucial to our enterprise-wide big data initiative. By discovering our petabytes of data with automation and machine learning, Waterline Data makes it possible to surface, organize and use the bank’s data across all our business entities, so that we can gain new insight where it wasn’t possible before,” said Kerem Tomak, EVP and Divisional Board Member, Big Data and Advanced Analytics at Commerzbank.

Also Read: AI, Big Data And Digital Transformation – And The Potential ‘Buzzword Backlash’

The Waterline Metadata Discovery Platform was designed to resolve the challenges of high volume and dissimilar data by creating a real-time, virtual view of the enterprise’s entire data estate as new data pours in. Waterline’s new platform is able to power a host of applications and use cases. The Smart Data Catalog, the first application available on the platform, is already deployed in some of the largest organizations in the world. It provides an easy to use “shop for data” interface to the enterprise’s data estate to help business analysts find the data sets they need for self-service analytics without having to rely on IT.

Waterline’s GDPR Application, a new app specifically built for the platform and available now, provides the Data Privacy Officer (DPO) and data stewards with deep-level assistance in complying with GDPR and other regulations by automatically identifying regulated subject data along with its contextual use and lineage. In addition to enabling integrated access control mechanisms that render data compliant at scale, the GDPR Application can quickly generate highly complex GDPR compliance reports and workflows that align with specific GDPR articles to immediately satisfy auditor requests.

Also Read: 3 Reasons Why Marketers Should Welcome GDPR (Other Than Because It’s Required!)

“With the GDPR due to come into effect in a matter of days, many global enterprises are looking for shortcuts to ensure that they can fulfill their requirements by May 25. Automatic detection of regulated data, as well as its usage and lineage, is a potential key capability in enabling enterprises to quickly respond to GDPR reporting and audit requirements and identify compliance risks,” commented Matt Aslett, Research Director, Data Platforms and Analytics, 451 Research.

Waterline Data CEO Alex Gorelik, added, “With this discovery platform, we are uniquely enabling customers to analyze and classify high volumes of complex data and leverage the results across many different applications. The Waterline Smart Data Catalog and GDPR Application, which address two of today’s most critical use cases, will be followed by additional applications in the upcoming months. Altogether, our new platform and growing suite of apps can connect the right people to the right data by giving anyone—data privacy officers, data engineers, data scientists and business analysts—self-service access to trusted, high-quality data that’s fully governed and GDPR-compliant.”

Vertebrae Delivers Augmented Reality at Scale for ‘Power Rangers’ 25th Anniversary Campaign

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March 6, 2018

Vertebrae Delivers Augmented Reality at Scale for ‘Power Rangers’ 25th Anniversary Campaign

Saban’s Power Rangers Ad Campaign Marks First Multi-Environment Augmented Reality Experience on Mobile Web

With Saban Brands, Vertebrae, the leading augmented and virtual reality platform, has unveiled the first multi-environment mobile Web Augmented Reality (AR) ad experience as part of the official twenty-fifth-anniversary campaign for Saban’s Power Rangers, the iconic superhero franchise.

Currently, Vertebrae is the leading augmented and virtual reality advertising platform enabling marketers to captivate and engage audiences with immersive media at scale. Major brands and agencies work with the Vertebrae platform to create and deploy AR & VR ads across the largest immersive audiences available.

Janet Hsu, CEO at Saban Brands — *Janet Hsu, CEO, Saban Brands*

At the time of this announcement, Janet Hsu, CEO, Saban Brands, said, “With Vertebrae, we are able to widely distribute this multi-faceted experience built specifically for the fans to bring Saban’s Power Rangers to life through an innovative mobile AR campaign.”

Janet added, “Since the ‘Power Rangers’ premiere in 1993, fans have imagined themselves as Rangers and with this immersive experience, fans can put themselves in the Rangers’ helmets to unleash their inner superhero, right on their mobile devices.”

Vince Cacace, CEO, Vertebrae, said, “This is the most sophisticated Web augmented reality ad campaign to date, and people can experience it at scale.”

Vince added, “Historically AR has not been accessible at scale but Vertebrae’s AR ad units work on premium publisher sites across the mobile Web, bringing Saban’s Power Rangers’ AR experience to hundreds of millions of people across the US.”

Launched on premium publisher sites across Safari and Chrome mobile browsers on March 5, 2018, this first-of-its-kind interactive AR experience allows fans to morph into their favorite Power Ranger and teleport to the Command Center. The mobile Web AR experience is part of Saban Brands’ “You’ve Got the Power” campaign leading up to the Power Rangers’ official 25th anniversary on August 28, 2018.

From its inception, Vertebrae was built to support virtual and augmented reality advertising for the next generation of immersive media. Vertebrae’s Web AR offering leverages proprietary FACE® and SPACE® augmented reality technologies.

FACE® uses front-facing camera and proprietary computer vision technology (face mapping, gesture recognition, and green screen), and allows people to virtually try-on objects and simulate animated experiences.

SPACE® uses a rear-facing camera and computer vision technology (markerless point and surface tracking) and allows people to place objects in their physical environments like placing a car in a driveway or a coffee maker in a kitchen.

Cacace added, “Web AR marketing needs to have utility and provide an engaging and personalized experience for a consumer on the path to purchase. We’re excited to help Saban Brands develop an interactive relationship with its global audience, by allowing Power Rangers fans to take part in and be the star of the experience.”

Currently, Power Rangers is celebrating 25 continuous years on the air, making it one of the longest-running kids’ live-action series in television history with nearly 900 episodes aired to date. Created by Haim Saban and launched in 1993 with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the franchise celebrates its milestone anniversary year with the 25^th season, “Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel” currently airing on Saturdays at 12 p.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon in the US.

Following its introduction, “Power Rangers” quickly became the most-watched television program in the United States and remains one of the top-rated and longest-running kids’ live-action series in television history. The series, currently in its 25^th season, follows the adventures of a group of ordinary teens who morph into superheroes and save the world from evil. It is seen in more than 150 markets, translated into numerous languages and a favorite on many key international children’s programming blocks around the world.

Salesforce Einstein Analytics Unveils Conversational Queries to Simplify Data

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March 6, 2018

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Salesforce Einstein Analytics Unveils Conversational Queries to Simplify Data

Using Salesforce Einstein Analytics’ Conversational Queries, Users Can Ask Questions to Derive Actionable Insights and Determine How Their Sales Efforts Churn Results

According to a recent blog from Salesforce, the company has expanded the capabilities of their AI-powered Einstein Analytics platform with a complete set of analytics and data-based insights. Salesforce Einstein Analytics now features a totally new capability, branded as Conversational Queries. With Conversational Queries, users can derive more accurate information related to their data by simply typing keywords, such as “top accounts,” “rank accounts”, or “marketing dashboards”.

Currently available in beta, Conversational Queries provides an innovative way to explore data and get answers to questions faster, eliminating clicks and the training required to create and drill down into charts.

The new capability is focussed at any business user who is exploring answers from their data. All one needs to do is, ‘type a question.’

Using Salesforce Einstein Analytics’ Conversational Queries, users can ask questions to derive actionable insights and determine how their sales efforts churn results.

Key Features of Conversational Queries

Smart Search using Keywords

Type a related word in the search bar of the dashboard, and Einstein Analytics would display all the available data in charts.

Visual History

Rewind and refocus on all the data sets that you previously looked into. Einstein Analytics helps the user to identify the exact chronology of the questions that were asked to arrive at an insight, rather than tinkering over the data points for long.

In short, Einstein actually leads you through your data pool, navigating through your visual history.

Branded as a Conversational UI based on Artificial Intelligence, Salesforce Einstein Analytics platform’s Conversational Queries simplifies the way customers leverage data to make smarter business decisions.

We are already surfing over a barrage of voice search technologies that makes conversational UIs look ready for adoption in a CMO’s stack. While Siri, Alexa, Facebook Messenger and Slack bots make it easy for marketers to access information in a smart way, Conversational Queries from Salesforce inspires a more realistic, less cluttered interaction with Salesforce Data. With the arrival of Einstein’s Conversational Queries, the Customer Experience models used in Data Management and Analytics platforms now have something new to look up to.

Mapbox Launches Global Reality-Grade AR Location Platform

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March 6, 2018

Mapbox Launches Global Reality-Grade AR Location Platform

Mapbox Builds Unique Location Experiences Leveraging Highly Customizable Open Source Buildings Blocks and Flexible Licensing of High-Quality Location Data

As static 2D maps fade away with the bezels of mobile phones, the future interfaces for navigation and gaming exist in augmented reality. App developers need new frameworks and reality-grade location data to build the next generation of spatially-enabled augmented reality experiences. Mapbox AR is the first comprehensive toolkit combining AR rendering software with global location data that’s ready for today’s production applications and tomorrow’s dream concepts — built on the living location platform used by over 1 million registered developers, including AR vanguards like FitnessAR and Keep.

From projecting navigation routes in context on an automotive heads-up display to mobile multi-player gaming, interacting with real-world buildings and points of interest, Mapbox AR enables a completely new level of AR applications and gameplay. Reality-grade location data includes a global navigable map that is constantly evolving with usage; 125 million points of interest from sources including Foursquare; and custom 3D building footprints optimized for dynamic interaction, international land use and terrain coverage — all made available at scale through developer-friendly SDKs and APIs, including the Unity Maps SDK.

Also Read: Meet the Jetsons: Are We As Close to Achieving Control Over AI As We Thought?

Mapbox AR’s reality-grade location platform includes top developer features:

Live location data: Popularity of locations determined by anonymized place visit data aggregated from over 300 million users a month allows for gameplay to adjust based on when and where people are present.
3D digital elevation model: A global mesh including real terrain height. This elevation data is tiled into small pieces to make it distributable at scale with low latency around the globe; updates are dynamic.
Multi-user, multiplayer support: Using the distance, angle, and position of the selected plane allows users interact and collaborate in real time, knowing the position of other devices by building up a 3D model of the device’s relative position and share this data between devices — the first multi-user AR experience built using the Maps SDK for Unity.
125 million places: A geotaggers’ world atlas of locations and categories of the most interesting places and the routes that people follow between them in every country in the world, letting app developers interact with real-world businesses and landmarks using updated data from Foursquare and Factual.
Satellite imagery compression for low bandwidth environments: Gauge bandwidth by testing the download speed and adjust compression automatically.
Rooftop UV mapping: UV map procedurally generated polygons for 3D texture modeling process for projecting a 2D image to a 3D surface.
High-resolution land cover and land use data classification: From NASA satellite imagery to identifying unique land cover classes ranging from parks to beaches to bodies of water to industrial areas, this is data that powers gameplay logic.
32-bit vertex mesh support: Loads entire cities, rendering tens of thousands of buildings into a single game object.

“AR isn’t just a catchy trend in Silicon Valley — the future of how we experience the world around us is going to change with the applications developers are building in AR today. We want to provide the best possible tools for joining augmented experiences to the world around us. As the first platform to provide true global reality-grade data, we cannot wait to see what developers build and are excited to help accelerate the transition from static maps to entirely new experiences,” said Eric Gundersen, CEO of Mapbox.

Also Read: How is The Location Data Landscape Shaping Up in 2018?

Anshel Sag, associate analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, added, “It’s no secret that Mapbox is betting big on AR and VR. With the release of the Unity Maps SDK last year, Mapbox introduced a toolkit for developers to use real-world location in their games and applications. After raising $164 million from Softbank last year, Mapbox strengthened their AR offering with the acquisition of Mapdata, a Minsk-based AI mapping company and FitnessAR, a popular AR app that visualizes bike rides and runs in AR. Some of the largest game studios in the world are also rumored to be working on location-aware games built leveraging the rich location data from Mapbox and their Unity Maps SDK.”

Use cases powered by Mapbox AR include:

Multi-user trip planning: Plan your next city trip with a friend simultaneously from different locations. Interact with a shared 3D map, projected in each of your living rooms, users can each plot their points of interest (POIs) on a beautiful map of the city. Any adjustments made to the itinerary are visible in real time.
Real-time asset tracking: Using the camera viewfinder of an iPhone, a user can scan a delivery ticket from a shipping company to see a 3D AR real-time map. The user can track their item’s delivery on the truck as it weaves through the busy streets of Shanghai, providing an accurate estimated time of arrival.
Intuitive turn-by-turn navigation: Wearable-ready turn-by-turn instructions for exploring a new city to find the best coffee spots, by simply following arrows that hover along the user’s path.
Multiplayer AR gaming: Track your character through the city, charging up by visiting restaurants and landing spaceships in parks aligned with pedestrian paths.
Interactive city tours: Follow historic characters in their footsteps, and scenes from history appear to unfold throughout the city.
Seamless pick-ups for ridesharing: No need to try to read a license plate to identify your ride share in a busy street; see the driver coming up from a distance with a large halo around her car and clear visual indicator.

Mapbox’s location platform and SDKs enable companies like Bosch, Snap, Lonely Planet, Under Armour, Tableau, DoorDash, The Weather Channel, and Hotels.com to connect people with each other and the world around them. With over 1 million registered developers, Mapbox has a strong follower base of developers that want to build unique location experiences leveraging their highly customizable open source buildings blocks and flexible licensing of high-quality location data.

Movable Ink and Persado Partner to Build AI-Powered Personalized Content Engagements

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March 6, 2018

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Movable Ink and Persado Partner to Build AI-Powered Personalized Content Engagements

Movable Ink and Persado Unite the Power of Precise Language and Emotion with Real-Time Content Testing and Optimization

Movable Ink, a leading intelligent content platform, and Persado, a leading provider of AI-generated marketing language, today announced a collaborative partnership to help brands generate and test personalized content within email campaigns to build meaningful customer relationships and increase engagement and conversions.

By combining Persado’s AI-powered solution for generating the specific words and emotions that resonate with a given audience with Movable Ink’s real-time testing and optimization, email marketers can automatically generate and deploy the best-performing content every time for every customer.

At the time of this announcement, Vivek Sharma, CEO of Movable Ink, said, “Effective, high-touch personalization is becoming more important and more challenging than ever as brands must cater to the interests, context, behaviors, emotions, and preferences of every individual customer. Persado understands and has tackled this challenge extremely well.”

According to an October 2017 report by Forrester Research, Vendor Landscape: Personalization Solution Providers, Q3 2017, 78 percent of the US online adults have chosen, recommended or paid more for a brand that has personalized an experience or service. With Movable Ink’s intelligent content platform, marketers can leverage data from numerous sources to power real-time personalization that drives performance, increases productivity and deliver compelling consumer experiences.

Persado’s Marketing Language Cloud allows marketers to take advantage of Persado’s deep learning algorithms to generate the language that best resonates with customers, as well as create an emotional marketing response profile for audiences and individual customers.

Through this partnership, brands can now use both Persado’s and Movable Ink’s technology to combine personalized language and emotion with intelligent content, generate calls-to-action that drive urgency and create persuasive email subject lines and email body content that drive performance.

Persado CEO Alex Vratskides added, “With Movable Ink, we’ve found a partner that shares a common vision and track record of enabling brands to create the kind of content and experiences that build long long-term customer relationships and loyalty.”

Here’s what one of their joint customers had to say –“The combined power of Movable Ink and Persado help to serve our audiences messages that connect on a personal and emotional level,” said Carrie Gouldin, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft. “Persado and Movable Ink are making it easy to bring data-driven language to the forefront of marketing automation.”

Movable Ink and Persado will work together to provide brands with these benefits —

Language Optimization

Persado’s deep learning algorithms generate language variations and determine the most relevant use of emotions, symbols, formatting, calls-to-action, and positioning to increase engagement and conversions for every individual customer.

Testing Automation

Movable Ink’s intelligent content platform automatically generates multiple content variants in real-time, allowing email marketers to quickly set up and execute experiments that outperform traditional A/B testing approaches.

Maximum Efficiency

With Persado and Movable Ink, marketers can reduce the time, effort, and friction associated with experiment setup and execution. Movable Ink ingests Persado’s language variations and sets up experiments using only one HTML image embed code with no required segmentation.

The partnership will be available to current customers immediately, giving brands access to both Movable Ink and Persado’s features.

Webinar World TechBytes with Amy Holtzman, VP, Marketing, Splash

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March 6, 2018

Amy Holtzman
VP, Marketing, Splash

The foremost question at the ongoing Webinar World’18 is -‘How to put the personal back in marketing,’ – with a focus on how to build context-based campaigns and deliver events that put the customer first and foster authentic engagement between the audience and the brand. In the run-up to the event, we spoke to martech thought leaders speaking at the event. We spoke to Amy Holtzman, VP, Marketing, Splash, to understand How Splash leverages webinars for client interactions and demand generation.

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Tell us about your role at Splash and the marketing technologies you and your team use.

I oversee marketing at Splash, which breaks down to brand, demand generation, content, product marketing, and customer marketing. Our core technologies include Splash (events, landing pages, email promotions), ON24 (webinars), Marketo (marketing automation), Salesforce (CRM), Google Analytics (website metrics) and we’ve recently added BrightFunnel (multi-touch attribution) and Guru (knowledge management/sales enablement)

What brings you to ON24 Webinar World 2018?

The caliber of attendees and quality of content!!!

I came last year and was so impressed by both that I wanted to come back and bring more people from my team.

Why do you see webinars as a key component of a modern CMO’s martech stack?

Reach.

It’s hard to touch everyone through face-to-face and/or 1-to-1 interactions, which are what move the needle best for us. Webinars are the next best thing. Because of this, they are a key component of both our demand strategy as well as our client education initiatives.

How should a B2B marketer better leverage webinar marketing tools for effective lead generation?

Webinars are great at the very top of the funnel for net-new demand gen, especially if you align them with a good media partner or other paid campaigns. They are also incredibly effective mid-funnel to keep your prospects engaged and educated throughout their buying journey.

At Splash, how do you leverage data from your webinar marketing campaigns?

On the demand generation side, webinar data helps us understand the interests and intentions of our prospects and helps us prioritize highly engaged contacts for follow-up. On the customer education side, it helps us understand knowledge gaps, product/feature interest/adoption, and our most loyal/active users.

Thanks for chatting with us, Amy.
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

Interview with Jocelyn Brown, VP, Customer Success, Allocadia

By

Rohan Jagan

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March 6, 2018

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

[mnky_testimonial_slider slide_speed=”3″][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“I think there is going to be more tech (possibly soon followed by less,) a greater need for strong operations to support the explosion of tools and data, a focus on enablement as buyers require insight and intelligent discourse.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

Tell us a little bit about your role at Allocadia.

I am the VP of Customer Success at Allocadia. The mission of my team is to make Marketing Performance Management real for our customers. That means working right alongside every customer as they move through their journey from purchase, to onboarding, through adoption and value realization. I am responsible for making sure that journey is as smooth as possible and that customers are getting ongoing and increasing value from our solution over time.

What draws you The MarTech Conference?

It brings together one of the largest groups of Marketing Operations professionals in one place. It’s an opportunity to learn from them – what is on their minds, what problems they are solving now, and what problems they want to solve in the future. Most importantly it is a chance for me to share the stage with our customer David Cohen from Palo Alto Networks and promote the great work he has been doing to drive visibility, accountability, and trust with finance within his marketing organization.

Which sessions at the MarTech Conference would you recommend and why?

So naturally I think everyone should come to my session where David will speak about how his team has become a trusted partner of finance and really raised the credibility of marketing but I suppose I should suggest a few others. There are three that really caught my attention.

Product-led vs Sales-led Marketing….Wait? What? Where’s the Customer?

This one appeals to me because I think that marketing and sales in B2B software is undergoing a major change once again as the buyer expectations and requirements have changed. My friend Steve Woods from Nudge has been publishing this great series called #HowIBuy where he interviews execs about how they evaluate and buy product and services. More that ever buyers are being influenced by their network and their experience with trying a product. This changes the dynamic and the role for sales and marketing in the truly buyer-led journey.

Flawed to Formidable with Robin Matlock of VMWare

I am always going to be a fan of a customer-centric approach to marketing but that is no easy task to implement at a company the size of VMWare growing at the pace that they do. Looking forward to hearing some great advice from a marketing organization I have had the opportunity to work with at two companies now.

The Go-To-Market Stack: Unifying Marketing, Sales and Customer Operations

This is a topic near and dear to me as a Customer Success leader. Only recently have we had any real technology options to properly scale our business. But there is no sense operating in a vacuum so I am keen to hear from other leaders how they are bringing these valuable data sources and systems together to orchestrate a seamless and high value customer experience.

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

If you want my attention you need to solve my problem not sell me software. What I need more than anything is insight and whether you bring that directly to me or connect me with a peer, I need you to show me that you understand what I am trying to accomplish and you have something new to share with me on how I can get there (and peer connects are a good way to do that.) I would also suggest that you focus on your listening skills and empathy.

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

I think there is going to be more tech (possibly soon followed by less,) a greater need for strong operations to support the explosion of tools and data, a focus on enablement as buyers require insight and intelligent discourse, and I think it’s going to become harder. Just doing more is not going to get you there….you need to do it far better.

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

Our mission is to bring confidence to EVERY marketer so we are segment agnostic. We want to help every marketer make smart decisions by having control over their core operating data of plans, spend and ROI.

What startups are you watching/keen on right now?

I don’t really follow startups per se but rather people who I can learn from. That said in general I am consuming more about AI because it is going to impact all of us in some way.

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

I think you need to test, to understand where it can add value versus where it might detract from value, and be open to the idea that people’s roles will change. The good news is that I think we will see inherently human skills like empathy and relationship building be truly valued.

One word that best describes how you work.

I think the nice way of putting it is that I work with curiosity or a learning mindset. I am sincerely curious about what everyone else is working on so can tend to bounce around a lot. It means I learn a lot but the downside to this that I can sometimes lack focus.

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

Slack, LinkedIn, Salesforce and Nudge fill my day. Most of my time is focused on talking to people – internal, customers, future customers and my peers. These are the tools that give me the ability to make all of those interactions meaningful.

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

I cannot remember who shared it with me but anything that I am copied on goes into a folder that I only review twice a day. It helps me focus on the things that are meant for my attention and cuts down dramatically on my active inbox. More often than not things I am copied on get solved before I even get to reading them. It does take a little time for people who work for me to realize that if you want my attention you have to address me directly. Everything else is just noise and generally, customers do not put me in the copy line if they need something so my top priority always lands in my inbox.

What are you currently reading?

I have just started Katherine Graham’s autobiography. After seeing The Post I was compelled to learn more. I also considered journalism as a path at some point in my life and still love pretty much everything about newspapers (very analog I know.) I also almost always have a mystery or suspense novel on the go, typically written by a Scot….not sure why.

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

This one is tough, mostly because I have a terrible memory for this type of stuff. Rather than advice, I will say that the leaders I have admired the most in my career are those who put the customer at the center of everything we did. It’s more a way of operating than a piece of advice but it has had a huge impact on my career and how I operate.

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

If only I knew the answer to this one.

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

Click Here To Register for The MarTech Conference

Also Read: MarTech RADAR 2018: Top 150 B2B Technology Companies You Should Follow

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Jocelyn” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46cc47-0785″]

Jocelyn thrives in the fast-paced world of software and loves the challenge of demonstrating the business value of marketing. She is driven by being surrounded by intelligent and motivated people like her peers and customers, and is fortunate to find both throughout her career at DoubleClick, Eloqua, Oracle Marketing Cloud and now Allocadia.

Jocelyn is a customer experience professional with extensive experience in revenue performance management (RPM), marketing automation, demand generation, sales enablement, online media, and media services.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Allocadia” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46cc47-0785″]

Allocadia

Allocadia today serves more than 10,000 marketers worldwide and manages over $20B in marketing investments. Leading marketing organizations at over 150 companies including Microsoft, Philips Lighting, GE Healthcare, Red Hat and Charles Schwab use Allocadia’s Marketing Performance Management enterprise software to #RunMarketing. Allocadia has raised $30 million in funding since its inception to help on its mission to bring confidence to every marketer in the world, and create a world where marketers make every dollar count.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]

[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.

Profisee Announces Attendance at Gartner’s Data & Analytics Summit 2018

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 6, 2018

Profisee Announces Attendance at Gartner's Data & Analytics Summit 2018

Scott Ackerman, of Red Robin, a Profisee Customer, Will Be Speaking at the Summit

Profisee, a leading modern data management technology company, announced recently they will be at Gartner’s Data & Analytics Summit 2018. Data and analytics leaders are fueling digital transformation, creating monetization opportunities, improving the customer experience and reshaping industries. The Gartner Data & Analytics Summit provides the tools to build on the fundamentals of data management, business intelligence (BI), and analytics; harness innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT); and accelerate the shift toward a data-driven culture to lead the way to better business outcomes.

Also Read: Periscope Data to Showcase End-to-End Analytics Platform at Gartner Data & Analytics Summit 2018

Profisee Customer – Red Robin Speaking at the Summit

Scott Ackerman, Vice President of IT at Red Robin, a Profisee customer, will be speaking at the conference on: “Red Robin: Managing What’s On The Menu.” Ackerman says, “Our goal is to use data as a strategic asset. We are on a multi-year journey that starts with building a foundation for menu and recipe data to create a single source of truth. Profisee has provided Red Robin the technology to master critical data, enabling speed, flexibility, accuracy and opportunity cost. We are excited to share our initial success for menu, recipe and regional hierarchy, as well as the next steps in our data journey.”

Also Read: Eight Trends in Commerce and Digital Marketing to Look Forward to in 2018

Partner Program Accelerates Profisee Growth Strategy

Profisee has signed 15 new business partners in recent months. Greg O’Sullivan, SVP Global Partner Alliances & Channels shares, “We are really pleased with our rapid acceleration in the growth of the Profisee Partner Program. We have a clear directive to grow and scale Profisee, and that will happen with further expansion of our partner ecosystem including Consulting Services Firms, Resellers and ISV partnerships.

Profisee is a leading enterprise data management company that makes it easy and affordable for any size organization to ensure a trusted data foundation. The Profisee Advantage approach allows companies to leverage enterprise multi-domain data management capability, without limits on users, data volume or sources. Profisee’s unique Total Cost Ownership model leads the master data management industry.

Recommended Read: Are You Ready for The Revenue Summit ’18?

Akamai to Use Eurofins Digital Testing to Test and Measure Video QoE for Its Worldwide Customers

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March 6, 2018

Akamai to Use Eurofins Digital Testing to Test and Measure Video QoE for Its Worldwide Customers

This Comprehensive and Objective Dataset Will Allow Akamai and Eurofins to Uniquely Advise Their Customers on Playback Issues That Affect OTT QoE

Eurofins Digital Testing, a global leader in end-to-end quality assurance (QA) and testing services, recently announced that it will provide Akamai Technologies Inc. with extensive research into OTT quality-of-experience (QoE), giving both Eurofins and Akamai customers an objective dataset to help inform OTT workflow decisions.

Specifically, Eurofins and Akamai have developed a way of understanding OTT QoE by running extensive frame-by-frame capturing and automated testing of multiple encoding profiles on a variety of playback devices such as smart TVs and mobile phones, whilst simulating common conditions seen in the Internet. This comprehensive and objective dataset will allow Akamai and Eurofins to uniquely advise their customers on playback issues that affect OTT QoE and measures to help improve the viewer experience.

“Akamai is recognized as one of the most relied upon leaders for innovative, next-gen content delivery across various devices and platforms. Objectively measuring perceptual visual quality is critical when assessing QoE for streaming video, and we’re proud to be working with Akamai in assuring display QoE for its customers around the globe,” said Johan Craeybeckx, Business Line Director at Eurofins Digital Testing International.

Also Read: Akamai Content Delivery Network Now Available to Enterprises on the IBM Cloud

Ian Munford, Director of Product Marketing, Media Solutions at Akamai, added, “Akamai maintains its leadership position through a deep understanding of our media customers, their challenges and the landscape in which they operate. Developing innovative ways to get a clear and unbiased understanding of online QoE such as this helps us to empower our media customers. Information like this will offer a real competitive advantage and help our customers make informed decisions as they plan their distribution strategies. Eurofins delivered a comprehensive QoE analysis framework, which has provided a rich set of valuable video streaming QoE metrics and insights. This is vital information that the media industry is crying out for.”

Eurofins Digital Testing helps TV operators worldwide reduce development, testing and deployment cycles to accelerate service delivery, and support a more continuous delivery environment. Through its suite of automated test tools, professional testing support services, staffing of onsite personnel, and training, Eurofins helps increase test coverage and consistency to provide service validation, insights into the end-user experience, and performance monitoring for quality assurance.

Recommended Read: OTT Explosion Provides Safe Platform For Marketers

Quantcast Appoints Meredith Long As Chief Revenue Officer Of North America

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March 6, 2018

Quantcast appoints Meredith Long as Chief Revenue Officer of North America

Former Senior Vice President and General Manager of News, Luxury & Style at Time Inc. Meredith Long Will Lead Quantcast’s Largest Market to Help Brands Grow

Quantcast, the world’s largest AI-driven audience behavior platform for the open Internet, today announced the appointment of Meredith Long as Chief Revenue Officer for North America. In this executive role, Long will lead the company’s North American sales organization, the company’s largest market. Based in the company’s New York office, she will report to Quantcast’s Chief Operating Officer Rob Horler.

Also Read: Quantcast Appoints Data-Driven Marketing Leader Steven Wolfe Pereira as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

An industry leader and a 2016 recipient of the American Advertising Federation (AAF)’s Hall of Achievement award, Long most recently served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of News, Luxury & Style at Time Inc. She was responsible for Time Inc. brands including TIME, Fortune, Money, InStyle, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure and Departures, leading overall financial and strategic performance. She also managed the brands’ major franchises and live events including the annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, TIME 100 and the Fortune Live Media Division, which includes Fortune Most Powerful Women, the Fortune Global Forum, CEO Initiative, Brainstorm Tech and many more. She currently serves on the AAF’s Hall of Achievement Executive Committee and is the President of New York Women in Communications (NYWICI.)

Also Read: DoubleClick, Sizmek, Kenshoo Feature in G2 Crowd’s Best Cross-Channel Advertising Software Rankings

Long says she’s “thrilled to be joining this incredibly talented team!,” adding, “Brands are facing a growth crisis and they are looking for real partners that they can trust to help them know their audience. There are few partners that can truly help brands grow today and Quantcast is one of them. Having built the “behavior graph”, Quantcast has the Internet-scale 1st party data, the self-adapting predictive models and the unmatched AI automation and optimization that provides insights, targeting and measurement solutions for audience intelligence.”

Also Read: Ranker.com Launches Audience Insights Platform, Ranker Insights

Talking about Long, Horler said, “There are few executives across media, marketing and advertising that have the breadth and depth of experience in helping brands grow like Meredith. She has worked with C-suite, marketing and agency executives for years and has become a trusted partner and advisor to brand marketers. She also understands the challenges and opportunities for brand publishers, having been the Group Publisher of TIME, Fortune and Money where she drove overall profit YOY, expanding revenue across video, digital and print. This all comes down to talent and Meredith is a proven leader who knows how to build high performing teams that build strategic partnerships and drive growth. She’s an outstanding addition to the Quantcast family.”

S4M Co-founder Stanislas Coignard Takes Over As US CEO to Focus On US Expansion

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MTS Staff Writer

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March 5, 2018

Previously Chief Strategy Officer, Stanislas Coignard Co-Founded S4M with Global CEO, Christophe Collet in 2011

S4M, mobile advertising technology experts, specializing in drive-to-store campaigns, announces moves by senior leadership for offices in the US. Stanislas Coignard, previously Chief Strategy Officer at S4M’s headquarters in Paris, France, will now take over the leadership of the company’s expansion in the Americas as US CEO.

Coignard co-founded S4M with Global CEO, Christophe Collet in 2011 and has been leading the company’s strategy since. He will oversee S4M’s operations in the US and LATAM markets. To meet this growth, he will also be doubling the teams for both the New York and Miami offices in 2018.

Also Read: S4M Names Andy McNab As New UK Managing Director

S4M Co-founder Stanislas Coignard Takes over as US CEO to Focus on US Expansion — Stanislas Coignard

“Our technology, FUSIO by S4M, brings a compelling value proposition to the market as the only platform that can attribute digital media investments with real-world impact. I am confident that our solution, founded on transparency and independent 3rd-party accreditations, like the MRC, is a huge advantage for marketers in a hyper-competitive landscape,” explains Coignard, now US CEO of S4M.

Also Read: S4M Partners With Factual to Measure Foot Traffic In-Store

Pierre-Emmanuel Padiou, a company insider, is also moving from S4M’s head office in France to the New York office as Head of Sales East Coast. Previously, he held various roles within the company ranging from VP Sales France and VP Sales EMEA. He has a successful track record of driving growth and development for S4M into five key European markets. He will now spearhead the growth of S4M’s customer base and build key relationships for the company’s development across the Atlantic.

Also Read: S4M Appoints Scott Dornblaser as SVP Sales for the Americas

S4M – Shopper Marketing Made Easy – is the first and only mobile advertising technology that connects brands to consumers by bridging the gap between digital advertising and the real-world. S4M created a mobile-first technology that is unique in the industry to be accredited by the MRC (Media Rating Council) on the entire mobile user journey. The platform empowers brands with full transparency and control in their mobile data supply chain from mobile programmatic buying to consumer conversion in apps, mobile sites, and physical points of sales.

The UK’s Largest Hubspot Partner – The B2B Marketing Lab – Moves Into New Central London Office

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March 5, 2018

The UK's Largest Hubspot Partner - The B2B Marketing Lab - Moves Into New Central London Office

The Move into New Larger Premises Comes After the Inbound Marketing Consultancy Was Recognised as the UK’s Most Successful HubSpot Partner

Growth-driven marketing consultancy, The B2B Marketing Lab recently announced the opening of its new central London office following a sustained period of business growth and expansion.

The B2B Marketing Lab, part of the ITPR Group which also includes B2B Tech PR consultancy ITPR, and digital marketing and search agency Be Found Online, has experienced a sustained period of growth over the last two years and as a result, needed to expand into larger premises to accommodate the UK business team. It was named as the UK’s largest and most successful HubSpot Partner in May 2017, after becoming the country’s first HubSpot Diamond Partner.

Also Read: B2B Marketing Lab is Hubspot’s First Diamond Partner in the UK

The move to the larger offices at Europoint House on Lavington Street, Southwark, follows an exciting period of growth for the businesses which also saw The B2B Marketing Lab open a new Singapore office in 2017 – and it continues its expansion plans into Europe.

Bob Dearsley, chief executive of The ITPR Group, said: “Having established The B2B Marketing Lab as the largest HubSpot partner in the UK, this expansion is a signal of our ambitious plans to continue growing the entire ITPR Group. The last 12 months have been among the most exciting we have had since setting up The B2B Marketing Lab in 2012 and it is a testament to the work and dedication of our teams across the three businesses that this move into a new larger office space has needed to happen. The new space is step one in our plans to build the largest HubSpot support team in the UK and will enable us to expand even more in the coming years while continuing to provide the highest level of integrated PR and marketing services that our clients expect.”

Also Read: The B2B Marketing Lab Appoints Head of New Business to Expand Hubspot Software Sales and Web Development

Christian Kinnear, Managing Director EMEA at HubSpot, added: “Since becoming our first HubSpot Diamond Partner in the UK in May 2017, The B2B Marketing Lab has continued its growth in sales revenue and people into 2018. We enjoy working with this team of committed Growth Agency Marketers and this recent expansion is a testament to the success they have achieved, for both their clients and themselves. We’re excited to continue seeing B2BML’s growth with the HubSpot platforms and we are looking forward to watching them continue their ambitious expansion plans long into the future.”

[24]7.ai Removes Time, Cost and Risk Barriers to Chatbot Deployment

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March 5, 2018

[24]7.ai Removes Time, Cost and Risk Barriers to Chatbot Deployment

Industry-First Fixed Price Offer Empowers Companies to Deploy an Enterprise-Ready AI Virtual Agent in Just 60 Days

[24]7.ai, a global leader in intent-driven customer experience solutions, announced the industry’s first ever fixed price offer that empowers large companies to deploy enterprise-ready chatbots in just 60 days. Now, large companies in any industry can provide better customer service while saving money, whether their customers engage with them via voice or digital channels. The offer eliminates barriers to AI and enterprise chatbot adoption by providing a clear-cut, low-risk way to get started. The offer includes an intelligent, enterprise-class chatbot that supports frequently asked questions and two conversational customer journeys that can be deployed in a company’s own digital channels and integrated with its enterprise systems.

Also Read: [24]7 Changes Company Name to [24]7.ai to Reflect Leadership in Artificial Intelligence

[24]7.ai leads the industry with more than 150 patents and patent applications, and more than 200 million virtual agent inquiries annually. The company’s flagship product, [24]7 AIVA is a virtual agent (chatbot) that thinks, talks and acts like a company’s best human agent. As a conversational virtual agent, [24]7 AIVA leverages AI and integration into a company’s enterprise systems to interpret vague wording and multi-part questions. AIVA knows how to respond to a sudden change of topic and can ask clarifying questions to determine intent. If needed, the virtual agent smoothly transfers to an already informed human agent, so customers never have to repeat the same information. The result is cost savings, faster resolutions, completed transactions and happier customers.

Also Read: [24]7 and Mitsui Partner to Bring Intent-Driven Engagement to Japan

The ground-breaking offer includes a blend of both virtual agents (chatbots) and digital chat agents, which are human agents specially trained to optimize chats and supervise the chatbots. Each option includes a workshop with the client that focuses on analyzing data from at least 50,000 chats processed during the 60-day period. At the end of that time, [24]7.ai will provide recommendations for further customer journey automation.

[24]7.ai Releases the Only Virtual Agent with Integrated Conversational and Informational Capabilities — Scott Horn

Scott Horn, Chief Marketing Officer of [24]7.ai, informed, “With this offer, companies don’t need to waste time doing an RFP. Instead, they can learn by doing in an all-in-one package that sets them up for success. We are offering cutting-edge conversational AI technology, backed by 18 years of expertise working with the top airlines, banks, healthcare providers, hotels, retailers and companies in virtually every industry.”

Yext Launches New Preferred Partner Program

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March 5, 2018

Yext Launches New Preferred Partner Program

Agencies and Consultants Now Able to Bring the Power of Digital Knowledge Management to Their Clients

Yext Inc., one of the leaders in Digital Knowledge Management (DKM), announced recently that it is launching the Yext Preferred Partner Program, a new program created to partner with digital marketing agencies and other service providers whose offerings complement the Yext Knowledge Engine. The Preferred Partner Program makes it easy for agencies to offer Yext’s Digital Knowledge Management technology as part of a holistic marketing solution for their clients, gaining access to tiered benefits to fuel agency growth.

“The rise of intelligence is fueling a major platform shift as consumers use services powered by AI and machine learning to find and engage with the businesses around them. No company can control the UI or AI of the future, but with the launch of the Yext Preferred Partner Program, Agencies can now control what these new services say about their clients,” said Howard Lerman, Founder and CEO of Yext.

Also Read: Yext Launches Conversational UI In Winter ’18 Release

The new program encompasses several points of collaboration between Yext and Preferred Partners, including:

Mutual referral opportunities when Yext and Preferred Partners can work together to provide an augmented solution for the specific needs of a customer
Dedicated sales support from Yext
Partner-specific training
Co-marketing opportunities

By allowing Yext to operate as an extension of a Preferred Partner’s team, the program expands an agency’s portfolio of offerings and opens up new revenue opportunities, while equipping the partner with more tools to best serve client needs.

“Our Preferred Partners are trusted advisors to their clients offering services including marketing, professional services, consulting, website-building, and ad-buying, and Digital Knowledge Management is a key component of their clients’ success in reaching consumers. We want to help these agencies grow, and this program makes this kind of collaboration easy for our Preferred Partners and their clients,” said Jonathan Cherins, EVP of Partner at Yext.

Also Read: Yext Announces Appointment of Tamar Yehoshua to its Board of Directors

Yext Preferred Partners include leading agencies like Reprise of IPG Mediabrands and Mindstream Media.

“We work with many of the world’s leading companies, and we’re seeing a growing demand for Digital Knowledge Management across industries, especially as organizations are looking to bring together their offline, online, and e-commerce capabilities. As a fully integrated agency, we believe in crafting fully immersive brand experiences and leveraging our breadth and depth of experience working across the entire digital consumer journey. Extending our partnership with Yext beyond local makes sense for us because it enhances the experiences we create to everywhere that a brand lives,” said Tim Ringel, Global CEO of Reprise.

Chris Malone, Executive Vice President of Mindstream Media, added, “Mindstream Media connects national brands with local consumers by effectively leveraging brand equity when and where it matters most, and our partnership with Yext has been a critical asset in helping us drive and optimize these local connections and conversions. Our clients understand that the customer journey is changing rapidly, and the combination of our expertise with Yext’s technology allows them to establish and maintain a dominant local presence that has a material impact on their bottom line.”

The Yext Preferred Partner Program also provides Yext with a top-tier group of agencies to recommend to Yext customers seeking digital marketing help.

“At Yext, we know that many businesses need the services of a trusted, hands-on digital agency, and we want to connect our customers who come to us for a recommendation with the best in the business. Yext Preferred Partners are some of the world’s most innovative agencies, and we’re proud to recommend them to our customers,” added Cherins.

Convey Launches Platform to Replace Static Contacts with Live, Dynamic Connections

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March 5, 2018