Beachfront and White Ops Expand Partnership To Clean Up Connected TV Advertising

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March 15, 2018

EnterWorks Partners with Amplifi to Enable Businesses in Content for Commerce Initiatives

EnterWorks Partners with Amplifi, a Leading Information Management Consultancy, to Enable Businesses in Content for Commerce Initiatives

EnterWorks, the leading provider of Master Data Management (MDM) and Product Information Management (PIM) solutions, announced a strategic partnership with Amplifi, the leading provider of MDM strategy and implementation services. The partnership brings to bear Amplifi’s diverse capabilities – expert advisory, strategy, consultancy and delivery offerings for all aspects of data improvement – in implementing the EnterWorks Enable platform for companies undertaking data and commerce transformations.

Also Read: Need for Data Orchestration for Contextualizing Customer Experience

As B2B digital initiatives approach a pace until recently only seen in B2C commerce, mastery of data and content are essential in implementing effective data management systems to support multiple domains such as product, customer, supplier, asset, and location. For both B2B and B2C companies, the increasing personalization of content demands agile data modeling and data management as found in a multi-domain MDM solution such as EnterWorks Enable. Similarly, software and services teams must have deep skills and experience to guide companies that are new to digital transformations as well as those on the leading edge.

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

“Our strategy focuses on the B2B2C Value Chain, enabling manufacturers, distributors, member groups, and retailers alike while bringing them closer together as collaborative networks. We are pleased that Amplifi not only has MDM and PIM strategy and consulting expertise but also understands the importance of B2B2C commerce from their extensive omnichannel consulting and implementations across industries. Companies compete on commerce with quality and differentiated content and need partners who can deliver on the promise of MDM and PIM as value drivers for their businesses,” said Rick Chavie, CEO, EnterWorks.

“At Amplify, we have worked with some of the top brands in B2B and B2C on transforming mission-critical enterprise initiatives through omnichannel commerce and digital projects. Successful digital initiatives start with a foundation of enterprise content that is accurate, up-to-date and accessible across commerce channels. With the Enable platform, a robust, agile data management tool that has proven itself in the market, EnterWorks and our partnership with them positions us for great mutual success in driving digital transformations,” said Corey Mellick, CEO.

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

Episerver Announces North America, APAC Partner Award Winners and Partner Innovation Spotlight at Ascend 2018

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March 15, 2018

Episerver Announces North America, APAC Partner Award Winners and Partner Innovation Spotlight at Ascend 2018

Partners Recognized for Driving Forward Episerver’s Strategic Vision at Annual Customer and Partner Conference

Episerver, the company transforming digital experiences, celebrated the innovative achievements of its partners while honoring those selected for awards during “Partner Day” at Ascend 2018.

Winners of the Partner Awards contest were chosen by a panel of Episerver judges based on their outstanding contributions to the field of digital transformation and their alignment with Episerver’s strategic vision.

Episerver presented the following awards for North American and APAC customers:

Luminos Labs (North America) and Empired (APAC) were awarded “Digital Experience Cloud Partner of the Year” for their contribution to the delivery of Episerver’s Digital Experience Cloud offering. Luminos Labs had double-digit commerce wins in 2017, and Empired generated the most revenue to Episerver APAC over the last year.

Rightpoint (North America) and Levo (APAC) were awarded “Strategic Partner of the Year” for their proven engagement with strategic customers and in complex engagements across the Episerver customer landscape. Some of Rightpoint’s customers include SurePayroll, Toppers Pizza, and Pregis Holdings. Levo works with key customers such as YHA Australia, St John Ambulance of New Zealand and Primary Health Care.

Whereoware (North America) and Fusion (APAC) were awarded “Digital Commerce Partner of the Year” for their contribution to the positioning and delivery of the Episerver platform to support digital commerce. Whereoware experienced double-digit wins, including Yamaha and Liberty Furniture. Fusion brought beautiful creative design into complex B2B organizations to create true experience-driven commerce solutions.

Also Read: Episerver Announces Intelligent Content Personalization

Thinkmax (North America) and Empired (APAC) were awarded “Dynamics Ecosystem Partner of the Year” for their delivery of Episerver solutions in conjunction with Microsoft Dynamics to solve customers’ business scenarios. In the last year alone, Thinkmax delivered Episerver Commerce for Dynamics 365 for two new customers, with several more in the pipeline. Empired delivered on full digital transformation projects for key Dynamics customers, including Les Mills.

Hero Digital (North America) and Get Started (APAC) were awarded Ascender Partner of the Year for their impact as new Episerver partners. Hero Digital acquired two other agencies, giving it a national presence, and brought on new customers like Numerica Credit Union. In APAC, Get Started participated in more concurrent opportunities than any other partner in the region in 2017.

Brightfind (North America) was awarded Industry Go-to-Market Partner of the Year for its strategic contribution to serving customers in an industry vertical; in this case, associations and non-profits. Brightfind leveraged its deep knowledge of the business challenges of this vertical, along with the capabilities of the Episerver platform, to create a strong value proposition for its customers, including ASIS International, Institute for Supply Management and Federation of State Medical Boards.

Also Read: Digital Marketing Tips To Nurture Revenue for B2B Startups

“Our partners truly represent the best and brightest in the field of digital content, commerce, and marketing. The digital agencies and systems integrators we have recognized with Partner Awards have succeeded in the spirit of creativity and innovation that drives forward Episerver’s vision and promise to its customer base. We can’t wait to see what 2018 brings our partners as they continue to deliver on digital transformation for their customers,” said Johan Jardevall, chief sales officer, Episerver.

Episerver also celebrated its partners’ achievements in digital transformation this year through its latest initiative, Partner Innovation Spotlight, in which Episerver called partners to extend the use of its newest products in one of three focus areas: Individualized Content, Experience-driven Commerce, and Intelligent Campaigns. With the help of the Partner Innovation Spotlight, Episerver’s Digital Experience Cloud powers the website experiences of nearly 100 million unique visitors and roughly a half a billion page views each month for its customers. Multiply those interactions with the number of relevant content and campaigns Episerver customers can deliver before, during and after a sale, and Episerver is helping businesses innovate at scale.

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

“Our participation in this year’s Partner Innovation Spotlight exemplifies our shared commitment with Episerver to helping customers create more meaningful, powerful digital experiences across the world,” said Joe Grause, director, business development, Making Waves.

“Episerver’s Partner Innovation Spotlight was a great way to showcase our team’s development skills and the powerful experiences that Episerver’s Digital Experience Cloud can deliver for our customers,” said Allison Simpkins, senior vice president, North America, Valtech.

TV May Affect the Brain But Influencer Marketing Affects the Heart

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Richard Wong

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March 15, 2018

1

Social Media Influencer Content Effectively Drives Engagement, Consideration, And Purchase Intent While TV Effectively Drives Brand Awareness

Marketing and advertising have evolved in many ways over the past decade—particularly with the ways we consume media, most notably social media. The advent of social media has ushered in a new wave of creators— the talented individuals who have showcased their creativity and developed a following around their content. Enter influencer marketing—one of the fastest growing segments of marketing—a new and exciting way to bring your brand to life. The big question that always remains is: “How do I measure the impact of my marketing programs?”

Understanding The Impact of Branded Influencer Marketing

The #paid team decided to tackle this challenge by working with the team at Nielsen Consumer Insights on a Marketing Effectiveness study to better understand the consumer impact of the branded influencer marketing materials, specifically reviewing the creative campaign of a major food and beverage brand. To accomplish this, Nielsen conducted an online study to —

Evaluate the effectiveness of influencer marketing on key brand KPIs (recall, affinity, etc.)
Assess the attributes associated with each piece of content (unique, credible, cool, etc.)
Determine the impact of influencer marketing on future purchase decisions

As a basis of comparison, the team wanted to establish a benchmark against the primary channel for brand-based marketing—video advertising/TV commercials—by using a pre/post-exposure methodology, often used by Nielsen Media Lab. The published study can be found on the #paid website.

The results were surprising, but insightful into the ays consumers view these different types of content. The research showed that video advertising performed extremely well on brand recall and driving brand awareness; however, social media content drove stronger brand perception shifts and content quality was viewed as equivalent or greater than the traditional video ad.

Also Read: How NOT to Handle a Collaboration Request When it Comes to Influencer Marketing

So what does that mean for influencer marketing? These are some of the major takeaways from the study —

Influencer Marketing and TV Work in Complementary Ways

Many marketers view these two investments as an “either/or”, essentially creating a divide between the two channels. In the end, the research revealed the various impacts of marketing, and how they actually work best simultaneously.

When consumers see a TV ad, they see the brand logo, the product shot, the key claims, and tagline. Catchy jingles can get stuck in people’s minds. All of this works well to get people to notice and remember a brand, but this is only the first step within the path to purchase.

Influencer marketing takes this a step further by integrating products into the creators’ lives that consumers seek inspiration from and relate to. In short, creators make products highly relatable and desirable. These attributes have been shown to increase consideration and purchase intent—the next stage of the path to purchase.

Also Read: The Data & Measurement Behind Successful Influencer Marketing

Content Can Be Produced — at Scale — from Social Media Creators

Marketers should look at how we develop creative content in the 21st century. It doesn’t require the pricey studio rentals, production crew, casting talent, and editing anymore. All of these tasks are performed by content creators—the 21st-century production crew.

Initial concerns about the quality of the content were put at ease when the results showed content quality was actually viewed as equivalent or exceeding that of the traditional video ad.

Tools to Measure the Impact of Influencer Marketing Are Becoming More Abundant

Measuring the impact of brand marketing has always been an elusive and tricky thing to figure out. The ways in how we measure the impact can vary depending on the type of campaign that’s run, the objectives set out, as well as the conversion funnel. That said, establishing campaign goals, running brand measurement studies, or any conversion analysis are excellent ways to track the performance of influencer marketing and determine the brand’s ROI.

When traditional research leaders like Nielsen partner with the brand teams, agencies, and industry innovators on finding new ways to measure the impact of new approaches to marketing, the industry wins. It allows all marketers to understand the different use cases and make everybody’s efforts stronger.

Authenticity and Relatable at Its Core

A strength in influencer marketing stems from its ability for brands to partner with creators that develop content perceived to be authentic and relatable to their audience. Their audience has come to know them for an extended period of time, heard their reviews on a range of different products and services, and see a bit of themselves in the creators they follow.

When a creator voices their opinion and integrates a brand into their feed, it connects to their audience in a much more powerful way than simply getting a video view or an ad impression.

Also Read: The Death Of Cash Back And Loyalty Programs – The Burgeoning Impact Of Influencer Marketers

Influencer Marketing Should Be Considered a Key Part of a Marketer’s Toolkit

While influencer marketing programs can be led by different teams— from PR teams, creative teams, media teams, or the brand—the simple story is that influencer marketing is here to stay and deserves significant investment and coordination within a brand plan.

When the #paid team works on various influencer marketing programs, they either partner with brands directly or their media agencies—as they often hold the media budgets. Those budgets are crucial in order to ensure the scalable success of influencer marketing: creators deserve to get compensated for the work, time, and talent; brand teams need to ensure content is created on time and according to the brief.

All in all, the future of influencer marketing is bright. Influencer marketing budgets continue to rise, creators are learning how to integrate brands in a more sophisticated and authentic way, and the industry as a whole is adopting best practices to drive even more value for everybody involved.

Also Read: Influencer Marketing & Your Customer Journey

dotCMS Hires Robert Slaughter As New Chief Marketing Officer

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March 15, 2018

DotCMS Hires Robert Slaughter As New Chief Marketing Officer

dotCMS Appoints, Robert Slaughter to Lead Marketing Department as Chief Marketing Officer

dotCMS, a leading-edge, open source, Java CMS and Customer Experience Management software company, announced that Robert Slaughter has joined the company as Chief Marketing Officer, effective immediately. Slaughter will report to Ralph Miller, Chief Executive Officer, and become one of the senior executives within the company.

Also Read: dotCMS Hires Stefan Schinkel as New Chief Sales Officer

“Since we sell a mar-tech product, we need to ‘walk the talk,’ and that means we had to bring someone onboard with the skill set that only a few people have today. Someone who combines the knowledge of the space, digital strategy, demand generation knowledge and is very technical. He has to understand our product, use our product and evangelize about the product. We are really glad to have found the perfect person for this role,” said Ralph Miller, CEO of dotCMS.

Also Read: How Marketers Can Optimize $682 Billion in Expected Spend in 2018

Slaughter was most recently Principal at Ripple Effect Advisors, a B2B Marketing and Sales Acceleration Firm based in Washington, D.C. where he led the global marketing initiatives of several high-growth, technology firms.

“Having a previous professional relationship with Ralph, I am keenly aware of his business acumen and ability to grow and scale companies. And then once I dug into the product and viewed the executive team’s commercial roadmap, I was convinced dotCMS was 100% committed to customer success. That type of mindshare in the B2B world is hard to find, and I couldn’t be more excited or optimistic,” said Robert Slaughter.

dotCM, the leading, open source content and customer experience management platform for companies that want innovation and performance driving their websites and other content-driven applications. Extensible and massively scalable, both small and large organizations can rapidly deliver personalized and engaging content across browsers, mobile devices, channels, second screens, and endpoints — all from a single system.

TechBytes with Anne Frisbie, SVP, Global Brand & Programmatic, InMobi

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March 15, 2018

Anne Frisbie
SVP, Global Brand & Programmatic, InMobi

With the recent spurt of innovations in the digital advertising analytics technologies, programmatic and native advertising models are grabbing more attention. To understand the true ‘State of Advertising’ in the years to come, with the merger of programmatic and AI/ML capabilities, we spoke to the Senior Vice President, Global Brand & Programmatic, InMobi, Anne Frisbie.

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Tell us about your role at InMobi and the team/technology you handle.

I’m the Senior Vice President of Global Brand & Programmatic at InMobi. I oversee InMobi Exchange, brand sales in North America, and also lead InMobi’s global brand and programmatic strategy.

Do you see a gradual convergence of ad tech platforms towards audience-data platforms and behavioral marketing technologies?

This is a brilliant question. The question of the convergence of ad tech platforms towards audience-data platforms gets to the heart of how extensive the disruption in media buying and marketing technology is, and it comes down to 1) the success of the walled gardens, 2) the failure of the media industry to pay enough for data unless it is coupled with media, and 3) the increasingly high bar that artificial intelligence will create in order to produce exponential levels of value when buying platforms, data platforms and media are combined. So yes, there will be a convergence of buying platforms, marketing platforms, media, and data. But then, questions remain about how many of these full stack “data lakes” will exist, and how much of the market will participate outside of a complete full stack?

What are the major pain points for brands leveraging video advertising technologies for audience building and targeting? How does InMobi solve these challenges for customers?

We have moved into a world of video consumption and video advertising that’s cross-device and predominantly rooted outside of the browser. A tremendous amount of video viewing is being consumed within mobile apps or connected TVs rather than only on desktop and mobile web experiences. This alone is a major shift for advertisers. In the past, cookie-based audiences could effectively address audience buying in digital (browser-based) inventory including for video. Today, cookie-based audiences alone will simply not enable effective audience buying into the most premium video ad experiences within mobile apps and connected TVs.

InMobi has spent the past two years addressing the challenges of advertising into mobile apps across smartphones and tablets. We have worked diligently to move the industry from javascript, browser-based technology like VPAID to technologies like VAST that can work with the native environments of these connected devices. InMobi has also worked to solve MRC accredited viewability and fraud metrics that will work seamlessly with VAST, and have rolled out ways to execute interactive creative with VAST and native technologies of the Android and iOS operating systems. In 2018, we are looking to extend our approach into connected TVs which require many of the same approaches to what we have done within mobile apps.

Has TV been side-lined as an advertising medium with the maturity of mobile and social media advertising?

Not at all – TV continues to offer very powerful and trusted advertising opportunities. Linear, traditional TV did incredibly well in 2017 because that medium is understood in terms of impact generally, is relatively simple and trusted. The challenge is that marketers know that they are over-reliant on traditional, linear TV and that consumers are quickly moving to mobile and connected TV experiences. As a result, the rally cry from top brand marketers for greater trust and support around brand safety and social responsibility is driven in part because brands need digital media to become a larger part of their marketing mix because even TV experiences are moving there.

How do you see the ‘State of Advertising’ evolving by 2020 with the merger of programmatic and AI/ML capabilities?

Programmatic and digital media require AI/ML in order to deliver the true potential and value that is possible for all participants. Already advertising technology is one of the fastest and earliest business areas where AI/ML was being leveraged. I started in digital media in 1996, and then helped launch search marketing at AltaVista in 1997, before Google was founded in 1998. The pace of change today is faster than I have ever seen in my 21 years in digital media and that includes the launch of mobile which essentially began with the launch of the iPhone 10 years ago. AI/ML and the power that it lends to data is one of the reasons that the pace of change has accelerated so much, and it is exactly what is driving the convergence of marketing technology, advertising technology, media, and data which is highly disruptive for everyone in the digital media ecosystem.

How do you leverage AI/ML at InMobi? Would AI/ML enable make media buying and brand safety compliance easier to deal with in the coming?

InMobi is leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in a wide range of applications. At the core of the company is an engine that runs billions of auctions. For each auction, AI algorithms find answers to crucial decisions such as deciding who participates in each auction, who wins and at what price, while ML algorithms determine which are the right ads to show to a user.

InMobi is taking charge to lead innovations around AI and also works with ML generated user segments such as look-a-like segments to help advertisers find more valuable users amongst the 1.5 billion unique mobile devices that InMobi reaches. InMobi also uses deep learning to characterize creatives to help find effective creatives early and drive down exploration cost, as well as dynamic algorithms help identify user fatigue and refine ad delivery frequencies. AI/ML is at the core of InMobi’s fraud detection algorithms. As fraudulent activity gets more sophisticated, InMobi is leveraging deep learning to identify bad actors early. InMobi also uses reinforcement learning algorithms to maximize revenue and yield for publishers in a fast-changing ecosystem.

Our goal is to create the largest, global ecosystem around mobile in-app and connected TV device experiences (i.e. outside of the browser) that delivers the most value to publishers, consumers and advertisers and AI/ML is absolutely at the heart of being able to achieve that.

Thanks for chatting with us, Anne.
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

Alexa.com Unveils New Branding Gap Analysis to Boost SEO And SEM Efforts

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March 15, 2018

Alexa.com Unveils New Branding Gap Analysis to Boost SEO/SEM Efforts

New Gap Analysis Tools from Alexa.com Would Help Marketers Capitalize on Their Competitors’ Successful Search Strategies

Adding to its suite of competitive analytics tools, Alexa.com has enabled gap analyses that give marketers a shortcut to finding opportunities to help improve search performance and brand awareness. With the introduction of Competitor Backlink Checker and new updates to Competitor Keyword Matrix, marketers can now uncover and close any gaps in their keyword and backlink strategy that competitors have taken better advantage of.

At the time of this announcement, Andrew Ramm, President, Alexa.com, said, “With these key product enhancements, we’re continuing to provide marketers with even deeper insights into how they can improve their share of voice in search. By taking advantage of these competitor gap analysis tools – and combining them with our robust SEO research and site audit capabilities – marketers will be able to find, reach, and convert their target audience more effectively.”

The Alexa Marketing Stack already provides tools to help marketers find, reach, and convert their audience. The release of Competitor Backlink Checker and new additions to Competitor Keyword Matrix helps marketers prioritize their SEO and SEM efforts. It achieves this by unburdening the customer from the laborious task of piecing together disjointed information about competitors and the burden of discovering potential opportunities – common in legacy workflows.

The revamped Competitor Keyword Matrix provides significantly richer insights into how competitors have strategized and performed in both organic and paid search. The matrix allows marketers to uncover keywords they can capitalize on that their competitors are already using to drive traffic. The data can be used to achieve specific goals, such as finding low-competition organic keywords, long-tail organic keywords, and keywords that show purchase intent.

Among the new capabilities added to the Alexa Competitor Keyword Matrix —

– Marketers can quickly see how competitors stack up against one another with a new Share of Voice visualization that summarizes high-level performance across all relevant keywords. The Share of Voice metric can be used to confirm whether the marketer’s SEO and PPC strategies have improved their position relative to competitors.

– The Keyword Clusters feature bundles keywords into related groups via an interactive visualization, making it easy for marketers to see popular topics worth targeting. Marketers can drill down into sub-clusters and keywords, providing a deeper level of granularity to drive specific ideas for content creation.

– Competitors’ paid search keywords are now included alongside organic search keywords, giving marketers insight into where their competitors are investing most—paid, organic, or both.

With the new Competitor Backlink Checker, marketers can visually compare backlinks for up to ten competitive sites at once, easily evaluating which websites are linking to most, or all, of their competitors. Furthermore, a gap filter helps them surface the sites from which they have not yet earned links. Armed with this knowledge, marketers can plan their backlink strategy and build an outreach list. Combined with Alexa.com’s website traffic statistics, marketers will know which sites are most ripe to pursue for content promotion, ads, partnerships, and/or backlinks.

Marketers who know Alexa.com as the company that defined website popularity through its Alexa Rank will be delighted to see the new and unparalleled depth of data about their audience and the opportunities it presents them with.

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

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March 15, 2018

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

CleverTap Partners Drive Growth and Increase Revenues by Collaborating with a Variety of Powerful Marketing Technologies

CleverTap, a mobile marketing automation solution that empowers marketers to create differentiated customer engagement strategies, announced that it is expanding its Partner Ecosystem. Partners will benefit by joining forces with the best solution providers in the space, globally, and unearth new opportunities for monetization and knowledge sharing.

As part of the CleverTap Partner Ecosystem, partners can expand their mobile offerings and provide differentiated value to their customers. The ecosystem enables partners to amplify brand presence, expand target market, and drive revenue by acquiring users from new markets.

Also Read: Ford, Toyota, and Chevrolet Earned The Top Three Spots in the L2 Digital IQ Index; Auto 2018 Report

With a partner ecosystem comprised of download attribution, email and SMS message delivery, customer CRMs, marketing agencies, and more, marketers will have a lot of data available to solve holistic problems. By building a favorable and supportive breed of mobile offerings, CleverTap strives to enable personalized omnichannel marketing strategies across the entire user lifecycle.

“At CleverTap we aim to empower mobile marketers to craft incredible customer experiences for their users. A connected marketing stack is a key to creating omnichannel experiences across each stage of the user adoption curve. With this ecosystem of mobile solutions, we want to set marketers up for success — from attribution and onboarding to engagement and monetization to reducing churn,” said Almitra Karnik, Marketing Head, CleverTap.

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

“CleverTap’s integration with Sendgrid’s email delivery system helps brands create targeted and personalized email engagement strategies at scale. Customers can glean intelligent insights based on user behavior and create data-driven email campaigns that drive retention and revenues,” said Elliot Goldwater, Director, BD & Partnerships, SendGrid.

“Partnering with companies such as CleverTap broadens our offerings to a cohesive, holistic solution for mobile marketing. Accurate and powerful measurement insights coupled with a mobile marketing platform enable mobile marketers to create customized user engagement experiences across channels,” said Reggie Singh, Director of Partnerships US, Adjust.

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

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March 15, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zoom.ai Announces Integration with Google Hangouts Chat

By

Shalaka Nalawade

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March 15, 2018

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

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

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

Google Hangouts Chat can help you:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interview with Bertram Schulte, Chief Digital Officer, SAP

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March 15, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which was your best digital transformation campaign?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What marketing and sales automation tools do you use?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are you currently reading?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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March 15, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recommended Read: Eight Predictions for 2018

Skedulo Launches Independent Platform, Helps Transform Customer Experience

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March 15, 2018

Skedulo Launches Independent Platform, Transforms Customer Experience

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

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

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

Also Read: Skedulo Named a Top 25 Salesforce Solutions Provider

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

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

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

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

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

Also Read: Mpire Refreshes Brand Following APAC Launch

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

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

Recommended Read: 10 Tips for Naming Your Company

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

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March 15, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Shalaka Nalawade

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March 15, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

Some of the interesting sessions include:

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

Other conference highlights include sessions and keynotes by:

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

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

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

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

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

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March 15, 2018

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

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

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

Shai Alfandary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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March 15, 2018

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

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

Mike Chadwick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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March 14, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read More: Fireside Chat with Shawn Schwegman

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

TUNE Certified Partner Program: An Overview

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

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

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

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

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March 14, 2018

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

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

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

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

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

Also Read: Why Does the Programmatic Auction Type Matter

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

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

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

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

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

ABM Update: DiscoverOrg Scoops Strategic Investment from The Carlyle Group

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March 14, 2018