Shopin Strengthens Artificial Intelligence Engine with Stylit Data Acquisition

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February 12, 2018

Keith LaFerriere
Chief Creative Officer, Verndale

From a modern marketer’s perspective, the differences between User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX) have widened significantly. To understand how marketing technologies influence the delivery of relevant UX and CX, we spoke to Verndale’s Chief Creative Officer (CCO), Keith LaFerriere.

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

As Chief Creative Officer of Verndale, I lead the UX and Creative Design practice groups, business development, creative direction, and overall team management across all accounts. For these programs, we work closely with a number of enterprise-level Experience Management Platforms including Sitecore, EPiServer, and The Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Help us define UX and CX from a marketer’s perspective? What are the differences between UX and CX?

Many brands misunderstand the difference between user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX). CX is an emotionally-driven journey from start to finish whereas UX is a brand’s ability to craft, create and execute specific touchpoints along the customer’s path. When done right, CX can truly differentiate a brand from competitors.

The foundation for CX lies in brands understanding enough about themselves and what they stand for so that they have a full grasp on what they can authentically deliver to the customer. Many brands struggle with this component, so the first step in designing a brand’s customer journey should start with an audit of the company’s values, mission, and promise to customers. Once those are fully-formed, marketers can then map out how these values will translate throughout the online and offline touchpoints within the customer journey.

How do brands leverage Verndale for building personalized digital experiences?

Our clients rely on Verndale to develop their entire digital blueprint. We have a team of experts across three disciplines – experience management strategy, design, and technology – who work to develop a customized roadmap for each client, driven by both data and qualitative analysis.

Our Experience Management (XM) consulting practice stands out to Verndale clients as they are tasked with building the foundational strategy for brand analytics, personalization, A/B & MV testing and Marketing Automation through strategic planning workshops, implementation, and training. They also develop strategies for digital marketing campaigns (DMCs), search engine optimization (SEO), email analytics and social media. By strategically planning for both the short- and long-term, Verndale clients have digital marketing plans that not only evolve but help them stay ahead of their competition.

The Experience Design (XD) team blends visual communication and creative problem solving to deliver full-service, thoughtful digital execution to our clients, and guide them through a device-agnostic, user-centered design approach – from the creation of pattern and concept boards, prototypes and archetypes, to the aesthetic delivery.

Meanwhile, our technology team taps into decades of experience in front-end development, system integration, quality assurance and development standards to build off the work from both the strategy and experience design groups to turn larger visions and designs into real life enterprise digital experiences. The team supports clients and helps them execute every project, whether that be unifying disparate platforms, upgrading content management capabilities, hosting web apps and more.

What technologies and resources should a company/digital agency use to produce the most cutting-edge CX?

Personalization, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are going to continue shifting the martech landscape and give marketers and CX leaders unbelievable new opportunities to engage and learn. But these are still only tools and should not be the end goal – they are the means to the end. Business outcomes will only be as good as the experience strategy that informs what technology is deployed, and how it is optimized to make the customer journey as smooth as possible.

We’ve seen brands struggle to maximize their martech investment because they tend to make selections based primarily on their own business needs, and then build the best experience they can with those technologies. The customer journey is then dictated by the confines of what their shiny new platform can do – not by the interests of their customers. Implementing a strategy like that is bound to backfire

In fact, Gartner’s 2017-2018 CMO Spend Survey found martech spending has fallen by 15% this year, as CMOs pull back on previous years’ high spending commitment amid concerns over marketing’s capability to acquire and manage technology effectively. Not only must marketing and CX leaders justify past budget commitments and demonstrate the returns, they must now work under a more constrained budget. It’s a natural ebb and flow to the budget cycle and now marketers are in the “prove it” phase where they have to justify their martech investments’ worth to the corporate bottom line.

You can’t make martech decisions until you first make customer experience decisions. Journey mapping is not just a list of consecutive touch points. When done well, it’s an emotional story arc that informs those touch points, and the technology that enables them.

What analytics and tech integrations would have the biggest impact on the way brands deliver CX? How do you see the growth of AI in the way CX is managed and delivered?

Technologies like AR and VR are still in hype mode for the most part, but there is some legitimacy to the excitement – they have the potential to completely change CX and commerce. By 2020, these technologies could be baseline in how consumers interact with brands and make purchasing decisions.

With regard to AI, though we still haven’t fully delivered on its promise, it remains on the rise in marketing, especially when you factor in the numerous, data-collecting connected devices that most consumers use – from their phone to their Fitbit. The problem is that these devices deliver too much data for any one person or brand to process. Therefore, AI plays a critical role in helping marketers make the best use of that data to create better customer experiences. Brands are still trying to figure out best practices around aggregation and analysis and that’s where an external partner can help.

What are your predictions for demand-gen platforms and campaign performance tools in 2018?

With so many options for both of these categories in very niche areas, I’d expect to see even more consolidation and weeding out of existing offerings as we move through the next 12 to 18 months. Large-scale platforms will need to keep raising their game to compete, and that’s where the niche players come in. I recently saw the updated version of the Martech landscape, and it’s not only saturated, its way too overwhelming even for the most veteran CMO. And, while I love a good competitive landscape, we’re getting to the point where you need a consultant to find the right consultant in the martech space.

Thanks for chatting with us, Keith.

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 Mark Bembridge, CEO, Smartology

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February 12, 2018

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

[mnky_testimonial_slider slide_speed=”3″][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“If advertisers don’t know how much has been spent on each element of a campaign, they can’t measure ROI – and that’s a problem for the industry as a whole if it is to prove its credentials and continue to grow.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

Tell us about your role at Smartology and how you got here. What inspired you to join an AdTech company?

Working on semantic recognition platforms, as far back as 2004, was a formative period. The technology was new, but for those of us closely associated with it, the opportunities that opened up were really exciting; in particular, it seemed the obvious place for the media sector to unlock significant value.

Initially, the focus was on using semantic matching to make editorial recommendations for readers, but in 2012, with the advent of branded content, the Financial Times asked us to apply our semantic technology to advertising. This upped the game because it introduced the idea of adding value to marketing material by pairing it with editorial articles on the same or a similar topic.

This paved the way for semantic advertising to be regarded as an integral part of the ad tech industry; Smartology’s SmartMatch solution was launched as a result.

Today, my role is centered round demonstrating how our technology tackles many of issues currently faced by the online advertising industry, as well as developing the business on a global basis.

Given the changing dynamic of engagement with B2B customers, how does contextually aligning content and advertising deliver incremental revenue streams to brands?

Machine learning and semantic profiling match each item of an advertiser’s branded content with relevant editorial articles on the same or closely related topics.

This means readers get a relevant ‘add on’ because the branded content they see is linked to their immediate interests – rather than their previous behavior or profiles based on first or, more often, third party data, which is the standard approach.

As a result, advertisers see significantly increased returns on their budgets. Having invested in creating quality branded content, they can be confident that it is being put in front of the right audience at a time when they are most receptive to it.

Campaigns outperform digital engagement benchmarks across the board – Click Through Rates (CTR) and dwell time increase dramatically, while bounce rates reduce.

Publishers also benefit; the consistently high returns they are able to deliver to advertising clients put a premium on their inventory and increase CPMs, whether direct or programmatic. The value of their rich editorial content is maximized because ad placement is done at the page level.

To what extent can predictive intelligence capabilities simplify content creation for omnichannel customer engagements?

Predictive AI can help brands to produce content that is suitable for the variety of places where it could be consumed (smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, etc.)

There are a growing number of platforms, such as ‘Albert’, which use AI to work out real-time optimizations for marketing campaigns, while machine learning certainly helps in this area. We are looking at a future where more and more content is optimized by machines using natural language generation that analyses (large) data sets to automatically tweak content; however, the original ideas, concepts, and the copy will still need to be created by the brand.

What’s the biggest challenge that brands need to address to make their programmatic decisions work effectively using the semantic matching platform?

Financial transparency in the supply chain or, in other words, the ‘tech tax’ has been flagged and discussed for several years, but that doesn’t make it any less of a challenge. If advertisers don’t know how much has been spent on each element of a campaign, they can’t measure ROI – and that’s a problem for the industry as a whole if it is to prove its credentials and continue to grow.

Taking a sophisticated approach to whitelisting is now more critical than ever. It is not enough to prepare a list of ‘good’ media; context also needs to be a key component so that specific pages on acceptable sites can be excluded if they contain content that could damage the brand.

And of course, no section on challenges in 2018 is complete without referencing GDPR. Traditionally online advertising – and programmatic advertising in particular – has almost entirely relied on cookies for targeting. GDPR will force a move away from this, but a lot of innovation is needed to find new ways of engaging users.

How would SmartMatch enable publishers to combat ad fraud?

Smartology is in the process of implementing the IAB-approved text file ads.txt, which combats domain spoofing and unauthorized reselling, on its platform, SmartMatch.

Programmatic platforms integrate the ads.txt file to confirm which publishers’ inventory they are authorized to sell. This enables buyers, like Smartology to check the validity of the inventory before they purchase.

What startups are you watching/keen on right now?

Early-stage technology companies to watch include:

Index Exchange; it came out of nowhere and is now competing successfully with Google and AppNexus which is a major achievement.

Triplelift – native programmatic

What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?

Smartology uses standard search engine marketing (SEM) tools like Google Adwords, Twitter campaigns and LinkedIn marketing solutions. We also use MailChimp for marketing newsletters.

Could you tell us about a standout digital campaign?

We recently ran an extremely successful campaign with the London Business School. The main aim of the campaign was to drive engaged users to their website, in order to increase traffic and downloads of their course brochures. They also wanted to align their thought leadership content with highly relevant articles on premium publisher sites in order to be seen as experts in their field. The campaign ran on both desktop and mobile and featured content relevant to topical news events, such as Brexit and Trump and also content on themes such as the Workplace, Entrepreneurship and Economic Insights. Overall click through rates for the campaign (which were the main measure used by the client) were some 5 times greater than the industry average for standard display banners.

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

There’s a lot of hyperbole about how AI will threaten civil society and take jobs. There’s no doubt that it will have a significant impact but machines are a long way from replicating human empathy and AI, even at a deep learning level, is still limited to learning facts rather than replicating human emotion.

AI is still a very unknown quantity, which in itself is challenging, but the reality is that there are no hard and fast rules for how it will pan out. The key is for everyone to remember that we all have a responsibility to apply AI sensibly so that it adds real value.

One word that best describes how you work.

Smart!

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

LinkedIn
Salesforce
Xero

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

Salesforce Gmail plugin / Salesforce mobile app

What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)

Stepping Up by Sarah Wood

I read business and technology focused books, blogs, AppleNews, and articles on all of our 50 publishers!

In addition I consume podcasts – e.g. ‘Makers of Scale’ from Reid Hoffman and ‘How I Built This’ from NPR

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

‘Keep going’

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

Reid Hoffman

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Mark” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c4639d7-e82c”]

Mark is CEO of Smartology, which distributes branded content semantically across the world’s most premium media owners for many of the world’s largest brands. Prior to Smartology, he was the MD of Leiki Software. He has a B.A. from University College London.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Smartology” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c4639d7-e82c”]

Focusing on the rapid growth in content marketing, Smartology provides a key distribution channel for global brands to disseminate their content and thought leadership across premium media owner sites according to relevancy. Headquartered in London with a presence in the US and Asia, Smartology has run campaigns for over 70 of the world’s largest brands across global premium media owners including FT.com, NYTimes, Reuters, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, BBC and many more. Smartology’s branded content distribution solutions including, SmartMatch, SmartStream and SmartMobile break new ground by semantically profiling client’s branded content and dynamically serving these in ad units alongside relevant premium media owners’ articles. This has resulted in record engagement and click through rates for branded editorial, white papers and video content. Smartology’s base technology takes advantage of machine learning and Natural Language Processing – a field of computer technology that engages with the interaction between natural (human) and computer languages.

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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.

Leading AdTech Company Adform Selects 51Degrees Device Detection For Enhanced Analytics

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February 10, 2018

Using 51Degrees, Adform Can Continue To Pave The Way in Providing Precise and Efficient Real-time Trading Optimization and Premium Advertising on any Device

Adform, the leading independent AdTech company, is delighted to announce its extended agreement with Device Detection provider, 51Degrees. Adform are a best-in-class AdTech solution providing enterprise software for advertisers and agencies.

Adform partners now benefit from the fastest and most accurate device detection improving yield through better device targeting and enhanced analytics in the programmatic environment. As server-side header bidding grows, this is even more important data for Open RTB users.

Also Read: Interview with Gustav Mellentin, CEO, Adform

Jurjen de Wal, Product Director, Global Partners & Integrations said, “We extended our contract with 51Degrees to supply the mobile device database for Adform because it’s an accurate, extremely fast and scalable device detection service which fits our requirements for a low latency environment. 51Degrees powers device detection across our stack, from granular device targeting in our DSP to enhancing our mobile reporting capabilities and feeding into our SPO module.”

“For our buyers it is crucial to be able to optimize and report based on all available device characteristics,” according to Feliksas Nalivaika, Product Director, Buyer Platform. “51Degrees provides highly accurate device detection in a fast-paced and dynamic ecosystem with new phone models, OS versions and platforms announced almost daily.”

Irmantas Venckus, Senior Director, Product Development stated, “We evaluated numerous device detection solutions and only 51Degrees met our requirements and was very easy to integrate”.

James Rosewell, CEO 51Degrees, said, “I’m delighted Adform have recognised the value of the innovative and industry changing tools and data the great team at 51Degrees have created.”

HYPR Launches Designated Market Areas (DMA) Tool For Influencer Audiences

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MTS Staff Writer

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February 10, 2018

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Proprietary Tool Allows Marketers to Identify Influencers with a Sizable Audience in a Specific Area

HYPR, the market leader in influencer analytics, announced it has launched a Designated Market Areas (DMA) search functionality for Influencer discovery. The advanced feature allows marketers to identify the precise location of influencer audiences. As the influencer marketing industry’s first tool of its kind, DMA based discovery helps marketers connect with the appropriate influencers by recognizing ones with a high percentage of followers that are located within a specific area.

Utilizing HYPR’s database of 1 billion social accounts and more than 10 million influencer profiles and audience demographic data, the new tool enables clients to accurately curate a list of influencers that impact the right audience, with a familiar and authentic influencer.

Also Read: Interview with Gil Eyal, CEO,HYPR

“HYPR has already solved the fake follower and inactive audience problem,” said Gil Eyal, CEO of HYPR. “The next step is introducing precise audience tools to ensure that every dollar a brand spends on influencers reaches a demographic actually interested in their brand or product. Influencer marketing is still marketing, and if you can’t properly segment and reach the right audiences, you’re tossing money down the drain.”

The product was developed in partnership with some of the largest retailers in the world, with the aim of identifying influencers with the densest audience population within a specific region.

HYPR’s in-depth influencer marketing platform houses profiles, audience demographic and psychographic information for over 10 million influencers across major social channels. The tool automates discovery, outreach and reporting efforts, making it the world’s most advanced influencer marketing platform. HYPR makes influencer marketing smart, efficient and impactful because it allows marketers to make data driven decisions that saves them enormous amounts of time, increases ROI and ensures that campaigns reach the right audiences. HYPR services several hundred of the world’s largest agencies and brands, and is the market leader in influencer discovery and measurement.

How To Avoid Being ‘First Down’: Lessons To Learn From Super Bowl LII

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Carmen Carey

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February 10, 2018

How to avoid being ‘First Down’: Lessons to Learn from Super Bowl LII

The Philadelphia Eagles may still be reveling in their victory over the New England Patriots in Sunday’s historic Super Bowl win, but many game-day advertisers won’t be quite as happy in the aftermath. After the vast creative (and financial!) input to running a prized Super Bowl ad, it should have been a time for businesses to reap the rewards of a guaranteed increase in traffic. Unfortunately, we identified several websites that went down during this peak time, undoing so much hard work with each second of poor performance.

This year, plenty of commercials were actually released prior to kick-off. This means that our teams, using data in Apica Synthetic, had the opportunity to monitor different companies’ performance and availability as Super Bowl Sunday unfolded.

What we found was that many major brand sites just couldn’t deal with the volume in traffic driven by the commercials, with some experiencing load delays of nearly 30 seconds and others falling over completely. What was going wrong?

Also Read: Most Americans See Super Bowl as an Entertainment Spectacle Not Appropriate for Political Messages

Downtime – It Stinks

Here are the longest homepage URL timeouts during the Super Bowl. As you can see, Febreze’s “Bleep don’t stink” ad caused its website to really suffer as a consequence.

We released a consumer expectations survey last year and based on the findings, 40% of visitors will leave a site if it takes longer than ten seconds to load. Here, the longest load time was a whopping 26.5 seconds! But things got worse…

Diving deeper into the problems of website performance, an HTTP code error 500 indicated internal server errors. What does this mean? More extensive and damaging downtime. In fact, Febreze’s site was down for a maximum of an hour during Super Bowl Sunday. As a business leader, if you were paying this much for the opportunity to advertise on one of the world’s biggest annual platforms, your website and other supporting marketing vehicles should be tested and ready to go! Sadly, it looks like some hadn’t read the playbook.

I Like Beer, But…

Let’s look at site performance based on Michelob Ultra’s “I Like Beer” 60-second ad. Over a 24-hour period on Sunday, you can see two big ‘dots’ of downtime, not to mention the tallest spike where it looks like the site took 50 seconds to load. Seriously? I like a beer, but I’m not going to wait 50 seconds to check out your website! And as industry research has been showing for a few years, no-one else is going to either.

The company did a big marketing/publicity push designed for the Super Bowl and it looks like they had a breach of their service level agreement (SLA) during the most critical ad time of their year. It’s a worst-case scenario that prior planning and preparation would have avoided.

It’s so important to test your applications before the big day; it’s not as if the winning QB just turned up to the Super Bowl without having trained and assumed everything would be fine, is it?

Also Read: Why Local Search Is the Real Winner on Super Bowl Sunday

What can we learn from this?

It’s all very well pointing fingers, but organizations need to understand what they can do to avoid similar downtime in the future. Companies of all sizes, across all industries, need to load test their sites to handle increased traffic and anticipate when that increase will occur. Hint – probably during halftime at the Super Bowl. Stretch your site to its limit if you want to understand where potential problems might lie.

Synthetic monitoring, too, provides an overall picture of the site’s availability over time, which is critical information. Monitoring matters more than ever. If a commercial with no direct link to a website or specific application can impact availability and performance, it’s crucial for organizations to always be monitoring and testing for performance, and never resting on their laurels.

Integrating website, application, and API performance testing and monitoring into your product and business strategy has never been as critically important as it is now. Being ready for every eventuality means that organizations aren’t just taking a punt on their customers’ satisfaction. In a culture of constant availability, downtime is simply no longer an option.

Matrix Solutions Debuts First Annual 2017 Advertising Spend Report

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MTS Staff Writer

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February 10, 2018

Data from the Leading Global Ad Sales Platform Helps Media Companies Improve Bottom Line with Actionable Insights into Advertising Spend

Matrix Solutions, the only global ad sales platform built for media, has announced its first annual Advertising Spend Report – providing insights derived from the activity of more than 10,000 active users within media ad sales teams from 2016 to 2017. Having managed more than $12.5 billion in media ad revenue in 2016, alone, Matrix Solutions is the only company exclusively focused on meeting the needs of the media sales ecosystem. Its Advertising Spend Report is meant to help media ad sales teams improve their bottom line with perspective that will move the right inventory to the right customers at the right price.

“According to our data, overall ad spend remained relatively flat from 2016 to 2017, which means the stakes are higher than ever for media organizations looking to improve their bottom line,” said Mark Gorman, CEO at Matrix Solutions. “Understanding where brands are investing provides media ad sales teams with a leg up in bringing in revenue more efficiently.”

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

“We rely on Matrix Solutions to provide us with better sales intelligence across our unique channels of inventory – projecting revenue and reporting on granular data that matters to us as a media organization,” said Michael O’Brien, Vice President, Sales at The E. W. Scripps Company. “The company’s Advertising Spend Report provides an added layer of insight from the overall media industry, helping us to make complex decisions and improve our overall revenue.”

According to the report, political ads made up more than 12 percent of the media industry’s advertising spend in 2016, totaling more than $1.5 billion. This number decreased after the election to $220 million in 2017. For a more holistic view of the media ad sales industry year-over-year, Matrix Solutions removed political advertising from its metrics and came up with the following trends:

Health and Beauty: A Safe Bet for Media Ad Sales Teams

Media organizations increased their advertising spend in categories such as trade organizations (8.94 percent growth), media/communications (4.84 percent growth), and health and beauty (4.09 percent growth) from 2016 to 2017.

Beverages (-15.89 percent contraction), automotive/auto-related (-9.98 percent contraction), and restaurants (-5.87 percent contraction) were all categories that saw a decline from 2016 to 2017.
Home improvement stayed consistent from 2016 to 2017.

Digital Broadcast is Booming – Except for Financial Services

Broadcast: Key areas of ad sales growth in broadcast included media/communications (6.56 percent growth), general services (2.24 percent growth), and health and beauty (0.70 percent growth).

Digital Broadcast: Ad sales grew across nearly every category in digital broadcast (at an average rate of 13 percent), with financial services being the only category that saw a decline (-2.09 percent contraction).

Radio: Health and beauty (26.15 percent growth), travel and leisure (24.28 percent growth), general services (15.15 percent growth), and home improvement (3.87 percent growth) showed significant growth in radio in 2017.

National Spend is No Longer Necessary for Success

Local advertising is becoming more important than ever, with local spending remaining flat/slightly down (-1.02 percent contraction) and national spending down by more than $155 million (-4.15 percent contraction) – excluding political advertising, which made up a significant portion of national budgets in 2016.

Media Ad Sales are Declining in the South and Midwest

In 2016, companies in the Northeast spent the least amount of money on political advertising (more than $273 million), while companies in the Midwest spent the most (more than $440 million). Regionally, the South has been the least affected by the falloff of political advertising. But, if we exclude political ads from our analysis, the South and Midwest have seen the largest decrease in spending from 2016 to 2017, at -2.53 percent and -3.71 percent respectively.

Methodology

Matrix Solutions looked at $11 billion worth of media ad sales deals to see which categories and platforms were most popular across the media ad sales industry in the United States – normalizing each category across more than 10,000 unique active users.

Connatix Expands Video Syndication Offerings With New CRO

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MTS Staff Writer

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February 10, 2018

Jennifer Chen To Accelerate Programmatic Channel Partnerships And Monetization

Connatix, the most advanced video syndication and monetization platform for publishers, announced the appointment of Jennifer Chen as the company’s first Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).

Connatix, which has quickly emerged as the leader in video syndication, is increasing the breadth of its impact for publishers by building out more programmatic execution channels. This includes programmatic direct sponsorship packages and private marketplace deals for their premium content. As CRO, Chen will lead these efforts and oversee partnerships with the major DSPs and trading desks.

Chen joins Connatix from Sizmek, formerly MediaMind, where she was the VP/GM of Programmatic, Americas. During her time with Sizmek, she built out the global programmatic business from less than $10 million to over $50 million, within 3 years.

In addition to her accomplishments within the digital advertising space, Jennifer is also the co-Founder and President of Givology, a nonprofit platform which connects donors to students in need, in over 25 developing countries. She brings both her wealth of industry experience and sense of communal responsibility to Connatix.

“As a publisher first company, we have built, in the past four years, the largest independent syndication network in the US, powering more than 3000 publisher sites,” said David Kashak, Founder and CEO of Connatix. “We have seen a tremendous success in private marketplace executions for our premium publishers, and we are prioritizing our efforts in building a wider programmatic footprint. Jennifer brings a proven track record in scaling such business.”

“Connatix combines a lot of what is rare in the world of digital advertising companies. They have a strong business model which is anchored by value creation for all parties in its marketplace, clients who have promoted and referred them, high growth multiples, differentiated technology, and a team that loves to win together,” said Chen. “I am excited to be the latest member of that team.”

Also Read: Context Is King: The Rise of Contextual Advertising in 2018

Data: Mobile Conversion Rate Equals Desktop for the First Time

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February 9, 2018

Data: Mobile Conversion Rate Equals Desktop for the First Time

New Yes Lifecycle Marketing Report Reveals Milestone in Mobile, Identifies Opportunities to Optimize Mobile Path-To-Purchase

Email marketing reached a new milestone at the end of 2017. For the first time, orders per click for desktop and mobile were equivalent at 3.3 percent, according to data released recently by Yes Lifecycle Marketing.

In its latest Email Benchmark Report: A Marketer’s Guide to 2018, Yes Lifecycle Marketing analyzed almost 9 billion emails sent in Q4 2017, and over 30 billion sent in 2017, via its cross-channel communications platform Yesmail360i. The report found that in 2017 smartphone orders accounted for 46 percent of all email-driven orders, which is a 33 percent increase year-over-year (YOY). During the same period, tablet and desktop orders saw declines of 14 percent and 18 percent, respectively, indicating smartphone’s growing dominance as it edges out other devices.

Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing — *Michael Fisher, President, Yes Lifecycle Marketing*

“It’s clear smartphones have become consumers’ preferred device for purchasing. Marketers have a lot to gain from this shift, but they must improve the mobile user experience and achieve parity between desktop and mobile average order value (AOV),” said Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing.

While desktop and mobile are now equal in terms of conversion rate, desktop continues to drive higher AOV. The report found that mobile AOV remains about 40 percent lower than desktop AOV ($58 vs. $96, respectively) and this ratio has remained consistent over the last three years. The disparity indicates that consumers still value desktop functionality for larger purchases.

“Marketers would be wise to prioritize mobile in 2018. If they unlock the key to increasing the size of orders customers make on mobile, they can earn 40 percent more revenue this year. To meet that challenge, marketers need a cross-channel communications platform that bridges the gap between mobile and desktop and a creative partner who is well-versed in the mobile experience,” said Michael Iaccarino, president of Infogroup, the parent company of Yes Lifecycle Marketing.

Also Read: Cyber Monday Emails Generated 53 Percent Higher Conversion Rate than Black Friday Emails

Other key findings from the report include:

While subscribers received 19 percent more emails in Q4 2017 than in Q4 2016, the number of opens per openers and clicks per clicker were only up 8 and 3 percent, respectively.
In Q4 2017, new subscribers accounted for just three and a half percent of marketers’ mailable audiences, the lowest this number has ever been.
Triggered emails generated more than double the open rate, triple the unique click rate, and almost double the click-to-open rate of standard emails; yet triggered messages made up only 2% of email volume in 2017.

Elytics Launches ‘Audience-2-Consumer’ Attribution Software to Maximize Marketers’ Ad Spend

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February 9, 2018

Elytics Launches 'Audience-2-Consumer' Attribution Software to Maximize Marketers' Ad Spend

1,800%+ Increase of Direct Facebook Traffic; 130%+ On-Site Product Specific Transactions; 23%+ New Users; All Resulting from a Single Radio Broadcast Advertiser (Over a 30-Day Span) Using Elytics’ Advertising Attribution Analytics Proprietary “A-2-C” Saas Platform

Elytics announced the commercial launch of its revolutionary and proprietary “Audience-2-Consumer” Advertising Attribution Analytics SaaS Platform. Elytics is enabling a new paradigm for advertising attribution. In 2017 Elytics completed large customer beta tests, a strategic radio broadcast initiative, and closed its first Venture Round. Elytics continues to build increased functionality, transparency and ways to further engage its customers as it “shortens the consumer lifecycle.” This transparency allows marketers of all types to maximize their Ad spend through cross-media attribution.

Elytics also announced key executive additions. First, Mark Preston has joined as the President & COO. Over the past 11 years, Preston was the Vice President of Digital for both Bonneville International and Hubbard Radio.

Second, Bruce Reese has also joined the Company as a Member of its Board of Directors. Reese is a former Chair of the Joint Radio and Television Boards of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), as well as the former CEO of both Hubbard Radio and Bonneville International.

Also Read: Anodot Raises $23 Million to Accelerate AI-powered Analytics and Anomalies Detection for Major Customers

“Mark and Bruce provide unparalleled vision and industry knowledge,” says Colby Clark, CEO of Elytics. Elytics is a powerful analytics engine compiling intelligent and actionable business insights. “However,” Clark adds, “we are not like just any other analytics tool. Elytics’ provides advertising attribution metrics displayed in a template or custom visual dashboard and positions Advertisers to overcome the ‘last click’ dichotomy.’ Elytics’ “A-2-C” solution transforms traditional broadcast advertising and creates a new paradigm through attributable audience actions.”

“Broadcasters can now justify a more significant share of an advertiser’s marketing budget,” adds Reese. “Radio has needed what Elytics can provide for a long time.” Reese echoes what Inside Radio recently posed to Radio CEOs in Think Tank: How Radio can get a Larger Share of Ad Pie. Specifically, he agrees with Inside Radio in saying, “Radio needs to up its data game, broadcasters say, to more precisely target ad campaigns and to quantify their impact for advertisers.” Id.

Preston further elaborates, “Elytics is positioned at the intersection of advertisers’ craving transparency, and broadcast media needing to provide attribution. Showing measurable audience action will boost broadcast media to ‘get the credit it deserves.’ I am excited to join Elytics and provide an invaluable solution to an industry I’m passionate about.”

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

Digital Content Next Report Finds Facebook, Google Experiences Together Account for Less Than 5% of Total Digital Revenue for Publishers

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February 9, 2018

Digital Content Next Report Finds Facebook, Google Experiences Together Account for Less Than 5% of Total Digital Revenue for Publishers

Video Revenue Drives Growth for Publishers; Snapchat’s Ad Product Portfolio Is Failing Publishers

A research report released recently by trade association Digital Content Next (DCN) – the “DCN Distributed Content Revenue Benchmark Report” – offers in-depth insights into how Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube and other platforms are partnering with premium digital publishers to attract users and grow advertising revenue. As the only trade association exclusively dedicated to trusted, high-quality digital content brands, DCN commissioned the second annual report to support their members’ content distribution efforts and to share best practices with the industry as premium publishers continue to develop or further establish existing third-party relationships. The report found that despite the constant changes in distributed content policies and business practices, little has changed for publishers in the last 12 months.

Also Read: LinkedIn Launches Beta Program with Video for Sponsored Content

Facebook and Google, the two dominant companies generating
the most revenue for publishers outside of Over-the-Top (OTT),
together account for less than 30 percent of the total distributed content revenue and represent only 5 percent of the total average digital revenue for publishers.

However, overall revenues from distributed content grew from 14 percent in last year’s report and now represent 16 percent of the participating publishers’ digital revenues.

For the companies providing data for both H1 2016 and H1 2017 for DCN’s report, distributed content revenue grew by an estimated 37 percent year over year. Video revenue continues to drive monetization, representing an estimated 83 percent of the total, with TV/cable companies reaping a disproportionate share of third-party platform monetization and growth through OTT and syndication.

Facebook overtook YouTube in 2017 as the individual platform generating the most revenue for publishers, capturing $1.3 million (50 percent of social platform revenue) in H2 2016 and $1.5 million (59 percent of social platform revenue) in H1 2017.

In addition, publishers say that marketers continue to be interested in Snapchat’s young demographic, but dislike the ad product which is easily skipped and has low (under three seconds) average view times. It remains to be seen how Facebook’s January 2018 announcement to deprioritize certain publisher content in the news feed and prior shifts in its video business model – as well as Snapchat’s changes to its monetization model and self-service Ad Manager API – will affect publishers’ interests and monetization.

Also Read: Facebook & Google: A Media Duopoly Under Scrutiny

Despite the increased demand for premium digital content on third-party platforms, publishers continue to struggle to extract value from their distributed content. Search, syndication and OTT channels have been more accommodating to publishers than social media. While there have been some encouraging developments, like the introduction of the Facebook Instant Articles subscription tool, the realities of implementation are harsh and the challenges remain, especially for print and pure play publishers.

“The revenue earned from distributed platforms does not yet match the investment and tremendous value of DCN members’ news and entertainment. The report once again supports our members’ drive for better economics which is now happening in parallel to a much larger global debate about the societal and economic harm from certain platforms,” said Jason Kint, CEO, DCN.

Also Read: Facebook Viewed As Least Brand-Safe Platform, LinkedIn Most Safe, According to GumGum Research

Despite the challenges, DCN found that publishers remain active across a range of channels distributing and monetizing content off of their sites at levels relatively similar to last year. All publishers are distributing through social media and syndication channels, while slightly more than half of the sample report distribution through Google AMP and through OTT. Facebook and Twitter remain the most used of the channels followed closely by YouTube and Instagram.

“Distributed content remains an integral part of publishers’ strategic plans,” said Kint. “The continuous platform changes create challenges for publishers but they must continue to partner, test and drive for the best value for their premium content on the platforms that control such significant audiences and attention.”

Also Read: Facebook News Feed Update: Will the Revamp Add to your ‘Price of Opportunity’?

Distributed Content Revenue Benchmark Report findings were shared at the DCN Next: Summit, an annual, members-only conference held in Miami, FL. While the full report is for participating DCN members only, DCN provided a list of best practices for all publishers, including:

Concentrate negotiation at the executive level of your company management; do not leave negotiations to lower-level management and/or individual brands or businesses.
Focus on products that leverage your core business, are replicable, get new money, and have the potential to scale.
Negotiate for business requirements that support scaling in partnership agreements:
1. ad server integration;
2. third-party measurement integration;
3. management reports (e.g. roll-ups by a publisher and/or marketer); and
4. data for advertising and subscription monetization.
Test and measure content consumption and monetization through both advertising and subscription on third-party platforms and compare results to on-site metrics to inform monetization strategies.
Centralize responsibilities or use active cross-functional teams for managing third-party partnerships.

Eleanor Powers, Powers Media & Entertainment Consulting, was hired by DCN to conduct proprietary research with its members on distributed content monetization. The research focused on four channels of distributed content publishing and monetization: social media (Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and other partners in aggregate), search (Google AMP), traditional syndication (YouTube and other partners in aggregate including MSN, Yahoo, AOL and Apple News), and OTT.

Lotame Unveils ‘Precision Audiences’ for Quality Audience Segmentation and Insights

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February 9, 2018

Lotame Unveils ‘Precision Audiences’ for Quality Audience Segmentation and Insights

As Barriers to Transparency and Accuracy in Digital Advertising Continue to Grow, Lotame’s Precision Audiences Promises to Deliver Quality-Validated Audience Segments and Insights to Its Global Customers

Leading DMP and a Top-150 company on our MarTech RADAR, Lotame, has announced the launch of “Precision Audiences.” These proprietary and validated on-target demographic audience segments exceed industry benchmarks and are now available in more than 20 countries worldwide.

In a recent interview, Omar Abdala, Chief Scientist at Lotame had mentioned, “To be a successful DMP in the future, every DMP will need these capabilities because they create significant opportunities for advertisers and publishers alike who need greater insights into how audiences behavior no matter what device they might be on.”

Clearly, Lotame have a clear product roadmap for 2018.

Andy Monfried, CEO and Founder of Lotame, said, “As barriers to transparency and accuracy in digital advertising continue to grow, Lotame is going all-in on its promise to deliver validated, on-target audience segments and insights for our customers.”

Today, 80% of marketers say audience data is critical to their digital advertising efforts.

– Another 53% have increased their annual spend on data-driven advertising.

– As audience data’s importance continues to grow for media buyers and sellers alike, concerns over quality have exploded – and for good reason. In 2016, bots accounted for 40% of all Internet traffic, manipulating audience insights for 94% of media sellers.

– Other challenges, from unreliable data collection and volume incentives among data providers, to shared PCs across consumers, have only fueled quality concerns. As a result, the industry is demanding more transparency and accuracy from the audience data that they use to transact and target media.

Enter Lotame’s Precision Audiences.

Today’s launch includes validated demographic segments, guaranteed to exceed industry benchmarks in more than 20 major countries. Using Precision Demographic Audiences, a major CPG brand tested data on 20 million female-identified IDs between 18-34, who performed at double the accepted industry on-target benchmark.

In the UK, a female 25-54 audience of 40 million profiles tested 25% above benchmark.

In Germany, Lotame found 40 million male 18-34 profiles at 30% above accepted industry benchmarks.

Michelle Mirshak, Vice President, Data Architecture and Platforms at Spark Foundry, said, “Our clients are spending increasingly more resources and budgets on licensed data to more comprehensively understand their customers. First and foremost, advertisers need to trust the quality of the data, and then look at the scale.”

Michelle added, “The Data Architecture team within Spark Foundry challenges our data partners to get to the bottom of their methodology and data collection practices, ensuring we partner with the highest quality platforms. Transparency is the only way to operate today. Scale with a disregard for quality and transparency is not acceptable. The quality of data sets partners apart and it’s evident in the performance.”

Added Monfried: “We are committed to providing quality data to our customers. Data quality is an industry-wide concern, threatened by non-human traffic, bad actors and bad processes. With today’s launch, we are reinforcing our leadership position around quality, with what will likely become a category standard for other data exchanges.”

Currently, Lotame enables companies to use data to build stronger connections with their consumers.

Recommended Read: TechBytes with Jeremy Pinkham, CTO, Lotame

Mundo Inc. Appointed Exclusive Performance Ad Provider to VIAGP

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February 9, 2018

Mundo Inc. appointed exclusive performance ad provider to VIAGP

Mundo Inc. Has Been Appointed as the Exclusive Performance Advertising Service Provider to VIAGP Inc.

Mundo Inc., a leader in online performance-based advertising, announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Mundo Inc. has been appointed as the exclusive performance advertising service provider to VIAGP Inc., the world’s premier Grand Prix marketing agency. VIAGP are experts in turning innovative ideas into winning marketing campaigns for world-famous clients.

Mundo is continuing its successful track record in bringing performance marketing to sport after going live with its agreement to deliver incremental advertising performance for STACK MEDIA. The MUNDO performance marketing network has proven successful in connecting advertisers in sports with an engaged audience with a robust data-rich suite of advertising technology.

“We are very excited about this partnership. MUNDO’s audience engagement has proven to be among the highest in the sports vertical. The sophistication of the MUNDO platform will provide VIAGP clients with the competitive edge needed to build staying brand awareness and drive profitability with VIAGP’s digital campaigns,” said Ted Dobrzynski, President of VIAGP.

Also Read: Vungle Announces Self-Serve Platform for Mobile Advertisers, With Creative Automation to Scale High Quality Customer Acquisition

VIAGP has been working in Formula 1 racing for over 17 years. They have mastered this challenging, specialized industry. VIAGP’s dedication to their partners’ success has created long-lasting, exclusive relationships with a broad range of clients. The new relationship with Mundo will allow for increased audience reach, share of voice, and ROI for VIAGP clients.

VIAGP’s primary focus is the creation of strategic marketing partnerships in international motorsport. VIAGP’s wealth of experience and their global network spans diverse businesses and cultures across five continents. Extensive experience creating winning campaigns from innovative ideas leverage deep connections within Formula 1 racing.

Under the agreement, Mundo will deliver advertising campaigns for VIAGP across the Mundo Network and STACK web properties. Mundo will also collaborate with VIAGP to develop custom performance advertising programs for its partners.

Mundo clients will benefit from the increased reach provided by VIAGP’s existing advertising channels. Mundo is a leading global, online, performance-based advertising technology company. Mundo leverages billions of user-specific data points to efficiently acquire and retain mobile and desktop customers for advertisers while generating monetization channels for publishers.

Validar Inc. Announces Release of EventScore, Attendee Behavior Influence Solution for Event Marketers

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prweb

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February 9, 2018

Validar Inc. Announces Release of EventScore, Attendee Behavior Influence Solution for Event Marketers

Validar Announces the Release of Eventscore, a New Attendee Behavior Influence Tool in Partnership with Meru Interactive

Validar Inc, a leading provider of lead management technology for event marketers, and in partnership with Meru Interactive, announced the release of EventScore for Event Marketers. EventScore provides event marketers with a means to influence attendee behavior by applying an adjustable score to implicit or explicit attendee activity at face to face events. Now with EventScore, you can provide an incentive to attendees to participate and provide feedback at breakout sessions, product demos, and expo hall visits. EventScore is an event branded HTML5 application that can be presented on a large leaderboard or mobile app, depicting an individual attendee’s overall score based upon his or her actual activity whether tracked implicitly via BLE or explicitly by scanning.

This solution is perfect for event producers looking for ways to encourage and drive attendee traffic to breakout sessions, product demonstrations, sponsor visits and other event experiences.

“Event Sponsors are key to our customers’ event success. EventScore provides an ideal framework to drive attendees to the show floor. Also, by incorporating feedback and evaluation responses to the gamification, we can now drive a higher evaluation response rate and more “call to action” conversions for our customers,” says Victor Kippes, CEO of Validar.

Validar Inc. is the leading provider of lead management, lead capture, registration, and feedback technology for event marketers. Validar’s technology and services help customers close the loop between event marketing and sales by providing the ability to drive relevant activity to sales while measuring the performance of their event marketing campaigns.

Also Read: Attendify Creates a Private Social Network for Your Event

“Our partnership with Validar takes the growing trend of gamification to the next level by leveraging Meru Interactive’s platform and expertise in incentivizing attendee engagement using new and innovative technologies,” says Jay Raines, President and Co-founder of Meru Interactive.

Meru Interactive is a leading creator of engaging experiences in the live events industry, utilizing a mixture of custom programming, high-end media servers and the latest innovative technologies to bring experiences to life.

Lack of Resources is Top Challenge for Businesses’ Social Media Efforts

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February 9, 2018

Lack of Resources is Top Challenge for Businesses' Social Media Efforts

New Survey Reveals That 26% of Businesses Say Inadequate Staffing or Budget Is Their Main Obstacle to Success with Social Media

The biggest social media challenge for many businesses is securing the necessary staffing and financial resources to manage it, according to a new survey from The Manifest and Smart Insights.

More than 25% of social media marketers say this shortage of resources
is their biggest obstacle to a successful social media plan.

To resolve this, social media experts recommend that a company’s leadership team understand the importance of social media and be committed to overcoming resource obstacles.

Also Read: Mobile, Social and Data: Three Keywords Marketers Cannot Miss

“I empathize with the marketers who can’t hit their goals or reach the potential of social media because they are limited by budget. But nothing replaces having a leadership team or decision maker inside an organization who gets social media and is willing to put in a long-term effort,” said Josh Krakauer, founder and CEO of social media marketing agency Sculpt.

The ideal solution, experts say, is a company leader who understands the importance of social media and is invested in the company’s long-term social media marketing success.

Also Read: Tweet Your Way to Success: A Guide to Social Media Marketing & Strategic Thinking

Some businesses, such as One Tribe Apparel, partner with social media influencers to overcome a gap in funding or staff to maintain a social media presence. This partnering strategy is an effective way for companies to save money and expand awareness of their brand.

“These collaborations get us quality photos in unique locations without the cost of hiring a photographer, and they also help us gain followers by having the influencer talk about us and tag our account,” One Tribe Apparel Co-Founder Ryan O’Connor said.

Companies can save money using influencers who spread awareness of the brand.

Other social media marketers say their biggest social media challenges
are lacking a formal social media strategy (24%),
building a community of followers (24%), and tracking results (17%).

Despite these challenges, experts agree that social media is essential for companies.

“Companies have to be on social media. You need to be where your customer is, and that’s social media,” said Peg Samuel, founder of Social Diva Media, an agency that helps businesses improve their social media strategy.

Also Read: Hootsuite Report Finds That CEOs on Social Media Boost Credibility

Businesses need a social media presence to retain current customers and gain new ones.

Overall, 52% of social media marketers say social media has helped
increase their company’s revenue and sales, a number that is expected to increase.

The Manifest’s 2018 Social Media Survey included 344 social media marketers from companies around the world with more than 10 employees. The respondents are split evenly between B2B and B2C companies.

Zilliant Expands Global Artificial Intelligence B2B Benchmark Report

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February 9, 2018

Zilliant Expands Global Artificial Intelligence B2B Benchmark Report

Updated Global Report Breaks out Manufacturing, Distribution Segments

Zilliant, a leading AI-driven SaaS platform for maximizing the lifetime value of B2B customer relationships, announced an update and expansion of its Global AI B2B Benchmark Report. The company has published separate distribution and manufacturing industry benchmark reports for greater industry relevancy.

Also Read: Zilliant Announces Global Artificial Intelligence B2B Benchmark Report

The sample data analyzed includes 4.4 million products, 4.1 million customers, 13 currencies and $120 billion in transactions. Traditional business intelligence and analytics simply cannot compute at this scale. Created by analyzing over 1 billion B2B transactions, the report reveals consistent areas of uncaptured revenue and substantial opportunity available:

The global B2B industry, overall, consistently fails to capture between 9 and 42 percent of available profit and revenue in four categories.
B2B manufacturers consistently fail to capture between 10 and 50 percent of available profit and revenue; for a $1 billion company, this represents $100 to $500 million uncaptured annually.
B2B distributors consistently fail to capture between 9 and 38 percent of available profit and revenue; for a $1 billion company, this represents $90 to $380 million uncaptured annually.

Also Read: Zilliant Invites Minneapolis to Unleash Sales & Pricing Potential

“In November, we received an overwhelmingly positive response to the original report and quickly began work on phase two. Now, company leaders can understand which of the four categories is most prevalent in their industry. For example, manufacturers are disproportionately affected by cross-selling, meaning the data shows their customers would purchase more if given relevant product recommendations when buying – in person, on the phone, or online,” said Zilliant CEO Greg Peters.

The report, an anonymized and aggregated data analysis using Zilliant’s proprietary AI-driven techniques, reveals four problem areas: Cross-sell, customer churn, pricing inconsistencies and misaligned market pricing. Companies usually exhibit a unique mix of all four categories.

Lionbridge Launches Oracle Responsys Application that Delivers Personalized Marketing in Every Language

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February 9, 2018

Lionbridge Launches Oracle Responsys Application that Delivers Personalized Marketing in Every Languagex

Lionbridge Helps Marketers to Deliver a Cohesive Message Across Channels, Devices And, Now, Languages Through Integration to Oracle Marketing Cloud

Lionbridge Technologies Inc., the world’s most trusted translation and global digital communications company and Gold level member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), announced that it has launched Lionbridge Connector, now available on the Oracle Cloud Marketplace, as a partner of the Oracle Marketing AppCloud. The new application empowers marketers to plan and execute individualized customer experiences at scale with Oracle Marketing Cloud through Oracle Responsys. The Oracle Marketing AppCloud is one of the industry’s most comprehensive marketing technology ecosystems, offering Oracle customers a broad set of marketing apps and data services to extend and optimize their technology investments.

The Lionbridge Connector is one of the first real integrations to automate translation workflows within Oracle Responsys and will provide marketing teams the canvas to build specific consumer profiles and tailor customer interactions across e-mail, mobile, display, social and web channels—all without language limitations.

Also Read: Lionbridge to Discuss AI Ethics at AI Assistant Summit

Today’s marketer must deliver a personalized narrative that follows customers across devices throughout their decision-making journey. Language is critical to ensuring those tailored messages are relevant and native to the consumer. By leveraging the Lionbridge Connector, marketers can deliver a seamless, customized message to audiences wherever, whenever and however they receive it.

Lionbridge Launches Oracle Responsys Application that Delivers Personalized Marketing in Every Language — Doug Kennedy

“We believe the power of connection should allow marketers to deliver truly customized moments to diverse audiences across multiple channels. As organizations continue to expand to more global audiences, language has come to the forefront of any successful campaign that spans multilingual audiences. The new Lionbridge Connector further enhances Oracle Responsys’ ability to ensure every message is both targeted and clear,” said Doug Kennedy, VP Business Development and Partner Strategy, Oracle Marketing Cloud.

Also Read: Oracle Marketing Cloud Adds WeChat Integration to Make Inroads into App-Based Personalization on Social

Anja Schaefer, Vice President Global Solutions, Lionbridge, added, “Oracle Responsys connects an array of data points to help marketers map a more holistic view of each individual consumer. Now more than ever, the individuals that comprise a consumer audience are more diverse, often speaking different languages or using different dialects, across disparate regions. The Lionbridge Connector strengthens the customized moments Oracle Responsys delivers to ensure valuable connections are made with every engagement.”

Also Read: Lionbridge Connector For Salesforce Commerce Cloud Available On LINK Marketplace

Oracle Marketing Cloud provides chief marketing officers (CMOs) and their teams with data-driven solutions to simplify marketing resources and deliver more personalized customer-centric experiences across every channel to attract and retain ideal customers. These modern marketing solutions connect cross-channel, content, and social marketing with data management and activation, for enterprise B2B and B2C marketers on a single system of record.

Oracle Marketing Cloud customers can visit the Lionbridge Connector listing in the Oracle Cloud Marketplace to install the application and begin implementing Lionbridge Connector in Oracle Marketing Cloud.

This Is the Key Difference Between Your Star Reps and the Rest of Your Team

By

Amit Bendov

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February 9, 2018

This Is the Key Difference Between Your Star Reps and the Rest of Your Team

Gong.io logo

Great conversations. That’s what differentiates your top sales reps from everyone else on the team.

Sceptical? Let’s take a look at exactly what happened during one million sales conversations to see how top performers behaved differently.

Don’t worry … my team at Gong already did the heavy lifting on this one. That’s how many recorded conversations we’ve picked apart using artificial intelligence. (True story.) So it’s not surprising that we’ve reached a few conclusions.

I’ll talk about specifics below, but here are the two most significant nuggets:

There are stark and striking differences between the sales conversations had by star performers and the 60% in the middle of the pack (your “average” reps)
Those differences can be your key to a new way of training and coaching, and, ultimately, closing deals. Those differences can be your key to closing the performance gap that lies between your superstars and your average performers

Most sales reps, top dogs or otherwise, do many of the same things – work similar hours, send similar numbers of emails, do similar volumes of discovery calls and demos. That’s why conventional activity metrics are pretty useless when you’re trying to up everyone’s game. They don’t give you the information you can act on. They basically just tell you how much everyone sells.

It’s when we look at the glaring differences in sales call behaviors that we see possibilities for improvement and the differences between top reps and the rest of the pack.

Also Read: Sales Performance Gap: The #1 Reason VPs of Sales Miss Their Revenue Targets

Here are some examples that illustrate the fact that sales conversations are the decisive differentiator of sales performance.

First, price tends to come up at very different points in a call. The top tier reps bring it up almost 38 minutes in, whereas the others raise it much, much earlier. That’s a clear contrast distinguishing these two groups of reps.

And their talk-to-listen ratios are also dramatically different – 46% talk to 54% listen for the top performers, compared to a 68/32% split for the mid-rangers.

The top tier also asks more and different questions, and they balance them throughout the conversation better. What customer wants to feel like they’re being hustled through a question checklist?

These are some general observations we’ve derived from the million calls we’ve analyzed. And they’re interesting and useful as a broad outline, but hardly specific enough for your needs. We know that your company – and your team – is unique. So are your sales issues.

Also Read: Gong.io Launches First Real-time Conversation Intelligence for B2B Sales

Now, if sales conversations are what differentiate world-class salespeople, we can confidently say there is a root cause of the sales performance gap that so many teams face.

When you have no idea what your salespeople are saying, or how they’re saying it, or when, you can only guess at how to coach and train them. Once you have that roadmap though, you can start targeted training and coaching. Replicate what’s working and extinguish what isn’t.

In my next post, I’ll discuss the four conventional approaches to eliminating the performance gap, and why they fail if you’re blind to your sales team’s conversations.

Until then, remember: While visibility into sales conversations won’t automatically close the gap, not having those insights will surely widen it.

Telefónica Unveils AI-Powered Smart Notifications for the ‘Attention Economy’

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February 9, 2018

Telefónica Unveils AI-Powered Smart Notifications for the 'Attention Economy'

Smart Notifications Is the First Product Developed by Telefónica to Solve the Problems Created by the “Attention Economy”

Leading global telecom company, Telefónica, has launched an Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) solution for mobile applications to optimize the delivery of notifications to users. The solution increases engagement with push campaigns by automatically selecting the best moment of the day to send notifications when users are most receptive to brand interactions. When used alongside the Swrve interaction engine, this now represents the most complete and sophisticated push notification platform on the market.

Recommended Read: Six Unstoppable Disruptions in Marketing Technology

Success in the “Attention Economy” Depends on Relevant Push Notifications

Telefónica has reached an agreement to offer this solution in partnership with Swrve, one of the world’s leading interaction engines, providing a platform that includes the ability to design and deliver push notifications to highly targeted audiences.

At the time of this announcement, David del Val, Director of Product Innovation at Telefónica explained, “In a context of no attention economy, brands need to become more relevant to capture the attention of its customers, and customers are hoping to receive less useless interruptions. Smart Notifications solves both issues by helping brands contact their customers at the right time when the message is welcomed.”

“We’re delighted to be working alongside Telefónica to bring the most sophisticated push notification solution to market”, commented Swrve CEO Christopher Dean.

Chris added, “By using Smart Notifications alongside the full sophistication of Swrve’s interaction engine, new levels of engagement, loyalty, and revenue are possible for enterprise organizations.”

Smart Notifications Could Reduce the Customer Retention Costs

Smart Notifications is the first product developed by Telefónica to solve the problems created by the “Attention Economy”. In a world that is increasingly digitally connected, the channels in which we receive information are becoming ubiquitous in our day-to-day lives. Smartphone users find it progressively more difficult to concentrate, with the constant buzz from our devices generating stress and anxiety.

In fact, more than 50% of users feel smartphone notifications are distracting, compelling them to disable notifications and delete apps at significant rates. In turn, this is costing tens of billions of dollars globally in sunk customer acquisition and customer retention costs.

To address this challenge, Telefónica has developed a new proprietary patented technology called Smart Notifications to determine when users are most receptive to brand interactions. Smart Notifications uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to predict moments when users are available and ‘open for engagement’, thus bringing marketers closer to their audiences than previously possible.

Why your Customers Disable Notifications?

Smart Notifications allows brands and app owners to contact users only when they are free and to avoid moments when users are busy. This reduces user stress and anxiety, alleviates the feeling of being overwhelmed by notifications, and most importantly, increases brand trust and fosters brand relationships. Telefónica case studies reveal that users are 30-40% more likely to interact with apps and 40% less likely to disable notifications.

How Smart Notifications Uses AI to Screen Human Activity on Mobile

This is all achieved without compromising user’s data. All predictions are completed on the smartphone based on sensor data; no personal information or sensitive data is collected or kept by the servers. The Smart Notifications AI was developed as part of a Telefónica’s in-house data science research program in Barcelona. This research, that won an award for best paper at UBICOM 2015, resulted in an algorithm which can detect human boredom by looking at a person’s mobile activity, considering factors like the time since they last had a call or text, the time of day, and how intensely they are using the phone.

Smart Notifications Targets Brand-Customer Interactions Across Multiple Industries

Smart Notifications alongside Swrve is an all-in-one unique solution and the only platform that provides the capability to customize and optimize notifications, use real-time machine learning engine to find the best moment to deliver those messages, and thus increase open and click rates. The solution targets organizations across multiple verticals including retail, fashion, e-commerce, gaming, social media and entertainment industries, and can improve app engagement rates, click through and conversion rates of promotional offers.

Thomas H. Lee Partners To Acquire Alfresco Software

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February 9, 2018