Zaius Scoops $30 Million in Series B to Further Develop B2C Marketing Tech Ecosystem

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April 12, 2018

Punchh Scoops $20 Million Series B Funding to Boost AI-driven Restaurant Marketing

Restaurant Industry’s Secret Weapon Moves into New Brick & Mortar Battlegrounds, Investing in AI and Machine Learning for Predictive Marketing

Punchh, a leading Restaurant Marketing Cloud, has announced a new round of Series B venture funding. Punchh raised $20 million in funding led by Sapphire Ventures, which funds category-leading growth technology companies, with participation from Cervin Ventures, bringing their total funding to $31 million. The funds will be used to expand the Punchh Marketing Cloud to new industries and roll out predictive marketing capabilities using AI and machine learning.

Punchh is also releasing a new product, Punchh Acquire, which converts anonymous customers into brand loyalists through a broad array of channels including Wifi, SMS, social platforms, Apple Pay, eClub and others. The new Punchh Acquire product, previously available only as a Private Beta, is now available to all Punchh customers and is currently being rolled out by Del Taco, Noodles & Co., Pei Wei, Focus Brands, and others.

Punchh’s new AI and machine learning tools will empower brick and mortar retailers with the same data-driven, omnichannel marketing strategies that have allowed digital merchants to continually gain market share. By enhancing the Punchh marketing platform with intelligent and predictive consumer profiles, marketers at every level can create impactful, custom campaigns and offers across national, local, or even weather-based strata.

Punchh is the only marketing solution in the world to combine this array of Omnichannel marketing opportunities with AI-driven marketing.

At the time of this announcement, Shyam Rao, CEO and co-founder of Punchh, said, “Companies like Amazon have digital, data-driven, and tailored 1-1 marketing down to a science, while brick and mortar retailers are left data-blind and forced to spray and pray – they don’t learn from your past purchases, can’t recommend products they know you’ll buy, and they aren’t able to send the right offers to you at just the right time.” said

Shyan added, “Consumers that choose to do their shopping online as opposed to going to the store aren’t lazy – online retailers are simply doing a better job at knowing their customers and keeping them loyal with delightful and customized shopping experiences.”

Rao added, “The tools to compete with Amazon do exist and, as Punchh customers like Pizza Hut and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf can attest, brick and mortar retailers now have the tools to identify customers, predict behaviors and execute custom campaigns on the fly that fundamentally increase lifetime customer value.”

Punchh dominates the restaurant marketing world with customers including Pizza Hut, Quiznos, Smashburger, Del Taco and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. In addition to the fundraising event and product launches, Punchh has announced the intention to broaden their focus beyond the realm of restaurants and into new vertical markets including Health & Beauty and Convenience Stores, with more to follow. As part of the push into new markets, Punchh is also announcing the launch of Fantastic Sams hair care along with TruFusion, a wildly popular chain of Yoga, Pilates, Barre and Cycling health and fitness stores.

Also Read: Cisco, Olav Thon Gruppen, Samsung, Moleskin Among the Winners of 2018 Markie Awards

Jai Das, Managing Director, Sapphire Ventures, said, “Punchh is already a global leader in digital marketing solutions for restaurants, which alone would be a fantastic reason to invest in the company. But, the scope of their technology goes far beyond just restaurants and encompasses all brick-and-mortar stores with a POS. We are excited to bring our global network and expertise to help the Punchh team scale their platform to meet the massive, global opportunity of providing Amazon-like customer insights to brick-and-mortar retailers.”

Punchh’s network of restaurant customers includes more than 100 restaurant chains across the globe, representing more than $12B in annual spend by 35 million consumers. Leading restaurant brands have already deployed the new Punchh Acquire product during its Beta test period, including Del Taco and Noodles & Company. Beyond the thousands of restaurants marketing via the Punchh network in the United States, Punchh products are employed in markets as varied as India, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Currently, Punchh is a leader in innovative digital marketing products for brick and mortar retailers, combining AI and machine learning technologies, mobile-first expertise, and Omnichannel communications designed to dramatically increase lifetime customer value.

Also Read: Mintigo Teams With Oracle to Enable Sales with AI Powered Prospecting Applications

Digital Platform Joomag Expands Operations into China

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April 12, 2018

Digital Platform Joomag Expands Operations into China

China’s Booming Tech Sector Prompts Expansion of Award-Winning Digital Platform Joomag

Joomag — the all-in-one digital platform complete with integrated content marketing, digital publishing, corporate communications, and sales engagement solutions — is expanding its operations into China, the company announced recently.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Joomag features a unique, SaaS-based platform coupled with its flagship Crater Editor. The interactive content creation tool is used by more than 500,000 businesses worldwide to create, distribute, track, and monetize digital content from a centralized platform, boosting productivity in the process. Joomag has already expanded its services into Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, establishing regional offices in Munich and Moscow.

Ruben Vardanyan

“We’ve been eyeing the Chinese market for quite awhile now,” said Ruben Vardanyan, founder and CEO of Joomag. “China’s economy is one of the world’s largest emerging markets and presents a promising opportunity for many international companies. It’s a chance for us to accommodate both Chinese and international businesses. For example, Joomag is a great tool for small and medium-sized Chinese businesses who need help digitizing their marketing, digital publishing, corporate communications, or sales operations. But companies in other international markets can use our platform to globalize their services and reach new Chinese audiences, too. It’s a win-win situation. We’ve taken every step necessary to ensure we comply with all laws and regulations in China. Now, we are ready to go.”

Also Read: Digital Marketing Spend Is $10,000 or Less for Nearly Half of Small Businesses

Gevorg Grigoryan

Gevorg Grigoryan, General Manager of Joomag’s newly established office in Shanghai, echoed Vardanyan’s sentiments: “Over 77 million companies operate in China. And with that number increasing every day, it’s en route to becoming a tech superpower that rivals the United States itself. For any growing company with overseas aspirations, China is the ideal destination to expand in. There’s an opportunity here that we simply cannot afford to miss.”

China is the world’s largest eCommerce market, setting benchmarks for current and future global retailing initiatives. With a mobile-first consumer approach, innovative social commerce model, and trusted digital payments infrastructure, the country’s explosive tech market growth has piqued international interest. And for innovative tech companies like Joomag, China’s progress has unearthed entirely new niche markets waiting to be filled. “With Joomag’s innovative sales engagement and content marketing solutions,” says Grigoryan, “Chinese e-marketers can distribute various catalogs and other materials to millions of consumers in an easy-to-use format.”

Also Read: 60% of Enterprise Marketers Set To Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Content Marketing Strategy This Year

Currently, Joomag offers comprehensive digital solutions for the following 4 sectors, all of which Vardanyan assures can adapt to the Chinese market:

Digital publishing: Online education, music, and e-books comprise the “Big 3” of China’s digital publishing industry. E-books are the fastest-growing division of online bookstores in China, and with the country forecasted to become the world’s largest digital market by 2018, publishers can leverage Joomag’s platform to create and deliver impactful online content to readers. Joomag offers 3 different EDU plans and services over 10,000 educational institutions worldwide. Publishers are also able to add audio and music files to their interactive content.
Sales engagement: China’s e-commerce sector continuously sees double-digit growth year after year. Consumers are invested and spending confidently, suggesting that consumption will only continue to increase. With Joomag’s built-in analytics, businesses can continue to ameliorate the user experience by mining valuable user insights and identifying pain points. “With content usage data, businesses can quickly resolve customer problems by learning what they do and don’t like,” explains Vardanyan. “Page views, average session durations, link clicks– metrics like these help users fetch insights and optimize web content for more conversions and engagement.”
Corporate communications: According to China Daily, an astonishing 12,000 new companies were registered in China every day in 2015. The boom, attributed to deepened reforms in the business sector, has also left millions of new workers in need of a comprehensive communications platform. With large-scale collaboration and user management tools, Joomag provides a tailored internal communications program, allowing companies to communicate with their employees, the public, and important stakeholders more effectively.
Content marketing: Mass appeal has pressured marketers in China who, in an effort to attract nearly 1.5 billion consumers, are often forced to compromise content quality and longevity. For Vardanyan and the Joomag team, the dilemma was a familiar one. “They’re pressured to create content on a regular basis; we know what that’s like. A handful of our existing clients have worried about diluting their core values and content by trying to appeal to everyone quickly. But our platform prioritizes quality and quantity, meaning users can pump out great online content without sacrificing anything at all. In the long run, our goal is to help businesses promote their services within a more sustainable content marketing framework.”

From imitator to innovator, the tide has undoubtedly turned in China’s favor. Its evolution into a consumer economy has accentuated the country’s new internal-oriented focus. In turn, companies like Joomag seeking to expand abroad and penetrate more markets are establishing international footholds by providing services of value to millions of consumers. For China, then, the future of interactive marketing, sales, publishing, and communications is looking very bright.

MightyHive One of Five Companies in US Certified for Google Attribution 360 Beta

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April 12, 2018

MightyHive One of Five Companies in US Certified for Google Attribution 360 Beta

Helps Enterprise Marketers Decipher Digital Media Attribution with Unprecedented Accuracy

MightyHive, the premier Programmatic Solutions Partner, announced that it is one of the exclusive groups to receive certification for the Google Attribution 360 platform in the US, currently in pilot with Fortune 100 customers. This key certification will allow MightyHive enterprise clients to access both programmatic media buying and attribution expertise under one roof.

MightyHive, already Google’s largest DoubleClick Certified Marketing Partner and a leading Google Analytics Certified Partner, has more than 400 clients running media through its platform. With this expertise, the company can equip brands and agencies with powerful and precise analytics revealing how paid media channels are contributing to performance. With credible insights into ad effectiveness, advertisers will be able to allocate media budgets more effectively, eliminate wasted spend, and ultimately drive stronger results.

Also Read: Google Analytics Add-on’s Leads Relationship Management is the Key to Marketing Automation Success

Google Attribution 360 taps into Google’s unparalleled user graph to offer cross-device, cross-channel attribution analysis that can be further enhanced by advertisers’ first-party campaign data. Marketers are also able to use predictive analytics to model the impact of budget changes and optimize media spend across channels.

By aggregating marketing touchpoints across DoubleClick, Google AdWords, and Google Analytics, Google Attribution 360 offers marketers a uniquely comprehensive – and ultimately more accurate – view of the relative contributions of campaigns and media channels. The data-driven attribution methodology and model-comparison features available in Google Attribution 360 also give marketers vastly superior insights when compared to outdated and misleading attribution methodologies such as last-touch.

Also Read: Jellyfish Dynamix Launches As Technology Solutions Provider for DoubleClick, Google Analytics 360 Suite and Google’s Cloud

Ming Wu

“MightyHive has developed a truly unique offering that brings programmatic media buying and data-driven attribution under one roof. With Google Attribution 360, we can bring game-changing insights to advertisers who expect greater clarity than ever before into how their media dollars are influencing performance,” said Ming Wu, Chief Revenue Officer at MightyHive.

In addition to its existing Google Analytics 360 service, MightyHive will offer Google Attribution 360 on a managed-service basis.

I-COM Announces The 2018 Award Winners at I-COM Global Summit

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April 12, 2018

I-COM announces the 2018 Award Winners at I-COM Global Summit

IBM, Omnicom Media Group, Barclaycard and Mindshare Were Among the Winners Announced Yesterday, April 10th, at the I-COM Global Summit 2018 in San Sebastian, Spain.

The I-COM award winners were announced on April 10, during one of the most anticipated parts of the I-COM Global Summit 2018: the I-COM Gala Awards Dinner. The 9th edition of the world’s leading marketing data & measurement strategy event is being held in San Sebastian, Spain, gathering the brightest of the Smart Data Elite to discuss and network under the theme of ‘The Reality Disruption Field’.

From the application of data science in the real world to its use in the promotion of social good, the summit’s attendees have been engaged in highly productive sessions and debates about the current state and future trends of the marketing data industry.

Andrew Douglas

“Last night was a fantastic win for not just our team but the whole of IBM. We are lucky at IBM to come from a culture of data testing and optimization, whilst here at I-COM, we are surrounded by the world’s leading authorities on marketing analytics data and data science. I am not only delighted by the IBM win for our data visualization and data creativity work but am also proud at the contribution that IBM and our agency partners made to so many of the outstanding presentations that were finalists and winners in the awards”, said Andrew Douglas, VP Data Analytics & Data Driven Strategy CHQ, IBM, USA.

Also Read: I-Com Global Summit 2018 To Feature Speakers From Warner Bros, Facebook, Vodafone And Unilever

I-COM announced this year’s winners of the Data Creativity Awards, Data Science Hackathons, Data Startup Challenge and Smart Data Awards. They are as follows:

I-COM Data Creativity Awards

The objective of this competition is to acknowledge the most creative people and companies in achieving business value and ideally, competitive advantage for their clients by leveraging value from data.

Overall & Data Visualization Category Winner – IBM, USA
General Category Winner – Omnicom Media Group and NIKE, China
Artificial Intelligence Category Winner – Amplero and Sprint, USA
Attribution Category Winner – Flashtalking, Integral Ad Science & Tapad and Dish Networks, USA
CRM Category Winner – Wunderman and Shell, UK
Mobile Category Winner – GroundTruth and Outback Steakhouse, USA
Programmatic Category Winner – Cadreon & Universal McCann and BMW, USA
Emerging Market Regions Award Winner – Mindshare and Hindustan Unilever, India

I-COM Data Science Hackathons

The 4th edition of the I-COM Data Science Hackathons had two simultaneous challenges, which were focused on solving real problems and achieving results that would normally take months of work to accomplish or replicate. Intel and Lufthansa were the sponsors of the 2018 challenges.

The 2018 Intel challenge
Tier 1: Overall Winner Masters – Ekimetrics
Tier 2: Overall Winner Scientists – Havas Media Group (Dbi)
The 2018 Lufthansa challenge
Tier 1: Overall Winner Masters – Mindshare International
Tier 2: Overall Winner Scientists – Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) / Team B
Domo Data Storytelling Award- IE University – Team PintxoData

I-COM Data Startup Challenge

The 6th edition of the I-COM Data Startup Challenge showcased top Startups from around the world that are leveraging value from Marketing Data & Measurement as the central selling point of their product or services.

Overall, Emerging Market Regions Award & Artificial Intelligence Category Winner – Thematic, New Zealand
General Category Winner– MeasureMatch, UK

I-COM Smart Data Awards

The Smart Data Awards are an indication of a company’s overall ability in Marketing Data, aggregating the top scores achieved in the I-COM Data Creativity Awards and I-COM Data Science Hackathons to reveal the winners.

Marketer of the Year – Barclaycard International
Smart Data Agency of the Year – Mindshare
Smart Data Agency Network of the Year – GroupM

Recommended Read: What We Learned from Our I-COM Blockchain Review

How Can Companies Deliver Amazing Customer Experience: Four Big Ideas from Adobe Summit 2018

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Ralph Robertson

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April 12, 2018

Big conferences are fascinating. Premier events such as Adobe Summit evolve over time, growing in size and morphing to respond to the needs of their attendees. The best shows bring together both thought leaders and practitioners — connecting gurus who analyze trends to forecast what’s ahead with those who make stuff happen with the existing tools and tactics.

I’ve watched Adobe Summit advance over the past ten years and this year’s conference was no exception. Over 13,000 digital marketers, advertisers, analysts, and publishers — from C-level executives to channel managers — packed the halls. They came from some of the biggest and best-known names — seventeen of the top twenty technology companies, all of the top ten financial services firms, and eight of the top ten retailers.

Adobe built a show focused on one of the most pressing needs of organizations today: customer experience. Adobe promised to deliver “the latest strategies for building campaigns, managing your advertising, and gaining data insights, so you can deliver amazing customer experiences.” Many of the sessions addressed becoming an “experience business.”

From the conversations I had with folks throughout the weekend, delivering “amazing” experiences is forcing companies to rethink structure, product delivery, and of course, marketing. Several key themes emerged.

Also Read: How Integrating Artificial Intelligence in B2B Marketing Can Scale Your Business

Here are four of the big ideas on everyone’s minds at Adobe Summit 2018.

Digital Transformation is Still a Work In Progress

Marketing has never been more exciting or more challenging. Digital transformation has changed the playbook and a number of brands feel like they’re still coming to grips with the possibilities of this new landscape.

New technology has transformed many industries permanently, perhaps none so much as marketing. Digital innovation has created a new set of challenges and opportunities for marketers as they integrate advanced capabilities into traditional strategies and tactics.

Yet some marketers have failed to keep up. They rely on traditional approaches and old school thinking that simply don’t meet the demands of the era. The professionals at the Summit were there because they realize it’s not enough to fall back on what worked twenty, ten or even five years ago.

Marketing to Real People is the Future

The growth of digital has given rise to a new category of addressable channels: online display ads, video, social media, paid search, digital TV, and email. These channels offer individual, user-level data so that marketers can track more touchpoints in the consumer journey than ever before.

Estimates of how many people might have seen a brand’s message have given way to knowing the location, device, time, browser, and action of every consumer touchpoint online.

But with opportunity comes responsibility. Consumers expect brands to know them and to design content that is personal, relevant, and useful. They also, rightly, demand that their data be properly protected and used appropriately.

“Companies are challenged to deliver engaging, highly personalized content that builds a positive, emotional connection during each customer interaction — regardless of the device or channel — and do so at a high velocity,” said Aseem Chandra, Adobe’s Senior Vice President for Adobe Experience Cloud.

This is people-based marketing and it requires a whole new set of technologies, resources and capabilities to be done well. Many Summit attendees were there to learn the latest tools that will help them make this shift.

Also Read: You Can’t Spell Digital Transformation Without CDP

Customer Experience is Creating a New Roadmap

The marketers I spoke with are on-board with the new paradigm and working hard to steer in this direction. They want to give their customers compelling experiences wherever they touch their brands. But the sheer number of online channels — websites, social media, apps — and offline channels — stores, kiosks, call centers — make telling a consistent story really challenging.

Today’s engagement path involves multiple channels, but consumers don’t distinguish between online and offline. They just want a seamless experience from their mobile device to the desktop to an in-store visit.

Forrester Analyst Erna Alfred Liousas summed this up simply: “Today, B2B and B2C customers observe a brand’s overall experience, not simply select products or touchpoints.”

Yet many marketers struggle to correlate online activity with point of sale purchases, in-store sales and other offline conversions – especially when pre-sale offline engagements can quickly add up to dozens or even hundreds of interactions.

Summit participants seemed to know that without the ability to bridge the gap between the digital and physical world, it’s impossible to optimize marketing and advertising tactics to drive different online and offline success criteria or effectively manage the total consumer experience

Decisions Must Be Data-Driven

The marketing pros at Summit have their foot on the gas pedal. They are well aware of the challenges they face and are harvesting all the intel they can to overcome them. The scale of many of their organizations makes this a daunting task, with some having databases of millions of customers.

These marketers have amassed greater quantities of audience and interaction data than ever before. Their task is to integrate multiple data sources, mine them properly, and to leverage the data to produce actionable insights. Only then can they deliver compelling experiences across every channel that will give them a competitive edge and earn their customer loyalty.

Also Read: How AI is Driving a New Era of TV Advertising

Kochava Named LINE Ads Measurement Partner

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April 12, 2018

Kochava Named LINE Ads Measurement Partner

Kochava Customers Can More Effectively Target and Measure Their LINE Ads Campaigns in the Japanese Market

Kochava Inc, the industry leader providing holistic measurement solutions for mobile and connected devices, announces the ability to measure ads displayed with the LINE Corporation, a smart portal provider based in Japan.

LINE joins the industry’s largest network and publisher integrations with Kochava. Marketers can now apply the same granular tracking on the expansive inventory that LINE provides. LINE boasts more than 200 million global monthly active users on their messaging platform. Kochava customers can broaden their audience reach and measure on the popular platform.

Also Read: Kochava Introduces Intelligent Consent Management Technology To Streamline GDPR Compliance For Marketers

James Benoit

“This partnership marks another step in giving global marketers using Kochava access to the largest regional audiences,” said James Benoit, senior manager of product operations at Kochava. “Anyone running ads with LINE will see an immediate benefit in their marketing analyses by having the ability to measure data from such a significant platform.”

The Japanese market has one of the fastest growing gaming markets, bypassing the U.S. in recent years, according to Games Industry Biz. Marketers can now better measure their marketing efforts on Japanese audiences with real-time analytics and attribution, audience targeting capabilities, push notification tools, and searchable directory of media partners with Kochava.

Also Read: Kochava Announces Engagement Push Notifications

Advertisers use a special admin panel to set the details (including budget, time period, user attributes, and creatives) and make bids, and the LINE Ads Platform system chooses an ad and shows it to users. By switching to a performance-based ad system, many more businesses are now able to post ads, which they were previously unable to do due to limitations on the numbers of slots, or for budgetary reasons. Further, since advertisers can monitor their ad displays, their effects, and other details as they operate their ads, they can conduct promotions with limited budgets and distribute ads to fit sales prospects, goal achievement rates, and more.

The LINE Ads Platform is a performance-based ad platform for services related to the LINE messaging app operated by LINE Corporation. The service went into full-scale operation in June 2016 when it started distributing ads to LINE Timeline and LINE NEWS.

Recommended Read: The Two Mobile Trends That Cannot Be Denied

Oracle’s Moat Unveils New Invalid Traffic Detection Capabilities for Enhanced Brand Safety

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April 12, 2018

Oracle's Moat Unveils New Invalid Traffic Detection Capabilities for Enhanced Brand Safety

Oracle’s Moat Achieves Rigorous MRC Accreditation for SIVT of Desktop and Mobile Web Traffic
Moat’s Advanced Functionality Uses Insights from Oracle’s Proprietary Data Assets to Help Identify Bots & Other Invalid Traffic

Oracle’s Moat has announced new capabilities to detect invalid traffic, including traffic from sophisticated bots designed to look like consumers. Moat’s new functionality utilizes insights gained from Oracle’s proprietary data assets, including its Zenedge and Dyn acquisitions. Currently, Oracle’s Moat is branded as a SaaS analytics measurement provider for marketers and publishers that is part of the Oracle Data Cloud.

Highlighting the importance of these efforts, Moat also announced it has achieved the rigorous accreditation standards set by the Media Rating Council (MRC) for its desktop and mobile web Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT) detection.

Oracle’s Moat Would Target Complex Sources of Invalid Traffic

Jonah Goodhart

At the time of this announcement, Jonah Goodhart, SVP of Oracle Data Cloud and Co-Founder of Moat, said, “Collaborating with teams across Oracle has given us access to proprietary intelligence and approaches that uniquely position us to deliver even deeper insights for our customers and help drive business outcomes.”

Jonah added, “Along with our MRC accreditation, this strengthens the value of our invalid traffic detection capabilities as we continue equipping brands to make smarter decisions, improve transparency and move our industry forward.”

In addition, Moat has been granted accreditation by the MRC for its detection of SIVT across desktop and mobile web. The milestone comes at a more crucial time than ever, as sources of invalid traffic have grown in complexity over the past year.

In accordance with MRC guidelines, Moat’s platform includes a new breakout of GIVT (General Invalid Traffic) and SIVT rates to give publishers and marketers an extra level of insight into traffic sources. These metrics are mutually exclusive, filtered first for GIVT before reporting SIVT.

Other enhancements to Moat’s platform arm brands with advanced metrics, including:

– Hidden Ad Rate — As part of Moat’s SIVT detection, this metric quantifies ads that are hidden from users for the entire duration of an impression, including the detection of different types of Hidden Ads.

– Session Hijacking — Another component of Moat’s SIVT detection, this metric detects manipulated human activity, such as when a user session is forcibly redirected to another website, tab, or app store.

– Invalid Domain Rate — An update to Moat’s Invalid Domain detection captures sophisticated domain-spoofing that attempts to take advantage of marketers and premium publishers alike.

George Ivie

“We congratulate Moat on the significant achievement of earning MRC accreditation for its Sophisticated Invalid Traffic detection and filtration capabilities for desktop and mobile web traffic,” said George Ivie, Executive Director and CEO of the MRC.

George added, “With the industry focused on improving transparency and reducing waste throughout the digital media supply chain, Moat’s MRC accreditation for SIVT once again clearly demonstrates that it’s at the forefront of industry leaders in promoting high-quality digital measurement.”

Robert Stone, Senior Director, Digital Center of Excellence, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, said, “Transparency is critical to overcoming the impact of invalid traffic. Our integration with Oracle’s Moat opens new doors to greater measurement and gives us a better understanding of how viewability metrics, media quality, and inventory integrity holistically impact the bottom line.”

Luis Di Como, Senior Vice President of Media, Unilever, said, “The threat of invalid traffic impacts the overall health of our ecosystem. Now more than ever we need technology offerings, like Moat’s platform, that deliver greater transparency and accountability by providing advanced metrics. It’s equally important that solutions providers work with the MRC to meet its rigorous standards for traffic validation and filtration.”

What Moat Offers

Currently, Oracle’s Moat is a global analytics provider focused on making marketers and publishers more effective. From real-time attention metrics and intelligence to cross-platform measurement and new currencies, Moat offers solutions that make branding and storytelling work better. Its products include Moat Pro, which provides users with detailed snapshots of ad activity on the web, and Moat Analytics, a measurement platform that goes beyond traditional metrics like impressions or clicks to focus on attention.

In 2017, Moat was acquired by Oracle. The acquired company now remains an independent platform within Oracle Data Cloud, which uses data and analytics to enhance media for leading marketers and publishers. Some of largest brands and publishers in the world rely on Moat as a trusted provider.

ICBRKR Announces the Social Media Platform That Won’t Sell You to the Highest Bidder

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April 12, 2018

ICBRKR Announces the Social Media Platform That Won't Sell You to the Highest Bidder

The Sleek App by ICBRKR Prioritizes Privacy, Has No Ads, and Helps Others to Find Friends With Similar Interests

ICBRKR is a new social media platform that was designed with the new generation of users in mind. Recent issues with security breaches, misinformed updates, political issues and a heavy focus on advertising are turning off younger and older generations alike. The sleek app prioritizes privacy, has no ads, and helps others to find friends with similar interests. It also incorporates a highly curated list of events and things to do by date and geography, making it easy for its community to meet like-minded people in their hometown or when traveling.

Jocelyn Loo

“We wanted to redefine the way users relate to and utilize digital social networking,” said Jocelyn Loo, Co-Founder of ICBRKR. “It’s time for us to reset our expectations and only participate in a social network if it’s secure, gives more than it takes, and listens to the feedback of users. We would never sell our data and will continue to innovate only in ways that are fun AND SAFE for our community.”

Also Read: Hottest Trends in Social Media Marketing Technology For 2018

To understand perspectives of potential users, Loo and the ICBRKR team recently conducted a survey of 500 respondents regarding social media habits, expectations, and desired improvements. 48% of respondents said they slowed down or stopped their usage of some of the most well-known platforms. The most common reasons cited for dropping social media include security, privacy, excessive advertising, and limited career help. In addition, the data showed that 71% prefer to meet new people at social events with friends, 42% of those at cultural events such as music and museums. 50% said they use social media to find social events.

The app eliminates status updates, selfies, and extraneous content and focuses on a simple profile with interest categories such as Fitness buddies, Music Lover and others and members find new and existing connections through profiles, shared interests, and playlists. Events are curated by the ICBRKR team with help from members in each geography, and the app also helps members save money by partnering with select music event organizers to add users to their guest lists for complimentary entry. In support of the new platform, ICBRKR is holding special launch events throughout the U.S. featuring live guest artists and well-known figures in music, cuisine, fitness, and art, with the next events to come in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.

ICBRKR is available for free download on iOS and Google.

Recommended Read: Forget Mobile First, It’s Now Social First

ZMG | Ruckus Factory Completes Acquisition of OTT Platform Accelerated Media

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April 12, 2018

ZMG | Ruckus Factory Completes Acquisition of OTT Platform Accelerated Media

Together, ZMG and WatchMode Will Deliver Complete OTT Entry for AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, Google and Yahoo TV

Zazoom LLC (ZMG | Ruckus Factory) announced its acquisition of Accelerated Media (renamed WatchMode). WatchMode bolsters ZMG’s connected TV strategy by adding OTT platform and ad network services to the company’s successful distribution network and digital video brands including Buzz60, Veuer, Amaze Lab and TPSY. WatchMode generates more than 80 million monthly impressions across all OTT video and connected TV platforms. The acquisition creates a connected television leader in local news and weather in 50 U.S. markets.

More and more broadcasters are looking for turnkey solutions to enter the OTT space with their news and weather content. By combining WatchMode’s OTT technology and ad buying services with ZMG | Ruckus Factory’s proven content and distribution model, the combined company will offer best-of-breed solutions for media organizations looking to expand their content offerings. Together, ZMG and WatchMode will deliver complete OTT entry for AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, Google and Yahoo TV and super-serve local cord-cutting and cord-never audiences around the world.

Also Read: How GlassView’s Global Connected TV Platform is Being Embraced By Advertisers

Steve Charlier

“Today marks another critical milestone for ZMG as we transition the company from a video content incubator with studios in New York and Chicago to a multi-platform content creation, distribution and monetization company,” said Steve Charlier, CEO of ZMG.

“Our content team is already a leader in news and lifestyle video creation for digital platforms, surpassing 60 million monthly views. We are excited to bring that success to local broadcasters across a first-class connected TV experience,” said Greg Morey, EVP of ZMG.

Also Read: Videology’s Q4 2017 TV & Video Market Report Finds Connected TV Ad Requests Have Nearly Tripled Since 2015

Lesa Bannon

“We are thrilled to be a part of ZMG,” said Lesa Bannon, former CEO of Accelerated Media. “A lot has changed in the TV landscape since we displayed our first OTT app at CES in 2008. This acquisition combines our deep knowledge of the industry with ZMG’s innovative technology and understanding of local news. Our clients will benefit from upgraded apps with better features to drive higher engagement and revenue.” Bannon joins ZMG effective immediately to continue growing WatchMode’s B2B media strategy.

Demandbase Extends ABM Collaboration with Salesforce Pardot Integration

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April 12, 2018

Demandbase Extends ABM Collaboration with Salesforce Pardot Integration

Integration Combines Contacts in Pardot with Artificial Intelligence-Powered Insights from Demandbase’s Conversion Solution

Demandbase, the leader in Account-Based Marketing (ABM), announced, at the 5th Annual ABM Innovation Summit, an expanded collaboration with Salesforce to provide marketing and sales teams with more comprehensive account and contact level insight. The integration will automatically combine real-time intent data and account insights from Demandbase’s artificial intelligence (AI) powered Conversion Solution with the contact and account records from users’ Salesforce Pardot data. With this integration, marketing can enable sales teams with a complete view of each target account, including early buying signals and other insights. This integration will provide ABM teams with access to both aggregated account level insights and the activity of individuals within an account, combining behavior data on the website with insights and behavior data across the web.

Christopher Golec CEO at Demandbase — Christopher Golec

“ABM has transformed how marketing teams drive new business and retain customers. But many B2B companies still struggle to deliver the comprehensive account view that can help sales teams drive pipeline and close business. We’re excited to extend our partnership with Salesforce and give marketers the ability to empower sales teams with a complete picture of their target accounts so they can increase their productivity and win rates,” said Chris Golec, CEO, Demandbase.

Also Read: Demandbase’s ABM Innovation Summit 2018 to Feature Sessions by Billie Jean King, Aasif Mandvi, Adam Blitzer, And Chris Golec

The integrated solution will uncover both the activity of the contact information in Pardot and the aggregated activity of account-level insights using Demandbase’s AI and proprietary IP-based data and patented identification technology. ABM teams will know when a target account visits their website, what relevant keywords and topics they are researching online, which key contacts are looking at what pages on their site, and when they’re being mentioned in the news or on blogs. These insights will be presented within Salesforce, and also be delivered via email and Slack.

Michael Kostow

“Salesforce enables marketing and sales teams to work better together, by delivering a deeper understanding of every customer. Einstein ABM arms teams with the insights necessary to deliver personalized campaigns and build relationships with their most valuable accounts. This integration with Demandbase further complements Einstein ABM, driving even more success for our customers,” said Michael Kostow, SVP & GM, Salesforce Pardot.

This new functionality will be available to Pardot and Demandbase customers in June 2018.

Demandbase is a Salesforce ISV partner, and Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce’s corporate investment group, is an investor in Demandbase.

Recommended Read: Interview with Christopher Golec, CEO, Demandbase

Bizible Unveils Bizible Discover

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April 12, 2018

Bizible Discover Is a New Product That Gives B2B Marketers Unprecedented Visibility into Marketing and Sales Performance and Revenue Generation

MarTech 150 Company, Bizible, has announced the upcoming debut of its new product, Bizible Discover, which will be generally available in early May. The leader in data-driven marketing growth with revenue attribution and planning solutions unveiled Bizible Discover to enable marketing teams with new ways to visualize and analyze their multi-touch attribution and customer journey data inside of the Bizible Platform.

With the visibility Bizible Discover provides, marketers will truly be able to make smarter decisions that grow their teams, budget, revenue, and companies.

The new product will have more granular filtering, persona-specific dashboards, and sales funnel visualizations– including golden path visualizations. Teams will also be able to analyze anonymous and known web visit, pageview, and impression data to better understand every prospect’s interaction.

Brewster Stanislaw

At the time of this announcement, Brewster Stanislaw, VP of Product and Strategy at Bizible, said, “Bizible Discover will empower B2B marketing teams to maximize success through data-driven execution. Marketers will get unparalleled insight into their funnel and customer journeys with different ways of analyzing them to improve win rate, deal size, and sales velocity. Bizible Discover will provide teams with the best possible insights to catalyze successful digital transformations and take marketing-powered growth to the next level.”

Bizible Discover will have standard dashboards that allow marketers to analyze multi-touch revenue attribution data to answer questions like, ‘What sales and marketing actions drove this quarter’s revenue?” and “How do we accelerate a prospect’s journey through the funnel?’ Bizible Discover will also have new persona-specific dashboards to help CMOs strategically manage the performance of their teams and help channel managers get the granular understanding they need to optimize performance. And finally, Bizible Discover will have new sales funnel, golden path, and velocity views to help teams better understand their impact on the sales cycle.

Demandbase Launches ABM Analytics to Transform ABM Measurement Strategies

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April 12, 2018

Demandbase Launches ABM Analytics to Transform ABM Measurement Strategies

Account-Based Measurement Functionality to Provide Comprehensive Performance Metrics for Audiences and Programs Across the Funnel

Demandbase, the leader in Account-Based Marketing (ABM), announced the launch of ABM Analytics, a new analytics functionality within the ABM platform, which leverages the company’s patented account identification technology. ABM Analytics helps marketers view the performance of their ABM initiatives across the full funnel from advertising to pipeline and revenue, to understand the progression of their most valuable accounts across the buying cycle. And unlike basic reporting tools, the new analytics functionality allows marketers to compare the performance of different audiences or account lists, evaluate the impact of specific program combinations, and even benchmark different vendors—all within a single platform. Additional layers of insights expose trend and velocity data, and surface recommendations for next best actions to drive higher conversion rates through the funnel.

Alisa Groocock

“The ability to measure and articulate the effectiveness and impact of ABM programs is important to long-term ABM success. ABM solutions that bring extended measurement visibility can better support critical decision-making, and as a result, enable ABM programs to grow more quickly,” said Alisa Groocock, Research Director, SiriusDecisions.

Also Read: Demandbase’s ABM Innovation Summit 2018 to Feature Sessions by Billie Jean King, Aasif Mandvi, Adam Blitzer, And Chris Golec

ABM Analytics is part of Demandbase’s ABM Platform and is designed to deliver insights to decision-makers and practitioners tasked with driving an ABM strategy, from awareness and engagement to conversion and closed revenue. Using the solution, marketers can monitor the health of their ABM strategies by examining the progress of their most valued accounts through the buying cycle; create side-by-side comparisons of audiences with different revenue ranges, employee sizes or verticals to understand how their segments perform at every stage of the funnel; understand the performance of individual marketing tactics such as advertising, or direct mail, diagnose problems and opportunities along the customer journey and take targeted actions to improve performance; and build credibility throughout the organization by sharing transparent ABM progress reports.

“For years, B2B marketers have struggled to connect disparate data sitting at agencies, in their web log files and CRM to measure the true impact of their marketing programs. Our new analytics functionality leverages the best practices from some of the world’s most sophisticated B2B marketers and brings them to life for every company, no matter where they are on their ABM journey,” said Chris Golec, CEO of Demandbase.

Also Read: Interview with Christopher Golec, CEO, Demandbase

ABM Analytics connects data across advertising systems, marketing automation, content management, Web Analytics tools, and CRM systems, which gives marketers a single view into which accounts are responding to ads, engaging with content, moving into sales cycles and contributing to revenue. Marketers can put their performance in context using either comparison against an automatically-generated lookalike control group or any other audience. This comparison functionality provides a better understanding of which stages of the funnel are performing well, and alternately, which are underperforming against expectations so that marketers can continue to improve their ABM campaigns.

Also available within the ABM Platform is Keyword Discovery, an audience insights tool, which helps marketers identify new intent keywords and topics that prospects are researching around the web. Marketers can use these insights to inform their SEM efforts and test new keywords to capture a broader range of intent and improve cost-per-click efficiency.

Tech Industry Veteran Jeff Ray Named Brightcove CEO

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April 12, 2018

Tech Industry Veteran Jeff Ray Is the New Brightcove CEO

In His Role As Brightcove CEO, Jeff Ray Would Lead The Cloud Video Market Leader to Realize Short and Long-Term Business Goals

*Brightcove CEO Jeff Ray. Photo Courtesy of Ellucian/Businesswire*

Brightcove has a new CEO. The leading provider of cloud services for video announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Hugh Jefferson (Jeff) Ray III to serve as the Company’s next Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately.

Jeff Ray succeeds Acting-CEO Andy Feinberg, who has held the position since 2017, while a search was undertaken for a permanent replacement. Andy will now resume his role as the Company’s President and COO.

Gary Haroian, Chairman of the Board, said, “The Board was impressed with Jeff’s decades-long track record of accomplishments as a CEO and senior executive. That, combined with his extensive technology leadership experience made him the ideal candidate to serve as Brightcove’s CEO.”

Brightcove has thousands of customers in over 70 countries that rely on the company’s cloud solutions to successfully publish high-quality videos experiences for audiences everywhere.

Gary added, “Time and time again, Jeff has demonstrated an ability to enhance go-to-market strategies, scale enterprises and expand business opportunities at global technology companies. Jeff’s deep operational and enterprise sales experience will be instrumental in positioning Brightcove for improved market share and long-term, profitable growth.”

Commenting on his appointment, Jeff Ray stated, “I am incredibly optimistic about the opportunity in front of Brightcove. Internet video traffic will grow fourfold from 2016 to 2021, reaching 82% of all global consumer internet traffic. This explosion in video consumption is creating tremendous opportunities – and challenges – for companies around the world. More and more of these organizations are turning to Brightcove for innovative technology, deep video expertise, and our obsession with customer success to realize these opportunities.”

Gary added, “The Company’s market-leading portfolio of video solutions, blue chip customer base, and exceptional workforce provide a solid foundation upon which to move forward. I’m excited to work with the team to build on the strong market momentum they have already created.”

Gary Haroian continued, “On behalf of the entire Board, I want to thank Andy Feinberg for the leadership and expertise he displayed during his role as Acting CEO over the past nine months. Against the backdrop of his proven leadership and the significant contributions he has made at Brightcove over the past 13 years, his success in this position comes as no surprise.”

Ray is an Industry-Recognized SaaS Veteran

Jeff Ray has excelled in executive leadership roles at multiple enterprise technology companies of scale, including Ellucian, Ventyx (acquired by ABB), DS SolidWorks, Progress Software, and Compuware. At Ellucian, Jeff successfully transitioned the business from a combination of multiple premise-based software companies to a cloud-based SaaS leader of solutions designed to enable colleges and universities do a better job of helping their students succeed. At SolidWorks, he grew revenues by 300%, expanded margins by 50%, and tripled the installed user base.

While he was at Progress Software, the business grew 20% each year and the share price more than doubled. At Ventyx, Jeff ran operations across 80 countries and 2,500 employees, growing annual revenues to over $520 million. And at IBM, where he started after graduating from Texas A&M University, Jeff quickly rose through the organization, holding numerous leadership positions.

Recommended Read: Now, Keep Your Best Customers Happy with the Oracle Loyalty Cloud

Esri Partners with Alibaba Cloud for Location Intelligence Technology

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April 12, 2018

Esri Partners with Alibaba Cloud for Location Intelligence Technology

New Partnership Agreement Allows Esri’s Excellence in GIS to Include Alibaba Cloud’s Cloud Computing Expertise

Esri, a leading mapping data and spatial analytics, has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing subsidiary of the Alibaba Group. The new agreement will enable the partners to provide enhanced capabilities to customers seeking to implement Esri’s technology on the Alibaba Cloud.

Esri engineers the most advanced solutions for the digital transformation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and location analytics to inform the most authoritative maps in the world.

Jack Dangermond, President and Founder, Esri, described the agreement as both a recognition of successful implementations and a shared belief that location intelligence in cloud infrastructure was pivotal to addressing customers’ needs and solving real-world problems – especially those that need scalable computing, storage, and networking capabilities.

Jack said, “We’ve seen our users achieve amazing results already with Esri technology in the Alibaba Cloud. This has been possible as both organizations have engineered interoperable and compatible technology, based on industry standards. The agreement will now bring our engineers together to collaborate on shared initiatives that deliver the next wave of location intelligence innovation on the cloud.”

Esri’s sole authorized distributor in Mainland China, Esri China, has a proven track record in helping customers implement Esri technology on the Alibaba Cloud. The Ningxia Land and Resources Bureau has built their own foundational geospatial data platform using Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise technology on the Alibaba Cloud. The customer has consolidated their electronic map data, imagery, survey, and 3-dimensional data into a “one-stop” catalog used by all functions and levels of the Ningxia Autonomous Region government.

Esri China’s President, Frances Ho, has witnessed the rapid migration of location intelligence capabilities to cloud infrastructure and believes that this will continue. Frances said, “Organizations are rapidly adopting geographic information systems (GIS) and combining it with the capabilities of cloud technology.”

Frances added, “Our users already rely on the ArcGIS Enterprise and the Alibaba Cloud to do this reliably and efficiently, using world-class innovation from our GIS experts in China, the United States, and around the world.”

TechBytes with Christopher Childs, Managing Director, UK, TabMo

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April 12, 2018

TechBytes with Christopher Childs, Managing Director, UK at TabMo

Christopher Childs
Managing Director, UK, TabMo

As GDPR approaches, we continue to speak to global marketing technology teams, data vendors, and business leaders to understand how the new regulations could impact their organizations. In this TechByte, Christopher Childs, MD, TabMo (UK) tells us how GDPR could eventually benefit customers, and why you should move closer to your Data Partners.

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

TabMo was founded in France in 2013. I was hired in September 2015 to help set up, launch and then run the UK office. Today our growing team in London is currently around 14 people, which includes sales and platform support as well as our own local creative solutions team; creative support remains at the forefront of everything we do, ensuring our customers are successful as possible with their mobile advertising.

To summarize, TabMo provides programmatic and creative solutions for mobile advertising. We have built our own next-generation DSP (demand side platform), called Hawk, which is the first to combine creative modules with programmatic targeting technology. The platform enables users to apply hyper-local geo-targeting, plus multiple layers of device targeting and direct integrations with multiple data partners. The creative modules allow users to adapt creatives for the mobile screen and to reflect the targeting that has been applied, whilst our creative solutions experts provide ongoing support. We offer a fully transparent and disclosed solution providing full access to our platform whether clients work with us on a self-serve or managed basis.

What is the state of Programmatic Advertising technology in Europe?

Programmatic advertising technology has come a long way over the past couple of years. Header bidding has certainly made programmatic more efficient for publishers, for example, whilst the introduction of ads.txt is a great start in cleaning up the marketplace and combatting ad fraud. There is, however, a long way to go.

In the UK we’re now seeing a huge number of mobile-specific advertising campaigns being activated programmatically, but these are still often bought via IOs (insertion orders) and on fixed CPMs. It seems that when it comes to self-serve a great deal of investment still goes through a small number of players, these often being large multi-channel platforms. Whilst multi-channel strategies are essential, these platforms don’t necessarily offer the most advanced solutions for mobile. TabMo is dedicated to bringing mobile-first technologies to advertisers and helping them to leverage the capabilities of mobile, which is unique and needs its own strategy, both in terms of creative and also targeting.

How does the European market for marketing and advertising technologies compare against the Americas?

The US is certainly the most competitive in terms of the number of players, But although a large number of DSPs start their lives there, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re best placed for European markets where the landscape is significantly different, and also varies by individual country (with the UK often having more similarities with the US than it does with European territories such as France and Germany).

The level of investment in the US is huge and it’s often hard for businesses moving over from Europe to take a major share of that market. Having said that we are beginning to see more European tech companies succeed in the US.

Data and search intelligence specialist, Captify, for example, has built a significant presence, as has video advertising company (and TabMo partner), Teads.

At TabMo, how do you verify the authenticity of data? How does it fit impact your self-serving programmatic platform?

TabMo is data agnostic and we provide audience solutions from a number of third party data partners. We go through significant testing with any partner to ensure that the data we use is ethical, compliant (particularly in terms of GDPR) and accurate.

The data we do ingest comes either from the bid stream (location and device level data) or is campaign data (ie. post impression, click, view etc) All data passed to us via the bid stream is closely analysed to ensure it is accurate and non fraudulent. Any abnormal patterns in the data are automatically flagged and if it is deemed to be suspicious then that device is blocked before an ad is ever served.

How would you define Personalization- Segmentation- Optimization, and Automation at various stages of Customer Lifecycle?

Personalisation is about making sure mobile ad creatives are relevant to both the target audience, and the location in which they are viewing them. Creative dynamic optimisation for example enables creatives to be adapted in real time depending on the location of the device serving the ad. This is extremely powerful for retailers for example, who may have fluctuating prices for different regions of the country.

Segmentation focuses on building audiences based on their location history. Working with third party data partners (to ensure accurate, independent data), and collecting device IDs from specific points of interest enables us to segment audiences based on the locations they have visited. Mapping this data with offline data enables (accurate) assumptions to be made about the device owner in terms of whether they are target audience.

Optimisation is centred round adjusting campaign variables according to the KPIs (key performance indicators) of the campaign itself. We run a number of footfall campaigns for retailers, where we are driving consumers to specific retail outlets. Our integration with footfall measurement companies enables us to track these store visits in real time and auto optimise to the best performing variable and/or site placements in order to maximise campaign performance.

How do you leverage AI/ML and data science at TabMo? What AI companies are you particularly interested in

TabMo doesn’t have its own AI tools. While the technology obviously has huge potential, we are aware that AI can be seen as a black box. When evaluating AI solutions, we would always ask what the technology is trying to achieve, and whether it has a direct effect on ROI. It’s taken a long time for the market to truly understand the role that programmatic has to play; I think we’re at the start of a similar journey for AI.

There are cases where AI technology in a simpler form clearly has a role to play in improving advertising relevance. AdYouLike for example, has a solution that scans pages of text in order to distribute ads in real time to the pages where content is the most relevant. We’re working with AdYouLike to make this targeting available for our customers via our platform, Hawk.

How do you prepare for the post-GDPR era?

We work with a number of third party data providers but we do not store the data that they pass to us. It is essential therefore that the providers we work with are GDPR compliant and we have been working closely with all of our data partners to ensure this is the case.

The data that is passed to us via ad requests goes through a process of ‘pseudonymisation’, whereby data is separated from direct identifiers, for example device IDs, so that linkage to an identity is not possible; in other words, we separate the device IDs from the device level data such as location to guarantee that the data cannot be personally identifiable.

One message (more, if available) to all business leaders preparing for the oncoming GDPR disruptions

Understandably there is a lot of concern among marketers as GDPR-Day (25 May 2018) approaches. But it’s important to remember that measures need to be in place to protect the consumer.

We recommend having regular conversations with data partners, asking them for explicit detail about the processes they are putting in place that will guarantee their compliance, with any doubts clearly expressed in good time.

GDPR will reduce the volume of third party data – but it should also increase the significance of first party publisher data, which can only be positive for the industry.

Thanks for chatting with us, Christopher.
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

Simple Brings Microsoft-Powered Intelligent Marketing Platform

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April 12, 2018

Simple Brings Microsoft-Powered Intelligent Marketing Platform

Simple Will Leverage Microsoft’s Technology to Power It’s Intelligent Marketing Platform as It Transforms How Brands Use Artificial Intelligence to Create Exceptional Customer Experiences

Simple, a leading Agile Marketing and Marketing Resource Planning Platform, announced plans to partner with Microsoft and adopt its end-to-end intelligent cloud to power its Intelligent Marketing Platform, aiming to disrupt Marketing Resource Management software market.

Among the first independent software vendors to build atop the Microsoft Business Applications Platform, Simple has developed its Intelligent Marketing Platform, combining the functionality of PowerApps, Dynamics 365 for Marketing and Office 365, to help redefine Marketing Resource Management.

Utilizing the new capabilities offered with Power BI – the Common Data Service for Analytics — Simple is enabling organizations to rapidly integrate marketing data from multiple sources within its Intelligent Marketing Platform to generate insights and improve marketing performance.

At the time of this announcement, Simple CEO, Aden Forrest, said, “Simple’s Intelligent Marketing Platform injects artificial intelligence into upstream marketing planning, where there is none today — giving CMOs new insight into how they can maximize the return on marketing investment for the entire organization.”

Simple’s Intelligent Marketing Platform is an upstream planning solution that not only enables brands to maximize the value of their marketing dollar at every touchpoint across the organization but also to boost the effectiveness of their technology budget.

Recommended Read: Now, Keep Your Best Customers Happy with the Oracle Loyalty Cloud

“We are excited to partner with Simple as they build and innovate on top of the Microsoft Business Application Platform,” said James Phillips, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Business Applications Group.

James added, “Their Marketing Resource Management expertise combined with Microsoft technology will help our customers reimagine their marketing processes, improve marketing effectiveness and deliver compelling value.”

A recent study from KPCB indicates marketing teams use more than 90 different marketing cloud technology tools, but most utilize only a fraction of their capacity.

Aden added, “By connecting with capabilities already available within Microsoft Dynamics 365, Simple can deploy marketing tools as required throughout the marketing process, maximizing the return on that technology investment.”

Recommended Read: The Art and Science of Retargeting for Marketers in 2018

Interview with Nick Ashmore, VP Marketing, ResponseTap

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April 12, 2018

Interview with Nick Ashmore, VP, Marketing at ResponseTap

[vc_wp_text]“The challenge remains of how to translate complex customer journeys and omnichannel marketing into actionable insights to empower marketers, not tie them up in technology knots.”

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[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/ResponseTap” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-ashmore-6938595/”]

Tell us about your role and how you got here? What galvanized you to be a part of a Call Intelligence provider?

I’m the VP of Marketing at ResponseTap, Europe’s leading Call Intelligence provider. I joined the business in July 2016 and have been lucky enough to build a team around me from scratch. I have board level responsibility for our direct and channel marketing strategies for both the UK and North America.

Prior to ResponseTap, I spent ten years in integrated agencies and eight years at Monitise, which I joined as a start-up and helped it grow to a billion-dollar business.

As a buyer of martech in previous roles, I’ve experienced first-hand the exponential growth in software designed to help marketing departments do their job. What interested me most about ResponseTap was the ability to link online customer journeys to offline phone sales.

How do you define your ‘Universal Consumer Profile’ at ResponseTap?

Any organization spending budget on digital advertising could benefit from Call Intelligence, but it adds the most value in industries where the phone is part of the customer buying journey, such as travel, utilities, insurance and automotive. We target these sectors directly and also through digital marketing agencies who often buy our software to prove that their campaigns are driving phone sales.

What would you say is the biggest driver for the change in the marketing and sales automation industry? How do Call Intelligence technologies feature in this dynamic ecosystem?

With around 5,500 software vendors competing for the same budget and looking to solve the same marketing problems, consolidation in the industry is inevitable. The challenge remains of how to translate complex customer journeys and omnichannel marketing into actionable insights to empower marketers, not tie them up in technology knots.

How does Call Intelligence feature in this? The data we have is unique and it complements the other technology that marketers use. It doesn’t try to do jobs that other martech products do. Instead, it works alongside them doing one job well – which is providing you with the data you need, to understand the role of the phone in your strategy.

Tell us about the new standards of Call Intelligence and how ResponseTap helps optimize call values along the customer journeys?

Call Intelligence is the new and improved version of call tracking. It’s more advanced for the digital world we are in. The advancement of Call Intelligence from traditional call tracking has taken into consideration things such as the changing role of PPC, the increase in digital advertising and the online customer buying cycle.

We don’t just count calls. We can link the outcome of a call, including profit, sale and call quality, to the marketing source, right down to the keyword. Also crucial for marketers is the improved attribution ability of Call Intelligence. Marketers can understand the role of each channel in driving the outcome of a call. Because you can measure every customer interaction, as well as the call, it’s one of the only platforms that lets you fully understand and attribute a phone call back to a marketing source.

How do you see Call Intelligence platforms evolving with the maturity of AI/ML and voice search? How do you prepare for an AI-centric ecosystem as a marketing leader?

The most accurate AI applications rely on aggregating multiple data points, so interoperability between technologies is vital. ResponseTap holds an integral, unique data set, which our customers aggregate alongside other data sources such as purchase history and demographics to inform their AI processes.

Machine learning and AI will help us to surface new insights. For example, a travel company might want to know what the best value keywords are in driving their highest profit holidays.

Predictability is key to succeeding in voice search so using speech analytics to understand natural phrases is an area that will develop.

In 2018, what’s your roadmap to transform customer relationships through optimized online conversations across all marketing channels?

Our focus is on developing our Knowledge Base and allowing our customers to share knowledge. We’re aware that a growing number of our customers want to communicate with us, and our platform, online and be able to share best practice amongst themselves. We’re lucky in that our customers are our biggest advocates, and as a result, we want to develop a community, so they can become super users.

What marketing and sales automation tools do you use?

We use SalesForce, Lead Liaison, Datanyze and ZoomInfo.

How do you bring together people and inspire them to work with technology at ResponseTap?

Building a great culture starts with hiring people better than yourself, giving them direction and empowering them so they can do their best work. One of the most rewarding things about working for ResponseTap is that everyone has the opportunity to play a major role in shaping the direction of the company.

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

For planning exercises, I use the Mindmap software, MindJet, whilst for cross-team collaboration and company-wide communication, we’re big fans of Slack.

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

I rely heavily on voice recognition and behavioral analytics – also called having a conversation. We’re in a fast-moving business and often the quickest way to align teams or cut through the complexity is to have short, face-to-face meetings.

What are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading ‘One Plus One Equals Three: A Masterclass in Creative Thinking’ by Dave Trott and Creativity Inc by the founder of Pixar, Ed Catmull.

Both are packed with wise words and practical advice for building creatively led high-performance teams. I find with the majority of the sales and marketing books doing the rounds, such as ‘Predictive Revenue’, is that everyone is applying the ‘best practices’ listed and then they very quickly become ineffective.

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

Go hard on the issue, soft on the person. I use this guiding principle in pretty much every conversation I have at work. I only wish it worked as well with my children.

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

Jeremy Waite – Evangelist at IBM Watson.

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Nick” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b68470b-4473″]

Nick has 19 years+ of broad marketing experience in B2B lead generation, consumer acquisition, CRM and brand strategy. He is currently Vice President of Marketing at ResponseTap, Europe’s leading Call Intelligence provider.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About ResponseTap” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d357a-6c46d712-3b68470b-4473″]

Providing the missing piece of data to optimize marketing spend and make call centers more efficient, Call Intelligence from ResponseTap gives brands and agencies incomparable power. Since 2008 ResponseTap has been pioneering advanced visitor-level call tracking, heralding many industry firsts, including integration into Google Adwords and Google Analytics. Allowing marketers to connect the customer journey to the phone call, and for call centers to start the conversation where the online journey left off, Call Intelligence optimizes campaigns and improves the customer experience.

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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.

Cogint Inc Announces Corporate Name Change to Fluent Inc

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April 12, 2018

Cogint Inc Announces Corporate Name Change to Fluent Inc

Cogint Inc, a leading data-driven marketing services firm uniquely built on a pay-for-performance model, today announced it will change its name to Fluent Inc. This rebranding is the culmination of recent strategic changes at the company, including the successful spin-off of Red Violet, the appointment of former Merkle COO, Don Patrick to its Executive team and the appointment of former Epsilon CEO, Andy Frawley, to its board of directors. As part of the name change, the Company will continue to be publicly traded on the NASDAQ Global Market under the new ticker symbol “FLNT”.

Also Read: Fluent Appoints Former Merkle Executive, Donald Patrick, as COO

Ryan Schulke

“We’re thrilled to announce our name change,” said Ryan Schulke, CEO. “This strategic branding decision comes at a natural inflection point for Fluent and our brand. Since entering the public market in 2015 we have continued to execute exceptionally on our roadmap and are excited to introduce the Fluent brand to Wall Street, as we have done so successfully amongst our peers in the digital marketing industry.”

Also Read: Fluent Launches New Acquisition Marketing Application on Oracle Cloud Marketplace

Fluent’s unique suite of performance marketing solutions is built to deliver its clients new customer acquisition at scale. Every day, Fluent collects first-party data from opted-in, registered users to connect brands to highly engaged new customers. Leveraging this user-declared data, Fluent can more accurately target the right audience with the right offers in real-time, in order to drive and optimize results.

Also Read: AdTheorent Earns Frost & Sullivan Award for its Data-Driven Digital Advertising Solutions

Cogint Inc, is an industry leader in data-driven digital marketing services, focusing on customer acquisition, and serving over 500 leading consumer brands and direct marketers. Leveraging a unique data-driven platform, Cogint enables advertisers to more effectively target and engage their most valuable customers, with precision, on a massive scale.

Amobee Launches Sales Accelerator Solution, Powered by Oracle Data Cloud

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April 12, 2018