TechBytes with Samir Addamine, Founder and Chairman, FollowAnalytics

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August 17, 2017

[mnky_team name=”Giovanni Strocchi, CEO at ADmantX” position=”CEO at ADmantX”][/mnky_team]

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/gstrocc” profile_linkedin=”https://it.linkedin.com/in/giovanni-strocchi-97b145″]

[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“The connection between a brand and its audience is driven by emotion, which means that brands must be able to trigger consumers’ emotional senses to get them involved and forge a lasting bond with their audience.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us a bit about your role at ADmantX and how you got here.
As CEO of ADmantX, I’m responsible for the company’s strategic direction and culture and as the company has grown, I’m also responsible for overseeing our expansion in international markets, developing new product offerings, and building key partnerships.

I’ve been involved in digital innovation, complex project implementation, and international business development throughout my career, both in multinational environments and in start ups.

Before joining ADmantX, I was the Group Business Product Director for the Vodafone Group (and previously, Strategy and Business Development Director, and Sales Director). Before that, I held similar roles at McKinsey, Technogym, Alcatel, and TIM.

I’m also an angel investor. I currently serve on a number of boards and am an investor in nine start ups. It’s in this capacity that I encountered ADmantX several years ago. After seeing the unique, semantic technology that underpins the company and the team behind it, I jumped in to drive the business. It’s been an exciting ride so far!

MTS: How does your semantic cognitive technology assist in advanced contextual targeting?
You can only achieve contextual targeting with a true understanding (not classification) of a page. The ADmantX semantic cognitive technology uses full Natural Language Processing (NLP) to read and analyze content as a human would to truly understand, the meaning of on-page content. The secret sauce is a “sematic network” – a cognitive network of 12 million cross connections – in which each of the 500,000 thousand concepts of our language is linked to one another by semantic relationships. When activated, a knowledge graph is created from the text of a specific page, allowing us to understand the meaning of every single concept on the page. This has a number of advantages, including increased contextual awareness, improved brand safety classification, and an understanding of the content audiences read and engage with for advanced profiling – ultimately leading to reduced waste, and maximized ROI.

NLP goes further than old “search” methods such as keyword classifications and simplistic text systems to actually deconstruct the content. By organizing and classifying the individual meaning of words and then reviewing them within the wider article environment, a clear contextual picture is created without the inaccuracies and mistakes made by simpler engines.

MTS: Is this what goes in to building your Intelligent Brand Safety Platform?
True understanding implies full contextual protection. By fully comprehending the meaning of words – not just their presence on a page – and concepts, our analysis allows full management of URL selection or deselection with no mistakes, including accurate sentiment and emotion identification. This enables brand safety at an exceptionally granular level, empowering advertisers to avoid placements alongside content that expresses adverse sentiment towards their specific brand or their sector as a whole, as well as ensuring they evade generally inappropriate or damaging content. You need scale to do it, but also precision and flexibility.

In addition to intelligent brand safety, we can create a “brand specific” brand safety solution and develop an “extreme speech and fake news brand safety” solution, both using our technology.

MTS: How does ADmantX analyze human emotion and sentiment?
By understanding the true meaning of content at page level, our technology can also discover its emotional context, identifying the feelings that content is likely to evoke. Emotions are a complex human concept that can not be described by keywords but by “emotional context” – it took us two years of working with a leading university to identify all of the emotional contexts associated with the 60 plus grades of human emotions and feelings. To extract those accurately, you need a deep linguistic solution and a cognitive technology. “I loved you so much. But I don’t love you anymore” is not a positive emotional context. You have to take into account the use of past tense and the full stop to understand that the subject of the second sentence is the same of the first.

In understanding the emotional frame of mind for the consumer, we can apply enhanced targeting in real time, ensuring that the right emotional context is considered – a champagne brand would love to advertise in an emotional context of “success”, even if it is associated with business success, sport achievements, graduation, etc.

The connection between a brand and its audience is driven by emotion, which means that brands must be able to trigger consumers’ emotional senses to get them involved and forge a lasting bond with their audience. Putting emotions at the heart of their campaigns, ensuring ads are well placed in the right emotional context, is crucial for enhancing engagement with their audiences.

Accurate emotional context is the top level of contextual relevance. This could mean avoiding content with an emotional context that could be damaging for a brand. By matching the emotional context of ad creative and page content we ensure the consumer is in the right frame of mind to engage with the ad, increasing metrics such as brand recall and maximizing ROI.

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?
As an angel investor I’m naturally a little biased towards those startups I have invested in. Some of them in the digital space include TOK TV, a rapidly growing sport social network, Inventia, a software company with an advanced video customer interaction platform, Mapendo, a smart performance partner for boosting mobile sales, as well as Artemest, a marketplace for luxury craftsmanship.

MTS: You’ve said that “programmatic” is an industry buzzword you wish was banned – tell us more.
Today, the term programmatic adds an unnecessary impression of complexity to a relatively simple concept. No one will question that automatic media buying is the norm for reasons of efficiency and scale. However, there are many different programmatic definitions and models so the word can easily be misunderstood when used as a generic term.

MTS: How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?
I’m in a lucky position as ADmantX is intrinsically linked with AI, which gives me a head start. We’ve developed a complete AI layer on top of our advanced cognitive semantic technology that has evolved from interest profiles – to understand what audiences like – to full propensity models that understand what audiences evaluate – this will tell a brand which users are ready to interact with a specific message or ready to accept a specific offer – and now to real-time recommendations.

Innovations in AI are already fundamentally changing our working environments and its relevance will escalate over the coming decade, so in addition to developing the ADmantX offering, I read and learn as much as possible about the ongoing evolution of AI to make sure I’m as aware as can be.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.
Committed.

You can engage with what you do and the people you work with, which is fine, but if you are “committed” then you are really “a part of” what you do. I’m committed to my customers’ needs, and these drive decision-making and business priorities. I’m committed to the success and welfare of my team because I must be able to rely on them completely. I’m committed to driving innovation in everything I do; it’s the only way to think ahead. I’m committed to concrete results and activities, as I believe if you do what is needed, and then do what is possible, you’ll be able to do what is impossible. Finally, but most importantly, I’m committed to my family.

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
LinkedIn is essential for forming and maintaining business relationships and WhatsApp and Twitter are indispensable for keeping in touch internationally. The other tool I couldn’t be without is my calendar. I have a hectic schedule and continually need to balance work and personal commitments, so if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not happening!

MTS: What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
Don’t check your email for the first two hours of the day. Of course, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t ignore urgent messages or delay responding to an ongoing client conversation, but by keeping this to a minimum, you can think more clearly and plan your day proactively – rather than reacting to your inbox!

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
Every morning I’ll take a look at a selection of industry newsletters and feeds, as well as articles my friends or colleagues have shared to see what’s new and worth reading. In the evening I’m more likely to read a book. I am currently reading The Master Algorithm, by Pedro Domingos, and Roald Dahl’s Matilda – for my daughter’s bedtime reading.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
It’s a combination of a couple of ideas – living in the present, and living every day to the fullest, as if it were your last – that resonate with me. At the same time, it’s important to maintain an eye on the future and to every day be taking one step forward in the direction of your goals.

MTS: Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?
Energy and vision for sure.

But, the fundamental ingredient is empathy – you can achieve nothing without your team or without your customers and partners and empathy is essential to really understand their needs and what drives them. Relationships based on trust are what drives long-term business results.

MTS: Tag the one person whose answers to these questions you would love to read
Gustav Mellentin, co-founder and CEO of Adform

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Giovanni” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27a6430-9cee”]

Giovanni is a senior manager/executive with significant international experience in strategy, innovation, digital transformation projects, marketing, sales, complex international organization management, wide technology implementation and transformation programs, shareholder/board management. He is also an angel investor in digital start ups and a board member.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About ADmantX” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27a6430-9cee”]

ADmantX is a smart data provider that facilitates better brand planning and targeting within the digital advertising industry. With its unique ability to understand the meaning within online content, ADmantX allows publishers and advertisers to match ads to relevant online content at page level.

ADmantX is powered by its patented semantic Natural Language Processing technology that delves into the hidden context of content. Utilising over 20 years of expertise in advanced semantic and data science, ADmantX specialises in contextual targeting, intelligent brand safety, content insight reporting and planning, emotional and sentiment targeting, and first-party advanced profiling.

Founded in 2010, ADmantX works with global clients which include NBCUniversal, Financial Times, GroupM, Amnet, Simple Agency, Accuen, RCS Group, Mondadori and is integrated with leading DSPs such as AppNexus, Turn, and Adform. ADmantX operates globally – in 20 languages – and has business operations located in the UK, US and Italy with customers in 15 countries.

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[mnky_heading title=”About the MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fstaging.loutish-lamp.flywheelsites.com%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.

Mobile Embrace Strengthens Digital Performance Marketing Business with Acquisition of C2B Solutions

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August 17, 2017

Mobile Embrace, a leading mobile and performance marketing company, has announced the acquisition of C2B Solutions Pty Ltd (C2B), a profitable and growing Performance Marketing business.

Favourable Acquisition Terms and Strong Financial Performance

Mobile Embrace (MBE) has acquired C2B on favourable terms for consideration of $ 2.5 million (Australian). In addition to the upfront consideration and subject to achieving targeted earnings over the next 2 years, there will be additional cash consideration $ 2 million for each year of successful achievement. The upfront consideration is funded from MBE’s cash reserves.

C2B is a successful Australian Performance Marketing business that specialises in providing businesses with a highly efficient customer acquisition offering including:

The generation of high volume, permissioned consumer leads on online and mobile devices
Facilitating conversion from a quality digital lead to a highly-engaged customer via outbound call centres

C2B’s solutions deliver increased customer conversion effectiveness, and therefore a strong return on Performance Marketing investment (ROI) for businesses.

Drawing on proven expertise and Intellectual Property (IP) in call centre development and management, C2B has delivered highly successful and profitable outcomes for its clients.

C2B’s clients span a number of industries with a growing new business development pipeline. Co-Founders Ben Carrington and Michal Fort-Williams will continue with the business.

The growing importance of C2B’s offering to its clients is supported by research, with 65% of all businesses finding generating traffic and leads the top marketing challenge and 74% of all businesses seeing converting leads to customers as the key marketing priority.

The Acquisition Is Supported by Strong Strategic Rationale

Growth platform

The vertical integration of C2B’s proven call centre IP and expertise into MBE’s digital Performance Marketing infrastructure strengthens the company’s capabilities and expands the addressable and contestable market for business growth.

Extending MBE’s digital Performance Marketing offering further along the customer acquisition supply chain, the acquisition will enable the Company to more efficiently serve clients needs in a competitive business environment.

Strategic Fit

The C2B acquisition delivers to the company’s core strategic objective “enabling businesses to generate quality customers at scale” and is a strong EBITDA margin business.

The acquisition enables greater sales reach and market growth prospects. C2B has been partnering with MBE’s The Performance Factory (TPF) for approximately 18 months. The business relationship with TPF is strong, well tested and financially successful. This enables C2B to be immediately integrated into MBE.

Scale

The acquisition provides greater market reach for MBE’s existing growing digital Performance Marketing business and will contribute to the scaling of the Performance Marketing platforms and products that will deliver more sustainable growth and improved margin performance. It can also enhance growth opportunities in international markets.

Neil Wiles, CEO & Managing Director at Mobile Embrace, said, “We are pleased to welcome C2B to Mobile Embrace. It is an innovative and proven company that bolsters our digital Performance Marketing strategy to deliver more value for MBE’s shareholders. It adds soundly to MBE’s growth opportunities and competitive strength.

Wiles added, “C2B is immediately scalable, highly complementary and will be easily integrated into our Performance Marketing operations. Given the partnership with TPF, integration will be seamless. The acquisition of C2B also enables MBE to provide more Performance Marketing products to accurately satisfy the customer conversion demands of SME’s and major brand businesses across the greatest number of industry verticals. The value and importance of this is growing with businesses globally being in an environment where identifying reliable ROI for every digital marketing dollar spent is of increasing challenge and priority.”

The acquisition is in line with MBE’s strategy of establishing a larger, more dominant digital Performance Marketing business across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, and a business that delivers improved earnings margins and predictable revenue streams. Following completion of the acquisition, MBE’s balance sheet and financial position remains strong and gives the company further flexibility to fund and grow its now expanded Performance Marketing business.

Allego and Strategy to Revenue (STR) Partner to Deliver Industry-First Sales-Enablement-as-a-Service Solution for SMBs

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August 17, 2017

Allego, the leading mobile video sales learning platform, and Strategy to Revenue (STR), a global provider of enterprise, sales force management and sales force effectiveness solutions, has announced a partnership that will allow organizations to access a full range of sales enablement services, strategies and technologies with the same flexibility and ease-of-use associated with traditional software-as-a-service.

Partnership to Boost Video Sales Enablement with Best Content

Currently, Allego offers sales learning platform to boost sales performance by harnessing the power of mobile to transform enablement and training through video content sharing. With Allego’s mobile-first platform, organizations can create and curate the best content from the field and corporate office to better train and collaborate with distributed sales teams, without the time and expense typically associated with in-field coaching or on-site training.

STR will offer this sales-enablement-as-a-service (SEaaS) by integrating its competency-led programs, content and professional services with Allego’s video sales learning platform, automating the delivery and reinforcement of critical knowledge for sales teams when they need it most.

Robert Fox, Vice President of Americas, Sales & Marketing for Strategy to Revenue, said, “Sales enablement isn’t simply an event like a workshop or webinar, but rather an ongoing learning journey that delivers behavioral change in your sales resources. Effective sales enablement aligns the required competencies of knowledge, skills and tools with the sales team’s requirements and tailors content to the individual based on expertise and experience. STR’s sales-enablement-as-a-service solution creates the ideal learning scenario for today’s selling environment, fully addressing core competencies with award-winning content and enablement assets, and delivering that content at the right time using Allego’s automated, mobile-first video platform.”

Selling the Cloud: 3 Ways ABM Can Reduce Turbulence for Sales, Marketing, and Services

Strategic Alignment and Tactical Results to Help Sales Learning and Social Selling

Tim Kasida, Strategic Partner Executive at Allego, said, “Small to medium-sized businesses often have the strategic vision, but lack the content, staff and innovative video and mobile-centric learning technology to ensure sales enablement success and business results. With STR’s Allego-enabled SEaaS offering, STR delivers strategic alignment and tactical results, fulfilling customer needs with STR’s Sales Skills Learning Library, which covers all aspects of sales management, key account and inside sales management, as well as personnel skilled in sales learning and social selling.”

Strategy to Revenue was founded in 2009 to provide Revenue Acceleration solutions to large organizations through the performance improvement and effective execution of their sales teams. As a global sales effectiveness company, STR’s existing clients are industry leading, Fortune 5000 companies, keen to realize efficient revenue growth.

At STR, the company makes this goal achievable by engaging, educating and ensuring execution of global and large multi-regional sales teams and sales channels. STR’s target market is companies with a combination of direct and channel partner sales teams of greater than 100.

Todd Benedict Joins Tapad as Chief Revenue Officer, North America

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August 16, 2017

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Todd Benedict, An Ad Tech Veteran, Would Lead The Company’s North America Sales Operations

Tapad, the leader in cross-device marketing technology, has appointed Todd Benedict as chief revenue officer for North America. In this newly created role, Benedict will lead revenue and sales operations for Tapad’s North America business. He joins Tapad’s executive leadership team from PlaceIQ and would report to CEO Sigvart Voss Eriksen.

Todd Benedict said, “I have followed Tapad from day one of its existence and jumped at the opportunity to join its team. Tapad has developed an industry-leading position in a short time, and the potential for its advancement is limitless. I am excited to be a part of this renowned team and look forward to helping Tapad achieve its next stage of growth.”

Benedict Co-founded Primo Platform

With 20 years of industry experience, Todd Benedict is an ad tech veteran with deep knowledge and expertise in leading sales organizations. At PlaceIQ, he led the media and enterprise teams as EVP of sales.

In addition, Todd co-founded the real-time marketing platform for trend analytics, Primo Platform, and spent eight years at the digital ad tech company, Collective, where he built the sales team from the ground up.

Sigvart Voss Eriksen said, “Todd’s industry knowledge and decades of experience managing and growing sales organizations will be invaluable as we continue to pursue growth. We are thrilled to have him join our team and are confident the company will thrive under his leadership.”

Recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in 2016 by Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Crain’s NY Fast 50, Inc. 5000 and TMCnet’s 2016 Tech Culture Award, Tapad continues to add exceptional talent to its roster.

Currently, Tapad is renowned for its breakthrough, unified, cross-device solutions. The company’s signature Tapad Device Graph™ connects millions of consumers across billions of devices. The world’s largest brands and most effective marketers entrust Tapad to provide an accurate, privacy-conscious, and unified approach to connecting with consumers across screens. In 2015, Tapad began licensing the Tapad Device Graph™ and swiftly became the established gold-standard throughout the ad tech ecosystem.

SnapApp Scoops $10.2 Million Series B Funding to Fuel Continued Growth

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August 16, 2017

SnapApp, the leading interactive content platform for B2B marketers, announced that it has closed $10.2 Million in additional funding from its principal investor, Providence Strategic Growth, the growth equity affiliate of Providence Equity Partners. The Series B round follows a period of sustained and rapid growth for SnapApp over the past two years as interactive marketing has increasingly become a must-have for modern marketers. The company confirmed that this investment will be used to support SnapApp’s strategic growth initiatives, including accelerating product development and innovation, sales growth, and potential acquisitions.

The company has raised $22.2 million in two rounds of funding since its inception in 2011.

Founded in 2011, SnapApp empowers marketers to create personalized interactive experiences that accelerate leads, activate buyers through the funnel, and drive growth. Its interactive content creation platform lets marketers easily create engaging experiences for their audiences, directly integrating with top marketing automation tools, without the need for developer resources.

In February 2017, SnapApp announced a major enhancement to its marketing platform to enable marketers to create better, more intuitive and engaging interactive content experiences for customers.

SnapApp Interactive Experiences Featured Nearly 1 Billion Prospect Conversations

Seth Lieberman, CEO and founder of SnapApp, said, “Marketers are under tremendous pressure to meet increasingly aggressive business goals – the old playbook is not getting it done. In a buyer-centric world, marketers need to deliver dynamic experiences that generate real one-to-one conversations with their prospects that accelerate pipeline creation and revenue. SnapApp’s platform makes that vision a reality for thousands of marketers who are driving hundreds of millions of dollars in pipeline through interactive experiences on our platform.”

The latest funding round comes on the heels of a phenomenal business year. SnapApp has already achieved a number of important successes, including —

Over 10 percent of the Fortune 100 are currently using SnapApp as a key component of their marketing strategy.
SnapApp customers have published more than 25,000 interactive content experiences.
SnapApp’s interactive experiences have generated nearly 1 billion prospect conversations.
These experiences have generated nearly 20 million leads for SnapApp’s customers.

SnapApp Delivers Better Content Personalization for Deeper Engagement

Mark Hastings, Managing Director and Head of Providence Strategic Growth, said, “We are thrilled to help drive SnapApp’s incredible growth and look forward to continuing to work with Seth and his team to realize their many opportunities. Interactive content has gone from a niche market to a requirement, and is now a cornerstone for successful marketing teams at companies of all sizes. SnapApp is rightfully recognized as the interactive content platform of choice for B2B marketers and we are excited about their potential for continued growth.”

Currently, SnapApp empowers marketers to create personalized interactive experiences that activate buyers, accelerates leads through the funnel, and unleashes growth. SnapApp’s drag-and-drop interface allows marketers to build any type of interactive experience and deploy it across multiple channels.

Seamlessly integrated with the rest of their marketing technology stack, marketers gain critical insights to better personalize their marketing and create deeper engagement with their prospects. Backed by Providence Equity Partners, SnapApp customers include Paycor, Cisco, CEB, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Blackbaud, and Equifax.

Why Brands Will Pay Top Dollar for Your In-App Inventory

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Adam Cohen-Aslatei

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August 16, 2017

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Ad fraud is expected to cost brands over $16 billion this year. The industry is on edge, and brand safety is a top concern. This is especially true after Fortune 500 advertisers discovered their ads appearing next to inappropriate content on Google’s Youtube.

The industry has been working on solutions to curb ad fraud and increase brand safety, and yet the problem grows each year. In 2017, ad fraud may grow by 30%. All this has made in-app inventory valuable real estate because it protects brands from ad fraud while providing the direct access to their customers.

The Wild Wild West

Bots are a big source of ad fraud, having plagued digital advertising since its inception. These applications perform automated tasks out of plain sight and can spread like a virus. Malicious bots are created to mimic people navigating web and mobile web content, e.g. visiting websites, clicking on links, watching videos, and downloading content. Recently, a bot attack was used to falsify around 300 million video ad views per day, costing advertisers millions of dollars.

A Brand-Friendly Solution

Brands are chasing their audiences into your apps. Consumers spend over 90% of their mobile time using applications, and it is a perfect environment for brands to build meaningful relationships. People are also less reluctant to share location information (one of the most important data points for brands) in-app because the “value exchange” equation is favorable to them. For example, you are likely to share location information when you want to know the weather, find a restaurant in your area, call an Uber, or receive local news.

More importantly, apps are safe. Anyone can launch a website, but not everyone can launch or keep an app in the Google Play or Apple App Stores. In fact, some 46% of App Store submissions are rejected. Apple reviews each and every app submission before it goes live. And while Google doesn’t review apps before they launch, apps are quickly removed for violating Google’s content policies. In fact in May 2017, Google, with one click of a button, removed over 40 apps from the Google Play store for perpetrating ad fraud including forcing users to click on ads. Apple and Google also control how data is collected and used for advertising. This all adds up to an extra layer of brand security.

What’s even better for developers is that in-app revenue is 13X higher than mobile web ads, and it produces 2x the CTR. There’s also a wide variety of app inventory from gaming to news, social networking, and entertainment. And news and information apps produce the largest volume of ad impressions with nearly one in four impression served in this category.

App developers are embracing branded content and building their apps to better support more engaging placements. Best-in-class apps are also integrating SDKs (3rd party “software development kits” providing advanced functionality), which provide brands with additional insight into users and can be used to personalize ads. SDKs can also give brands greater creative flexibility in selecting interactive ad formats like VPAID and MRAID.

Before adding a plethora of ad formats to your app, consider that not all ads are created equal. 71% of people say at least half of the ads they see disrupt their mobile experiences. Enter rewarded video. Consumers prefer it almost 2 to 1 to other digital formats, and a staggering 80% of people opt-in to interact with them. Not to mention, rewarded video can increase user retention and lead to in-app purchases. Brands like them because they are non-interruptive, full-screen, resistant to ad fraud, and provide greater engagement potential.

The App Payoff

App developers, get ready for a multi-billion dollar brand windfall. In-app ad revenue is expected to top $53.4bn by 2020. Brands are heavily investing in reaching consumers through in-app inventory because these environments provide brand safety, high engagement, and because consumers are spending more of their leisure time in-app than ever before.

In order to maximize your revenue potential, consider implementing rewarded video placements to attract brand ads, and not solely relying on CPI user-acquisition offers that send your users away. These units are available on iOS and Android and will open you up to a new revenue stream from the biggest brands in the world.

Also read: The Do’s and Don’t of Spam

Consumers Expect AI to Deliver More Transparency, Privacy, and Human-like Touch

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August 16, 2017

The Pegasystems’ Report Provides A Roadmap For Businesses To Improve Ai-Powered Customer Experiences

A new global study released by Pegasystems Inc., , has revealed that consumers are open to embracing the promise of AI-powered customer experiences but also seek a human touch in these interactions The report has also emphasized the need for more transparency and data privacy in these engagements.

Activate Insights, Unlock Data with AI

The report surveyed consumers across the US, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia.

According to the survey of 6,000 consumers across six countries, nearly 70 percent of respondents are open to AI solutions assisting them in their daily life – for example, to save them time or money – and nearly 40 percent expect AI to improve customer service in the future.

Despite this potential, current AI experiences are falling short of consumers’ expectations, presenting an opportunity for companies to set themselves apart. More consumers (38 percent) said they did not’t think AI delivers the same or better service than humans can today.

Customers today expect companies to either “just get it” or get lost. The new normal for consumers is being able to do business on their terms, with companies that have products that are easy to discover, easy to use, and are personalized and relevant to them. – Pegasystems Survey

Marketing Technology News: V-Click Technology Officially Launched

The survey identified three core areas that businesses need to address to help make AI a customer experience differentiator:

Bringing a more human-like touch

The study revealed a significant preference for human interaction over AI-powered experiences for customer servicemaking it imperative for businesses to better humanize their AI or supplement it with live agents. The most popular method to get help remains calling a human service agent (45 percent) – beating online chat (20 percent), social media (3 percent), or going into a store (15 percent).

When consumers do turn to online channels, an overwhelming majority (nearly 80 percent) want to chat with a real person, not with a machine. This sentiment was shared across all age groups, even with younger or digital native respondents.

Increasing transparency

An overwhelming 88 percent of consumers demand businesses be transparent about how and when they deploy automated bots. To earn increased trust, businesses will need to be more open about where AI is currently being used while also showcasing how it improves the customer experience.

Marketing Technology News: Hero Digital and Bulldog Solutions Join Forces to Reimagine B2B Customer Experiences

Ensuring data privacy

While a majority of consumers said they are open to using AI, only 27 percent are willing to give over their personal data to get better customer service. This presents a significant obstacle for organizations that need a steady stream of data to continuously learn and improve their AI systems. Businesses must continue to find ways to ensure data privacy to help customers be more comfortable with sharing information so they can experience the value of AI.

The survey also uncovered which industries the consumers trust most using AI to interact with them. Retail topped the list with 34 percent of respondents saying they feel comfortable using AI in online retail situations for personalized product recommendations.

Fear Not the Machines

AI does not replace your employees – it simply makes them better at what you’ve hired them to do. It gives them an all “superpowers” to transform how they work – and how the work gets done.” – Pegasystems

Twenty-seven percent are open to a doctor using AI to help make a better diagnosis or recommendation about their health treatment – surprisingly the second most popular scenario. Consumers were least likely to trust the government, with only 10 percent open to it using AI.

AI is the future of customer experience

Don Schuerman, CTO and VP of product marketing, Pegasystems, said, “AI is the future of customer experience but it is currently at a crossroads. Companies need to ensure their AI strategy is not treated as a novelty but rather is leveraged to dramatically change the way they engage with their customers at every touchpoint. As this study suggests, the promise of AI is there for the taking, but it’s now up to businesses to seize the moment.”

Marketing Technology News: Thunderhead and Proximity London Announce Partnership to Deliver Best-in-class Customer Engagement

TechBytes with Christopher Miglino, CEO and Co-Founder at SRAX

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August 16, 2017

Christopher Miglino
CEO & Co-Founder at SRAX

In June, SRAX unveiled the SRAX Social tool for digital marketers and content owners to create posts and promote them beyond their Facebook Page. SRX Social uses programmatic technology and big data to share, schedule and automate social media content. We spoke to Christopher Miglino, CEO and Co-Founder at SRAX, to understand SRAX Social’s programmatic capabilities and how it would help brands to amplify their people-based advertising.

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MTS: Tell us about your role at SRAX and how you got here? (What inspired you to start a Digital Media Advertising Platform?)

Christopher Miglino: I’m the Chairman and CEO and Co-founded the company in 2010. I feel like I’ve been in the ad tech business my entire life – working in the space before there even was an adtech space. My goal has always been focused on one-to-one marketing – and that’s exactly what ad tech enables us to do. Throughout my career, I’ve started three separate ad tech companies, which culminated, to date, with the creation of SRAX. At SRAX, this interest in truly working on a one-to-one basis with target customers has led us to focus in on specific verticals, such as our SRAX MD product which targets MDs and healthcare providers, and our SRAX CPG business, that allows us to track an ad to a purchase in a retail location. We’re currently focused on building out other verticals and will be sharing further details in the near future.

MTS: Given the changing dynamic of online engagement with customers, how do you see people-based marketing and advertising strategies evolving by 2020?

Christopher Miglino: In the future, every brand marketer will be focused on one-to-one engagement. It may not be the focus of their entire marketing effort, but it will be a massive part of the overall strategy. Two developments will determine this trend. First, with the increasing availability of 3^rd party data, marketers will need to develop, grow and segment their 1^st party data in order to maintain a competitive edge in their digital ad campaigns. At the same time, greater sophistication in attribution methods means they’ll be able to target customers at specific points of the customer journey, rather than at broad stages.

MTS: Would you consider People-based marketing as the new gold standard of technology? How do businesses leverage SRAX to capitalize on first –party and third-party data to deliver personalized experiences?

Christopher Miglino: With people-based advertising, you’ll reach real individuals across devices, platforms, and publishers. That’s pretty powerful and is easing the problems of a multi-device world.

Every customer we talk to has some form of unique 1^st party data. and often they’re not even aware of it or don’t know how to access it. Our strength is working with businesses to assess what set of technologies and data will help them engage the audience that meets their marketing goals. By identifying and diving deep into the information businesses have before starting a campaign, we can identify new opportunities to reach specific people based on social intent, past campaign responsiveness and more.

MTS: What are the standards to measure the performance of people-based advertising?

Christopher Miglino: Each and every advertiser is going to have their own specific KPIs and objectives, whether it is customer acquisition, brand awareness, etc. Working with clients in multiple verticals, we’ve found that the opportunity in people-based marketing is to not just better reach of specific consumers, but also ones that look just like them. By integrating predictive modeling you can optimize these audiences to match specific customer actions. We help customers reach that goal.

MTS: How should advertisers include programmatic capabilities to target, reach, engage and monetize their audiences across multiple channels?

Christopher Miglino: Programmatic gives brand marketers and their agencies the ability to use real-time decision making to reach specific consumers. While it can be accomplished in a variety of ways, programmatic is one of the most effective, especially across devices and channels. But, in order for programmatic to be truly powerful, advertisers need to ensure that their data isn’t stuck in a single channel. Working with a provider who can make insights centrally available for programmatic campaigns is a requisite for omnichannel campaigns.

MTS: How do people-based marketing campaigns suffer from misreporting and ad fraud? How does SRAX enable customers to detect “real” human data?

Christopher Miglino: I believe the quality platforms have done a great job in addressing industry-wide issues and these capabilities are only improving and will continue to do so over the long haul. Not only does SRAX integrate the best in class tools that are available to minimize and eliminate those types of issues for our customers, but verification is built into our people-based methodology. After data discovery and onboarding, we run audience sub-segments in an auction environment for validation. Accurate, identity-matched data is maintained while unverified data points are discarded.

MTS: 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

Interview with Jennifer Renaud, Global Marketing Lead at Oracle Marketing Cloud

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August 16, 2017

Jennifer Renaud
Global Marketing Lead at Oracle Marketing Cloud

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/jzrenaud” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-renaud-a749541″]

[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“Read. Be curious. Daydream. Ask What If? Right now, we need to use our human curiosity to drive what’s possible.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us a bit about your role at Oracle Marketing Cloud and your journey here.
I lead the Global Marketing team focused on Global Campaigns/Demand Generation, Content Creation and Amplification, Partner, Field and Event Marketing, and Marketing Operations at Oracle Marketing Cloud. I joined the team after two years in the Oracle Industry Solutions Group. My career began by joining my mom’s boutique marketing and advertising agency. I left and co-founded another agency focused on sales incentives, but later went back and bought my mom’s company! I left again and started another marketing agency focused on direct to patient marketing for medical device companies. I decided to try my hand at bigger business and spent 10 years at Microsoft in marketing and business management roles in Seattle and Singapore.

MTS: What draws martech CMOs to the Cannes Lions?
The lines between adtech and martech are blurring. This is a great place to talk to peers about how that’s changing the role of the CMO and more importantly the organizational design of their teams.

MTS: What expectations might CMOs attending the Cannes Lions have outside of meeting prospective customers?

CMOs have a great opportunity to meet peers, agencies, vendors, and partners. There are so many domains represented, it’s a great time to meet them in one venue over one week. It’s also a great time to see the great work of their peers at the awards and in sessions.

MTS: Which part of the festival did you enjoy the most?
I enjoyed the networking and meeting CMOs from the top brands worldwide. There are so many opportunities to meet people at the networking events and panel discussions.

MTS: Of the many celebrities and marketing leaders present, whom do you follow on social media?
As a result of the event, I’m following more groups that support a more diverse workforce. Everyone from @SherylSandberg to amazing women like Cannes Lions award winner @KristinHayden from @IGNITE_National.

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?
I love the work that MyAlerts is doing in the martech space. I’m fascinated by their simple approach of “asking” what the customer wants by having them register for alerts. Sometimes the best solution is pretty simple.

MTS: How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a marketing leader?
Read. Be curious. Daydream. Ask “What If?”. Right now, we need to use our human curiosity to drive what’s possible. I have been going back to the book “One to One Future,” written a quarter century ago by Peppers and Rogers, to think of ways we can use machine learning and AI to make their vision a reality.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.
Smart

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
I cannot live without Waze and the FlyDelta apps. I am on the road a lot and I like to get to my destination efficiently!

MTS: What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
Put EVERYTHING in the calendar. I book everything from my meetings, to exercise and just breaks to read.

MTS: What are you currently reading? What do you read, and how do you consume information?
I’m reading a couple books right now: “Agile Marketing,” written by my colleague Roland Smart, “The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader,” written by Thomas Barta and Patrick Barwsie. I also curate news through Flipboard and follow content from others on Twitter and LinkedIn.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Your employer doesn’t love you. Love yourself.

MTS: Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?
Draw out the best in others. Identify their strengths and put them to work.

MTS: Tag the one person whose answers to these questions you would love to read
Elon Musk

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Jennifer” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27ab32a-40b3″]

A smart and witty problem-solver/solution developer with more than 20 years’ experience in strategic business development, marketing leadership and operational roles. Jennifer has a solid reputation for delivering desired business outcomes in challenging, start-up or turnaround environments. She possesses the ability to get to the root of the problem quickly, complemented by outstanding verbal and written communication skills. Passionate about bringing out the best in others to work together to achieve declared goals and outcomes. Inventor on US method patent (Patent #8015028). International/Expat experience. Opinions published are her own.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Oracle” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27ab32a-40b3″]

Oracle

The Oracle Cloud offers complete SaaS application suites for ERP, HCM and CX, plus best-in-class database Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) from data centers throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information about Oracle, please visit us at oracle.com.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]

[mnky_heading title=”About the MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fstaging.loutish-lamp.flywheelsites.com%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.

What Moved the Needle? Conversion Tracking Across Facebook and Google Analytics

By

Amir Shub

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August 15, 2017

With data-driven advertising comes great responsibility – and the headache of how to accurately pinpoint what contributed to each conversion online. Facebook undoubtedly has the most comprehensive tracking in the industry, as it can track actual users as opposed to browser cookies. Yet, many advertisers double-check and compare Facebook campaign data with third-party metrics, most commonly Google Analytics.

The information is readily available, yet complications arise when advertisers attempt to aggregate and compare results between the giants. Many advertisers struggle with Facebook showing much higher ROI compared to the same campaigns on Google Analytics.

So which platform should advertisers trust?

It’s not so much about one being more accurate than the other. Both platforms track and measure conversions, but neither can give you the full picture. While Google Analytics gives a comprehensive overview into online marketing across channels, its cookie-based tracking cannot follow user paths across multiple devices. Facebook is able to do that, but only within its own ecosystem, namely Instagram, Facebook, and The Audience Network.

Ad Interactions and How They Are Attributed

By default, Facebook counts conversions 28 days after a click and one day after a view on an ad, whereas Google Analytics can only track clicks. These platforms also attribute conversions differently; Facebook attributes a conversion to the last click the user has made on a Facebook ad, or, if no clicks happened, the last ad they’ve viewed before converting. Google Analytics credits the last paid click by default, regardless of the channel.

The lack of impression data in Google Analytics is one of the main causes for discrepancy and that cannot be helped. Attribution models, however, can be changed in Analytics to determine who gets the credit for a conversion. Think of a case where the user clicks on a Facebook ad for an interesting product, but doesn’t convert. The user googles the same product later, clicks on a search ad, and purchases the product. Facebook takes full credit for the sale, so does Google Adwords. For Google Analytics, only the last click matters, so by default, Facebook gets nothing. Other attribution models in Google Analytics, such as Time Decay, will, however, give part of the credit to Facebook as well, so it’s worth playing around with different options.

What data should advertisers then look at?

To align the conversion numbers, advertisers could try excluding Facebook’s view-through conversions and only compare post-click conversions with Google Analytics data. That being said, the differences in conversions across the two can be telling, too. If the values differ significantly with impressions included, the case could very well be that customers have seen the ad on Facebook, but taken action (ie. clicked or googled) elsewhere.

Also Read: The Importance of Data Analytics in Marketing Strategies

Going Cross-Device

One of Facebook’s greatest advantages is its ability to link actions to users across devices and browsers, as long as they are signed into Facebook. Google Analytics relies solely on cookies; all tracking happens inside the same browser where the cookie was dropped. This is yet another difference that will show in reporting: if a user clicks on a Facebook ad on their mobile phone, but completes the purchase later by going directly on the same site, Facebook will count it as a cross-device conversion. Google Analytics doesn’t see the relation between the two, and will show the source as direct traffic. To close the gap between the two, look at Facebook’s cross-device reporting and only count the conversions happening on the same device.

The Move to Multi-Touch

Lately, we’ve seen that the ad industry is beginning to shift from last-click models to multi-touch attribution, also referred to as MTA. With MTA modeling, advertisers are able to see the total impact of their marketing efforts across channels to get a more holistic understanding of what contributed to the sale and at which scale. The data science team at Smartly.io noticed that MTA models attribute 31-67 % more conversions and 31-59 % more revenue to Facebook compared to the last-touch model.

A recent study by the Mobile Marketing Association showed that 39% of marketers currently use multi-touch attribution and that number is expected to grow to 75% in the next two years. When speaking to advanced online advertisers like the global travel search company SkyScanner, the need for sophisticated attribution is a practical one;

“MTA is key for Skyscanner in 2017. By using Facebook’s Advanced Measurement we are seeing the first signals of a more advanced tracking system to solve the cross device attribution challenges and help us optimize our Facebook campaigns we run in Smartly.” – Jorge Rosell, Growth Manager, Skyscanner.

There isn’t a one size fits all solution for tracking conversions across campaigns and channels; advertisers need to take the time to set their KPIs and measure against those on both of the major advertising platforms and analytics tools. That being said, the move from last-click towards MTA modeling is starting to shed light on the often complex customer journeys. The good news is, you don’t have to start with a robust new tracking system; the options in Google Analytics take you a long way – as long as you understand its quirks and limitations.

Also Read: It’s 2017 and you still don’t know where your ads are running

The Do’s and Don’t of Spam

By

Olivia Milton

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August 15, 2017

Spam, it is largely considered the lowliest of lunchmeats. Most people don’t want it anywhere near their meals; the same rule applies to your inboxes. Hiding behind the façade of deliciousness and nutrition (barely), spam only serves to fill you with something you probably don’t need or want.
You don’t want to be like spam, do you?

I thought not.

With that out of the way, there isn’t a guaranteed way to avoid spam filters when dealing with mass email, but you can do everything you can to make it as difficult as possible for those filters to pick up on you. But before we get into how to avoid them, let’s discuss what spam filters look for.

There is a long and varied list of criteria that a spam filter takes into consideration when determining the spamminess of a message. Each factor is weighed and added resulting in a total Spam Score that ultimately decides whether you will pass through the filter undeterred or if your messages go straight into the Junk folder. To throw another wrench into the works, each spam filter is independent and functions differently ten the others. Where your passing score may work in one place, the next spam filter over could flag you instantly.

In terms of specific criteria, it is hard to pin down. As is the nature of the internet, it is constantly evolving and adapting. What individual email users place in their junk folders directly impacts what these spam filters do or do not let through. They learn from each other and continuously make it more and more difficult to get your messages across. But fear not, it isn’t all completely bleak. There are a few steps you can take to help ensure your highest rate of delivery.

Familiarity: One of the major things spam filters look out for is whether or not you’re acquainted with the recipients of your message. The more often you can personalize the To: field or send through a verified domain name the better. Another thing you could do is ask to be added to their contact list. The more recognizable and trusted your domain is the less likely you will be flagged.

Coding: In Reply, you can alter the source code of the message to get even more out of the editor, but these changes can lead to the junk folder. Sloppy code, extra tags or tracking pixels, even text pulled in from outside sources like Microsoft Office can set the filters off. If you are going to manipulate the code it is best to work with a designer or pull a tried and tested template.

Format: In addition to what goes on in the code of your message, the content or images your emails contain can impact deliverability. Exact rules to follow here are almost non-existent (some people just throw everything into spam if they don’t know who it is from) but there are some broad strokes you can use to try and stay in the black. Design your campaign to be clear, concise and as balanced as possible. Firstly, don’t overdo it with logos and flavor text, explain yourself and use as much plain text as possible. Second, test your campaigns as often as you can. A/B testing can go a long way in determining whether or not your contact list is responding well to your emails and you can take that information and put it towards better the campaign to net you even better results. Lastly, Make sure that your list has opted-in or you are at least providing enough information in the forefront of your messages to not scare people away. Don’t try and trick people into opening up your messages with vague subjects or misleading titles. It may take a while but promoting your business through professional practices and adherence to Spam Legislation will eventually get you where you want to be.

IP Reputation: The last thing on our list may be the most important, IP reputation. If you have ever been flagged as spam in the past future filters may pick up on this fact and flag you again, regardless of the message content. Due to the fickle nature of some Internet users, it is next to impossible to prevent everyone from throwing your email into the junk. That is why it is best to take as much care as possible when crafting your copy. One misstep can lead to you having to change domain names and altering your IP address, which can take time and resources you’re better off spending elsewhere.

These points may seem pretty straightforward but I can’t stress enough how important it is to pay attention to these details. An inexperienced marketing team can make a few rookie mistakes and end up costing you valuable time and potential sales. Treat your emails as you would any other important meeting and you will do well. Consider email just a fruitless extension of your brand and you may end up losing more than a few potential clients.

As I said at the outset, nobody likes to eat spam. Why would they want to see it when they turn on their computer as well?

Also Read: Top 5 Tips for Cold Enterprise Emails

TechBytes with Preethy Vaidyanathan, Chief Product Officer at Tapad

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August 15, 2017

[mnky_team name=”Preethy Vaidyanathan” position=”Chief Product Officer at Tapad”][/mnky_team]

We recently covered the partnership between Tapad and Sojern, which helps the travel industry understand traveler decisions across multiple devices. Sojern’s 350 million global traveler profiles and billions of predictive purchase intent signals, when coupled with the Tapad Device Graph™, enable travel industry clients to derive precise and actionable insights.

We caught up with Preethy Vaidyanathan, Chief Product Officer at Tapad, to tell us more about the Tapad Device Graph™ and their analytics for traditional and connected TV.

MTS: How does Tapad analyze linear TV streams and match users across digital devices to gauge if they saw an ad on their mobile that influenced them to watch a show on their TV without an analytic device attached to their TV sets?

Preethy Vaidyanathan: Like any other consumer device or platform, TVs are bridged into the Tapad Device GraphTM. This means we receive TV viewing behaviors such as commercial exposure, program and network consumption, so we know which TVs were tuned in to which programs. When a digital campaign is executed, Tapad is able to measure cross-device digital ad exposure against who tuned in to a given program. The same can be done in reverse: for example, if we evaluate a user who was exposed to a TV commercial and then uncover what they did online to understand the measurement impact from TV advertising.
Fundamentally, Tapad is about understanding consumer identity and behavior in a privacy-compliant manner. This allows us to have a holistic consumer view on content consumption and brand engagements across screens and platforms. With this as our foundation, we can drive a wealth of insights for our clients as they can see the impact of TV to digital, and vice versa, among many other use cases.

MTS: Viewable Exposure Time™ (VET) seems to fill in the gaps that traditional metrics like CTR, VCR and CPA miss. Would you share a customer story (brand names not required) where VET helped identify the optimal response rate and media mix for TV and digital campaigns?

Preethy Vaidyanathan: VET fills in those gaps, as it’s a powerful metric that reveals — across every device — whether time spent with your brand’s content delivers ROI and how to optimize based on that information.
For a campaign with a large auto manufacturer, we leveraged VET to look past reach and frequency as the cornerstone of measuring marketing spend success. Instead, we gained a deeper understanding about the quality of each exposure as measured by the time of viewable exposures and how that affects the consumer’s behavior as it relates to conversion. We used VET to determine the optimal amount of time a user should spend with the ad in order to convert and then pushed people toward that amount of time across devices. As a result of our VET optimizations for this campaign, we saw a lift in conversion rate of more than 125 percent. In addition, we found that users exposed on two screens drove a 220 percent increase in conversion rate over users exposed on one screen and users exposed on three screens drove a 400 percent increase.

MTS: Tell us a bit about the Tapad’s data business ecosystem.

Preethy Vaidyanathan: Tapad’s data business licenses access The Tapad Device Graph™, our core product. This proprietary technology aggregates device IDs from wide-ranging sources such as exchanges, app download data and ID syncs with our many partners. This provides a wide array of coverage and the corresponding ‘network effect’ that provides exponential scale for every new partner contributing to the graph.
Every day, the Tapad Device Graph™ sees more than seven billion signals per day — a volume of data that ensures the graph is never over-leveraged on any one data source or partner. In fact, no partner represents more than five percent of the graph. As opposed to vendors who rely on black boxes or walled gardens, Tapad believes in an open ecosystem and portable data to drive client success.
DSPs, brands and a tech and martech vendors are licensing the Tapad Device Graph for use cases including targeting, measurement, attribution, site personalization and customer journey optimization. A good example would be our recently announced partnership with Sojern, which leverages data from the Tapad Device GraphTM to better understand travel audiences. As a result, Sojern has already achieved an amplification rate of more than 600 percent.

MTS: Tapad bills itself as a Scala-based company, what influenced your engineering team toward this choice of language?

Preethy Vaidyanathan: When Tapad started in 2010, languages like Scala were in their very early stages and many engineers weren’t looking beyond Java. However, Tapad’s CTO and co-founder Dag Liodden saw potential in the language due to its ability to deliver high quality code at high velocity. He knew that if the company was going to scale at the rate they anticipated, they needed a tech stack that could support big data growth beyond the company’s initial years. After considering the options, Scala was the clear choice of language to meet both the current and future needs of Tapad’s technology.

MTS: Ghostery and the NAI’s Online Behavioral Advertising program help provide persistent opt-out and privacy. What is your team currently working on to improve privacy and reduce PII leaks across Tapad’s platforms?

Preethy Vaidyanathan: Privacy is always on the forefront of our minds at Tapad. We are committed to not only being compliant with privacy standards wherever we operate, but also to providing consumers with transparency about which data we use, how we use it and the option to opt out. The Tapad Device GraphTM is built independent of what is considered PII data sets here in the US, and it is our mission to be an open and independent leader in cross-device technology.
In addition, Tapad is compliant with current privacy laws across Europe and Asia and we are working with our parent company, Telenor Group, to achieve GDPR compliance in the EU by the 2018 deadline, borrowing from their decades of experience as a European-based global corporation. We are at the front lines of conversation across the marketplace, through our trade associations and the legal community, on how ad tech companies will ensure compliance with the GDPR and the pending ePrivacy Regulation.
Regarding security, Tapad is compliant with the requirements of ISO standard ISO/IEC 27001:2013 to appropriately preserve privacy and the confidentiality of Tapad’s systems and information.

MTS: Thanks for chatting with us, Preethy.
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 Anand Thaker, CEO & Founder at IntelliPhi

By

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August 15, 2017

1

[mnky_team name=”Anand Thaker” position=” CEO & Founder at IntelliPhi”][/mnky_team]

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

[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“Many of the behavioral sciences are becoming more quantifiable in real-time. This availability of digital information explosion has been a catalyst for the big data / AI conversations among marketers.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us a little bit about your role at IntelliPhi and how you got here.
I founded IntelliPhi as a mission to advance decision making for go-to-market leaders. In the coming decade, we will see broader use of intelligent systems (AI) with a greater use of ‘big data’. How do data-driven strategic leaders from startups to enterprises synthesize options to go-to-market through a more measurable, complex, dynamic, and interconnected marketplace? Our firm is currently researching and building around this longer term need of decision intelligence in marketing. Under this umbrella, I also serves as a retained advisor for later-stage startups, VC/PE/strategic investors, executives, and analysts on MarTech. I love the startup community and work to elevate the ecosystem in Atlanta.
Prior to IntelliPhi, I founded NeoMarketing Solutions, a marketing operations consulting and advisory firm focused on build sales and marketing alignment for high-growth startup to divisions of enterprise firms. The inspiration came during my time at Silverpop, where the acquisition of marketing and sales technologies still required companies to evolve their go-to-market strategy, operations and talent.
Before Silverpop, I had worked in marketing, sales, consulting and development roles with deep expertise in the energy/environmental and financial spaces with firms including Siemens Power Generation, Blackstone, APX, and NYSE. The common thread through it all was navigating complex systems with deep data availability. We are excited to begin cracking this code so as to empower go-to-market leaders to handle what’s coming their way.

MTS: What are the technology trends, challenges, and developments that are going to impact the marketing intelligence sector?
The conversation and application around AI and big data in marketing technology and other related industries is a bit of deja vu for me. While Martech has been my life blood for many years, my previous experiences in the energy and financial spaces is where we addressed many of these opportunities and pitfalls over a decade ago. From those experiences, the application around intelligent systems and large data sets must include training and education around decision making. Are leaders developing good judgement and consider what the AI may or may not know or from what data may or may not be available used in the synthesis? The human decision maker element hasn’t been quite addressed yet.

MTS: Could you tell us how digital behavioral sciences are driving the MarTech space?
Simply put, it’s about relationships. MarTech, as I’ve experienced in other industries, swings back and forth between technology and the strategies and/or tactics being the primary advantage. Many of the behavioral sciences are becoming more quantifiable in real-time. This availability of digital information explosion has been a catalyst for the big data / AI conversations among marketers. I see three areas where the digital relationships with this information synthesized well, will drive relationships: 1) Marketers and sales develop genuine relationships sooner and with greater scale. 2) Customers and prospects – in a business or consumer driven marketplace – are becoming influenced from one another. 3) Companies build better performance-based partnerships with one another to facilitate or complement one another as they go-to-market.

MTS: How did you help Scott Brinker create this year’s Martech landscape infographic?
My interest in marketing technology began when I analyzed a web log, identified companies with reverse look up and deliver that to our sales team to respond or reach out accordingly. The future for marketing via technology to influence decisions was eye opening. For years, I followed Scott and grateful for his selfless work and passion for space. I thought an opportunity to help him on the landscape and/or the martech event was a unique opportunity to enrich my knowledge and contribute to the overall wisdom of marketers in the space.
When happily agreeing to help Scott with the landscape, I asked that we extend the usefulness of our research by also providing some level of usable data now that there were two of us. With that in mind, we collaborated around a spreadsheet and project platform to help users ensure we were capturing not only the logos/companies, but enriching the data so that we can perform precision analytics. We divvied up the sub-categories and begin putting the landscape together. For me, I took the opportunity to research the entire martech 5000 landscape over the course of months and even the couple of months after the conference. It’s been helpful to intersect this with the investment and M&A activity. The two of us have the most unique view of martech in the industry. This landscape is still the amazing Scott Brinker Martech Landscape and it was a such a privilege to support him to add to his ability to continue to contribute the industry on the effort.

MTS: How does IntelliPhi look to leverage marketing technology for its clients?
When not building martech or investor advisory, our research consulting engagements are revolved around data and decision making, so we seek out technology that helps our clients better internalize data across go-to-market silos. The premise drives executives to become aware and discover insights and narrow down optimal go-to-market options to make strategic or high-level tactical decisions. Before technology is implemented, we work with leadership and talent and leadership build a data driven culture, decision intelligence training and leveraging ones experienced judgement together for an optimal use of the marketing tech.

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?
While AI and big data are hot topics today and with a sense of how that will play out, I’m watching beyond this. Successful go-to-market leaders will need solutions that leverage those intelligent systems and data to build/manage relationships or make better decisions.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?
As we are a small firm, our stack is simple and looks similar to many early stage startups.

MTS: Could you tell us about a standout digital campaign? (Who was your target audience and how did you measure success)
Early in growing our marketing operations consulting firm NeoMarketing. We started to gain reference prospects who were leaving their current consultative vendor(s) because they were being “highly recommended” to switch their marketing automation (MA) solution. While that wasn’t unusual and we were agnostic and had seen this happen on occasion. Their suspicion was the relationship of the competitor’s firm and their dedicated MA vendor went sour and the clients were being asked to switch as result.
We found the list of companies who used the prior automation technology and cross referenced it with our competitor tracking database for a target list. We then mailed postcards to promote our track record, agnostic status and see if they wanted an independent assessment. The result was getting a 70% response rate with our landing the second highest bookings within a quarter. This didn’t include the tremendous referral business and credibility we gained as a result. It’s also attracted a partner firm which eventually ended up absorbing our firm.

MTS: How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?
I’ve seen the most successful leaders and organizations start with some of the following:

Lots of Research – Be patient. Research not only about AI, but also review how your own organization works and where the application of AI may play a part.
Don’t Rush It – Build a roadmap and plan how you might incrementally apply AI. Be realistic and pragmatic about what and how much to incorporate.
Start with Culture – As I’ve mentioned before having a business intelligence and data culture is critical. Begin with applying AI to gain insights and test actions based on the current status quo.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.
Strategically.

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Waze, Nudge.ai, Slack, OneNote, CRM, Email/Calendar, Buffer, Spotify.

MTS: What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
Block off non-essential email twice a day. Also, schedule 20 or 45 min blocks to give yourself time for the next meeting.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
Finished reading Winning with Data and Performance Partnerships. I’m reading Brokerage and Closure and usually read HBR or WSJ online. Watch / listen to TED talks as well as audiobooks. I subscribe to a lot of emails from the martech space and bulk them into a folder where I search for topics that I maybe reading elsewhere and investigate what pops up.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Your network is your net worth.

MTS: Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?
Finding opportunities in chaos. I enjoy navigating complex situations or environments and find connections. I enjoy being a super connector and leverage this to find larger successes without having to make a lot of noise in the market.

MTS: Tag the one person whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
Satya Nadella

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Anand ” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27ace7d-8985″]

Anand is a 15 year veteran in marketing technology and growth strategy. His expertise includes marketing, sales, data, analytics, and intelligent systems.

He founded IntelliPhi to advance human & digital go-to-market decisioning for growth leaders. Anand believe that to succeed in a diverse, dynamic, interconnected marketplace, modern leaders must leverage the right mix of data, intelligent solutions, and judgment.

Previously, He built and grew high-growth product startups and consulting firms in Marketing Technology to enterprise firms such as Siemens, Silverpop/IBM, Microsoft, Blackstone, Capgemini, GTRI, Salesforce.com, Fidelity, NYSE, and eBay. Anand also serves as a liaison and advisor to investors, founders, executives, and analysts on Marketing Technology.

Have a knack for identifying and cultivating rising sales and marketing leaders.

Proud to support and build the growing Atlanta startup ecoystem.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About IntelliPhi” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27ace7d-8985″]

IntelliPhi

We help growth leaders make smarter go-to-market decisions. Our team uncovers meaningful insights coupled with intelligent systems to empowers our client’s decision making. We accomplish this through marketing expertise, digital behavioral sciences, advanced analytics, data management, decision and intelligent systems. Intelligent Systems + Big Data + Experienced Leaders = Insightful Decisions.

Also collaborating with The Connective Good to scout and recruit senior Marketing, MarTech, Go-to-Marketing, and Analytics talent.

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[mnky_heading title=”MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fstaging.loutish-lamp.flywheelsites.com%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.

Interview with Bastiaan Janmaat, CEO and Co-Founder, DataFox

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August 14, 2017

[mnky_team name=”Bastiaan Janmaat” position=” CEO and Co-Founder at DataFox”][/mnky_team]

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

[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“We set out to use Artificial Intelligence to help people make better decisions for their business.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us a bit about your role at DataFox and how you got here? (What inspired you to co-found DataFox?)
I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of DataFox. My three co-founders and I were inspired to build DataFox four years ago. We saw first-hand how the explosion of information available to people working in sales, marketing, and investing jobs was making it difficult to be productive at work. We set out to use Artificial Intelligence to help people make better decisions for their business.
Every day, DataFox captures millions of data points about companies and people, and triggers suggestions based on that data right in our customers’ workflows. If you work in marketing or sales, for example, you’ll get to work in the morning with DataFox already having updated essential information in your CRM, and orchestrating your next actions to help you connect to the right people at the right time, close deals and grow your business.

MTS: What sets apart DataFox’s CRM Orchestration platform from the competition?
DataFox helps customers hit and exceed their goals by surfacing essential data through seamless workflow integrations. Our CRM Orchestration platform connects the dots between the information already in your systems and the millions of data points we surface externally, to deliver actionable insights. For example, DataFox might recognize that a key prospect you met six months ago is attending a marketing conference or sales summit in your city in two weeks, and recently ramped up hiring. DataFox delivers this insight via your CRM, email, or even Slack, so you can act on it immediately. This level of multidimensional insight is truly unique in how it can help you achieve your goals.

MTS: What sets DataFox’s Company Signals apart?
With the explosion of business information, it’s harder and harder to surface insights that matter. Just think how noisy Google Alerts become when you turn them on for a company or person you’re trying to keep track of. DataFox’s Company Signals leverages machine learning to monitor millions of companies and people, structuring the business signals you’re actually interested in. Our customers can choose from over 70 signal types, including product launches, funding rounds, key hires, office openings, and more. This is the most targeted way to stay informed about the companies that matter to you.

MTS: Your Conference Intelligence tool seems to have no competition right now, what brought about this development?
Our Conference Intelligence product is a classic example of the success that comes from listening intently to your customers, especially early on in a startup’s life. Many of our early customers were investors and sales reps who despite the world’s migration online, still relied heavily on in-person conferences, trade shows, and exhibitions to meet people, build relationships, and close deals.
Our customers used DataFox to research companies they met at these events. Before long, we started getting requests to help them analyze conference attendees before heading to events, and – better yet – help them decide which events to prioritize in the first place. Over time, our Conference Intelligence product has grown to be the pre-eminent tool for anyone looking to be data-driven in preparing for and doing deals at live conferences. By the way, the conference industry is a $30B business in the US alone – so ignore it at your own peril!

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?
In working with our customers, it’s been exciting to discover other AI-based technologies that help sales teams hit and exceed their goals. One area I’m particularly bullish on is technology that helps with sales coaching and forecasting. Call recording companies like Chorus and TalkIQ use machine learning to parse sales calls, delivering suggestions related to each participant’s air time, rebuttals to mentions of competitors, and other information pertaining to common questions. On the forecasting side, InsightSquared is a cool company that analyzes past sales forecasts relative to ultimate outcomes to help managers dial in and enhances the accuracy of their forecasts going forward.

MTS: How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?
I think we might see major breakthroughs in generalized AI in the coming years, but for now I think the biggest benefits business leaders can capitalize on are in applied AI, meaning AI developed for specific use-cases. I also think it behooves leaders to realize that your AI is only as good as your data, or said another way, “garbage in garbage out.” So regardless if AI is a 2017, 2018, or 2019 initiative for your business, it will pay to start structuring and cleaning your business data now.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.
Collaboratively. I work best when surrounded by an amazing team who I know will be able to tackle certain projects much more effectively than I would! I’m happy to play the role of coordinator, filling in any gaps and making sure information is shared efficiently.

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Evernote – I take notes on literally everything, and it gives me peace of mind to know that I can always refer back to takeaways from a conversation I had or project I worked on.
Boomerang – I use this Gmail plugin to have my sent emails bounce back to me if they aren’t responded to by a given deadline.
Typinator – a text replacement tool that allows me to save frequently used phrases or templates that I can insert with a short code.
Todoist – my to do list: syncs well between laptop and phone. The first to do list app that has enabled me to stop carrying around a paper version.
Pocket – for saving news articles to read later. Use the Chrome plugin so you can save articles with one click.
Calendly – scheduling tool that helps avoid the hassle of back-and-forths by sharing a link where people can book a time that’s available on your calendar.

MTS: What is your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
I love starting the day early. I wake up around 5:45-6am and get to the office by 6:15-6:30am (my office is a 10-minute walk from home). Those first few hours of the day are sacred, I try to move one big project forward and prepare for all the meetings I have coming up that day.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
I’m currently reading Sapiens, about the history of the human race. It’s a fascinating window into the incredible coincidence that mankind has developed this way and made it this far.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
A culture of transparency is a powerful way to motivate employees. I’ve gone way beyond what felt natural to me, to foster a spirit of openness and information-sharing at DataFox. I share our quarterly board decks, we have All Hands meetings every week to highlight successes and challenges facing the company, and I think this has helped build the cohesion and motivation that permeates our team today.

MTS: Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?
This isn’t particularly unique, and it’s certainly a double-edged sword, but I’m obsessed with efficiency. Although it can stress out my friends, family, and travel companions, it does allow me to multitask, constantly prioritize, and endeavor to move the most important projects forward.

MTS: Tag the one person whose answer to these questions you would love to read:
Marc Benioff (Salesforce CEO)

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Bastiaan” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aa7da-07e1″]

I’m CEO and Co-Founder of DataFox (www.datafox.com), an Artificial Intelligence platform that provides sales, marketing and investing teams with the insights they need to identify new business opportunities.
Prior to DataFox, I worked as a Growth Equity Investor in Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group in London.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Datafox” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aa7da-07e1″]

DataFox

DataFox helps industry-leading businesses gain control of customer insights with CRM Orchestration. DataFox’s machine learning and natural language processing algorithms structure data on millions of businesses and deliver reliable insights into the workflows where they’re most needed.

Backed by Goldman Sachs, Green Visor, Google Ventures, and Slack, DataFox is used by high-growth startups and Fortune 500 companies like UPS, Visa, Twilio, and InsightSquared to identify and accelerate business opportunities. For more information, visit www.datafox.com.

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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.

Influencer Marketing is the Fastest-Growing Online Customer Acquisition Strategy

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August 12, 2017

Obama White House — Setting Pace with Influencer Marketing, the Fastest-Growing Online Customer Acquisition Strategy

Influencer Marketing is the Fastest-Growing Online Customer Acquisition Strategy

Google Trends shows how Influencer marketing has steadily climbed the charts to displace print advertising. Sneaking close to video advertising, influencer marketing industry is on a trailblazer mode, bringing together the various cogs of the social media and branded content within the ‘sales’ flywheel.

Influencers are ruling the roost for brands across online channels. Dwarfing the company’s owned social media campaigns, influencer marketing has moved at a phenomenal pace in garnering more engagements than the branded content. According to an eMarketer report published in 2015, 84% of global marketers were working on at least one influencer campaign and nearly 81% of them acknowledged influencer engagements were effective. In 2017, the content promotion activities have edged past content creation for most brands, demonstrating how influencer marketing help in maximized engagements. In their latest infographic report, Influencer Marketing Hub, the leading influencer marketing resource for marketers and agencies, says that over 230 new platforms and influencer marketing-focused agencies have arrived in the market since 2015.

Finding the Right Influencer with Personalized Vetting Process

With brands leveraging User Generated Content (UGC) for their marketing and advertising, marketers find identifying the right influencers as their biggest pain-point.

To identify, marketers zero onto an influencer’s social profiles and data to determine if the engagement would work. SEO ranking, Alexa ranking and verified traffic data remain the critical metric for selecting any influencer.

GroupHigh offers a range of influencer marketing solutions that include identification of new influencers based on their social presence, total reach and location. From vetting influencers based on content categories to delivering a report on earned media from influencer marketing, GroupHigh enables marketers to track, foster and expand influencer network with tailored communication.

Cision is another reliable platform to identify social media influencers that are making the most buzz. Last month, the company unveiled exclusive Influencer Identification, Monitoring and Measurement Capabilities and other enhancements to its Cision Communications Cloud™.

Leveraging Earned Media: The Power of Middle Influencers

Two years ago, influencer marketing was blamed for being too mono-directional and too narrow for brands to maximize their ROI. In 2017, the doubts have vanished, largely due to the rise of the “Power Middle Influencers”. According to a study by Collective Bias, the apt spot for reach and engagement is between 35k and 65k followers. However, influencer marketing automation solution provider – TapInfluence, identifies Power Middle Influencers with an audience size of 10K-35K.

Influencer-generated content is found to perform better than UGC, and leveraging power middle influencers make content an appreciable asset and deliver direct ROI in a shorter time.

It’s Still a Number’s Game: Influencer versus Print versus Video

In a highly customer-centric world, there is a tectonic shift in how consumers rely on word-of-mouth marketing and advertising. Purchasing decisions are largely driven by what the customer sees, hears and researches online.

According to McKinsey’s study, word of mouth is the most disruptive factor and therefore, resonance factor of influencer content is the key to achieve incremental ROI from such campaigns. The influencer marketing is the potent answer to the rising use of ad blockers by consumers.

Influencer marketing platforms like Blogmint provide visual reporting on how influencers and their content created brand awareness among the audience. Reporting metrics on blog performance, Blog Score, is the simplest way to determine if influencer strategy would make the cut against the global benchmarking.

Validate your Strategies using Influencer Relationship Management (IRM)

Influencers get influenced too. And, it is imperative to score their influencing factors to move beyond the status quo of merely relying on traffic analytics. IRM platforms like Traackr help marketers to cast an “influential net” and expand influencer network based on an intelligent scoring algorithm that individually and cumulatively measures results of content, events, and campaigns. Self-service influencer marketing platforms such as IZEA bring inventiveness to generating traffic using pre-existing and ongoing content campaigns. To make data-driven decisions, Influencity provides real-time multi-channel analytic and compares influencer performance of every member of the community.

Other influencer marketing platforms that caught my eyes are InfluencerDB, InsightsAtlas, Influmeter, and Ubermetrics.

The Special Mention

Influencer marketing and social media analytics run parallel to each other. For an industry that is pegged to grow by $1.7 billion in 2018, a lot depends on how accurately influencer marketing platforms gauge content analytics. Talkwalker, the social media analytics and monitoring platform, is slated to become the data intelligence hub for influencer campaigns. With automated report building and monitoring on your fingertips, Talkwalker adds intelligence to every piece of content that runs from the influencer factory.

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter have their own set of influencer ‘superstars’. With increased brand awareness about influencer marketing, tightened by advertising transparency and data privacy policies, the industry is set to see unprecedented growth by 2020. Adding to it the magic of AI and “auto-vetting”, B2B brands would finally see their social selling efforts matching B2C and e-commerce influencers at scale.

Snapchat’s New Update Creates Huge Possibilities for Local SEO

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Collin Holmes

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August 11, 2017

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Snapchat’s New Update Creates Huge Possibilities for Local SEO

In the State of Search Marketing survey, 74% of companies and 82% of agencies said that social media is either somewhat or highly integrated into their SEO strategies. In the past, this has meant the number of Facebook posts and Tweets but now, Snapchat could become a main platform for promoting your business locally.

Snapchat has created its own responsive map called Snap Map which enables users to share what they are doing with their friends and people near them. You can easily access the map by pinching your fingers together on the camera screen within the app. From there, you can see your friends and localized heat spots, or areas with a lot of Snapchat activity, around currently popular areas. Snap Map’s current release is in the beginning stages that said, it is designed to attract users to popular areas, concerts and sporting events. Because Snap Map is moving towards the discovery of places and events, local SEO looks like it could make a perfect integration within the app. With 166 million people logging into the app on a daily basis, this could soon be one of the primary ways for your business to gain an advantage in attracting new customers.

How does Snapchat stack up against local SEO competitors?

Snapchat has several key competitors now that it has entered into the Local SEO market. Its biggest rivals will obviously be platforms such as Google Local and Facebook Places. The reason these sites have become so popular is the transparency they provide with customer reviews. It’s all about trust. Consumers no longer trust businesses, advertising, and marketing messages, they trust each other. In a recent survey from Chatmeter, trust is established when you have at least 10 reviews. Even though these companies are the biggest right now for local SEO, they don’t offer real time experiences.

The only services that appear to rival Snapchat’s Map are ride sharing services. Companies such as Lyft and Uber are starting to catch onto this same map trend by adding local marketing opportunities for customers in transit. Soon ridesharing customers will be able to look at local recommendations within the map while they are driving. Snapchat is hoping to create an edge over these companies with their Snap Map because it will show users popular things to do that are currently happening. This is far different than any current local SEO strategy because Snapchat is providing real time local and geotagged information to its users.

How Businesses Can Optimize for Snap Map

Even though Snap Map has yet to bring a Local SEO function to the app, the best way you can start optimizing is by making a company Snapchat account. In order to attract the greatest amount of attention to your business, it is important that you let your customers know about your Snapchat through all other forms of social media. Snapchat has made it easy for you to get the word out by integrating searchable QR codes that can be downloaded and customized with your company’s branding and website information within your account. This is a great way to gain followers and add traffic to your website. You should also keep an eye out for news about the Snap Map to make sure you stay ahead of the game.

What This Means for Local Search

The best way Snapchat could incorporate Local SEO would be through paid “hotspots” and Snap Ads on Snap Map. Snapchat users now have the capabilities to create snaps and add them to public stories that any other Snapchat user could watch. This means you could eventually pay to be a popular spot on a local Snap Map, much like you would do with Google Ads, and become visible to local users searching for your business. This could transform the app to allow many users find new things they didn’t know existed. If Snapchat does this right, you could soon be able to connect with many new customers that are looking for something to do in your area.

Right now, the best thing you can do is to make sure you have appealing geofilter(s) at your location for all big events and special occasions. You can also try to encourage attractive content through promotions or prizes for the best photos. Remember, the more customers you have interacting with business, the hotter it will become on Snap Map.

Because Snap Map is in the beginning stages, as it grows, the possibility for SEO optimization will grow with it. Right now, it’s just important to get ahead of the game quickly before your competitors do.

Genesis Media Expands Programmatic Technology by Merging with Altitude Digital

By

Abhi Yadav

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August 11, 2017

Genesis Media Expands Programmatic Technology by Merging with Altitude Digital

Company to Launch First Publisher Video Platform Connecting User Behavior Data, Content Analytics, and Programmatic Advertising

Genesis Media, a leading publisher analytics, and data science company, has announced that it has merged with Denver-based, Altitude Digital, a programmatic video technology company. The company will operate as Genesis Media.

The combination of these two companies creates a unique advertising platform for premium publishers that:

– Brings together publisher content analytics (Genesis Attention Platform™) and a Supply Side Platform (Altitude ARENA^®) into a single system
– Increases the amount of quality video supply—pre-roll and out-stream, that publishers can create and deliver to direct and programmatic buyers
– Expands the company’s team and engineering resources to better serve direct publishers by removing complexities and inefficiencies
– Allows programmatic buyers to bid on impressions with new data that measure the quality of individual pieces of publisher content and how the user interacts with that content

Mark Yackanich, CEO of Genesis Media says, “This merger further supports our mission to reward publishers for producing quality content with highly engaged audiences. It’s in those environments that brands can most effectively reach their customers with video advertising. Publishers need to maximize video revenue without ignoring the impact advertising has on its users—that’s where we come in.”

“Brands leverage programmatic to target consumers at scale but adding a new metric to help evaluate content quality offers interesting possibilities,” said Tim Libby, SVP Group Director at Starcom. “An enhanced approach to programmatic that allows brands to target highly engaged consumers while leveraging unique data to measure the quality of content makes a lot of sense.”

Joe Grover President and CMO at Genesis Media LLC — *Joe Grover, President and CMO at Genesis Media LLC*

Investments in data products and an expanded engineering team better position the company to address the complexities in the video media supply chain. Joe Grover, President and Chief Marketing Officer of Genesis Media and former CEO of Altitude Digital added, “This business combination is anchored around a deep commitment to quality in online advertising. From employing the most trusted verification tools, to understanding the quality of publisher content, to delivering better advertising experiences for the user. It’s a new approach to programmatic advertising.”

The company will have six operating offices in major US cities including Denver, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco with New York headquarters.

About Genesis Media

Genesis Media is the first company to connect user behavior, content analytics, and programmatic advertising. Genesis’ real-time platform analyzes how individual pieces of web content are consumed by people, leveraging this data to create viewable video ad experiences that are best suited for each page and each device. With its programmatic technology, high-quality inventory is packaged into private marketplaces and direct deals. Premium publishers, leading national advertising agencies, and programmatic buyers rely on Genesis Media’s technology to accurately quantify the true value of publisher content and reduce waste for brand advertisers.

OpenNMT Developed by SYSTRAN and Harvard, Recognized by ACL 2017

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August 11, 2017

OpenNMT, the Neural Translation System, Developed by SYSTRAN and Harvard, Distinguished by ACL 2017, the World Conference of Experts in Computer Linguistics

SYSTRAN, a software publisher specialized in machine translation and natural language processing has announced that the joint research and development between SYSTRAN and Harvard NLP on neural translation has been distinguished by the ACL, the 55th World Conference of Experts in Computer Linguistics. The article summarizing this research was awarded “Best Demonstration Runner-up” (finalist in the category of operational systems). This rewards a commitment of more than six months by the SYSTRAN R&D teams and recognizes the excellence of their research.

The ACL is the world’s leading meeting on research on automatic language processing. This year, the ACL was held in Vancouver from July 30 to August 4, 2017, and highlights the latest advances in artificial intelligence applied to language processing: neural translation, semantic analysis, automatic content generation. This year, ACL has decided to reward, among others, research projects that are distinguished by their excellence and their innovative character.

Open Neural Machine Translation, developed by SYSTRAN and Harvard, distinguished by ACL

In the “Operational Systems” category, the OpenNMT system developed by SYSTRAN and Harvard is one of the two finalist projects, ahead of dozens of other innovative projects representing the elite of international research. OpenNMT is an open source neural translation system, launched in December 2016, with several hundred users and contributors from the academic and industrial world. About twenty researchers, linguists, and engineers from SYSTRAN’s R&D, are working on the development of this platform and enlivening the user community.

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An important step for SYSTRAN

The mastery of neuronal technology by SYSTRAN and the positive reception by the market augurs very important development prospects. With GAFAM*, embarking on the development of similar solutions, SYSTRAN, always a forerunner, has already obtained the recognition of the scientific community and is moving on to the next stage. The company now wants to capitalize on these developments to open up new possibilities, beyond automatic translation, in other areas such as semantic analysis, multimedia document processing, or language learning. To feed these ambitious projects, SYSTRAN is currently recruiting experts to expand its R & D department, particularly in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Jean Senellart, Global CTO (Technical Director & Global Innovation) of the SYSTRAN Group comments on this distinction: “OpenNMT is at the crossroads of academic research and industrial requirements in an Open source context. This recognition enhances the work done by researchers, engineers and all of the user-contributors federated through this project. In an Open source project, a constant and long-term commitment is essential to gain the support of the community. It is this day-to-day commitment by the SYSTRAN R&D teams that are now rewarded. Nevertheless, the best is still ahead of us: in the months and years to come, our customers will be able to benefit from the incredible potential offered by these latest innovations. ”

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About SYSTRAN

SYSTRAN machine translation solutions enable companies to improve their multilingual communication and productivity in many areas such as in-house collaboration, Big Data management, monitoring, e-discovery, content management, customer support, E-commerce and localization projects. With more than 140 language pairs available, SYSTRAN solutions, which are secure and customized in every customer context, are used daily by many global companies, organizations in the defense and security sector, and translation agencies.

Since its creation, SYSTRAN has always been a pioneer in automatic language processing and today offers the market a new generation of engines by exploiting the latest advances offered by artificial neural networks and Deep Learning.

(Editor’s note: *G.A.F.A.M. is Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft)

Marketing Technology News: Asia-Pacific Managed Security Service Providers Need to Offer Advanced Analytics to Drive Growth Opportunities in the region, finds Frost & Sullivan

Openprise Launches ‘Openprise Data Marketplace’ to Normalize Data Ingestion and Unification

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August 11, 2017