Vainu Launches Program to Help US Companies Land Business in the Nordics
Known as “The Promised Land” Campaign, The Initiative Seeks To Mainstream US-Nordics Business Alliances
The time has come for American businesses to be let in on a little secret. Sales intelligence company Vainu, with roots in Finland and offices across the Nordics and a U.S. headquarters in New York, is launching its Promised Land campaign — an initiative to spark enthusiasm among businesses in the U.S. looking to connect and partner with Nordic businesses while simultaneously aiding Nordic-based startups seeking to gain a foothold in the coveted U.S. market.
Mikko Jauhiainen
“As a company who has been fortunate enough to make the transition from a startup in the Nordics to an enterprise with offices across Europe and now in New York, we wanted to provide the kind of educational resources and support to companies here in the United States looking to make a kind of reverse expansion,” said Vainu Vice President Mikko Jauhiainen. “So, we’ve developed a program called the ‘Promised Land’ that offers resources, support and guidance to any company in the US interested in expanding to the Nordics.”
Vainu, a company recently named a top 100 European startup in Wired UK, wants to give back and educate U.S. businesses who can help support companies in the Nordics.
“We decided to name this initiative ‘Promised Land’ because, based on our experience working with thousands of businesses across the Nordics, we realize that there really is a demand for US experts to help pave the way for budding startups looking for someone to guide them into the American market,” added Jauhiainen. “With a large pool of tech startups, countries in the Nordics are ready for services from businesses who specialize in areas such as marketing, recruiting and IT to help them develop a plan to expand in the US”
The Nordic region has a track record for producing successful tech startups. While the countries that comprise the region account for about 2 percent of global GDP, those same countries produce 7 percent of global billion-dollar tech startups.
Since its 2014 launch, Vainu has grown from three guys and an idea to a team of more than 130 people, nearly $1 millionin monthly revenue and bookings, more than 1,000 customers with thousands of users and more than 100 million companies worldwide in its database. With a recently launched US headquarters in New York City, a European headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, and several other European offices, Vainu continues to advance its mission to collect, read and understand all the information written about every company in the world and make it readily available. By 2018, the company plans to launch at least three new databases in Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Vainu’s How to Sell to the Nordics ebook
Trusted by companies like FedEx, UPS, Manpower, Dell and Microsoft, B2B business development leaders around the world capitalize on Vainu’s platform. The company recently launched an app to provide its same customized sales and prospecting solution to users on the go.
Vainu.io is a data-driven prospecting and lead generation sales intelligence platform used by more than 1,000 organizations to identify actionable insights and sales leads. On mission to collect, read and understand all the information ever written about every company in the world, and with more than 100 million companies in its platform already, Vainu has helped its clients streamlines sales and close more deals.
Decibel Insight Appoints Even Walser as Chief Revenue Officer
Even Walser’s Hire Comes Amid Momentum as Leading Brands Increasingly Turn to Decibel Insight’s Digital Experience Analytics to Understand, Optimize and Measure Their Customer Experiences
Decibel Insight, a leader in digital experience analytics for enterprise businesses, announced that it has appointed Even Walser as Chief Revenue Officer. Walser joins the company as brands are increasingly investing in solutions to better understand and improve the digital experience, particularly in the US market where the company expects to grow its workforce by 300 percent in 2018 to meet this growing demand.
Walser’s hire caps off a notable year of growth for Decibel Insight, which has included opening a new office in San Francisco, raising a $9 million Series A investment round in May and several growth milestones in September—including doubling its customer base. In November, the company also won “Technology Business of the Year” for 2017 in the highly-regarded UK Startups Awards. To support this growth, Decibel made several key executive appointments prior to Walser, including Brian Bullock, VP of US Sales; Adnan Erriade, VP EMEA Sales; David Ives, VP of Engineering; and Lindsay O’Gorman, VP of Marketing.
Walser joins Decibel Insight after four successful years with Brandwatch, most recently as Executive Vice President of EMEA Revenue. In his time at Brandwatch, Walser helped to build the company’s San Francisco and Paris offices as well as the North American Enterprise sales team. Under his leadership, Brandwatch became the premier global provider of social intelligence solutions to enterprise companies. Prior to his work with Brandwatch, Walser led commercial for Topsy, a social listening technology pioneer acquired by Apple in 2014 and helped to found and scale U.S. health tech pioneer Practice Fusion, the largest electronic medical record provider in the U.S., raising over $155 million in top tier venture funds.
“I’ve long admired Decibel Insight’s vision to quantify the digital experience. The company is taking a strategic approach to solving big and complex business problems that truly sets it apart from all others in the space. I’m looking forward to bringing my experience building high-growth, customer-centric, global technology businesses to such an exciting and fast-growing organization,” Walser said.
Speaking of the new development, CEO and founder Ben Harris, said, “Even’s appointment highlights the continued growth Decibel Insight has been experiencing and marks our prioritization of building a team of A-plus players. His 20 years of experience will help us to achieve our goal of partnering with brands on the brink of digital transformation.”
Blockchain Will Transform the Global Economy. But What Will it Mean for Advertisers?
When most people hear blockchain, they think Bitcoin—one of the world’s first digital currencies. But while Bitcoin has yet to transform the global economy, experts believe that its underlying technology—blockchain—is poised to spark an economic revolution.
A secure digital ledger, blockchain keeps track of transactions involving anything of value—whether it’s money, stocks, music, art, or votes. On this shared and decentralized platform, everyone has access to the same information trails, and transactions are verified on a consensus basis.
So what does this blockchain revolution mean for advertising? Blockchain’s Value for Advertisers
By enabling marketers to conduct transactions in a secure and transparent marketplace, blockchain has the potential to solve some of the industry’s biggest challenges—starting with transparency.
As digital advertising itself has become more and more complex, advertisers have been grappling with how best to validate their data and media. For years, they have relied on a plethora of third-party tools in order to do so. However, with blockchain, we’re seeing for the first time an opportunity validate their own data. In other words, first party verification.
In March, a study commissioned by WPP revealed that advertisers could be wasting $16.4 billion on fraudulent traffic—twice as much as previously thought. With blockchain, the end-to-end processes of booking, buying, and placing digital advertising will be recorded and stored. And because all these transactions and audit trails would be available to the public and verified by common consensus, blockchain will help eliminate ad fraud and bring about greater transparency that many in the industry have been demanding.
MetaX (a company that builds blockchain solutions for digital advertising) and the Data and Marketing Association are already showing the industry how this could work with adChain—the industry’s first blockchain-based solution designed to fight fraud.
Another benefit of blockchain technology is that it’s incredibly secure—which means that it will allow advertisers to safely store vast collections of sensitive customer data. Its decentralized nature—which means data is spread across its network—makes it less vulnerable to hacking.
However, the technology also has some limitations. For advertisers, the most significant drawback is that blockchain isn’t fast enough to keep up with the rate of transactions or the speed of real-time bidding. In fact, it can only process thousands of transactions per second—a number far lower than the millions that occur in the digital ad industry each second.
As blockchain continues to evolve, it may develop the capacity to process a greater number of transactions in real time. But until then, the industry could find a compromise. For example, rather than recording every transaction, the industry could integrate counters that store every 100,000 transactions. Since the ad industry tends to trade is cost per thousand, advertisers will still be able to benefit.
Where do we go from here?
Integrating blockchain technology into our existing advertising ecosystems will take time. Larger players will take longer to adapt, and organizations from across the industry will need to come together and agree on a common set of standards.
But the transition to blockchain has already begun: The IAB Tech Lab has set up a blockchain working group to develop best practices for using the technology. Meanwhile, some forward-looking companies have begun to build their own marketplaces that run on blockchain technology.
These trends look set to continue: We’ll see more and more startups adopting the technology, and the IAB and other industry bodies will begin setting some key standards. Within five years, the ad industry will transition into using blockchain as a transaction leger. And within a decade, we’ll likely see it become a new industry standard. It’s time for brands and their tech partners to prepare.
Leading Digital Marketing Agency Creates Technology Solutions Group Building On Doubleclick Certified Marketing Partnership.
Global digital marketing leader Jellyfish Group announced the launch of an exciting new division, Jellyfish Dynamix. A technology solutions group, Jellyfish Dynamix evolved from the company’s early participation as a DoubleClick Certified Marketing Partner and Google Analytics Certified Partner. The Group specializes in providing access and support to DoubleClick, Google Analytics 360 Suite, Cloud applications and Creative for both advertisers and their agencies.
Kevin Buerger
“There is a movement away from black box practices. We are empowering both advertisers and agencies to have their own best of breed marketing and analytics stack – DoubleClick and Google – with full transparency and data ownership. Jellyfish Dynamix is their partner, leveraging whatever tools and support is needed for campaign success.” says Kevin Buerger, Executive Vice President and Managing Director.
Jellyfish Dynamix will provide customers both large and small with a full range of support options from self-service to fully-managed programmatic solutions, plus group and 1-on-1 training. With DoubleClick and the Google Analytics 360 Suite, Jellyfish Dynamix will be able to help marketers make better decisions faster to drive business results. The company will make it easier for customers to access the platforms’ built-in intelligence and insights from Google that can be put into action right away.
Through Jellyfish Dynamix, advertisers will have transparency and ownership of their business data, and be able to leverage a sophisticated platform for their media management. Agencies will be able to support their clients advertising and analytics needs with integrated platforms, clear reporting, and a holistic view of their customer journey.
For over two years, Jellyfish has been a DoubleClick Certified Marketing Partner and Google Analytics Certified Partner in the US, and EMEA, and was recently certified as a DoubleClick Certified Marketing Partner for Creative services. Separate from the existing agency business, Jellyfish Dynamix is a standalone technology solutions group that will manage all solutions support and strategy services for our DoubleClick Certified Marketing Partner Program. This will provide advertisers and agencies with access, strategic support, management, training and implementation for the entire range of Google’s marketing solutions.
Tweet Your Way to Success: A Guide to Social Media Marketing & Strategic Thinking
Managing a Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram page is a more simplistic piece of implementing a marketing strategy – right? Wrong. Although sending out tweets and posting on Instagram might be as straightforward as hitting a button and waiting for the likes to roll in, what many companies struggle with is creating content that aligns with the brand’s overall marketing objectives.
And, even if your likes are reaching the 1,000s, are you really reaching your target market?
The truth is, branding efforts can go awry somewhere along the line if no one is paying attention, or if a social media strategy isn’t being utilized. Sure, you know what followers and page likes are (obviously), but when it comes down to analyzing your social success, it can be hard to tell heads from tails, especially when you might have to adopt a new vocabulary to understand the elements at play.
So, if social media marketing always ends up on the backburner of your brand’s marketing strategy, it’s time to re-work the plan (and implement one)!
Know Your Audience
Check out your analytics and determine the demographics of your followers. Do they align with the target of your brand? Upon taking a closer look, you may find out that you’ve been reaching the wrong people socially, which might make the accomplishment of 100K Facebook followers a little less exciting.
The number of likes and shares you receive are only beneficial if you are, in-fact, reaching the right people.
Make It Measurable
A good social media manager will always create a plan that allows for the measurement of success. Don’t get blinded by the sheer number of followers, it may end up limiting the capabilities of your brand on social media. While likes and shares can be beneficial in determining the successful resonation of your messages, it’s not the only variable at play.
These days, social media may as well come with its own personalized dictionary –we’re talking about the words you might come across on your business account — reach, views, and impressions. Get to know these terms and start to leverage them into an effective strategy. Here are some tips to de-coding your analytics.
Find Your Reach
If you’re managing a social media account, you’ve seen the term “reach” before. Your numbers even look impressive – but what are the numbers really telling you and how can you leverage that for social success?
Followers and non-followers can be exposed to a post in a few different ways. Whether it is on their personal feed, on your page or seen as a result of a share from a friend, the term “reach,” groups all these variables together into one number. Got it?
Keep in mind that reach is often confused with the term “impressions,” although they are admittedly very similar. Social Sprout uses the explanation, “if 5 Facebook fans each saw your post twice, the result would be a total of 10 impressions, but only a reach of 5.” That’s because impressions are essentially the number of times a post is seen.
Keep It Simple
Outline your strategy in a way that makes sense to you.
You should clearly state what you want to accomplish and then give yourself a set of standards. That way, when you go to measure your success a month or so later, it’s clear whether or not you’re on the right path. Most social platforms have analytics built in, so get familiar with them. Have more followers than reach?
Find a better time to post. Page views down? Maybe you’re not posting enough. Now that you’re familiar with the terms, it’s time to listen to what your analytics are telling you, and adapt accordingly.
Idea Grove Becomes HubSpot Platinum Certified Agency Partner
Texas Boutique More Than Doubles the Size of Its Digital Practice in 2017 to Emerge as the Leading Growth Agency for B2B Tech Companies in Dallas, Austin and Nationwide
Idea Grove, a growth agency for B2B technology companies, announced it has achieved Platinum Certified Agency Partner status with HubSpot, the world’s leading digital marketing and sales platform.
HubSpot’s Certified Agency Partner Tier program acknowledges agency partners who execute digital marketing services to the highest standard, while also actively engaging clients on the platform. The tiers are calculated by combining a variety of metrics, such as monthly recurring revenue (MRR), retention, software engagement and inbound marketing success.
“We’re honored to achieve Platinum Certified Agency Partner status with HubSpot. This certification is another example of our agency’s expanding scope and commitment to help our clients stay on the forefront of digital marketing. We win clients by helping our clients win, which helped us to more than double the size of our digital practice in 2017,” said Scott Baradell, president and CEO of Idea Grove.
Achieving Platinum Certified Agency Partner status with HubSpot underscores Idea Grove’s dedication to helping B2B technology companies grow, leading every engagement with energy, creativity and accountability. Employees across the agency are HubSpot-certified in areas such as marketing software, growth-driven design (GDD), CRM, inbound sales and more.
Julie Rosenberg
“It’s no surprise that Idea Grove has achieved Platinum status, an honor awarded to a select few. The team at Idea Grove works very hard to deliver best-in-class services for their clients and continues to be thought leaders in the marketing B2B tech space,” noted Julie Rosenberg, HubSpot Partner Channel Manager.
In addition to HubSpot, Idea Grove is a preferred agency partner of Sprout Social, a social media management tool created to help businesses grow their social media presence, and GaggleAMP, an online marketing engine designed to amplify social media and online marketing efforts. Idea Grove also partners with Ruder Finn, one of the world’s largest independent global communications and creative agencies, on global PR engagements.
Talpa Network Selects Tealium’s AudienceStream as Backbone for its Smart Data PlatformTalpa Network Selects Tealium’s AudienceStream as Backbone for its Smart Data Platform
Talpa Network Boosts Its Efforts To Become A Global Media Company By Enhancing Audience Data Potential And Reaction Time With Tealium’s AudienceStream
Tealium, the leader in real-time customer data solutions and enterprise tag management, has today announced its partnership with Talpa Network – the leading media company in The Netherlands – to optimise audience data potential through Tealium’s AudienceStream technology.
Tealium AudienceStream is the market-leading Customer Data Platform (CDP), combining robust audience management and data enrichment capabilities, resulting in unified customer profiles and the ability to take immediate, relevant action.
Talpa Network’s use of Tealium’s AudienceStream is a key part in standardising their back-end technology platform and data layer, enabling them to scale into any market in a short amount of time. Talpa Network will also have the capacity to convert mass media into one-to-one communications with its viewers and listeners across the globe by improving the effectiveness of content personalisation, direct marketing campaigns, and targeted advertising.
The collaboration follows Talpa Network’s launch of their Smart Data Platform, which makes it possible to reach potential customers in a targeted manner. Talpa Network also uses Tealium’s iQ tag management, enabling organisations to control and manage their customer data and martech vendors across web, mobile, IoT and connected devices, via a unified data layer.
The company has defined a clear strategy and an infrastructure that continues to incorporate Tealium’s iQ tag management, and now AudienceStream.
Hylke Sprangers
Hylke Sprangers, CTO at Talpa Network, commented: “The main objective of our Smart Data Platform is to engage our consumers via deep content personalisation and to improve direct marketing campaigns and targeted advertising for our commercial partners. Working with Tealium gives us the ability to create a single 360 customer view across all our brands and channels. As a continued customer of Tealium, we’re very happy with the partnership and look forward to the future.”
Danny Pentier
Danny Pentier, Sales Director Benelux at Tealium said: “At Tealium we understand the importance of connecting the dots between data from different brands and channels to improve the customer experience and drive monetisation. We strive to provide the leading market solution and are proud to continue this success with Talpa Network’s adoption of our AudienceStream software. The Netherlands is a key market for us, and we’re proud to be working with a global media company as successful as Talpa Network.”
Roku Introduces New Ad Insights Suite to Enable Marketers to Better Quantify OTT Advertising Results
Offers Deeper Audience Insights and Cross-Platform Video Reach Analysis for More Precise Measurement
Roku, Inc announced further advancements in over-the-top (OTT) advertising measurement by introducing Ad Insights. The new offering allows marketers to measure campaign reach and effectiveness across linear and OTT, and more accurately plan their OTT ad investments. The toolset helps brands analyze the engagement of TV audiences as they rapidly shift their viewing towards streaming.
The insights are derived from Roku’s first party data as well as the linear and streaming viewership habits of millions of active accounts and billions of streaming hours. Roku’s new measurement suite comes at a time of significant linear viewership decline. Traditional pay-tv providers — cable, satellite and telephone companies — lost 1.7 million subscribers in 2016, and the pace is accelerating with more than 2.6 million cutting the cord through September 2017, according to MoffettNathanson.
The Roku Ad Insights Suite includes:
Reach Insights – Marketers can quantify unique campaign reach by demographic segments across linear TV, OTT, desktop and mobile
Tune-In Insights – TV networks and content owners can measure the effectiveness of content promotions they run across linear TV, OTT, desktop and mobile
Cord Cutter Insights – Marketers can target and measure campaigns delivered to Roku users who don’t have traditional pay TV subscriptions
Survey Insights – Marketers can gather real-time feedback and demographic insights with short on-device surveys
Marissa Jimenez
“We are increasingly looking for ways to quantify the ROI from our OTT ad campaigns,” said Marissa Jimenez, President of GroupM’s Modi Media. “Roku’s new measurement tools allow us to better understand how OTT ads perform compared to other platforms, which in turn can influence media spend. This is a valuable resource to Modi and our clients.”
“With our rich first-party data, robust OS and relationships with our consumers we are in a unique position to continue to make meaningful advances in OTT measurement,” said Scott Rosenberg, GM of Platform Business at Roku. “Our investment in new measurement tools reflects our strong commitment to helping brands fully leverage the benefits of OTT advertising.”
Previously, Roku announced it was the first OTT platform to integrate Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) and offer audience guarantees based on age and gender. In addition to Nielsen, Roku collaborates with leading research providers such as Experian, Kantar Millward Brown, Oracle Data Cloud, Placed, and others to provide transparent third-party measurement.
Roku pioneered streaming to the TV. We connect users to the streaming content they love, enable content publishers to build and monetize large audiences, and provide advertisers with unique capabilities to engage consumers.
YouTube Partner Program Tightens Monetization Rules
Channels Will Need 4,000 Hours Of Annual Viewing Time And Over 1,000 Subscribers. Move Promises Better Transparency for Advertisers
YouTube is tightening the rules around their YouTube Partner Program and raising the requirements that a channel/creator must meet in order to monetize videos. Effective immediately, to apply for monetization (and have ads attached to videos), creators must have tallied 4,000 hours of overall watch time on their channel within the past 12 months and have at least 1,000 subscribers.
Robert Kyncl
‘We’re making changes to address the issues that affected our community in 2017 so we can prevent bad actors from harming the inspiring and original creators around the world who make their living on YouTube. A big part of that effort will be strengthening our requirements for monetization so spammers, impersonators, and other bad actors can’t hurt our ecosystem or take advantage of you, while continuing to reward those who make our platform great.’ said Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer and Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer in an official YouTube creators blog.
YouTube will enforce the new eligibility policy for all existing channels as of February 20th, meaning that channels that fail to meet the threshold will no longer be able to make income from ads. New channels will need to apply, and their application will be evaluated when they hit these milestones.
Paul Muret
Meanwhile, Paul Muret, VP, Display, Video & Analytics also put out a blog that stated: ‘We’re changing Google Preferred so that it not only offers the most popular content on YouTube, but also the most vetted. We created Google Preferred to surface YouTube’s most engaging channels and to help our customers easily reach our most passionate audiences. Moving forward, the channels included in Google Preferred will be manually reviewed and ads will only run on videos that have been verified to meet our ad-friendly guidelines. We expect to complete manual reviews of Google Preferred channels and videos by mid-February in the U.S. and by the end of March in all other markets where Google Preferred is offered.
We know advertisers want simpler and more transparent controls. In the coming months, we will introduce a three-tier suitability system that allows advertisers to reflect their view of appropriate placements for their brand, while understanding potential reach trade offs.
We also know we need to offer advertisers transparency regarding where their ads run. We’ve begun working with trusted vendors to provide third-party brand safety reporting on YouTube. We’re currently in a beta with Integral Ad Science (IAS) and we’re planning to launch a beta with DoubleVerify soon. We are also exploring partnerships with OpenSlate, comScore and Moat and look forward to scaling our third-party measurement offerings over the course of the year.’
Previously, the standard for joining YouTube’s Partner Program was 10,000 public views — without any specific requirement for annual viewing hours. This change will no doubt make it harder for new, smaller channels to reach monetization, but YouTube says it’s an important way of buying itself more time to see who’s following the company’s guidelines and disqualify “bad actors.”
Though these changes will affect a significant number of channels, 99% of those affected were making less than $100 per year in the last year, with 90% earning less than $2.50 in the last month. Any of the channels who no longer meet this threshold will be paid what they’ve already earned based on Google’s AdSense policies.
Freshworks, the leading provider of cloud-based business software, announced that Freshsales, their award-winning CRM software has been named as the #1 CRM software for Small Business (50 or fewer employees) on G2 Crowd. This is based on the product’s high satisfaction score of 97%—ahead of other CRM Software providers like Hubspot, Pipedrive, Salesforce, and Prosperworks.
Freshsales received a stellar 4.8 out of 5 star average for user satisfaction across its 243 user reviews, with 190 coming from small business professionals. “Gone are the days when growing businesses needed to shell out hundreds of dollars per API to have features like phone, lead scoring, workflows etc. Our mission is to create software that offers great value—one that is feature-packed, yet easy to use at an affordable price point.” said, Srivatsan Venkatesan, Head of Product at Freshsales. “This recognition from G2 Crowd validates our mission and the value Freshsales brings to its customers.”
Highlights from this listing include the following:
Freshsales ranked as the highest-rated CRM systems in both user satisfaction and feature ratings.
A rating of 95 percent for Ease of Setup (category average: 89 percent), 94 percent for Quality of Support (category average: 90 percent) and Ease of Doing Business With (category average: 90 percent).
Based on user responses, Freshsales is believed to be headed in the right direction at a rate of 97 percent (compared to the category average of 83 percent).
Most recommended features inside the product include Email Integration, Built-In Phone, Lead Scoring, Visual Sales Pipeline, Event Tracking, and Intelligent Workflow Automations.
Freshsales Also Among the Top 3 Best Free CRM Tools for Businesses
Freshsales has also been identified as one of the top 10 free CRM software on G2 Crowd. This is based on the product’s high levels of “customer satisfaction” and “likeliness to recommend” ratings from real G2 Crowd users. To qualify for the best free CRM list, a product was required to offer a free option as well as have one of the ten highest user satisfaction scores.
Optimizely has been at the forefront of CX experimentation and has brought out many enhancements that enable companies to experiment at scale. We spoke to Nate Wright, Director, Product Marketing, Optimizely to understand the benefits of their Optimizely X Program.
Html code here! Replace this with any non empty text and that's it.
Tell us about your role at Optimizely and the team you handle?
I lead two sides of Optimizely’s product marketing team: the team responsible for experimentation and personalization solutions, as well as the team responsible for platform capabilities, like Program Management. I help our clients make insights-driven decisions through experimentation, so they can iterate and innovate faster.
How does program management extend the benefits of Optimizely X to marketing teams?
Optimizely X helps marketers experiment across every touchpoint and every team. Program Management extends the benefits of the platform by helping teams manage the full process of experimentation – across the entire lifecycle – from initial testing to product rollout.
Companies that are testing, learning and iterating rapidly should have the organizational structure and best practices in place to help them scale their efforts. This includes ways of capturing great ideas, prioritizing ideas to be built as experiments, and managing the implementation of experiments as customer experiences. They aren’t doing this on a one-off basis, but rather are iterating on this on every touchpoint they have with their customers and every new experience that they roll out. Optimizely Program Management gives these teams the tools they need to do this in one place vs. having these processes be distributed across spreadsheets, emails, product management tools, etc.
Program Management also gives these teams new ways to analyze and share out on the performance of the entire experimentation program. To execute a program at scale, customers need ways to report on things like the velocity, win rate, and impact of the entire program.
It’s worth mentioning that, this tool is not just for marketing teams. It’s also for product development teams who are using Optimizely to build and roll out new product features, although marketing teams also benefit from the ability to collaborate more effectively and share knowledge more seamlessly with those product stakeholders as well.
What are the major pain points for businesses in their adoption of customer experience testing and optimization technology?
Many of the major pain points are actually organizational or cultural in nature. Companies often say that they want to be more insights-driven, but don’t necessarily set themselves up for success when it comes to how they work across teams. One of the biggest challenges we hear from customers is that their data is siloed and learnings are not shared across teams. Different teams across the organization might be working on trying to solve the same problem – delivering great customer experiences – but aren’t working with the same data or even communicating with each other.
The companies that are able to breakthrough and adopt optimization technology at scale build the practice into their culture. They work together across teams and they ensure that all teams have access to the data and insights that they need to make more effective decisions. These companies solicit ideas from all areas of their business, prioritize the best ones, and quickly build and roll them out. They see what works and what doesn’t, and then quickly iterate. For these organizations, no test is a failure because each one is seen as an opportunity to teach them about what customers want and don’t want.
The tools and technology can help by reducing the friction of collaborating and sharing insights across an organization. They need be flexible to work with your existing data and processes and they need to be useful to both business and technical users. Once the tools are there, it’s much easier to drive an insights-driven culture throughout a business.
With the coming-of-age of website optimization platforms, how should businesses make their experimentation more productive and accurate?
Everything is digital or is moving to digital. This move can be painful for companies who have been around for a long time, but it also presents new opportunities to create great products, deliver amazing customers experiences, and form deeper connections with customers. The nature of digital products means that they can be quickly rolled out, tweaked and optimized to make sure a company is solving a customer need, providing value and is maximizing its impact on the company’s bottom line. Experimentation is a big part of how many of the biggest technology companies – the Google, Facebook & Amazon’s of the world – got to where they are today. At Optimizely, we recommend that all companies with digital offerings (websites, products, etc.) do the following:
Test everything. Whether its a payment funnel, the color of a logo, or even core product features and functions, businesses should not waste valuable time and resources guessing at what works and what doesn’t, then shipping a fully-baked version of the product.
Develop a hypothesis, design a small experiment, deploy a new feature to a small subset of customers, measure what happens, then apply what you learned to the next version of the product.
Think deeper about your core product experience.
The ability to experiment allows for more thorough evaluation of almost every aspect of the digital experience. Not every change must be an “a-ha” moment of top-down innovation (though those are nice, too!). The key is to think about this as an iterative process.
Solving just a point or two of friction in using your product can make small, but meaningful improvements. Over time these incremental improvements can result in meaningful changes in your customer experiences and in value for your business.
What would sales website customization and optimization stacks look like in 2020, given the rapid adoption of intelligent assistants and AI-bots for program management?
What has become very clear over the past several years is that the industry is moving away from legacy stacks that keep customers locked into a limited set of solutions. This will continue to develop between now and 2020. These solutions need to be open, so you can leverage your data and incorporate new insights to deliver the most relevant experiences for your customers in real-time. Technology and solution needs vary widely from company to company, and they will, more than ever, pick and choose the solutions that work for their needs across every channel.
We’re also seeing increased need for solutions that work for both marketing and product development teams. Using solutions that are not accessible across business groups creates silos that slow companies down and stifle innovation. The lines between business and product teams are blurring as companies increasingly recognize that both are working in service of the customer. Businesses in 2020 will be even more insights-driven, making it possible for every member of their organization to make decisions based customer data.
Finally, we believe that these solutions will continue to build on their use of data science and artificial intelligence technologies to help businesses more effectively deliver the customer experiences that they’ve promised to deliver for the past few years.
[mnky_testimonial_slider slide_speed=”3″][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“The popularity of customer journey approaches to solve the customer experience problem has meant that suddenly almost any marketing technology is being described as delivering, or helping with, customer journeys.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]
Tell us about your role and how you got here. What inspired you to be a part of consumer engagement company?
I am president of Kitewheel, and began the business almost 5 years ago born out of a frustration with Marketing Automation software being stuck in the batch campaign mode of marketing and unable to serve the modern marketer who needs to communicate with customers in real-time across all channels. I had worked in the Marketing Analytics and Marketing Automation space for 20 years and saw the industry back itself into a technological corner – I was introduced to a business called Provenir who had a real-time, cross-channel decision engine, and we developed this individual level processing approach into a revolutionary approach to customer journey marketing.
How do you see the contemporary trends in customer engagement management influencing journey orchestration analytics?
Businesses today have to engage with customers on the customers’ terms – their timing, their choice of channel – and they have to deliver a fantastic experience as often as possible if they want to retain customers and grow their value. Customer Journey technology is the solution to the problem of how to manage this cross-channel, real-time engagement in a data-driven way – the customer journey is the instantiation of what the customer experiences from a brand and journey orchestration software allows a business to now manage that customer experience in a smart way, from a single point of control.
In 2018, what would be the biggest expectations from customer engagement orchestration technologies?
This technology will “cross the chasm” in 2018. To date it has been used by a small number of leading brands, pioneering the new approach. But with the launch of the first Forrester report recognizing the space and the discipline more and more companies are undertaking customer journey orchestration projects, and we expect the technology to reach the first businesses that could be described as “early majority” in 2018.
Do you think B2B marketing communities help in building and fortifying a brand safe ecosystem? How do customer journey analytics platforms contribute to this ecosystem?
I would say that B2B marketers in the MarTech world are creating real difficulties for their brand customers and B2C marketers in general. The popularity of customer journey approaches to solve the customer experience problem has meant that suddenly almost any marketing technology is being described as delivering, or helping with, customer journeys – this confusion for customers slows down adoption of technologies significantly.
What startups in the martech ecosystem are you watching/keen on right now?
Would you tell us about your standout digital campaign?
Our real standout is our brand new campaign on our website, where we are delivering guided personalization to our web visitors. By studying their behavior on our website, we are then guiding them to the next most interesting piece of content on the site that would fit with their experience to date. The campaign creative centers on our intelligent agent KAI that executes learning rules for every visitor to deliver the right kind of individualized content recommendations.
How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?
It is critical to understand what AI actually is – a statistical technique that can find patterns in data to help automate processes. AI cannot find anything that isn’t a pattern in data, and it is actually an approach that has been around in the statistical community for many years. It requires good data, and a clear idea of the “objective” for the algorithm to learn from. If the business is not clear about their key objectives, they can easily get misled by AI finding statistical patterns in data that may not actually be of business value but could be the strongest statistical pattern. If mixed with too much automation, without business checks and balances, AI can quickly run a business process out of control. But used wisely, with lots of good data, and clear business direction, AI will deliver massive efficiencies and new insights to businesses that deploy it correctly.
One word that best describes how you work.
Communicate
What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Slack, Gmail, Google
What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
No longer listening to voicemails – but scanning the email/text versions
What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
New York 2140 – Kim Stanley Robinson – we need to prepare for the future changed world that we are creating.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Honesty is the best policy
Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
Business leader with 20+ years global experience in Marketing Applications and Analytical CRM. Founded Quadstone – the first data mining company to focus explicitly on the analytics of customer behavior – and later moved to Boston to build the business, grow global sales and marketing teams and ultimately supporting 3 M&A activities that followed.
Now back in innovation mode as President of Kitewheel, a new-age Marketing Technology company. We focus on helping large marketing agencies and MSPs deliver customer engagement solutions for their large brand clients.
Founded in Boston’s Innovation District in 2013, Kitewheel is the world’s only cloud-based Customer Journey Hub orchestrates intelligent customer journeys by unifying decisions across all touchpoints and channels, to provide seamless customer experiences that drive real-time revenue as well as long term loyalty. Recognized as a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2014, a Gartner MQ Visionary in 2016 and a Forrester Wave Leader in 2017, Kitewheel serves its global partner and client base from offices in Boston, New York City and London. The demand for Kitewheel’s solution is growing as all brands must now compete for the attention of the cross-channel consumer by orchestrating customer journeys in real-time. Connect with us today to see how our Customer Journey Hub can transform your customer engagement and increase ROI!
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.
DiscoverOrg Launches New Sales Intelligence Solution for the Legal & Compliance Industry
First-of-its-kind Dataset from DiscoverOrg Gives a Competitive Edge to Companies Marketing and Selling to Legal and Compliance Buyers
DiscoverOrg, the world’s leading sales and marketing intelligence solution, has announced the availability of a new Legal and Compliance dataset that will transform the way legal technology, law firms, and legal services companies prospect, build the pipeline and accelerate revenue growth. The new Legal and Compliance dataset augments DiscoverOrg’s award-winning solutions for companies targeting technology, sales, marketing, human resources, finance, and C-suite buyers.
At the time of this announcement, Henry Schuck, DiscoverOrg CEO, said, “Ten years ago, DiscoverOrg completely revolutionized the way IT companies prospected, and we’ve now brought that sales and marketing revolution to the rest of the market. Companies outside of IT have become okay with buying inaccurate, outdated contact data and sales intelligence tools—some in actual book form. That is not okay, but until now, legal and compliance companies had few other options. Today, we are changing that and bringing a solution to the market that is robust, high quality, and designed to allow legal and compliance companies to build their businesses around.”
DiscoverOrg’s industry-specific datasets provide a stream of accurate and actionable company, contact, and contextual buying intelligence that can be used to find, connect with and sell to target buyers more effectively—all integrated into the leading CRM, Marketing Automation, and Sales Development Tools in the market.
The new dataset offers organizations selling into legal and compliance departments the same level of in-depth, verified data as DiscoverOrg provides in its other datasets. This includes detailed company information; contact details like direct dials and verified email addresses; org charts and reporting structures; installed technologies; and buying signals like planned projects, online research behavior, funding announcements, and personnel moves.
DiscoverOrg’s intelligence platform is designed to provide all of the information and insights sales and marketing teams need to zero in on their unique target market, prioritize target accounts and contacts based on likelihood to purchase, and provide real-time alerts that enable teams to engage the right person at exactly the right time with the right message.
In conjunction with the release of the new legal and compliance dataset, DiscoverOrg is hosting a free “Selling to Legal” panel discussion and dinner with legal operations executives from leading companies on January 30th during Legalweek New York.
aboola Announces Global Self Service Business Has Grown to Nearly $100M Run Rate in Its First Year
Taboola’s Self Service Platform Enables Thousands of Businesses to Be Discovered by Millions of Consumers
Taboola, the leading discovery platform, announced that its self-service platform has now reached a run rate of nearly $100M just a year after it was released in Q4 of 2016. The new business unit empowers marketers all over the world with simple access to a billion consumers on thousands of Taboola’s publisher partners across the open web. The platform is leveraged by thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners to build awareness, drive engagement, and eventually create growth for their businesses.
Taboola attributes the quick success of its self-service business unit to the relevant offering and the performance it provides for marketers. Businesses need a cost-efficient and scalable solution to reach new audiences outside of search and social, which have become relatively crowded and competitive channels.
Francisco Gimenez
“When we first started eSalon, our aim was to disrupt the beauty salon industry by offering customized hair color at a fraction of the cost of in-salon treatments. For the last five years, Taboola has been an instrumental part of our growth, disrupting a $2 billion industry that had been monopolized by two giants,” said Francisco Gimenez, CEO and co-founder of eSalon.
By promoting relevant content through the Taboola Platform, small and medium business owners can leverage the reputable environment of premium publishers to introduce their business to users in an engaging, native ad unit.
“Taboola is on so many of the world’s premium websites. We want people to see our content and think ‘that’s a solution that fits our needs,’ and Taboola is incredibly important to us as we go on to our next step,” says Davies Roberts, Founder of Flare Audio, a company that delivers sound without distortion through innovative headphone and speaker technology.
Taboola’s Self Service platform offers marketers and advertisers full control of campaigns; they can target multiple audiences that fit their products, manage budgets, A/B test creatives via an integration with Getty Images, and view real-time reports in order to optimize campaign performance as needed.
Mary J. Kim
“We are always looking for ways to find new, quality users, and Taboola has a really easy way of targeting the right users to bring them to your content. The native layout is important because people are getting bombarded with different ads. When you make it more relevant for them, the user experience is much more fluid,” explained Mary J. Kim, Senior Online Marketing Manager, Goodgame Studios, one of the fastest growing gaming companies in the world.
Taboola is planning to continue to invest heavily in its self-service platform with new targeting and reporting capabilities. In 2018, one of the platform’s core goals is to create features that help automate the campaign management process.
Adam Singolda
Adam Singolda, founder and CEO of Taboola, added, “There is something magical about discovering something new. We want to make it more accessible for entrepreneurs and small businesses to capture those moments when users are open to discovering new products and services for the first time. Marketers deserve options outside of the familiar walled gardens. To hear Davies Roberts speak about his dream business being discovered in a world where big headphone brands already exist is music to my ears.”
Extreme Reach Report: Glaring Lag Between Innovations in Media Buying and Creative Asset Workflow
Extreme Reach Report Suggests that the Gap Negatively Impacts Advertisers, Agencies and Publishers
Extreme Reach, a leading cloud technology platform for TV and video ad workflow, released a comprehensive new report illuminating just how cumbersome and inefficient it is for ad ops teams to find and prepare creative assets for video campaigns.
Over half of respondents say their digital video campaigns start late due to asset issues arising from disconnected hand-offs.
At the time of this announcement, Melinda McLaughlin, CMO of Extreme Reach, said, “We’ve come so far in leveraging data and technology in media for precision targeting. However, in the race to that advancement, a system was never established for how the creative assets would be sourced and prepared for digital video activation. In the absence of a system to handle this complexity, we collectively find ourselves in a mess that serves no side well and most importantly, is affecting campaign success.”
Most Common Issues in Media Buying: Video Quality Degradation and Missed Ad Calls
According to the latest Extreme Reach report, 93% of ad ops professionals on the front lines of activation cite issues with sourcing and preparing assets, underscoring how vital it is that the industry address this issue. The most common issues cited were late starts, formatting errors, video quality degradation and missed ad calls.
Extreme Reach commissioned Advertiser Perceptions, a leading market research firm, to quantify the current state of sourcing and preparing creative assets for video. Despite Herculean efforts by skilled teams, nearly 60% of those closest to campaign activation reported that mistakes are likely to happen because the process is manual and there’s a mounting matrix of specifications required by all the destinations and devices on the media plan.
The study further revealed that these issues are driving mid-to-high levels of job dissatisfaction inside the ranks of activation teams, 85% of whom cite improvement in this area as important to increase their job satisfaction.
When asked to identify the pain points in the campaign activation process, survey respondents pointed to–
not enough lead time
the scavenger hunt required to track down all the creative assets
the dizzying array of specs/formats required by all of the various partners/publishers on the media plan
Video Adtech Industry Should Reinvent the Media Buying Process from Scratch
As a whole, this study underscores that while media can be bought and sold in mere fractions of a second, the creative part of the equation—the workflow to source and prepare assets themselves—is sluggish and cumbersome and must be brought up to speed with innovations in media planning and media buying before things get even more complex ahead.
In fact, 70% of survey respondents say the industry should reinvent the process from scratch, leaning on technology to transform the asset workflow.
When asked–
“Would a service that allows the media agency, creative agency, and client to share and access creative assets from a central, permissions-based cloud location be helpful?”
88%, said yes.
The Extreme Reach platform integrates TV and video ad delivery, and the company works with virtually every advertiser, agency and end destination in some way today. As such, Extreme Reach is uniquely qualified to see the extent of the rapidly growing disconnect between the creative asset and media fulfillment process and the resulting impact of broken workflow on campaign success.
Methodology
The Advertiser Perceptions online survey was fielded from September 25 – October 12, 2017, achieving a representative sample size of 150 qualified respondents. To supplement the quantitative survey, Advertiser Perceptions completed three qualitative one-on-one interviews with mid- to high-level agency ad operations professionals. The survey sample was curated from the agency contacts in The Advertiser Perceptions Media Decision Maker Database and third-party databases as needed.
To qualify for the survey, respondents had to meet all the following criteria:
Digital video decision-makers
Involved in cross-media advertising
Involved in campaign implementation and optimization
$1M+ past 12-month digital ad spend
Job titles that are responsible for digital video campaign execution
Predictions Series with Joe Hyland, Cmo at on24, Takes Us Sailing into His Predictions Maze for the Martech Community in 2018
Joe Hyland, CMO at ON24, On What 2018 Holds For The Martech Community
In the age of rapid tech disruptions, we are looking at the genesis of more than one “revolution” in martech. Most marketers are shifting their focus from tech-based targeting to tech-based interactivity with their customers. Customer engagement in the most humane way is the theme for marketers in 2018.
Further to our recent coverage in the Predictions Series 2018, ON24 CMO, Joe Hyland chose to dig deeper into what lessons marketers could take from 2017 into the New Year, and “revolutionize” their martech success.
What Were the Most Memorable Martech Moments for You in 2017?
The Rise of Podcasting
Joe Hyland, CMO, ON24
Some major milestones that stick out for me come from an overlooked side of martech — the rise of podcasting. Apple’s decision to share analytics with creators was a massive step forward for the B2B marketing community, despite its quiet announcement. This gives B2B marketers a new and measurable way to reach audiences in a format that’s educational, influential and captures their attention.
Gimlet Media’s Funding Round
Another significant moment was Gimlet Media raising $15 million in VC funding. The backing of a podcast production company tells me that investors are recognizing the business value of storytelling and how critical it is for brands to make a human connection with their audience.
As a Marketing Leader, How Do You See the Martech Community Coming Closer in 2018?
I think the martech community is going come together and realize it’s time to take some of the hype out of our industry. The landscape itself has been growing rapidly without a correction for some time and there are simply too many companies in the space solving problems that don’t exist. And, let’s be real, no one solution is a silver bullet for engagement or pipeline.
So, we’re going to start to see best-of-breed stacks emerge, more strategic partnerships between complementary solutions and martech companies coming together to offer end-to-end solutions for achieving larger marketing objectives.
What Are the Cutting-Edge Technologies You Keenly Follow?
Don’t get me wrong, I like technology. I especially like to play with new things to see what works. But, I think any CMO who thinks every shiny new martech solution is necessary is misguided.
Sure, AI, chatbots, and even direct mail are new and cool tactics, but these technologies are tools that make it easier to do what we’ve always done, personally connect with prospects and customers.
Generally, it’s a one-way medium where a content producer speaks to the camera and the consumer watches through a screen. Not much of a conversation going on there. I’m looking at technologies that help create the situations where the viewer can interact — whether through polls, a chat stream or social media — with the brand. Tech helping create interactivity is far, far more engaging and far more valuable everyone involved.
If a solution offers a means to make content a two-way experience — make it more of a conversation than a static item to post, send or view — then it has my attention.
What Are Your Predictions for B2B Event Automation Platforms and Sales Intelligence Tools?
The rise of these kinds of tools is signaling a major trend — the need to make human-to-human interactions happen at a digital scale. In-person events, personal sales calls, even just hyper-targeted emails from SDRs are the most expensive and time-consuming tactics for building the pipeline. But, they are super effective when pointed toward the right lead, who is ready to buy.
So, I think we’ll see a rise in technologies that help marketers find higher-quality leads before they even get invited to an event or are passed onto sales for outreach.
Then, I think marketers are going to get much more savvy about integrating the insights from in-person interactions back into their CRM and MAP systems. That’s really the last mile for marketers and what will make future campaigns even more personalized and impactful.
Would AI/ML Finally Become the Ubiquitous Technology in a CMO’s Martech Stack? How Is On24 Preparing for This Ubiquity?
No. Despite the hype, AI and ML are simply tools to make our jobs easier, like automation on steroids.
But, we all know by now that automation was not the silver bullet it promised to be — marketers still have to create killer content to be distributed by their marketing automation platform, they still have to understand how to segment their database and they still have to orchestrate their campaigns to reach that target audience at the right time.
The level at which AI or ML becomes ubiquitous is really a question of how much a marketing organization needs to scale.
For some, especially those following an ABM methodology, AI may not be necessary.
And, the better that we get at scaling human-to-human interactions, through webinar engagement, event automation, dynamic content experiences, etc., I believe the less relevant AI/ML becomes. After all, I don’t think any marketer will say they would prefer to have a robot talk to their prospects over a human.
Figuring out how to empathize, connect and listen at scale is a marketer’s holy grail… not adding AI or ML to their martech stack.
Tag a Person from Martech Community Whose Answers You Want to Hear at Predictions Series 2018.
I’d love to hear from LinkedIn’s CMO, Shannon Stubo.
From a martech platform perspective, I really admire the way LinkedIn brings together sales and marketing to reach prospects at a macro and micro level. Helping sales and marketing align and work from the same data should be a goal of every martech solution.
To participate in our interviews and predictions series, drop us a line at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com
Tech + Human: Marketing Navigation 101 to Delight The C.U.S.T.O.M.E.R. in 2018
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” — Charles Darwin
“In 2018, we will see successful marketers are those able to prove their products work through data – legitimate and specific data,” said Johanna Beckmen, Vice President of Marketing at VitalConnect. Not far from the truth! Isn’t it?
In Part Six of our Predictions 2018 Series, we bring cutting-edge insights on how leading business representatives are setting their compass to navigate through the maze of contemporary technologies like IoT, Mobile Marketing, Analytics, B2B Data Science, Blockchain, and Content Marketing. This part carries insights from senior executives at Adobe Marketing Cloud, SAP Hybris, VitalConnect, CGS, Cambridge BioMarketing, LogicHub, PROS, NICE, TeleSign, and Simon Data.
Hottest Marketing Topics in 2018: Data Science, Blockchain, and Analytics
John Bates, Director of Product Management, Adobe
John Bates, Director of Product Management, Adobe Analytics Cloud made his predictions across various areas in the digital technology ecosystem.
Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin
The hype (around Blockchain) will continue, yet there will be a shift away from focusing on the underlying technology – and towards building applications that solve real customer problems. While many might be disillusioned by blockchain as the cryptocurrency market continues to skyrocket, the key to being successful here is applying it to non-financial services use cases, and focus on audience sharing/buying between companies.
IoT Hits Primetime
Internet of Things will hit primetime with the incorporation of machine-to-machine smart contract-based transactions. Transactions will occur in the real-world as smart devices and exchanges automatically take place.
Next Phase of Democratization of Analytics
We’ve seen that analytics has gone far beyond simply the data scientist, and in the year to come, new roles such as the developer, product manager, and content creator will not only become comfy with data-driven insights, but fluent in it, and take a leadership role here
Hot Topics Become One
Brands already have the ability to personalize in real time/on the edge but are limited by the data available. 2018 will bring a togetherness of Big Data, data science, and personalization – experiences will finally be more personal than ever, at the very first touchpoint.
Voice Search Readiness: Too Soon for Small, Local Businesses
Bill Nagel, Co-founder and CMO, Netsertive
Bill Nagel, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Strategist, Netsertive, predicts that 2018 may be too early for small, local businesses to consider voice search. Bill said, “If you were one of the reported millions who purchased an Alexa device during the Black Friday holiday shopping weekend, it should come as no surprise that voice search is taking over. Just because usage is up (Google reports nearly 20 percent of mobile queries are voice searches), that doesn’t mean retailers of all sizes should jump on the bandwagon quite yet.”
Bill added, “Small and local businesses need to first ensure their digital presence is ready to handle this new technology. Because search engines use sites like Yelp – and especially Google listings, like Google My Business – they must confirm that these are fully up-to-date with an accurate website, location and contact information. The key to voice search success will depend on an organization’s ability to build a digital doorway that is easy for consumers to find and access across platforms – and that begins with enhancing their websites (both mobile and PC) and listings. This will guarantee they are easily found by not only consumers but also by the search engine crawlers responding to a voice inquiry.”
Real-Time Personalization Adoption in B2B Marketing Navigation
Elena Filimonova, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Strategy, CGS
Elena Filimonova, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing and Strategy, CGS, predicts that B2B marketers would continue to dig deeper into B2C strategies to woo customers. The crystal gazing would take us into better personalization and hyper-exactness with relevant content powered by automation. Elena said, “While widely used in B2C marketing, B2B companies, especially those ones with broad product portfolios, have lagged in introducing real-time personalization; and with good reason.”
Elena elucidated, “Several variables need to come together to enable personalized, truly relevant experience for business buyers. This includes collecting data and analyzing buyer behavior over longer periods of time, producing relevant content and introducing personalization platforms that are fully integrated with your existing marketing automation tools and CRM.”
Crystal-gazing further into 2018, Elena added, “I see 2018 as a tipping point for real-time personalization adoption in B2B, as companies have adopted strategies to streamline their buyer persona-based content production and the marketing technology platforms supporting personalization are maturing.”
Business Survival Is Tied to the Ability to Engage Customers
Most business leaders would agree that digital will continue to disrupt all industries in 2018.
Aled Miles, CEO, TeleSign
Aled Miles, CEO of TeleSign, said, “According to our research, while 99 percent of companies are in the process of digital transformation, only 29 percent have reached advanced stages. Companies in the advanced stage of digital transformation report three times the level of high customer satisfaction – a statistic martech leaders can’t afford to ignore.”
Aled added, “Marketers can prepare for this digital transformation by ramping up their use of cloud communications – SMS, video, voice and push notifications embedded in websites and mobile apps – to reach customers.”
Aled added, “To differentiate and improve customer experience, we believe business survival is tied to the ability to engage customers in delightful experiences where, when and how they want to be reached.”
Not Just Any Personalization, but hyper-Personalized Marketing Becomes the New Norm in Marketing Navigation
Annemarie Crivelli, Director of Digital, Cambridge BioMarketing
Annemarie Crivelli, Director of Digital, Cambridge BioMarketing, said, “Targeting and re-targeting messaging will be mission critical in 2018. As technology becomes more advanced, marketers have a responsibility to communicate and deliver messages that align with audience expectations, behavior and media literacy. These laser focused messages will be key in the healthcare market as precision medicine continues to take hold and consumers expect the same approach to their communications as their care.”
Advanced Automation to the Rescue!
Hormazd Romer, CMO, LogicHub
Hormazd Romer, CMO at LogicHub, said, “There will be an increased focus on advanced automation to improve overall lead conversions and reduce cost per conversion. There is tremendous room for improvement in industry-wide conversion rates, and a new generation of solutions promises to help better engage and convert prospects into qualified leads.”
The CMO of LogicHub added, “New MarTech will also increasingly automate tasks performed manually today in marketing ops, giving CMOs better real-time insights correlated across multiple data sources, smoother day-to-day operations with fewer mistakes, much-improved reporting, and automated adaption of digital marketing campaigns.”
A former executive at Oracle, Hormazd explained how customers are demanding a digital experience from virtually every business, and there is no question that successful marketers are stepping up their game with a slew of new MarTech. Hormazd added, “We end up running mini IT departments with all of the typical IT challenges such as integrating solutions, orchestrating workflows between tools, security, performance, and user management. However, CMOs have no choice, to remain competitive they must embrace and master an ever-growing technology stack.”
Advocacy Marketing and Employee-Centric Analytics in B2B Marketing Navigation
Analytics Applied Across Organizations for Better Results
Aviad Abiri, VP, Portfolio Sales Enablement, NICE
Aviad Abiri, VP, Portfolio Sales Enablement, NICE, predicts the roadmap B2B companies would take to churn and benefit from Employee-centric Analytics!
Aviad said, “Next year, we will see a shift in where analytics are applied – from customer to employee – to better serve the customers while heightening the motivation among employees. This inward strategy will help businesses identify what to look for in employee evaluations, how to better train them and what motivation they need.”
Advocacy Marketing Takes off in B2B Marketing Navigation
Johann Wrede, Global VP, Strategic Marketing, SAP Hybris
Johann Wrede, Global Vice President of Strategic Marketing, SAP Hybris, states that 2018 would see the rise of Advocacy Marketing in B2B. Johann said, “Reference customers have long been rigorous to find, particularly in the B2B world. But the online reviews and ratings which consumers have become reliant on for making purchasing decisions are spilling into the professional realm. B2B marketers have responded with branded communities, providing a space where customers can openly share their triumphs and frustrations, and engage in transparent dialog to help one another.”
Johann added, “Marketers can take advantage of these insights to showcase their brand promise and integrity, and amplify the positive experiences which often emerge in these forums.”
Matured Adoption of AI-Powered Solutions in B2B Marketing and Sales
Expected Spike in Customer Demand for Interactive Powered by AI/ML Technologies
Craig Zawada, Chief Visionary Officer, PROS
Craig Zawada, Chief Visionary Officer, PROS, states, “In 2018, we are going to see a variety of industries implement more AI-powered solutions in the B2B sales process.” Craig added, “Machine-guided algorithms will play a prominent role in automating and analyzing opportunity detection, which is a better and faster way of uncovering previously hidden opportunities. This will enable sales teams to more quickly and intelligently identify hidden growth opportunities across their accounts, alert them to potential customer churn to avoid potential losses, and personalize recommendations for prospects.”
Further, Craig stated, “We also anticipate a spike in customer demand for interactive, personalized, self-service experiences, which will drive the adoption of AI-powered pricing and sales tools in the year ahead.”
Defining AI’s Role in Marketing Navigation
Joshua Neckes, Co-founder, Simon Data
Joshua Neckes, Co-founder of Simon Data, said, “In 2018, marketers will finally start figuring out what AI actually is…and what it can or can’t do. Over the past year, the martech world has been bombarded with talk of an AI-driven future in which machines assume the burden of marketing decision-making, but the reality has failed to deliver against the hype. This is because these systems are hard to operate, requiring accurate data inputs and constant monitoring.”
Joshua added, “Strict data accuracy must be maintained to measure ROI, and the technologies themselves must be flexible enough to optimize against ROI models that match customer needs, instead of vendor wants.”
Joshua also offered words of caution to marketers. “Moving forward, savvy organizations must work to demystify AI — understanding its strengths, weaknesses, data availability requirements — in order to turn the AI dream into a reality. Without that, AI technologies will remain black-box, operationally fickle sources of weak wins that aren’t worth the headache. In 2018, leading-edge companies will prioritize understanding AI by partnering with smart and transparent technology vendors,” added Joshua.
The Compass Pivots on Clean and Structured Data: The Real Competitive Advantage
For marketing navigation, marketers need to pivot their compass for technology on Right Data streams. To understand this better, we spoke to Rishi Dave, CMO of Dun &Bradstreet around our predictions series 2018, we realized that marketers are still miles away from leveraging the ‘right’ data for their campaigns.
Rishi Dave, CMO at Dun & Bradstreet
As Rishi puts it, “If it’s, as we like to say, “dirty data,” your information will be compromised. If you want to make better business decisions, you need to master your data. Companies who do not place an emphasis on accurate and fresh data in 2018 will lose out.”
So, who will win the race– a marketer who has all the data, but not enough insights; or, the one who has a laser-focused vision to deliver customer experience across omnichannel campaigns. Could be both, depending on what martech you use, and how close you get your tech +human approach to your C.U.S.T.O.M.E.R.S.
Telaria Introduces Fraud Fighter; First-to-market Quality Program and Guarantee Against Fraud fo
Telaria’s Fraud Fighter Is Part Of An Ongoing, Platform-Wide Initiative That Reinforces To DSP partners And Their Clients That Video Inventory Transacted On The Platform Will Meet Or Exceed Industry Brand Safety Standards
Telaria, Inc, a leading video monetization software company, announced a first-to-market program that offers buyers protection against fraud for premium video inventory monetized on the company’s platform, including CTV, the fastest-growing video segment in the industry. Telaria’s Fraud Fighter is part of an ongoing, platform-wide initiative that reinforces to DSP partners and their clients that video inventory transacted on the Telaria platform will meet or exceed industry brand safety standards.
Mark Zagorski
Mark Zagorski, CEO of Telaria said, “We are at a critical juncture in the future of digital video advertising. It is imperative that advertisers feel confident in the quality of the content that supports the advertising experience, as well as in their advertising ROI, in order to continue to grow their investments in burgeoning areas like OTT and CTV. Inventory quality and brand safety have always been paramount for us. The Fraud Fighter Program and Guarantee simply codifies our long-standing commitment to transparency and combating fraud.”
Fraud Fighter is the first of its kind for a seller video platform and consists of both a rigorous, platform-wide, three-step process to attack fraud and a commitment to buyers via the Fraud Fighter Guarantee.
The Fraud Fighter 3-step process expands Telaria’s already high quality standards, in which we:
Vet Suppliers: Telaria’s dedicated quality assurance team pre-approves all platform supply through a process that evaluates against comprehensive guidelines.
Validate Content: Additional human vetting processes ensures each supply site is verified for users to consume content – not simply a landing page for ads – and confirms the content is brand-safe and meets Telaria’s premium standards.
Verify Inventory: Telaria works with MRC-accredited, third-party verification partners to meet or exceed safety standards for all inventory.
The Fraud Fighter Guarantee underscores Telaria’s commitment to quality and ensures that advertisers are not paying for verified fraud when buying via a qualified platform.
This program exemplifies Telaria’s drive to lead the industry in content quality and underscores its approach to partnering with those companies equally committed to a fraud-free ecosystem. To that end, Telaria has recently entered agreements to identify and fight fraud with The Trade Desk, DataXu, Amobee, and Adobe, and is actively in negotiations with other leading buyers to further this collective mission.
“Telaria’s continued stance of prioritizing quality and standing behind the inventory on its platform is especially important to us at dataxu, where CTV is an exploding growth area for our customers. This initiative aligns with our priorities and ideals for a fraud free, principled ecosystem,” said Sandro Catanzaro, Chief Innovation Officer at dataxu.
Art Muldoon
Arthur Muldoon, Co-CEO Amnet Group US and Co-Founder of Accordant Media said, “We applaud this move by Telaria to take a proactive role in always putting quality at the forefront and to stand behind the inventory that transacts on its platform. As we build towards a CTV future, the integrity of supply is vital to our customers – transparency, security, brand safety are not buzz words, they are central to how we do business. This initiative raises the standards for the industry and we are proud to be a partner with Telaria.”
Telaria (formerly Tremor Video), is the leading independent data-driven software platform built to monetize and manage premium video inventory with the greatest speed, control, and transparency, wherever and however audiences are watching.
First Street-Level Digital Ad Network Capable of Reaching Audiences Using Mobile Insights from Pedestrian and Vehicular Traffic
Clear Channel Outdoor’s New Outdoor Smart Screens Are The First Street-Level Media to Reach Audience Groups Based On Their Consumer Travel Patterns And Behaviors Derived From Mobile Data
Clear Channel Outdoor, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia Inc, announced the launch of two new digital media networks, totaling 100 dynamic IP addressable HD screens in the highly-sought after urban metro area of San Francisco, Calif. CCO will fuse the new “Digital Urban Panel” networks into its Clear Channel Outdoor RADAR campaign planning and attribution solutions by Feb 2018, becoming the first street-level media capable of reaching audience groups based on their consumer travel patterns and behaviors derived from mobile data.
The roll-out of these HD digital screens, in prime locations throughout San Francisco, converts traditional media into highly valuable, dynamic digital inventory that allows brands to engage with residents and tourists using state of the art digital technology.
“Our new Digital Urban Panel networks gives advertisers a new and proven way to reach motorists and pedestrians in prime locations throughout the densely populated San Francisco area, where there is limited digital inventory,” said Bob Schmitt, Regional President, Clear Channel Outdoor. “Our clients look to us to help them reach their desired audience in innovative, fresh and creative ways, and we’re excited to activate the first of these networks.”
All 100 Digital Urban Panels on pre-existing street-level news racks throughout the city are IP addressable and offer dynamic and real-time content capabilities. The first 50 screen digital network went live Nov. 20. The second, 50 screen digital network, will be complete the first quarter of 2018.
These new assets allow brands to engage with audiences on a digital Out-of-Home (OOH) product with wide frequency and depth of coverage. Further, when coupled with CCO’s existing transit shelter media in the market, brands can increase their media weight and presence through takeover opportunities that offer 100 percent share of voice.
In parallel with this 100-unit strong advanced advertising deployment, CCO will integrate all its OOH pedestrian-level printed and digital screens in San Francisco, and throughout the US, into Clear Channel Outdoor RADAR. This includes bus shelters, stationary transit media and highly-populated transit hubs. This advanced advertising solution answers a call from brands looking to improve the effectiveness of their campaigns, enabling them to choose from among 700 different audience segments incorporated into the CCO RADAR solution. It also allows advertisers to measure the impact of their OOH campaigns, which have been shown to help brands achieve double to triple digit lifts in visits to advertised retail locations.
Clear Channel Outdoor debuts new digital screens in densely populated areas of metro San Francisco. (Photo: Business Wire)
With locations in Union Square, the Financial District, Moscone Center, AT&T Park and Market Street, Fisherman’s and the Embarcadero, the new Digital Urban Panel networks reach highly-desired consumer audiences in the most densely populated districts in the San Francisco metropolitan region in non-residential areas, the company is seeing interest from clients in telecommunication, spirits, fashion and tourism.
Both digital networks allow advertisers to reach retail, entertainment, dining, financial, tech savvy and business decision-maker audiences via high-quality graphic displays throughout San Francisco’s prime areas. These new digital ad networks are also the only street-level media available to beer, wine and spirits brands in this area. In addition to sophisticated behavioral audience targeting based on mobile data, CCO anticipates this network will deliver a measured audience of more than 1.8 million adult 18+ ad impressions weekly. The new networks are all IP addressable and offer the following unique digital capabilities:
Conditional Triggers
Weather changes
Time of day
Pollen counts
Traffic
Data Integration
Sports scores
Time and temperature
Countdown clock
Breaking news
Social Integration
Hashtag aggregation
Social media content
Moderation
Reposting
Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc is one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies, with more than 650,000 displays in over 35 countries across five continents, including 43 of the 50 largest markets in the United States.
RichRelevance Launches the New Era of Experience Personalization
Global Personalization Leader Bridges The Experience Gap Between Marketing And Commerce & Enables Digital Leaders to Win in Today’s Experience Economy
RichRelevance, the global leader in omnichannel personalization, unveiled a strategic personalization initiative to help companies create memorable experiences across the customer lifecycle. With RichRelevance Experience Personalization, digital business leaders can bridge marketing and commerce engagements to stage unique, memorable, and individualized experiences that drive loyalty and growth.
The Experience Gap
Digital business leaders struggle to provide memorable experiences that differentiate their company in today’s Experience Economy. In fact, 83% of retailers feel that delivering personal experiences is critical to differentiating their brand. Yet, the standard marketing approach (segmentation, email campaigns, website promotions, journey mapping) focuses on outbound, one-way push communication with sporadic personalization in an attempt to engage and re-engage customers. On the other hand, companies who have implemented omnichannel commerce focus on transactional efficiencies and often mistake convenience for an engaging experience. Neither of these approaches provides a real-time, interactive experience that is relevant to the customer. As a result, customers are often left dissatisfied.
This leads to an experience gap in the customer journey.
Launching at NRF 2018: Retail’s Big Show, RichRelevance Experience Personalization introduces a new way of thinking about personalization in 2018 and provides a clear roadmapto evaluate and advance personalization initiatives towards individualization. This includes concrete guidance from renowned experience guru and the author of The Experience Economy, B. Joseph (Joe) Pine II, that defines the need for memorable experiences, and guides companies on how to personalize every customer interaction in real-time to drive immediate revenues.
B. Joseph (Joe) Pine II
“Most companies have focused on efficiency to remove friction and provide convenience,” said Pine, who revisited the concept in a recent December 2017 Harvard Business Review digital article. “The true measure of success in the Experience Economy is ‘time well spent’ versus ‘time well saved’.”
Carl Theobald, President and CEO of RichRelevance, added, “Most of us spend a very large and increasing percentage of time online, yet most digital interactions are cold and impersonal. Our vision is to turn every digital interaction into a personal experience and by doing so, to help our customers create competitive advantage and increase engagement across the customer lifecycle.”
