How Does Your Company Foster Innovation?

Join The Brand in 2018

How Do You Market To A Marketer?

That’s the real brief as we wake up every day.

Consumers are way too adept and onto it. They’re seeing the same new news we are. Connecting is a pretty hard needle to thread – and our industry has never been more dynamic. There’s always a new insight, a new wrinkle that comes up overnight. There’s no annual update in Vegas for continuing education in advertising. It’s every day.

We’re ready for it – and we’re constantly building the team and the talent who want to push each other every day. What other industry thrives on future spontaneous moments? It’s a real life game of whack-a-mole in an evolving media eco-system.

Early on Susan Wojcicki at Google – now You Tube, added to the thought:

“Things Are Always Changing. Part of being successful here is being comfortable with not knowing what’s going to happen.”

And we humbly believe the ultimate Aristotle quote:

“The more you know – the more you know you don’t know.”

It’s just not possible to be up to the second.

Consumers want to believe in brands and so do we. Believing has to be real – and it’s like a high school – you just need it. Then you can take on what’s next.

It seems like just when 2017 started we saw the latest challenge: “Let’s plan out 2018.” What do we know that we can work with? It’s possible to identify the possible contextually relevant moments. The tricky part is picking the right tone and moment with any certainty and timing that message in advance. It’s possible to anticipate consumer conversation, although so much will happen that tonality will be hard to imagine. It’s possible to be ready for the event of the month or even the season, being careful not to sound contrite that far in advance.

One thing is certain though. If it’s about the consumer first – and there’s a specific opportunity for the brand to enhance a consumer’s personal marketing plan, we have a shot at being contextually relevant and building a relationship. We’ve been looking at how and why consumers connect with brands for five years – and we’ve asked the question, “Who’s your favorite brand?” 15,000 times, since 2013. We dug deep into it – asking follow up questions – looking for threads of commonality.

We started to see momentum building in a very specific way – many of the top 100 brands each year have communities who are supporting their brands. Simon Sinek pointed it out in his book, Start with Why. Talking about Apple and Harley Davidson, “By any definition, these few companies don’t function as corporate entities. They exist as social movements.”

Ardent supporters own it. Brand value is high because consumer loyalty and buy-in is off the charts.

It goes back to the most basic of human needs – the need to belong. It’s right in the center of Maslow’s hierarchy – and brands that can break into this innate desire seem to do it and fly above the competition. When it happens, consumers are literally taking the lead – telling their friends – wearing the brand proudly whether it’s a logo on their laptop or a wave that they exchange with other Jeep owners.

It’s worth shooting for – and it happens because the time is spent to understand their needs – and deliver a way for them to gain status, create peer groups and join communities.

We were able to build it for La Gloria Cubana cigars last year. The La Gloria Society is composed of consumers who generate content and facilitate a club. Check out the #LGCsociety and you see loyalists spreading their enthusiasm for a brand that one consumer had tattooed on his arm.

Cracking the code for brand belief is our why. It’s why we are driven to leverage new thinking every day. To take the randomness of the spontaneous messages that make up our media and turn them into brand opportunities.

This year – as we dug into another 3,000 favorite brand responses, we asked specifically about clubs and communities. We went 40 questions deep – and here are just a few of the responses:

70% of people say they want to represent their favorite brand
20% of people said their favorite brand has a community, movement or club they support
44% of people mentally smile when they see other people wear/using or owning a brand they feel inspires them

Our new presentation is ready for clients this month – coinciding with the re-launch of our site and credo. We believe the brief has changed. We are no longer saying, “Buy the Brand.” We are saying, “Join the Brand.”

Start now.

TechBytes with Jeroen Seghers, Co-Founder, Sourcepoint

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January 3, 2018

Jeroen Seghers
Co-Founder, Sourcepoint

We spoke to Jeroen Seghers, Co-Founder Sourcepoint, to understand how content compensations platforms are evolving to tackle the evolving needs of content creators and publishers.

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MTS: Tell us about the inspiration behind creating a content compensation platform.
Jeroen Seghers: Sourcepoint was founded in 2015 to understand and meet compensation challenges faced by digital publishers. At the time ad blocking was the number one issue that impacted a publisher’s ability to generate revenue. We believed then, as we do today, that ad blocking was simply a symptom of a wider industry issue – the implicit value exchange where users consume “free” content in return for viewing ads.

Only by communicating directly with audiences can a publisher understand how they’d like to consume and pay for content. We empower publishers to offer this payment choice to their users, which could include an ad-funded experience, authenticated access, a time-based micropayment or a subscription package.

MTS: How does Sourcepoint empower publishers to meet ever-evolving demands of customer experience and data privacy?
Jeroen: Understanding how a consumer would like to tailor their own experience is the first step to creating a transparent and sustainable digital publishing ecosystem. Initiating conversations around user experience and also data privacy will help consumers support the publications they wish to engage with.

We work with leading publishers such as Dennis, AOL, and Gruner & Jahr, as well as smaller niche publishers to educate them on the need to diversify revenue generation above and beyond digital advertising and enable them to offer their users a choice of compensation.

Awareness around data privacy is increasing, so it is in a publisher’s best interest to communicate the benefit a user will receive by giving permission for their data to be analyzed. Opting in to allow publishers to gather data around their interactions with content will offer an increased, and transparent user experience.

MTS: Keeping GDPR in mind, what should an ideal B2B Content Compensation roadmap look like in 2018?
Jeroen: The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – and also the ePrivacy directive – are key drivers in raising awareness across the digital publishing industry about the need to bolster existing policies, procedures, and technologies related to consumer data. Due to be introduced in 2018, publishers must understand how to collect user data, with explicit permission required.

As a publisher will need to directly engage with a user for them to opt into sharing their data, this presents an opportune moment to educate on content compensation. Balancing the friction required to interrupt a user’s experience with greater choice and control over the use of their data, will be key for publishers to successfully navigate the content compensation roadmap in 2018.

MTS: How should content marketing strategies for mobile-first campaigns, evolve to better the customer experience and increase engagement?
Jeroen: Publishers must keep consumer behaviour at the top of mind. We’ve seen a rapid shift of consumer attention to mobile over recent years, however, compensation considerations remain the same. To secure revenues and further evolve mobile-focused offerings, publishers must consider the needs of the consumer and provide choice and flexibility.

MTS: Would you tell us the core tenets of your multi-site subscription offering?
Jeroen: We initially developed our Dialogue product to establish a direct link between the user and digital publisher, and from here communicate the implicit value exchange between advertising and content. Essentially, publishers can develop audience segments, create targeted messaging strategies, and execute campaigns that offer varied content compensation preferences to users.

Our cross-publisher subscription product builds on the work we have done to date with our Dialogue product, establishing a direct link between the user and digital publisher, and enables a consumer to make a single payment in return for access a broad basket of content across various sites. Added as an additional compensation option, our cross-publisher subscription product will be complementary to individual publisher subscriptions, and will allow users to choose content based on themes or topics, across publisher websites.

MTS: How do you see AI / ML technologies impacting the content compensation landscape?
Jeroen: Machine learning and artificial intelligence pose a great opportunity for publishers to further connect with their audience. Using a data-driven approach – including demographic, location, most-read content, and previous compensation preferences – publishers can decide which compensation journey to take. Whether to offer an option based on these previous behaviors, or to provide a combination of options will enable publishers to prioritize a consumer-centric experience.

Machine learning also has the potential to help evolve subscription models, providing insight into dynamic bundles of content that will appeal to a user – ultimately creating a sustainable solution for the publisher and user.

MTS: Thanks for chatting with us, Jeroen.
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 Roy LaManna, CEO, Vydia

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January 3, 2018

[mnky_team name=”Roy LaManna” position=” CEO and Co-founder, Vydia”][/mnky_team]

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/trendsettermm” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/roy-lamanna-9ba06430/”]

“As the most impactful way to convey a message online, video marketing has been a growing digital trend across all social media networks. The challenge of implementing this strategy is that the process of publishing and tracking across the web is extremely fragmented. “

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us about your role and how you got here? What inspired you to start a video technology platform?
After spending some time as a Freelance Video Commissioner for Def Jam, in 2008 I decided to launch Trendsetter Media & Marketing – a firm that focused on promoting and placing music videos for both independent and top artists. The faster our client list grew, the more I felt the need to optimize technological processes like submitting videos to networks, managing digital rights, and creating reports on video performance. In 2013, I sought out technical co-founder, Mark Allen, to build a video technology platform, Vydia, that would do just that. Our platform has now been utilized by over 170,00 users worldwide and has disrupted the industry standard for how creators market and manage their video content.

MTS: How do you see the video technology evolving around omnichannel analytics experience and customer data management in the coming years?
Analytics and insights can be viewed on every major digital platform these days, however, this data is most powerful when compiled in one place for comparative examination. This is why Vydia created a centralized reporting dashboard that shows video creators how their content is performing across several platforms. These insights help creators make business decisions on what kind of content should be created going forward. Our product roadmap is focused on expanding an immersive user experience that allows creators to access all the tools and insights that they need to manage their media inside our application.

MTS: How should B2B marketers leverage video content management and social media intelligence for better audience targeting?
Every content creator and brand publishing video online is in need of a better solution to organize, analyze, and protect their content. A new video management tool we created for marketers to automate a big part of this process is Vydia’s Social & Rights Sync feature. This technology allows content creators to be more in control of their media without interrupting the way they are accustomed to posting and ‘going live’ natively on their favorite social media platforms. Once synced to our app, users can apply protection policies and view key data points to guide targeting tactics.

MTS: What are the pain points for marketers in leveraging website analytics for a refined video content experience?
As the most impactful way to convey a message online, video marketing has been a growing digital trend across all social media networks. The challenge of implementing this strategy is that the process of publishing and tracking across the web is extremely fragmented. It is inefficient to check each platform natively to analyze how you should craft your message and promote it on the right platform, using the best parameters. This is why we created Vydia Analytics Reporting that provides users with key data on published content. Reviewing high-level platform comparisons makes it easy to see what content works best on which platforms to optimize future posts.

MTS: How do you see customer experience management platforms evolving with the maturity of AI/ML technologies?
Any technology, that helps customers get the support they need the fastest, is worth investing in. These modern tools are revered for their capability to improve user experience while helping the business to evolve and scale. Specifically, at Vydia, our Data Science team uses Machine Learning to provide insights on how media assets are projected to perform over time in comparison to industry averages.

MTS: What startups in the martech ecosystem are you watching/keen on right now?
Right now my focus is on Vydia. As far as other startups or competitors in our space, I like to refer to the explanation from Jimmy Lovine on HBO’s Defiant Ones about why horses have blinders on – They only need to worry about moving forward. The moment they look at the horses next to them, they lose.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?
We utilize staples like Buffer, MailChimp, Google Analytics, etc., but without a doubt our Marketing team uses the Vydia app to sync all our video content to a centralized place so it’s easy to manage and publish for maximum impact.

MTS: Would you tell us about your standout digital campaign? (Who was your target audience and how did you measure success?)
After launching Vydia Mobile and releasing our Social & Right Sync technology, we ran a campaign targeting users that had previously interacted with our desktop tools to encourage them to download our new app. We followed up with a campaign targeting personas that would find value in protecting and monetizing their natively posted social content. In addition, running ads and blogs, we created educational content that helped users adopt the new technology and understand its impact on their business. The campaign resulted in thousands of downloads.

MTS: How do you prepare for an AI-centric ecosystem as a business leader?
Learn everything you can, embrace its capabilities, and then find a way to get ahead of the curve.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.
Authentically. I think remaining transparent and honest with your team, your partners, and your users is the best way to operate.

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Like Social Influencer, Sammy Wilk, said in a recent BuzzFeed article, Vydia is a must have.

MTS: What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
Different approaches work for different people. I believe optimizing your work by focusing in on the time and place you’re most productive. I’m not a morning person, so I wake up and answer emails from home. When I get to work I’m warmed up and ready for a full sprint. It’s impossible to operate at top speed all day, everyday, so taking mental breaks is vital to remain productive. It sounds simple but this is something that many entrepreneurs struggle to practice.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
Reading Industry news remains the best way to get pertinent information but I find an important exercise in consuming this information is seeking out opposing views on the same topic. Approaching information in this way gives you a unique and thorough perspective that shapes your own.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
“Always do fair deals.” Even if the other party is willing to give more value than will be reciprocated, it won’t endure. Think long-term, fully invest in the deals you believe in, and the return will be greater over time.

MTS: Tag the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
Kevin Breuner, VP of Marketing for CD Baby

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Roy” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d6731-a3c3″]

As Founder & CEO of Vydia and Trendsetter, Roy has over 15 years of video marketing experience working with over 200,000 artists worldwide. Roy’s team is committed to giving back to the community. He actively participates in cultivating NJ’s growing tech industry by utilizing local talent and mentoring the region’s next generation of innovators. In addition to recently being named by Inc Magazine as a 2017 Inc500 Top Entrepreneur, he have been highlighted as a 2017 TEDx Speaker, honored on NJBIZ’s 40 Under 40, and featured in publications such as Forbes, Huffington Post, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Vydia” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d6731-a3c3″]

Vydia is an Inc 500 video technology company that empowers creators to easily manage their content and digital rights through one centralized platform. Utilized by over 170,000 musicians, influencers, and brands worldwide, the platform offers an array of monetization and distribution services that are conveniently accessible to creators on both desktop and mobile applications. Vydia is a premium partner of major digital publishers like Vevo, YouTube, Facebook and Dailymotion as well as networks like BET, MTV, and Music Choice.

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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.

Top Insights on the CMO’s Best Allies, Content Marketing, and the Art of Story-Telling for Brands

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January 2, 2018

Top Insights on the CMOs Best Allies, Content Marketing, and the Art of Story-Telling for Brands

The Second Part of the Predictions Series for 2018 Covers Insights on Content Marketing, Audience Engagement, Social Media Platforms and the CMO’s New Allies That Would Transform An Organization’s Digital Identity

Top martech CMOs and marketing executives feel that 2018 would be the most challenging year to deal with. However, the path to success would witness unprecedented developments in content marketing, employee advocacy and the growing inclination towards AI/ML technologies. We would see many significant disruptions in content automation.

The Rise of a New CMO Allies – the CFO, the CISO, and Marketing Ops

Trust in Artificial Intelligence Buoyed by Procurement and Finance Chiefs

David Brown, Chief Strategy Officer at OneSpot, predicts, “As content marketing leaders rise to the forefront of brands and have documented responsibility for contributing to the bottom line, the ability to clearly show how AI-driven platforms support revenue goals will secure a stamp of approval from procurement and finance chiefs.”

The Rise of a New CMO Ally – the CFO

#RunMarketer and CMO of Allocadia, Sam Melnick confides in his ally, the chief finance officer (CFO). Sam predicts, “2018 will see a closer relationship between Marketing and Finance as budgets decrease overall. Allocadia research found companies that expect larger budgets are 3X more likely to align the CMO and CFO – those that haven’t figured out this critical relationship will need to do so in 2018, or likely be shown the door.” Sam adds, “What we’re seeing from customers (like Microsoft, Red Hat, GE Digital, and many more) is a renewed focus on better managing their budgets to optimize the impact of every dollar spent.”

Marketing Operations Will Become the Next Chief of Staff to the CMO

Thanks to the synergistic CMO-CFO relationship, the focus would shift to back-office marketing technologies, prioritization of foundational capabilities, and changing accountability to the business – nobody is more important to a marketing team in 2018 than the marketing operations professional. Sam predicts, “Responsibilities related to data cleanliness, Marketing Resource Management, and Marketing Performance Management will continue to become top priorities, as marketing teams look to set the long-term stage for their success.”

The CMO and CISO Will Forge a Unique Alliance in 2018

Sara Ayoub, Senior Director of Marketing ZeroFOX — *Sara Ayoub, Senior Director of Marketing,*
*ZeroFOX*

Sara Ayoub, Senior Director of Marketing at ZeroFOX, predicts, “Departments within the modern enterprise can no longer work separately from one another when it comes to dealing with cybersecurity issues. Cybersecurity must be addressed holistically as it’s no longer a matter of “if” a company will be breached, but rather a question of “when”.” Sara adds, “While it’s up to the CISO to be employing a company-wide defense plan, the CMO has just as much responsibility to develop an outward-facing response in the event that their organization is breached. We’ve seen firsthand that when a cyber attack occurs, brand reputation incurs one of the biggest fallouts. The CMO and CISO must work collaboratively in 2018 to both protect the company and prepare for an inevitable fate.”

Premium Content: The High-Value B2B Currency for Relevant Engagements

Tear Down this Wall

*Andy Zimmerman, Chief Marketing Officer at Evergage*

Andy Zimmerman, CMO of Evergage, predicts, “With a seemingly unending supply of technology choices and vendors competing for buyers’ attention, B2B marketers will continue to seek new ways to cut through the noise. One technique that’s beginning to gain traction and that I expect will continue to accelerate is the un-gating of “premium” content.” Andy added, “B2B marketers have long relied on the practice of placing forms in front of their eBooks, white papers, webinars, etc. to gather leads for sales. This can be a major turnoff for buyers, though, especially when they encounter them early in their research process. With a plethora of choices, they’ll often bounce off your site and satisfy their need for information with an alternate resource (perhaps from one of your competitors) that isn’t gated. And if they do fill out your form, there’s a good chance they’ll provide false data or, if you’re lucky, a personal email address which isn’t particularly helpful for sales qualification and follow up.”

Andy further explained, “If B2B marketers do un-gate more and more of their best content, the implication is that they’ll have to find more creative and less intrusive ways of engaging prospects for sales follow up — such as advanced behavioral tracking and implicit progressive profiling driven by machine learning.”

Brand Advocacy Engined by Powerful Automation and the Art of Story-Telling

Justin Shriber, Vice President of Marketing, LinkedIn Sales and Marketing Solutions — *Justin Shriber,*
*Vice President of Marketing, LinkedIn Sales and Marketing Solutions*

Justin Shriber, Vice President of Marketing for LinkedIn Sales and Marketing Solutions, predicts that brands will prioritize trust, re-evaluating where they post content. Justin feels, “More companies will realize that where they advertise is a part of their overarching brand identity.” Also, sharing and advocating employee stories would become a ubiquitous activity to do in 2018 for better content engagements.

“Employee stories will drive marketing content in 2018. With consumers valuing authenticity more than ever, companies will tap into employees to build their brand and tell a diverse range of authentic stories,” says Justin.

However, relevance would remain the crux of any content story-telling. Justin advocates, “Marketers will need to have an eye for good stories. As automation became more powerful, the analytical skill set became more important. But the pendulum is swinging back to favor marketers who can tell succinct, powerful stories.”

Personalization: Hyper or Not, Marketers Have to Deliver High-Quality Experiences

Behavior-based Custom Experiences

Nick Bonfiglio, CEO and Founder at Aptrinsic, predicts, “In 2018 we will see more activities happening within the products of SaaS businesses. Starting with better onboarding, companies like Aptrinsic are enabling zero-coding, custom experiences driven by usage behaviors and segments.”

“Second, we see adoption improvements in the form of increased in-product engagement. We also see more personalized and relevant customer marketing emails and personalized emails that aid in the resurrection of inactive customers,” added Nick. Recollecting his ideas from the product analytics trends of 2017, Nick predicts, “Moving us from complicated BI type tools to more friendly, easy-to-use and easy-to-instrument capabilities, including simpler and more robust cohort analyses, all these practices will further increase focus on retention as the number one metric for SaaS businesses. Essentially, (the focus would be on) driving the adoption as the most effective cure for reducing the customer churn.”

Hyper-Personalization of Content Based on Data

*Ashley Walsh, VP of Marketing, Formstack*

Ashley Walsh, VP of Marketing at Formstack, feels that new-age marketers have to dig deeper into their data to deliver the relevant content experience. Ashely predicts, “The internet is already over-saturated with content so the marketers who can leverage data to offer a more relevant experience will have the edge. Services that make video and animation easy and distributable will certainly trend upward, but the big shift I see disrupting the industry will be hyper-personalization of content based on specific data attributes. For instance, when a new visitor lands on your website, they may see one of 15 different versions of your homepage. I also envision the ability to personalize 1:1 advertising messaging based on CRM data, without leveraging designers to create multiple iterations of the same design. Think old-school mail merge for your ads. If you’re not getting personal in the next 3-5 years, you’ll likely be providing a generic experience for your users and losing out on conversions.” For mobile content experiences, Ashely feels that form-filling would be a game-changer. She says, “As far as form fills are concerned, mobile users will be able to fill a form with their fingerprint or retina, getting that basic contact information fast and reducing friction.”

Branded Content Studios Flourish but Experience Growing Pains

OneSpot’s David Brown adds that 2018 shall witness the rise of the first-generation content leaders. David predicts, “In the next year as content marketing drives an increasing amount of valuable brand traffic, budgets grow and the discipline moves from pilot to core business driver, first-generation content marketers will rise to the top of marketing organizations alongside the CMO and require bigger roles in decision-making.” “The branded content studio model will be caught in a tug-of-war as their missions evolve from producers of content in quantity — why they were established in the first place — to strategists focused on content quality — how they are now judged,” adds David.

Shifting Gears to Achieve an Unprecedented Rate of Content Activation

Elle Woulfe, Vice President of Marketing at LookBookHQ, feels that we’ve seen unprecedented levels of content production over the last five years, but “marketers will shift gears toward content activation in 2018.” Elle crystal-gazes into 2018, and tells, “Now that we have all this content, it’s time to put it to work beyond the passive, dead-end, one-and-done content experiences we’ve become accustomed to running. Performant marketers will turn their passive content into dynamic, personalized journeys for buyers and measure purchase intent based on content consumption instead of old-school metrics like clicks and form fills.”

Pressures to Deliver Better Content and Personalization would Grow Stronger

As we move into 2018, the pressures and demands to deliver better customer experiences will only continue to grow stronger. Sitecore CMO, Scott Anderson, predicts, “According to recent research, up to 86 percent of customers see personalization as a critical factor when making a purchase, yet a third of brands admit they lack the skills and tools needed to properly provide the experience customers desire. As we look to 2018 and beyond, these pressures and demands will only continue to grow stronger.”

*Scott Anderson, Chief Marketing Officer at Sitecore*

Scott adds, “Research also finds that consumers see value in providing personal information so that marketers and brands can use it to interact with them when and where they want. By establishing a closer relationship via all the digital channels at our customers’ fingertips, changing our mindset and processes, and implementing the right technology and tools to build those relationships, brands will quickly find themselves in a better position to provide exceptional, personalized customer experiences.”

Social Media Publishing, A Potent Alternative to Email Marketing

Aseem Badshah, CEO and Founder, Socedo — *Aseem Badshah, CEO* and Founder, Socedo

Aseem Badshah, Founder and CEO at Socedo, predicts, “In 2018 B2B marketers will stop gating their content to collect contact info. Instead, they will prioritize total audience engagement with their content. Competing for customers’ attention is harder than ever and marketers need to remove friction from getting the value to their audience. Contact info is cheap and content MQLs perform much worse than leads who have indicated they are ready to talk to a salesperson. Retargeting and social media publishing is becoming a more effective way to nurture an audience than email. 2018 will be the year where B2B marketers prioritize audience engagement over collecting email addresses!” Earlier in 2017, Socedo had announced that it raised $1 Million from Angel Investors, Divergent Ventures, Vulcan Capital and Techstars Ventures. Currently, the company provides behavioral data from the social web to help B2B marketers improve all types of marketing activities and get more leads to their sales team.

Content Marketers are Hungry for More Knowledge in 2018

Courtesy Marketo, we could identify a strong inclination among content marketers to contribute more to B2B engagements across channels. CMOs themselves are the pilots in serving top-end content to their customers and partners, churning most readily consumable ideas and thoughts on a regular basis.

As CMOs grow closer to adopting AI/ML capabilities for content personalization and automation, we shall the battlefield for “Customer Experience” models hotting up in 2018.

The Virtual Reality Report Card

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January 2, 2018

Where is VR Going, Who’s Doing What And What Is The Best Way For You To Use It For Marketing Or To Drive Leads. A Recap of What the Experts Had to Say

‘81% Of People Who Try VR Tell Their Friends About It’

Tyler Calder – CMO, Yulio Technologies: The best ways to use VR for marketing and/or to drive leads will depend on the nature of a business and what it’s trying to achieve. However, in my opinion, it should now be considered in every marketing conversation. A few reasons why:

Adoption is On The Rise

Right now estimates are there are around 43 million people using the technology and that figure is set to double next year and double again the following. That’s a pretty big audience you can’t ignore.

People who Use It, Tell Others

An estimated 81% of people who try VR tell their friends about it and 71% of Gen Z – the generation following millennials who make up the next wave of serious consumers – are interested in seeing what it can deliver and will grow up with corporate leaders that are working with VR for marketing.

It Adds Something Special Which People Respond to

Whether it’s immersive storytelling, communication of complex spatial design, the showcasing of products in curated environments or virtual, ‘in-the-seat’ experiences, VR brings a heightened platform for translating ideas into experiences that people are engaged by. A recent study showed 53% of people would prefer to buy from a company that uses VR over one that doesn’t.

A Lot of Serious Organizations are Getting Involved.

30% of Forbes Global 2000 consumer-facing companies will experiment with augmented and virtual reality this year and many of those experiments will be with VR for marketing.

People are Wired to Respond

VR has a power that goes beyond simply providing a cool experience. Humans are wired to have their behavior more directly influenced by virtual experiences as they appeal to three key areas of our brains responsible for our perceptions and reaction – neo cortex (higher-level thinking), limbic system (emotion, behavior, motivation), and reptilian brain (primitive instincts). What this means is that content and experiences communicated through VR are ‘experienced’ versus simply being ‘seen’ and this triggers the parts of the brain that more clearly influence behavior and decision making.

‘There Is Limitless Potential There’

Jeffrey Finch – Co-founder, Choozle: Though I am not getting too excited just yet I cannot help but think where immersive VR experiences are going to take us in the next 5 – 10 years. Advertising and business opportunities aside, just imagine the benefits gained through the sharing of experiential information, on nearly any topic, across cultures and continents, on demand and delivered through a seamless hands-free experience. There is limitless potential there and I can’t wait to see where it ends up.

‘Engage Customers And Build A Relationship With Them’

Sharat Sharan – President, Co-Founder & CEO at ON24: Today, there really is no excuse not to know our customers. Marketers need to find a way to integrate the entire Martech stack to provide a 360-degree view of their customers and build campaigns that are informed by every touchpoint across any channel.

There’s a lot of conversation around consolidation in Martech as a solution to the integration problem, but I don’t think that’s the answer. Instead, the major marketing platforms can differentiate by maximizing the value of the Martech applications built on their platform and strengthen their respective integrations. That’s how we’ll be able to leverage cutting-edge, experimental technologies like virtual reality, interactive video, live messaging, etc. to engage customers and build a relationship with them.

‘We Anticipate The B2B Opportunity Will Overtake The Consumer Space’

Sam Rosen, Managing Director and VP at ABI Research: For any application that benefits from deeply immersive experiences, VR is often a natural fit. We’re starting to see some early experimentation where VR will expand its horizons. The combination of a VR headset with a camera pass-through for merged reality experience in particular, will open it up to a much wider range of applications. We still expect the consumer segment of the VR market to hold the largest revenue share over the next five years, but eventually, we anticipate the B2B opportunity will overtake the consumer space, especially if VR and related technologies do become the next computing platform.

‘Can Now Yield Tangible Campaigns For Marketers’

Cary Tilds, Chief Innovation Officer at GroupM: It’s exciting to see that advancements in augmented reality technology can now yield tangible campaigns for marketers. Many of the most engaging AR formats today are limited to individual publishers or platforms, but Blippar’s ARDP solution allows us to work in almost any camera-accessible web and mobile environment. That makes the issue of scaling exposure across publishers and audience segments much more simple. With contextual consumer targeting and data on the physical world in real-time, we’re enabling our brands to understand more about their consumers’ interests and behavior.”

‘Don’t Be Daunted By The Up-Front Investment’

Marco Argenti, Vice President, Technology, AWS: Customers across industries see the potential of VR and AR technologies for a wide range of uses—from educating and training employees to creating new customer experiences. But, customers are daunted and overwhelmed by the up-front investment in specialized skills and tools required to even get started building a VR or AR application. With Amazon Sumerian, it is now possible for any developer to create a realistic, interactive VR or AR application in a few hours.

Bots Are Failing And Here’s Why

By

Andy Peart

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January 2, 2018

A new chatbot pops up almost every day. Facebook, for instance, claimed 100,000 unique bots for messenger back in April 2017. But despite their number, many of them are failing to impress, leaving users underwhelmed and frustrated.

But why are so many of them failing to impress? There are five key things to keep in mind when answering this thorny question.

You need a brilliant bot or your users will try it once and never come back. It has to be an end to end brilliant solution & it needs to be conversational!

One of the main reasons bots are failing is their conversational ability – or to be more precise, lack of it!

Brilliant bots must give users a humanlike experience, therefore if you’re building a bot, you need to make sure it is able to truly handle natural language conversations. Many of the bots out there may work fine if you follow a linear, prescribed way of engaging with them, by asking the questions and providing information in exactly the way that the bot developer intended. But unfortunately, we as humans tend not to do this—we communicate using natural language. We branch off at tangents, we circle back, we miss out crucial facts and figures, we ask for clarifications. We want to be able to speak to bots in a humanlike manner, and we want those bots to understand us.

In short, we want to have a conversation.

Now you’re getting lots of data – how can you utilize it to improve your business processes?

When people communicate in a natural, conversational way, they reveal more than just the words they’re saying; their individual preferences, views, opinions, feelings, inclinations and more are all part of the conversation. When many thousands or even millions of conversations are captured and analyzed, this data becomes a unique and powerful source of customer insight whose value can be further enhanced when it is cross-referenced with other sources of knowledge. The challenge is to understand what this data means and what effective actions to take as a result.

Recognizing new or unexpected trends while staying in tune with customer behavior and sentiment is a competitive advantage, and a key to building successful customer relationships, maintaining loyalty and increasing repeat business.

Make your bot memorable; give it a persona that reflects your company’s brand values

It’s a question that comes up time and time again: do you need to give your bots a persona? My short answer is if you’ve spent millions on building a corporate brand and positioning for your organization why would you ever consider not doing the same for your conversational applications?

The longer explanation is a little more involved.

For example, two airlines, British Airways, and Virgin Airlines. Both fly across the Atlantic, but each brand has a completely individual and unique persona. Not just in their uniforms and the branding on their planes, but in the way they portray themselves with every interaction.

I’d argue that personas within conversational interfaces are as important as your domain content, the knowledge your bot uses to function. It’s the personality that elicits the most reaction—good or bad, from the customer. Get it right and you’ve created the opportunity to improve the customer experience, even more so than just giving the correct response.

It doesn’t need to be overtly funny or extravert, just reflect the brand. Taking the time to consider some of the finer points in how your natural language application will respond and react verbally early on in the project will pay dividends later.

The underlying model must be a hybrid approach so that customers have a seamless experience speaking to the bot online from a desktop or mobile device.

It’s a common misunderstanding that machine learning systems somehow work completely on their own, without human supervision. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just as linguistic-based conversational systems require humans to craft the rules and responses, machine learning requires humans to collect, select, and clean the training data.

I would argue that the ideal approach is to combine the best of linguistic and machine learning models in one solution. This flexible approach allows enterprises to quickly build AI applications whatever their starting point – with or without data – and then use real-life inputs to optimize the application from day one.

You’re not building for just one channel, it must be a conversational system that is deployed across many channels, so an omnichannel approach to conversational intelligence!

As an enterprise, which platform and channel are you going to bet on: will it be Alexa or Google Home? Will Messenger be the channel of choice? What role will the web, mobile, even wearables play? The truth is, your customers want to use them all – at different times and for different reasons; but they want a consistent experience that ideally remembers what has been said in previous conversations.

The solutions are for enterprises to be able to build conversational intelligence once, and then deploy across multiple channels, platforms, and languages.

Ultimately, if chatbots don’t deliver a true conversational interaction, one that delivers contextual understanding that is consistent across different channels, in any language, it will be a failure for your enterprise. Chatbots require features that can provide a true conversational interaction because it allows for a great customer experience. It also helps to increase brand engagement, because you never know what a human will ask next!

Data in the New Year: Five Steps for Success in 2018

By

Rajiv Bhat

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January 2, 2018

Data in the New Year: 5 Steps for Success in 2018

The numbers say it all: the big data and business analytics revenue forecast is set to reach $150.8 billion in 2018. This massive industry is growing at a rapid pace and it’s evident that companies understand that making data work is an absolutely necessity for success. However, there’s still a disconnect. We’ve never had this much data available to us – yet, we struggle with what to do with all of the information.

Organizations fail when they’re not able to operationalize insights that translate into an actionable strategy. In 2018, leaders don’t want to make those same mistakes. The following five realizations are critical to tapping into the transformative potential of data:

Understanding the Impact Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence can have Towards Streamlining Business Processes:

Just a few years ago, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) were merely buzzwords and technologies that companies aspired to talk intelligently about and implement one day. Today, ML and AI are without question changing how businesses operate and transforming cost structures. By 2020, 85 percent of customer interactions will be managed without a human. With a greater emphasis on bots completing tasks that in previous years used to fall solely on humans, the data skills we can bring to every industry have never been more crucial. Humans will need to learn how to work in conjunction with next-generation technologies like ML and AI to process data and draw inferences from algorithms. For example, in the customer interaction use-case, ML/AI could provide the easy answers before handing off to a human for more nuanced queries. While technology will allow us to process data quickly in real time, critical thinking will become even more important.

Mapping Key Business Process Flows for the Company:

In order for a company to be successful with big data, there needs to be an increased understanding of the key business process flows constituting the company’s operations. For example, the sales process is well-understood, starting from lead identification and culminating in a report or shipment upon fulfillment of an order. Every single component of the flow needs to be mapped to identify opportunities for augmentation using ML/AI.

Consolidation and Creation of a Central Data Repository:

Far too much effort is spent in collating data for each use case. A lot of the heavy work around data sanity and consistency is often duplicated. Providing easy to use data can make the creation of insights and automation even faster. For example, the finance, operations, human resources and sales departments may have very different viewpoints and uses for big data. However, having proper insights into what different lines of business are leveraging big data for will create synergies. In too many cases, the data being collected is segmented by department, which creates silos. Without having visibility into other projects and priorities across the same organization, it creates a challenging situation and doesn’t paint an accurate picture of customer behavior.

Creating the Right Set of Tools:

It’s important for companies to organize a data sandbox – this is essentially a place where everyone can play with the same data in one setting. Open source software is one example where we’ve already seen results from a data sandbox. It’s crucial for organizations to design a system so data models are put through production and can scale with large data sets. At the end of the day, marketers don’t want to leave a customer hanging because they can’t process large data sources.

Defining Roles and Responsibilities:

More than 40 percent of data science tasks will be automated by 2020. With increased automation of tasks in data science that used to rely on human ability and skill, the roles that companies are hiring for will be much more niche. It will be critical to clearly define what each person at an organization is responsible for within the realm of data analytics. Since priorities shift on a constant basis, communicating roles and responsibilities leaves no room for mistakes to be made.

Tying these components together will generate the creative flux to bring about transformation. This transformation will set the company up for the new data-enabled age where machines work alongside humans to deliver value. Leaders will need to understand the key mechanics (business process flows) of their business, clean up their data, set up the playgrounds, and make sure everybody knows what the new rules are, and how to implement them.

TechBytes with Scott Miller, CEO, Vision Critical

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January 2, 2018

Scott Miller
CEO, Vision Critical

In our MarTech Predictions Series 2018, six out of ten CMOs feel that behavioral data would be the most formidable data-set behind the marketing campaigns. To understand how omnichannel engagements at a behavioral level influence customer experience, we spoke to Scott Miller, CEO at Vision Critical.

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MTS: What purpose does the ENGAGE handbook serve for research marketers and analysts?
Scott Miller: Participation in market research activities is declining and we believe that is the greatest single problem facing the industry. At Vision Critical, we have customers that report participation in traditional research to be as low as 1%; on average, most experts admit it is less than 10%. Companies cannot be customer-centric when most of their customers will not share their opinions with them. Further, in 2016, GRBN found that as many as 7 in 10 research participants reported a poor experience, which not only challenges the accuracy of the results but also negatively affects their opinion of a brand. The industry is failing to transform insight-gathering activities into personalized, valuable experiences that actually improve customer relationships. ENGAGE is a practical collection of best practices to help researchers address this issue.

MTS: How does engagement at a behavioral level influence customer experience?
Scott: Behavioral data, which is now widely available compared to what used to be, is based on actions and shows companies what is working: what is actually closing sales, who is buying, how much they’re spending, etc. Taken in aggregate, behavioral data can be very helpful in spotlighting the effective and ineffective points in a customer journey to help improve the overall customer experience. As far as influencing the customer experience, we have an increasing number of customers who report that a positive experience in exchanging information with their customers (asking and sharing) leads to an increase in important corporate KPIs around engagement and even financial ROI.

MTS: Are marketers ready to connect with customers based on behavioral data alone?
Scott: Many of our customers have proven that the addition of the right attitudinal data increases the accuracy of predictive models. Behavioral data is 100% historical. Attitudes and opinions can be more forward-looking. The combination of the two types of data also helps researchers and marketers interpret both what happened and why. With so much competition across industries today, and with the technology and capabilities available to us, there’s no excuse for not fully understanding your customers’ wants and needs. Customers expect us to do better.

MTS: What is the foundational tenet of building ‘Insight Communities’?
Scott: The foundational tenet of insight communities is that building stronger relationships with customers yields better insight and better financial performance. In today’s marketing landscape, it’s not enough for companies to be customer-centric; they must be customer-led. This requires an ongoing dialogue between brands and customers to truly understand their wants and needs and to build genuine and trustworthy relationships. Insight communities powered by Vision Critical help brands seek insight from their customers on a consistent basis and share back privileged intelligence that customers value. This brings them back to the branded experience more frequently and helps them feel more appreciated, respected, and valued. Not only does this model create a more thoughtful exchange of information, the accuracy of results can be validated and improved over time.

MTS: At Vision Critical, how do you help companies create a very industry-specific customer experience?
Scott: At Vision Critical, we don’t believe it’s enough to only help companies create an industry-specific customer experience. The companies we work with want to create market-leading customer experiences that transcend industries and are highly tailored to their own customers, not just an “average” persona. By building insight communities of their own customers that they engage with on an ongoing basis, companies are better equipped to closely align customer experience goals with what their customers actually want from them, driving higher loyalty and higher customer lifetime value.

MTS: Thanks for chatting with us, Scott.
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 Matt Rosenberg, Chief Revenue Officer, Eventbrite

By

Rohan Jagan

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January 2, 2018

[mnky_team name=”Matt Rosenberg” position=” Chief Revenue Officer, Eventbrite”][/mnky_team]

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“We’re in a golden age of data right now — a lot of industries are just starting to realize how much data they’re sitting on, and how valuable that data actually is.”

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us about your role and how you got here? What inspired you to enter the event technology field?
Whenever I’m looking for new opportunities, my ideal is to find a large but fragmented market. I want a lot of competition, but I also want to be in an industry that is desperately in need of innovation. And when I first started thinking about the events industry, I saw Eventbrite as a company that was coming in and — pardon the buzzword — disrupting the field. Eventbrite’s innovation was, and is, unparalleled.

As for my role: as CRO, my job is to make sure that event creators on our platform have a delightful experience, and we’re able to satisfy their needs. That also means I’m responsible for all touch points in the customer journey, including marketing, sales, and customer service.

MTS: How does Eventbrite enable users to manage and analyze events from anywhere?
We’re in a golden age of data right now — a lot of industries are just starting to realize how much data they’re sitting on, and how valuable that data actually is. Events are at a unique advantage here. Lots of brands know what people buy — the event industry knows what people care about, what they actually want to do. Eventbrite is the only platform that is built specifically to help event creators leverage their insanely valuable data, and to analyze that data while it’s still fresh enough to be useful.

The other big consideration here is that people in the events industry don’t have unlimited time to make decisions or understand their data — if they’re underselling tickets, for example, they need to know yesterday so that they can redirect their marketing spend. That applies whether you’re hosting a conference, ticketing a festival, or running a class. That’s why we’ve streamlined our technology around 24/7 access, mobile optimization, and real-time reporting.

MTS: How do Eventbrite’s solutions enable users to maximize revenue?
The events industry is made up of incredibly passionate people who care deeply about their communities — but at the end of the day, events need to turn a profit. When we partner with an event, we’re invested in their financial success. Specifically, we’ve built a platform that allows attendees to discover new events on their favorite sites and apps — like Facebook and Spotify — and then buy tickets or register directly. We’ve also created a 100% mobile-optimized purchase flow, because we know attendees want to buy on mobile, and we’ve also built for rapid ticket scanning from any device, so that the entire process — from discovery to entry — can be done on your phone. This makes event-goers happy, which in turn makes event creators happy…and makes them more money.

MTS: How does the Eventbrite Organizer app empower event creators to do more?
People who run events deal with an incredible amount of stress — we like to quote a Forbes study that named “event coordinator” the 5th most stressful job, on the list with jobs like military personnel and firefighters. The Eventbrite Organizer app was created to combat some of that stress by putting all of the power and visibility you need to run an event in a single app. It gives event professionals 24/7 access to all of their sales and live attendance data, and it also becomes their secret weapon at the door — it handles check-in and at-the-door sales, and you can train staff to use it in minutes.

MTS: What technologies would suggest an event marketer should have in their tech stack?
It all comes down to communication with your attendees. Every event marketer should have an email automation system, so that they can share promotions and information with event-goers; an attendee survey tool so they can get individual feedback on their event; and social media tools so that they can communicate authentically with their base — and reach new attendees.

This is How I Work

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

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
Professionally, I cannot live without our CRM tool. Personally, I am always on Instagram, ridesharing service apps, and because I travel a fair amount, the United Airlines app.

MTS: What’s your smartest work related shortcut or productivity hack?
Focus on your top 3 priorities relentlessly. Push all else aside.

MTS: What are you currently reading? (What do you read, and how do you consume information?)
I often read multiple fiction and nonfiction books at once. Right now I am reading The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and The Beautiful Struggle.

I also consume information through newsletters — both daily newsletters and ticketing newsletters — and podcasts. And like any good CRO, I’m an avid reader of the Wall Street Journal.

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Grind. You’ll never be the best at everything — but there is something about being tenacious that sets people apart.

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Matt” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108e51b0-80edaf37-bd3d6a19-1201″]

Matt serves as the Chief Revenue Officer of Eventbrite, Inc. He was the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Business Development at Eventbrite, Inc. since September 2012. He was responsible for growing the global sales of Eventbrite and leading its team in building on its vision. Rosenberg previously served as the Chief Sales Officer of Revana Inc. since May 23, 2012. He served as Senior Vice President of Strategic Accounts at ServiceSource International, Inc.

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Eventbrite powers ticketing and registration for more than two million live experiences each year, hosting the world’s largest online selection of events. We build technology that allows anyone to create, share, find and attend events of all kinds. Music festivals, marathons, conferences, hackathons, political rallies, fundraisers, gaming competitions— you name it, we power it.

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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.

Year Ender 2017: The Best of MTS’ Interview Series-Part 2

By

Rohan Jagan

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January 1, 2018

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[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/martechseries” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/13245537/”]

A roundup of the best of our Martech Interview Series.

2017 was the year that saw some of the top names in MarTech feature in the Martech Interview Series. As part of our year end specials, we present a recap of some of the best interviews.

Luca Di Persio, Head, Global Marketing Communications, Mosaicoon on the biggest challenge that CMOs need to tackle to make marketing technology work

“It’s quite simple: what matters is the power of Data. That’s true both for the strategy and for the tactic. Indeed, Mosaicoon is a “data-driven” tech company, able to feel the evolution of the market through analysis. For example, we introduced Sonar. Based on a proprietary algorithm, Sonar describes the ability of a brand to communicate effectively through videos and assesses its video strategy potential.”

Penny Wilson, Chief Marketing Officer, Hootsuite on how she sees the social media management market evolving over the next few years

“The social media management market is constantly evolving. Businesses are relying on social channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to communicate with their customers at a deeper and more personal level. We’re also seeing social used across the organization from marketing to sales, customer service, and more.

Social media management technologies need to keep pace with the increasing adoption of social across job functions. From social marketing to social selling, our solutions must adapt to social’s rapidly evolving needs. For example, to combat the rapid decline of organic reach, marketers are investing in paid social advertising strategies. To meet this need, Hootsuite acquired AdEspresso, to enable marketers to easily manage Facebook and Instagram advertising from a single platform. As social matures, marketers will need to be able to quantifiably justify how social impacts the bottom line. Hootsuite acquired leading social analytics company LiftMetrix to meet that need.

It’s extremely important for social media management platforms to connect with the customers using existing technologies. We have hundreds of best-of-breed partners and applications in our open ecosystem and plan to continue the momentum. Our open ecosystem helps to boost the adoption of social across the entire organization by integrating with the technologies that our customers are already familiar with.”

Sharat Sharan, President, Co-Founder & CEO, ON24, on how he sees the martech market evolving over the next few years

“Just like the assembly line ushered in the industrial revolution, CRM and marketing automation technologies are what started the entire martech ecosystem, giving us a powerful foundation to efficiently market at scale. But, marketing isn’t just about increasing the quantity of customer interactions, it’s about deepening their quality. The technology we use must give us the ability to do more than just scale.

I believe that today’s marketer needs a new layer in their martech stack focused on delivering engagement at scale, enabling marketers to reach hundreds and thousands of prospects on a personal level. And, when you do create an experience that captivates an audience for nearly an hour, the incredible amount of behavioral data you can gather makes future sales and marketing interactions all the more personalized. As this engagement marketing category evolves, the marketing automation layer will also need to change along with it so that these rich data points can be integrated into campaigns.”

Rishi Dave, Chief Marketing Officer Dun & Bradstreet on the key differentiators between Dun & Bradstreet’s audience targeting solutions and their competitors

“Our value proposition is simple. Through deterministic (vs probabilistic) business data about the prospects marketers are targeting online, Dun & Bradstreet enables better accuracy, precision, and reach for B2B programmatic advertising programs, making ad dollars count for more. Using deterministic data means marketers do not need to rely on probabilistic guesses on the prospects they are targeting based on the prospect’s behavior.

Our data is the most comprehensive on the planet, with 265M+ businesses and 70M+ contacts. This database is trusted by 90% of the Fortune 500.

The key differentiators are —

Deterministic Data: We have 100% deterministic data, owned by Dun & Bradstreet, anchored by the D-U-N-S® identifier. Other companies focus on “what” audiences are doing online to build audience segments. Dun & Bradstreet focuses on the “who” to build highly accurate audiences from factual offline sources which are then brought online. Our robust and established DUNSRight quality assurance process refines over 30k incoming data sources and 5 million daily updates.

D-U-N-S®:The D-U-N-S® Number identifier enables marketers to create custom and Account-Based digital segments that are highly targeted and precise. It also allows marketers to expand digital reach through corporate linkages and bridge online and offline campaigns.

Ecosystem Availability: Dun & Bradstreet digital data is media agnostic, which allows marketers to combine Dun & Bradstreet data with any media inventory for programmatic advertising. The data is also platform agnostic, which allows the data to be ingested from every major AdTech player for advertising and major analytics platforms for unmasking anonymous web visitors.

Scale & Reach: Over 350M unique, addressable cookies and mobile device IDs are made available across the ad tech ecosystem, which allows broad programmatic ad targeting and improved anonymous web visitor identification.

Business Intelligence: Dun & Bradstreet’s proprietary business transaction data and analytical indicators help marketers predict company behaviors and characteristics. Our data scientists, analysts, and PhDs average more than a decade of experience in analytics modeling. With rich proprietary data assets and a world-class team, B2B marketers complement their use of fact-based (deterministic) strategies to reach and identify prospects and customers online.”

[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.

The Influencer Crowd

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January 1, 2018

Learning How To Use Influencer Marketing in Your Business From The Best in The Business. An MTS Guide

‘Take Control Of How People Feel About You’

Steve Ellis – Founder and CEO, WHOSAY: In today’s mobile-first world, every single connection and transaction is one-to-one – whether you’re a dating service, selling to consumers, or selling to businesses. You need to take control of how people feel about you and your services via your communication and marketing. Influencer content will continue to play an important role in this, by helping to cut through the clutter on a small screen and by making better ads to ensure people understand and like your offering.

‘Influencer Marketing Is Applicable To Both B2C And B2B’

Wyng - Wendell Lansford, Co-Founder — Wendell Lansford

Wendell Lansford – Co-Founder, Wyng: Influencer marketing is focused on identifying individuals that have influence over a target audience, and working with those influencers to get the brand’s story in front of potential buyers. Social selling is about salespeople using social media to learn about and interact with their prospects as part of the sales process. Influencer marketing is applicable to both B2C and B2B while social selling is more applicable to B2B. Both techniques can be additive, and the relative priority of one versus the other depends on the specifics of each business — target customer, marketing mix, sales team, influencer population, etc.

‘Influencer Marketing Will Become Commonplace’

Matthew Myers – Founder and CEO at Tidal Labs: We have a wide array of influencers, we will generally accept anyone looking to join our pool (we have more than 650 K users to-date). We then segment and display only the ones who are involved, engaged and create high-quality content in a genuine way.

We quantitatively look at “engagement rates” (how many comments/likes someone gets on their post divided by their followers) and how they compare to their peers in a particular area. We also look at the attribution of an influencer. Were they referred from another successful member? Did they come to us from one of our publisher partners (like Epicurious or the Today Show)?

Our client partners assess influencers quantitatively, scoring influencers based on the look, feel and aesthetic of an influencer’s various content. Do they look “on-brand”? We use this manual scoring to help train our systems, but in the end, this subjective human eye analysis is hard to replicate.

I compare influencer marketing to mobile advertising twelve or so years ago. Marketers know it’s the way of the future, driven by consumer demand, but nobody quite knows how big it will get or what it will look like, so they are in the test and evaluate phase of adoption.

Influencer marketing is also similar to the slow-then-sudden growth of e-commerce. In the beginning, most retailers adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Over time, as it became clear that this would be an important channel, retailers converged on a universal set of standards, and now a retail strategy that doesn’t include e-commerce is considered to be incomplete. Likewise, we’re still in the slow period of influencer marketing. As more brands learn the value of influencers and understand common standards and practices, influencer marketing will become commonplace.

Also Read: Algorithmic Attribution Helps Marketers Develop Precise Reach Strategies

‘Start Being More Selective’

Gil Eyal – CEO, HYPR: Social analytics are hard to get. Many companies simply focus on selecting influencers by aesthetics, but that leads to some poor decisions. Imagine models with an audience of almost entirely men trying to promote beauty products online and influencers with a small US-based following promoting to US-based audiences.

One of the biggest challenges is getting real quality data. We collect our data from six different platforms and have direct partnerships with some of them. If you’re getting data that’s only based on Twitter audiences and running a campaign on Youtube, you’re not going to do well.

Additionally, today influencers have all the power. Brands are blinded by fear that influencers will work with their competitors, or promote a competing product to their audiences that they’re willing to pay them in advance and ignore any basic performance requirements and due diligence. When you realize there are thousands of twins for most influencers and that they are easily replaceable you have to start being more selective. Who really fits my brand and will really work with me?

‘57 Percent Of Consumers Follow An Online Blogger’

Tony Zito – CEO, Rakuten Marketing: Affiliate marketing has always been about empowering influencers and content creators. The rise of social media and other new content platforms have created so many new opportunities for influencers to have a voice and unique ways for consumers to find and interact with brands and products. From a recent survey we conducted, we found that 57 percent of consumers follow an online blogger or a social influencer and 88 percent of those who follow an influencer have made a purchase the influencer recommended.

We’re seeing the wide-reaching impact of influencer marketing in our own affiliate network, including a 51 percent increase in sales year-over-year. We know that influencers have a large role in introducing and reaching new consumers. Our data shows that, of all the touchpoints tied to an influencer, 53 percent are the first touchpoint. And they’re touchpoints that are driving traffic and interactions! Last year in Q4, 84 percent of the traffic driven by influencers was new visitors.

Recommended Read: A Multi-Step Plan to Combat App Install Fraud

Year Ender 2017: The Best of MTS’ Interview Series-Part 1

By

Rohan Jagan

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December 30, 2017

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“A roundup of the best of our Martech Interview Series. “

2017 was the year that saw some of the top names in MarTech feature in the Martech Interview Series. As part of our year end specials, we present a recap of some of the best interviews.

Steve Lucas, Chief Executive Officer, Marketo on how the martech sector would evolve over the next few years:

“First and foremost, I see the landscape getting more complex, not less. Which is daunting, given there are over 4,500+ MarTech vendors in the space today. CMOs and marketers will look to us to help them simplify their engagement with customers and that’s a sharp contrast to our competition.

Additionally, there’s no question that new technologies, channels, and touchpoints have fundamentally changed the relationship between buyers and sellers. Marketers no longer get to define the terms of a relationship with their consumer.

The whole acronym – CRM – is fundamentally flawed because it implies that we get to “manage” our customers. They don’t want to be managed, they want to be engaged. It’s a fact that buyers are in now charge, and they demand brand experiences that let them feel valued, align with their values, and connect with them on a personal level. I call this concept the Engagement Economy, and succeeding in this new world means engaging with customers continuously – at every touchpoint, on every channel – throughout the entire lifecycle.

Deeper, more meaningful engagement is the only way for a marketer to win, and we’ll continue to see an acceleration of adaptive and intuitive applications and technologies that will enable the marketer to deliver consistent and personalized experiences at scale. It’s this powerful combination – the marketer and the machine – that will enable marketers and brands to build life-long customer relationships.”

Jennifer Grant, Chief Marketing Officer, Looker on the challenges that firms face in integrating an analytics platform into their martech stack

“The first step is to actually collect accurate data. Very often you set up your Salesforce or other CRM at the early stages of a start-up and you don’t have the conversation about the future. What data do you want to collect today – and what might you be asking in the future? The more time you spend on the data strategy early on, the faster you can scale your understanding of what’s happening in your business. Even if you know you won’t have time today to do the analysis, collect the data for the future. The second step is when you’re ready to pull all that data together and let Looker clean it up and join it together for analysis.

If you’ve already been collecting the data you need for the questions you have, you’ll be in better shape to pull it all together from all the marketing and sales tools now available and get it centralized. Once you’ve done those two things, the rest is fairly easy. With a data platform, you can then figure out what each department needs, create dashboards, and push data into everyone’s existing workflow – Slack or Salesforce – to make it as easy as possible to make better, more informed, decisions.”

Peter Isaacson, Chief Marketing Officer, Demandbase on the challenges that startups face in integrating ABM into their martech stack.

“The biggest challenge to practicing ABM successfully – across companies of all sizes – is in gaining alignment across your company and getting sales and marketing on board and collaborating. It’s essential that all teams involved coordinate programs across target accounts and that metrics are agreed upon prior to moving forward with any ABM program.

ABM can be effective for most B2B companies, but startups will need to consider their audience and deal sizes. ABM is about being laser focused on specific target accounts, so organizations that have a broader focus or small deals usually do better with horizontal sales and marketing efforts.”

Ross Andrew Paquette, CEO, Maropost on how he sees the martech market evolving over the next few years.

“Like the rest of the tech industry, martech is in the midst of a growth boom, with products and offerings evolving and innovating rapidly. That means more automation, more personalization, more machine learning. And we’re right there with the boom, having just launched “Da Vinci” our new machine intelligence.

Consumers are also becoming smarter about martech and with that, pickier. In the end, the product and service is always going to be the most important. It’s not enough to simply solve the customer’s problem, you have to set yourself apart by putting the customer and product first.”

[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.

Hitting The Spot with Location Data

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December 30, 2017

A Cheatsheet of What MarTech Industry Experts Had To Say About Using Location Data To Better Serve Your Customer Base

‘Location Data Is Tying Digital Spend To Offline’

Gladys Kong – CEO, UberMedia: Despite the rise of e-commerce, the majority of real-world business outcomes still occur in offline environments beyond the reach of digital attribution models. Mobile location data is closing that gap.

In the last few years, UberMedia has released multiple innovations linking business efforts and results to actual location visits from consumers. These products include Location Visit Optimization (LVO), a system that dramatically boosts relevance and performance of mobile ad campaigns based on real-world location visits; Location Return on Investment (L-ROI), a first-of-its-kind key performance indicator measuring and optimizing mobile media against offline store visits; Cross Media Location Visit Rate (xLVR), enabling marketers to understand their incremental foot traffic lift and market share gains and losses across all media investments; and Optimal GeoSpace, a patent-pending mobile location technology that dynamically renders a customized virtual fence around individual retail shopping areas, enabling retail marketers to fully capitalize on the actual footprint of a customer to their location (or a competitor’s location).

In June, we announced the launch of Vista, the most comprehensive suite of data analytics tools for businesses of every size to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses through the lens of real-world foot traffic analysis, shopping patterns, and customer insights. Providing a panoramic view of actual business performance, Vista reveals in-depth analysis of consumer foot traffic behavior across industries by leveraging one of the largest mobile generated location data sets and the most precise location identification technology currently available.

Vista is a critical brand diagnostic tool that provides marketers with a clear visual on how well their brand is competing across key markets, verticals, and media outlets. This includes category-wide location analyses and consumer insights, ranking the performance of specific brands in the marketplace. Vista’s mobile location data analysis is helping businesses evolve to enhance services, address challenges, and plan for the future, including which locations they should open (or close) to attract the largest amount of foot traffic.

These are just a few examples of how location data is tying digital spend to offline activity in a way that gives marketers and businesses a more complete understanding of the entire customer journey.

‘Location As A Means To Hyperpersonalize’

Nathan Kontny – CEO, Highrise: How do you leverage behavioral data and location analytics to hyperpersonalize email marketing? For starters, don’t send the same email to everyone. The needs of someone who is in the process of setting up a Highrise account are different from the needs of someone being invited to participate in a Highrise account. That’s why we send different welcome messages.

However, I think the whole hyperpersonalized message is a bit overhyped. What’s more important is actually trying to make messages more “personal.” Most of us can smell how email is so robotic now, and we can spot the email templates from a mile away. I know I’m getting it because hyperpersonalized robots decided it’s time for me to receive it.

We differentiate by personalizing those emails every single day, changing our templates to include details about that very day. I talk about things like how my weekend was and what my three-year-old is up to lately. Our customers are crazy about the personal welcome videos we send, using a tool called Bonjoro. We can’t send everyone this type of message all the time, but we try to fit in as many as we can, and the engagement is incredible.

‘The Bigger Picture Of The Device’s Journey’

Rami Alanko – Founder and CEO, Beemray: Location data should not be considered merely as coordinates of a device. Coordinates do provide a precise point of a device but the interesting thing is the context; where did that device come from, where does it go to, what is happening around it, what content it consumes in that particular location and is the location a random place or a part of a behavioral pattern. If one looks at location from various angles and as a part of a bigger picture of the device’s journey, the odds are that you get interesting profiles, even the kinds you did not know you have.

So if you then have the capability of analyzing a device in realtime in its full context, it provides a path to various use cases ranging from ad targeting to content personalization. Retargeting based on the location-based profiling is naturally an obvious one but I think it gets more interesting and engaging when realtime capability is introduced to provide better user experience in the correct context.

All this requires a willingness to think out-of-the-box and to experiment but the improvement of marketing efficiencies desperately needs new approaches, with location playing an increasingly vital role.

‘Where And When The Customer Is’

Judge Graham – Chief Marketing Officer, Ansira: The proliferation of social media is very evident in our daily lives. People are much more inclined to want to understand socially how brands fit into their lives — they read reviews, engage with tweets, use company hashtags…

Using data to drive informed digital media and social is a cornerstone of reaching customers, and it will continue to be. I think that people today trust social mediums more than they do other media avenues. Social is the new way to reach customers where and when they want to be reached.
The main challenge of connecting data and marketing is implementation. Everything is possible for an organization, but if you don’t have the right infrastructure and architecture technologically, it is nearly impossible to implement campaigns in a successful way that reaches customers.

‘Adding Spatial Measurements To Data’

Javier de la Torre – CEO, CARTO: Mobile marketing has been one of the first verticals to benefit from new streams of Location Data. Leveraging real time location data streams of user locations allow for better targeting of users for advertising and geomarketing. Today, the same data, but aggregated and anonymized is what we are using for creating what we call a real time census. Instead of doing analysis based on 10 year old census data, now we can have data that is 15 minutes old, having higher precision and accuracy than ever before. This is going to change the way we solve location problems and optimize solutions dramatically. All of it started with mobile marketing and social media platforms, now we are taking it to the next level.

CARTO Data Observatory is built on the idea that accessibility to data is essential for performing spatial analysis. A main step in the Location Intelligence formula is enriching your data with spatial measurements so that you can contextualize your own data and analysis with information about specific locations. For example, analyzing demographics, income, employment, and real estate data of where your customers are can help you identify similar areas with untapped client potential. Having an up-to-date index of location data enables our clients to perform not just spatial analytics, but also predictive modeling and prescriptive planning by suggesting the best way to optimize for a site. The more data we bring in the smarter it becomes.

Our Basemaps are another service that offers up to date data for contextualizing data in space. CARTO basemaps are synced with OpenStreetMap to make sure the most accurate road and building data is represented, and our styles lend themselves to a wide range of uses from creating stunning maps, to practical applications for real estate and routing.

‘Create Audience-Specific, Campaign-Based ‘Hero’ Content’

Ed Bussey – CEO, Quill: Technology is fundamentally changing consumer expectations of how brands should communicate with them, and as such, winning custom is no longer just about who has the best brand or even the best products, but rather who can also deliver the most relevant and seamless start-to-finish user experience, across all devices and channels.

Whilst these new expectations have created a more challenging and complex environment for brands, marketers also have greater access to better data than ever before on their audience segments – whether that’s simple location data, device usage data or nuanced information about their behaviours, and interests. Supported by this wealth of data and creative agencies, it is, generally speaking, quite straightforward for marketers to create audience-specific, campaign-based ‘hero’ content that drives brand awareness – for example, highly targeted advertising campaigns.

However, looking further down the purchase funnel, when it comes to creating the fundamental, critical content that converts browsers into buyers, like product descriptions – which are often required on a massive scale and at high speed, while maintaining brand tone of voice and audience relevancy – this is a real operational nightmare, and as a result such content is often neglected. This, in turn, has a huge negative impact on ROI on all marketing spend further up the funnel – no matter how Cannes-worthy the advertising campaign, if consumers are faced with sub-standard content at the point of purchase, they are far less likely to buy.

Recommended Read: What We Learned From MarTech CEOs in 2017

Marketing Strategies Turn to Mobile for Data and the Role of AI in 2018

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Thorsten Trapp

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December 29, 2017

marketing and customer service — Marketing Strategies Turn to Mobile for Data and the Role of AI in 2018

The average millennial exchanges 67 text messages per day and 95% are read within 3 minutes of being sent. Text messaging is a trend that’s not fading and companies who accelerate mobile engagement in their marketing initiatives will see an increase in sales.

Although mobile tools have been at marketers’ disposal for years, most struggle to produce enough content to support actionable experiences at scale. The following predictions for 2018 address why companies will be spending their marketing and customer service budgets on mobile engagement for gathering data and why they won’t wait for AI to perfect natural language capabilities in messaging to utilize in sales.

Also Read: Trends in Marketing Technology Budgets Could Impact Data Quality and Hygiene

1. Communication platforms will be a top player in gaining actionable data on customers.
Chatbots provide a higher level of interaction and contextual knowledge to learn about a customer’s needs and intent, in other words, gather actionable data about a customer, that sharpen timely recommendations and increase sales. In 2018, companies will focus their marketing and customer service budgets on context-aware communications that will be measured by the value it’s delivering to provide smart data and real-time communications.

2.Enterprise IT won’t wait for AI technology to perfect its natural language processing capabilities.
Once initial human-like interaction has been established, deeper engagement and business transactions will be handled by micro/instant apps, using more transaction-efficient interfaces. Natural language processing through AI is not optimized for the collection of structured data, such as signatures or filling out forms or credit card information. Companies won’t wait for AI to perfect this but will integrate solutions that help with the seamless handoff between natural AI conversations and the use of micro/instant apps, delivered in the messaging channel with no friction, to collect more complex data.

Recommended Read: What Makes Some Companies Heroes and Others Villains?

Year-Ender 2017: 10 Extraordinary Martech “Moments” of the Year

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December 29, 2017

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Year-Ender 2017: 10 Extraordinary Martech “Moments” of the Year

In Part 2 of Our Year-Ender 2017 Series, We Bring You the Top Ten Martech Moments From the Year in a Chronological Order

“The true delight is reminiscing and reliving the moment all over again.”

For Martech journalists, 2017 proved to be a momentous year, as we saw many mega-moments of delight that paved the course for the future. In Part 2 of our Year-ender 2017 series, we bring you the top ten Martech moments from the year.

2017 has been that kind of the year where CMOs made the greatest contribution to the adoption of marketing and sales technologies across industries.

Recommended Read: Year-Ender 2017: Top 7 B2B Marketing Philosophies

#10 Snapchat Extends Moat Capabilities to European Advertisers to Boost IPO Plans

Yes, we got this right in the very first week of 2017. A month later, Snapchat announced it’s long awaited IPO. It took Snapchat more than seven months to expand to the European market. In June 2016, Snapchat partnered with Moat to enable Moat Analytics on its video inventory.

Post this partnership with Moat, Snapchat’s vertical video format was rebranded as Snap Ads. API inventory on Snap Ads platform allowed third parties to sell their ads as Ads Partners and Creative Partners. Snapchat Ads Partners include Amobee, TubeMogul, Adaptly, 4C, VaynerMedia, Brand Networks, SocialCode, and Unified.

Following the European expansion and IPO, Snap maintained a steady momentum, acquiring location analytics firm Placed, to better measure whether Snapchat’s in-app ads are leading to store visits and offline purchases.

We hope to see Snap create a bigger tech-wave in 2018!

#9 Magento Raises $250 Million Funding

ICYMI: @Magento secures funding from Hillhouse Capital to fuel global expansion. @IR_Magazine w/ more: https://t.co/WXtzWYIqya #omnichannel pic.twitter.com/YdTtBgAQMA

— Adobe Commerce (@AdobeCommerce) January 6, 2017

With this kind of super-funding, Magento announced its entry into the big league of Content Management Systems (CMS). As a growing force in e-commerce, Magento made significant progress in the global market, especially in Asia. Currently, the company competes with SAP Hybris, BigCommerce, Demandware, Shopify Volusion, Drupal Commerce and IBM Websphere. The new funding could see Magento scale up its omnichannel e-commerce solutions globally in the months to come.

#InspirationalFunding

#8 Salesforce’s Bellevue Engineering & Innovation Hub Turns Operational

Salesforce Opens Engineering & Innovation Hub In Bellevue, Washington – Area Development https://t.co/T7tis4Y4OK

— FortyOak (@FortyOak) February 2, 2017

Salesforce officially announced that the sprawling 70,000 square-feet product development hub in Bellevue is finally operational in January 2017. Then, Salesforce was optimistic about doubling its present headcount, adding at least 250 more employees by 2018. It also aimed to open new offices and innovation hubs in other parts of the world, catering to more than 150,000 customers globally.

Occupying three floors in the 19-storey 929 Office Tower, Bellevue Engineering & Innovation Hub is an architectural masterpiece, inspiring creativity, and collaboration among researchers, engineers, leaders, and customers.

Inside the new innovation center, artificial intelligence is all set to take an accelerated path. In coming months, workforce from Quip, Krux, SalesforceIQ CRM, Commerce Cloud, Einstein, IoT Cloud, Lightning, and Salesforce1 will converge at Bellevue, WA.

#BellevueEngineering

#7 Hootsuite Pulls off Mega Acquisition; Adds LiftMetrix to Its Stable to Deliver Enhanced Social ROI

Within two months, Hootsuite made two acquisitions– Ad Espresso and LiftMetrix. The latter proved to be a potent addition to Hootsuite’s already established social media marketing suite. In our TechBytes Series, Nik Pai of LiftMetrix revealed the evolution of his company within Hootsuite.

Nik said, “Hootsuite Impact is the logical evolution of LiftMetrix. Given the growing need for full-stack social media solutions and the demand for transparent, measurable social media efforts that can map back to business impact, we saw opportunities for deeper integration with Hootsuite. In one platform, marketers can now execute, measure, and evaluate their social initiatives.”

Adding LiftMetrix to its stable meant that Hootsuite would see its social selling initiative get more real and productive among the B2B technology influencers.

From @InsideSales On the Value and Future of Social Selling – With Koka Sexton @Hootsuite https://t.co/C3NGuxXt6L #sales pic.twitter.com/MjwoVUGXWu

— Mike Kunkle (@Mike_Kunkle) October 14, 2017

#SocialSelling #SocialMediaMarketing

#6 Informatica Announces New Applications Customer 360 and Relate 360 to Bring Clean, Consistent and Connected Customer Insights

Informatica, by introducing the most cutting-edge update to their Master Data Management (MDM), enhanced the overall marketing performance by providing powerful, actionable, next-gen standardized customer views at any scale. Informatica customers now have the power to uncover the true worth of existing relationships with customers by connecting dots between the context and perspectives.

Informatica Announces New Applications Customer 360 and Relate 360 to Bring Clean, Consistent and Connected Custom … https://t.co/gJgxifVklQ pic.twitter.com/CQDJmNythi

— Ronald van Loon (@Ronald_vanLoon) March 5, 2017

#DataManagementPlatforms #BigData

#5 Marketo Project Orion, Salesforce-IBM Partnership, and Adobe Experience Cloud

March turned out to be an eventful month for Martech audience as we witnessed some momentous development in customer experience management.

Project Orion

Ten months after Marketo revealed its ambitious platform re-architecture project code-named Project Orion, the leading marketing automation solutions provider finally unveiled it. Marketo announced the availability of its next-gen Engagement Platform, offering marketers a ready-made platform to grow customer LTV through personalized customer engagement at scale. Result: We now see Marketo’s Accelerate Community buzzing with new partners– all focused to deliver top-end customer experience.

IBM Watson with Salesforce Einstein

IBM announced that it will deploy Salesforce Service Cloud across the company to transform its global product support services and gain a single, unified view of every IBM customer. Bluewolf’s new Solution Accelerators for AI integration will develop new industry-specific functions used by enterprise clients to fast-track adoption of cognitive applications seamlessly.

The unprecedented unification of two AI technologies – IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein now seamlessly connect to an entirely new level of intelligent customer engagement across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more. The partnership has been forged with an objective of leveraging human intelligence for critical missions and not for time-consuming siloes management. AI will, therefore, make smarter, faster and ROI –specific decisions, freeing humans for ground-breaking innovations.

Adobe Experience Cloud

Like Beethoven, Adobe brought the joy of pure marketing to CMOs with a creative touch, putting various elements like Creative, Document, Marketing Analytics, and Advertising into a single enterprise suite. The creative cloud company announced its Experience Cloud for marketing and analytics that integrated with their Creative and Advertising Clouds, at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas.

At the same event, the marketing cloud and technology innovation firm also released the Adobe Advertising Cloud, branding it as industry’s first end-to-end platform for managing advertising across traditional TV and digital formats. The cloud for cross-channel advertising is the result arising from Adobe’s acquisition of Tube Mogul in December 2016.

#4 Oracle Content and Experience Cloud Debuts at the Modern Customer Experience 2017

Oracle introduced the Oracle Content and Experience Cloud at its annual CX event. The new cloud delivers a single cloud-native platform for content production, management, and delivery across all lines of business. It provides unique capabilities to support a variety of business needs, from employee and customer engagement to sales enablement and business development.

#Oracle_CX_Cloud Suite helps companies leverage the customer experience to differentiate, innovate, and improve business results. It is the most complete, integrated, and extensible customer experience solution available in the market.#IMPACTEMEA #TOMORROW #CLOUD #IMPACT #TODAY pic.twitter.com/53t2AsOBfR

— Impact EMEA (@impactemea) December 20, 2017

Oracle Content and Experience Cloud is uniquely capable of addressing the needs of both the business user and IT, enabling them to work together to deliver modern, engaging digital experiences (DX).

The platform integrates with the Oracle Customer Experience Cloud Suite, an integrated suite of cloud applications that empower organizations to take a smarter approach to customer experience management and business transformation initiatives.

#3 ABM Funding Rounds: Demandbase, Terminus, and Mintigo

In May, Demandbase raised $65 million, proving that Account-based marketing platforms are now a “funding magnet”. Earlier that month, Mintigo scooped $10 million in Series E. And, Terminus also garnered a similar amount– $10.3 million. In fact, Terminus later revealed that it has seen 170% growth in the past 12 months and continues to solidify its position as the leader in the high growth ABM category.

Artificial Intelligence powering ABM platforms is a certain connecting here, helping them turn into funding magnets in 2017.

#Martech Funding Hack: @Mintigo is successful in proving that #AI is much more than just a slogan. https://t.co/qX7R8X6rzq #abm #Predictive

— MarTech Series (@MarTechSeries) May 15, 2017

At the time of Mintigo’s funding announcement, Kobi Samboursky, Founder & Managing Partner at Glilot Capital Partners, said, “Artificial intelligence can dramatically improve the bottom line of leading businesses in multiple categories. Mintigo’s list of big happy customers proves the superiority of its technology. We are proud to join the winning team of Mintigo.”

#2 Unveiling Artsai, The First Artificial Intelligence Solution to Consolidate the Marketing Stack

Artsai, is user-centric & focuses on optimizing the whole customer #digital journey rather than on disconnected #marketing functions, shares Yuri Khidekel, CEO, Artsai @tryartsai https://t.co/679397jbix pic.twitter.com/MD6CPCF2Hc

— MarTech Series (@MarTechSeries) December 1, 2017

With the launch of Artsai, we witnessed how AI helps in uniquely consolidating and disrupting the MarTech

industry by vertically integrating the current piecemeal model. Artsai’s adaptive marketing automation platform is the first and only solution that uses artificial intelligence to address the whole user digital journey and make the entire marketing stack efficient, rather than focusing on incremental improvements to ad performance.

Artsai’s patent-pending adaptive marketing automation technology is powered by an interconnected artificial intelligence marketing stack and performs multiple marketing tasks including new customer acquisition, user retention, re-targeting, re-engagement, app monetization, and content optimization.

#1 MarTech Market Worth $34.3 Billion a Year

Some interesting research into the digital media market and MarTech done by @moorestephens and @WARCEditors. #adtech bubble has burst but #martech #brandtech #contenttech will experience significant growth. Download https://t.co/9Sq35Ttfwc pic.twitter.com/0ssvzBscZt

— VIDA (@VIDA_VOLUME) November 28, 2017

Just before DMEXCO 2017, Moore Stephens announced the launch of a research report into the US and UK MarTech industry. The research which covered 500 marketing agencies revealed that–

Brands are spending 16% of their marketing budget on marketing technology
The MarTech market could be worth more than $34 billion
Brands expect MarTech budgets to rise by 10% in next year
50% of brands don’t have the tools they need

According to the report, marketers are most likely to be using a MarTech tool for email, with 85% currently doing so. The majority also use social media and CRM tools, whereas experience optimization and collaboration tools are currently used by around a third (37%). However, both of the latter are set for a significant rise. The survey reveals an additional quarter will invest in experience optimization and collaboration tools in the next year.

Hey, DM's, check this out… Seeking Solutions and Going Global: A View from dmexco 2017 – MarTech Series https://t.co/5PPGwMxfwP

— Gabe Hernandez – The Witness (@MrGabeHernandez) October 12, 2017

Touchdown 2018

It is clear from the report that the businesses seek greater authority and a sense of control—a key driver to invest in MarTech. While MarTech industry continues to grow at a blitzkrieg pace, future investments would be largely driven by product innovations relevant to the company’s maturity in adopting technologies for marketing, sales, and advertisement.

From Big Data, the market has equivocally and in unison accepted that “real-time, right data’ is far more penetrative than anything else in the business. As customer data makes a daunting approach towards establishing itself as “digital currency” to reckon with, marketing technology platforms have more to cheer about in 2018. All this, thanks to a series of phenomenal “martech’ moments that occurred in 2017…

What You Need To Know About Video

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December 29, 2017

What We Learned From Video: MarTech 2017

How Will Video Fit in to Your Strategy Next Year? Here’s What The Smartest People in MarTech Had To Say About Using Video As A Tool

‘How We Measure Viewability Will Change’

Dave Gullo – Co-Founder and CTO, VideoAmp: Existing viewability metrics are a reaction to an industry that got too cozy with low quality and often fraudulent traffic sources. In the next two years, more Video will be bought directly, using automation and data. This changes the dynamic of how the industry should measure viewability – if you are getting guaranteed fill from verified sources, other metrics should matter more.

On target audience as a notion is also changing rapidly. The digital and OTT markets should not just move to a GRP-style buy, it doesn’t serve advertisers or media owners well at all. If the goal of a campaign is to reach SUV buyers, there are much better targeting methods than Adults 25-54. We firmly believe in the rise of advanced currencies: taking first party data and/or verified offline data and use that as your audience proxy. How many of those people did you reach at a 1:1 level? What were the business outcomes that those people delivered?

‘Header Bidding Has Been A Gamechanger’

Dvir Doron – Chief Marketing Officer, Cedato: Video advertising continues to evolve, in part due to its increasing popularity. The advent of header bidding particularly has been a game changer for our industry in the way it levels the playing field for publishers. When applied to video, header bidding makes it possible for publishers to monetize more efficiently than ever before.

Some have dismissed it as a ‘publisher hack’ but I see header bidding becoming an industry standard over time. It offers transparency and evens the playing field for everyone.

‘Video Has Relied On Vanity Metrics For Too Long’

Thomas Madsen-Mygdal – Co-founder and CEO, TwentyThree: Second to in-person conversations, video is the strongest communication method we have. The main trend we’re seeing and driving is video integration being a core element of a company’s marketing stack. We’re seeing a trend in harnessing and supporting all the employees working and communicating with video.
Just as they do with all other communication elements. Video has long been a second level citizen of the marketing stack, relying on vanity metrics like views. With video marketing platforms, we’re seeing the change that is necessary to properly measure and analyze video content.

‘The Trojan Horse Of Digital Marketing’

Steve Ellis – Founder and CEO, WHOSAY: It’s essential to have a long-term strategy where you take your video content and ads and target the kinds of customers your business is trying to reach today. Video allows you to retain and monitor which of those customers interact with your content the deepest, and then over time you will be able to turn them into paying customers by retargeting the most engaged with offers and calls to action. Video content is the trojan horse of digital marketing.

‘Your Creative Has To Be On Steroids’

Jessica Hawthorne-Castro – CEO and Chairman, Hawthorne: Touchpoints with consumers are becoming more and more specific and customized. That’s the natural progression and it’s not new. With that customization, every other piece of the engagement puzzle feels the impact of a tenfold increase as well. So that means your creative becomes more specific and targeted to the consumers, which means an increased investment in creative and resources as well. You can’t just create one campaign for the entire brand. You must create multiple creative and digital elements for a specific type of person customized for how they want to interact with the brand. Your creative has to be on steroids and you have to have multiple versions and iterations of it.

From a marketing perspective, everyone is working harder because the consumer is demanding that they work harder. Consumers aren’t as interested in a brand as they used to be. A recent article in Ad Age about the “millennial dilemma” basically said millennials don’t care about your brand. That’s true. It is the “Me” generation so that’s how you have to go about it. It does mean more of an investment either from the agency or the brand side, and it may mean smaller margins for people who were used to making more, but you can’t fight it. That’s the way the world is going, and it’s why you have to think a little bit smarter and incorporate things like advanced analytics for targeting and automation to get some economies of scale in terms of the investment.

One thing with analytics is that very smart teams of data scientists are working hard at constantly improving it, but at the end of the day the next big iteration will be artificial intelligence (AI). An automated analytics program that “learns” and naturally becomes smarter and smarter will be the next big shift for data analytics. We’re not quite there yet, and there are a lot of conversations among some of the top scientists in the world about the meaning of AI to humans right now. It’s important that we set the ground rules now so we’re not acting out a real-life Terminator movie in the future. So, AI is not here yet, but it’s certainly on the horizon.

What We Learned From MarTech CEOs in 2017

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December 29, 2017

Our Interview Series Has The Choicest Industry Experts Sharing Precious Insights From Their Years Of Experience. Here’s A List Of The Key Takeaways From CEOs that MTS Spoke To

We did the work so you wouldn’t have to. Here is a round-up of some crucial learning from the last year in MarTech Interview Series.

“Bots Will Empathize”

Alok Kulkarni – CEO, Co-Founder, Cyara: The very dynamic nature of providing a personalized service to the consumer with a bot can be challenging because of the vast minutiae involved with personalization. Human beings do a great job of conversations with empathy and context and are able to have a more emotionally sensitive dialogue with customers reading between the lines instead of the abstract. This can be more difficult to do with a bot. The maturing of AI technology can hopefully solve these challenges.

Another critical pain point is providing connected journeys— which is a major focus for us at Cyara. If the customer needs assisted service and the virtual agent is not able to transfer the interaction with context to a customer service agent, customers get really annoyed. It’s the number one customer-facing issue that was identified as part of a Frost & Sullivan survey we commissioned last year. It can be achieved but there is currently limited visibility if you don’t have an assurance solution like Cyara.

“Emotions Drive Behavior”

Jared Feldman – Founder and CEO, Canvs: Traditional engagement metrics are evolving, and it’s not enough to just spark a simple click or “like.” Emotions drive behavior and advertisers must aim to strike an emotional chord with audiences, and form an ongoing connection and narrative that consumers (and fans) can relate to and believe in. With the advent of ad-blocking technologies, advertisers will create more personalized experiences and serve more relevant ads.

In regards to digital advertising formats, expect traditional banner ads and interstitials to be traded in for more innovative, interactive formats. Adtech vendors must start improving the piping to widely distribute mobile rich media at a massive scale, because new dynamic formats like interscroller, mosaic, chatbot, etc. have resulted in increased engagement and better user experience.

Read More: Are You GDPR Ready?

“The Messaging Industry is Evolving”

Beerud Sheth – Co-Founder and CEO, Gupshup: Many years ago, we saw the emergence of messaging as a platform for advanced services, not just a tool for person-to-person communication. Initially, the only messaging channel available was SMS, but today you have many other IP and voice-based messaging channels. We have developed the most advanced platform to help businesses build conversational experiences. Gupshup has substantial product leadership and customer traction.

The training free NLP platform is ideal for building NLP Bots quickly and easily. It is already pre-trained with vast amount of common knowledge. When a developer provides a user query along with possible intents, the NLP platform will automatically classify the query to the right intent. When used in conjunction with an authoring tool – provided by Gupshup – it enables the development of sophisticated NLP bots quickly and easily.

The messaging industry continues to evolve from Telecom messaging to IP based messaging. Chatbots enable the development of rich conversation experiences across any messaging channel. The two are very complementary.

“Transparency Will Increase in the Media Supply Chain”

Michael Driscoll – CEO, Metamarkets: The biggest development that’s going to impact the programmatic sector is the convergence of martech and adtech. We’re starting to see marketers getting more hands on and involved with programmatic technologies. As that happens, the language of marketing will start to permeate and eventually dominate the language of ad tech. So, for example, ad tech teams talk about impressions, auctions, bid requests and bid responses – but marketers talk about people, campaigns and actions. The martech language is likely to be what ad tech adopts as part of this convergence.

The biggest challenge is that of the tension between cooperation and defection in the industry. Marketers want to see cooperation between the major ad tech channels, in terms of standardizing metrics and sharing data about audiences and performance. But unfortunately, the biggest players, namely the duopoly of Facebook and Google, have a plenty of incentives to defect and operate by their own rules. That’s a significant challenge for the long-term success of programmatic, but marketers will play a key role in demanding cooperation, as they are the ones writing the checks that these channels need to survive.

One of the biggest trends this year is the push marketers are making for more transparency into the media supply chain this year. There’s a critical need to unify and consolidate data from disparate channels into a single source of truth. I believe that ultimately, transformative transparency will require transformative technology. If marketers really want to own that transparency and get event-level data about their campaigns, they’ll have to make significant investments in infrastructure because of the unique scale and complexity of programmatic data. Marketers are going to have to make a number of important choices on what they build or buy to create the next generation marketing stack for their organization.

“IoT Will Upend the Traditional Contact Center Agent”

Tom Goodmanson, President and CEO, Calabrio: The emergence of smart technology and IoT will continue to change the definition of a customer service representative. One of the benefits of connected devices and appliances is that they can report issues directly to the company, completely bypassing the need for consumers to contact the brand when an issue arises. The question then becomes, “Who is the ‘contact center agent’?” In many cases, this is going to be a repair person or someone in manufacturing who can fix the issue directly. We will see that it’ll become increasingly challenging to define who the front line of customer experience is in the world of IoT. This will require companies to rethink about how they train, staff and equip different departments across an organization as the role of customer service becomes the responsibility of employees beyond the traditional contact center agent.

Five Things That Marketers Need to STOP Doing in 2018

By

Joe Hyland

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December 29, 2017

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5 Things That Marketers Need to STOP Doing in 2018

Embracing every new Martech “solution”

Let’s face it, there are now more than 5,000, yes 5,000, martech companies that all claim to hold an important place in your martech stack. Not possible. Curate your partners to only the ones that truly engage, convert and win over prospects and help drive your revenue.

Thinking that Account-Based Marketing (ABM) will solve everything

Sure, ABM is a valuable marketing approach, but maybe because many marketers have been executing these high-touch, personalized campaigns focused on a specific account, for some time now. I’d instead recommend marketers focus on improved ABM technologies that help us more effectively know who the buyers are and have conversations with them.

Assuming your Martech stack is magically integrated

Guess what, it probably isn’t. Unfortunately, most martech solutions have a very loose definition of integration and interoperability. Why on-board martech vendor solutions at all unless you are 100% sure they are all working together? It’s worth a conversation with your marketing ops lead.

Focusing on quantity of leads

I say this everywhere I go, it’s about quality of engagement, NOT quantity. Marketers will see better results by pursuing high-touch experiences and redefining how their leads are qualified, including the prospect’s likelihood to purchase. I’d rather have 100 highly-engaged prospects than a pipeline of 5,000 contacts we got from a form fill.

Ignoring your database

Chances are, if you aren’t spending time with your CRM platform, its data is garbage. It’s a terribly common problem, as the quality of the information we put in, directly dictates the effectiveness of what we get out. That data must include prospects’ and customers’ behavior as they interact with content. Arm your salesforce with that information and those insights will separate merely a list of names from the real sales opportunities.

4 Ways to Make T-Commerce Work for You in 2018

By

Tripp Boyle

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December 29, 2017