Interview with Piero Pavone, Co-Founder and COO at MainAd

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August 18, 2017

TechBytes with Max Leletskyi, Head of Media Acquisition at GDM Group

Max Leletsky
Head of Media Acquisition at GDM Group

New marketing technologies, largely driven by data analytics and mobile experiences, are gradually replacing traditional engagements. New-age mobile experience offers greater revenue by enabling publishers to monetize their inventory. Affiliate marketing, however, continues to run smoothly and remains aligned to legacy systems. We spoke to Max Leletskyi, Head of Media Acquisition at GDM Group, to understand how data-driven solutions for global advertising would drive automation.

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MTS: Why are some advertisers indifferent to their affiliates’ promotion methods?

Max Leletskyi: The rapid advancement in development of ad formats and their application over the last couple of years keeps even the most seasoned marketing experts on their toes, constantly checking the news. For many advertisers, the marketing stack required to comply with these advancements might get downright confusing. It would take up valuable time to get an in-depth perspective on all innovations in the field and even more time to optimize based on that perspective. That’s why advertisers often go to networks or private affiliates, as good communication streamlines the process.

MTS: How can advertisers make affiliates’ lives easier and vice versa?

Max Leletskyi: Addressing the previous point, proper communication is vital. It is common behavior among advertisers to make massive optimizations without sharing their reasoning beyond, “it doesn’t work for us.” While the actual cause is often valid, opening a dialogue could create new solutions based on both sides’ information and vision. Otherwise, trust diminishes and cooperation gets formulaic and rigid, which stifles innovation and progress.

MTS: Should advertisers enforce strict control over each step of their promotion or give affiliates space for more creative approaches?

Max Leletskyi: The answer is somewhere in the middle, leaning toward creative freedom. There are numerous tools monitoring the most threatening activities for the advertiser, but none serve up creative ideas for promotion. If the matter of concern is specific representation of the brand and meticulous crafting of its image – that’s a job for the in-house media buy team. As long as creativity stays within a brand-safe and legal space, there are foolproof methods of measuring traffic output according to each advertiser’s KPIs, which should give them a picture of what works and what doesn’t as well as a sufficient degree of control over the promotion of their brand.

MTS: What is the most mutually beneficial way of dividing risks between advertisers and affiliates/networks?

Max Leletskyi: Networks are fully responsible for traffic quality and compliance of ad creatives. Advertisers are obliged to pay for all traffic except fraud, up until they ask to pause that traffic + 2 business days for the network to execute. Again, regular feedback from advertisers as traffic matures is vital. Depending on the flow, rebill rate, frequency of traffic evaluation and other metrics on the advertiser’s side, it is important to not only analyze the first day traffic quality or the percentage of first time deposits, but also retention rate – weekly, biweekly, monthly and so on. Providing affiliate networks with this data will make the business more transparent, reduce low quality traffic volumes and distinguish high quality traffic faster.

MTS: Should advertisers take affiliates’ suggestions on improving their product and ad creatives?

Absolutely. Effective promotion is facilitated by a shared vision from both sides of the spectrum. Missing that perspective would be missing a huge chunk of data that would help the marketing campaign immensely, especially with creatives. Affiliates track performance on their end to see what converts, and they certainly want to make money. Why not listen to what they have to say? I personally know several cases of affiliates becoming official advertisers’ advisors or successful affiliate-to-advertiser transformations, which prove the idea that successful affiliates possess the skillset needed to create and sell services online.

MTS: What traffic sources would dictate the future of affiliate marketing?

Max Leletskyi: Video and native ads are at the forefront of online marketing right now, and they’re showing no signs of stopping. It also seems there is a trend of native ad networks actively implementing video ad formats. As the traffic ecosystem matures, it’s getting harder and harder to join the game. Bigger companies with budgets to spend take over the market, so traffic sources adapt to the changes and try to offer all types of appropriate inventory immediately. This industry evolves so quickly, it’s very challenging to predict what the market is going to demand in two years. That’s why a lot of startups never go live or don’t meet their goals after launch.

For now, there is no other traffic source as engaging to the user and as high quality as video ads. Perhaps VR will play a role in the next five years, but we’re not quite there yet.

MTS: When is automation going to take the human factor out of the advertising cycle?

Max Leletskyi: For those concerned that automation may take over affiliate advertising in the future, I don’t agree. It seems unlikely that automation will exclude the human factor completely, unless AI develops to the point of obtaining consciousness and creative thinking – at which point we will have different concerns altogether. Imagining a brand — its look and message — is exclusively a human task. Otherwise, the bots might as well run the company.

MTS: How could consumers be educated about fraudulent advertising?

Max Leletskyi: This is an important topic given the huge variety of ad formats and funnels. Email phishing looks like an ordinary reminder to reset your password, one-click flow pin submits may not warn you about the cost of the service, a sweepstakes pop-up ad might look like a discount on the site you subscribed to, or imitate a social media platform’s interface. The best advice is to analyze what you see and apply common sense. Make sure that you provide your private details to trusted services; it can save a lot of money and trouble. While some of the fraudulent funnels like content locking might be harmless unless you download .zip or .exe files to get to your pirated content, others may include auto-downloads or the blue screen of death, which leaves you no choice but to call tech support.

MTS: How can regular internet users be educated about fraudulent advertising techniques?

Max Leletskyi: This is difficult to answer. As the industry develops and provides new opportunities, fraudsters are close behind to take advantage. Most of the time we read articles about specific types of fraud only when they’ve had a massive impact, but usually by that time it’s too late. Of course, prevention is key, but it’s very hard to predict what’s around the corner in the online world.

MTS: Thanks for chatting with us, Max.

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

Data Provider Datonics Integrates with AppNexus’ Data Marketplace

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August 17, 2017

Datonics’ Proprietary Search, Purchase-Intent, Life-Stage, Demographic And B2b Data Now Available To Marketers And Advertisers Using Appnexus

Datonics, a leading independent online data provider, has been fully integrated into AppNexus’ Data Marketplace. This addition of Datonics data will allow marketers to accurately target audiences by incorporating Datonics’ proprietary search, purchase-intent, life-stage, demographic and B2B data into their online marketing campaigns.

Datonics is a subsidiary of AlmondNet, is the Internet’s leading independent aggregator and distributor of highly granular and proprietary search, purchase-intent, life-stage, demographic and B2B data.

Datonics offers marketers a plethora of options for audience segments, including 550+ pre-packaged and an unlimited number of custom keyword-derived segments, based on high-quality search, purchase intent, life-stage and B2B data on 180+ million US and Canadian users.

Datonics Offers Precise Audience-Targeting to Better Marketing Efforts

Michael Benedek, CEO of Datonics spoke to us about this development. Michael said, “In addition to pre-packaged segments, Datonics offers partners the ability to create an unlimited number of custom segments based on keyword lists provided by their marketers, thus enabling a very granular approach to reaching the target audience of the marketer.”

Benedek added, “We’re happy to be fully integrated into AppNexus’ Data Marketplace. As a longstanding partner of AppNexus, we are seeing the value that our data is bringing to marketers. We are committed to providing marketers with the best quality, accurate, privacy-sensitive and safe third-party data, and look forward to continuing working with marketers through AppNexus.”

Daniel Smith, Director, Strategic Partnerships at AppNexus, said,“ “Having worked with Datonics for many years, we know the value that their data provides to marketers. We are pleased to have their data fully integrated into our Data Marketplace and extend the enhanced targeting capabilities Datonics’ data offers to our clients.”

Target Industry Professionals Based on Demographic Data

In addition to its roots in search and purchase-intent data, Datonics has become a leading player in B2B and demographic data. The B2B data has allowed marketers to target industry professionals based on occupation titles such as educators, travel professionals, financial services experts and many others. These segments are coupled with Datonics’ Career and Employment segments that classify users according to career levels like entry level, mid-level, and C-level positions.

Datonics’ demographic data incorporates age and gender segments along with additional attributes such as income, marital status, education level and language of origin.

Based on its overall data, Datonics now provides a comprehensive picture of online behavior, allowing marketers to pinpoint their campaigns to precise, target audiences that align with their marketing objectives

Apps: Good for Your Business and Your Health

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Adam Cohen-Aslatei

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August 17, 2017

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Apps: Good for Your Business and Your Health

Mobile gaming in 2016 forever changed the way people use their smartphones. The reinvention of two different children’s media franchises, Pokémon and Mario, paved the way for some of the year’s biggest mobile advertising trends. However, it’s not just the popularity of Pokémon Go and Mario Run that is staggering. The important business implications and new opportunities for marketers to engage with audiences are the true game changers.

One of the first businesses to take advantage of the game as a marketing tool was Huge Cafe in Atlanta. This coffee shop is run by the Huge advertising agency as a pseudo-research facility, and the agency tested a new take on one of digital advertising’s most powerful units—value exchange. Customers were told to find a Pokémon near Huge that would be redeemable for a free cup of coffee. The agency saw an uptick in store traffic and sales, with an increase of over 27 percent in just one day. Many other cafes and restaurants eventually picked up on this out-of-game marketing tactic. In another instance, a local pizzeria in New York City saw sales increase by 75 percent by just spending $1.19 an hour on an in-game reward that lured Pokémon (and Pokémon Go players) to a single, physical location. By encouraging potential customers to engage with their business via a popular gaming app, Huge and other businesses saw higher amounts of in-store visits and sales.

While some may argue that Pokémon Go is running out of gas and Mario Run hasn’t created the expected stock bump for Nintendo, the business implications of these gaming phenomena will be long lasting. That, and maybe also the quirky fact that according to one report, Pokémon could even help you lose weight (1 lbs in 5 days by some estimates). Outside of helping customers achieve smaller waistlines, your brand can provide all types of value enhancing experiences via gaming and augmented reality (AR). The proliferation of these mobile gaming apps has taught us some great lessons on how to do it effectively:

1. Fish Where the Fish Are

Audiences are clearly spending quite a bit of time in mobile applications, with an average of three hours per day. Of that, on one day this summer, the average Pokémon Go player spent 33 minutes compared to 22 minutes on Facebook and 18 minutes on Snapchat. This statistic is not a Pokémon-only anomaly. Consumer time spent in gaming apps is sizable, representing a total of 15 percent according to Flurry. In fact, the average time spent in the popular app Game of War was measured at over two hours daily and users spent over 43 minutes per day playing Candy Crush. Importantly, users who spend time in games are more receptive to ads: according to Woobi, 66 percent of respondents want more opportunities to earn game rewards through ads.

2. Provide True Value to Consumers

With consumers spending so much active, engaged time in mobile apps, games become an ideal environment for advertisers to reach targeted audiences. And brands are still under-spending on mobile. On average, people spend 25 percent of their media time with mobile while brands only spend 12 percent of their ad budget in the medium. The solution requires more than an increase in mobile spending. Brands must spend the right way. They must create and deliver custom experiences that provide value. These experiences can include traditional product placement opportunities, as seen in games like Kim Kardashian’s Hollywood, that feature up-and-coming fashion and makeup brands. They can also include value exchange placements that provide custom rewards and missions.

Sephora’s chatbot in the messaging app Kik rewards people with exclusive mobile deals and discounts on products for completing short questionnaires. The benefit of this method is that the brand doesn’t need to create any additional infrastructure. The value exchange tactic encourages consumers to engage with the app in a way that is non-interruptive and on their own terms. Brands must be willing to work to create an immersive, emotional experience for audiences, and in exchange, they will receive genuine, human engagement.

3. Don’t be Afraid to Experiment

Pokémon Go became a bonafide global success because it fit seamlessly into the lives of its users. As people move around and make their way to work or school, Pokémon Go encourages them to find and battle Pokémon along the way. The app’s popularity shows how consumers are open and willing to integrate a mobile experience in their everyday lives. It has changed the way millions of people behave, which is something only a handful of companies can claim to have achieved.

How brands learn and apply lessons from these mobile apps remains to be seen, but the impacts have already been enormous. The AR technology application has disrupted the norms of mobile advertising, but also shown the flexibility of the mobile platform and the potential for even more creative ways for brands to engage with customers on the go. Mobile apps like Superhero Workout, where users have to do real-world exercises like arm punches and crunches to defeat enemies, and Ink Hunter, where users can create and try on custom tattoos, are also providing new opportunities for brands to reach their consumers using VR/AR technology. And with big companies like Facebook, Sony, Google, and HTC investing billions into VR hardware, this is just the beginning for VR/AR games.

As long as apps implement technology that is complementary and authentic to people’s real-world experiences, they will build a strong foundation for success. And if you weren’t convinced of the benefits of AR and gaming for your brand, at least now you know that Pokémon could help you lose weight too!

How CMOs Can Turn Analytics into their Secret Weapon

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Absolutdata

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August 17, 2017

How CMOs Can Turn Analytics into their Secret Weapon

True consumer connection has always been a key aspect of marketing, but because the industry is changing quickly, consumers are looking for more than just an emotional connection to a brand. While the emotional connection is foundational, it’s also elusive. Analytics provide the data and statistics needed to more accurately measure audience reach.

Nearly every industry is seeing an explosion in the use of big data and analytics to drive business decisions, but the benefits of this phenomenon are no more marked than in the marketing industry. When it comes to marketing, the outcomes of big data are real and immediate, and they easily impact the bottom line. Marketers can better reach niche audiences and craft more personalized campaigns.

Big data poses a huge obstacle for marketers, as well. CMOs are increasingly pressured to make use of advanced technologies that have traditionally fallen out of their wheelhouse, but only one-fifth of CMOs feel prepared to take the leap. CMOs struggle to tap into big data’s enormous opportunities, and don’t always feel supported by the IT department.

But don’t despair. There are crucial steps to managing the influx of big data that any marketing professional can take.

Identify Problems for Analytics to Solve: Without focus, even the strongest data is pointless and unusable. Before marketers can jump into collecting as much data as possible, they must first define a problem for data to solve. If big data isn’t a fit for the business’ bottom line, then it becomes mere hype, which leads to disappointment, wasted resources, and bitter challenges in later adopting big data when it’s finally deemed to be useful. Marketing professionals who map out a direction and set goals for analytics data are always one step ahead than those who dive straight in. Think of the roadmap like a safety net that ensures that the business will achieve a high return on marketing spend. When every initiative is tied to clear, measurable goals, high ROI is anyone’s game. Data can save CMOs the hassle of relying on subjective emotions and in turn empower them to innovate their own decision-making processes. But none of this can be achieved without the understanding of problems whose answers lie in big data.

Always Analyze the Significance of Any Data: Once CMOs gather data—whether it is consumer behavior patterns or other statistics—they must then weigh its significance. It’s no easy feat to mine through data and pick the strongest statistics, but it’s necessary because not every data calculation deserves a place at the table. CMOs should remember that quality is better than quantity when it comes to big data metrics. Especially in the age of hyper-informed consumers with shifting demands, carefully selected data helps CMOs keep pace without getting bogged down. How can marketing managers most effectively analyze the data? With clear communication and a regular transfer of information. It’s critical to deliver the right insights to the right marketers on the team, whether they’re PPC marketers or social media managers. Every stakeholder needs access to analytical information, and education in how the data can drive results. It’s pretty easy to reach data overload with big teams, and it’s important to carefully walk the line between sharing too much and too little data within the department—which comes back to the CMO continually improving their ability to pick and choose the most significant metrics. Otherwise, the whole marketing department will fall victim to big data overload and won’t be able to gather highly useful insights.

Create a Team of Analytics Experts: Yes, technology paves the way for generating data, but it’s nothing without a solid team of both analytics and marketing talent. The numbers don’t interpret themselves. It takes a team of people who are passionate about analytics and knowledgeable about your market to evolve the business into one truly driven by data. Instead, companies are wise to partner with a firm or to create internal analytics positions who can assist not only marketing but other departments as well.

As big data analytics continues to evolve and become more accessible, CMOs who realize its importance are able to reach new heights of customer engagement.

Sprout Social Unveils Bot Builder Offering for Facebook Messenger to Personalize Human Conversations

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August 17, 2017

Sprout Social ranked #3 on Battery Venture’s 25 Highest Rated Public Cloud Computing Companies to Work for

The New Bot-Builder Platform From Sprout Social Enables Brands To Create Customized Automated Conversational Workflows For Improved Customer Service On Facebook

Marketers are seeking chatbots–in fact, 80% of high-level marketers plan to implement bots by 2020. Sprout Social has cateredto this need, launching Bot Builder for Facebook Messenger. The tool enables brands to create, preview and deploy custom chatbots in a matter of minutes, without extensive developer knowledge or external resources.

There are currently 100,000 active bots on Facebook Messenger, and tools like Sprout’s Bot Builder, would mean that this number will only continue to rise. Implementing chatbots and embracing their potential enables brands to better serve their customers via Messenger and streamline customer support on that channel.

Bot Builder for Facebook Messenger A Personalized Customer Service Agent

Andrew Caravella, Vice President, Strategy & Brand Engagement at Sprout Social said, “Turning to chatbots is well worth the investment in today’s e-commerce and social selling environment. Social media is consumers’ top choice for seeking customer service support and as a result, customer service teams are fielding an ever-increasing volume of requests.”

We asked Andrew if bots justify MarTech investments, especially for B2B engagement. He replied, “Chatbots alleviate that struggle by efficiently gathering all necessary details of each customer issue, then handing over a fully-formed case to a human customer service agent to offer support. It’s a perfect example of what happens when man and machine tag team in the right way.”

Bot Builder Opens New Avenues for Consumer Acceptance of Automation

Aaron Rankin, CTO of Sprout Social, said, “At Sprout, we believe truly great technology simply enhances and facilitates human conversations, and that is what we set out to do with our Bot Builder. Our tool makes it easy for businesses to provide the instant response people are looking for while ensuring customer service agents can seamlessly pick up queries that require more nuanced assistance. The strong foundation that Facebook Messenger has built for chatbots has also made inroads in consumer acceptance of automation, so offering an accessible Bot Builder was a natural next step.”

Sprout’s Bot Builder for Facebook setup wizard enables brands to take only a few short steps to customize and set up their bots, greatly reducing internal friction and the need for outside resources and support. Sprout debuted this tool for Twitter Direct Messages in July, after allowing early access to select customers, including Evernote, Monarch and Bloomsbury. In fact, since implementing Bot Builder, Evernote has served 80 percent more customers on Twitter per week while reducing the number of replies in each conversation by 18 percent.

As with Sprout’s Bot Builder for Twitter, the Messenger version enables brands to turn to simple, rule-based logic to support customers and automate the delivery of personalized marketing experiences.

In a customer service scenario, upon entering the Messenger chat, the user is greeted with a preset opening reply with options for where to head next, depending on their query. By the time the case is handed over to the human agent, he or she has all the details needed and can efficiently assistresolving the query.

Andrew said that SproutSocial would most likely bring out the Bot Builder version 2.0 later this year. He said, “We plan to release a version 2.0 that will support more complex interactions and enable the brand to configure multiple pathways for the bot conversation that go several layers deep, all built with rules-based logic.”

Currently, Sprout Social offers social media management, analytics and advocacy solutions for leading agencies and brands, including Hyatt, GrubHub, Microsoft, Uber, and Zendesk. Available in the web browser, and as iOS, and Android apps, Sprout’s engagement platform enables brands to more effectively communicate on social channels, collaborate across teams and provide an exceptional customer experience.

Bambu by Sprout Social, a platform for advocacy, empowers employees to share curated content across their social networks to further amplify a brand’s reach and engagement. Headquartered in Chicago, Sprout is a Twitter Official Partner, Facebook Marketing Partner, Instagram Partner Program Member, LinkedIn Company Page Partner and Google+ Pages API Partner.

Recommended Read: comScore Adds Facebook Demographic Metrics to vCE

Artificial Intelligence: Marketing’s New Ally

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Michelle Huff

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August 17, 2017

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It’s a feeling too many customers and prospects know: the sense that they’re simply spokes in a brand’s wheel, rarely recognized for the individuals they are. Marketed to as if they’re part of one big blob, static and unmoving, when what they crave most is personalization – messages timed to where they find themselves in a given day, tailored to their needs and interests.

Put yourself in their shoes, if you can. What would you do if you paid a website a visit and got back a generic email for your troubles? Something bland and impersonal that seemed to know nothing about you? Wouldn’t you delete it without a second thought and question whether that brand deserved your business?

Also Read: The Influencer Economy is Booming

It’s a conundrum we might’ve solved in eras past with segmentation and personas – identifying the characteristics common across a specific group (their habits, their preferences), adjusting our outreach accordingly – but trying to go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach, at the level expected by today’s buyers, is hard to scale. Customers engage with businesses across a variety of digital touch points (websites, social media, etc.), on multiple mobile devices. They expect a more customized experience throughout.

That’s what makes artificial intelligence and machine learning so compelling to the modern marketer, and why we’re likely to only see more of it in the technologies marketers leverage.

We can already see glimmers of this zeitgeist in some of the consumer applications now on the market – in any number of offerings from Google, for instance: Google Lens, which gives consumers the ability to learn more about a business simply by snapping a picture; Google Assistant and GoogleHome, which account for and respond to trends in buyers’ daily habits.

The thinking behind these products is simple – consumers require solutions that can adjust to their real-time movements, and want individualized shopping experiences. It only makes sense for B2B marketing technologies to follow suit, enabling personalized, one-to-one interactions in real-time across the customer journey.

If anything, AI and machine learning mark natural evolutions in these technologies. Marketing automation, for instance, has always served as a particularly efficient engine for gathering and activating engagement data (details on buyers’ histories, behaviors, general shopping habits), and is uniquely positioned to transform how marketers approach the customer journey. AI will empower marketers to build Adaptive Journeys™ that adapt to each individual and their preferred channel and send time and delivers the most relevant message in real-time as the customer goes about their research and discovery process. The journeys that buyers travel don’t keep to the straight lines we think; there are twists, there are turns, and marketers must make every effort they can to accommodate these in real time – to be proactive, where they once were reactive. That’s why it’s important for marketers to embrace this Adaptive Journeys concept, and for brands as a whole to leverage technologies capable of supporting these fluid, real-time customer journeys.

Also Read: Four Tips to Design an Analytics Product that Democratizes Data

We can look at the evolution of mapping technologies to explain the Adaptive Journeys concept, looking specifically at Waze technology that knows where the driver is on their route and can predict the best commute for them based on real-time traffic conditions and external factors; ultimately recommending the best path the driver should take to get to their destination most efficiently.

More importantly: this is the kind of continuous learning marketers require in order to deliver the customized experiences their buyers expect, and also the functionality they should prioritize in solutions they implement.

We need to be agile in how we respond to and care for our customers, and our customers, in turn, need to feel like more than just a number. AI and machine learning can allow for this, and make our lives easier in ways we don’t expect – serving, perhaps, as more of a recommendation engine for us than an outright replacement for the work we do; something that suggests the best path forward, which we then choose for ourselves, so that we’re freed up to be more creative, more strategic. The future of marketing is adaptive. Let’s greet it with open arms.

Also Read: 3 Questions Every Marketer Must Ask When It Comes to Brand Safety

Mindmatrix Brings Partner Relationship Management (PRM), Channel Marketing Automation & Channel Sales Enablement on a Single Platform

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August 17, 2017

Mindmatrix, a leading native Channel Enablement Software Provider in the industry, is offering all the 3 core elements of Channel Enablement on a single platform. These elements are —

– Partner Relationship Management (PRM)

– Channel Marketing Automation

– Channel Sales Enablement

Most other vendors either enable one or two of the three core elements; or have partnered with others to offer all the three elements. For Partner Relationship Management (PRM), Mindmatrix offers partner portals and tools for partner recruitment, training, onboarding and certification, incentive and rewards management, opportunity management, lead routing and MDF management.

Mindmatrix helps corporate marketing teams support channel partners more effectively through its channel marketing automation module. Mindmatrix’s channel marketing automation segment offers tools for centralized local marketing, lead generation, social media marketing and channel marketing asset management.

Mindmatrix also offers tools that simplify the channel sales model, making it easy for channel partners to sell. These features are a part of its sales enablement module for channels and include Playbooks, Distributed CRM Integration, E-Contract Signing, Guided Sales Solution Selling and CPQ Engine.

Maria Chien, Service Director of Channel Marketing Strategies at SiriusDecisions, says, “As suppliers invest in channel solutions to automate workflow, scale program capabilities and streamline processes, they should include interoperability as a key consideration for delivering a positive partner experience. A core tenet of a positive partner experience is the ease of doing business, which is largely driven by the optimization of the workstreams associated with each partner touch point. Channel organizations must evaluate current and future technology investments to determine which tools are necessary to support channel business needs, paying special attention to possible integrations with existing technologies.”

Currently, Mindmatrix is the only single, fully integrated platform offering complete sales and marketing enablement for direct and indirect sales. Mindmatrix combines Partner Relationship Management (PRM), Channel Marketing, Asset Management, Sales Enablement, and Marketing Automation for the complete enablement of your sales and marketing teams. This unified platform takes you through every step in the sales process from lead to revenue, enabling your sales channels to sell more, faster.

LeadMaster Selects ConnectLeader’s Sales Acceleration Platform for CRM Integration and Automated Workflow

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August 17, 2017

ConnectLeader, a leading innovator in B2B sales acceleration technologies, announced that LeadMaster has selected its award-winning Sales Acceleration Platform for product integration. Both Click Dialer^® and Personal Dialer^® are now seamlessly integrated with LeadMaster’s CRM offering to provide a lead-generation solution with up to 100% more calling productivity while enabling a truly automated workflow for all sales levels.

Russ King, CEO of LeadMaster, said, “There are hundreds of CRM-based sales tools on the market today, but few offer a true workflow, e-marketing and custom forms that easily become part of an existing CRM platform–without requiring a major investment. ConnectLeader provides us with a set of premium sales tools, that look and perform like they are developed by sales representatives rather than a solution created by techs who have never worked the phones or nurtured leads.”

LeadMaster helps organizations to better manage clients, as well as automate and streamline their marketing processes. In addition, the company’s cloud-based CRM offering helps customers capture, nurture and convert leads while adapting to all business sectors such as call centers, healthcare, insurance, real estate and others.

In order to differentiate themselves in the market, LeadMaster knew they did not need just another auto dialing product. They needed a progressive solution, customizable by age groups, such as Millennials, to make prospecting more enjoyable while also providing analytics and data mining for more advanced lead-generation.

“We customize our offering to serve up an interface to match the preferences of any age group. No matter what we come up with, ConnectLeader’s sales automation seamlessly integrates to help us more than double the calls made manually,” King added.

ConnectLeader’s Sales Acceleration Platform is a patented Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that provides individuals in all types of sales roles the ability to increase their top line revenue by increasing productivity — up to 800%. LeadMaster is currently using the following platform offerings:

Click Dialer^® – Click-to-call software residing within LeadMaster that allows users to simply click and dial any phone number, take notes, leave a voice message, send email, and quickly move onto the next prospect.
Personal Dialer^® – Power dialing software that expands the Click Dialer features to allow users to seamlessly dial using a patented visibility and control capability while power dialing—improving sales productivity from 30% to 100% compared to manual dialing.

Additional sales acceleration features include–

Team Dialer^® – An agent-assisted dialing solution that takes power dialing to the next level by allowing a group of human agents to make 125-150 dials per hour while filtering through non-productive dialing activities such as navigating voice mail systems, dealing with gatekeepers and leaving voice messages. Using Team Dialer, sales representatives are able to engage in 8 to 12 live conversations per hour with decision makers.
Adaptilytics^® – Analyzes, prioritizes, and scores prospecting lists. The new offering further improves outbound prospecting results by enabling users to customize the prediction algorithm based on a prospect’s installed technology, intent to buy, contact data and the best time to reach.
Data Genie^® – An innovative data-delivery solution that enables ConnectLeader users to add and update accurate contact data directly into their CRM.

“Our close working relationship with LeadMaster has produced impressive tools that give sales teams the ability to quickly target any vertical market, in any size company,” said Senraj Soundar, Founder and CEO, ConnectLeader. “We are proud to help LeadMaster grow and take advantage of the industry’s most recently awarded sales acceleration solution.”

Recently, ConnectLeader announced the availability of their TopRung^Ⓡ sales gamification and performance management tool. TopRung uses the power of team competition to align, adopt, and accelerate sales activities, as well as drive sales process adoption and create more lead generation conversations that become pipeline opportunities.

TechBytes with Samir Addamine, Founder and Chairman, FollowAnalytics

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August 17, 2017

Samir Addamine
Founder and Chairman, FollowAnalytics

In March 2017, Forrester Research recognized FollowAnalytics as a leading Mobile-First Commerce and Messaging platform. The allure of mobile marketing continues to grow with marketers increasingly looking out for powerful “Mobile Moments” that satisfy customer’s desires effectively. We chatted with Samir Addamine, Founder and Chairman, FollowAnalytics, to understand the trends in the mobile marketing automation market and the importance of ‘Mobile Moments’ in marketing campaigns.

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MTS: What are the different mobile marketing automation capabilities that FollowAanalytics provides for Mobile-First engagement?
Samir Addamine: We offer three main areas of automation:

Analyze: Our customers fully understand how people use their app so they can make data-driven decisions about how to interact with their customers. Through event flows and funnels, they can see where users drop off so they can optimize customer journeys. They also have a real time 360° view of their customer across devices, channels, and geographies.
Engage: Build personalized customer journeys that boost long term engagement. Contextual campaigns can be triggered by customer behavior, in-app and custom events, location, profile information and just about any set of inputs, all in real time. Plus because we have native connectivity to CRMs and other tools in your stack, we enable true omnichannel marketing.
Optimize: Our smart multivariate testing lets you make data-supported decisions that ensure you are always sending the right message to the right user. We leverage machine learning to take the guess work out of testing and to continue optimizing your campaigns.

MTS: How suitable is a mobile marketing automation platform for re-engagement and re-targeting?
Samir Addamine: Mobile Marketing Automation is your ace-in-the-hole for re-engagement. First, we suggest you start with good analytics.

By using funnel analysis and smart segments, you can identify groups that have gone quiet and analyze why. Perhaps the messaging wasn’t appropriate. Were you using millennial slang to a baby boomer crowd? Maybe the timing was wrong. Had you messaged them too soon and too frequently after a recent purchase?

Next, you can create re-engagement campaigns designed to bring them back into the fold. A Good MMA suite should provide a full view of the customer, including CRM data, behavioral info, preferences, demographics, etc. So you can and should be creating personalized journeys that speak to each customer in the way they’re best able to receive your message. At FollowAnalytics we like to talk about segments of one. That’s how you should look at your customers. They’re individuals and automation done well gives you the ability to approach them that way.

How does FollowAnalytics make this possible?

Our Analytics suite will surface where you have holes in your funnel. Our Engagement suite will help you build campaigns to re-engage your users and our Optimization tools will help you test and continue to improve them.

MTS: We have heard a lot about “Contextual Campaigns.” How does FollowAnalytics help achieve contextual campaigns?
Samir Addamine: There are basically two ways to campaign that use push and in-app notifications, transactional and contextual. Transactional are the most basic. Think of them as system messages. You complete an action, you get a confirmation.

Contextual are the ones I find more interesting because they’re how we create personalized journeys. They let us build great communication based on variables and triggers. An example would be to send a coupon to customers in the midwest who like soft drinks when they are within a mile of a convenience store and the weather is over 75°F.

That campaign is going to do much better than a batch-and-blast because it’s personal—you know they like soft drinks; relevant—it’s hot out and they’re probably thirsty; and contextual—they’re near the store anyway.

MTS: How do geolocation and analytics govern customer experience in mobile marketing?
Samir Addamine: Geolocation is important because it’s a huge determination of context. (That’s why so many apps ask permission to know your location!) How useful would a weather app be if it gave you updates for the wrong area? Geo is one of the advantages that mobile apps have over the web. Apps can get much more precise, down to what aisle you’re on in a store. With this information, app owners can provide such extreme value (like helping users find something in that store).

Analytics are absolutely critical to understanding what’s working and why. You need to understand what messages are boosting conversions, which are creating opt-outs, where are people getting lost in the app, where are crashes happening, are there points in the funnel where users are dropping off?

MTS: What are “mobile moments” which could enhance brand value?
Samir Addamine: Forrester defines mobile moments as the “point in time and space where someone pulls out a mobile device to get what he or she wants, immediately, in context.” Our customer, Louis Vuitton is doing a beautiful job creating mobile moments with their City Guide app. The app acts as a personalized tour guide providing curated experiences of 25 cities, worldwide. It pulls in CRM data to make recommendations based on user preferences and educated guesses based on segments. Then, when the traveler is near an attraction, it makes recommendations in real time. The result is a customized tour that is unique to each user. The traveler gets this very elite and concierge-level service that is in alignment with the LV brand. It’s quite elegant.

MTS: What is the next possible disruptive technology you see in mobile marketing and automation?
Samir Addamine: Without a doubt, it’s going to be machine learning and AI. When we start talking about personalization and 1:1 customer journeys we are talking about executing on something that gets extremely complex. There is no longer a concept of one generic customer journey that marketers map on a white board and they’re done. Every user is an individual and they interact with your brand across different paths, channels and devices, all in their own time and their own way.

Machine learning and AI are going to be necessary to help marketers keep up with this.

We’ve already introduced AI into our A/B testing tools in order to help marketers test messaging against the infinite number of ways they can segment their database and then continue to optimize the messaging. We see the concept of the “Self Driving Campaign” as the future.

MTS: Thanks for chatting with us, Samir.
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 Giovanni Strocchi, CEO, ADmantX

By

Avinash Duduskar

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August 17, 2017

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

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

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

On Marketing Technology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Is How I Work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]

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

The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.

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

By

-

August 17, 2017

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

Favourable Acquisition Terms and Strong Financial Performance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Acquisition Is Supported by Strong Strategic Rationale

Growth platform

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

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

Strategic Fit

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

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

Scale

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

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

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

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

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

By

-

August 17, 2017

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

Partnership to Boost Video Sales Enablement with Best Content

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Todd Benedict Joins Tapad as Chief Revenue Officer, North America

By

-

August 16, 2017

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

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

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

Benedict Co-founded Primo Platform

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

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

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

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

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

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

By

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August 16, 2017

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

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

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

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

SnapApp Interactive Experiences Featured Nearly 1 Billion Prospect Conversations

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

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

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

SnapApp Delivers Better Content Personalization for Deeper Engagement

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

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

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

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

By

Adam Cohen-Aslatei

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August 16, 2017

2

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

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

The Wild Wild West

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

A Brand-Friendly Solution

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

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

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

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

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

The App Payoff

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

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

Also read: The Do’s and Don’t of Spam

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

By

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August 16, 2017

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

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

Activate Insights, Unlock Data with AI

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

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

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

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

Marketing Technology News: V-Click Technology Officially Launched

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

Bringing a more human-like touch

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

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

Increasing transparency

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

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

Ensuring data privacy

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

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

Fear Not the Machines

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

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

AI is the future of customer experience

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

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

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

By

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August 16, 2017

Christopher Miglino
CEO & Co-Founder at SRAX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MTS: Thanks for chatting with us, Christopher.
Stay tuned for more insights on marketing technologies. To participate in our Tech Bytes program, email us at news@martechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com

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

By

Avinash Duduskar

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August 16, 2017

Jennifer Renaud
Global Marketing Lead at Oracle Marketing Cloud

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

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

On Marketing Technology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Is How I Work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oracle

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

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

The MTS Martech Interview Series is a fun Q&A style chat which we really enjoy doing with martech leaders. With inspiration from Lifehacker’s How I work interviews, the MarTech Series Interviews follows a two part format On Marketing Technology, and This Is How I Work. The format was chosen because when we decided to start an interview series with the biggest and brightest minds in martech – we wanted to get insight into two areas … one – their ideas on marketing tech and two – insights into the philosophy and methods that make these leaders tick.

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

By

Amir Shub

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August 15, 2017