TechBytes with Andries de Villiers, General Manager, Near

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October 24, 2017

Reuters Connect Platform Is Designed To Allow Publishers To Stream Live Coverage To Television, Websites And Social Media Platforms From One Simple, Easy-To-Use Source

Reuters, the world’s largest international multimedia news provider, launched a new live video service providing real-time coverage of up to six concurrent news events for use by television broadcasters and professional video publishers. Available via the Reuters Connect platform for media publishers—which now features access to more than 13 million photos, videos, graphics and text assets—the new service is designed to integrate with both digital and broadcast production workflows, allowing publishers to stream live coverage to television, websites and social media platforms from one simple, easy-to-use source.

The new platform leverages cutting edge, cloud-based delivery systems to meet a wide range of needs: from mobile streaming on social media to broadcast quality HD – giving publishers the flexibility to give viewers a broader range of live coverage from around the globe.

“This new live video service offers publishers an unprecedented amount of flexibility and builds on Reuters Connect’s already remarkable ability to help our customers tell engaging stories like never before. As more and more publishers see live video as an essential part of their story-telling capabilities, we can now offer best-in-industry choice with up to six concurrent live streams. Add this to our vast video and picture archives, as well as our breaking news coverage, Reuters customers now have everything they need to tell richer stories,” Sue Brooks, Global Head of Product, Reuters News Agency said.

Launched in May this year, Reuters Connect is designed to be a faster, more intelligent way for Reuters News Agency customers to source all the content they need via a single destination. Reuters Connect is built to make content discovery quicker and easier, improving clients’ editorial efficiency and enabling them to deliver more stories to their audiences faster than ever before.

NinjaCat Announces Major New Release Of Shinobi

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October 24, 2017

Shinobi Is The Code Name Given To The New Platform Update That Can Handle The Complex Reporting And Monitoring Demands Of The Largest And Most Demanding Agencies

NinjaCat, the reporting, monitoring and call tracking platform of choice for the world’s leading digital agencies, has just moved its highly anticipated Shinobi release out of beta, making the powerful new version now available to all.

Currently, Ninjacat services include a platform to track Integrations, PPC Reporting, SEO Reporting, Budget Monitoring, Call Tracking, and Campaign Monitoring for leading agencies.

Shinobi, which is Japanese for Ninja, is the code name given to the new platform update that has already been adopted by the world’s largest digital marketing and media agencies. With a completely redesigned interface, the platform can effortlessly handle the complex reporting and monitoring demands of the world’s largest and most demanding agencies.

Highlights of the new release include:

New drag and drop report/presentation/dashboard designer
Limitless design, data aggregation and data mixing capabilities
Cross-channel custom calculated fields
Closed loop reporting
More efficient review & annotation workflows
DoubleClick, The Trade Desk, Centro, Simpli.fi, LinkedIn, Google My Business and additional DSP integrations
Enterprise security and permission features
Premium white-labeling
Franchisor/cross account roll-up reporting
Revolutionary Template Builder

“This is the culmination of 4 years of heroic efforts by my team to deliver such a game-changing release. It’s exciting to be a part of such an amazing team and to see these efforts so appreciated by our customers” said Paul Deraval, CEO, NinjaCat.

NinjaCat will be showing off the new release at the SMX East 2017 Conference in NYC & Hero Conf. London on Oct. 25-26‎.

Interview with Carl Landers, CMO, Conversica

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Avinash Duduskar

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October 24, 2017

[mnky_team name=”Carl Landers, ” position=” SVP, Marketing and CMO, Conversica”][/mnky_team]

[easy-profiles profile_twitter=”https://twitter.com/lead2rev” profile_linkedin=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/carllanders/”]

[mnky_testimonial_slider][mnky_testimonial name=”” author_dec=”” position=”Designer”]“It’s important to be aware of the many manual, time-consuming processes that are having a bottleneck effect on your business, then searching for solutions to address those pain points.”[/mnky_testimonial][/mnky_testimonial_slider]

On Marketing Technology

MTS: Tell us a bit about your journey leading Conversica?
Over the course of my career, one issue was pervasive – sales and marketing alignment. The two functions are completely dependent on each other, yet often find it challenging to work together effectively. So, when I came across Conversica, I recognized immediately this AI-powered lead engagement technology would solve a big part of the alignment problem. I welcomed the opportunity to join the company and since being here, have seen over and over the payoff for our customers of aligning sales and marketing teams. It works incredibly well, so as CMO, my challenge is now finding ways to evangelize our platform and increase awareness.

MTS: What, in your opinion, are the usual suspects for non-conversion of inbound leads?
Businesses often get more leads than they can handle. It’s not practical nor economical for the typical sales team to engage and follow up with every lead. On top of that, the lead qualification process is time-consuming, which puts an added strain on companies’ limited resources. As a result, salespeople end up cherry-picking the leads they think will convert, leaving potential good opportunities behind and frustrating their marketing colleagues. Luckily, the problem is now easily solved by following up with 100% of the leads 100% of the time.

MTS: How should B2B, non-retail firms leverage virtual AI assistants?
Many B2B firms can leverage AI assistants to automate specific tasks. For example, we use our own product, the Conversica Sales Assistant, to engage inbound leads via personalized, two-way conversations. ‘She’ is able to determine interest and intent to purchase, and instantly passes qualified leads to a salesperson. Other virtual assistants are being used in B2B for suggesting next best actions for salespeople, scheduling meetings and engaging website visitors in chat discussion during off hours.

MTS: What enables Conversica’s lead engagement platform to function without a CRM?
The Conversica platform works best when integrated with CRM or marketing automation systems, as leads can be accessed and updated in real time. However, many of our customers use our platform without integration, providing lead information by email or FTP. They still get the benefit of 100% lead follow-up and have full visibility to how their assistant is working in their Conversica dashboard.

MTS: What startups are you watching/keen on right now?
Any startup applying AI technology in the sales and marketing space – Chorus, X.ai, and Node.io to name a few. It’s an extremely active space so we’re proud to be a leader there. I’m also very interested in what Salesforce is doing with Einstein, as their big investment validates the benefits of using AI in sales, marketing and customer service.

MTS: Would you tell us about a standout digital campaign?
For a recent conference, our marketing team created a campaign to “Come meet your next digital assistant,” with the objective of booking as many meetings in advance as possible. We used our own AI assistant, Rachel, to reach out to registered attendees, while the sales team worked in parallel to book meetings with their target accounts.

Rachel booked over 60 meetings, which was a major validation that persistent, personal outreach pays off in getting people’s attention.

MTS: What tools does your marketing stack consist of in 2017?
In addition to using our own lead engagement platform, we use Salesforce, Marketo, Node, LeanData, UberFlip, WordPress, Hootsuite, Chili Piper, Chorus, and Crystal. We are naturally big believers that automation can help marketers be better in many ways, and are constantly exploring new tools and systems to that end.

MTS: How do you prepare for an AI-centric world as a business leader?
I think it’s important to be aware of the many manual, time-consuming processes that are having a bottleneck effect on your business, then searching for solutions to address those pain points. AI offerings today can be categorized into two types – advisory and autonomous. Advisory AI analyzes data and offers insights, enabling business leaders to make better decisions. Autonomous AI actually ‘does work’ by automating a task, freeing people to focus on other things. The two are not mutually exclusive – each can be applied to seize different opportunities throughout the business.

This Is How I Work

MTS: One word that best describes how you work.
Creatively – otherwise AI will take my job 🙂

MTS: What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
I live and breathe by Salesforce dashboards. Conversica (of course!), LinkedIn, Excel and my favorite, PowerPoint!

MTS: What’s your smartest work-related shortcut or productivity hack?
My productivity hack is building great Salesforce dashboards that automate reports on our team’s performance. This allows me to regularly monitor the health of the business and see where I need to focus my time.

MTS: What are you currently reading? What do you read, and how do you consume information?

Giftology, by John Ruhlin; it’s about the art and science of building relationships through tactile giving.

Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff. Many of Benioff’s experiences when he created Salesforce resonate with how we are building Conversica.

Lots of children’s books for my two kids. They love the If You Give series (If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, etc.) and science books (thankfully!).

MTS: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
A simple adage my mother taught me still holds true: you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. Basically, be nice to people. Take time to cool off when you’re frustrated; sleep on it before responding. Your perspective changes drastically in the morning.

MTS: Something you do better than others – the secret of your success?
Combining an engineer’s analytical mind and a marketer’s creative gives me a unique advantage!

MTS: Tag the one person whose answers to these questions you would love to read:
John Miller

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

[vc_tta_tabs][vc_tta_section title=”About Carl” tab_id=”1501785390157-b58e162d-0ae25a4b-c27aca64-108eb490-5a61″]

Carl is an enterprise software marketing professional who is always looking for new ways to best position his company, engage customers and turn leads into revenue.

[/vc_tta_section][vc_tta_section title=”About Conversica” tab_id=”1501785390320-2d44fa50-740c5a4b-c27aca64-108eb490-5a61″]

Conversica is the leader in AI-powered business conversations and the only provider of AI-driven lead engagement software for marketing and sales organizations. The flagship Conversica® AI Sales Assistant helps companies find and secure customers more quickly and efficiently by automatically contacting, engaging, qualifying and following up with leads via natural, two-way email conversations. Used by more than 1,000 companies worldwide, Conversica’s sales assistants are built on a proven AI platform integrating natural language generation (NLG), natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) capabilities. Recognized by Gartner as a Cool Vendor, Conversica is a portfolio company of Providence Strategic Growth, Kennet Partners and Toba Capital and is headquartered in Foster City, Calif.

[/vc_tta_section][/vc_tta_tabs]

[mnky_heading title=”MarTech Interview Series” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmartechseries-67ee47.ingress-bonde.easywp.com%2Fcategory%2Fmts-insights%2Finterviews%2F|||”]

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

Largest Out-of-Home Advertising Database Surpasses 1 Million Assets

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October 24, 2017

DOmedia Opens Availability API to Out-of-Home Media Operators

DOmedia announced that advertising agencies can now access over 1 million media assets through its platform

In 2017, nearly 25 percent of agency-driven US out-of-home advertising spend is committed to be managed via the DOmedia Demand-Side Platform (DSP). The DOmedia DSP automates the process of planning and buying out-of-home ad campaigns. As DOmedia indexes more media vendors and assets, it is introducing greater competition into the out-of-home advertising space.

DOmedia is an independent technology company on a mission to change the way out-of-home media is bought and sold. Their cloud-based applications connect buyers and sellers to leverage marketplace effects, eliminate labor and improve reporting and analytics.

“We are committed to serving agencies and brands by maximizing the competition for their ad dollars, and leveraging our vendor network—our system lets smaller regional vendors get their inventory in front of the largest agencies and brands in the world,” Adam Malone, VP of Market Supply, DOmedia said.

Competition is critical for delivering strong campaigns to advertisers. According to historical industry data from DOmedia, vendors’ responses to an RFP vary by an average of 1,800 percent on a CPM basis.

“If you don’t have robust competition in the planning stage, it can be impossible to effectively assess whether media is being purchased at an equitable rate. Increased competition is a core part of increasing transparency and accountability in the out-of-home media space,” Lisa Weinstein, former agency CEO and Advisor, DOmedia said.

DOmedia’s announcement follows a surge of new product developments in 2017, including a partnership with Rubicon Project to expand programmatic out-of-home advertising and the roll-out of automated charting technology within DOmedia’s Supply-Side Platform (SSP) for media vendors.

Bluescape Taps SaaS Industry Veteran, Peter Jackson, As CEO To Lead Next Phase of Growth

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October 24, 2017

Scott Poulton Elevated To Chairman Of The Board Of Directors

Bluescape, an innovator in visual collaboration software, announced that Peter Jackson has been appointed as the new CEO of the company. Jackson takes over the role from Scott Poulton, who has been Bluescape’s CEO since its founding and will continue to guide Bluescape as chairman of its board of directors. Jackson is an experienced chief executive with a successful track record of rapidly growing innovative Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies into industry leaders. He takes on his new role at Bluescape as more leading organizations look to adopt advanced collaboration tools like Bluescape.

“When we founded Bluescape five years ago, we had a vision of what visual collaboration ought to be, and we were confident that the market would respond. Following strong performance in our last fiscal year, we were confident that Bluescape was well positioned for rapid growth and began the search for our next CEO. Today, we are pleased to welcome Peter Jackson at this important time in Bluescape’s evolution, and I look forward to working with him as a team to take Bluescape to the next level of success,” said Poulton.

Peter Jackson is a seasoned SaaS company leader with more than two decades of experience growing emerging software companies. Prior to joining Bluescape, Jackson was CEO and co-founder of Ziploop, a leading smart wallet for mobile receipts and rewards. Early on in his career, Jackson founded Granite Systems Inc., a system integrator where he also served as president and CEO. At Granite Systems, Jackson grew the company from inception to $500M in revenues and led the company to a successful acquisition. Jackson went on to found Intraware, an early pioneer in SaaS software that he led through a successful IPO and later acquisition by Flexara. In addition to serving as CEO of other emerging software companies, Jackson has been an advisor and board member for many successful technology companies, including Eventbrite, DocuSign, and Kanjoya.

Bluescape CEO, Peter Jackson — Peter Jackson

“Bluescape is at the forefront of a growth market that is redefining how we work together in an increasingly distributed workplace. In the near future, we’ll start to see the rapid replacement of whiteboards with interactive glass, enabling teams to create and present in far more effective ways. We have that technology now, and I am convinced the future holds exciting opportunities for Bluescape. I’m thrilled to have the chance to be a part of that,” said Peter Jackson.

According to 2017 research from the Aberdeen Group, best-in-class organizations are 74% more likely to employ advanced collaboration tools; and those that do, are 21% more effective at completing projects. Bluescape is pioneering a new class of cloud-based visual collaboration software that provides teams with an immersive virtual workspace in which to meet, share, and develop ideas. Leading public and private organizations use Bluescape to see the whole picture as they ideate, design, and refine concepts, and ultimately create better products and solutions.

Franco Bianchi, member of Bluescape’s board and President and CEO of Bluescape’s parent company, Haworth Inc, concluded, “Bluescape grew steadily under Scott Poulton’s leadership as CEO and, as a result, enabled us to bring on a seasoned technology executive to lead the company’s next phase of growth. We’re pleased that Scott will be serving as chairman so he can continue to realize the Bluescape vision in partnership with Peter. With Scott and Peter at the helm, we’re confident Bluescape is on the right path to set a new standard in visual collaboration software.”

Technology Futurist Ross Dawson to Present at ACCELERATE Event in Melbourne on October 31

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October 24, 2017

Dawson Will Conduct An Inspiring Presentation On How Businesses Can Accelerate Growth In A Rapidly Changing World

The ACCELERATE conference in Melbourne announced thatAccelarateRoss Dawson, the world’s leading business and technology futurist, will deliver a keynote at the event on October 31. Attendance of the conference is free of charge, but seats are limited.

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading technology and business futurist, entrepreneur, strategy advisor and keynote speaker. He is the bestselling author of four books including well-renowned Living Networks, and CEO and Chief Futurist of R7 Group, a leading marketing, innovation and ventures group. Ross Dawson was named as one of the most influential people in the world in crowdfunding, Enterprise 2.0 and the future of work and as one of the 40 biggest players in Australia’s digital age. His media appearances include: CNN, Bloomberg TV, SkyNews, European Business Network, and Channel News Asia.

As a featured guest speaker at the ACCELERATE conference, Ross Dawson will conduct an inspiring presentation on how businesses can accelerate growth in a rapidly changing world and adapt to the customer-driven technology landscape. Join the event to gain valuable insights and learn how forward-thinking companies can address the challenges and seize the many opportunities arising from these rapid shifts by enabling innovation, building flexible organizations, and accelerating execution of responsive, effective strategies.

Other sessions at the event will include insightful thought-leadership talks and industry expertise on how technology enables organizations innovate faster and adapt to the ever-changing market conditions.

The ACCELERATE conference will be hosted on October 31 at the luxurious Intercontinental Melbourne hotel, located on 495 Collins St, in the heart of the Melbourne Central Business District.

Toppers Pizza Selects Episerver to Transform Digital Customer Experience

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October 24, 2017

Episerver Unveils Complete Keynote Lineup for Ascend 2018

Fast-Growing National Pizza Franchise Plans To Expand Multichannel Sales, Top Line Revenue Using Unified Content And Commerce Platform

Episerver, a global provider of a single platform to smartly manage digital content, commerce and marketing in the cloud, announced Toppers Pizza has chosen the Episerver Digital Experience Cloud to deploy its new website and digital properties and spearhead the transformation of its digital commerce experience in support of its national expansion strategy.

In hyper-growth mode, the Whitewater, Wisc.-based pizza franchiser plans to roll out its new website for a select number of franchisees later this year. The update, central to a larger multi-step initiative to enhance its digital experience, will integrate with a point-of-sale system and simplify the path to purchase, bringing customers seamless online ordering and in-store pickup, and providing franchisees a full view into the Toppers customer journey.

“Toppers has a strong, cross-company vision for our strategic expansion and a key component of this is our digital transformation and innovation — not only to accommodate more customers in-store and online, but to make sure the customer experience is simple, easy and frictionless. What stood out about Episerver when choosing e-commerce solutions was its ease-of-use and out-of-box capabilities. We needed a prepackaged tool that we could customize, and we wanted something with enterprise capabilities in an easy-to-use system that would help empower our marketing team, help eliminate the technical debt we’ve accumulated, and reduce our time to market,” Tony Ellis, vice president of information technology, Toppers Pizza, Inc said.

As part of its revenue-driven innovation, Toppers will introduce more robust and responsive digital properties, including a forthcoming mobile app and loyalty program, and also expand into additional channels, including social, voice assistants and delivery aggregators. The new e-commerce website and digital properties will employ Episerver’s personalization engine to support increased conversions, up-selling and multichannel sales while reducing time to market and overhead costs.

“We are thrilled that Toppers chose our platform to relaunch its website and expand its digital presence. Toppers has a solid growth strategy, and it wants to make sure it doesn’t lose sight of the customer experience, both online and offline, as it works to double in size. As a modern restaurant, Toppers realizes that consumers expect no-hassle experiences while ordering pizza across more channels more frequently. With an enterprise-grade platform and unified suite of digital commerce and marketing capabilities, the Episerver Digital Experience Cloud is an ideal solution for Toppers, especially since it has both B2C and B2B selling needs as a restaurant and franchiser,” Ed Kennedy, senior director, commerce, Episerver said.

Toppers’ Episerver-supported digital transformation supports the company’s strategic growth strategy, which aims to expand its restaurant count from 83 to 200 in the next five years. Toppers is slated to offer its new digital tools and properties to all of its franchisees in the first half of 2018.

Media Industry Veteran Tim Spengler Joins LiveXLive Media’s Board Of Directors

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October 24, 2017

Spengler Has Served On LiveXLive’s Advisory Board Since 2014

LiveXLive Media, one of the only premium networks devoted to live music and music-related video content, announced the appointment of Tim Spengler to LiveXLive’s Board of Directors, effective September 27, 2017. Spengler has more than 25 years of experience working directly with marketers to drive business results through innovative approaches to media and has served on LiveXLive’s advisory board since 2014.

“We are excited to welcome a recognized media industry leader to our team. Following our success in attracting more than four million viewers and eight million views to the recent Outside Lands and Rock In Rio festivals, Tim’s substantial expertise in advertising and sponsorships will be very valuable in helping us to capitalize on our rapid audience growth, and I know he will be a tremendous addition to our Board of Directors,”Robert Ellin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, LiveXLive said.

“LiveXLive is at the intersection of streaming video, audio and enhanced technology at the perfect time. I am honored to be working with the impressive management team that Rob has built. LiveXLive is a leader in the evolving music ecosystem and I look forward to contributing to the Company’s evolution as a member of the Board of Directors,” said Tim Spengler.

Spengler has served in senior leadership positions at media and advertising technology firms and in the music industry. Most recently Spengler served as the President and Chief Revenue Officer of Simulmedia, a company focused on data-optimized audience targeting for national TV advertising. Prior to that, he was President of Content Marketing and Revenue Strategy for iHeart Media, a leading multiplatform music company.

Earlier in his career, Spengler served as a senior executive at IPG for nearly two decades, holding positions of increasing responsibility, including President, North America for Initiative from 2008 to 2012 and Worldwide Chief Executive Officer for MAGNA GLOBAL from 2012 to 2013. Mr. Spengler currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Hollywood Radio & Television Society and National Association of Television Program Executives. He is also on the advisory board of emerging media companies Influential Social and IgnitionOne. Spengler received his Bachelor of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Spengler is the fourth member of LiveXLive’s Board of Directors and will serve with Chairman Robert Ellin and directors Jay Krigsman and Craig Foster. LiveXLive’s Board of Directors now includes three independent directors.

Solvvy Raises $12 Million Series A to Fix Broken Customer Service Industry with Artificial Intelligence

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October 24, 2017

Scale Venture Partners Leads Funding Round To Fuel Company Growth And Advance Breakthrough AI-Powered Platform

Solvvy, the leading intelligent self-service platform for customer experience, announced it has raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Scale Venture Partners. The round, which included full participation from existing investors, including Pear Ventures, Signatures Capital and True Ventures, brings the company’s total funding to $16.5 million. As part of the financing, Rory O’Driscoll, Founding Partner at Scale Venture Partners, will join Solvvy’s Board of Directors.

“Customer service is often viewed as a painful experience, but it doesn’t have to be. Recognizing that intelligent automation is the new competitive battleground for customer experience, the most admired brands are turning to us to keep their customers happy. This new investment will allow us to accelerate product development, focus on expanding our team and growing our customer portfolio,” Mahesh Ram, Founding CEO, Solvvy said.

Each year, $300 billion is spent globally on call center agents. However, while 80 percent of companies say they deliver ‘superior’ customer service, only eight percent of their customers agree. Companies are attempting to cut costs and speed up processes by routing customers to articles and bots that unsuccessfully attempt to answer their questions. These solutions fail because the technology is not advanced enough to truly understand the question that the customer is asking.

Created by Ph.D. graduates from Carnegie Mellon University, Solvvy’s intelligent self-service platform uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to understand and answer questions immediately, even when they are long and complicated, misspelled or phrased in different ways. If an issue requires human assistance, the technology immediately routes the customer to a person. Solvvy reduces customer ticket volume by 20 percent, slashing operating costs and improving customer satisfaction. Because the system is constantly learning from the company’s knowledge base, ticket history and prior customer interactions, it is getting smarter with time. The natural language learning algorithm is on track to achieve 90 percent automation of transactional requests in real-time within five years.

“There is so much hype around artificial intelligence — everywhere you look, companies are branding themselves as AI companies. I’ve been investing in AI technologies for the past twenty years, and I can tell you that very few AI claims these days are credible. Solvvy is one of the few to deliver on the promise of AI,” Rory O’Driscoll, Founding Partner, Scale Venture Partners said.

In its first year on the market, Solvvy has attracted many leading global brands, including GoFundMe, Peloton, Rover, TaskRabbit and Upwork. The company now supports 200 million users with an average resolution time of one minute. Through this, Solvvy has helped customers save over $15 million just this year.

“Peloton aims to provide the highest-quality experience at every touchpoint, and customer service is no exception. With Solvvy’s intelligent automation platform, we can be confident that the quality of service we provide to our customers meets the standard they’ve come to expect from our brand,” Laura Mundell, Director of Member Support, Peloton said.

Local TV Joins the Mobile Age with the Launch of LocalBTV

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October 24, 2017

BayAreaBTV Expands Broadcast Audiences for Live, Local Programming; Additional Markets will be Introduced Through 2018

Didja, a technology company dedicated to augmenting the television experience in delightful ways, announced the launch of LocalBTV, the first and only app to bring access to antenna TV programming to viewers in one seamless mobile experience. The first market for LocalBTV is the greater San Francisco Bay Area, where BayAreaBTV will bring live local broadcast programming to an estimated 2.6 million households in the 11-county region, which includes Santa Clara County to the south, Mendocino County to the north, Contra Costa County to the east, and every geographic area in between. At launch, BayAreaBTV will have 35+ local channels but initially will not include the major English-language broadcast networks. More channels will be added every month. The BayAreaBTV app is available in the iTunes store and the Google Play store under LocalBTV.

While antenna viewers are expected to be the first to adopt LocalBTV, the app provides access to live local broadcast programming to anyone with a mobile device. This means even non-antenna households can easily access antenna TV channels. As a result, previously unavailable local television programming, such as that from the many stations and independent channels not carried by major cable providers or streaming services, can now be accessed by a wider audience.

“We believe that antenna TV is fun, and that everyone deserves access to local programming and seamless technology at an affordable cost. The most relevant programming to everyday Americans comes from live local broadcast TV stations, as they reflect the culture and diversity of their communities. In turn, we’re helping independent local broadcasters expand their reach into a wider market of households who haven’t been addressed before now. Eventually, we’ll also do the same for the big English-language networks, and both increase revenues while making local broadcast healthier,” Jim Long, CEO, Didja said.

For BayAreaBTV users, the application currently has more than 35 local channels, many of which are foreign language channels for bilingual households including Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindi and Korean. Additional channels can be added to the service hours after signing up, and have the option to run their own advertising to draw viewers to download the app on their mobile device. More stations are expected to be added monthly.

Deepti Dawar, owner of DiyaTV, a channel serving the Bay Area’s South Asian community explained, “As a local broadcaster with a large audience of bilingual households, we are always looking for ways to better serve our viewers. By working with the Didja team to include DiyaTV in BayAreaBTV, we’re looking forward to reaching our viewers anywhere in the market, and to developing new revenue streams on their platform.”

The launch of BTV in key markets will expand opportunities for major broadcast networks and independent stations to engage consumers and advertisers through a new platform and on mobile.

“The Launch of LocalBTV is a great avenue for independent content creators and networks to expand their reach and engage new audiences. It also addresses an audience that is loyal consumer of broadcast stations that are over the air but can’t watch their favorite programming on the go via mobile. We look forward to further exploring with LocalBTV how we can bring content to users’ fingertips,” Eric Ratchman, EVP of Content Distribution, Univision said.

In addition to the ability to watch and channel surf live local TV from many local stations broadcasting throughout the region, LocalBTV also comes with DVR capabilities and a channel guide so that viewers can see current and upcoming programming in one menu. For antenna households, the above capabilities have not been possible before in one mobile app, nor has the ability to receive broadcast signals everywhere within the 11-county Bay Area region.

BayAreaBTV follows a successful trial for PhoenixBTV in the greater Phoenix DMA. PhoenixBTV features 25 channels, including independent stations and specialty networks. Didja plans to expand LocalBTV to cover 40 metro areas in the United States by 2020. Los Angeles is expected to be the next market to get the service.

BayAreaBTV is currently available for iOS and Android via the App Store and GooglePlay. Local channels partnering with BayAreaBTV at launch will be available to watch for free. Didja anticipates adding the major broadcast networks for a monthly subscriber fee asap. Following a 30-day free trial, DVR capabilities are available to subscribers for $4.95 per month.

Majestic’s backlinks database now integrates with SEMrush

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October 24, 2017

SEMrush, market leader in online marketing software, and Majestic, the Birmingham-based provider of one of the most comprehensive backlink databases, have announced that Majestic’s backlinks database now integrates into SEMrush’s Backlink Audit tool.

This collaboration provides customers access to Majestic’s backlinks database, one of the industry leading databases equipping users with the ability to carry out in-depth analysis of their backlinks, in amounts far greater than any other tools.

“This collaboration is an absolute win-win solution for link building professionals,” said SEMrush’s CEO and co-founder, Oleg Shchegolev. “We’re two SEO market leaders working together to help our industry take the backlink audit experience to the next level. We believe this is the beginning of a long-term partnership and a game-changing collaboration.”

To take advantage of this integration, users will need both SEMrush and Majestic accounts. With the Backlink Audit tool, users will be able to connect to the Majestic database through OpenApps technology.

“It was never Majestic’s desire to do all the other parts of the SEO toolbox and we have always opened up our API to professional ‘all-in-one’ technologies under special licensing,” commented Dixon Jones, Majestic’s CMO. “SEMrush has been in the industry longer than anyone else and has its own link data sources, but our strategy remains. We know that the link data is hard to replicate at scale. If we focus on that, SEMrush can focus on adding a value layer for users. I don’t see the conflict, although I imagine others will indeed be surprised by such a collaboration.”

This collaboration is a landmark moment for the SEO and online marketing industry. Building a sustainable online business in the 21st century means getting the best of your competitors’ practices or even collaborating with them to stay user-focused. User needs and feedback will drive companies to keep experimenting and add more problem-solving features and integrations into their platform.

Customer Profile Management and Customer Data Platform Key to Cross-Channel Business Success

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Sudipto Ghosh

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October 24, 2017

The Celebrus Study Offers Insights Into Why Firms Struggle To Harness Data For Enhanced Customer Experiences

Celebrus, the leading provider of real-time enterprise Customer Data Platform (CDP) technology, has revealed the findings of its research into cross-channel customer tracking in the US and Europe. Forrester Consulting conducted The October 2017-commissioned study, titled “Accelerate Business Success by Tracking Customers Across Channels”, on behalf of Celebrus. The study identifies that despite 90% of surveyed firms saying that tracking customers is good for business, almost two-thirds are struggling to recognize customers across their digital touchpoints.

The research also reveals that factors such as legacy organizational design, insufficient technology and the lack of a standard model for understanding cross-channel customers are key reasons why enterprises are failing to understand the customer experience across their digital estate.

The full study, “Accelerate Business Success by Tracking Customers Across Channels

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Organizational and Technology Limitations Hamper Visitor Tracking

Celebrus, a product from D4t4 Solutions Plc, enables enterprises to become data-driven in today’s “age of the customer.”

Additional highlights emerging from the research include –

– Although almost all respondents recognize the importance of data in improving how they interact with customers, most also report that they are unable to do this consistently. Indeed, both US and European businesses suffer from organizational and technology limitations when tracking visitors.

– Firms report having a strategy to enhance customer experiences but, for more than half, that strategy is limited to a subset of their channels; this makes it harder to deliver a consistent, high-quality customer experience across all interactions.

– Too many businesses are relying on legacy customer data repositories like CRM (41%) and web analytics (50%) to understand customer interactions. However, emerging technologies, like customer profile management (40%) and customer data platforms (33%), are growing in importance because they allow firms to combine data from across digital channels like mobile and social.

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How to Sustain Against the Global Competition and Challenges Arising from Privacy Legislation

The Celebrus real-time Customer Data Platform creates compliant first-party customer data and profiles at scale by capturing, transforming and delivering data about individuals’ behaviors and experiences across digital channels and beyond.

Matthew Tod, Chief Data Officer at Celebrus, identified that “to fulfill their potential, businesses must accelerate their efforts to embrace a complete picture of customer behavior and experience across all their digital channels. This has become increasingly important in the light of increasing global competition and the challenge of growing privacy legislation.”

Tod added, “Celebrus is enabling clients to review their data collection strategy so that it covers all channels, is compliant with local legislation like GDPR and can scale as their business grows. This delivers the platform to transform captured data into real-time insight that can be put into action for better customer experiences.”

The study surveyed companies in the US, UK, France, and Germany with annual revenues of more than $500 million; focus industry sectors were retail, banking, insurance, consumer packaged goods (CPG) and telecommunications.

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APPSPIRE.me acquires experienced app development team for iOS and Android

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October 24, 2017

Appspire.Me, A Mobile App Marketing Agency Based In Austin, Tx Acquires Experienced App Development Team For iOS and Android

APPSPIRE.me, one of the first companies to specialize in mobile app marketing, has officially brought on a team of experienced developers to ensure client success from start to finish. APPSPIRE.me is a leading mobile app marketing agency that traditionally specializes in maximizing downloads, user engagement, and media coverage. Now, they have extended their services to facilitate client success with a full range of mobile app development services from the initial brainstorming phases to quarterly projections, ROI initiatives, acquiring investors and more.

“The success potential of any app starts in its infancy, when the app is just an idea,” said Carson Barker, founder and CEO of APPSPIRE.me. “We frequently partner with other app development agencies to assist their clients, and now we’re pleased to announce the we have a team on board who specialize in app development, and have an impressive track record to produce apps of all genres and sizes.”

Clients can get all their services completed in one place instead of having to work with separate agencies. Design, development, marketing and advertising strategies will start from the beginning and segue through phases without interruption. This fusion of services is intended to provide clients the best platform for mobile app success.

“If an app owner want’s a streamlined, full-proof business plan, it’s best to start implementing that plan during development and see it through launch and post-launch,” said Barker. “By acquiring development capabilities, we now have more experience and proven track record than any other app marketing or development company out there.”

Though APPSPIRE.me now has an internal development team, they will continue work with other app development agencies by assisting their clients with marketing needs only.

“We want to be completely transparent with all other app development agencies that we will continue to assist their clients strictly with marketing services, and will not compete in the development space with our partners,” said Barker. “There is plenty of business in the app world for all of us to thrive cohesively.”

Cyara Velocity Speeds CX Development By 70 Percent

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October 23, 2017

Velocity Links Design to Testing, Enabling Innovation and Flawless CX

Cyara, provider of the leading customer experience (CX) assurance platform, announced the launch of Velocity, the first solution to combine CX design and testing. With Velocity, the Cyara Platform is now the first to seamlessly span CX design, testing, and monitoring, enabling pilot customers to achieve 40 to 70 percent faster time-to-market, while also achieving more comprehensive testing and maximum quality.

Because CX testing has historically been so difficult, many companies tested only a small fraction of their total CX — often resulting in defects being introduced into the system. Velocity now enables organizations to fully and efficiently test their CX early within each development cycle, providing the insights needed to deliver a flawless customer experience, free of errors or failures. Teams can identify and remedy bugs before a customer would ever experience them, when they are also less expensive to fix.

“We enable organizations to bulletproof their customers’ experience, across all channels, ensuring that it lives up to their brand promises. By connecting CX design to testing, we drive efficiencies into the process, ultimately helping eliminate negative customer experiences. Our goal is to prevent everything from minor inconveniences to major defects– all those breaking points that lead to bad CX and ultimately lost customers,” James Isaacs, President said.

Design-Driven Assurance for Voice and Digital Channels

Velocity, which supports a wide range of digital and voice customer channels, does not require a trade-off between speed and quality. With its collaborative environment and automated CX testing, Velocity supports the broad range of Agile CX development methodologies for continuous planning, testing and integration.

Collaboration: Addressing a weakness in most CX development teams, Velocity now enables CX designers, developers and testers to easily collaborate and communicate with the business stakeholders as they map customer journeys. Where companies previously used a combination of varying document formats, or simply did not document CX at all, Velocity’s collaboration hub now provides a way to bring business, development and operations personnel together with a common visual language that aligns them around a precise CX design.
Acceleration: From that same CX collaboration hub, Velocity automates the creation of thousands of test scripts. Unlike solutions that require customers to manually write or code test cases, Velocity creates easy-to-understand test scripts automatically from CX designs. The CX designs can be created through automated discovery of the existing CX or imported from another design tool. Any time a change is made to the design, Velocity will update the test scripts and/or set up a review cycle needed to ensure design and tests are always in sync. The result is test scripts that are up to date, leading to assurance that can run more than 10 times faster than manual testing.
Quality: Velocity solves the issue of incomplete testing by making it easy to capture the entire set of possible customer journeys. Moreover, testing applies across channels of engagement, including journeys that cross multiple channels. Velocity can even test journeys that span self-service and agent-assisted service, and ensure that any information input by the customer carries over to an agent with the right skills for a smooth transition.

The award-winning Cyara CX Assurance Platform helps companies accelerate CX development, increase quality across all digital and voice channels, and assure customer journeys end-to-end. Cyara Velocity’s automation and collaborative environment helps organizations rapidly innovate their CX. Cyara Cruncher then puts CX systems through extensive performance and load-testing, ensuring systems work at scale. Finally, Cyara Pulse delivers real-time CX insights via web browser or the Cyara mobile app, enabling customers to identify any issues and troubleshoot problems. Cyara’s customers include leading global brands across a variety of segments including technology, insurance, finance, travel and retail.

Unacast Continues to Attract Top Location & Proximity Data Industry Executives

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October 23, 2017

New hires to the Data Partnerships team include Ariyo Noibi and John Patrick Smith

Unacast, the world’s leading platform of location and proximity data and the creators of the Real World Grap, announced the addition of two new positions to help strengthen the company’s data partnerships team and focus on brands direct and Fortune 500 brands. The new hires include Ariyo Noibi and John Patrick Smith to the Data Partnerships team. Noibi comes from PlaceIQ and Smith from Cuebiq—both prominent companies in the location and data space.

Noibi will support Unacast’s data acquisition and partner management efforts to support new and existing products. At PlaceIQ, he helped grow their location data acquisition program through direct publisher partnerships. Prior to PlaceIQ, Ariyo worked at Bloomberg as an Equity Analyst.

“The Real World Graph is becoming more sophisticated every month, and we continue to invest in new data sources to understand how people and places are connected. Ariyo and John all have very unique domain expertise and I’m beyond excited to have them on our team to help us build the Real World Graph of tomorrow—as more companies will require quality location and proximity data at scale to power data modelling, retargeting, attribution and monetization,” Thomas Walle, CEO & Co-founder, Unacast said.

Smith will be responsible for fostering deeper relationships with current partners and the establishment of potential new data partnerships. Smith is a pioneer of the nascent location intelligence industry as he, prior to joining Unacast, worked at Cuebiq forging background data supply partnerships with leading international app publishers. Before that, Smith created the New York office for Milan-based, Beintoo, a mobile innovation agency, and helped their US operation evolve and eventually spin off into the company that would become Cuebiq.

Through its network of location and proximity partners, Unacast’s advanced filtering algorithms ensure all data that ends up in the Real World Graph™ is true visits, meaning the company knows both the device and the context of visits. This data is coupled with other location signals to provide the full picture of a user’s behavior in the real world—enabling Unacast to extract a deeper understanding of the data within seconds and pass that knowledge onto its clients, including Amobee, Blis, SITO Mobile, Cognitiv, Triad Retail Media, Factual, Qualia, SkyHook and others who use the data to make greater products and better decisions.

Eyeota Announces Michael Tuohy As Director, Data Supply, US

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October 23, 2017

Ad Tech Pioneer Andrew Tu Joins Eyeota as Managing Director, Asia-Pacific

Michael Tuohy Will Oversee The Data Partner And Publisher Acquisition Teams

Eyeota, the global leader in audience data, has announced the addition of Michael Tuohy to its US Team as director, data supply, where he will oversee the data partner and publisher acquisition teams. Reporting directly to Elizabeth Christensen, Managing Director, Americas, Tuohy will drive the growth of the supply side business through new product offerings and strategic partnerships. Supporting Eyeota’s regional growth, Michael will be responsible for analyzing market demand, proactively developing relationships with existing and new data providers, and building unique data products to address the wider market needs.

“As we continue to expand our presence across the region, hiring the people with the right experience and skill sets is crucial. Michael has a lengthy background in leading sales and account development initiatives throughout emerging markets. His experience building long-term relationships with publishers will be an asset to Eyeota as we expand across the US,” said Christensen.

Tuohy has an extensive background driving sales and business development for media companies, spanning 25 years. He has a proven track record in identifying new market opportunities, executing go-to market strategies, and increasing sales and profitability.

Prior to Eyeota, Michael was Senior Director of Publisher Development at Magnet Media, Inc, where he established a network of premium publisher partnerships. Hel has also held senior leadership positions with Acxiom, Ntent, Infogroup, and 24/7 Media. He is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island.

“Data monetization represents a new and potentially meaningful revenue source for publishers which Eyeota is uniquely focused on. As the company solidifies its presence in the U.S., this is a great time to be part of the team. With my background in helping publishers maximize their revenue opportunities, I’m excited to work with current and prospective partners to help them realize the ROI they can unlock from their data,” said Tuohy.

Opticon’17: Enabling Customers to Accelerate Digital Optimization, Scale Experimentation Programs

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October 23, 2017

Optimizely Reaches 1 Million Experiments, Impressive Enterprise Customer Growth and Expanded Platform, and AI Capabilities

Optimizely, the world’s leading Experimentation Platform, announced new capabilities to expand its enterprise-focused offerings. It also announced major growth across multiple lines of the business. The announcements came during the opening keynote at the only annual conference dedicated to experimentation, Opticon.

Opticon brings more than 1,000 Optimizely customers, developers and partners together to hear how to develop a culture of experimentation, build better digital products and experiment across all business functions.

The company revealed that it has powered over 1 million experiments on the Optimizely platform to date. Having brought in 21 of the Fortune 100 list as customers, Optimizely is now delivering 1.1 billion impressions every day through its platform with 600 experiments started every day on the Optimizely platform. The demand for these solutions and services has led to Optimizely’s explosive growth, including reaching $90 million in annual recurring revenue. By empowering the world’s largest enterprises, including IBM, Microsoft and eBay, to test new ideas and push the limits of their digital experience while mitigating risk, Optimizely is now the fastest growing experimentation platform in the world.

“Many of our large enterprise customers are now running experimentation programs at a much greater scale and across more areas of their business than ever before. This increased level of adoption and investment across industries is a testament to the business value companies gain when they are able to experiment across their digital channels,” Dan Siroker, Co-founder and Executive Chairman, Optimizely said.

Optimizely continues to focus on product innovation for its growing customer base and today announced several new capabilities to the platform. To keep pace with rapidly changing customer experiences, organizations must empower individuals across the organization — including developers, marketers, and product and business line managers — to run experiments and identify new experiences that will drive the best customer and business outcomes.

“Many of our customers are increasingly running multiple projects and campaigns at a time, often with several variations for each. To date, this has presented challenges in scaling programs due to the level of technical expertise and manual resources required. With the new Optimizely features introduced today, customers across multiple roles and business lines have access to tools that make their lives easier, enable them to scale programs faster and free up their technical resources to focus on more sophisticated experiments,” Siroker said.

With new Optimizely capabilities, including Feature Management, Stats Accelerator and Support for Dynamic Websites, customers will be able to better manage how features are introduced and launched to an entire customer base, significantly increase the speed of experimentation through automation and machine learning, and equip both business and developer users with the tools needed to run successful experiments for the modern web.

New features and enhancements to the Optimizely platform include:

Feature Management enables teams to deploy product features and capabilities faster with more confidence and less risk. With Feature Flags, Rollouts and Variables added to Optimizely Full Stack, the Optimizely platform simplifies product development by consolidating feature management and experimentation into one unified system. Engineering teams can instrument code with Feature Flags, which enable anyone to toggle features on or off in production without deploying code. Once implemented in production, a Feature Flag can be used in a Rollout, which gives teams the ability to gradually ramp up traffic to the feature to monitor performance impact. Flags can also be configured with Variables, which provide the flexibility to update production applications on the fly. These new platform updates enable product and engineering teams to deploy the right features safely and quickly, and avoid costly deployment cycles when rolling out and rolling back features and running experiments.
Stats Accelerator, so teams can decrease the time it takes to run experiments across the full suite of Optimizely X products. Utilizing machine learning and automation customers can achieve statistical significance for their experiments up to 2-3x faster than with legacy testing platforms, enabling them to test and iterate with much greater velocity. With Stats Accelerator, Optimizely will intelligently and automatically optimize the flow of user traffic to minimize the time needed to achieve statistically validated findings within our Stats Engine.
The industry’s first out-of-the-box solution for supporting dynamic websites and experimenting in Single Page Apps, so business users can easily experiment on dynamic content. Across the industry Single Page Applications built on frameworks such as React and Angular, have made experimentation more challenging and required developers to create custom code to compose simple changes. This process made it increasingly difficult to scale experimentation programs. Now, on the Optimizely platform, customers can run experiments in the visual editor that ‘just work’ out-of-the box – no custom code or workarounds needed.

OnAudience Report Finds US Publishers Lose over $15.8 Billion Revenue Annually Due to Ad Blocking

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Sudipto Ghosh

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October 23, 2017

OnAudience Report Finds US Publishers Lose over $15.8 Billion Revenue Annually Due to Ad Blocking

Latest Onaudience Report States That More Than A Quarter (26%) Of Consumers Utilize Ad Blockers In The Us, A 16% Increase On 2016

OnAudience.com has launched a global report into ad blocking. The study reveals that the use of ad blockers is on the rise in the USA, with over a quarter (26%) of consumers now using them, compared to just 22% in 2016. This accounts for a loss of more than $15.8Bin publisher revenue, an increase of almost half (43%) the $11B lost in 2016. OnAudience is a part of the Cloud Technologies S.A. group, which provides Big Data tools and services for online marketing in over 40 markets.

According to the OnAudience.com report, the USA contributes just under $45 Billion to the $100 Billion global display market. It also found that internationally, the loss of publisher revenue from ad blocking has risen to $42 Billion from $28 Billion in 2016, when the worldwide display market was valued at $84 Billion.

The results from the USA reflect a broad global increase in ad blocking, although consumers in Europe are most likely to block ads, with almost a third (32%) of internet users in the region utilisingad blockerplugins. Poland was found to have the highest rates at 46%, followed by Greece (44%), Norway (42%), Germany (41%), and Denmark (40%). The UK, Netherlands, and Irelandwere identically ranked next,with 39% of page viewsblocking ads.

Internet users in Japan are equally as likely as consumers in the USA to utilize ad blockers (26%), butthe lowest rates were found in LATAM. Paraguay recorded the least ad blocked page views (5%), while Peru and Venezuela scored the second and third lowest ad blocking rates globally (13% and 10% respectively).

The OnAudience.com report also demonstrates the impact of ad blocking on the e-commerce industry, revealing the value of the global e-commerce market exceeds $2,000 Billion, of which more than $600 Billion is generated by users with ad blockers. This indicates that ad blocking represents a significant lost opportunity for advertisers to reach a receptive audience. In the US e-commerce turnover accounted for $595 Billion, of which $155 Billion is generated by users with an ad blocker installed.

“There has been much discussion calling foradvertising to provide a better user experience, but this report clearly shows that not enough is being done as ad blocking rates continue to rise. This is causing a significant loss for publishers and the advertising industry as a whole,” commented MaciejSawa, Chief Commercial Officer at OnAudience.com. “Ultimately user experience is key, so it is extremely important for the entire digital marketing industry to keep the consumer in mind and ensure that their journey is relevant, contextual, and meaningful– if we are to ever convince them not to install ad blockers.”

Currently, OnAudience.com data allows marketers to personalize their advertising campaigns on the internet and expand their BI solutions (data enrichment). The company has also developed its own UnBlock technology, which allows the displaying of online ads even if there is ad blocking software installed.

11 Tech Previews that Created A Buzz at Adobe Max—The Creativity Conference

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Sudipto Ghosh

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October 23, 2017