CDP Institute

CDP ActionIQ has launched its next-generation data engine, modestly named InfiniteCompute. It promises near-instant adjustment to workloads from multiple users, delivering responses in minutes at any scale. Unneeded resources are released when workloads are lower, avoiding unnecessary expense.

CDPs like ActionIQ share some turf with general purpose business intelligence engines. Glancing into that neighborhood, we see that Qlik just bought Blendr.io, an integration platform that will ease connections with 500+ of SaaS applications and cloud-based data sources. Also, TIBCO bought ibi, formerly Information Builders, Inc., which has offered a low-code development platform since the 1970s – well before low-code was cool. If you don’t know what a 4GL is, ask your grandmother.

Dentsu’s Merkle group also had its origins in the 1970’s. They just signed a deal for Adobe to integrate Merkle’s Merkury identity resolution platform. It’s another move to strengthen first party data capabilities as third party data becomes harder to find.

The race to replace third party cookies continues. Lotame has unveiled its entry, Panorama ID, which combines Web data, customer IDs, and hashed emails to attach all possible identifiers to anonymous individuals. Lotame promises compliance with privacy rules including GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD, but it also says Panorama ID is compliant with the IAB’s Transparency and Consent Framework 2.0, whose European version was recently judged to violate GDPR.

Meanwhile, The Trade Desk is pushing ahead with the open source Unified ID 2.0 initiative, based on the IAB’s Project Rearc principles. Latest developments include partnering with LiveRamp to incorporate LiveRamp’s IdentityLink ID and Authenticated Traffic Solution, and with Criteo to develop a consumer sign-on solution and transparency portal. Some testing is under way but general availability of Unified ID is planned for first half of next year.

Connected TV viewing was never measured by third party cookies, but it still needs a tracking solution. TVision measures the attention paid by individual TV viewers, apparently through devices in the homes of volunteers. They’ve just launched a new platform that measures results across all streaming apps. Don’t confuse this TVision (www.tvisioninsights.com) with the TVision internet streaming service just launched by T-Mobile.

Adobe has long relied on its Microsoft Dynamics CRM integration instead of offering its own CRM system. The two firms have just upped the ante by adding industry-specific data models and AI features from C3.ai, which offers all kinds of AI-based applications. It reads real-time, unified data from Adobe Experience Platform and the shared data model of the joint Microsoft-Adobe Open Data Initiative.

Microsoft also has a little gift for you Citizen Data Scientists: a free app to train machine learning models. The first version does image recognition and other capabilities will follow. Users provide training data and the app does all the tricky stuff.

Non-Citizen Data Scientists might be more interested in Syte, which offers image recognition for product discovery and personalization. They just raised a $30 million Series C, bringing their total to $71.6 million.

Today we’ll contemplate that most sublime of mysteries: the mind of the consumer. A carefully designed study from Intent Lab tested whether giving consumers what they wanted – that is, showing them products they are looking for – gives better results than trying to address their underlying goals. Turns out that messages related to goals are more effective.

Considerably less surprising, COPC Inc. and Execs In the Know found the strongest driver of customer satisfaction with service experiences is issue resolution. Other unsurprising results: people grow less satisfied as it takes more contacts to resolve an issue, and human-assisted interactions have a higher resolution rate than unassisted interactions. The good news: self-service methods are getting better at resolution and satisfaction with self-service has increased from 40% in 2018 to 60% in 2020.

Finally, the branding gurus at MBLM have assessed the impact of COVID-19 on brand intimacy. The topline finding is people feel an emotional connection with 23% more brands than before the pandemic. But read the study for a slew of concepts including emotional connection, archetypes, relationship stages, and the brand intimacy quotient. So much fun.