CDP Institute

Yes, they really think you’re that stupid.

In more substantive privacy news: data discovery platform BigID announced a $70 million Series D, to reach $216 million raised and a $1 billion valuation. There’s still more privacy news today but the editor of our Privacy Newsletter threatened to share embarrassing photos if I publish it before she does.

On safer turf, CRM platform LeadSquared raised a $32 million Series B. They offer a combined sales, service, and marketing platform for companies that sell products like education, healthcare, and financial services. We also have a $160 million raise for spa and salon software platform Zenoti, putting its total at $251 million and $1 billion valuation.

A recent Customer Experience Matrix post on industry trends highlighted the strong market for intent data, privacy rules notwithstanding. Right on cue, data analytics vendor Verisk has purchased consumer behavioral data compiler Jornaya. Still not convinced?  B2B media company ChannelPro Network has purchased FindBiometrics and Mobile ID World, which will provide insight into buyers in those markets. Now do you believe me?.

Privacy concerns are having a more meaningful impact on location data. Apple and Google have both blocked data broker X-Mode from collecting location data via phone apps. It’s not clear that X-Mode was less compliant with notification rules than other brokers, but they did recently get called out for selling data to national security agencies.

Privacy concerns may also be hitting Facebook where it hurts. This DigiDay report says that media buyers are being told to shift budgets elsewhere. Privacy is one possible reason; high ad costs, poor ad tools, and more competitive options are others. Color me skeptical, although this Dentsu report says Facebook growth shows some weakness.

Shoppers won’t necessarily rush back to stores even after a COVID vaccine is available: just 41% of U.S. respondents to this BlueVenn survey said they’d be more likely to shop after receiving a vaccination. Quite a bit more here about shopper attitudes and how businesses are adapting to the pandemic. Also, 64% of U.S. companies and 71% of U.K. companies said they had a Customer Data Platform; the figure rises to 95% for those over £100 million revenue.

This SAP study doesn’t report on CDP penetration but it does find that 68% of digital transformation leaders are prioritizing creation of a single customer view compared with just 47% of laggards. The study argues that companies should invest in “next-generation CDPs”, a.k.a. “customer intelligence platforms”, which extend basic CDP features to include non-customer data, users outside of marketing, and analytical tools to uncover insights.  Guess what SAP sells?

We reported yesterday on funding for Arthur, a tool to monitor AI model quality. Lest you think that was unique, here’s a $12.2 million second-seed funding for Truera, which helps to explain AI model contents. They had already raised $5.1 million. Maybe it’s overfitting the data, but we call it a trend.

Pandemic or not, digital out-of-home advertising is a booming industry. Six industry vendors are trying to make it boomier by establishing standards for describing media inventory. The idea is to simplify automated purchases, presumably expanding the number of potential bidders for each placement.

Fragmentation also makes it hard to managing influencer marketing projects. The Association of National Advertisers is tackling that one with a new advisory board that plans to define standards for measurement and representation. Reports from Sagefrog and Chief Marketer agree that influencer marketing has done relatively well during the pandemic.

One of the problems faced by AI systems is it’s often hard to know how they’re reaching conclusions – meaning that bias and errors are hidden from users. Arthur is designed to address this by monitoring AI performance. They just raised a $15 million Series A.