CDP Institute

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Eighty percent of CDP users say their system has helped to meet customer expectations, according to this Forrester study for Twilio Segment. But they want more: just 31% said they were satisfied with their current solution and 65% expect to increase investment in data tools. The biggest gaps relate to activation: using automation to unify customer touchpoints and applying real-time insights to customer interactions.

Verint is a specialist in generating insights related to customer interactions. They’ve just released an “engagement data management” system, which they describe as “the industry’s first offering specifically designed to enhance the management and value of engagement data in its many forms”. It’s like a CDP, but less.

You may have thought BrightTALK was in the business of delivering Webinars, but it turns out they’re really collecting intent data. At least that’s the perspective of TechTarget, which just bought them to grow its stock of intent information. Price was $150 million.

Every channel wants to be a shopping channel these days. Interactive video platform WIREWAX has just launched a new app that lets Chromecast users pause streaming videos to see information and make purchases. Users can even “turn any paused frame into a playful shareable meme with creative graphic layers”. Some people must have a lot of time on their hands.

Whether Facebook flicks off the anti-trust remains to be seen, but in the meantime it continues to expand its products. The latest addition is a shopping feature in WhatsApp, which will let users select items from a merchant’s catalog and send the order via WhatsApp message. Order processing and payments will be handled outside of WhatsApp.

The Federal Trade Commission and 48 attorneys general filed parallel anti-trust lawsuits against Facebook yesterday, alleging violations of federal and state anti-trust laws. The main charge is that buying WhatsApp and Instagram were aimed at removing market competitors to preserve Facebook’s ad monopoly. The long-expected suits may seek divestiture of the two acquisitions and other constraints.