CDP Institute

It’s not your imagination: merger and acquisition activity did rise sharply towards the end of last year.  Investment bank LUMA reports that fourth quarter media and martech deals were up 21% compared to the year before, (97 vs 80) even though deals were down by 45% for the first three quarters (149 vs 270).   Martech deals dropped 60% in the first three quarters but bounced back for a 6% year-on-year gain in the fourth quarter.

Strong stock prices and a weak economy make it easier for big companies to buy tech than build it.  For example, say you’re Hootsuite (not public, but highly valued) and you’d like to expand into customer support.  Why build an agent messaging platform when you can buy Sparkcentral?  In fact, they just did.

Or imagine you’re red-hot virtual events startup Hopin, with a $2.1 billion valuation, and you want to upgrade your live video streaming tech by buying StreamYard.  A $250 million price is no object even though you bought social networking app Topia a few weeks ago.  Sure it’s a bubble, but wheeee!

Any shred of normalcy is worth grabbing right now.  So here are some characteristically interesting but mainstream predictions from Gartner about marketing priorities for 2021.  Unified customer experience, anyone?

This Aberdeen report provides more mental comfort food.  They found that companies who do a better job of unifying their customer data have better business results.   Other pleasingly familiar news: 78% are not satisfied with their ability to use their customer data, poor integration is the biggest obstacle to data utilization, and half the respondents use ten or more communication channels.

It’s also not news that the gaming industry has done well during the pandemic or that Roblox is one of the biggest winners.  But the message here is that Roblox is about community building, not just games.  Oh, and they just raised a $520 million Series H, bringing total funding to $855 million ahead of a planned public offering.