CDP Institute

The build-vs-buy debate never ends, and sometimes build really makes sense.  But buy is clearly the way to bet: just 17% of martech replacement projects chose a homegrown solution this year, according to this MarTech survey.  That’s down from 31% the year before.  CDPs were among the least common replacements, maybe because they’re awesome and maybe because most CDP implementations are fairly new.  Download for more fun facts.

The EU Parliament has adopted new rules targeted at reducing the dominance of BigTech platforms including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.  The Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act apply to companies with a market cap over €75 billion and allow penalties up to 10% of global revenue.  The EU Council must still approve the acts before they take effect.

Speaking of BigTech Behaving Badly, we have this ProPublica report that Google was sending sensitive user data with a Russian adtech firm until just last month, when ProPublica asked them about it.  Mobile phone IDs, IP addresses, location information, and activity details from websites including ESPN and Reuters were part of bidstream information shared with RuTarget, which is owned by Russian bank Sberbank.  U.S. Treasury sanctions have banned transactions with Sberbank since February.

Netherlands-based retention management platform Retail Rocket just raised a $24 Million Series A, and immediately spent some of it to buy Sailplay, a New York-based marketing automation vendor that will grow its U.S. presence.  Retail Rocket builds unified customer profiles in a module it charmingly calls Data Warehouse, and has other modules for AI-driven personalization, segmentation, and campaign management.  The company has more than 1,000 global clients across Europe and South America.

Voyantis, which calls itself a “prediction-based growth platform” has launched with a machine learning product that uses customer value predictions to optimize advertising campaigns and tailor individual customer treatments.  What’s special is the predictions are updated more or less continuously, enabling quicker reaction to behaviors than usual.  The company also announced it has $19 million in seed funding.  

The data business is infinitely fascinating, amirite?  So you’ll be excited to learn that two firms which track consumer purchases are merging.  NielsenIQ specializes in measuring fast-moving consumer goods, while GfK collects data about consumer durables purchases.  Both are majority-owned by private investment firms, which will retain shares in the combined operation.

Will the metaverse rescue marketers from the loss of third-party cookies and device tracking?  Perhaps you scoff the metaverse doesn’t actually exist.  That didn’t prevent 74% of marketers telling Qualtrics they were already advertising in it and 59% of that group saying it’s their most successful channel.  Pioneering?  Optimistic? Delusional?  Take your pick.

Contextual advertising is a more realistic option to replace cookie-based targeting.  Sadly, this Nielsen study finds that contextual data alone is among the least valuable signals for delivering return on investment, although it does help in combination with other factors.  Their conclusion is based on multi-touch attribution studies, which find that individual-level purchase data and look-alike models work best.

Comcast Advertising took another reality-based approach to media optimization, analyzing more than 20,000 multi-screen TV campaigns to see what’s working.  Their chief conclusion was the budget optimal mix is 20-30% streaming with the rest going to linear TV.  There some other intriguing data about the growth in programmatic and audience-based buying, but they show percentages without base values so it’s tough to assess.

Tech is fun but a little caution is always a good idea.  This Pentagon-funded report on blockchain says that, whatever its theoretical virtues, existing real-world implementations contain major security weaknesses.  Raise your hand if you’re shocked.

Deepfakes – computer-generated voice and video that replicates real people – pose many obvious dangers.  One you might not have considered is deepfakes acing their tech job interviews.  The FBI says it’s already happening, and can result in criminals gaining access to sensitive information.  Puts a new twist on the old joke: “How many people work here?” “About half.”

Amazon competes with pretty much everyone in the retail world these days, so making decisions based on data from Amazon seems a bit risky.  But Amazon hopes brands will ignore any conflict and subscribe to their Store Analytics service, which reports on anonymized shopper behavior in Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores.  Are you feeling lucky?