CDP Institute

We haven’t heard much recently about Unified ID 2.0, probably the most widely supported alternative to third-party cookies for ad viewer tracking.  But it’s still growing.  Latest to hop on the bandwagon is ad buying platform MediaMath.  It’s not an exclusive commitment: MediaMath also supports identity solutions from ID5, LiveIntent, LiveRamp, Lotame, Parrable, and others.

Lily AI, which generates product classifications directly from images, has just raised a $25 million Series B.  Lily AI says it measures over 15,000 attributes rather than placing products within standard taxonomies.  Automated classification removes a major obstacle to on-site search, product discovery, recommendations, and demand forecasting.

Unless you happen to sell point of sales systems, this Epicor survey of POS buyers may not seem relevant. But the results are probably similar for other tech products.  Key findings: 73% of buyers consider replacing a system within three years of buying it; 93% prefer a system tailored to their industry; 92% want sales teams that understand their industry; sellers don’t provide enough support during deployment; and data migration is the biggest deployment challenge.

The simplest description of Medallia is “listening platform”, but that sounds creepier than what they actually do, which is to analyze and react to customer and employee conversations.  They were bought by software investor Thoma Bravo last October and have made at least four acquisitions since then, including the Thunderhead journey orchestration engine.  They just closed their deal for callback scheduling vendor Mindful, which was announced in July.

Callback scheduling is just one way that call centers use automation.  This Replicant report shows that 48% have an automation project in place or in process, and 72% expect automation to reduce expenses by 25% or more.  Exactly half plan to use a mix of self-build and purchased solutions; 27% will only use purchased software and 13% will build everything themselves.

DrivenIQ helps car dealers pull together data about customers and prospects, with a broad range of features including web traffic analytics, website visitor identification, geo-zoning, identity resolution, and 14 billion customer records related to more than 230 million U.S. households.  They promise to “fill significant voids in the Customer Data Platform Market” although it’s not clear what voids they have in mind.  What is clear is they just raised a $15 million Series A.

You may not want another item about retail media but look on the bright side, Dear Reader: it’s not about social commerce.  Anyway, this overview by eMarketer is pretty good, including the headline estimates that retail media ad revenue will grow 31.4% this year, total $40.8 billion and account for 16.4% of U.S. digital ad spending.  But don’t get too frisky: Amazon accounts for 77% of the total.

B2B buyers are buying more online than ever, but growing pains abound.  In fact, 97% of respondents to this Avionos survey said suppliers’ ecommerce tech creates a problem during the purchase process.   Integration with buyers’ own systems, poor configuration and quoting technology, and inaccurate product information are top concerns.

You can download this Radiant Logic study on identity management without sharing your email address, which may be the authors’ sly comment on the value of some customer information. Sure enough, the IT leaders who answered the survey were much more likely to worry about the impact of “identity sprawl” on employee frustration (46%) than on customer service (12%). They have a point: 60% said their company has more than 21 different identities per internal user, leading to all sorts of inefficiencies and security risks.

Experimentation platform VWO has added a CDP module, repackaging capabilities it had previously built to support its own operations.  The system is a true CDP, including abilities to ingest all data sources, retain data indefinitely, build customer profiles, and share those profiles with other systems.  VWO plans to deliver enhanced personalization features in the next few months.

Streaming TV (the likes of Netflix, YouTube TV, and Hulu) absorbed more viewing time than either broadcast or cable TV in July. It’s the first time that happened. But it surely won’t be the last, especially as streamers add more live sports, which have been major drivers of broadcast and cable viewership.

Connected TV, which includes streaming, is cruising towards a 20% share of all TV advertising.  Brand safety concerns are growing right along with it. Yahoo DSP is addressing the problem by integrating Comscore’s Activation product, which offers pre-bid inventory filters based on analysis of program content. The filters will enable fine-grained exclusions that protect brands while leaving more inventory available to advertisers.