CDP Institute

There’s lots of interesting data  in this Ascend2 report on multi-channel marketing, but what stood out for me was that measurement was cited as essential for success by far more respondents (61%) than other factor.  Next highest was integrated technology at a meager 43%, and unified data was last at 27%.  Now you know we write so much about measurement products.

Data breaches are common in general but rare at martech vendors.  So it’s newsworthy that Twilio reported a breach, although it seems the only compromised data was about Twilio’s own clients, not about the clients’ customers.  The breaches were due to garden variety phishing attacks, not technical flaws in Twilio security, which I somehow find comforting.

Data integration platform Equalum announced a $14 million Series C, bringing total funding to $39 million.  Equalum positions itself as a no-code pipeline for all data ingestion, transformation, and integration tasks.  That includes real-time change data capture, streaming data capture, batch loads, and replication.

Greater public attention to privacy has reduced trust in all tech providers, including those like Apple and Google that have positioned themselves as privacy-friendly.  Apple’s rank in Jebbit’s annual Consumer Data Trust Index fell from 17 to 43, while Google fell from number 4 to 89.  Amazon fell just slightly, from first to fourth place, while Facebook actually improved a bit from 97 to 88.

When Apple started to enforce its Application Tracking Transparency (ATT) rules for iPhone in April 2021, no one knew how many users would share their IDFA device ID when given an explicit choice.  More than one year later, Pubmatic reports the rate is about 30% for iOS 14.5 and higher, compared with 55% for earlier iOS versions.  One secondary result is that impressions with IDFA present earn a cost per thousand (eCPM) that’s 2.7x higher than impressions without an IDFA.

About 21% of global consumers use an ad blocker, according to this Blockthrough study.  The rate has been roughly flat for the past few years, rising slightly for desktop users and falling for mobile devices in 2022.  The more intriguing news is that 95% of adblock users agree to allow non-intrusive ads when given the choice.

CIAM (Customer Identity and Access Management) was once largely about managing employee access to company systems, but it’s increasingly applied to consumer log-ins and identities as well.  This creates an overlap with the identity management systems more traditionally used for customer data.  The expanded market helps to explain why private investor Thoma Bravo just paid $2.8 billion for CIAM vendor Ping Identity, a 60% premium of its most recent stock price and just under 10x revenue.

Customer research vendor DISQO has launched a new product to measure the incremental impact of cross-platform ad campaigns on customer behavior.  The data is collected from consumers who install apps that report which ads they see, what sites they visit, what ecommerce purchases they make, and what else the do on their desktop, mobile and connected TV devices.  Thus, no need for cookies or device IDs.

One of the more reliable quirks of survey research is whoever answers the questions always thinks they’re in charge.  Sure enough, this Pantheon survey found 84% of marketers and 87% of IT leaders said they’re the decision-makers for the company web site.  The two groups had different priorities but did agree on finger pointing: both said poor collaboration and lack of agility hinder digital marketing efforts.

Ecommerce platform Shopify has set a strategic alliance with retail messaging platform and might-be-a-CDP Klaviyo. The deal reportedly includes a $100 million investment in Klaviyo by Shopify. Both parties will still work with other partners, but they clearly see benefits in forging a tighter integration.

CDP Omeda also has a new investor: private equity firm Sverica Capital made an undisclosed investment which, I’m told privately, includes majority ownership.  Current leadership retains a large share and will still run the company.  We’re seeing more private investments as venture funding and public markets become more cautious.

Facebook is shutting down its Live Shopping feature, the company announced in a terse blog post, although it remains an option on Instagram for now. Live shopping news has been mixed recently: YouTube just supported it with a Shopify integration, and a report that TikTok is pulling back is contradicted by later stories that the program is going great.