CDP Institute

FindMine offers hope for the fashion-challenged everywhere, with machine-learning-based advice on pulling together coordinated outfits.  Results are based on a combination of sales data, visual content, and marketing inputs, and can be distributed in pretty much any channel.  The firm just raised additional funding, bringing total financing to $9.9 million.

People with human friends can use augmented reality to ask their advice while shopping remotely.  But while that’s a popular application, this Ipsos survey finds that Americans generally doubt that AR or the metaverse in general will make their lives better.  In fact, most said it was not interesting (39%), a privacy risk (22%), or just hype (20%), while a mere 17% found it exciting and 19% said it would help them learn new things.

Out-of-home advertising is about as far from the metaverse as you can get.  It’s no particular surprise that this study from OOH marketplace OneScreen.ai finds 96% of OOH advertisers are happy with their results, that 78% plan increased spending, or that 68% find the buying process is “chaotic”.  A bit unexpected: more use traditional OOH (51%) than digital (41%) while just 8% use both.

The build vs buy argument rages on in CDP circles, with the build case being pressed by IT departments and supported by vendors selling tools such as data pipeline software.  This Airship survey offers a helpful reminder that IT departments rarely prioritize marketing needs over more visible projects such as new features and bug fixes.  In fact, just 13% say all their enhancement requests are ultimately fulfilled. This would support a case for no-code systems that marketers can update for themselves, although the survey finds nearly all marketers depend on... Read More >

This BARC survey argues that IT-run data warehouses are a dying breed, precisely because they fail to empower business users.  There’s huge disagreement on whether current data and analytics applications meet current requirements: 70% of business users say they’re not adequate, while just 32% of IT specialists agree.  The study authors conclude that a federated model is the best approach because it gives more power to business users.

Does it really matter if marketers don’t get the data they want? You betcha. Kantar finds 86% of retailers say first-party data is a core pillar of their app strategy, while CallMiner reports that 62% of senior contact center decision makers feel they don’t collect all the CX data they need. In other words, improvements are essential and giving IT departments more control is not going to work.

Salesforce and The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 probably get more attention than they deserve, but you do seem interested in them, Dear Reader.  So here’s a double shot: Salesforce just added an App Exchange app from The Trade Desk to generate UID2 identity tokens, which can then be linked to UID2 tokens from other sources.  UID2 is based on a consented email address, so it’s not a replacement for third-party cookies.  But it helps.

CDPs that specialize in a single industry have been a trend for some time.  The latest is Ikue, which is built for telecom operators and follows an industry-standard data model from TM Forum.  Telecom has been relatively slow to adopt CDPs due to regulatory concerns and the sheer volume of data involved.

Ok, here’s a crazy coincidence: we have news from another CDP that specializes in telecom.  Intent HQ has launched an AI-driven audience builder that finds hidden opportunities within a customer base.  The tool doesn’t require data scientist support and lets marketers choose from a list of predictive indicators to model against.  It uses other Intent HQ features to automatically ensure the audience data is privacy-compliant.

Lots of people want to help retailers compete with Amazon. Swiftly Systems offers tools for online and instore promotions plus retail media networks.  They just announced their second $100 million funding round in six months.

Instacart is also manning the anti-Amazon barricades. They just launched Connected Stores, an initiative that helps retailers compete with Amazon’s no-checkout technology. Clients also get an online component and lots of fresh customer data. Success isn’t guaranteed: Wegmans recently dropped a self-scanning program due to high shoplifting costs.

How big are the ecommerce and retail media pies?  GroupM estimates retail media at $101 billion for 2022, or 11% of global ad revenue, and ecommerce at 19% of all retail sales.  Amazon actually ranks second to Alibaba in total ecommerce revenue, and only three of the top ten ecommerce companies are based in the US.