CDP Institute

Just over one-third of marketers plan to either buy a new CDP (21%) or replace an existing one (13%) this year, according to this Optimove survey. Unfortunately, it doesn’t report how many have a CDP already in place, which would put the other values in perspective. It does seem that CDPs are a relatively low priority: they rank sixth on the list of new systems and eighth on the list of systems to replace.

You might think that AI-generated creative would pose a classic innovator’s dilemma to big ad agencies, whose business is based on selling expensive, high-quality work by humans. But WPP is avoiding the trap by treating AI as a tool to expand the volume of content produced by its creatives. They just announced an agreement with Nvidia to develop a content engine that will integrate 3D content with generative AI.

Tech budgets are tighter now than last year, although 46% of firms still plan an increase, reports Battery Ventures. Top priorities for budget cuts are vendor consolidation and SaaS license optimization, suggesting a new focus on efficiency. But 65% of respondents still plan to increase their budget for experimental tech.

Snowflake is always looking for ways to add value to its core cloud database product.  Its latest step is to purchase Neeva, which offers generative AI-based search technology.  It will be applied to help companies search their own databases, a.k.a. enterprise search.

Platforms like Snowflake keep expanding their features, but there are still plenty of independent vendors offering data-related tools.  Elementl is one of those; they offer Dagster, a “fundamental reinvention of data orchestration” based on “unique abstractions and asset-first approach”.  I don’t know exactly what that means, but I do know they just raised a $33 million Series B, raising total funding to $48.8 million.

When Oracle bought consumer data collection vendor AddThis in January 2016, GDPR was barely a cloud on the horizon and Facebook’s Cambridge Analytics deal was still a well-kept secret.  Times have changed and Oracle’s once-grand consumer data ambitions have shriveled.  Oracle pulled AddThis from Europe in 2019 and will discontinue all remaining AddThis services starting tomorrow.

Hi, it’s Jamie, Senior Intern at the CDP Institute Department of the Obvious.  Everyone here is worrying about a U.S. debt default, but I have no money and the gruel supply seems stable.  So I’m free to share this warning from the U.S. Surgeon General that social media can harm the mental health of young people.  Washington’s credit rating may fall, but this remains AAA obvious.

Never underestimate the clever folks at Luma Partners.  You might think they’d report that martech valuations are down, and they do mention that my favorite measure, Quarterly Average EV/ LTM Revenue Multiples, has fallen from 17.2 to 4.7.  But they lead with news that things are changing quickly, the consequences are vast and – wait for it – every company needs to radically rethink everything.  I am beyond impressed.

The consultants at McKinsey are super-smart too, although they do keep being slapped with pesky lawsuits about things like opioid marketing.   So when they decided to report on successful B2B marketing, they didn’t just find one or two key factors.  No sir.  They reported that the winners do everything well, from tech to organization to social media, and do more of it.  You can’t get more obvious than that.

The 2023 edition of Gartner’s closely-watched CMO Spend and Strategy Survey hasn’t been released to non-clients, but the press release compares CMOs who increase martech spend to “gamblers looking to write-off their losses with the next bet.”  Ouch.  Simpler Media’s CMO survey isn’t as hostile but does find the most technically advanced organizations are the most concerned about focusing too much on tech and the least concerned about creating robust data strategies, understanding data integration, and using analytics for decisions.  Apparently they feel they’ve mastered this whole technology thing.

Marketing cloud vendor Acoustic has released a new multi-channel marketing platform that includes personalized journey orchestration and behavioral experience insights.  They announced the multi-channel bit last June so what seems to be new is inferring intent from online behaviors and using it to help drive customer-level personalization.

Running its data clean room software on cloud platforms is Habu’s basic function, so it set up a Microsoft Azure integration some time ago.  Today it announced a deeper relationship using Azure’s confidential computing environment, which combines hardware and software protections for greater security.  You can read this blog post for technical details.