CDP Institute

Customer data and marketing platform ONEcount is teaming up with cloud software provider Upland and Specialized Fulfillment Services to offer an integrated “best-of-breed” CX suite. ONEcount will be providing 360 degree customer data and its ID graph, Upland will be contributing its PostUp email marketing software and SFS brings a range of tools including payment processing. Importantly, the three vendors will also be integrating their customer support, aiming at a “one vendor” feel.

CDP Bloomreach has acquired Radiance Commerce, an enterprise conversational commerce platform powered by generative AI. Conversations with Radiance guide customers through purchase journeys, assisting with product recommendations and discovery. Radiance’s technology will support the evolution of Bloomreach’s existing conversational tool, Bloomreach Clarity.

The European Union’s Digital Service Act, which places wide-ranging obligations on online platforms, including protections for minors, originally extended only to very large digital players such as Apple, Google and Meta. From February 17, it applies to all online platforms serving a European audience. The only exceptions will be very small businesses: fewer than 50 employees and annual turnover below 10 million euros.

Google’s immediate and brief response to a damning assessment by IAB Tech Lab of its Privacy Sandbox project was that it included “dozens of fundamental errors.” That response has now been expanded into a detailed and lengthy rebuttal. Google has also vowed to continue its work to develop alternatives to third-party cookies, restating the aim of deprecating them in Chrome by year end (unless regulators stand in the way).

Fifty-seven percent of B2C marketers say finding new customers is their key priority for 2024, with 44.9% prioritizing engagement and loyalty, based on a survey sample of more than 700. In good news for the B2C martech space, around 65% said they intended to increase their technology investments this year, primarily to improve the customer experience. The biggest factor in building a successful cross-channel strategy was identified as leveraging customer data analytics for targeted marketing decisions.

Most CX managers intend to outsource, at least partially, their generative AI programs, citing limited inhouse expertise, cost considerations and time-to-market. Almost half the 200 managers surveyed expect to deploy generative AI in non-voice customer support environments, with text generation identified as the highest use case for the technology. Forty-six percent are piloting or deploying text generation; code generation is in close second place (45%).

Hightouch continues to add features that match traditional CDP capabilities, although it retains its reliance on an external data warehouse as the customer data repository.  The latest extension is event streaming, which pushes behavioral event data directly to messaging or analytics tools as soon as it is collected.  In addition to its original reverse ETL component, Hightouch now offers a no-code audience builder, real-time personalization, clickstream data collection, and identity resolution.

Two-thirds (67%) of B2B companies find it challenging to collect zero-party customer data, according to a Forrester study commissioned by product discovery vendor Zoovu.  The report finds that giving personalized guidance to online buyers is the top ecommerce priority, but 83% have poor quality data, 80% struggle with data management, and 81% have an inadequate ecommerce platform.

Relying on social networks as a news source is bad idea whose time has come: YouGov reports that 18% of U.S. consumers cited social networks as their primary news source in 2023, up from 12% in 2019.  TV declined from 31% to 25% in the same period. Social is the top news source for those aged 18 to 34. O tempora, o mores!

Brevo, known as a CRM and marketing automation platform, has announced the launch of Brevo Customer Data Platform following the acquisition in December of CDP Octolis. Brevo is also announcing mobile push capabilities with a push dashboard for Brevo segments and lists. Generative AI tools added to the platform include email content creation, best send time and the ability to adapt tone of voice.

B2B conversational AI marketing platform Drift has been acquired by sales engagement and revenue orchestration platform Salesloft. Drift had been independent since its founding in 2015. The new combined company will have almost 6,000 global customers.

A federal judge has ordered a preliminary injunction temporarily staying an Ohio Law that would have required social media platforms to obtain parental consent for accounts for children under the age of 16. The judge found that the law is likely unconstitutional. He also described it as “a breathtakingly blunt instrument for reducing social media’s harm to children.”