CDP Institute

Customer Data Platform Amperity has unveiled two new AI tools, Explore and Assist, that will join the existing products, Stitch and Predict, to form an AI suite, AmpAI. Aimed at business users, Explore will support engagement with data using natural language; Assist will help both technical and non-technical users develop and customize new data assets on the platform. The capabilities seek to fix data quality and access challenges.

Google’s much-criticized Privacy Sandbox had some good news yesterday when Microsoft said it would add preliminary support for the Privacy Sandbox APIs across Microsoft Advertising products. Microsoft Edge has also introduced an Ad Selection API allowing advertisers to select and deliver relevant ads to users without relying on third-party cookies.

While advertisers continue to rely heavily on third-party cookies for programmatic ad buys, they are slowly preparing for the cookieless future.  33Across reports investment in cookie alternatives within its ad exchange grew an average of 9% in Q4 2023 compared with the previous quarter.  Retail advertisers invested 26% of their budget in cookie alternatives during the period, more than double the share of one year ago.

Rejecting shareholder demands that it divest Segment, Twilio announced a plan to continue selling it as a stand-alone product, integrate it more closely with its other offerings, increase growth, and cut costs.  New layoffs are almost sure to follow, on top of a 25% company-wide staff reduction in the past two years.   The company reports that Segment lost $72 million in 2023, despite 7% revenue growth to $295 million.

Openprise, which now calls itself a Revenue Data Operations platform but qualifies as a CDP, has raised a $25 million Series B, bringing total funding to $58 million. Revenue Operations, if you haven’t been keeping up with your industry buzzwords, supports marketing, sales, and service organizations.  This Openprise survey on the topic found just 9% of RevOps professionals were very satisfied with their data.

The European Commission has fined Apple €1.84 billion ($2 billion) for anti-competitive actions in the App Store.  The Commission found that Apple limited the ability of App Store vendors to inform users of alternative payment options.  It’s part of the general EU crackdown on BigTech.

Audio and video eco-systems media buyer Ad Results Media (ARM) has launched ARM PRO: Audience, a solution designed to reach target audiences across a range of audio channels including podcasts and streaming music. The capabilities include custom targeting, increased reach and improved transparency. It also seeks to streamline campaign management by enabling access to the right audiences through a single buy.

Facebook plans to deprecate its News Tab in the U.S. and Australia in April this year, following its earlier removal in the U.K., France and Germany. The tab includes news stories curated by a team of journalists as well as news personalized by user interest. Facebook has said it will not enter into new commercial arrangements with news publishers after the current deals expire.

Almost 83% of consumers are interested in personalized discounts and promotions according to a survey of 2,500 U.S. consumers by commerce and payments platform PYMNTS. That’s the good news; the bad news is that only 44% said the offers were relevant to them. Data-driven personalization is particularly valued by millennials (90%) and Gen Z (85%).

NewsGuard, the platform that ranks news and information sites for reliability, has launched an Election Misinformation Tracking Center that will combine the expertise of its journalist/analyst team with AI-powered media monitoring tools. The tools will enable the tracking of misinformation on 963 websites and 793 social media accounts and video channels. These sources have already been flagged for repeatedly publishing false claims about elections.

A report by Yahoo! Advertising in collaboration with Publicis Media found that disclosing the use of AI in ads significantly drove the appeal of the ad and trust in the brand responsible. A randomized, controlled experiment (sample size=1200) showed that one in four consumers noticed AI disclosures in ads; those that noticed found the ad 73% more trustworthy and the brand 96% more trustworthy than those that failed to notice. The result held across industries.

Eighty-six percent of B2B decision-makers are more likely to accept sales or marketing outreach from companies that consistently produce quality thought leadership, based on a survey of 3,500 management level professionals by Edelman and LinkedIn. Three quarters reported positive sentiment about companies producing good thought leadership, valuing it more than its “marketing materials and product sheets.” Just under a third could link specific purchases back to thought leadership engagement.