Also at NRF: retail customer data expert dunnhumby has launched a media business that lets retailers sell advertising on in-store signage, point of sale screens, and similar “owned” channels. It will also manage campaigns in conventional channels. In-store media networks are nothing new but it’s still a good way to leverage dunnhumby’s customer data skills.
Mostly-email marketing technology company Campaign Monitor has tip-toed into omni-channel by buying cross-channel experience platform Sailthru and real-time email personalization vendor Liveclicker. Both deals were closed last year but just announced. Campaign Monitor merged with email vendors Delivra and Emma in June 2018 and bought the Tagga Customer Data Platform in 2017.
Stand-alone digital voice assistants like Amazon Echo will replace smartphones as the dominant consumer home device, predicts an Accenture report. The network effect is alive and well: 93% of voice assistant owners say they’ll look for other devices that easily integrate with them. A majority (57%) of voice assistant owners say they use their smartphones less.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.