Adtech vendors keep trying to profit from industry turmoil. Ad inventory marketplace Adfresco is a good example: trading on concerns about fully-automated ad buying, they now position their service as “bringing the human aspect back to automated buying and selling”. In concrete terms, this means that publishers can post inventory options online with a link to an account executive or sales team that must be contacted to make an actual purchase. Charmingly retro. I wonder if they offer drone-based martini delivery.

And still more about people-based marketing: Heap has technology that captures Web site behaviors without setting up tracking for each event individually. As the company puts it, they “automate away the annoying parts of analytics” so people can focus on the fun stuff. Behaviors can be tied to individuals, which isn’t always the case with Web analytics. The company just raised $27 million, for total funding of $40.2 million.

Customer intelligence platform Acxiom will collaborate with ActionIQ to deliver enhanced customer insights. ActionIQ’s CDP will integrate with Acxiom’s demographic, household, behavioral and preference data and with Acxiom’s RealID identity resolution solution. Acxiom experts will work with clients to customize and streamline ActionIQ.