I’m skeptical of voice interfaces for complex interactions like data analysis, but Datorama apparently thinks Amazon Alexa is up to the task. They’re just announced an Amazon Alexa function called “Ask Datorama Anything” that gives access to the unified data assembled in Datorama’s Customer Data Platform. Voice commands can kick off reports and processes. Interesting.
Multi-channel personalization and recommendation vendor Dynamic Yield has raised $22 million in new funding, bringing its total to more than $36 million. The system integrates with Web sites, mobile apps, email, and advertising channels. Yes, it supports it all by building a unified customer view.
We recently reported about Lotame measuring TV audiences with individual data from Smart TVs, even though advertisers still had to buy ads that reach everyone who views a show. Here’s something similar from Adobe, which is using data from other devices to understand who’s watching. Adobe’s “TV Media Management Platform” is also provides advanced forecasting to help media planning. It’s always nice to see martech and adtech working together, if only so I can call it “madtech”.
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.