Finally, relationship intelligence vendor Affinity has raised a $26.5 million Series B. Affinity scans data such as emails, contact lists, and calendar events to measure relationships and identify opportunities. Yes, there’s tons of artificial intelligence under the hood.
In-app programmatic advertising is substantially more prone to fraud and wasted impressions than Web-based ads. This according to a study from Lucidity, which uses a blockchain-based technique to verify ad metrics. While 96% of Web impressions were confirmed by all members of the ad supply chain, just 65% of in-app ads were. Non-confirmed impressions are likely to be fraudulent or wasted. Confirmation rates improved substantially when placements were optimized to avoid discrepancies, which implies (but doesn’t prove) that performance improved as well.
Enough fancy technology. Small businesses need simpler solutions. Constant Contact is addressing that world with a new Marketing Advisor program that will include actual human contact (well, 30 minutes on the phone each month) to help small business marketers figure out what to do and then do it.
Tech is fun but a little caution is always a good idea. This Pentagon-funded report on blockchain says that, whatever its theoretical virtues, existing real-world implementations contain major security weaknesses. Raise your hand if you’re shocked.