The unifying thread in all this is the value of personal data. Research Intelligencer did some fascinating (to me) research that found most people would consider a rate below minimum wage to be fair pay for time spent viewing ads. The article links to another study that found advertisers actually pay under $3 per hour of consumer time. Equally fascinating (or not).
So far, Alexa ignores me when I ask her to write this newsletter. But smart speakers are already having a huge impact elsewhere. UK-based content marketing agency Delineate found that 24% of U.S. households have a smart speaker and 54% of smart speaker owners have used them for shopping.
Since we’re on the topic of sales automation, let’s finish with news that “conversational marketing platform” Drift has added its own tool to help sales reps. Drift provides a chatbot, event-triggered personalized email sequences, and personalized Web site messages. If you’re keeping score, they’ve raised $47 million.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.