The venerable Data & Marketing Association (DMA) has been purchased by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). Founded in 1917 as the Direct Mail Marketing Association, the DMA has struggled to adopt to the digital world. Its combination with ANA (itself founded in 1910) nicely symbolizes the merger of mainstream advertising and direct marketing techniques.
Scalability problems threaten blockchain’s future, according to Condusiv Technologies. Bitcoin processes three to four transactions per second while Visa handles more than 56,000. Here’s another report with similar results. Condusiv sells technology to speed database performance.
Finally, PayPal has purchased e-commerce recommendation engine Jetlore for an undisclosed sum. Jetlore analyzes product descriptions, individual behavior histories, and context to make very precise recommendations. It joins PayPal’s Marketing Solutions group, which has tools to help merchants analyze their customers and offer customized purchase incentives. Didn’t know they did that, did you? Jetlore had raised $10.6 million.
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.