We haven’t written much about the tribulations of Nielsen’s core media measurement business, which would make a fine soap opera of its own.  The latest plot twist has an “Empire strikes back” vibe, with Nielsen announcing plans to convert its much-maligned TV audience measurements into something fashionably cross-platform and people based.  Stay tuned.

A majority (58%) of email marketers say better access to data would “greatly” improve their ability to run personalized campaings, according to this Simon Data survey.  More than one-third say their IT team (34%) and data team (40%) is involved in the campaign process.  Perhaps as a result, nearly half (47% say it takes at least four days to get the information they need.

With CDP vendors increasing their workforces by 3.4% in six months, compared with an average of 0.2% each six months over the prior two years, the sector seems to be growing again, according to our own semi-annual industry update. There is much talk of composable CDPs but they still employ no more than 5% of the sector workforce. What is a clear trend is the acquisition of independent CDPs by vendors interested in adding a CDP to a larger system (usually an activation system).