CDP Institute

Hightouch continues to add features that match traditional CDP capabilities, although it retains its reliance on an external data warehouse as the customer data repository.  The latest extension is event streaming, which pushes behavioral event data directly to messaging or analytics tools as soon as it is collected.  In addition to its original reverse ETL component, Hightouch now offers a no-code audience builder, real-time personalization, clickstream data collection, and identity resolution.

Two-thirds (67%) of B2B companies find it challenging to collect zero-party customer data, according to a Forrester study commissioned by product discovery vendor Zoovu.  The report finds that giving personalized guidance to online buyers is the top ecommerce priority, but 83% have poor quality data, 80% struggle with data management, and 81% have an inadequate ecommerce platform.

Relying on social networks as a news source is bad idea whose time has come: YouGov reports that 18% of U.S. consumers cited social networks as their primary news source in 2023, up from 12% in 2019.  TV declined from 31% to 25% in the same period. Social is the top news source for those aged 18 to 34. O tempora, o mores!

Brevo, known as a CRM and marketing automation platform, has announced the launch of Brevo Customer Data Platform following the acquisition in December of CDP Octolis. Brevo is also announcing mobile push capabilities with a push dashboard for Brevo segments and lists. Generative AI tools added to the platform include email content creation, best send time and the ability to adapt tone of voice.

B2B conversational AI marketing platform Drift has been acquired by sales engagement and revenue orchestration platform Salesloft. Drift had been independent since its founding in 2015. The new combined company will have almost 6,000 global customers.

A federal judge has ordered a preliminary injunction temporarily staying an Ohio Law that would have required social media platforms to obtain parental consent for accounts for children under the age of 16. The judge found that the law is likely unconstitutional. He also described it as “a breathtakingly blunt instrument for reducing social media’s harm to children.”

The FCC this week issued a Declaratory Ruling that robocalls made using AI-generated voices count as “artificial” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The ruling, effective immediately, makes such calls illegal. This gives law enforcement means to target the making of such calls rather than only respond to the outcomes.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau and Media Research Council have released proposed guidelines for the measurement of viewability and performance of ads within augmented reality environments. The guidelines are open for public comment through March 9, 2024. The guidelines seek to recognize that AR users can be interacting with both physical and virtual environments.

Seventy percent of ad agencies surveyed identified AI-driven personalization as the number one trend likely to impact the industry and their clients in 2024. The other major trend was short-form video (60%), according to a report by ad agency business development firm RSW/US. Almost 80% of agencies plan to use AI in some form as part of their business strategy.

It’s easy for marketers to confuse personalized marketing with personalized services, but consumers don’t make that mistake.  Merkle reports that consumers rate personalized emails, messages and advertisements as low impact but rate personalized product/service recommendations as high impact.  Their top worry about AI is data protection (58% highly concerned), beating out being recorded by the technology (51%), putting people out of work (50%) and even providing correct answers (46%).

Relationship marketing platform Marigold polled more than 10,000 consumers on which brand interactions they found creepy vs. cool. Leading the creepy pack, unknown brands making it clear they know your geographic location; not far behind, emails that reveal a brand knows where you’ve been. Top of the cool list, personalized birthday offers. Eighty-five percent say their favorite brand treats them like an individual.

Marketers are famous for complaining about data silos, but data professionals also cite the number of silos more often (61%) than any other challenge.  Self-service data prep remains rare (10%) although 22% plan to add it.  Mature data governance is in place at just 8% of the survey group.