CDP Institute

B2B data and tech company Demandbase announced $175 million in new financing from Vista Credit Partners.  It’s the company’s first raise since 2017 and more than doubles total funding to $318 million.  Demandbase is one of relatively few martech firms to take major new funding this year.

Social shopping continues its decidedly mixed progress.  Instagram is shutting down live shopping, which lets creators tag items for purchase within a livestream.   But TikTok is testing an in-app checkout that connects to a product catalog.

A large majority (79%) of tech workers would rely on artificial intelligence for everyday tasks, compared with just 48% of the general public, according to this MITRE-Harris Poll survey.  We don’t know whether AI experts share the tech workers’ confidence, which is a bit worrisome since tech workers will control the pace of AI deployment.  Tech workers and the public agree that government and industry should do more to protect against AI problems.

Mobile marketing measurement vendor Kochava is mostly in the news these days for its battle with the Federal Trade Commission over location data sales.    But they also have good news.  Most recent is acquisition of Machine Advertising, which provides incremental results measurement and optimal budget allocations for app marketing programs.

Augeo offers services and technology related to live and web events, loyalty, channel relationships, and employee engagement.  They just bought Brand Networks, which provides social media advertising solutions.  It’s Augeo’s seventh acquisition since 2019.

DoubleVerify keeps expanding the channels it supports with media measurement and anti-fraud services.  Their latest leap is a service to verify viewability of Connected TV ads.  DoubleVerify estimates that CTV advertisers paid more than $1 billion last year for ads on TV sets which were turned off.

Google’s long-delayed and much-dreaded deprecation of third-party cookies primarily impacts Web advertising, but its privacy measures also affect Android devices. The company has just opened its Privacy Sandbox for Android for beta testing. Advertisers won’t be able to track users across apps or websites, while users will be able to see what interests Google thinks they have and remove any they don’t want listed.

Third-party cookies may be dying, but the market for third-party data is alive and well. Case in point: B2B data collector Clearbit is expanding its services with a new Data Activation Platform that provides real-time access to data about target audiences, anonymous website visitors, and known prospects. Enhancements include new targeting options, API connections, and more predictable pricing.

Acquia is adding several enhancements to its CDP offering. Most notable from a product perspective are industry-specific configurations and machine learning models for retail, consumer goods, food and beverage, healthcare, financial services, and travel and hospitality. Other changes include new pricing tiers, a new partner model, and technical improvements for scalability, extensibility, and configurability.

Twilio announced a 17% layoff yesterday, just five months after an 11% reduction. The company is reorganizing into two divisions, once focused on communications products and the other on data and applications, including the Segment CDP. Staff cuts will fall more heavily on the communications group.

Not every tech vendor is cutting back. Customer experience automation platform, which tripled its headcount in the past twelve months, will fuel continued expansion with a $50 million Series C. Ushur lets users create visual workflows for conversational interactions such as claims processing and appointment setting.

In the same way that beer is no longer just for breakfast, personalization is no longer just for marketing. This Forrester study for Adobe drives home the point by showing that people expect personalization at every step from product discovery through service and support. B2B buyers had even higher expectations than consumers.