CDP Institute

Salesforce yesterday announced its generative AI application for CRM, named Einstein GPT. It’s far from the “world’s first”, as claimed in their press release, but does connect with Salesforce data, integrate with ChatGPT-parent OpenAI, and do all the cool generative AI content creation. Or, it will eventually: right now it’s in a closed pilot.

There is a special corner of the marketing automation world for “multi-location” businesses, in which a central brand coordinates with (often fiercely) independent local dealers or franchise holders. SOCi lives in that corner with clients including Ford, Ace Hardware, and Stanley Steemer. They just raised $120 million in financing, which they’ll use to integrate with – you guessed it – OpenAI to help local partners make better, faster marketing decisions.

I don’t know when Zeta started calling itself “the AI-Powered Marketing Cloud”, but that no longer sounds very special. They’ve just announced a variety of AI-based enhancements, including omnichannel forecasting, enhanced propensity scoring, and no-code data warehouse connections. It’s the warehouse connections that catch my eye: AI has great potential to remove that bottleneck, yet few vendor talk about applying it to the problem.

Can’t we just agree that all software will include generative AI-based assistants for most tasks, so I don’t have to report on each one? The latest announcement is from Microsoft Dynamics 365, whose “Copilot” will do cool things like help find customer segments in your CDP and create draft emails. Most features are in a limited preview mode.

When I say “currency”, is what pops into your head “crypto” or “ad measurement”? If the latter, you’ll be excited that the Joint Industry Committee, a consortium of TV programmers, has published a first draft its requirements for cross-platform video currencies. The JIC will certify solutions that meet the standards, giving media buyers even more conflicting options to choose from. Sounds like a plan.

Remember BOPIS? Buy Online Pick up In Store was a hot topic during the Covid pandemic, when people didn’t want to shop in person but still needed to get stuff. We haven’t heard much about it recently but it has become a standard capability. Ecommerce platform BigCommerce just announced a collection of APIs to help merchants incorporate it into their websites.

Brand safety is top of mind for…well, some people. But many of those people buy advertising. So iHeartMedia recently launched what it says is the first podcast brand safety tool, which will score every podcast in its catalog.  Not one less thing to worry about, but maybe one thing to worry about less.

This Braze study offers insights into what customer engagement leaders are doing that others are not. The short answer is more of everything, including more messaging channels and more real time data. They probably collect more data too, although 80% of those surveyed said they feel they collect too much, which prevents them from using it effectively.

Here’s an unexpected result: this PwC study finds executives overestimate the weight that consumers place on good service: 25% of executives list it as a reason for loyalty compared with just 11% of consumers. On the other hand, consumers are more likely than executives to cite bad service as a reason for leaving (37% vs 26%). Executives also underestimate the importance of product and overestimate the impact of price. Much to ponder – including how well responses to surveys like these reflect actual behavior.

Wunderkind, formerly BounceX, just raised a $76 million Series C, bringing its total to $152 million. The company targets ads based on website behavior. It works mostly with first-party data, including ads based on publishers’ own data. This limits privacy issues although some people still feel behavioral targeting is creepy.

Cracking the telco market has been tough for CDP vendors due to high volumes, special needs, a preference for on-premises solutions, and deeply entrenched competitors. Rather than go it alone, Microsoft is teaming with telco specialist Amdocs to integrate Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Cloud products with Amdocs’ Commerce and Care suite. The Microsoft CDP is in there somewhere.

The adtech space is suffering from increasing privacy restraints, declining ad sales, and new competitors such as Connected TV and Retail Media Networks. One result is consolidation. Today we have two deals to report: ad automation platform Simpli.fi is buying contextual and native ad specialist Bidtellect; and, ad monetization vendor MonetizeMore is buying Advanced Ads,  which builds ad management tools for WordPress sites.