CDP Institute

We do have a convoy of stories related to transportation ads. Uber has launched an advertising division that will, among other things, target ads at individuals based on data it collects across its mobility and delivery businesses. You remember consenting to that, right? Also “electric vehicle (“EV”) charging and media company” Volta is making its ads available programmatically using Vistar Media technology. And delivery company DoorDash has also expanded its self-service ad platform.

This Merkle report on customer engagement contains a hail of factoids.  Item one: under one-third of companies use customer data throughout their organization; the rest (68%) limit it primarily to marketing.  Item two: ownership of the customer experience tech stack is split almost evenly between IT (54%) and marketing (48%, and yes that totals 102%).  Item three: the biggest hurdles to CDP use are implementation (27%) and bad data (24%); the lowest are strategy (9%), use case delivery (5%), and lack of central ownership (2%).

ActionIQ has launched a collection of features aimed at customer acquisition programs, including integration with identity vendors, data clean rooms, walled gardens including Facebook and Google, and demand side platforms.  Acquisition marketing has recently emerged as a major application for CDPs, which had previously been focused on activating data about current customers.

You may not think of Pinterest as an adtech vendor, but the easier they make it to run effective ads, the more ads they’ll sell.  They just announced several expanded features for advertisers, including an enhanced Trends tool, global availability of the API for conversions, and soon-to-be-global conversion data from Shopify and Google Tag Manager.

Martech from Walmart? Why not? They have opened beta access to a new platform that gives creators a prebuilt portal stocked with thousands of products to sell. Creators were formerly known as influencers, if you’re not hip to the latest jive.

Vendasta helps marketing agencies support small business clients.  The platform includes a marketplace with 250+ sales and marketing tools, agency management software, and a client portal.  They just bought Yesware, a sales-oriented email tracking and campaign management tool, to add to the mix.

Kyra bridges the gaps between small and big business by helping individual creators build TikTok content and set up partnerships.  At least, that’s what I took away from their headache-inducing website.  What’s more clear is they just raised a $15 million Series A to do more of it.

Insite AI lives entirely on the big business side of the fence, offering AI-driven tools for consumer product category management, pricing, and trade promotions.  They announced their own $19 million Series A last week.  Their website is blissfully static.

Corporate IT managers don’t prioritize marketing goals.  The latest reminder comes from TDWI, which found that IT and data managers rank marketing as the eighth-most important business driver for their data management projects.  Streaming and real-time data access are the most challenging projects for developers, while integrating multichannel experiences are the least successful digital transformation projects.  Tell me again why you’d want your IT group to build a CDP equivalent?

Crisp provides access to retail sales and inventory data from partners such as Walmart, Target, and Shopify. They just did a deal with The Trade Desk to enable advertisers to use the data to optimize media campaigns. Crisp announced a similar deal last May with Omnicom Media Group.

Online research vendor QuestionPro has purchased customer journey mapping platform SuiteCX. The deal continues QuestionPro’s expansion beyond surveys into full-on experience analysis. QuestionPro bought qualitative research platform Digsite in August.

Responsible social media is probably an oxymoron, but there are still shades of gray. IPG Mediabrands has expanded its Media Responsibility Index to cover 150+ companies including social media, broadcast and connected TV, online video, and display ads. Ratings are based on self-reported data about safety, inclusivity, sustainability, and data ethics.  The index helps Mediabrands clients avoid unsuitable ad placements, but I couldn’t find a version that’s shared with the rest of us.