CDP Institute

The trend for supersized martech funding rounds continued today with a $200 million Series E for 6sense, the once-struggling, now-surging account based marketing platform.  Total 6sense funding now stands at $426 million.  6sense probably has a CDP buried somewhere inside of it, having acquired ZenIQ back in 2018.

If you want to put marketing and advertising in a broader context, take a look at Winterberry Group’s 13th annual Advertising, Marketing, and Data industry outlook report.  They’re bullish on industry growth in general, reporting a 21.5% increase in 2021, after a 4.8% decline in 2019, and projecting another 11.8% growth in 2022.  Fun fact: Winterberry says more is spent on influencer marketing and on audio marketing than on email.

Location data plays an increasingly important role in marketing analytics, especially as tracking known individuals is constrained by privacy regulations.  So it makes sense that Clearlake-backed data quality vendor Precisely has decided to purchase location data leader PlaceIQ.  The deal will (literally) add a new dimension to Precisely’s data enhancement and targeting capabilities.

The term “revenue operations” is having its moment of buzz.  It’s how Clari describes itself, although “sales forecasting” might be more clear.  In any case, Clari just raised a $225 million Series F, bringing total funding to $496 million and quadrupling the company’s valuation in two years.

Here’s a trio of surprisingly consistent reports on the dark side of cloud computing. Dynatrace finds that companies are struggling to multi-cloud environments; Nutanix reports pretty much the same thing; and Stacklet says that governance is a “significant inhibitor” to cloud adoption. Of course, all three companies are selling solutions to the problem, but this still suggests that IT departments are finding cloud migrations are not as easy as they once seemed.

We have something for everyone today, Dear Reader.  For those who still doubt that retail media is a Big Thing, customer data agency dunnhumby announced an “end-to-end retail media platform”.  The new offering will make it easy for retailers to monetize their customer data without having to develop the underlying systems from scratch.   Appearance of packaged products is a normal stage in market development, indicating a concept has been well enough defined for developers to understand common requirements.

If you’re fascinated by martech investment, or money in general, you’ll be interested that sales enablement platform Highspot has raised a $248 million Series F, bringing total funding to $648 million.  Highspot helps salespeople to deliver appropriate content to their prospects.   There’s plenty of AI mixed in, if that piques your interest.

Or maybe you’re just worried about the collapse of civilization in general.  Our friends at Edelman will scratch that itch with news that trust levels in major institutions are lower than ever.  “Government and media feed cycle of division and disinformation for votes and clicks,” says Edelman, leaving “NGOs and business pressured to take on societal problems beyond their abilities.”  Have a great day!

In today’s edition of Big Tech Behaving Badly, new filings in a multi-state anti-trust lawsuit show Google gamed its ad auctions to underpay publishers and overcharge advertisers.  The dispute seems less about what they did than whether it was illegal.

On to cheerier topics.  Mobile ad platform LoopMe sold a majority stake to growth investor Mayfair Equity Partners for $120 million.  LoopMe uses AI to optimize media campaign delivery in real time across mobile, connected TV, digital audio, digital out-of-home, and other fun channels.

Staying cheerful, this Treasure Data survey confirms that social commerce is here to stay: 84% of respondents said they made at least one purchase on social media in the past year.  Bonus puzzle: 83% say they’d share contact data such as email and phone for discounts and other benefits, but 58% also say they never share data due to privacy concerns.

Let’s talk analytics today, Dear Reader.  Location analytics vendor Placer.ai just raised $100  million Series C, giving us something big to discuss.  Placer.ai combines more than fifty sources to present anonymized data about foot traffic and sentiments.  Not sure how they detect happy feet but it sounds like fun.