CDP Institute

It’s not just publishers who see gold in their first party data.  Retail media platforms were arguably the biggest advertising news in 2021.  This year promises more of the same, with Best Buy kicking off its own ad business.  And since a little virtue signaling never hurts, they’ve also announced they’d devote 10% of their own media spend to BIPOC media by 2025.  If you don’t know what BIPOC stands for, you’re not in the target audience.

Out of home media live even farther outside the Big Tech walled gardens.  Atmosphere, which offers ad-supported streaming TV displays in over 18,000 restaurants, gyms, doctor offices and other venues with captive audiences, just raised $100 million in equity plus debt to expand their business.  Targeting is based on context, geography, and demographics but not individual profiles.

The CDP industry is entering an even more competitive stage as established vendors fight to become dominant leaders, according to the CDP Institute’s latest Industry Update. The semi-annual study finds unprecedented fund-raising, accelerated growth by large firms, and an apparent slowdown in companies entering the industry. For further commentary, see this post in the Customer Experience Matrix blog.

India-based cloud communications platform Exotel has raised a $40 million Series D, bringing total funding to $87 million.  Oddly enough, Exotel doesn’t claim to provide a CDP to unify its cross-channel customer treatments.  Yet.

The news is so meager today that I’m tempted to amuse you with car-driving goldfish. But we are Serious People here, so instead I’ll report on the slow-motion bidding war for R.R.Donnelley. Readers of a certain age will recall when Donnelley’s printing operations made it a major force in the marketing industry. See: Ozymandias.

Happy New Year, Dear Reader.  The News Gods are still out but we always have surveys.  This one from Dynamic Yield assesses personalization maturity across eight dimensions and three geographic regions.  Technology lags culture and leadership but there’s progress: 31% say they can now personalize most digital interactions, up from just 10% the year before.

Drilling into retail, Newstore’s secret shopper research into 250 top brands found capabilities have increased dramatically in the past year: for example, 53% now offer buy online pick-up in-store (BORIS) options, up from 25% two years ago.  In-store experience may have suffered as investments shift elsewhere: just 48% give mobile devices to in-store staff, down from 68% two years ago.

Kustomer found the most desired retail personalization features were quick access to recently viewed products (59%) and online account information and purchase history (55%).  But take note: ability to opt out of personalization (52%) ranked far ahead of personalized product selections based on past browsing and buying behavior (32%), behavior on other retail websites (19%), or demographic information (12%).

This is our last newsletter of the year, Dear Reader, so I’ll keep it upbeat.  Here’s a nice study by market research firm Censuswide, which reports that 66% of marketers expect a higher budget in 2022.  Greatest growth will be in mobile advertising, podcasts, connected TV, and out of home. Fun!

This AppsFlyer report takes a glass-half-full view of Apple’s tightened privacy rules, reporting that 46% of users have opted to allow app tracking when asked, and predicting rates will increase over time.  They also report that companies are getting better at doing attribution in privacy-compliant ways.  In plainer terms: the sky is not falling.

And lest you conclude that Big Tech is entirely evil, here’s news of talking prescription drug labels to help the visually impaired – in multiple languages, no less.  Let that warm your heart a bit, Dear Reader, and accept our best wishes for the holidays and New Year.

We have a few holiday surprises for you today, Dear Reader. This Dun & Bradstreet report finds that just 12% of companies have built their consolidated customer view in a CDP, compared with master data management and CRM, both at 22%; data warehouse for 15%; and data lakes for 11%. Even the lowly spreadsheet clocked in at 15%. More than half (59%) have a multi-vendor sales and marketing tech stack, while 41% base it on a single vendor. Lots more here.