CDP Institute

Pyxis One modestly promises to “revolutionize marketing and consumer intelligence by providing an all-in-one, codeless AI platform”.  More precisely, they’ve building “dozens” (several slews) of AI models for different marketing tasks including targeting, optimization, creative recommendations and consumer research, and how to add over 200 (technically, one slew-bucket) in the new two years.  They just raised a $17 million Series B on top of a $7 million Series A, which seems a bit low for such a big project.

Back in nine-digit territory, cloud data integration platform Matillion has raised a $150 million Series E, bringing total funding to $310 million.  They don’t specifically target customer data but their list of connectors does include bunch of advertising, CRM, and marketing automation systems.  Maybe two bunches.

Surveys usually find that marketers love their martech, but CMSWire reports that just 11% of digital CX executives say their tools are working well. The foul mood may reflect budget issues, which replaced siloed systems as the top digital CX challenge. CDPs are caught in the downdraft: only 18% list them as an investment priority, compared with 29% last year, even though the number considering a purchase remained the same at 33%.  The report does find that successful teams are more likely to have a CDP.

This Demand Spring report on marketing automation shows more typically positive results: 21% are very satisfied with their systems and 65% are fairly satisfied.  One disconnect: integration is the top factor in selecting marketing automation products but better reporting and more advanced features are the capabilities they’d most like to improve.  My take: most systems have adequate integration, so buyers should shift more attention elsewhere during the purchase process.

Are you frustrated because I haven’t written about cookie replacements all week? Here are two items to make up for it. Quantcast has announced solutions to activate, find, and measure ad audiences without third party cookies, and LiveIntent has integrated its email-based identity graph with the OpenX ad bidding platform. You’re welcome.

Yesterday was pretty busy for a Monday, Dear Reader. The big headline is confirmation of Intuit’s rumored purchase of MailChimp. Price was about $12 billion, a somewhat modest 12x earnings if Forbes’ information is correct. The deal furthers Intuit’s goal of becoming a growth platform for small business.

The other big news was credit bureau TransUnion’s deal to buy consumer data collector Neustar for $3.1 billion.  The price is just modestly above the $2.9 billion that Golden Gate Capital paid for Neustar in 2017, and roughly 5x Neustar’s $575 million revenue.   Apparently, the data business isn’t as attractive as it once seemed.

Apple hit the news today when it issued an urgent security patch to block a flaw that was being exploited by spyware company NSO. But marketers may be more interested in new options for managing push notifications in IOS 15. Users will be able to block personal messages while at work, and work messages when away from the office. We’ll see how many actually do that.

In case you spent the weekend in a cave or otherwise cut off from world news: a US district court judge on Friday ordered Apple to let companies in the App Store accept payments outside of Apple’s in-app purchase system, which charges a 30% commission.   The change could cut billions of dollars from Apple profits.  The decision is sure to be appealed but it’s still a rare victory for the rebels against Big Tech.

Microsoft is relatively benign as Big Tech overlords go, but don’t imagine it’s any less interested in grabbing your data.  Its latest gambit is to purchase TakeLessons, a web marketplace for online and in-person classes.  TakeLessons offers mostly consumer-oriented subjects, which expands Microsoft’s reach beyond the business-oriented classes it already offers on LinkedIn Lessons.

If taking a cooking class from Microsoft sounds a little strange, try wrapping your head around getting restaurant reviews from JPMorgan Chase bank.  The financial services giant just bought The Infatuation, a “restaurant discovery platform” whose properties include the once-popular Zagat guide.  The intent is apparently to offer new benefits and experiences to credit card customers.  Data gathering, ecommerce, and advertising revenue are probably on the menu as well.

We’re all about integration today, Dear Reader.  B2B data company ZoomInfo has purchased data quality and orchestration company RingLead, which will let ZoomInfo create unified profiles that combine a company’s own data with ZoomInfo information.  They’re not (yet) building the persistent database that marks a true CDP, but they are certainly providing tools to construct one.