CDP Institute

Marketing and customer data intelligence platform Validity has acquired email testing and optimization provider Litmus. Validity’s platform currently offers CRM data management as well as email address verification and deliverability services. The addition of Litmus will support end-to-end email marketing campaigns.

“Insufficient groveling” may not yet be a crime, but it does help to explain why proceedings commenced yesterday in the FTC’s lawsuit alleging Meta built an illegal monopoly through the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions. The trial has been a long time coming: the acquisitions each happened more than a decade ago and the case was filed in 2020. Mark Zuckerberg has begun testifying.

Speaking of monopolists, Google is unabashedly using AI Overviews to redirect users to Google search results. AI Overviews is increasing the number of links that it shares in its answers presented in summary format, but the links often go to Google search pages rather than other websites. Google says the links will appear when its systems determine they are “useful,” although they didn’t specify whether that’s useful to consumers or to Google.

The Media Rating Council is seeking to rebut a recent report by Adalytics that claimed high profile brands are advertising to known bots. It says Adalytics mistakenly looked at “pre-bid” detection and filtration while traffic is actually filtered after ads are served, meaning that advertisers do not end up paying for non-human traffic. This follows sweeping criticism of Adalytics’ methodology by DoubleVerify.

HubSpot announced more than 200 product updates at its Spring Spotlight event. These include numerous new AI agents such as Customer Agents to provide 24/7 customer support, Prospecting Agents to research and even engage with target accounts and Content Agents to help create and scale multi-channel content. It also launched new AI-powered Workspaces for sales, customer success and the help desk.

Two unrelated lawsuits have been brought against The Trade Desk alleging violations of consumer privacy laws. A class action in California claims that The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 identifier collects personally identifiable information, like email addresses and phone numbers, to support user profiling. A second California class action alleges that The Trade Desk tracks and de-anonymizes internet users without their consent via its Adsrvr Pixel.

Google developers have created a new open protocol Agent2Agent (A2A) that helps AI agents collaborate (and/or conspire) across platforms and applications. The initiative is supported by a long list of tech and service providers, from Salesforce and SAP to Accenture and Deloitte. It is designed to complement Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol which has similar aims.

In other Google news, Firebase Studio has been launched to allow users to build quality AI apps “quickly, all in one place.” Studio is powered by Gemini and builds on the foundations of the app creation platform, Firebase, that Google acquired in 2014. Some people argue that no-code development of enterprise-ready AI apps is a threat to commercial SaaS software.

Twitch has flinched. The Amazon-owned live streaming platform has joined the list of companies caving to right-wing bullying, by reaching a deal to resolve claims that Twitch was part of a conspiracy to withdraw advertising from X.  MediaPost reports the federal judge on the case has refused to accept the deal because the parties requested a nine month pause while they worked out details.

Marketing analytics platform Yotpo has acquired start-up CDP Coho AI under undisclosed terms. Yotpo’s main focus has been retention marketing. Coho’s data should help connect Yotpo’s online audiences to ecommerce loyalty programs, as well as support SMS and email marketing to known customers.

Forty-two percent of the C-suite say adopting gen AI is “tearing their company apart” and over 40% of Millennial and Gen Z employees say they are resisting their company’s AI strategy, according to a survey of knowledge workers by Writer. Still, 88% of employees and 97% of executives said they are benefiting from AI and are using it for a wide range of use cases.

GenAI isn’t the only technology that arouses mixed emotions.  Blueshift found that 53% of marketers report their current martech stack frequently (28%) or sometimes (26%) over-complicates cross-channel execution, and just 25% have definitely seen improved results from personalized product or content recommendations.  On the other hand, a solid 89% agree that real time customer profiles play a key role in personalized engagement strategies.