CDP Institute

Unstructured data looms as a bigger problem in this Forrester research for customer comment collector Reputation.  They found that 70% of digital marketing and CX decision-makers believe unstructured data is important in meeting CX goals, but 42% struggle to make sense of customer feedback.  Fun fact: respondents collect feedback from an average of six touchpoints and store it in 5.5 tools.

Or maybe the biggest problem really is data sharing after all.  Planning system vendor Digital.ai als found that 99% of companies agree it’s important to share business planning data but 34% do it poorly.  They win the prize for conflicting answers: 95% of respondents said digital transformation is going well but 91% said they need to get more from their DT initiatives and 54% said DT problems have hurt their company’s bottom line.

Just 23% of companies put marketing fully in charge of martech, according to this Forrester study sponsored by Simon Data.  Perhaps related: while more than 80% rate their martech tools as effective, an even higher 90% face challenges in using martech to meet business goals.  All very interesting.

As Monty Python never quite said, the thing companies buy apart from martech is more martech.  Or so hopes Sitecore, which just extended its martech shopping spree by buying email and marketing automation platform Moosend.  The deal complements Sitecore’s recent purchase of the Boxever CDP and e-commerce experience platform Four51.

Private investment firms Clearlake Capital and TA Associates are also in a buying mood: just two weeks after purchasing data quality vendor Precisely, they’ve financed its purchase of data governance firm Infogix.  In case you forgot: Precisely is the name adopted last June by Syncsort, which had acquired Pitney Bowes’ data software business the preceding December.  Don’t worry; this won’t be on the quiz.

Google has added chat agent assistance to its Contact Center AI platform.  The new services will suggest responses to customer behaviors and recommend information to send to customers who need help.  Did you know that Google had a contact center product?

Speaking of predictive analytics: no-code neural network platform Pecan.ai has raised a $35 million Series B, bringing total funding to $50 million.  Pecan automates the entire model development process from data preparation to model training to score distribution.

Do you ever wonder whether these tech investments really add business value?  Accenture just found that leading tech adopters grow revenue five times faster than tech investment laggards.  Even better news: non-leaders can leapfrog into the leader category by shifting funds from operations to innovation.  Download for more good advice.

We have a full plate of B2B for you today, Dear Reader.  Demandbase has been busy, signing agreements to purchase InsideView and DemandMatrix, two data collectors.  They become part of the new Demandbase Data Cloud and Sales Intelligence Cloud.

Dun & Bradstreet has moved past ABM to launch D&B Rev.Up ABX, which combines first- and third-party data, activation, and measurement, all knit together by its CDP.  (You’ll recall D&B bought Lattice Engines in 2019.)  The new platform supports advertising, Web visitor recognition, and audience lists for CRM and email systems.  It also integrates Bombora intent data and Folloze journey orchestration.

Databook collects public data about companies, analyzes it to identify opportunities, and feeds these into company CRM systems along with recommended messages for target individuals and accounts.  They just raised a $16 million Series A with investors including Microsoft and Salesforce venture funds.

If the high-pitched screech of a dial-up modem brings back fond memories, you may be delighted to learn that Verizon Media is being renamed as Yahoo after being sold to a private equity firm.  Verizon Media bought Yahoo in 2017 and AOL in 2015 for a combined $9 billion but the current sale values them at around half that amount.  Oopsies.