CDP Institute

MailChimp, which has already expanded beyond email into marketing automation, is now adding an online storefront and appointment-booking. A free-ish version of the storefront has no monthly fee, although users pay 2% of revenues. Or, users can pay $10 or $29 per month in exchange for lower transaction rates.

Omni-channel messaging platform MessageBird announced a $600 million acquisition of email optimization platform SparkPost, $1 billion Series C extension (from the previous $200 million), and entry to the U.S. market. We also just learned that MessageBird bought the Hull.io CDP at the end of March, along with video platform 24sessions. The deals strengthen MessageBird’s competitive position against Twilio, which you will recall bought the Segment CDP last year.

Adobe has announced several enhancements to its Real-time CDP, including: Segment Match, a second-party data sharing feature; Look-Alike Segments, which identifies customers similar to a sample group; and B2B enhancements including a combination of individual and account profiles.  Nothing revolutionary here but their product is continuing to mature.

If you’re looking for something a bit more radical, how about interactive voice advertising?  Instreamatic has raised $6.1 million so you can yell at an ad and it will not just answer back, but remember what you said in the future.  Somehow this counts as progress.

Or maybe you want to enter an entirely different world by playing a game. InMobi has launched a programmatic ad exchange that can follow you there with things like ads on billboards in an in-game sports stadium.  The ads probably don’t talk with you but it’s just a matter of time.

Identity resolution vendor Intent IQ has expanded its suite of customer tracking tools with Data Sharing Choice, which asks users to consent to sharing their first-party cookie ID, IP address, and browser information. Unlike other first-party-data-based solutions, Intent IQ’s Browser Identity Hub doesn’t require sharing an email address or other personal information. Intent IQ has previously introduced Mobile Identity Hub, which constructs a persistent ID by clustering mobile app user IDs.

Apple is sticking with its anti-tracking stance by adding untargeted “search” ads which appear to show the same ad to all App Store visitors.  You know, like network TV in the 1960’s.  Perhaps they’ll complete the experience with reruns of Mr. Ed.

There’s apparently some weird competition between IRI and NielsenIQ to use the word “omni”. NielsenIQ’s opener was its Omnishopper announcement, complete with “omni measurement” of the “omni-experience” across the “omnichannel” landscape. (Bonus points for inconsistent spacing and hyphens.) IRI has countered by expanding its “omnichannel measurement capabilities to offer complete coverage of the omnichannel universe with the launch of two new solutions: IRI OmniMarket™ and IRI OmniConsumer™.” That’s four “omnis” in one sentence, NielsenIQ.

I tried to give you a break from universal ID news, Dear Reader, but vendors keep coming up with new variants.  Mobile ad network InMobi has launched UnifiID, which lets app publishers add IDs from LiveRamp, ID5, and/or BritePool to their data.  InMobi plans to offer IDs from Epsilon, Liveintent, Parrable, Zeotap, and others in the future.

Mediavine, which offers services to Web site publishers, is also making it easier for their clients to append shared IDs to their visitor data. They’ve just added ID5 to their list of ID partners, which already included LiveRamp and The Trade Desk-developed Unified ID 2.0. Separately: identity graph vendor Infutor has announced support for Unified ID 2.0.

Ready to give up on universal IDs and retreat to a walled garden? They have plenty of news too. Target has just connected its Roundel digital ad network with the CitrusAd self-service media buying tool.  And Comcast’s FreeWheel adtech group is piloting a new system that creates combined audiences across linear and digital video platforms.

Consumer attitudes changed significantly during the pandemic, according to this Merkle survey.  While quality and price are still the most important factors in purchase decisions, their weight fell while customer service, personalization, and brand became more important.  Even more intriguing: consumers became more willing to share personal data in exchange for greater convenience and personalized experiences.