CDP Institute

Predictive analytics and marketing automation vendor Exacaster was all set to launch its teleco-specific Customer Data Platform at the MWC conference in Barcelona this week but then the conference was canceled due to coronavirus. They’ve launched anyway from their home base in Lithuania. Industry-specific CDPs are increasingly common and telco is one of the more popular specialties.

Retail is another industry supported by several specialist CDPs. Speaking of retail (see how I did that?), this enVista study finds big gaps between the personalization that retail shoppers want and the personalization they’re getting. For example, 74% of shoppers want personalized promotions and discounts but just 35% of retailers have implemented that successfully. Consumers are much less enthusiastic about suggested selling based on social media activity (31%) but almost as many retailers provide it (24%).

Salesforce rather casually announced during yesterday’s quarterly earnings call that it is buying Vlocity, which builds industry-specific CRM systems on top of the Salesforce platform, for a cool $1.33 billion. The news was buried in the middle of the sixth paragraph of the prepared statement. Just another day at the office, I suppose.

The folks at Neutronian were considerably more excited about their news, which is that they have launched their data compliance and source verification platform. Their goal is to provide independent scoring of the quality and sourcing of marketing data. Compliant sourcing is a big issue since advertisers may be liable if they buy data that was gathered improperly.

Sure enough, data quality is the top concern of location data buyers, according to this 451 Research study for Cuebiq. Privacy ranked fourth, just behind dealing with multiple data sources and walled gardens. The study found that 98% of marketers use location data to some degree, although just 27% consider it a key component of their strategy.

More people have concluded it’s a bad idea to put an always-on, internet-connected microphone in their house. Or, at least, they’ve decided not to buy things through it: just 7% of global consumers said they use a voice-assisted device to complete purchases multiple times each month in this Episerver survey, far down from 17% in last year’s survey. Voice-based product search fell from 22% to 8%. Added evidence of shifting attitudes: 53% said they want more anonymity while just 28% want more personalization.

Privacy has been good business for OneTrust, which offers consent, compliance and risk management systems. They just raised a $210 million Series B, following a $200 million Series A last July.

Tiny Data443 (formerly Landstar) is also in the privacy business, although they haven’t raised any money so far as I can tell. They do claim 30,000 active users for their free WordPress plug-in, GDPR Framework, and offer several other data protection products. They just launched Global Privacy Manager, a SaaS-based tools for privacy compliance, data governance, and loss mitigation.

Lots of action in the world of B2B data management right now. Here’s Vertify buying Synthio. The two businesses fit together nicely: Vertify is an integration platform that moves data between B2B systems while Synthio provides contact data to enrich existing profiles and add new names.

Meanwhile, B2B data quality vendor RingLead has added ten new partners for its just-announced DataExchange. ZoomInfo, Crunchbase, Clearbit, Inside View, Aberdeen, and DemandMatrix join previous participants Bombora, HG Data, Oceanos, and others.

Leadplum doesn’t really fit with today’s other items: it mostly delivers B2C messages across mobile channels including push, in-app messaging, and email. But they did just raise $27 million, bringing their total raise to over 125 million. That seems worth a mention.

BlueVenn has added an integrated email engine to its CDP, or more properly to the Omnichannel Marketing Hub it sells alongside its CDP. It thus joins the ranks of CDP vendors offering delivery capabilities. Users will still have the option to connect to other email systems, or BlueVenn wouldn’t be a CDP at all.