CDP Institute

Team Obvious at CallRail are no slackers, either. They share that 96% of marketers say attribution is important. They stumbled a bit with the non-obvious fact that just over half (51%) use four or more marketing platforms, but recovered by finding that reporting is more frustrating for marketers with more platforms.

Merkle starts with the gloriously obvious news that most marketers have budgets, tools, and organization to do personalization. But then they veer into the unexpected with news that location data is used more widely than customer profiles, and continue with even less obvious details about which data sources fuel personalization, which channels use which sources, and how usage varies by industry. But you can skip that stuff if you like.

It’s a mixed bag today, Dear Reader. Let’s start with Salesforce, which has launched a new Web content management system, straightforwardly named Salesforce CMS. Claims to fame include drag-and-drop content creation and ability to deliver the content to any vendor’s system via API calls. The cool kids call that “headless”.

Next we have news that programmatic ad platform Simpli.fi is adding more precise audience targeting to its localized ad campaigns. Users can define audiences using over 500 demographic variables on 126 million households and then target audience members when they appear near specified locations.

Targeting on demographics and location both raise privacy concerns, at least for some people. InfoSum has just launched a privacy-safe planning tool that lets marketers match their own data against media audiences without exposing personal identities. Everybody wins: marketers can find which audiences best fit their needs; publishers can sell more advertising; and consumers run less risk of having personal data exposed.

Sorry the newsletter is so late today, Dear Reader. It’s a long story involving electrical connectors, eggnog, and a moose. But you wouldn’t be interested. Instead, we have the third acquisition of an AI-based predictive tool by a CDP vendor in the past week. This time it’s Netcore, a messaging platform with a CDP inside, purchasing Boxx.ai, a personalization and recommendation engine. Definitely a trend going on here.

We also have an acquisition by identity management vendor Infutor. Target is data compiler Dunn Data Company, which will add more information on consumers to Infutor’s database. Third party data is not going away, privacy rules notwithstanding.

How accurate is that third party data you’re so worried about losing? This study by several academics applied three tests to data accuracy and found profiles more accurate than random guesses, but not by much – and probably not enough to compensate for the higher ad costs charged for such data.

Rokt is yet another company that delivers personalized content, in its case by recommending next best offers on ecommerce Web sites. They haven’t bought anything or been bought, but they did raise a $48 million Series C to help grow by themselves. Total funding is now $82 million.

Lots of personalization industry news today, Dear Reader. Retail-oriented analytical CDP Manthan and recommendation engine RichRelevance have announced a “path to consolidating” pending regulatory approvals. The firms will start joint sales and marketing right away. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because analytical CDP Amperity bought recommendation engine Custora just yesterday.

Sales content recommendation vendor Seismic also has a new partner: it is buying content management vendor Percolate. The deal will make it easier for marketers and sales teams to deliver consistent, personalized content across all channels and all stages of the customer journey. As one should.

CDP Amperity has purchased Custora, a retail predictive analytics and campaign management system. Custora also assembles customer profiles so it might have qualified as a CDP by itself. It’s a rare acquisition by a CDP vendor and extends Amperity’s scope into “campaign CDP” territory.