CDP Institute

All-in-one marketing software vendor Infusionsoft has changed its name to Keap and launched client management product fewer functions than its previous flagship system, which will also remain available. A some-in-one product, as it were. The vast majority of small businesses couldn’t make effective use of the original system.

Speaking of simplicity, retail consultants BRP found that 55% of consumers said they are more likely to buy at a store with self-checkout while just 32% are more likely to shop at a store offering an augmented reality experience. It’s another reminder that consumers have a highly pragmatic approach to tech, preferring systems that make shopping easier over systems that are merely cool. The report gives much more information consumer attitudes and retailer investment intentions.

We have some actual CDP news today. AgilOne announced a strategic partnership with Snowflake Computing, which provides a cloud-based database noted for high speed SQL queries and scalability. Users will gain better access to data stored in AgilOne.

Meanwhile, mParticle has launched Data Master, which gives users new tools to catalog data gathered by the system. The key benefit is a central repository that collects information about inputs in one place.

Finally, Segment has launched a new partner program. It provides training, certification, technical and marketing support for companies that help sell and support Segment (channel partners) and companies whose products integrate with Segment (technology partners). Segment has recently taken to calling itself a Customer Data Infrastructure rather than a CDP.

Customer-centric customer service may seem redundant, but it’s emerging as a theme. Gladly builds a unified lifetime view of customers and shares it across all channels. They contrast this against a case-centric view that treats each problem separately. They’ve just raised $50 million, bringing their total to $118 million.

Data privacy (56%) is now the top priority of online advertisers, beating consistent measurement (47%), ad fraud (43%), brand safety (37%) and fake news (31%), according to a survey from adtech vendor Integral Ad Science. A cynic might question advertisers’ commitment to privacy: when brands ranked threats to budgets, inability to measure ROI ranked first (75%), followed by transparency (60%), fraud (53%), brand-safe placements (47%), and non-viewable impressions (42%). Other interesting stats here too.

Turns out you’re not paranoid: that smart lightbulb really is spying on you.

Digital behavior analysis vendor Contentsquare has raised a $60 million Series C, bringing its total funding to $120 mllion. Contentsquare captures Web and mobile app behaviors, provides journey analytics, heatmaps, and other reporting, and uses artificial intelligence to alert marketers to interesting situations. Founded in 2012, the Paris-based firm now has more than 300 employees worldwide.

Customer service platform Kustomer – is which NOT run by Krusty the Clown – announced its own Series C, a respectable $35 million, brining its total to $73.5 million. Kustomer says that its “first-of-its-kind data model and one, single timeline view of customer interactions and events” distinguishes it from other customer service products. A unified customer view: how kool is that?

Apparently today’s newsletter is brought to you by the letter C, since our final item is the acquisition by Cision of TrendKite. Cision is a press release service with ambitions: TrendKite analyzes the impact of corporate communications and Cision bought social media platform Falcon.io earlier this month.

Positive stories about Facebook are rare these days, so it’s news that we have one: Facebook has expanded its Marketing Partner certification program to include Brand Safety products, which help advertisers avoid placements on sites they want to avoid. The first two partners are DoubleVerify, which verifies traffic quality, and OpenSlate, which rates site content.