CDP Institute

An even broader study that NSU Technologies ran for Software AG found that retailers who lead in adopting digital technologies had a six percent annual growth rate over three years, while laggards’ revenue was flat. Early adopters also had nearly twice the price-earnings ratio as the others: 22.32 vs 12.22. The survey provides lots of details about strategy, governance, deployments, business impact and technology. Good stuff but beware that the answers reflect an IT department viewpoint. Dead giveaway: 0% reported that business perceives IT as slow and inflexible.

CDP vendor RedPoint Global has released a packaged solution for retail banking, its latest industry-specific solution. Components include single customer view, retail banking data model and templates, turnkey connectors for marketing channels, preconfigured reports, and real time decision tools. It runs on the Microsoft Azure platform.

The Customer Data Platform market will reach $3.3 billion by 2023, according to a study from MarketsandMarkets. The report projects a 29.3% annual growth rate from a base of $640 million in 2017. Figures include products and services from enterprise software vendors as well as CDP specialists. CDP Institute has somewhat lower estimates but for specialist vendors only. Price is $5,650.

Speaking of enterprise software vendors, Adobe announced new AI-based features for its Target and Experience Manager products. Items include testing of voice-based content, selecting highest likelihood actions, automated Web page design personalization, different recommendation algorithms for different segments, improved reporting on algorithm performance, and personalized AR shopping, Some are available now, some are still under development.

Podcasts have been hailed as an emerging media channel recently. If you’re drinking that Kool-Aid, you’ll be interested that leading podcast publisher Stuff Media was just purchased by struggling radio, outdoor, and entertainment giant iHeartMedia, which already has a large podcast publishing and distribution operation. By “struggling”, I mean iHeartMedia filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last March.

Internet-connected TVs (CTVs), which let viewers interact with broadcast content on smartphones and other devices, are another growing channel. Interactive video provider Innovid reports that CTVs now account for 27% of video impressions, a share that has more than doubled in the past two years. Most of the growth was at the expense of desktop video impressions.

More than 70% of U.S. broadband households own a connected TV or other connected device, says research firm Parks Associates. In fact, the average household owns six to eight, meaning they already outnumber humans by a wide margin. Parks sees smart speakers as the key to keeping them under control. Lots more here on the topic.

Location-based marketing platform HYP3R has raised a $17 million Series A funding, bringing its total to $23.5 million. HYP3R identifies customers when they enter a geo-fenced location such as a mall or hotel and sends them personalized, real-time messages. It can also track visits to competitive locations and monitor social media comments about a location. HYP3R specializes in travel and retail clients.

YouSpace’s Total Experience Kit watches what happens in front of a digital display and reacts. It can monitor people near a display, recognize human body shapes and actions including touch-free instructions, and display different contents based on the situation. Users set the rules, or so they like to think. The system will be released by the end of this year.

Ryff offers even greater control over user experience, enabling video producers to dynamically vary objects as a video is streamed to a smart TV or other device. Different people can see different objects at the same time, based on rules set up by the video producers. So much for shared reality.

Let’s try product news today. CRM data orchestration platform Openprise has added integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Capabilities include list loading data cleansing, segmentation, enrichment, lead scoring, and more. It’s sort of like the functions in a Customer Data Platform, except that you’re jamming the results into a CRM database. Which isn’t like a CDP at all.

Optimizely announced Adaptive Audiences, which uses AI to define segments of visitors with similar intent and select contents suited to each segment. This is working with segments, not finding the best content for each individual. But it’s a step towards true individual-level personalization. The product is just entering beta tests.