CDP Institute

We can’t discuss customer data without mentioning privacy.

Look, I’m as tired as you are of reading about artificial intelligence. But unless you want three articles about chatbot funding (here, here, and here), you’ll probably appreciate hearing about Protagonist, a firm that says it analyzes Web data with AI to uncover the stories that customers want to hear and how to deliver them. The technology originated at the White House and National Security Council, which may or may not add to their credibility.

One problem with letting a computer decide which stories are effective is it may not care whether those stories are also true. Come to think of it, that’s a problem with people too. Breaking Data Corp. has an app to help: its technology scans the Web for news events, verifies them, and flags fake news. Or so says their press release.

How about finding ideas the old fashioned way: by stealing them? Email deliverability experts Return Path have just enhanced their competitive intelligence tool with a database of millions of emails sorted by subject line, industry, and campaign type. The database also shows performance metrics so marketers can see which ideas are worth, shall we say, learning from.

Customer Data Platform vendor ActionIQ has closed a $30 million Series B financing, bringing its total raise to $45 million. Founded in 2014, ActionIQ is the youngest CDP to break the $40 million funding mark.

More funding news: NYIAX has closed a $5.6 million seed round for their advertising contract futures exchange. If advertising contract futures don’t excite you, how about the fact that NYIAX uses blockchain? I thought so.

And still more about money: companies will spend $4.7 billion on customer journey analytics software and services in 2017, says palindromically-named Markets and Markets. They expect the industry to reach $12.2 billion by 2022. Before you faint at the thought of all that mapping software, read the fine print: the estimate includes all customer segmentation, targeting, behavior analysis, brand management, campaign management and product management systems. Details will cost you $5,650.

This week’s articles have mostly been about industry trends, so let’s finish in the same vein with a look at threats to marketers.

Tired of worrying about Facebook and Google? Here’s a new threat: IT departments taking control of marketing. Seems far fetched? Then check out this announcement from AppDynamics, which describes “moving from performance monitoring and technical metrics to a world of predictively driving business outcomes across the entire digital experience” complete with unified customer journeys. They aren’t shy about their goal: “CIOs were elevated from servicing the business to driving it.” Now you know what your CIO is really thinking about when he looks bored in your meetings.

Or maybe marketers are their own worst enemies. This AdExchanger piece gleefully describes how Tylenol is using a mix of data signals to identify customers while they’re engaging in specific activities like exercise or staying late at the office and then making offers that show the advertiser knows where they are and what they’ve been doing. It’s along the lines of “feeling sore after that workout? Here’s a map to the nearest place you can buy Tylenol.” Nothing creepy about that.

It’s been a slow news week, so I’m glad to have something concrete: Hearst announced yesterday it is buying the content business of Rodale, publisher of health and wellness books and magazines.

The Rodale sale confirms the obvious struggles of the publishing industry. A recent eMarketer estimate highlights the fundamental problem: people spend just 24 minutes per day with print media, compared with nearly six hours with digital media, four hours with TV, an hour and a half with radio, and 21 minutes with everything else. That’s just over twelve hours total, although some of those hours include time spent consuming two media at once. Total media time is growing very slowly but the mix continues to shift towards digital. Duh.