CDP Institute

Less entertaining but probably more useful, the CDP Institute has just published answers to Frequently Asked Questions about CDPs. If you’ve ever wondered about the difference between CDPs and DMPs, how much staff you need to run a CDP, or what a CDP costs, here are simple answers. Since some of those are not simple questions, be prepared for the occasional “it depends”.

Look, I know you find identity management boring.

Let’s stick with a customer data theme here. A survey from B2B data management vendor Openprise provides hard-to-come-by data on market share among data providers (Zoominfo, InfoUSA and Data.com head the list).  It also shows that 47% of B2B marketers only use manual updates to clean their data.  Sad.  Missing contacts at target companies and missing field values are the biggest complaints about purchased data. Lots of other interesting info.

Finally, we have an announcement from B2B publishing company SourceMedia that they’ve launched a set of data-driven products based on “an advanced data science and machine learning utility known as a Customer Data Platform (CDP).”

Adobe made a slew of announcements at its Summit 2017 conference, including a “Experience Cloud” as a master label for its Marketing, Advertising, and Analytics Clouds. Not much talk of direct integration among those components, though.  Adobe did discuss connecting them to its Sensei artificial intelligence platform and Creative Cloud. There was one bit of data-related news: Adobe is working with several other vendors to create a standard marketing data model.  This would simplify future integrations.

All-encompassing suites are one way to approach martech.

If you’re thinking it’s easier to buy one suite than to integrate separate tools, consider this: Deloitte Digital just announced DigitalMix, a “series of pre-defined and pre-integrated solutions that mix together leading cloud and on-premise platforms in the digital domain”.

Last Friday’s newsletter cited an Adweek article about global consultancies buying ad agencies. Here’s the other side of that coin: an Adweek piece on ad agencies building out their consultancy practices. The grand point being, that technology and marketing are becoming indistinguishably intertwined. You probably knew that.

Even as agencies expand into consulting, they’re being challenged to do a better job at their core business of buying media.

Enough about agencies. Here’s a nice survey about what marketers are up to. OnBrand Magazine surveyed 562 global brand managers and found their biggest challenges are proving ROI (34%) and collaboration between departments (14%); identifying necessary technology came in dead last at 2%, even behind “other”. Although 43% consider themselves early adopters of technology, just 35% planned to actually invest in 360 degree video, virtual reality, chatbots, or other advanced technologies this year. Hmm.

Spongecell creates dynamically personalized Web ads, which means it can insert content based on the viewer’s location, interests, past purchases, or whatever other data is available.

BrightLine creates interactive TV ads, allowing viewers with an Internet-connected TV to do things like pick content, play games, find local stores, enter contests, view product catalogs, and place orders. They’ve just partnered with Sizmek to enable distribution of BrightLine-created ads across computers and mobile devices. In other words, they’re bringing Web-like interaction to the Web. That may sound like coals-to-New Castle but it does let marketers get more use from their advanced creative.