CDP Institute

Lotame is a powerful DMP (Data Management Platform) that targets anonymous individuals across channels and devices.

Marketers may think that they and their systems are the center of the business universe but the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily agree. When Computerworld asked IT managers to describe their single most important technology project, marketing technology ranked a dismal 20th of 28 categories. The list was headed by security, legacy system modernization and on-premise software. Slightly better news is that “customer satisfaction/experience” ranked just behind productivity and security as the project goal. But it’s a safe bet that IT defines customer experience as more than better marketing.

In fact, 38% prefer cleaning toilets to contacting customer service, according to this survey from contact center vendor Aspect. Ouch! Aspect found that 71% would rather solve problems without talking to a live agent, although they want a live agent available if they need oneBusiness. Buried on the last page but relevant to Customer Data Platforms: 80% expect company agents, whether humans or robots, to have every previous interaction available when they reach out for service.

What, did you think this was the National Enquirer? You won’t be surprised to learn that Customer Data Platforms need to store data, since it’s part of the definition. But choosing what to store or not to store isn’t so simple. This post from the CDP Institute blog offers some advice and is illustrated with Salvador Dali’s cool “melting watch” picture, which you may recall is named “The Persistence of Memory”.

Manthan bills itself as “the global leader in analytics and big data”, which may come as a surprise to a few folks like IBM and SAS. And its current announcement of tighter integration with the NCR AMS offer management solution, isn’t exactly earth shattering. But Manthan does create a unified customer view to support its advanced analytics, and machine-learning-based recommendations. So it’s definitely relevant to customer data platform issues if you’re in retail.

Madison Logic calls itself “the global leader in Account Based Marketing”, a claim somewhat more tenable than Manthan’s but also likely to be contested by several others. At least we have some real news to report: they were purchased by private equity firm Clarion Capital Partners, which is expected to fund expansion of the business. Madison Logic’s core business is targeted advertising and content syndication for B2B marketers.

Magisto says it’s “the world’s most popular smart video storytelling application”, which actually might be true if only because they get to define what that means.

B2C marketing cloud company Emarsys has launched a “hype-free and tangible” set of artificial-intelligence-powered services including predictive product recommendations, individually-tailored incentive recommendations, and send time optimization. Its goal is to automatically tailor customer treatments to the individual, freeing up marketers for more fun stuff. The new features are fruits of the $33 million investment Emarsys accepted in September 2015, the first outside funding since it started in 2000. Emarsys supports email, mobile, push, social, Web advertising and Web site personalization.

Digital media company ConsumerTrack introduced its own machine-learning-powered solution, named Magneto for some reason that isn’t immediately apparent to me. Maybe they’re X-Men fans. Which would actually be kinda cool if you think about it. Anyway, Magneto uses machine learning to automatically analyze, segment, and optimize campaigns in real time, with a particular focus on response quality. ConsumerTrack specializes in using Web ads to find new customers for financial institutions, home service companies and travel groups.

Finding three machine learning stories in one day is pretty easy, so don’t be impressed. Here’s news that predictive analytics vendor Lityx (not to be confused with customer data platform vendor Lytics) has integrated its system with Valassis, which mostly delivers coupons through print and online media. The deal will apply Lityx’s analytics to Valassis’ massive customer databases to better target and optimize Valassis marketing campaigns. As one does.

The market for data preparation systems will grow 25% per year to reach $3.93 billion by 2021, according to a new study from oddly-named market research firm Marketsandmarkets. Although the report cites self-service data preparation as a particular growth area, it focuses primarily on tools used by IT departments. As you know, data preparation is one of the key features of a Customer Data Platform: so growth in this market is good news for CDP vendors and potential users.

Speaking of self-service data prep, Birst just announced that the latest generation of its business intelligence system, Birst 6, will allow “everyday business users” to “connect, prepare and relate data entirely on their own and regardless of skill.”