CDP Institute

Criteo launched a new Predictive Search product that automatically optimizes paid search bids in Google Shopping campaigns based on user intent, device, and behavior as well as non-individual factors. One key enabler is Criteo’s Universal Match technology, which tracks anonymized users across all devices, browsers and apps. Criteo applies the same technology to personalize dynamic email, retargeting, social and mobile app advertising. So think of this as today’s good news story: yes, there are solutions to the challenge of identifying cross-channel behaviors.

BloomReach, a machine learning-based e-commerce recommendation platform, announced it has purchased Hippo, a personalized Web content management system. Clearly they complement each other. But in a world where everything is supposed to plug into everything else via APIs, it’s interesting to see what looks suspiciously like old-school product integration. Are they telling us that API integrations aren’t quite as smooth as promised?

Qubit has added machine learning engine to uncover and alerts marketers to segments with high potential value. This extends Qubit’s existing digital experience management, which encompasses personalization, experimentation and optimization across email, Web, and other channels. Qubit builds a unified customer profile to support all this, although they shy away from calling themselves a Customer Data Platform.

It’s clearly a good day for personalization.

IBM will make Pitney Bowes’ location intelligence solutions available on its “BlueMix” platform-as-a-service development environment. This will make it easier for developers to embed Pitney Bowes’ location information and services in their own mobile products.

Conductor, which analyzes Web content and related data, has launched Insight Stream to deliver observations and suggestions in a streaming format. The company considers this a new “paradigm” that lets marketers digest more information than conventional dashboards and data tables. Cliché notwithstanding, they may be right – we are seeing more tools that go beyond presenting reports to offering up bite-sized nuggets of useful information and recommendations.

NetBase announced a new Customer Experience Analytics solution which ingests customer feedback from social media, digital, surveys, customer care and other sources and uses natural language processing to find actionable insights. It’s working with aggregate data, not tracking individual customers.

A long-known weakness in an authentication protocol shipped in millions of routers, surveillance devices and satellite antennae is being used in attempts to compromise accounts at popular web services, according to new research from Akamai. The research findings add to concerns that hackers increasingly are using internet of things devices to stage attacks, a situation that experts say could be difficult or in some cases impossible to fix (see How an IT Pro Kicked Hackers Off Surveillance Cameras).

Land of Nod cross matches 94% of its customers with anonymized profiles from Conversant. Conversant gathers behavioral data directly and transactional data from around 4,000 retailers to create profiles that link individual across channels and devices. The average Conversant profile combines an average of 14 cookies and devices.

The Weather Company launched Watson Ads today, the first-ever consumer use of IBM Watson technology for advertising purposes. Watson Ads let consumers interact with a brand via IBM Watson, by allowing them to ask questions via voice or text and receive highly personalized information about the brand’s advertised product or offering.

Infer Inc., a leading predictive sales and marketing platform that helps companies win more customers, further expanded its open ecosystem today with a new connector for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales. With this integration, Infer now supports all of the major customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation (MA) platforms, and offers more connectors than any vendor in its industry. By bringing predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) into any application a company uses, Infer helps businesses fuel more intelligent, successful customer growth strategies.

Wipro Limited, a leading information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Appirio, a global cloud services company that creates next generation worker and customer experiences for a purchase consideration of USD 500 Million.