Search engines began some time ago to switch from listing relevant web links to providing answers within the search results. Generative AI like ChatGPT and Bard will hugely accelerate the transition. This opens new challenges opportunities for search engine optimization vendors. SEO platform Conductor just strengthened its ability to deal with whatever comes next by purchasing European-based competitor Searchmetrics.
Sendinblue started as a small business email platform and has since expanded to more channels and bigger clients. They just grew a bit further by purchasing Captain Wallet, which enables marketing through mobile wallets. Both companies are French.
Email is an even more venerable digital medium than web search, and ultimately even more vulnerable to change from AI. In addition to the obvious opportunities for machine-written email, there’s also the prospect of machine-empowered email fraud. South Africa-based Sendmarc just raised a $7 million Series A to help to ensure senders are who they claim.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.