Media and martech mergers and acquisitions slowed sharply in the first quarter of this year, according to LUMA’s quarterly market report. The slowdown began even before the coronavirus pandemic although activity dropped to near zero in March. If you’re looking for a half-full glass, LUMA believes that martech revenues won’t fall as quickly as adtech. The picture is even brighter for Direct-to-Consumer businesses.
If you’re really hungry for coronavirus news, the Customer Experience Matrix blog published a long review http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com/2020/04/companies-scramble-to-study-covid-19.html of recent research findings yesterday. But let’s move on to happier topics, starting with improved bi-directional integrations between Salesforce, mParticle, and mobile marketing platform Airship. Airship also launched a new cross-channel journey manager. The interface is less revolutionary than they seem to think, but it does look better than most.
Marketers’ famous herd instinct is synchronizing their response to coronavirus. First came a rash of announcements offering remote conferencing and collaboration systems, then a slew of chatbots answering coronavirus questions. This week’s trend is studies on coronavirus’ impact on consumer behavior, including increased online sales of groceries, fitness equipment and computers; more video streaming; distrust in government (especially in the U.S.); and expectation that employers will act responsibly. Click for studies from Adobe, Amperity, Edelman, First Insight, Kantar, Placer.ai, Toluna, Upfluence, Yotpo, and Yotta.
Salesforce has reversed course on its bid to acquire data management and integration platform Informatica a source has told Reuters. Informatica itself said that it is not in talks to be acquired. Salesforce stocks rose on this latest news while Informatica’s fell.