It’s safe to say that a lack of software isn’t holding marketers back. Dentsu reports that finding the right data is CMO’s biggest external challenge (38%), followed by understanding changes in consumer behaviors (35%). Keeping up with emerging new tech (33%) and dealing with the fragmented tech landscape (30%) headed the list of media transformation challenges.
In another study of software buyers, G2 found marketing software ranked fourth (14%) in year-to-year growth in the number of products, behind AI (39%), design (17%), and human resources (14%). The fastest-growing marketing categories were surprisingly prosaic: the top three were QR code generators, content creation, and press release distribution. In total, G2 found 6,359 total marketing products, so 14% growth translates to net new 780 products.
You probably don’t need to be told that AI is used widely (88% of businesses) or delivering good results (90% say it will deliver cost or time savings). So let’s instead note that Twilio Segment found predictive AI is used more widely than generative AI (34% vs 24%), employee training is the most-cited obstacle to AI success (38%), many firms need better data quality to get the most value from AI (71%), and companies with a CDP grew faster than companies without one (32% vs 21%).
Retail and hospitality customer engagement platform Givex has added the ability to create comprehensive customer profiles that include interaction data from other systems. The new product, GivexEngageAI, also develops customer segments, executes marketing campaigns, and recommends next best actions. The company refers to it as a CDP and it does appear to tick all of our boxes.