Today’s secret word is “intelligence”, so we’ll finish with audience intelligence vendor DataQ.ai, which provides e-commerce marketers with automated recommendations for advertising campaigns. They just launched their latest version which lets users specify campaign goals. Pricing starts as low as $19 per month.
Many marketers are taking advantage of COVID-19 as tactfully as they can. Companies announcing free or expanded services to support home workers include Zoom (video conferencing), Microsoft (collaboration), Google (videoconferencing), Evolve IP (collaboration), StarLeaf (video conferencing), Vidyo (video conferencing) Oneclick (remote access) , Odo (remote access) and Trustifi (email encryption) Further afield, Cappasity is offering its 3-D online demo software to large retailers and, perhaps most creative, CampTek has built a bot to manage conference cancelations
We end with a Jekyll and Hyde story: ad blocking and virtual private network products from Sensor Tower have been sharing data on the users they are supposed to protect. The leaks were uncovered by BuzzFeed, which reports that many of Sensor Tower apps were removed from Android and iOS app stores for policy violations. Sensor Tower says only anonymized data was shared for analytical purposes.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.