Email optimization vendor Validity has sorrows of its own: best practices including list hygiene, deliverability optimization, and A/B testing were used less last year than the year before. High-performing companies were more likely to use most tools although AI was an intriguing exception: it was actually more common among marketers with lower inbox placement rates.
Most of the marketing industry has gotten past the denial and anger stages of reacting to Apple’s tighter privacy policies and is moving on to bargaining. AppsFlyer’s contribution is SK360, which restores some control by collecting campaign information that Apple’s SKAdNetwork sends to ad networks. AppsFlyer e just announced a further extension, PredictSK, that predicts campaign performance. Look for other measurement vendors to offer similar support in these trying times.
Engagement analytics firm Verint also has some sad news: half the companies it surveyed still feel ill-prepared to handle COVID-related disruptions and 82% expect managing engagement will get harder in 2021. AI takes some lumps in this survey too: while 78% of companies have made moderate-to-high investment in AI, just 18% report it has been highly useful in managing change.
It barely feels like news when industry giants add AI features, since that’s what they’re expected to do. But lots of people use their products, so their announcements are probably of higher interest than most. With that in mind, let’s note that Adobe has just announced general availability of agents for audience creation, journey orchestration, experimentation, journey insights, website optimization and agent support.