Are you sad this newsletter hasn’t been covering Facebook’s privacy troubles in detail? Then you’re in luck: here’s a detailed look from Raab Associates at items you might have missed and some perspective on what it might all mean. You’re welcome.
Cisco is paying $270 million for Accompany, which uses AI to build profiles of business decision makers and map their connections. They’ll integrate the data with their collaboration products, most notably WebEx. The deal may be more about AI talent than data: Accompany founder Amy Chang, who sat on Cisco’s board until the purchase, will take charge of Cisco’s collaboration business. Total funding for Accompany was $40.6 million.
Sorry about that headline; I couldn’t resist. Namogoo prevents what it calls “online journey hijacking”, which is injection of unauthorized ads and content by third party services running on a brand Web site. They just raised a $15 million Series B, bringing their total raise to $28 million.
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.