Google Cloud has released Retail Search, a managed service that provides on-site search functions for retail websites. Google says it will do a better job than other search functions of understanding customer intent and returning appropriate product suggestions. It’s part of Google’s Product Discovery Solutions for Retail suite.
The CDP industry grew at a record pace during the first half of 2021, adding 20 new vendors, 1,200 employees and $550 million in funding, according to the CDP Institute’s latest industry update report. It also saw a record number of acquisitions, as customer engagement vendors bought CDPs to glue together disjointed channel systems. Download for details.
Comscore’s cookieless audience solution is adding the ability to use clients’ own customer data as a basis for targeting. Working with Experian, InfoSum, and LiveRamp, Comscore will ingest client’s customer profiles, identify content consumed by those profiles, and then buy ads near similar content. It’s a flavor of look-alike targeting that’s based on content similarity not personal profiles.
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.