Snap and Snowflake are experimenting with an integration between Snap’s conversion APIs and Snowflake’s Marketing Data Cloud. Once the integration is rolled out, marketers will be able securely to share data like targeting and conversions, without building a custom back-end integration. Alongside the Google Cloud news, this is further evidence that data clouds are taking a more central role in the marketing technology space.

MessageGears is expanding its partnership with Snowflake to run its customer engagement solution for large consumer brands within Snowflake’s data cloud. This will enable Snowflake users to leverage data within the security and governance of the cloud to support MessageGears messaging and campaigns. MessageGears is one of the first customer engagement solutions to tread the path already taken by a number of CDPs.

In partnership with attention metrics provider Adelaide, The Trade Desk is now offering high attention inventory to advertisers. Attention — often based on reactions of opt-in panels to ads — is now competing with viewability as a valued attribute, and is being used to complement contextual metrics. Attention has been used in the past to test ads once they have been published; now it’s entering the pre-bid space.