At least some marketers have gotten the message that customers only like personalization when it helps them. This Acquia report found 62% of marketers are focusing on personalizing customer service while just 49% are focused on personalizing communications. In fact, personalization ranked towards the bottom of their tech priorities (43%), behind marketing automation (63%), CDPs (54%), and AI (44%).
Moving data to the cloud is supposed to simplify management, but Flexera found that 92% of companies use multiple clouds and 45% integrate data between clouds, which creates its own challenges. While cost savings are the top goal, respondents estimate that 30% of cloud spending is wasted. Just 16% of companies refuse to load any customer data into a cloud system.
Marketers in this CleverTap survey also seemed remarkably down-to-earth. They listed segment-level campaigns as their most important use for customer data (75%), while personalized customer messages ranked sixth at 46%. They also said lack of quality customer data is their top internal pain point (42%), far ahead of lacking real-time data (25%). Lots more here including key issues by industry, which are always intriguing.
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.