Next, an even bigger $100 million raise for Singapore-based Near, which collects behavior, location, and transaction data on a staggering 1.6 billion users worldwide and lets clients send them targeted messages. Total funding is now $134 million. (Don’t confuse them with San Francisco-based blockchain start-up Near, which raised $12.1 million last week.)
Retail technology specialist OneMarket has launched its Customer Activation Platform, which unifies online and offline customer data and executes communications programs through email, messaging, and paid media. The unification functions are CDP-like but the data isn’t shared with other systems. OneMarket was formerly part of now-defunct shopping center operator Westfield Corporation.
Some jargonistas substitute “customer experience” for “marketing”, on the theory that one encompasses the other. But this survey for contact center vendor Serenova found otherwise: just 10% of customer experience teams report to a marketing leader. Much more common were reporting to CEO (33%) or head of operations (26%). Lots more here about CX priorities, technology, and obstacles, including that lack of a single customer view is the biggest challenge.
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.