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.
A U.S. district court judge has ruled that Google acted to create illegal monopolies in online advertising technology in a way that blocked competition and allowed higher ad prices to be charged. Google will appeal; meantime, the government will decide what to ask the court to do to remedy the monopoly. Google also faces a new U.K. antitrust lawsuit over its dominance of search.