You’ve almost surely heard the reports that Netflix is seriously considering an ad-supported version of its service, so I can’t really claim it’s news. But I will point out that for all the hand-wringing among people who dislike ads, there’s plenty of research that most consumers will gladly watch them in return for free or lower-price services. So it’s probably a good idea.
Self-service is a Thing these days, as companies try to do more things more quickly without more staff. Here we have adtech firm Audiencex releasing a self-service ad buying platform for performance marketers, who focus on measurable results. The product is aimed at small and mid-size companies who buy programmatic media.
Marketers tend to focus on the impact of privacy changes on targeting, but measurement is harder too. In fact, 90% of respondents to this global survey from Salesforce said privacy has fundamentally changed how they measure results. Just one-third get insights quickly enough to make decisions, and only 29% evaluate cross-channel performance with a cross-channel solution. Oh, and 50% increased investment in CDPs as a result of privacy changes – second only to 52% who increased investment in analytics and measurement.
Salesforce is buying Airkit.ai, which builds low-code, AI-powered e-commerce customer service agents. You might have thought Salesforce could already do that, but presumably Airkit does it better. It doesn’t hurt that the company founders sold a previous business to Salesforce, the company was partly funded by Salesforce Ventures, and the product is already listed on AppExchange. Price was not announced.