CDP Institute

You knew your smart speaker had a microphone, but what about that treadmill at the gym? Equipment maker Life Fitness has launched an ad network on its devices, complete with programmatic inventory sold through Vistar Media. So far it doesn’t seem the advertising is targeted at individuals but surely that comes next. Not possible, you scoff? Remember that treadmills already have biometric sensors and Internet connections.

Sometimes the good guys fight back and win. Trustwave’s 2019 Global Security Report found that median time to detect and contain a data breach dropped from 93 days in 2017 to 41 days in 2018. Incidents related to Point of Sales systems went down sharply as merchants made wider use of chip cards. But there’s plenty of work remaining: Trustwave found at least one vulnerability in every application it examined; the media was 15 vulnerabilities of which 9% were high risk or critical.

There’s progress against ad fraud, too. White Ops and the Association of National Advertisers estimate that losses to fraud have dropped 11%, from $6.5 billion in 2017 to $5.8 billion in 2019. This despite a 25% increase in spend. They conclude that, for the first time, more than half of fraud attempts are detected and stopped. Lots of interesting details on fraud methods and rates by device and media.

This report from Forbes Insights and Treasure Data shows that personalization leaders are winning, too: it finds that 54% of personalization leaders exceeded their revenue targets compared with just 15% of followers. Much more here on what leaders do differently and how to follow in their footsteps.

One of these things is not like the other: data quality vendor Validity is buying email deliverability specialist Return Path. Validity, backed by private equity investors Silversmith Capital Partners, bought email verification platform BriteVerify last June, which makes the Return Path acquisition seem a bit more logical. The company describes its goal as providing comprehensive technology solutions to target, contact, and engage customers at scale.

Two surveys have found that most firms won’t be ready for the California Consumer Privacy Act when it takes effect on January 2020. MediaPRO reports that 46% of US employees have never heard of CCPA and are pretty vague on privacy rules in general. The International Association of Privacy Professionals says that only 50% of its members expect to comply with CCPA on time. You have been warned.

Speaking of ignorance, this study from contact center tech vendor NICE inContact finds that most businesses overestimate how satisfied consumers are with their contact policies. But let’s look on the bright side: use of online chat, which consumers really like, has increased sharply (from 47% of respondents in 2017 to 67% in 2018), while use of the much-hated automated phone menus dropped from 78% to 56%. Someone is paying attention after all.

Let’s do some enterprise product news today. We’ll start with Mapp Cloud, a self-proclaimed “badass” digital marketing system, purchasing Webtrekk, a Berlin-based marketing analytics software vendor. You’ll recall that Mapp is a combination of several firms purchased by private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners.

Optimove, a relationship marketing platform and CDP, has expanded its analytics capabilities by adding a new BI Studio based on Microsoft Power BI. Users will gain new reporting and visualization capabilities.

Finally, SAP has launched a B2B version of its Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) product. It will help companies manage business partners’ and customers’ access to internal data and content while complying with privacy and data protection rules. SAP bought the Gigya CIAM system in 2017.

We rarely write about systems for small business marketing, Dear Reader, because you don’t seem very interested and there are so many players with so little impact. But it’s a slow news day so let’s note that DirectLync recently launched an all-in-one digital marketing platform that it promises will “shake up small business marketing” and save users over 14 hours a month in managing their data. Users get contact management, email marketing, social media management, Web CMS, and reporting and insights for as little as $20 per month.

In the same vein, small business marketing vendor GetResponse has launched Autofunnel, the “only product of its kind”, which combines integrated marketing tools plus a state-by-step guide to online marketing activities. It provides a library of prebuilt forms, can automatically generate social media aads, and integrates with tools including Magento, Shopfiy, PaylPal, and Stripe. Pricing starts at $49 per month.