CDP Institute

Web content management vendor Crownpeak has purchased Evidon, which helps companies capture and manage consumer data on Web sites. Evidon’s capabilities are particularly important as companies work to comply with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the May 2018 deadline.

Many online retailers are missing basic personalization opportunities, including recently viewed item lists (not found on 40% of sites) and personalized recommendations (unavailable at 47% of sites if users were not signed in), according to a study by ecommerce platform vendor Kibo. More than 40% don’t send cart abandonment emails. The study also looked at integration of in-store and online experiences including pricing and signage.

One reason retailers don’t do personalization is it’s too complicated. Artificial intelligence is expected to help, according to a Forrester study for ecommerce platform vendor Emarsys. Intelligent recommendations was the second-most planned application for AI (40%), following analytics (43%). Using AI to personalize customer experiences across channels was the most common application expected to be implemented within the next twelve months (81%).

Marketing automation and CRM vendor HubSpot acquired Kemvi, which uses machine learning to scan online content for insights about sales prospects. Since pretty much every vendor now uses AI in some way, what’s interesting here is seeing HubSpot double down on its efforts to support sales rather than marketing users.

Yep, another AI-related acquisition: B2C marketing cloud vendor Zeta Global bought Boomtrain, a machine-learning-driven personalization platform. Zeta’s ambitions to compete with Adobe, Oracle, and Salesforce were bolstered by $140 million in new funding this past April, bringing total funding to $380 million since 2012.

Maybe it would be easier to specify when items are NOT AI-related. Here’s one of those: Proov offers a platform that lets companies run “proof of concept” projects on without the usual hassle of custom deployment. It’s a super-clever idea, removing one of the main friction points in the purchase process for large tech investments. How closely Proov can mimic a custom POC is another question, but it’s certainly worth a look. The company just raised $14 million, bringing total funding to $21 million.

One of the most astonishing trends of the past few decades has been people’s seemingly bottomless appetite for consuming more media.

One reason media time might decline is the growth of alternative interfaces, notably voice devices like Amazon Alexa.

When even speaking is too much work, there are always pictures.

CDP vendor Segment announced a $64 million Series C investment, bringing its total funding to $109 million.  Segment says more than 15,000 customers use its technology to connect Web site and mobile app data with 200+ analytics and marketing tools.  Segment’s $64 million nearly equals the $74 million that all CDP vendors combined raised in the first half of 2017 (see yesterday’s newsletter for details).

Sticking with business news, mobile advertising and analytics company UberMedia has acquired Cintric, which packages location information from mobile apps This gives UberMedia a new data stream. It’s a reminder that mobile advertising and location data go hand-in-hand and are increasingly important. But you knew that.

Did you also know that “ChannelTech” is the latest industry mashword?  Not really, since I just made it up.  I also made up “mashword”, which sounds less pretentious than “portmanteau”.  The non-fake news is that Zift Solutions and Relayware, which both help companies market through channel partners, have just announced a merger.  ChannelTech is interesting because it’s a parallel universe to martech that’s unfamiliar to most direct-to-customer marketers.  Parallel universes are interesting because they often contain ideas worth borrowing.  Feel free to call them “borrideas”.  You’re welcome.