CDP Institute

You surprised me last week, Dear Reader, by downloading more copies than expected of that IAB study on mobile identities and cross-device matching. So here’s more on the topic, this time from CDP vendor and attribution specialist Datalicious. They found that cookie-based measurement is especially bad at tracking the impact of mobile advertising. No surprise but lots of numbers that prove what you suspected.

On the theory that you read this newsletter because you’re interested in managing data, here’s a report that Talend has updated its data integration software to connect with cloud platforms including Cloudera Altus, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and Snowflake. It already had an Amazon Web Services connector. Talend also announced AI-powered services to improve data matching and cleansing.

Another theory is you like to read funding announcements. Okay, then: CognitiveScale, which offers customer- and employee-facing products that interpret and respond to user behaviors, recently added $15 million in funding, bringing its total to $50 million. Meanwhile, Element AI raised $102 million to grow its business, offers AI-based advertising, customer engagement, and contact center applications among many other things. Element AI says it’s the biggest-ever Series A funding round for an AI company.

More than one-third of marketers polled have already begun to integrate martech and adtech, according to a Forrester survey sponsored by LiveIntent, which places advertisements within emails. More than half (57%) expect their own companies to “converge” the technologies within the next two years. The study doesn’t explicitly define what “converging” the technologies would mean or when it became a transitive verb.

Here’s another look at broad industry trends, this time from UK-based research firm Incite Group. They found marketers’ most pressing 2017 priorities are personalization, understanding customers and building a single customer view, which of course means they should all buy Customer Data Platforms. Lowest immediate priorities included futuristic things like artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and virtual reality, which is understandable, and attribution, which is a bit more disturbing.

Maybe marketers should pay more immediate attention to AI.

Highspot’s software helps sales people find the best-performing content to offer their prospects. It’s a niche solution but a common problem. They just raised a $15 million Series B, bringing total funding to $24.6 million. Investors include Salesforce Ventures, which has been intriguingly active recently.

A messaging vendor recently told me that mobile wallets are the next big thing in customer interaction. They may have a point: wallets are one of the few ways to reach customers at scale without going through the walled garden vendors (Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon). This study from financial technology provider Fiserv doesn’t make that particular case but it does give some general information on use of mobile technology for financial services. One big shift: consumers have moved past balance look-ups to complex transactions like bill payment.

Mobile identities and cross-device matching are among the most confusing topics in our industry. The IAB just published a detailed paper that explains the mechanics and related best practices for treating customer information properly. If you’re not already an expert, this will let you sound like one.

June is the gateway to summer romance. Pairing up seems to be in fashion for marketing vendors too. Account Based Marketing vendor ZenIQ announced a $4.6 million investment by investors including Salesforce Ventures.  ZenIQ combines first and third party data into something like a Customer Data Platform.  It then applies artificial intelligence to recommend and help execute Account Based Marketing projects. Salesforce apparently sees ZenIQ as complementing the AI-powered ABM offering, it launched last week.

Pinterest has many new friends. Nielsen announced it will provide audience verification metrics for Pinterest mobile campaigns. Neustar MarketShare will measure the impact of Pinterest campaigns on online conversion, brand lift, in-store sales, and mobile app installs. And Acxiom announced it will match online and offline retail transactions with Pinterest ad campaign recipients in a privacy safe way.

Measurement partnerships must be in fashion. Measurement specialist Marketing Measurement Analytics (MMA) has joined Google’s Marketing Mix Model Partners program, which gives access to detailed information about ads on Google video, display, and search campaigns. These fuel estimates of campaign impact on online and offline sales. Meanwhile, Facebook and Integral Ad Science have extended their relationship, providing independent measurement of ad viewability and fraud across Facebook, Instagram, and the Facebook Audience Network.