Meanwhile, you gotta love a planning software company that names its product Plannuh, especially when they’re from Boston. They just raised $4 million for their system to gather all those marketing plans, budgets, and expenses into place. There’s some AI-based analytics but they talk more about reducing waste.
Established Customer Data Platform vendors prepared for industry consolidation even as new firms entered industry during the second half of 2019, according to the CDP Institute’s semi-annual Industry Update. The industry added fourteen vendors and $236 million in new capital during the period while employment was up 64% over the previous year.
Even the most tech-savvy marketers are puzzled about the impact of privacy changes. One result – or maybe it’s a cause – is vendors who position barely-related technology as “pro-privacy” solutions. Case in point: Quintesse describes its natural language processing system for understanding the content of Web pages as an alternative to third party cookies. Their pitch is if you can’t target individuals with cookie-based profiles, you can target on page content instead. It’s a tenuous connection at best.
It’s tough to get brand safety right, but the industry keeps trying. IPG Mediabrands announced a new set of tools to find and block inappropriate ad placements, while IAS expanded its suitability measurements to include standards from the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). Meanwhile, DoubleVerify admitted a mistake made brand safety on X/Twitter look worse than it really was in October 2023 and March 2024.