Retailers lag in meeting the customer expectations for personalized online shopping, according to this Redpoint Global-sponsored infographic. Just 21% have up-to-date CRM/personalization technology in place, although 60% plan to have current technology within two years. Just 14% have bought a software package with embedded artificial intelligence or machine learning.
Microsoft, which really should know better, has announced its own bird-themed ad targeting solution. Inexcusably-named “Parakeet” assigns people to cohorts similar to Google FLoC, but runs ad auctions in a proxy server rather than the user’s browser. Parakeet was first proposed in February but gained attention this week when Microsoft referred to it in a statement dodging the question of whether it would enable FLoC in its Edge browser.
Any retailers hoping they can avoid improving their online experience by waiting for customers to resume in-store shopping are taking a big risk. This Sitecore study of Gen Z consumers found that 64% want to keep buying almost everything online. They’re a demanding bunch: 83% see shopping as an experience, not a transaction, 71% expect highly personalized treatments, and 38% will switch brands after a second bad experience.
Microsoft has confirmed that Reddit has blocked its Bing search engine from crawling content; Reddit seems to have blocked DuckDuckGo too. Reddit content will still appear in Google search results, but then Google has paid Reddit $60 million to allow it to train its AI models on that content. Reddit says the block has nothing to do with the Google deal: okay.