Product-led growth methods, such as freemium and free trial systems, are the latest silver bullet.  This OpenView report doesn’t exactly challenge the trend, but it does show it works better in some situations than others.  Did you know that activation rates are twice as high for single-user products than products requiring collaboration?

Marketers are getting smarter about buying software, and one increasingly common practice is to test software before buying it.  TestBox promises to make that easier by offering preconfigured test installations of selected systems, complete with synthetic data.  They currently offer test versions of several customer support systems but plan to add new categories over time.  The service is free to users, with revenue coming from vendors who pay TestBox a commission on sales.  They just raised a $10 million seed round.

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.