You probably don’t need convincing that chat is important. But you might still be surprised that the function has become so quickly commoditized that Shopify is now offering it at no extra cost. The new tool will show up on all pages of a Shopify ecommerce site.
Podcast ads are growing: revenue will total nearly $700 million this year and $1 billion by 2021, says the IAB. Adobe found that 60% of listeners have looked up a product after hearing it mentioned in a podcast ad and 25% have made a purchase. You won’t be surprised that Millennials are the most frequent listeners.
Groupon is another business that has seen hotter days. But they’re still around and in fact just bought Presence AI, which handles message and chat-based bookings such as spa visits and dining reservations. This will make it easier to sell such things through Groupon. You can think of it as a mom-and-pop PopBase, although I don’t know why you’d bother.
The integrated cloud communications market is relevant here because it increasingly overlaps with marketing systems. So you should probably care at least a little that cloud-based communications platform 8×8 has agreed to pay $250 million for Fuze, which offers roughly similar products.