Email data and marketing tools vendor Validity has purchased MailCharts, which reports on marketing activity by competitors. The trends here include vendors expanding their product scope and acquisitions. Price wasn’t reported, so we don’t know whether the deal also illustrates buyers paying crazy-high prices or a dampening of the market. But it’s a trend either way.
Neighborhood social media network Nextdoor offers its own alternative to the usual ad channels. They just added a self-serve ad campaign management tool to make it even easier for small and mid-size businesses to advertise without relying on agencies or other specialists. Self-service and bringing agency functions in-house are two more trends we track.
Violent and sexually explicit content, and Russian propaganda during the period of Ukraine invasion was boosted rather than suppressed by Facebook’s downranking system. Designed to suppress misinformation – and touted as proof Facebook’s self-regulation in this area could be viable – the flaw was exposed bv The Verge. Up to half Facebook’s News Feed were seen as ‘integrity risks’ over a six month period.
Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.