Fresh on the heels of its Time Warner acquisition, AT&T has announced plans to buy digital ad marketplace AppNexus. It will provide core technology for the TV advertising and analytics unit AT&T set up last August. AT&T has more than 170 million direct consumer relationships across its wireless, video, and broadband businesses. These could position it as an alternative to Facebook, Google, and others who control their own mass audiences.

A CDP is in place at nearly half (45%) of marketers surveyed by Forbes Insights for CDP vendor Treasure Data. One third (35%) of those with a CDP have seen some benefits already and 93% expect benefits within two years. The fraction seeing significant benefits is expected to grow from 1% now to 40% over that period. Download for lots of other good data about data sources, obstacles, and applications.

Just over one-third of marketers plan to either buy a new CDP (21%) or replace an existing one (13%) this year, according to this Optimove survey. Unfortunately, it doesn’t report how many have a CDP already in place, which would put the other values in perspective. It does seem that CDPs are a relatively low priority: they rank sixth on the list of new systems and eighth on the list of systems to replace.