Speaking of ad blockers, creative portfolio Website Visual Objects found they’re twice as common on desktop than mobile devices and that video ads are the most annoying of all. The study quotes Statista research showing nearly one-third of computers use some form of blocker and the usage continues to grow.
Digital behavior analysis vendor Contentsquare has raised a $60 million Series C, bringing its total funding to $120 mllion. Contentsquare captures Web and mobile app behaviors, provides journey analytics, heatmaps, and other reporting, and uses artificial intelligence to alert marketers to interesting situations. Founded in 2012, the Paris-based firm now has more than 300 employees worldwide.
Jamie is still on loan to our Department of Counter-Intuitive Results. He offers news that Verizon, a telecom provider not usually associated with great customer experience, is selling a suite of customer service tools. These connect self-service and call center systems with a unified customer view and apply AI to select customer treatments. The ads just write themselves: Now you can offer your own customers that great Verizon experience!
Automated marketing platform HCL Unica’s V12.1.10 release presents new AI features including AI-based predictive models. These will identify high-value prospects, products to recommend, next-best-channel for the recommendations and optimized send times. AI will also refine customer segmentation based on multiple data sources.