Walmart isn’t selling a CDP yet. But they did just buy Polymorph Labs, which will help their advertising clients to target Walmart shoppers. You did know that Walmart sells ads, right? It’s part of their “Anything Amazon Does We Can Do Better” program.
Ad agency giant Publicis announced a $4 billion purchase of data-driven marketing agency Epsilon from Alliance Data. The deal illustrates the transformation of mass media into addressable advertising. Attentive readers will recall that Alliance announced Epsilon was on the block last November and that Publicis-competitor IPG announced its purchase of Epsilon-competitor Acxiom for $2.3 billion last July.
This survey from ad blocking platform eyeo offers another contradiction: 80% of UK online users recognize the importance of advertising to free internet services but 81% still think it’s fair to use ad blocking software. The study reports 22% are actually using an ad blocker. While 71% of ad blocking users are trying to avoid ads, a hefty 49% aim to enhance privacy/security.
With CDP vendors increasing their workforces by 3.4% in six months, compared with an average of 0.2% each six months over the prior two years, the sector seems to be growing again, according to our own semi-annual industry update. There is much talk of composable CDPs but they still employ no more than 5% of the sector workforce. What is a clear trend is the acquisition of independent CDPs by vendors interested in adding a CDP to a larger system (usually an activation system).