The rise of retail media networks continues to fascinate. This ANA study is less enthusiastic than most, reporting that 85% of current advertisers feel pressured by retail partners to use their network and only 31% see it as a valuable marketing tool. Just 11% of non-users have plans to join the party.
Not every tech vendor is cutting back. Customer engagement platform OneSignal announced a new investment from ServiceNow Ventures of undisclosed size. The funding extends OneSignal’s previously-announced $50 million Series C, which brought its total raise to $82 million.
Media agency professionals had a more positive attitude towards retail media in this Criteo survey, ranking it first in return on ad spend compared with Connected TV, audio, search, social media, and metaverse ads, although the differences are small. They particularly liked being able to tie retail media ads directly to sales results.
CX management platform Sprinklr is introducing “digital twins.” Not your average chatbot, a Sprinklr digital twin is more like an AI-powered employee, able to plan actions, create workflows and make decisions, but at speed and at scale. They are said to be more easily trained than chatbots and can operate within brand policies and guardrails.