YouTube is expanding its direct commerce capabilities by allowing advertisers to place product feeds in ads on YouTube TV. Viewers will scan an onscreen QR code with their phone for a direct link to a place of purchase. The theory is that most viewers are already scrolling on their smartphones while watching TV.
Analytics platform Amplitude is also targeting marketing users with new capabilities to connect campaign touchpoints with in-product data such as behavior, engagement and lifetime value. The aim is to give a complete view of the customer journey from lead generation to long-term retention. Amplitude has also struck an agreement to recommend Twilio Segment as the CDP of choice while Twilio will root for Amplitude as digital analytics platform.
Twilio is adding ‘contextual awareness’ to its Segment CDP, which in plainer English means data stored in Segment will be available when creating event-triggered, real-time messages. This and a redesigned journey architecture are part of Twilio’s “next generation” customer engagement platform, which also includes natural voice AI agents, voice and text analytics, and RCS and WhatsApp messaging. Twilio separately announced a multi-year partnership with Microsoft to speed the adoption of conversational AI for customer engagement.
Composable CDP Hightouch is introducing same-session personalization, providing the ability to combine warehouse data and real-time signals during real-time interactions. It requires caching audience data outside of the data warehouse, bending the company’s “no copy” rule. This blog post explains how they do it.