CMO's top 10 martech stories for the week - 15 September

All the latest martech, customer tech and adtech news from Mapp Digital, Teradata, Simple, Marketo, SessionM, Estimote, Blis, Glispa, Thunderhead and Synap.

Former Teradata digital marketing division launched as Mapp Digital

Teradata’s former digital marketing assets, purchased by Marlin Equity Partners for US$90 million earlier this year as part of a wider deal encompassing all of the vendor’s marketing platforms, has been given a new brand and leadership team.

Marlin announced in July that it would be splitting the assets purchased from Teradata into two independent businesses: Marketing operations, and marketing execution. The first, which includes all of the marketing operations technologies purchased from the vendor such as its Aprimo marketing resource management, plus the Revenew marketing ops platform acquired by Marlin last year, is now known as Aprimo.

The second division, which as of 14 September will be known as Mapp Digital, combines all of the digital marketing application technologies in Marlin’s stable, including the former eCircle, Appoxee and Argyle Social technologies owned by Teradata, plus email marketing from BlueHornet, which Marlin acquired last December.

Mapp Digital’s global HQ will be in San Diego, with European operations based out of Munich. It also has R&D and sales and customer support centres across Europe, the US and Asia.

Mapp Digital CEO, Michael Biwer, said the company is focused on providing design-driven technology built for marketers. Top priorities for the next six months are to better integrate the product set and simplify the way the technologies are applied by marketers.

“Mapp is about helping marketers define a meaningful and quantifiable destination and a clear path to get there,” he said.

"We're already working on plans to unify our technology into a comprehensive customer engagement platform that will enable our B2B and B2C clients to get to know their customers better over time, from their first contact to loyalty program participation. Mapp is also pushing forward in developing new marketing functionality that marketers demand – such as predictive analytics and strategic reporting.”

Teradata unveils customer journey analytics solution

Meanwhile, Teradata has released a new platform aimed at helping organisations better understand the behavioural journey customers take and respond accordingly.

The new Teradata Customer Journey Analytic Solution combines technology capabilities around real-time customer data integration, such as digital and offline interactions intelligence, with advanced behavioural analytics and multi-channel marketing automation, and is designed to help marketers better craft personalised customer experiences.

For example, users can stitch together customer events using pathing analytics to gain a behavioural view of each customer. The vendor said it also provides multi-channel campaign management capability through real-time decisioning and automation, along with customer segmentation and customer journey planning tools. The platform integrates with multiple data sources and inbound as well as outbound channels including digital.

The platform includes the Customer Interaction Manager components retained by Teradata after selling off its digital marketing messaging and marketing operations applications to Marlin.

“Our Customer Journey Analytic Solution is the embodiment of Teradata’s proven experience in the field with some of the world’s largest and most innovative customer-centric companies,” said Teradata EVP, consulting and support services, Dan Harrington. “It gives marketers a comprehensive view of their customers, based on each person’s individual interactions, so that they can provide the right help at the right time.”

Marketo reveals Account-Based Marketing offering

Marketo has officially launched its own Account-based Marketing (ABM) solution, aimed at helping marketing and sales teams unite efforts around targeting, engaging and measuring key accounts.

The vendor claims its ABM is the only solution that offers all the essentials for ABM natively within a single marketing automation platform. Key capabilities include the ability to leverage account and lead-level scoring to target the right accounts and people in those accounts with personalised campaigns, as well as capturing customer behaviours in Marketo’s AudienceHub to use for tailored individual messaging that is tied to account insights. The platform also allows users to access revenue-based account analytics.

“While marketing and sales teams have long been doing account targeting, the technology hasn’t been available to reach and engage accounts – and the decision makers within them – in a coordinated, scalable way from one place,” said Marketo’s global CMO, Chandar Pattabhiram.

“Built natively within the Marketo platform, Marketo ABM provides account teams with all of the necessary tools to discover, manage, engage, and analyse the accounts with the most revenue potential, thus driving revenue from their most valuable accounts and delivering higher return on their sales and marketing investments.”


Fresh cash injection raises Simple total funding to $13m

Homegrown marketing performance management vendor, Simple, has raised a fresh $10 million off the back of its early successes in Australia and is now looking to expand into the US market.

According to Simple co-founder and CEO, James Charlesworth, the company has more than double in size over the 2016 financial year, building out its growth team and signing several well-known A/NZ businesses including Xero, Tabcorp, AGL and Insurance Australia Group. Other established clients on its books include Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and AMP.

Simple offers a marketing resource management platform aimed at enterprise marketing functions as well as a number of supporting workflow tools including team management, analytics and marketing risk and compliance.

The new cash injection brings its total funding to date to $13 million. Investors lining up to support the Brisbane-based company include US venture capital fund, SparkLabs Global Ventures, and Australian VC player, Perle Ventures.

You can read our full report on the news here.

SessionM secures US$35m in investment

Mobile-oriented marketing and loyalty automation platform provider, SessionM, also has its sights set on expansion after raising US$35 million from the investment community.

The latest funding round was led by General Atlantic, and supported by Salesforce Ventures, along with Charles River Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. The funding will help grow the US-based vendor’s platform and expand its global footprint, helping it to acquire more blue-chip customers.

SessionM aims to provide a bridge between an organisation’s CRM database and its marketing stack and can work across multiple vendor technologies including Salesforce. Its SaaS platform gathers customer behaviours across all channels, appends the data to each individual’s profile instantaneously and triggers personalised responses through a real-time rules engine.

In 2016, the company claimed it processed 1.5 billion consumer behaviours each month, associating them to more than 250 million profiles and delivering 1.2 billion personalised engagements, each in less than 50 milliseconds on average.

“The objective of every CRM strategy is to improve customer loyalty. That requires transitioning beyond a static, list-based CRM to one that enables dynamic personalisation as customers engage across various channels,” said SessionM co-founder and CEO, Lars Albright. “Our platform is built to enable customised customer interactions at scale.”

Estimote holds mirror up to personalisation

Estimote has launched a new device that it says will allow any video screen to serve tailored content to individuals based on their proximity and preferences.

The beacon technology company’s new Estimote Mirror device plugs into a video screen using USB and HDMI ports. It then uses Bluetooth-enabled beacons to communicate with apps that have its SDK featured. Individuals using that venue app who have opted-in to proximity can then be served up content via that video screen based on their preferences, needs or habits.

The vendor said Mirror can also communicate with Estimote Beacons through accelerometer and temperate sensors. For example, the device can identify if a shopper is near certain goods, or, because a beacon is attached, whether they’ve handled specific products and display content based on these insights in real time.

“The ways Mirror can be used are limitless,” claimed Estimote CEO, Jakub Krzych. “A brick-and-mortar store can install Mirror on wall-mounted screens so those monitors show video ads or product information that change depending on the proximity of a particular customer.

“If a shopper has that store’s app on her phone, Mirror could discern if she has a history of buying a certain brand. The store can then display ads of that brand’s latest products when she walks by. It allows people to have ‘magical’ experiences interacting with their environment.”

Blis launches global location-verified ad exchange

Location data technology vendor, Blis, has launched Blis Exchange, a programmatic, location-verification ad exchange that’s now open to advertisers, DSPs and publishers worldwide.

The company claims that by adding precise location data to inventory traded programmatically, the exchange will eliminate the problem of inaccurate location data for agency trading desks and DSPs.

The capability is based on Blis’ Smart Pin and Smart Scale technologies, which filter out inaccurate location data and attach accurate data sets to mobile Web and desktop display impressions.

“Blis Exchange allows advertisers around the world access to value-enhancing data along with the marketplace to trade within,” said its CEO, Greg Isbister. “This will improve both the performance of location-based advertising, as well as creating an increase in publisher yield.”

Thunderhead offloads smart communications division

Thunderhead said its decision to sell-off its smart communications division to private equity firm, Accel-KKR, will allow it to focus exclusively on its cloud-based technology for customer engagement.

The UK-based software company has been building up the customer and business communications division for nearly 12 years from startup. In contrast, its ONE Engagement Hub solutions was launched just two years ago.

The ONE Engagement hub is a SaaS-based platform designed to help users discover customer insights in real time and across all interactions throughout a customer’s lifecycle journey. The insights can then be used to help brands achieve personalised conversations across touchpoints.

Thunderhead’s CEO and founder, Glen Manchester, will remain at the helm of the remaining business following the sale.

“At Thunderhead, innovation has always been our inspiration and I’m extremely proud of what we have achieved,” he commented. “The Smart Communications team – with the backing and investment of Accel-KKR – will continue to take that business from strength to strength.”

Glispa buys mobile native advertising player

Mobile adtech company, Glispa Global Group, has acquired Avocarrot to boost its native advertising monetisation platform.

Avocarrot is based in the US and Greece and provides a native advertising supply-side platform that uses programmatic and real-time technologies to automate mobile ad buying and selling.

Glispa said the acquisition will benefit its advertising partner by immediately adding a new channel for programmatic deals. The deal will also see Avocarrot integrated with Glispa’s Ampiri Mediation platform into a single interface and SDK, helping app developers to monetise their inventory both via programmatic and non-programmatic advertising capabilities.

Four Avocarrot technical founders, including Conno Christou, Georgios Makkoulis, Giorgos Eracleous, Panagiotis Papageorgiou, as well as 14 additional engineers will join the Ampiri team of engineers and data scientists.

Synap claims collaborative CRM

US-based software player, Synap, is claiming it’s adding a level of intelligence never seen before in typical CRM platforms and has launched a new product to prove it.

The company’s platform pulls data from Gmail, ZenDesk, Salesforce and other application platforms to provide users with a more holistic view of all customer interactions. The company has recently completed a closed beta testing the technology and is now launching it publicly.

Synap said its platform gives customer-facing teams and employees direct access to emails, support tickets, sales opportunities and other activities through one interface, becoming a “central nervous system” for customer engagement.

The launch comes just shy of 18 months after Synap Software Labs raised US$2 million in seed funding to create the platform. The technology is available on a three-tiered pricing structure pitched at small teams, professional users and enterprise users.

Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+: google.com/+CmoAu

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.
Show Comments

Latest Videos

More Videos

More Brand Posts

What are Chris Riddell's qualifications to talk about technology? What are the awards that Chris Riddell has won? I cannot seem to find ...

Tareq

Digital disruption isn’t disruption anymore: Why it’s time to refocus your business

Read more

Enterprisetalk

Mark

CMO's top 10 martech stories for the week - 9 June

Read more

Great e-commerce article!

Vadim Frost

CMO’s State of CX Leadership 2022 report finds the CX striving to align to business outcomes

Read more

Are you searching something related to Lottery and Lottery App then Agnito Technologies can be a help for you Agnito comes out as a true ...

jackson13

The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration

Read more

Thorough testing and quality assurance are required for a bug-free Lottery Platform. I'm looking forward to dependability.

Ella Hall

The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration

Read more

Blog Posts

Marketing prowess versus the enigma of the metaverse

Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.

Liz Miller

VP, Constellation Research

Why Excellent Leadership Begins with Vertical Growth

Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?

Michael Bunting

Author, leadership expert

More than money talks in sports sponsorship

As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.

Simone Waugh

Managing Director, Publicis Queensland

Sign in