CMO's top 8 martech stories for the week - 22 February 2018

LiveRamp acquires Pacific Data Partners

Acxiom's LiveRamp business has acquired Pacific Data Partners to improve its ability to power people-based business-to-business (B2B) marketing.

LiveRamp plans to expand IdentityLink to increase people-based targeting capabilities to B2B marketers. IdentityLink allows marketers to create an omnichannel view of consumers and professionals by aggregating anonymised data from any channel or source to an individual. This view can be activated on over 500 technology platforms.

The appeal of Pacific Data Partners is its pool of B2B data sets. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The 2017 Outsell Advertising and Marketing Study projected total US B2B marketing spend at $166.5 billion, with $89.6 billion allocated to digital channels.

“Historically, B2B marketers have lacked the ability to recognise the professionals they are targeting in digital channels, leaving them unable to take advantage of the innovations identity resolution has driven in consumer marketing,” said James Arra, co-president at LiveRamp. “We’re excited to bring people-based marketing to the world of B2B, and about the value this will add for both marketers and the companies that support them in the space.”

Churn predicting software launched

The co-owners of Melbourne-based customer engagement consultancy, The Working Octopus, claim to have developed the world’s first churn predictive software, called SmartMeasures.

This software enables businesses to accurately pinpoint if customers are on the verge of churn, or at least thinking about it, and to quickly step in before an irritation or series of annoyances become a full-blown problem. The new solution is riding on the back of a global trend focused on retaining customers rather than accepting attrition as a normal part of business.  

“Conservatively speaking, our software is capable of reducing churn by 10 per cent, said co-founder, Libby Dale. “By way of example, a company losing $500 million to customer attrition, which is commonplace in high-churn industries, can at the very least anticipate savings in the order of $50 million per annum.”

SmartMeasures is now available to English-speaking businesses globally which have a churn problem costing in excess of $10m annually. The software relies on a collection of customer risk markers or measures drawn from across business.

Radius launches data intelligence solutions to accelerate sales performance

Radius has launched two new products, Radius Prospector and Radius Connect, promising fresh data and intelligence on buyers specifically for sales teams to grow their pipeline more efficiently.

Radius Prospector is designed to help users uncover exactly which accounts and buyers they should be targeting and provide more accurate data to reps for efficient prospecting. Radius Connect then provides real-time intelligence on key accounts and contacts, integrating directly into Salesforce records to minimise the time spent research prospects before engagement.

Both offerings leverage data and intelligence from vendor’s Network of Record, a proprietary data source built through a network-effect driven model, combining data from thousands of diverse sources and a growing customer network. This provides data on more than 18 million businesses and their contacts.

Thunder unveils Experience Cloud, appoints VP of engineering

Adtech vendor, Thunder, has expanded beyond its creative management platform offering to include dynamic creative optimisation (DCO) and experience measurement.

The Thunder Experience Cloud now incorporates the existing creative management platform, which enables users to produce brand experiences across channels and traffic them to the appropriate media platforms, as well as new DCO capabilities, which help to personalise and optimise brand experiences to increase conversions and media efficiency. The new experience measurement feature then tracks and measures a brand’s customer lifetime experience and is designed to decrease media waste and improve understanding of how ads work through creative, media and exposure data.

Alongside the product enhancements, Thunder also confirmed industry veteran, BJ Fox, has joined the company to manage and scale product development. Fox brings over 20 years of experience across Internet-based software companies, ranging from start-ups to large enterprise companies.

Google announces AMP for email

Google is bringing the power of its accelerated mobile pages (AMP) project to email through the Gmail developer preview of its open spec ‘AMP for Email’.

This new open specification gives developers a way to experiment with more interactive and actionable email experiences. Capabilities include completing tasks directly in email, submit an RSVP to an event, scheduling an appointment, or fill out a questionnaire, all directly from the email message. AMP for Email will also make it possible for information to easily be kept up-to-date, so emails never get stale and the content is accurate when a user looks at it.

Now available, companies like Pinterest, Booking.com and Doodle are currently developing new experiences for consumers using AMP for Email, with support in Gmail later this year.

Bynder acquires Webdam

Digital asset management (DAM) company, Bynder, will acquire Shutterstock's digital asset management business, Webdam.

The acquisition aims to create a global organisation offering marketing and creative teams with scalable, cloud-based solutions for managing, distributing and collaborating on their digital assets.

Blending the industry knowledge, technological innovation and geographic strengths of the two companies, including heavy investments in artificial intelligence and integrations, will allow Bynder to better address evolving customer needs.

“Businesses are racing to keep up with the digital economy, in which digital content has become the storefront for your brand. Marketers and creatives play a critical role in developing these digital experiences, so the necessity for DAM is only accelerating,” said founder and CEO of Bynder, Chris Hall.

Cyara Pulse delivers CX monitoring and real-time mobile alerts

Cyara has enhanced the Pulse monitoring capabilities of its Cyara CX Platform (version 7.1) to include reporting on digital customer experience channels and new voice quality visualisations.

Cyara Pulse displays real-time customer experience (CX) insights with executive dashboards delivered through the Web-based Cyara application, and directly to the customer's mobile device. The dashboards now provide visibility across a full range of channels, including voice, Web, chat, email and SMS.

In addition, Cyara launched a new Android application and updated its iOS application, making monitoring data easier to access remotely.

Tapad rebrands

Tapad has commenced a global rebrand to focus its resources on creating identity solutions for marketers.

The rebrand includes renaming the company’s proprietary device graph technology to The Tapad Graph, and the introduction of the Tapad Customer Data Platform (CDP), a platform purpose-built to help marketers better connect and engage with both new and existing customers. The new offering aims to make marketers’ first-party data actionable against The Tapad Graph and is initially being launched to the telecommunications industry.

While many marketers have their own rich data sets, building a holistic view of existing customers remains a significant hurdle, and many lack the visibility to personalise content for external prospects. Tapad claims to solve this challenge by providing identity insights from the Tapad Graph.

The Tapad CDP is purpose-built to offer telco marketers a personalised and privacy-safe platform to convert first and third-party data into actionable, results-driven campaigns.

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