CMO's top 8 martech stories for the week - 9 July 2020

Zeta launches marketing analytics solution

Data-driven marketing technology company, Zeta Global, which combines data and artificial intelligence (AI) to support customer growth, announced the launch of Opportunity Explorer.

The real-time market and consumer data analytics and insights solution is designed to help marketers identify, segment and act upon growth opportunities for their businesses. Opportunity Explorer ingests demographic, behavioural and location signals from Zeta’s proprietary data set of 2.4 billion identities globally, synthesises the information in real time and creates a customisable, interactive display of actionable insights.

Two customisable views – Market Insights and Consumer Insights – are design support all aspects of the customer journey, from acquisition through retention. Market Insights provides a holistic view of macro-level industry insights, trending interests and consumption patterns across products and competitors. This includes the vendor’s proprietary MarketPulse dashboard, which shows real-time industry-level data and analytics for predicting consumer sentiment and propensity to spend across all verticals and designated market areas.

Consumer Insights meanwhile, allows marketers to pinpoint the precise time and format for ad spend to drive more engagement by using custom-built insights.

Lytics View launches

Data platform vendor, Lytics, has  launched its new product, Lytics View, which is designed to accelerate the time to value of the Lytics customer data platform.

The vendor's aiming to achieve this through a streamlined onboarding process, resulting in marketer’s having access to artificial intelligence (AI)-driven recommendations in as little as seven days.

Lytics View improves the time-to-value by focusing on data that matters to marketers and Lytics’ machine learning makes customer data actionable within days, by providing suggested actions to take allowing marketers to act on specific marketing objectives for substantial, measurable results.

Qualtrics launches XM Institute

Customer experience management (XM) outfit, Qualtrics, has launched Qualtrics XM Institute, a community and resource destination for XM professionals, practitioners and leaders.

Led by Bruce Temkin, founder of the Temkin Group, the XM Institute offers members globally the opportunity to learn and share XM best practices through thought leadership insights, networking opportunities, specialised training and curriculum.

The XM Institute aims to provide members with a proven and trusted resource for professionals along their XM journey, which often starts with a customer or employee experience program. The XM Institute provides guidance and resources to help members create and deliver differentiated experiences for their target audiences across the four core experiences of XM: customer, employee, product and brand, and membership to the XM Institute is free.

Bluedot raises US$9.1 million

Bluedot, a geofencing and location data startup used by companies like Dunkin’, KFC and McDonald’s, has raised US$9.1 million in Series B funding.

The startup has now raised a total of US$21.9 million. The latest funding round was led by Autotech Ventures, with participation from previous backer, Transurban and new investors. The company is extending its capabilities with the launch of a new product called Tempo, which is designed to incorporate data-like traffic patterns to deliver real-time alerts when a customer is approaching.

Canva raises US$60 million 

In other funding news, Canva has raised US$60 million in new funding, led by Blackbird and Sequoia China, with participation from fellow previous investors Bond, Felicis and General Catalyst.

The investment values Canva at US$6 billion and the funding will allow Canva to continue to expand its collaboration tools, launch a Texas office to serve as its US enterprise hub and to consider potential acquisitions.

Canva said is doubling its paid user base, which has topped 500,000 organisations and 1.5 million paid subscribers to its paid account type, Canva Pro. More than 30 million monthly users overall, which operates on a ‘freemium’ model which allows many users to access its software for free. Canva said it is also used today by 90,000 schools and universities, 55,000 non-profits, and boasts larger-sized accounts including American Airlines, Hubspot and Warner Music.

Hi Marley raises US$8 million

Still with capital raising news, Artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Hi Marley, has raised US$8 million for its messaging platform for insurers, bringing total raised to date to US$18.6 million.

Hi Marley streamlines communication around claims, underwriting and service interactions while connecting all the providers who typically touch an insurance experience. Providers get a Web app where everything can be monitored, tracked and optimised to meet organisational demands, with features that enable claims reporting via text.

The latest round was led by True Ventures and Underscore VC, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures and Greenspring Associates. The company said it will put the funds toward hiring, including expanding its engineering and customer-facing teams, as it continues to build out APIs and partnerships.

Meetrics forms partnership with InMobi

Digital marketing analytics outfit, Meetrics, has formed a partnership with InMobi to advance quality and transparency in mobile marketing.

The pair said the partnership offers opportunities for demand partners to strengthen viewability measurements and optimise media spend, while taking advantage of the valuable audience targeting and placement options of the InMobi Exchange. Advertisers running campaigns on InMobi Exchange can choose to measure ad viewability via Meetrics’ using OM SDK technology.

Mediafly launches content hub

Mediafly, which specialises in sales enablement technology, content management and advisory services that create interactive, value-based selling experiences, has announced a new Mediafly Content Hub.

The new solution provides marketers with the ability to manage website content, public sales content and internal sales content all in one place, allowing teams to share relevant, engaging and personalised content throughout every stage of the buying process. 

Mediafly said the addition of Content Hub to its suite of sales enablement and content management solutions means it can support the entire buyer journey in one platform, enabling a consistent, personalised and engaging sales content experience from a buyer’s first interaction with a brand through to conversion and post-sale.

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