CMO's top 8 martech stories for the week - 26 March 2020

Demandbase releases new B2B marketing solutions 

Account-based marketing outfit (ABM), Demandbase, has released new solutions for designing, executing and measuring the success of ABM strategies – Demandbase Data Stream, Site Analytics, and Self-Serve Targeting.

The new solutions are aimed at enabling marketers to access data to power dashboards, website analytics and autonomously launch digital advertising campaigns, providing a holistic, ABM-focused understanding of customers and prospects.

Data Stream powers customised reporting and dashboards in a customer’s preferred analytics tool. Data Stream includes all account-specific data to help identify where they prospects on their buying journeys including intent, website engagement, and campaign performance.

Site Analytics now provides accessibility and an account-based marketing focus to website analytics to better evaluate which target accounts are engaging on their sites, the pages viewed and so on. This can be used to create new audience segments and content-specific campaigns. Self-Serve Targeting is about more easily setting up and configuring campaigns within the platform, with a redesigned user interface.

Trade Desk and TikTok launch new advertising partnership in Asia-Pacific

Trade Desk and short-form mobile video platform, TikTok, have struck a new advertising partnership covering key Asia-Pacific markets.

The partnership will allow advertisers to directly access premium TikTok inventory across Asia-Pacific via the Trade Desk platform. The pair said the integration with The Trade Desk, a leading global advertising technology platform, will make it easier for advertisers to incorporate TikTok into their campaigns. TikTok is the first short-form video platform to integrate its ad offerings with the Trade Desk.

The first client on-board is PepsiCo, which is accessing TikTok inventory via The Trade Desk to run a campaign for the Lays portfolio in Thailand, with the Mindshare media agency.

Mailchimp acquires Courier Media

SMB-oriented marketing automation platform, Mailchimp, has acquired Courier Media, a London-based media company and Mailchimp partner, for an undisclosed sum.

Courier produces a bi-monthly magazine and newspaper full of educational and inspirational content for modern entrepreneurs and small businesses, as well as a newsletter, podcast, and events.

"Since 2013, Courier has empowered the next generation of entrepreneurs with practical and authentic stories that inspire people who want to live and work on their own terms — and we think this perfectly aligns with our own values," the company stated in a blog post. "We love what Courier is creating and believe this will resonate with entrepreneurs and small businesses worldwide. The content they produce will be an incredible asset to our customers on their journey to start and grow their businesses."

Mailchimp will provide Courier with resources to help expand its audience reach. The team will continue to operate independently out of London and remain a separate entity.

Snowflake announces Adobe integration

Cloud data platform, Snowflake, has released a new federated data access (FDA) connector integration with Adobe Campaign, part of Adobe Experience Cloud.

The integration enables Adobe Campaign users to extend their data into Snowflake to leverage the benefits of a single, integrated data platform for powerful marketing campaign data insights in real-time, all with zero-management.

The cloud data platform requires no management as it infinitely scales to support any amount of marketing data from Adobe Campaign, including mobile, social, email, offline campaigns and inbound-outbound channel fusion data.

Radisys unveils Engage video assistant

Open telecom platform, Radisys, has launched Engage video assistant (EVA), an app-less artificial powered (AI)-powered bot for digital customer interactions.

The new offering incorporates three-in-one tools (video, voice, text) for customer support, sales and marketing teams to enhance the customer experience by delivering greater personalisation. The vendor said this should drive stronger customer acquisition, retention and satisfaction while delivering the cost savings of automation.

EVA offers service providers a platform with flexible deployment options, either in-network or accessible from the cloud, for video call bot-as-a-service and it can automate interactions, like how-to interactions or sophisticated troubleshooting, which are underserved by voice or text bots alone.

UserTesting announces US$100 million funding round

UserTesting, a leading provider for on-demand human insights, today announced the completion of its US$100 million funding led by global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners.

The latest round in the 13-year old company also includes participation from existing investors Accel, OpenView and Greenspring. According to Crunchbase, this brings total funding in the business to $148 million.

UserTesting said it intends to invest a range of growth initiatives including expanding the footprint in Europe and Asia, accelerating product development with a focus on access to human insights and using machine learning to drive intelligent insights, and investing in additional capabilities to support global scale. The company claims to have 1 million people on its database, categorised across demographics, gender, age and interests.

Pegasystems launches Covid-19 dashboard on Pega Platform 

Pegasystems has launched a Covid-19 employee safety and business continuity tracker app, a free dashboard to track employee exposure to the virus amid the pandemic.

The app provides business leaders with live updates of employee status, helping them make more informed decisions to keep the workforce safe and business moving forward.

Employees self-report their Covid-19 status via a short set of risk assessment questions and the answers feed into the status dashboards and trigger a series of automated actions to guide affected employees, managers and human resources with instructions on how to manage the situation.

Jebbit Platform for Agencies launches

First-party data management company, Jebbit, is set to release a new version of its platform which gives agencies and in-house agencies the ability to build branded, no-code interactive experiences to capture first-party data.

Jebbit Platform for Agencies is pitched as a simple solution for personalised experiences at scale. The platform includes tools for agencies to create digital lead forms and landing pages, surveys as well as more interactive experiences such as product matches, personality quizzes, trivia, knowledge tests, all aimed at finding out more from consumers about their motivations, intentions, interests, and preferences.

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