ZoomInfo, the database of company and contact information, is partnering with LeanData, the automated lead to account matching and routing solution, to enrich LeanData’s matching and routing flows with information from ZoomInfo’s database. Both solutions are Salesforce native, so it’s Salesforce records that will be enriched.

The aim is to increase the completeness and accuracy of LeanData’s routing flow in real-time, getting more comprehensive records to sales reps, and thus increasing their efficiency and effectiveness.

Why we care. The B2B marketing-to-sales motion is becoming more seamless — it has to. Why? Because this is no longer a world in which marketers do their digital thing and hand off the leads to sales to do their telephone, demo, event thing. The B2B buyer journey is now irrevocably digital and increasingly self-serve, top to bottom.

Marketers should care, therefore, how their leads are matched to the correct accounts and routed to the right sales representatives, and if that can happen with enriched data appended, so much the better. Everyone’s in the same revenue race now.

With the demise of third-party cookies and re-evaluation of customer habits post-pandemic, this is the perfect opportunity to close gaps in consumer insights and understand how to build a data strategy to deliver meaningful experiences.

The effectiveness of marketing is tightly tethered to the quality of your data. For brands to proceed confidently, they must first take these steps.

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A report compiled by 451 Research for S&P Global Market Intelligence shows positive results on consumer spending outlook and confidence in the economy and jobs. The results were based on two surveys of over 3,000 North American respondents, conducted in April this year (in early days, therefore, for the COVID-19 vaccination program).

37% of consumers said they expected to spend more during the next 90 days, a big increase YoY; 63% expected the economy to improve over the next 90 days; and, predictably, the biggest increases in planned spending YoY feature travel and restaurants. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that most consumer spending is directed at those sectors -— it’s rather that they were out of the game entirely a year ago.

Most consumers (71%) were planning to return to in-store shopping, followed by indoor dining and personal services like hair salons (around 60% each). Travel was far behind at 30%, as were fitness and training and sporting events. 

Why we care. These are interesting indicators, despite less direct evidence of the efficacy of the vaccination program back in April. It would be reasonable to assume that prospects for consumer spending on travel, for example, have only improved.

Marketers will be ingesting a range of data like this to develop a picture of the new consumer. Nobody is coming out of the last 16 months unchanged. One might expect a lingering sense of economic security and a reluctance to spend. Happily, these surveys suggest the opposite.

Read the full survey here

Identity resolution – the science of connecting the growing volume of consumer identifiers to one individual as he or she interacts across channels and devices – has become critical to marketing success, as well as essential for compliance with consumer privacy laws. This guide from MarTech explains the benefits of identity resolution software, and examines the market, latest trends, opportunities and challenges. It also includes profiles of 10 leading identity resoluton platform vendors, pricing information, capabilities comparisons and recommended steps for evaluating and purchasing.

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Ad pods, introduced in 2018, are when two video ads are served back to back. The idea was to compact the ad-viewing experience to ensure that viewers do not leave when multiple ads are played during the video they’re watching. This ad type is most often served to audiences watching longer-form content in order to reduce the number of interruptions to the viewing experience. 

“We saw that users who engaged with multiple ads in an ad break experienced up to 40% fewer interruptions,” wrote Tript Singh Lamba, Director of Product Management at Google. The new format will make ad pods “eligible to serve non-skippable in-stream ads in addition to skippable in-stream ads and bumpers.”

Why we care. This is a good move for advertisers who want to reach their audiences on YouTube without being skipped over, but will likely be an annoying addition for YouTube watchers who will now have to sit through multiple ads before, during, and after their videos without a way to skip it. Either way, YouTube wins because of the ad revenue coming in or viewers switching to their ad-free paid subscription.

From psychological triggers to the evolving privacy landscape, join us online — August 17 — to explore cutting-edge conversion optimization topics with the Search Engine Land experts and brilliant speakers including Aleyda Solis, Amy Bishop, Jeremy Epperson, Anu Adegbola, Alexis Sanders, and more!

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“80% of product is onboarding. 80% of managing is hiring. 80% of sales is marketing.” Sahil Lavingia, founder Gumroad, investor and entrepreneur