In some ways, 2020 has seemed an unpromising year to chase after shiny new technologies: lean and reliable, for many brands, have been the watchwords. Even so, there’s been interest in building the stack, especially in support of remote working and collaboration. But, says Western Governors University martech practitioner Steve Petersen, there are reasons to resist temptation.

“FOMO is real. Shiny things have their boosters that make you wonder if you are missing out. However, there are many perfectly understandable reasons to not buy into the hype.” Among them, Petersen lists:

• Security approvals;
• Existing contracts;
• Stakeholder buy-in; and
• Integration challenges.

And that’s not all.

Read more here.

If this year has taught us anything it’s that predicting customer behavior is not easy. In 2021, we predict marketers will focus both on growing revenue from within their customer base and meeting unprecedented customer expectations to build loyalty and increase lifetime value. Join our expert panel as they discuss 2021 predictions, why marketers are shifting their focus from new acquisition to customer loyalty, and the exciting role Customer Data Platforms can play.

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U.S.-based auto dealerships have new features to promote their businesses via their Facebook Pages. The updates include a new “Manage Inventory” tab on dealership Pages; a streamlined set-up process for automotive inventory ads; and a “Vehicles” tab for dealers to show their full inventory featured on their Pages for free.

Why we care. Facebook is building out its features to bolster its appeal as a marketing vehicle (pardon the pun) for auto dealers. The updates reduce the friction involved in getting catalog inventory set up and managed and increase exposure for dealers’ inventory.

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Oftentimes, when we visualize the perfect buyer’s journey, we’re looking at it from a marketer’s perspective, imagining what we’re trying to achieve with our initiatives. But, ultimately, the definition of the perfect journey is in the eye of the buyer. The buyer doesn’t really care about your programs, your channels or what technologies you’re using, they’re just trying to get enough information to make a purchase decision.

We recently spoke to Integrate CMO Deb Wolf about the perfect buyer’s journey and the obstacles marketing teams face when trying to deliver the ideal customer experience. In the lightly-edited conversation, Wolf shares specific tips for building connections between siloed channels, technologies and teams, as well as the reasons why this is so important today.

Find out more »

First announced at Apple’s WWDC developer event this summer, these data-collection disclosures (‘privacy nutrition labels’) ask developers to self-report the categories of information collected by their apps. Developers will need to provide the required disclosures in App Store Connect. It will be mandatory for app updates and new app submissions.

This represents Apple’s determination forcing greater transparency on the eco-system.  Publishers will also need to report the data captured and transmitted to third party partners, which include “analytics tools, advertising networks, third-party SDKs, or other external vendors whose code you’ve added to your app.” 

Apple has identified multiple categories of data, the collection of which needs to be disclosed. These include, but are by no means limited to, contact/identity information, health and fitness information, location data, financial information, and any “sensitive info” (demographic data, opinions, sexual orientation, biometric data, etc.).

Read more here.

Bridg, a CDP offering focused on brick and mortar retailers and CPG brands, will be ingesting consumer identity data from identity management and resolution platform Infutor. Bridg derives anonymous, privacy-safe profiles from POS transaction data and a proprietary survey of 250 million-plus U.S. consumers. The profiles are appended with purchase history, demographics, socioeconomic and predictive attributes.

Infutor’s contribution will include hashed emails and mobile ad IDs to further help Bridg clients identify and understand their customers.

Why we care. The kind of first-party data platforms like Infutor can add to consumer profiles will be increasingly important as brands and advertisers rely less on cookie-based tracking.

“BLASTPHEMY. The act of asking MOPs to ‘blast’ an email to your database because ‘everyone could benefit from our product’. Peeps, your product does not benefit everyone. Read that again. If you think it does, you need to go back to the drawing board.” Deborah Mayen, MA Project Leader, Molex.