The number of weekly brand-creator campaigns has grown 300% in the first month

LTK, the platform that powers Creator Commerce™, today unveiled LTK Marketplace - the company’s latest innovative solution built to empower creators and brands to easily connect and collaborate on brand partnership opportunities. LTK Marketplace is an expansion of the company’s influencer marketing platform; brands have already invested more than $2.5B in influencer marketing through the LTK platform. Early results of LTK Marketplace are remarkable with the number of weekly brand-creator campaigns growing 300% in the first month.

LTK Marketplace is changing the way business is done in the influencer industry. The intuitive new platform fosters direct connection between brands and creators, empowering creators to pitch brands to collaborate on their upcoming campaigns. LTK’s expanded marketplace takes the previous slower and traditionally one-sided model and flips it on its head by expanding to a two-way, brand-to-creator connection.

“For the last decade, Influencer marketing has been like a dating app where only one side gets to pick who they want to date. Now, vetted, professional creators get to pitch the brands they love to participate in their upcoming campaigns and this dynamic is industry changing,” said Amber Venz Box, President and Co-Founder of LTK, and a legacy creator herself.

In the first month of beta testing, more than 15,000 proposals were sent by creators. Early feedback and results are remarkable; the number of weekly brand-creator campaigns has tripled. Brands like Caden Lane, Design Within Reach and LouLou Baker have already engaged with creators on campaigns through the new marketplace.

Brands can post their campaign request and receive templated pitches from premium, professional creators with the ability to accept proposals in just one click, accelerating the time to market for campaigns. And, LTK Creators now have the ability to increase their earning opportunities and visibility among more brands they’re eager to work with through LTK Marketplace.

Leading Sports Podcast Network Joins Forces with Cutting-Edge Ad-Tech Platform Specializing in Precise Brand Safety & Targeting Solutions

Premier sports podcast network Blue Wire and Sounder, the AI-powered audio intelligence platform, today announced they have partnered to provide Blue Wire's advertisers with access to Sounder's brand safety, suitability, and precision ad targeting tools across its entire catalog.

Sounder's cutting-edge technology will enhance brand safety and ensure suitability and precision in ad targeting, creating a win-win scenario for both content creators and advertisers. With this partnership, Blue Wire is poised to strengthen its position as the go-to destination for top-tier sports content while delivering a more personalized and engaging podcast experience for its listeners. This strategic alliance underscores Blue Wire's commitment to innovation and excellence in the sports podcasting arena.

"We are excited to partner with Sounder to provide our network with access to the best precision targeting and podcast analytics tools available," said Blue Wire CEO and Founder Kevin Jones. "Sounder's insights will boost tailored monetization opportunities across Blue Wire's network to align with relevant and suitable inventory in the ultimate win-win for our content creators and advertisers."

"We are thrilled to partner with Blue Wire," said Sounder's Vice President of Sales and Client Success, Brittany Hall. "Blue Wire's podcast advertising operations will scale with our AI-powered targeting tools, driving trust at scale for advertisers."

The partnership between Blue Wire and Sounder is a podcasting game-changer, creating new opportunities for advertisers to reach relevant content. Podcast fans can look forward to a new era of richer, more diverse listening experiences.

Innovative solutions and AI capabilities launched at Sitecore DX Minneapolis 2023

Sitecore®, a global leader in end-to-end digital experience software, today announced new offerings as part of its robust, cloud-based digital experience platform. The new solutions, XM Cloud Plus and Sitecore Accelerate, are designed to help brands speed up and simplify their move to the cloud by making it easier than ever before to embark on the journey to SaaS and leverage solutions with robust enterprise capabilities.

The evidence is clear that cloud-based solutions deliver faster integrations, regular technology updates with little downtime and – ultimately - more engaging customer experiences. Yet, there remains a perception that making the switch involves too much hassle, challenge, and complexity. XM Cloud Plus and Sitecore Accelerate are specifically designed to help remove these obstacles by providing the knowledge, tools and support needed to make it easier to migrate to Sitecore's leading cloud-based composable offerings.

Introducing XM Cloud Plus
In 2022, Sitecore launched XM Cloud, the industry's first fully-native cloud CMS solution, and it quickly became the company's fastest-selling SaaS product with over 100 major brand adoptions. Today, Sitecore is expanding the capabilities of XM Cloud, with the launch of XM Cloud Plus, an extended digital-experience solution that brings together content management, AI-powered search, personalization, customer data management and analytics.

XM Cloud Plus is designed to answer the needs of Sitecore XP customers who have enjoyed a powerful solution in a single product and are ready to make their transition to the cloud, and for brands that want to leverage a composable technology stack but use a proven product combination to simplify deployment and accelerate time to value.

"XM Cloud marked a significant moment in Sitecore's journey when we launched it a year ago. Our first-to-market experience offering a cloud-based composable solution resulted in rapid adoption and was the culmination of three years of development with extensive customer input," said Steve Tzikakis, CEO of Sitecore.

"Today, we expand the XM Cloud offering with XM Cloud Plus, bringing together a proven set of products that gives brands broader capabilities to offer an unrivalled customer experience, while simplifying and accelerating their move to the cloud, and delivering a powerful solution for the thousands of Sitecore XP customers that want additional enterprise capabilities."

Key features of XM Cloud Plus include:

• Content Creation and Management: User-friendly tools that allow teams to efficiently produce, optimize, and deliver captivating content to the right audience at the right time.
• AI-Powered Search and Content Recommendations: Includes dynamic personalization and targeting strategies, offering omnichannel personalization, intelligent search recommendations, and access to an extensive array of personalization development tools.
• Omnichannel Content Center: Teams can now efficiently manage all digital customer touchpoints from a single, unified content repository that ensures brand consistency and streamlined workflows.
• Seamless Integrations and Connectivity: XM Cloud Plus can be easily implemented within an existing tech stack to create connected, immersive customer experiences across all channels.
• Intuitive Form Builder: Our drag and drop form builder for XM Cloud and XM Cloud Plus, provides customers with an easy way to add data capture forms to their pages and components.

Sitecore Accelerate: Helping Brands Move to the Cloud
Companies often retain on-premises solutions due to the perceived difficulty of moving to the cloud. To address this, Sitecore has launched Sitecore Accelerate, a dedicated program to guide Sitecore XM and Sitecore XP customers to either XM Cloud or XM Cloud Plus and XC customers to OrderCloud. Sitecore Accelerate gives teams the knowledge, resources, tools, and human support needed to unlock the full potential of a SaaS-based future.

"We are at an inflection point where mature cloud technology is combining with AI computing to empower brands like never before," added Tzikakis. "To leverage this opportunity, brands need guidance, reassurance and actual step-by-step, proven assistance from knowledgeable peers and partners to make their DXP stack operate to full capacity and capability."

"By giving brands the support they need with Sitecore Accelerate, they can tap into the full power of Sitecore's solutions simply and easily. It is such a critical moment for online experiences, and we want to be the partner brands turn to when they want to build a better proposition."

Generative AI comes to the Composable DXP 
At DX Minneapolis 2023, new Generative AI features were announced that enhance content creation, management, and delivery of digital experiences. Brand marketers can:

• Generate text and images in Content Hub One that are consistently on-brand to achieve a new level of hyper-personalization for customer-facing content
• Author and edit brand content in Content Hub DAM (Digital Asset Management) to ensure it aligns with content models and brand consistency
• Deploy advanced Search that understands user intent to answer queries faster
• Leverage Visual Search from Content Hub to easily discover content and incorporate images into brand assets via similar image suggestions

"Sitecore introduced native machine learning features across our platform and composable DXP in 2019. With our ongoing focus on R&D, we are excited to bring the next level of AI to our customers. These additions accelerate the speed at which brands build content and experiences with Sitecore solutions, open new ways to empower marketing and heighten the level of insight brands get from their data," said Dave O'Flanagan, chief product officer, Sitecore.

"This is only the first step to embed AI deep into our SaaS DXP so our customers can continue to build better experiences for their customers. We are actively working on new ways to improve marketer workflows through automatic improvements and further down the line AI will be able to optimize the digital experience with limited manual oversight."

Leveraged By the World’s Leading Tech and Financial Services Companies; Yahoo To Remain Largest Customer and Investor

Today, Yahoo announced the spin-out of Vespa, its platform for applications that leverage AI and data online at scale, as a separate and independent entity to broaden accessibility of its technology platform. As part of Yahoo, external customers such as Spotify, Wix, major financial institutions, and more, have turned to Vespa since 2017 for a variety of AI needs – from searching millions of documents within a global organization, serving better data-driven online ads, or allowing AI-based language apps the ability to scale.

Vespa will continue powering Yahoo’s internal solutions across search and dynamic recommendations as well as enabling personalized content and ads to users. As part of the spin-out, Yahoo will continue to invest in Vespa and remain its largest customer.

"Vespa has been a critical component to Yahoo’s AI and machine learning capabilities across all of our properties for many years,” said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo. “While remaining Vespa’s biggest customer and a key investor, we’ll continue to leverage all that Vespa has to offer while simultaneously creating a new business opportunity that allows other companies to harness its technology as an independent entity.”

Vespa's technology currently underpins an impressive and diverse portfolio of approximately 150 applications that are integral to the company’s operations. These applications play a pivotal role in delivering personalized content across all of Yahoo’s pages in real-time and effectively managing targeted advertisements within one of the world's largest ad exchanges. Collectively, these applications serve an impressive user base of nearly one billion individuals processing a staggering 800,000 queries per second.

“Given Yahoo’s incubation and advancement of the technology over the years, now is the time to spin out Vespa and allow other companies to take advantage of Vespa Cloud in a meaningful way,” said Jon Bratseth, CEO at Vespa. “With Yahoo’s continued investment and support, Vespa will be able to maintain its position as one of the largest and most sophisticated machine learning and database management platforms globally.”

The combination of NICE’s industry-leading platform CXone, with LiveVox’s widely adopted proactive outreach portfolio creates a unique way for organizations to deploy conversational AI across all types of engagements on a unified platform

NICE and LiveVox today announced that NICE has entered a definitive agreement to acquire LiveVox, a leading AI-driven proactive outreach provider. NICE’s industry-leading platform CXone, with its advanced digital engagement capabilities, and Enlighten, the industry’s only AI purpose-built for CX, combined with LiveVox’s sophisticated and rich proactive outreach portfolio creates the only truly unified platform converging all interactions, voice and digital, attended and unattended, inbound and outbound. Together, NICE and LiveVox will help organizations accelerate their CX operations into the digital era with smart conversational AI at scale.

Joining forces, NICE and LiveVox will help enterprises around the globe to create proactive, personalized experiences for their end customers, meeting them on their preferred channel using a method that is right for them, mastering CX in the Digital and AI era with:

- an interaction-centric cloud platform,
- convergence of knowledge, data, channels and CX capabilities,
- purpose-built AI that fuses people, technology and processes.

NICE is recognized as a global market leader in CX with the most robust AI-driven cloud platform for managing customer interactions of all types, digital and voice, agent-assisted and consumer-led. NICE CXone has the largest array of native applications to manage customer journeys, improve employee engagement and drive complete performance. Moreover, CXone provides the most comprehensive embedded AI with Enlighten encompassing hundreds of CX-specific models that enable holistic and fluent consumer experiences.

LiveVox has over two decades of CX domain-specific expertise and leading capabilities in AI-driven proactive outreach serving some of the world’s largest enterprises. LiveVox has a diverse and loyal customer base comprising hundreds of enterprises of all sizes. NICE’s acquisition of LiveVox also builds upon both companies' domain expertise and incredibly talented teams. The acquisition will unite two CX leaders with supplementary technologies, deep domain expertise and a shared passion for innovation.

Barak Eilam, CEO, NICE, said, “Today, we are taking another major step in making smart conversational AI a reality. The era of Digital Engagement is already here and we are excited to enable organizations to propel their Digital Engagement and Conversational AI forward. In joining forces with LiveVox we now have the strongest and broadest proactive outreach portfolio. NICE has a remarkable track record in augmenting its leading innovation with complementary acquisitions. I am excited about this acquisition, and I am positive that together with the experienced and talented LiveVox team we will create an outstanding incremental value to our customers and shareholders.”

John DiLullo, CEO, LiveVox, said, “This is great news for our customers, employees, and shareholders. NICE is an amazing organization and its breadth, reach and commitment to continuous innovation promise to amplify our growth and the capabilities of the complementary solutions we can bring to market together. Today’s announcement marks the beginning of a thrilling new chapter for LiveVox, and we are excited to embark on this journey alongside a prominent global leader in Customer Experience platforms and trusted AI solutions.”

The full integration of the most advanced generative AI technology available today, ChannelGPT reinvents channel sales & marketing enablement for vendors and partners

StructuredWeb, a provider of the leading enterprise through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) platform, today announced the launch of ChannelGPT, a new generative AI tool seamlessly integrated into the company’s TCMA platform designed to revolutionize the way vendors and partners create, customize and distribute channel marketing content. This first-to-market solution for channel marketers enables vendors to engage their complex partner ecosystems in a completely ground-breaking way.

"While this is not the first time StructuredWeb has transformed the TCMA industry, but the introduction of ChannelGPT may be the most consequential. The AI-driven channel marketing engine transforms the way vendors engage with their partner ecosystems through the creation, management, and distribution of tailored marketing assets," said Daniel Nissan, founder & CEO of StructuredWeb. "By leveraging the latest generative AI technology, we are empowering vendors and their channel partners to work smarter together - enabling larger organizations to streamline channel marketing initiatives, while upleveling capabilities for vendors of all sizes.”

ChannelGPT allows vendors to simply upload their general sales, marketing and product content, which the system learns and uses to generate a wide array of marketing assets for their partners. Partners can then log in, input their unique business value propositions and requirements, and receive bespoke marketing assets that perfectly align with their marketing and go-to-market needs. The platform is capable of generating diverse content formats, such as press releases, blog posts, website copy, emails, social posts, positioning letters, banner ads, and even customized sales & video scripts.

"As content becomes easier, faster, and cheaper to create, the quantity of content will grow exponentially in an already noisy and cluttered environment," said Jay McBain, chief analyst for Canalys. "Customers will be further drawn to trusted sources and companies who leverage their partner ecosystem to deliver personalized, localized, and consistent value will be the winners."

The introduction of ChannelGPT represents a paradigm shift in the channel marketing landscape. By harnessing the power of advanced generative AI technology, StructuredWeb enables vendors and their channel partners to overcome numerous challenges, enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing efforts with the following capabilities.

• Tailored content for partners: Generates customized marketing assets (i.e., emails, videos, social posts, press releases and more) for each partner, considering their unique value propositions and target markets, ensuring higher engagement and relevance.
• Time and cost savings: ChannelGPT eliminates the need to create certain assets and focuses on training content to the system - Automating the entire content creating process, which allows for significant time and cost savings.
• Consistent messaging and branding: Helps maintain consistent messaging and branding across all content created for partners, ensuring a cohesive and professional brand image.
• Scalability: Allows vendors to efficiently create marketing materials for a large number of partners, ensuring that each partner receives customized content that meets their specific needs.
• Enhanced messaging and differentiation: Enables partners to more effectively communicate their unique value proposition and the benefits of their vendor's products, helping them stand out from the competition.

“The biggest challenge vendors have is channelizing their content for a partner’s (and ultimately their buyers’) specialized and segmented needs,” said Steven Kellam, chief revenue officer at StructuredWeb. “What this allows partners and vendors to do is automate the hyper-personalization of all channel marketing assets on a granular level to connect and resonate with their buyers more effectively.”

Former NetApp, Nutanix, and Hitachi Vantara Leaders Join Nasuni to Capitalize on Recent Business Momentum and Further Disrupt Legacy File Storage Industry

Nasuni, a leading hybrid cloud storage solution, today announced the appointment of Asim Zaheer as Chief Marketing Officer. In this role, Zaheer will be responsible for scaling Nasuni's global go-to-market strategy as the company enters its next phase of growth. Nasuni also announced the appointment of Matthew Grantham as Head of Worldwide Partners, and Curt Douglas as Vice President of Sales for its western region.

The new appointments come as demand for hybrid cloud storage with distributed file shares and safeguards against ransomware continues to grow rapidly. According to Gartner, consumption-based storage models will triple their stake in total enterprise storage capacity in the next five years and all storage solutions will include active cyber defense and recovery capabilities by 2028.

"In my conversations with customers it is clear that enterprises need to replace traditional hardware-based file storage and data protection systems with a scalable cloud-native solution," said Zaheer. "Nasuni is a clear leader in the rapidly growing category of Hybrid Cloud Storage and has the leading product in this accelerating market. I am thrilled to help expand its global footprint at such an exciting time for the company."

Zaheer brings over 25 years of technology marketing experience from companies of all sizes. Prior to Nasuni, he served as CMO of Glassbox and spent more than 10 years as CMO of Hitachi Vantara, helping launch the company and drive its multi-billion-dollar IT business.

"Legacy file systems simply aren't enough for the demands of today's enterprises, which require cloud migration, advanced ransomware protection, and hybrid workforce support," said Nasuni President David Grant. "Asim's wealth of experience and the expertise Matthew and Curt bring to their roles will help propel Nasuni forward as we bring much-needed disruption to traditional file infrastructure and strategically grow our market share in the US and Europe."

With over 20 years of experience managing customer and partner relationships, Matthew Grantham brings wide-ranging expertise to his role leading Nasuni's partner program. Previously, Grantham served as Global Vice President of Channel Sales for Hyperscience and executive channel leadership positions at TenFold, Fuze, and others.

Curt Douglas also joins Nasuni, where he'll lead the company's western sales region. With over 20 years of experience specializing in enterprise technology, Douglas previously led the West and Central US commercial business initiatives at Nutanix, in addition to senior sales roles at NetApp, IBM, and EMC.

The Nasuni File Data Platform is a hybrid cloud replacement for traditional network-attached storage (NAS) that delivers effortless scalability, built-in security, and edge performance. The platform consolidates file data in easily expandable, highly durable object storage such as Amazon S3, Azure Blob, and Google Cloud object storage at a fraction of the cost of on-premises or other cloud solutions. With a unified administrative experience, Nasuni enables businesses to easily manage files across any location, increasing productivity, operational efficiency, and mitigating risk.

This announcement follows a year of rapid growth and expansion for Nasuni, which now supports more than 800 customers, including numerous Fortune 500 enterprises, in over 70 countries. Last year, the company surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), and so far in 2023 has unveiled new integrations with Microsoft Sentinel, announced an expanded partnership with solutions provider Presidio, and appointed Pete Agresta as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) and Jim Liddle as Chief Innovation Officer.

Optmyzr Inc unveils Optmyzr Sidekick, a game-changing generative AI feature, to provide advertisers extensive insights and suggestions for PPC ad account optimization. This addition to Optmyzr's AI technology suite consolidates crucial performance data, explains performance shifts, and proposes actionable optimization steps. Sidekick's integration into the Optmyzr platform amplifies existing machine learning AI advantages, marking a significant evolution in Optmyzr's innovative automation solutions for enhanced PPC campaign management and optimization.

Optmyzr Inc, a leading provider of digital marketing automation solutions, is thrilled to announce the launch of Optmyzr Sidekick, a revolutionary generative AI capability designed to empower advertisers with comprehensive insights and optimization recommendations for their PPC ad accounts.

As the digital advertising landscape continues to evolve, advertisers face mounting challenges in effectively managing and optimizing their pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. With Optmyzr Sidekick, advertisers gain a powerful ally that consolidates critical account performance data, delivers intelligent explanations for performance changes, and provides actionable optimization suggestions to enhance campaign results.

Optmyzr Sidekick is the latest addition to Optmyzr's extensive suite of machine learning AI technologies that have long been trusted by advertisers worldwide. This cutting-edge capability harnesses the power of advanced natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to deliver a range of key features and benefits:

• Performance Summaries: Optmyzr Sidekick offers advertisers an instant snapshot of their PPC ad account performance, presenting essential metrics and trends in a user-friendly format. Users can easily track and monitor performance changes, identifying strengths and areas for improvement.
• Performance Explanations: Understanding why performance changes occur is crucial for advertisers seeking to make data-driven decisions. Optmyzr Sidekick leverages its generative AI capabilities to provide clear and concise explanations for performance fluctuations, helping advertisers pinpoint the underlying factors driving the changes.
• Optimization Suggestions: Armed with intelligent insights, Optmyzr Sidekick generates actionable optimization suggestions tailored to each advertiser's unique goals and objectives. From bid adjustments to ad copy improvements, these recommendations empower advertisers to take proactive steps to enhance their campaign performance.
• Account Highlights: In addition to identifying areas for improvement, Optmyzr Sidekick also highlights the positive aspects of an advertiser's PPC ad account. By showcasing success stories, campaign milestones, and top-performing segments, the capability offers advertisers a well-rounded perspective on their achievements.

"Optmyzr Sidekick marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to empowering advertisers with innovative automation solutions," said Fred Vallaeys, CEO at Optmyzr. "Our generative AI capability combines cutting-edge technology with deep industry expertise to deliver comprehensive insights and actionable recommendations that can transform the way advertisers manage and optimize their PPC campaigns."

Optmyzr Sidekick is seamlessly integrated into the Optmyzr platform, allowing advertisers to harness its power within their existing workflows. By combining the capabilities of Optmyzr's existing machine learning AI solutions with Optmyzr Sidekick, advertisers gain an unparalleled advantage in maximizing the potential of their PPC ad accounts.