Integrated AdBuilder digital advertising solution and SphereBuilder™ marketing automation and analytics platform will be available to Bright MLS Subscribers this fall

Collabra Technology, Inc. ("Collabra"), a real estate digital marketing technology and analytics solution provider today announced a new partnership with Bright MLS ("Bright"), a leading multiple listing service serving over 100,000 real estate professionals in the Mid-Atlantic U.S., that will offer Bright subscribers a free social media checkup, as well as integrated access to Collabra's AdBuilder digital ad solution, allowing real estate agents the ability to create customized Facebook, Instagram and Google digital marketing campaigns.

Paid digital marketing campaigns have become table stakes for listing agents who want to give their listing, and themselves, the broadest exposure. With AdBuilder, Bright MLS subscribers will be able to preview and place professional, engaging and compliant listing ads in a just a few clicks without ever leaving the Bright MLS listing management system. Ads created with AdBuilder will include a custom landing page optimized for lead capture and agents will have access to full campaign results, complete with views, clicks, lead details and more. Facebook and Instagram ads are automatically created using engaging video, and feature key listing details, agent name, headshot and brokerage logo, all beautifully designed to attract the highest consumer engagement. Google search ads will be optimized with automated keywords to drive leads with high intention consumers.

"Bright MLS continues to lead the way in expanding the MLS value proposition and we could not be more excited to bring our innovative AdBuilder product to their 100,000+ subscribers," said Russ Cofano, President and CEO of Collabra Technology. "Digital marketing is critical for agents to remain competitive in today's challenging market. By including our technology both integrated within Bright's listing management system, and as an additional offering to both listing agents and buyer agents, we will make it super simple and convenient for their subscribers to embrace the power of online marketing creating brand awareness in support of lead-generation efforts."

"Bright pursues offerings that give our subscribers the edge they need to promote their businesses and serve their clients in this ever-changing market," said Bright MLS CMO Amit Kulkarni. "The importance of a social media presence strategy is critical to agents as part of their overall marketing strategy. This integration will make it easier than ever for our subscribers to grow their businesses and launch paid campaigns promoting both their listings and their personal brand."

Productsup has developed a connector app to make it easier for brands to sell on TikTok Shop

Productsup, the leading Product-to-Consumer (P2C) software company, has officially announced an integration with TikTok Shop that enables businesses to unlock new sales potential on the short-form mobile video platform. With the Productsup TikTok Shop connector app, Productsup customers can sell directly to consumers on TikTok with a seamless product content and order management experience. The connection provides brands with a simplified way to connect with the TikTok community, increasing their operational efficiency.

"TikTok became a go-to destination for product discovery faster than any other channel in commerce history, and it has successfully maintained its status as a hub for consumers worldwide to learn about new products and engage with brands online," said Vincent Peters, CEO at Productsup. "By partnering with TikTok to build the TikTok Shop connector app within our platform, we empower companies to take full advantage of TikTok Shop as a sales channel."

Social commerce sales in the US alone are projected to reach $2.9 trillion by 2026. The added functionality of native checkout on social platforms like TikTok allows brands to sell directly where their users are interacting with their products instead of being redirected to an external website to complete purchases. Using the TikTok Shop connector app through the Productsup P2C platform, brands can perform the following tasks with built-in automation that eliminates the need for IT support:

• Create and manage your product catalog on TikTok Shop
• Import orders from TikTok Shop to the Productsup platform to make them available to the order management system (OMS)
• Automatically notify TikTok Shop when orders have been shipped to communicate delivery times with consumers

The TikTok Shop connector app is currently available in the US and UK. In addition to TikTok Shop, Productsup also supports brands with TikTok Dynamic Showcase Ads, which are personalized video ads generated in real-time from an ad template. This template contains product information from a product catalog, which is constantly updated and enriched by Productsup.

DRUID, a global leader in conversational AI technology, announced today its successful $30 million Series B led by TQ Ventures, with participation from new investors Smedvig Capital, Endeavor, and Verve Ventures, and existing investors GapMinder, Hoxton Ventures and Karma Ventures. 

The funding will be used to continue accelerating DRUID's international expansion, particularly its footprint in the US market, which already accounts for 60% of DRUID's current revenue.

DRUID's platform gives enterprises the tools to build and design conversational business applications (CBA) to provide the most natural employee-customer experience. Early customers appreciate that the DRUID suite can be applied in any existing technology environment without replacing prior investments in ERP, CRM, RPA or other digital tools. Moreover, DRUID's recent integration with ChatGPT, via Microsoft's Azure OpenAI Service, makes generative AI enterprise-ready and secure.

"Amid the fanfare around conversational and Generative AI, DRUID stood out to us as a category leader. We were pleased to discover through our research how much current customers value the platform and how large a problem DRUID is solving for prospective customers. We are honored to lead this round and partner with Liviu and the DRUID team," said Schuster Tanger, co-managing partner at TQ Ventures.

Furthermore, DRUID'S CBA enhances Conversational AI's technological abilities with the power to understand business context and trigger intelligent actions, thus providing a user-friendly conversational layer that brings customers closer to their users and allows for use across multiple channels to streamline the successful completion of business tasks.

Several industry leaders have already implemented DRUID's technology with exceptional results. Kmart, Liberty Global, Texas Children's Hospital, White Castle, NHS, Auchan, Georgia Southern University, Société Générale, Erste Group, BNP Paribas, Axa, and more have integrated DRUID's Conversational Business Applications platform, experiencing significant improvements in both customer engagement and employee efficiency.

These organizations have reported enhanced customer satisfaction, reduced wait times, and increased issue resolution rates. Freeing employees from repetitive tasks allows them to focus on more strategic and meaningful responsibilities, resulting in heightened employee efficiency and satisfaction as well as overall team morale.

"DRUID capitalizes on recent advancements in generative AI, which seamlessly integrate into our conversational business applications platform. We believe our platform will, for large international enterprises, ignite a new era of productivity and tangible business outcomes. Bolstered by our latest investment round and against the backdrop of this technological revolution, we are well positioned and excited to work hard to offer technology solutions that empower our customers to unlock maximum value," said Liviu Dragan, CEO of DRUID.

The new financing round comes on the heels of DRUID's continued growth and development. In 2022, DRUID increased its annual recurring revenue by 2.5 times compared to 2021 and is predicting a further growth of 3 times this year.

"The international validation of the revolutionary platform built by DRUID convinced us for our third investment in the company, the first being at the end of 2020. Ever since then we have seen the potential of the team led by Liviu Dragan to create a technology that will transform the field of conversational artificial intelligence solutions for complex industries. DRUID demonstrated to enterprise clients that the platform met the highest technological security standards, thus confirming the platform's versatility and flexibility. Having been with DRUID since its first steps globally, we are happy to now see the company's important list of international clients and the increasingly ambitious plans of the team members to build an AI hub that can quickly incorporate the latest artificial intelligence technologies such as Generative AI," said Dan Mihăescu, Founding Partner, GapMinder.

Founded in Romania, DRUID has recently grown its global team by 60% and onboarded a few key ex-UiPath executives in strategic roles: notably, (a) Kedar Dani, ex-Global VP to design, to assist with go-to-market strategy; (b) Vargha Moayed, ex-Chief Strategy Officer, to provide strategic advice to the CEO; and (c) Mihai Faur, CIO of UiPath, to become an independent board member.

Support for TikTok, Amazon videos, and Google Vision will roll out at month-end

FADEL®, innovator of brand compliance, rights management, and royalty billing software, today announced powerful new functionality for Brand Vision - Content Tracking, its cloud-based solution that tracks and monitors compliance of published content across brand, e-commerce, social, and partner websites. Rolling out on September 30, the new release will support content tracking for images and videos on TikTok, added support for video tracking on Amazon, and web searches for assets across the internet using Google Vision. The new functionality will be showcased at DAM New York during the FADEL TechLab "Do You Know Where Your Assets are Hiding?" on Thursday, September 14.

"Brand Vision allows brands to manage compliance and monitor marketing content and license terms across the entire content lifecycle, from pre-production to post-distribution," explained Gregg Guest, FADEL's VP of Product Management – Cloud Solutions. "Today, content is distributed across dozens of sites – for some brands even hundreds or thousands of websites and social channels, and it can still be out there months or even years later. Companies need a way to reliably monitor their content for expirations and compliance, or else they could damage relationships with their content contributors and face hefty fines."

Non-compliance triggers can range from expirations of talent agreements and digital assets to regional usage restrictions. Content tracking is also valuable in situations such as re-branding, time-sensitive campaigns, product recalls, and brand ambassador management. The power of easily finding digital content across multiple media channels both mitigates risk and boosts the efficiency of marketing teams, who would otherwise need to manually search for digital assets across channels.

In July, FADEL launched video tracking capabilities for YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, adding to its existing abilities to track static images on those platforms as well as on corporate and third-party websites. As more and more media channels emerge, brands struggle to maintain control over their content.

FADEL is continually developing support for content tracking on new premium channels. On FADEL's content tracking roadmap are tailored crawlers for LinkedIn, as well as leading e-commerce and shopping sites. Brands interested in the unveiling of this innovative content tracking technology can save $100 on their DAM New York conference fee by using the code FADEL100 at registration. For a demo of Brand Vision - Content Tracking, attend the FADEL TechLab "Do You Know Where Your Assets are Hiding?" at DAM New York on September 14 at 1:50pm or schedule a 1:1 meeting at the show.

DemandBridge, ("DB"), a leading provider of comprehensive eCommerce tools for seamless brand management and marketing content distribution, is thrilled to announce its acquisition by Valsoft Corporation Inc., a Montreal-based company specializing in the acquisition and development of vertical market software businesses.

DemandBridge offers a range of powerful platforms designed to address various business needs. These comprehensive solutions are expertly engineered to tackle individual business challenges by seamlessly connecting robust accounting, operational, and inventory management systems with leading multi-channel brand management and eCommerce portals. Additionally, they feature a web-based procurement solution, developed by industry professionals with an in-depth understanding of the field.

"I am thrilled to announce that DemandBridge has entered a new and exciting chapter by joining the Valsoft family. This decision reflects our commitment to ensuring the continued growth and success of DemandBridge. With Valsoft's extensive expertise and resources, we are confident that DemandBridge will not only thrive but also reach new heights in delivering innovative marketing automation solutions to our valued clients." - Dave Rich, CEO DemandBridge

In addition to these platform-specific benefits, DemandBridge provides a wide array of advantages, including cloud-based services for flexibility and scalability, customizable marketing tools through a software-as-a-service model, enhanced data management, advanced integration options, improved reporting capabilities, upgraded sourcing technology for cost savings, and a commitment to agile development with continuous updates driven by user input.

"DemandBridge offers an unmatched end-to-end solution for Marketing Automation," said Gustavo Vargas, Operating Partner at Aspire Software, the operating division of Valsoft. "We are excited about the opportunities this collaboration brings and look forward to leveraging the combined expertise and resources to provide transformative solutions for DemandBridge clients. This acquisition represents a significant milestone in our growth trajectory, and we are thrilled about the immense opportunities it brings to drive success and create a brighter future for both Valsoft and DemandBridge."

Hammerspace's IBC2023 Demonstration In Conjunction with AWS and Autodesk will Demonstrate Geographically Scaling Flame Workflows for the First Time Ever.

Hammerspace, the company orchestrating the Next Data Cycle, today announced that it will showcase at IBC2023 how studios can transform workflows to make real-time collaboration possible for artists in different geographies. IBC2023 is in Amsterdam RAI from September 15-18, 2023. In Hall 7, Booth 7.B59, Hammerspace will demonstrate its ability to Geographically Scale Autodesk Flame Workflows. The demo will showcase an Autodesk Flame artist seamlessly running cloud-based workflows across multiple AWS cloud-based instances and regions using Hammerspace data orchestration software. The remote artist collaboration demonstration is further enhanced with the addition of the Like Minded Labs' TODA Live tools for live viewing and communication, all in a media-rich environment. The twice-daily demonstrations will run on Friday, September 15, Saturday, September 16, and Sunday, September 17, at 11:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. in the Hammerspace booth.

At IBC2023, Hammerspace will demonstrate how its game-changing Data Orchestration System automates content placement into the most optimal storage locations, making it ideal for post-production, visual effects (VFX), and animation workflows. The persistent growth in demand for the production of rich media in entertainment, education, and advertising is pushing creative organizations to innovate. Creative teams are increasingly working remotely yet need local data access and the ability to use their preferred tools and applications on workstations, data centers, and the cloud to be productive.

With Hammerspace, television and film creatives, content publishers, special effects artists and corporate video producers can work securely, efficiently, and effectively in a decentralized world with a data orchestration system that addresses the five critical areas affected by decentralized productions:

• Remote Workforce: Hammerspace enables organizations to leverage remote talent with tools to orchestrate content to remote locations and provide low latency, local read/write access to global data.
• Metadata-Driven Workflows: Actionable metadata-based policies enable complete control and lifecycle management of content and the ability to define and enforce policies to meet access, cost, performance, locality, security and protection objectives.
• Cost Control: Make all data accessible and available from any location with a global file system while ensuring it is stored and protected on the most cost-effective storage tier.
• Hybrid Cloud Storage and Burst Render Flexibility: Enable simple and automated hybrid cloud flexibility and gain instant access to the most available or cost-effective compute resources and storage capacity across any cloud or region. It allows teams to meet unforeseen peak demands, access new technologies or simply "chase the spot."

Taboola Goes Beyond CPC, Enabling Advertisers to Provide Budget and Let Taboola’s AI Maximize Conversions Automatically, Driving Predictable Performance; Technology is Built on Contextual Signals from Nearly 600M Daily Active Consumers

Taboola, a global leader in powering recommendations for the open web, today announced significant advancements in its performance advertising-focused bidding technology, called Maximize Conversions.

This technology empowers Taboola advertisers to evolve beyond manual and time-consuming cost per click (CPC) bidding strategies, in favor of simply specifying a budget and having Taboola’s algorithm automate the CPC bid to drive as many conversions as possible while staying within budget.

More than one thousand Taboola advertisers have already used Maximize Conversions to drive results. Advertisers are seeing up to 50% boost in conversions while maintaining their Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), as well as some advertisers seeing reduced CPA by nearly 20%. In addition to making ad campaigns more effective, Maximize Conversions has also provided immense benefit in making campaigns more efficient, reducing the time in which advertisers get to their optimal results by half.

Maximize Conversions is designed to give advertisers flexibility for their campaigns. The technology can be used without a target CPA, which delivers against an advertiser’s daily budget, driving the most conversions at the lowest cost. When used with a target CPA, it delivers performance at a CPA they control.

“Advertisers deserve technology that drives ROI simply and effectively, and Maximize Conversions delivers exactly that,” said Adam Singolda, CEO and founder, Taboola. “We’re taking the guesswork out of CPC bidding, making it so that advertisers can simply share their goals, and our AI takes care of the rest. Our AI is trained on first-party contextual signals from more than 9,000 publishers and nearly 600M daily active users, giving advertisers using Maximize Conversions a competitive advantage in reaching customers. We’re seeing incredible results from this technology – delivering large amounts of customers, saving costs, time and more. I expect nearly half of our advertisers will adopt this offering in 2024.”

Advertiser testimonials
“Our Maximize Conversions campaigns are the clear winners! They consistently deliver outstanding results allowing us to maximize our budgets while achieving impressive CPAs. Not only that, but these campaigns are also driving the highest ROAS for us at the moment, and we’re excited to continue investing with Taboola.” – Babbel

“We have experienced a remarkable boost in stability and performance with Maximize Conversions, surpassing our expectations. A notable difference being the significant reduction in manual work required compared to our previous methods. We're looking forward to shifting more campaigns [to Taboola’s automated bidding] to gain more stability and decrease manual work.” – Audibene

“Not only have we witnessed consistent performance in terms of spend and cost per acquisition (CPA), but the real magic lies in the precious time we’ve saved on bid optimization. With this remarkable tool, we’ve unlocked newfound efficiency and productivity in our marketing efforts.” – Muhlert Digital Gmbh Agency on behalf of Leica Camera

“The automated approach of Maximize Conversions saves us valuable time and effort when managing campaigns. Plus, it’s unlocked profitable inventory previously out of reach with other methods.” – ClickCrew

“At Secret Escapes, our goal is to acquire new subscribers within a specific CPA target, and we found a winning formula with Taboola's Maximize Conversions strategy with a set target CPA. The outcome? An impressive 64% reduction in CPA, surpassing our own expectations and comfortably landing us well below our CPA target.” – Secret Escapes