Revenue Lifecycle Management solutions leader adds experienced marketing executive to help accelerate growth, awareness, and expansion

Stock media leader answers customer demand with AI-driven innovations to improve creative workflows 

Storyblocks, an unlimited, subscription-based stock media platform with video creation and workflow functionality, has unveiled new search enhancements powered by AI. These improvements aim to deliver an elevated user experience and streamlined creative workflows for Storyblocks' customers.

• Learn more about Storyblocks' AI-enhanced search experience at storyblocks.com.

In the recently released 10th Annual Survey of Creative Pros, Leslie Hughes, founder of iSPY Technologies and president of the Digital Media Licensing Association, said, "This year's survey confirmed what creators truly value when licensing stock media – high content quality and relevance. However, finding the perfect assets through search remains their biggest hurdle. Encouragingly, many creators are optimistic that AI can lend a hand in streamlining asset discovery going forward."

"Our team has relied on Storyblocks for several years now to create video content at a rapid pace," said Nolan Nichols, manager of video production at the U.S. Travel Association. "We're excited that Storyblocks is leveraging AI more to help customers like us find the content we need even quicker than before. We're a lean team and are always looking for ways to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently, so I've been actively looking for ways that AI can help us do that at every step of the creative process."

Cutting-edge data, AI and machine learning technologies drive Storyblocks' platform. The company uses advanced AI models to deliver the most relevant content to its users. However, Storyblocks is not just about technological prowess; it is equally committed to curating a diverse and representative library that meets changing customer demands.

Recent improvements include:

• Delivering faster, more relevant and more representative results in search queries
  • Storyblocks prioritizes fresher content in its search results through a proprietary algorithm that evaluates the performance of new content every four hours. Early testing indicates that including recently uploaded content can boost download rates by up to 60% compared to searches without this prioritization.
  • Storyblocks employs an in-house machine learning model based on the BERT framework, allowing the platform to rapidly analyze how users engage with content and refine search result rankings in near real-time.
  • Storyblocks aims to provide representative search results. On average, 24% of videos on the first page feature Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) models. This aligns with the company's goal of proactively surfacing the quarter of its library content featuring models from underrepresented backgrounds.
  • Furthermore, Storyblocks stands out in the stock media industry by routinely pulling underperforming assets to maintain a top-tier library quality. Despite expanding its collection by 40% in 2023, the company prioritized removing nearly 200,000 assets, ensuring customers can discover relevant content more efficiently.
• Identifying compelling thumbnails for video content 
  • First impressions are critical in a medium like video, particularly for content creators juggling multiple projects. This reality prompted Storyblocks to use AI technology to identify the most pertinent thumbnail in video search results. Recent Storyblocks A/B testing revealed that videos showcasing AI-curated thumbnails experienced heightened engagement levels, suggesting these visuals better aligned with users' interests.
• Providing insightful and accurate content suggestions 
  • Storyblocks employs OpenAI's large language model to enhance search capabilities, delivering comprehensive results that transcend users' initial queries. This innovative approach aims to return relevant content even for specific or flawed search parameters. In addition, by harnessing the power of metadata enhancements and Storyblocks' computer vision technology, the company can aggregate pertinent search results, recommend alternative scenes and surface additional clips featuring specific individuals.
• Making cross-asset recommendations 
  • Since 2022, Storyblocks has leveraged user behavior data to suggest complementary pairings between different types of creative assets, such as videos, images and audio tracks. Through its computer vision technology, the platform can analyze music tracks by rendering songs as spectrograms in order to identify and recommend tracks that are significantly similar.

Today's announcement of Storyblocks' search enhancements complements its ongoing commitment to collaborating with artists on new collections and commissioning content to address emerging gaps identified through search data analysis. These improvements not only facilitate the discovery of Storyblocks' ever-expanding library but also increase the likelihood of users downloading both existing and newly added content.

"At Storyblocks, we're harnessing the power of AI to revolutionize the way creators discover and use content," said Lucy Huang, senior vice president of product and engineering at Storyblocks. "By delivering faster, more relevant and more representative search results, we're not just streamlining creative workflows – we're empowering our global community of artists and customers to create inclusive and impactful work. Our commitment to curating a diverse and top-quality library, combined with cutting-edge technology, sets us apart in the stock media industry."

AdPlayer.Pro adds new real-time auction features to its video ad serving & ad management platform.

AdPlayer.Pro, a global provider of SaaS video ad technology has released new real-time auction capabilities, extending ad waterfalling opportunities for its customers.

According to the official announcement, the newly-introduced features, known as "Performance-based Waterfall" enable configuring a parallel ad waterfall, based on the stepping rise of the bidding price, hence ensuring the optimal price-value balance for parties on the Supply and Demand side.

As Natalie Romankina, CEO of AdPlayer.Pro explained, this new type of waterfall bidding allows extending revenue opportunities for digital ad businesses beyond the header bidding niche, hence ensuring they achieve maximum results overall.

"As our partners' interest in programmatic advertising is increasingly growing, we strive to deliver as many helpful tools as possible to help them optimize and improve video ad performance across all programmatic channels," she claimed.

Namely, according to the preliminary testing results, the implementation of the Performance-based Waterfall functionality allows increasing the efficiency of programmatic ad sales in real-time auctions by the avg. 15%. More importantly, the beta-testing rounds among AdPlayer.Pro partners are also showing positive dynamics in terms of the efficiency of ad inventory sales outside the Prebid-focused vertical.

According to Ms. Romankina, the demonstrated results can't but evoke optimism on how the newly-released ad waterfalling capabilities will benefit ad-ops specialists' business endeavors in 2024.

"In challenging times like today, it's essential to have a full scope of methods and mediums at one's hand to test out their implementation in various manners. And in this respect, the choice of video header bidding in combination with Performance-based Waterfall auction variations can potentially bring exceptional revenue outcomes for ad-ops teams," she added.

Powered by Google Cloud's Gemini Pro, Felix AI leads the company's latest release, offering quantified real-time session summarization.

Quantum Metric, the customer-driven digital analytics platform, is proud to share its latest suite of product offerings designed to enhance digital understanding across the customer lifecycle. Focused on simplifying how digital organizations listen to and act on the needs of their customers, the latest release includes the availability of Felix AI, Quantum Metric's new Gen AI-powered session summarization, powered by Google Cloud's Gemini Pro. 

"We are very excited about the launch of Felix AI, harnessing the power of Google Gemini to provide clarity to the areas of the digital experience that have the greatest impact,"  said Paul Tepfenhart, Global Director of Retail Industries at Google Cloud. "Quantum Metric has built a Gen AI-powered product that takes their deep customer-centric data set and helps their customers accelerate their AI strategy.  In the hands of digital leaders, Felix AI enables customers to transform the way teams analyze and empathize with the customer opportunities."

Session replays, regularly used by digital organizations, provide needed visibility into the customer experience but are inherently complex and time-consuming. In fact, in 2023, Quantum Metric customers spent over 320K hours reviewing session data.

Powered by Google Cloud's Gemini Pro model, Felix AI summarizes a session in seconds, capturing the exact experience the visitor went through. Breaking away from the traditional session replay tools, Felix AI offers a simplified approach to digital customer listening that can be instantly quantified to understand the scale of each issue and its impact on key business metrics. Users can also dig into the details of an individual's experience through Felix's prompt, which enables users to ask clarifying questions, such as which campaign a customer came from.

With a flexible API, Felix AI can be extended to the channels and use cases where digital teams need it most including:

• Direct integrations into VoC feedback received via text, email or even Slack, giving immediate context on customer feedback.
• Role-based summaries, including support for the call center, where agents can now  instantly understand the customer's issue before they've explained it.

Outside of the introduction of Felix AI, Quantum Metric's spring release includes three new products designed to support the entire customer lifecycle and further democratize data across teams including product and marketing.

• Interactions—reimagined to include heatmaps and zoning that make it simple for marketers and UX professionals to quickly optimize the layout and content of their top pages. Also offering improved capabilities when it comes to saving, sharing and collaborating on projects.
• User Analytics—enabling digital organizations to go beyond individual sessions to understand how users behave over time to build long-term customer retention and loyalty. With new data visualizations, like retention and churn analysis, digital teams can dig deeper into what is attracting and detracting repeat visits across web and mobile apps.
• Lightning Analytics—a unique and powerful solution built to enable customers to monitor, diagnose, and optimize the critical workflows and operational apps built on Salesforce Lightning.

"In the past, our focus was transactional—how do we help the customer to make a purchase, book a flight, or open an account?" said Mario Ciabarra, CEO and founder of Quantum Metric. "The relationships we build with customers today are much more complex and span an entire lifecycle. To succeed, digital organizations need tools like Felix AI to simplify how they listen to their customers, and tools like Interactions and User Analytics to listen at scale and across their entire customer lifecycle. This is the beginning of a new generation of digital analytics tools, and we can't wait to see what our digital organizations can do to further the standards for a great digital customer experience."

Darwinium, a leader in next-generation digital security and fraud prevention, today announces a strategic partnership with IPinfo to fight advanced threats on a global scale. Darwinium’s industry-leading continuous customer protection platform is now bolstered by IPinfo’s sophisticated IP address data sets. Access to this critical information supports enhanced user analytics, geolocation data, fraud risk models, and malicious traffic detection, reinforcing Darwinium’s delivery of real-time, holistic customer intelligence across the entire digital estate.

These enhancements are now accessible to Darwinium’s customer base via its Evolution Ecosystem of Partners, which offers advanced intelligence via pre-integrated solutions. As a member of this ecosystem, IPinfo’s accurate, low-latency IP geolocation lookup is available and optimized through its journey orchestration layer.

Today’s ever-evolving landscape of wide-reaching threats requires businesses to have a keen understanding of customer and user behaviors. Data coverage, speed and accuracy are increasingly important to defend against modern cyberattacks and fraud attempts. IP and Geolocation intelligence are critical elements of Darwinium’s Digital DNA, the most advanced understanding of digital users on the market. In collaborating with IPinfo, Darwinium harnesses its ability to provide actionable insights by gathering the most precise and up-to-date proprietary data via IPinfo’s worldwide network of probe servers and multi-step data validation process.

“Cybersecurity threats continue to advance in every aspect of our lives, which is why it’s more important than ever for Darwinium to partner with leaders across the industry to generate the very best intelligence for our customers,” said Jim Seymour, Darwinium’s global head of strategic alliances. “IPinfo has the most comprehensive and advanced IP data set, enabling us with worldwide geolocation intelligence to support all our customer's security needs.”

“IPinfo partners with industry-leading companies, delivering insights to power their most innovative solutions. We are excited to work with Darwinium, a company taking on the most demanding fraud and cybersecurity challenges,” said Ross Lewis, Head of Partnerships and Ecosystem at IPinfo.

Portfoliobox is excited to announce a major update for 2024, bringing a bunch of new features to help artists, photographers, and designers manage their online business all in one spot. This update makes it simple to build a website, sell work, and handle business tasks like making invoices, getting paid through mobile, and setting up bookings.

Easy and Professional Branding
Creating a professional look online is key for creatives but can be tricky. With the new update, Portfoliobox makes this easy. "We noticed the cost of owning a domain and professional email was going up, making it harder for creatives," says Hamid Abouei, CEO of Portfoliobox. "So, we decided to include a custom domain and email for free in our premium plan. We believe everyone should have the chance to look professional online without it costing a lot."

This change is a big deal because it helps creatives look polished and professional without extra costs or hassle. Everything, from the website to the email, works together smoothly, helping artists focus on their work instead of worrying about their online presence.

New Business Tools for Selling and Booking
Portfoliobox isn't stopping at just making websites look good. The 2024 update also brings tools that make it super easy for creatives to sell their work and services. "We want to help creatives make money from their passion, whether they're selling artwork, photography sessions, or design services," explains Hamid.

With these new features, creatives can:

• Easily send invoices and quotes and get paid online.
• Sell their products and services effortlessly…
• Schedule appointments or sell tickets to events without any stress.

And the best part? All this comes at a very affordable price of $12.50 per month, making Portfoliobox a great choice for creatives at all stages of their careers.

A seasoned leader with over 25 years of experience scaling high-growth companies globally, Suzuki will accelerate Glassbox's position in leading AI-fueled customer intelligence

Glassbox, a leading provider of digital experience analytics for web and mobile applications, announces the appointment of Michelle Suzuki as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Suzuki boasts more than 25 years of experience scaling and transforming high-growth companies globally, bringing a wealth of expertise in data-centric growth marketing to her new role at Glassbox. 

With a focus on leveraging cutting-edge technology and advanced data analytics capabilities, Suzuki will drive new growth opportunities for Glassbox, mirroring the company’s mission to empower organizations to deliver superior digital customer experiences. Additionally, Suzuki will spearhead initiatives to continue bringing Autonomous CX solutions to the market. These solutions will empower organizations to streamline and automate customer interactions across various touchpoints, delivering seamless and personalized experiences at scale. Through Suzuki's strategic leadership, Glassbox is poised to emerge as a leader in AI-fueled customer intelligence, providing businesses with the data, tools and insights they need to stay ahead in today's competitive landscape.

"We are thrilled to welcome Michelle to the Glassbox team as our new Chief Marketing Officer," said Glassbox CEO Yaron Morgenstern. "Michelle's extensive experience in global strategic marketing, coupled with her passion for innovation and commitment to driving exceptional customer experiences, make her the ideal leader to spearhead our marketing efforts as we continue to grow and expand our footprint in the digital analytics space."

Most recently, Suzuki led marketing at Instructure, where she was instrumental in transforming international regions into rapid-growth SaaS businesses amidst a $2 billion private-equity acquisition in 2019. Suzuki has a proven track record of building scalable and agile international marketing teams, optimizing demand generation engines, and driving significant growth across sales development, customer marketing, paid channels, field marketing, and regional communications programs. Under her guidance, Instructure achieved a successful $3 billion IPO in 2021 and maintained impressive year-over-year revenue growth and profitability.

“It’s an exciting time to join the Glassbox team, as the company enables some of the smartest digital brands to boost their brand loyalty and revenue by delivering exceptional digital customer experiences,” said Michelle Suzuki, CMO at Glassbox. “With a groundbreaking data-driven strategy, Glassbox has mastered the art of transforming customer journey data into proactive decisions, harnessing the power of advanced AI and analytics to craft self-optimizing solutions. By optimizing web and app experiences and reducing pain points for digital leaders and product/UX teams, Glassbox is reshaping the future of customer experiences. I am thrilled to contribute to Glassbox's journey and explore new avenues for growth as we continue to pioneer AI-fueled solutions in the market.”

Beyond her professional achievements, Michelle is a passionate advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as equal access to quality education. She proudly served as the executive sponsor for Instructure's Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DIB) and Corporate Social Responsibility committees, and she holds positions on several advisory boards, including the Utah state Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Digital Marketing & Analytics Advisory Committee for Mountainland Technical College.

Recognized with numerous awards for her contributions to the industry, Michelle has been named among the Top 15 Most Influential Women in B2B Marketing, Drift's Top 25 Women in B2B Marketing, and Utah Business Magazine's Sales & Marketer of the Year. Her dedication and leadership have also earned her accolades such as Marketer of the Year from the Utah Marketing Association.

PubMatic will Reach Instacart’s Purchase-Minded Audiences Through Integration for Agency and Advertising Partners’ CTV Campaigns

PubMatic, an independent technology company delivering digital advertising’s supply chain of the future, today announced a new partnership with Instacart to leverage its first-party, retail media data off of Instacart in a privacy-compliant, scalable, and effective programmatic advertising solution via PubMatic’s Convert. Mars will be one of the first brands to activate Instacart’s retail media data with PubMatic via deal ID for CTV and premium video campaigns to enhance their advertising ROI.

“Advertisers today are grappling with signal loss and looking for new ways to effectively target and measure their campaigns,” said Tim Castelli, Vice President of Global Advertising Sales at Instacart. “Brands realize that Instacart’s retail media data is a valuable, performant solution. CPGs can reach consumers directly at the point of purchase with Instacart Ads on our platform with trusted closed-loop measurement, in addition to leveraging our rich, first-party retail media data off-platform to power and enhance all of their other ad buys, like CTV and premium video.”

PubMatic will use Instacart’s retail media data in connection with curated inventory for approved advertisers. By leveraging a single, closed-loop data set, PubMatic will facilitate direct measurement of return on ad spend (ROAS) and sales impact on Instacart of these campaigns. Through PubMatic’s Activate, brands will be able to design, optimize and track campaigns based on specific marketing objectives such as increased awareness, consideration, and purchases.

“With digital platforms that offer shoppers delightful commerce experiences and advertisers valuable audience exposure, Instacart is a strategic retail partner for our clients,” said Jessica Brown, Managing Director, Digital Investment at GroupM. “We are excited to build upon our longstanding partnership with PubMatic as one of the first agencies to seamlessly activate dynamic audience segments across PubMatic’s premium inventory, so our advertisers optimize campaign impact in real-time.”

“We are excited to partner with PubMatic and Instacart to scale this valuable retail media data across our programmatic campaigns to optimize performance and drive ROI,” said Ron Amram, Senior Director, Global Media at Mars. “By tapping into Instacart’s retail media data across all digital channels, we can boost brand recognition and encourage more consumers to buy our products online or in-store.”

“PubMatic’s partnership with Instacart is the future of how commerce companies will build out audience extension capabilities. Instacart’s new flexible solution will not require new integrations through PubMatic’s privacy-compliant ecosystem,” said Hashim Mian, Vice President, Commerce Media at PubMatic. “We look forward to growing our relationship with Instacart by enabling them to tap into our premium global inventory to offer a scalable, off-site commerce media solution to their leading consumer packaged goods brand clients.”

PubMatic’s partnership with Instacart coincides with the company’s recent expansion of commerce media solutions. In 2023, PubMatic launched Convert, to empower commerce media networks with a single, self-service platform that streamlines the complex and fragmented commerce media marketplace. Convert now enables seamless audience extension, which, alongside sponsored product listing support and onsite monetization, unifies multiple high growth channels for a commerce media network. Commerce companies and advertisers can now leverage one platform to upload, share, execute, and measure onsite and offsite full-funnel campaigns in a secure and efficient way.