BlueConic recognized based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute

Market-leading customer data platform (CDP) BlueConic today announced that it has been recognized as the only Challenger in the inaugural Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms. We believe this industry recognition marks a major milestone for CDPs and the maturity of the space on a global scale.

BlueConic differentiates from other vendors for its:

• Privacy-by-design philosophy: Maintaining responsible data practices is essential for garnering consumer trust, but maintaining compliance with a patchwork of regulations is only getting more difficult. That’s why BlueConic has been built with privacy at the forefront. The platform has been purposely designed to collect first-party data in ways that ensures it is unified, actionable, and privacy-compliant. Collecting and using data within the framework of privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA enables companies to build trust and deliver valuable customer experiences, while mitigating their consumer data risk at the same time.

• Easy-to-use interface: To keep up with customers and market trends, customer-facing teams need the ability to directly access, analyze, and activate first-party data when and where they need it. With BlueConic’s easy-to-use interface, these teams can effectively harness the full potential of first-party data to optimize customer experiences while reducing their reliance on external vendors, streamlining internal processes, and improving their agility in the process.

• Data clean rooms capabilities: With third-party data deprecation and increasing privacy constraints from customers and regulators alike, companies are looking for ways to extend the value of their first-party data. BlueConic was the first customer data platform to offer a data clean room, enabling companies to facilitate second-party data sharing in a neutral, secure, and privacy-safe environment so they can build upon their valuable, consented first-party data.

“Companies across industries have unprecedented opportunities to collect customer data, but often struggle to derive meaningful insights or take effective actions based on that data, especially when it’s housed in data warehouses and removed from the immediate customer experience,” said Cory Munchbach, CEO of BlueConic. “Our comprehensive, purpose-built platform, coupled with an unparalleled customer experience, empowers our innovative customers to unlock a wealth of insights and act faster so they can achieve better returns on their data. We have, and always will, make both the operational efficiencies and performance success of marketers our north star.”

The Gartner^® Magic Quadrant™ offers visual snapshots, in-depth analyses and actionable advice that provide insight into a market's direction, maturity, and participants. Magic Quadrants compare vendors based on Gartner's standard criteria and methodology. Each report comes with a Magic Quadrant graphic that depicts a market using a two-dimensional matrix that evaluates vendors based on their completeness of vision and ability to execute.

A complimentary copy of the Magic Quadrant report can be downloaded here.

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Comscore Campaign Ratings (CCR) Now Encompasses Top 100 Local Markets for Holistic Linear, Programmatic and In-flight Digital Optimization

In a groundbreaking advancement for the advertising industry, Comscore, a global leader in planning, transacting, and evaluating media across platforms, today unveiled a significant update to its Comscore Campaign Ratings (CCR). This enhancement now extends deduplicated audience measurement to the local market level, which can be applied to all programmatic environments and platforms. CCR will, for the first time, integrate national and local linear TV, digital, streaming, and social channels.

With the introduction of Comscore Campaign Ratings Local (CCR Local), Comscore has effectively bridged the last gap in cross-platform ad measurement, offering advertisers the tools needed for true reach and frequency optimization across the top 100 US local markets, with full coverage of all other local markets to follow. This expansion paves the way for complete local market coverage, revolutionizing how advertisers can harness data for precise, in-flight campaign adjustments across all media types.

With the vast majority of goods being purchased locally, it is critical for brands to incorporate their linear TV ad exposure into their digital strategies and vice versa. With the CCR localization feature, advertisers will be able to optimize their campaigns with precision at the market level to more effectively drive downstream performance outcomes.

“Comscore has delivered a true cross-platform solution that measures audiences at the hyper-local level, enabling our clients to advertise nationally and optimize locally," said Steve Bagdasarian, Comscore Chief Commercial Officer. “Advertisers need measurement partners who can address the scale of where their audiences are. We’re building enterprise-level cross-platform measurement that offers advertisers the ability to seamlessly measure and optimize against their intended audiences with speed and accuracy, whether it is programmatically, directly, nationally or locally.”

The Trade Desk will be the first demand-side platform to integrate CCR Local market reporting, giving The Trade Desk’s clients access to expanded insights to help measure data-driven campaigns powered by Comscore's unparalleled local market coverage.

“The average household has become more crowded with devices and platforms, so marketers need the best data and insights to help ensure the most impactful advertisements,” says Ben Sylvan, VP of Data Partnerships at The Trade Desk. “Comscore’s new offering has the insights to help our clients make the most out of their media investment, especially for auto advertisers or political campaigns, where success on the local level is key.”

In a year when major tentpole events are driving strategic investment strategy and the cross-platform nature of sports, entertainment and political advertising is ramping up, Comscore empowers advertisers to understand how linear and digital ad spend interact both nationally and within each local market. When existing clients have leveraged CCR Local, they have seen upwards of 28% incremental reach in their CTV buys.

CCR Local is a powerful tool for brands, agencies, publishers, networks, and local station groups.

Organizations can now view a healthcare provider as a person by enriching NPI data with demographics, psychographics and employment information

AnalyticsIQ, the leading provider of predictive people-based data, is excited to announce the launch of its latest innovation in healthcare marketing data and analytics: the enriched National Provider Identifier (NPI) data offering. This new addition to AnalyticsIQ's comprehensive suite of data solutions empowers healthcare marketing and analytics teams to gain deeper insights into healthcare providers (HCPs) as individuals, revolutionizing the way they target and engage with this critical audience.

The National Provider Identifier (NPI) is a unique, publicly available identification number assigned to healthcare providers in the United States. By connecting NPI data into its robust consumer marketing database, PeopleCore, and business marketing database, BusinessCore, AnalyticsIQ can now offer unparalleled demographic and psychographic insights into individual HCPs, allowing marketers to understand and connect with them on a more personal level.

"AnalyticsIQ is thrilled to introduce our latest data offering to the healthcare marketing and analytics community," said Anna Brantley, Chief Revenue Officer of AnalyticsIQ. "With the enriched NPI data, we're not just seeing healthcare providers as entities, but as people with unique preferences, behaviors, and motivations. This deeper level of understanding enables marketers to craft highly targeted and personalized campaigns that resonate with HCPs on a human level, ultimately driving better awareness, engagement and outcomes," adds Brantley.

Key benefits for healthcare organizations who turn to AnalyticsIQ's NPI data offering include:
- Enhanced Targeting: Marketers can target healthcare providers based on a comprehensive understanding of their demographic, psychographic, and professional attributes. This includes data points from age to lifestyles.
- Personalized Messaging: Leveraging insights from NPI data, marketers can create highly personalized messaging and content tailored to the unique preferences and behaviors of individual HCPs. It’s especially valuable for brand awareness messages related to pharmaceutical treatments, clinical study initiatives and even grant opportunities.
- Improved ROI: By targeting the right HCPs with the right message at the right time, marketers can maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns and drive higher return on investment. 

Enables organizations to extend the value of Oracle industry applications by seamlessly connecting to networks and IoT devices to reimagine how they do business 

Bringing real-time communications to its suite of industry cloud applications, Oracle today announced the Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP). By seamlessly connecting Oracle industry applications to networks and IoT devices to extend their value, ECP enables organizations to reimagine how they do business.  

Built on the high performance and security of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), ECP delivers a powerful communications backbone and edge architecture that users can embed directly into their Oracle industry applications stack. With integrated capabilities such as IoT device management, customers can eliminate the burden of managing complex integrations and network contracts to deliver the connectivity and data intelligence they need to power critical new services. This can range from a first responder leveraging a real-time immersive view of an active incident to a restaurant using tablets to take orders from anywhere, or a utility using IoT sensors to monitor the health of its transmission lines.

The platform supports various IoT protocols to connect edge and mobile devices over public and private communications networks to help enrich cloud services. ECP also offers enhanced services such as video and audio streaming, recording capabilities, device management, edge distributed processing, authorization, and authentication.

"Given our history of delivering market-changing communications capabilities and our deep domain expertise in industry verticals, the Enterprise Communication Platform is a natural progression of our mission to help improve the way the world communicates," said Andrew Morawski, executive vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications. "We're already seeing incredible impact in the way industries such as healthcare, the public sector, hospitality, and energy and water are using this technology to help tackle some of their biggest IoT challenges."

Connection without the chaos
Companies currently manage and maintain several disparate communication devices including video cameras, mobile devices, PCs, and tablets, with each having its own system and set of data and manual processes to record and archive. These disparate systems limit transparency and make it difficult to rapidly respond to critical situations. Leveraging embedded APIs, ECP enables secure real-time communications for Oracle industry cloud applications by orchestrating, connecting, and managing on-premises systems with IoT, edge, and mobile devices and sensors over one or more public or private networks.

ECP is already being used as the communications foundation for Oracle's Public Safety suite, providing secure communications for critical use cases such as a dispatch command center for police and first aid squads, or fire emergency call management where an operator is required to dispatch units, identify, and merge duplicate calls or verify the incident location in a blended map view. ECP Edge also enables mobile video capture on the police car dashboard, the body cameras, security cameras, or vehicle cameras with the capability to provide a 270-degree view of an incident.

"Oracle's Enterprise Communications Platform (ECP) provides a critical bridge between the power of 5G networks and the industrial processes that can benefit from those properties," said Caroline Chappell, partner, Analysys Mason. "ECP shows that there is an exciting opportunity for operator network APIs when the market is application-led."

Pindrop marks a significant advancement in protecting against audio deepfakes addressing both current and future voice security challenges. 

Today marks a significant milestone for Pindrop, a pioneer in voice security solutions, with the launch of its innovative technology, Pindrop^Ⓡ Pulse. Developed from nearly a decade of rigorous research, Pulse introduces cutting-edge audio liveness detection capabilities for real-time identification, monitoring, and analysis of audio deepfakes. Notably, Pulse was instrumental in identifying the TTS engine used in the recent President Biden robocall attack, By leveraging advanced deep learning models for predictive assessments between real and synthetic voices, this solution is engineered to address existing fraud threats and proactively prepare for the dynamic evolution of fraudulent activities. 

As we stand on the brink of what is projected to be a seismic shift in the landscape of cyberattacks—with potential damages expected to soar to $10.5 trillion by 2025—the launch of Pulse emerges as an essential, perfectly timed defense in this critical moment. Amidst a climate where the sophistication of cyber threats is advancing at an alarming rate, this innovation addresses the paramount importance of forward-thinking technological defenses.

The efficacy and reliability of Pulse have been endorsed by leading financial institutions, including First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO), which has been utilizing Pulse in beta to bolster its customer service security measures. Steve Furlong, Director of Fraud Management at FNBO, stated, "In an era where AI advancements bring both innovation and new threats, FNBO remains committed to protecting our customers and their information. In an effort to proactively combat the emerging threat of deepfakes, our partnership with Pindrop provides us with cutting-edge solutions that safeguard our customers' information with precision. After rigorous testing, we're very happy with the results - Pindrop's technology ensures our defense mechanism is robust against advanced threats. Their commitment to excellence and innovation makes them an invaluable ally in our mission to protect our customers."

In Pulse's beta testing phase, it demonstrated remarkable efficacy in voice security, pinpointing manipulated voices with just two seconds of audio and offering responses in a swift 150 milliseconds. This rapid detection and response capability allows call centers to swiftly neutralize threats in real time. Engineered to counteract four predominant types of audio fraud—replayed voices, speech synthesis, automated voice chatbots, and real-time voice conversion—adeptly mitigating the risk of audio deepfakes. Beyond its detection capabilities, Pulse enhances Pindrop's broader suite of solutions, offering seamless integration with existing authentication and fraud prevention services to fortify a holistic defense against voice communication threats.

Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO & cofounder of Pindrop, articulates the critical need to address these advanced security measures, with  "Pindrop Pulse represents the company's evolution in response to increasing sophistication of attackers and allows us to answer the fundamental question of whether we are interacting with a real human or a machine" said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO & cofounder of Pindrop. "Our solution doesn't just detect deepfakes; it is a pivotal step towards reinstating trust in commerce, media, communication, and society as a whole. We're excited to be at the forefront of this charge, equipping our clients with the necessary defenses against the sophisticated cyber threats that Generative AI has created."

Pindrop's commitment to advancing the field of voice security is a beacon for those navigating the complexities of cybersecurity in the digital age. As we move forward, our united efforts toward a secure digital landscape are led by the innovative strides of Pindrop Pulse.

OpenText reveals companies are embracing sustainability in IT, but are in the early stages 

A report commissioned by OpenText™, the information company, released today finds that IT departments are playing a major role in achieving corporate sustainability objectives and cited the lack of innovative tools and expertise as primary challenges they face in meeting those goals.

The 2023 State of IT Sustainability Report, conducted by Dimensional Research, found that 97 percent of companies have adopted or plan to adopt sustainability initiatives, but it is still early for adoption as only 42 percent of organizations are just beginning the journey towards environmental responsibility.

"The sustainability movement is in the early days, with IT taking the lead in most cases. However, this report's findings also show that companies are serious about making it a high operational priority," said Muhi Majzoub, Chief Product Officer, OpenText. "Sustainability is proving to be more than a popular social cause. There are solid business reasons pushing it: efficiency, cost savings, regulatory compliance. Because it is a 'win-win' scenario for all, sustainability is now a part of the decision-making process at most companies."  

Implementing IT sustainability initiatives can bring several obvious benefits to enterprise organizations whether it is in cost savings, resource efficiency, risk mitigation or regulatory compliance. However, there are other less obvious benefits such as innovation in product design, process efficiency or technology adoption that ultimately could lead to new revenue streams or market opportunities, all brought through the pursuit of sustainability.

Yet, for all the incredible business benefits of IT sustainability, it is not without its challenges. The report highlighted challenges and weak areas for sustainability. The biggest among them was obtaining the proper tools to implement these initiatives. Only 51 percent reported using software to help track their IT carbon footprint, with Europe outpacing North America in the adoption of tracking software. The lack of expertise was the second biggest challenge according to 46 percent of respondents, underscoring the need for education and skill development in sustainable IT practices.

Looking ahead

In 2024 and beyond, the integration of advanced tools like artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize IT sustainability initiatives, ushering in a new era of efficiency and environmental responsibility. AI-powered algorithms will enable real-time optimization of energy usage in data center and cloud computing environments, drastically reducing carbon emissions and energy cost. Predictive analytics will facilitate proactive maintenance of IT infrastructure, minimizing downtime and conserving resources. Additionally, AI-driven supply chain optimization will streamline operations, reducing waste and environmental impact throughout the product lifecycle. Overall, these advancements in AI technology will play a pivotal role in driving forward IT sustainability initiatives leading to a more resilient and environmentally conscious digital ecosystem in the future.

New report co-authored by Adjust and AppLovin brings robust set of data, benchmarks and actionable advice to the mobile apps industry

Leading measurement and analytics company Adjust, today released its annual Mobile App Trends Report with global app data along with expert tips from AppLovin, on trends and patterns – namely personalization powered by AI –  driving the evolution of the industry. The report finds that despite the downward trend throughout 2022, app installs grew 4% globally in 2023, demonstrating mobile's ability to deliver significant returns is as strong as ever and full of untapped opportunities. 

"Successful mobile app marketing and campaign optimization doesn't require a crystal ball," said Simon "Bobby" Dussart, CEO of Adjust. "By incorporating predictive analytics into cross-device and cross-channel marketing efforts, mobile marketers and developers can unlock the data and insights needed to make fast, smart decisions on budget allocation and to scale confidently."

Personalization, privacy and the role of AI 
The gaming hybrid casual genre has demonstrated that strategically incorporating personalization into a game's UX can dramatically boost retention rates and revenue. Verticals like e-commerce and finance should adopt a similarly data-centric and AI-driven approach to customize their in-app experiences.

"The best way for gaming developers to increase long-term retention is to make their game or app feel like it's designed especially for their players," noted Daniel Tchernahovsky, VP of International Business Development at AppLovin. "AI enables developers to segment users and customize game progression so it feels as if the game's level of difficulty has been uniquely calibrated to a user."

Notably, App Tracking Transparency (ATT) opt-in rates have continued to gradually climb as communication and transparency about the value of data sharing has improved. Industry wide, app user consent rates increased from 29% to 32% in 2023. Gaming had the highest rate globally (39%), and fintech and e-commerce had the biggest rate jumps (7 percentage points each).

A mobile app strategy that outpaces the competition 
Mobile App Trends 2024 is based on a mix of Adjust's top 5,000 apps and the total dataset of all apps tracked by Adjust, providing marketers and developers with essential information to build and execute a strategy that outpaces the competition.

Additional key takeaways from the report include:

• Mobile payments driving fintech app adoption, with payment apps comprising approximately one-third of overall fintech app sessions in 2023. In-app revenue for fintech apps surged 118% year-over-year, and app installs and sessions grew an impressive 42% and 24%, respectively.
• Gaming app installs bounced back in Q4 2023, up 7% globally. The largest shares of gaming app installs were action (18%), hyper-casual (14%) and puzzle (14%).
• Mcommerce is soaring with shopping app installs growing by 56% and overall global e-commerce app installs up to 43% in 2023. North America saw the largest growth in e-commerce app installs (98%).

The report also explores how CTV and new channels like PC and console will become the next frontier for advertisers. "Acquiring high-value users begins with an effective channel acquisition strategy," added Andrey Kazakov, VP of Demand, Non-Gaming at AppLovin. "Marketers must understand the channels compatible with their specific app's audience and goals, and determine how much they need to spend to hit a critical mass of experiments that can drive more efficient performance."

Select partners can now deliver identity security solutions leveraging SailPoint’s leading technology and world-class expertise

SailPoint Technologies, Inc., the leader in unified identity security for enterprises, has launched a Managed Service Provider (MSP) offering that gives select partners the ability to deliver and manage SailPoint Identity Security Cloud for customers around the world. Joint customers benefit from SailPoint’s depth of expertise in providing a unified approach to identity security that solves complex enterprise identity challenges without having to manage the implementation and ongoing program administration themselves. 

“In today’s dynamic threat landscape, identity risk cannot be siloed and requires comprehensive identity security expertise coupled with a solution that provides holistic oversight across all enterprise identities and their access,” said Dave Schwartz, SVP, Global Partnerships at SailPoint. “Our MSP offering frees customers up to focus on their core business objectives by allowing them to leverage our certified partners to manage their identity program, rather than scrambling to fill a widening identity talent and resource gap on their own.”

Schwartz continued, “The resulting impact on our customers, and the partners we select to drive our MSP program, is clear. We’re enabling customers to ground their identity program in SailPoint’s technology with world-class support from their MSP partner to keep the program running smoothly. And we’re enabling our MSP partners to deliver and white-label manage SailPoint Identity Security Cloud to companies worldwide, driving new revenue streams for their businesses while broadening SailPoint’s global footprint.”

This new MSP offering further underscores SailPoint’s dedication to customer success and identity-centric security, ensuring that organizations can not only safeguard their digital identities but also securely thrive amid an ever-evolving security landscape. With the ability to build unique, tailored solutions for customers, MSP partners can deliver identity security services built on SailPoint or build their identity security program as part of broader cybersecurity offerings for their customers. This gives MSPs the ability to drive unique value and differentiation as a partner while delivering substantial business value to end customers.

“SailPoint’s Managed Service Provider program represents a transformative advancement within the industry. This initiative empowers customers by alleviating the necessity of employing costly internal resources, allowing them to dedicate their focus to enhancing their end-user program rather than expending valuable time on operational matters,” said Paul Bedi, Founder & CEO of IDMWORKS a SailPoint MSP partner. “We have a mature Managed Services offering today, and the new program gives us a SailPoint certification that hasn’t existed before. We can both increase our range of services while maintaining license ownership and offer programmatic, dedicated resources to all our customers.”