Findings underscore the pivotal role brand trust plays in the digital landscape.

Vercara, a leading provider of cloud-based services that secure the online experience, recently researched the importance of consumer trust in businesses. In 2023, businesses have been hit with 800,000 cyberattacks, over 60,000 of which were DDoS attacks and 4,000 falling victim to ransomware.

Vercara’s research found that consumers hold nuanced perceptions regarding cybersecurity incidents and are often less aware of the role they play in maintaining cyber hygiene within a business.

These findings underscore the pivotal role brand trust plays in the digital landscape – with an overwhelming 75% of consumers expressing their readiness to sever ties with a brand in the aftermath of any cybersecurity issue.

It takes a lot to earn consumer trust, especially after a successful cyberattack. The majority (66%) of U.S. consumers would not trust a company that falls victim to a data breach with their data and 44% of consumers attribute cyber incidents to a company's lack of security measures. Interestingly, 54% extend a degree of leniency toward smaller brands grappling with cyberattacks, in contrast to their higher expectations for larger businesses.

These findings, coupled with the lack of awareness of how cyberattacks start, have led to reckless behavior from consumers – 55% of respondents use their corporate devices for online shopping, inadvertently posing risks to business infrastructure. However, 35% believe it’s difficult to impersonate large e-commerce brands.

“In the current cyber landscape where most attacks start with some form of social engineering, it’s important for businesses to see their security policies through the eyes of their most vulnerable link – the employees,” says Colin Doherty, CEO at Vercara. “It’s important to run regular awareness and training sessions not just for the IT and cyber departments, but for all employees, as even more sophisticated ransomware and DDoS attacks can be spotted sooner if everyone knows what to look out for.”

To navigate the festive season and beyond, businesses must have a proactive stance towards all cybersecurity challenges as consumers and employees become more focused on the end-of-year period. Despite the holiday season, all departments should remain aware of the risks associated with using corporate devices for personal reasons to lower the risks of unpleasant surprises in the form of cyberattacks. Internal awareness campaigns should be paired with regular training sessions focused on identifying phishing emails, emphasizing the profound impact a single click can have on business security.

Methodology

In partnership with Dynata, Vercara conducted a consumer survey, targeting 1,000 adults across the United States, age 18+, during November 2023. Figures for age, gender, education, income, employment and region were weighted to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate, no estimates of sampling error can be calculated. All data, unless specified otherwise, is pulled from this survey.

ActionIQ, the leading Enterprise Composable Customer Data Platform, today released six key trends the company anticipates will shape the future of marketing, data, and technology in 2024, from tech stack shifts and enterprise priorities, to data, technology, and Generative AI.

"For enterprise brands, consistently delivering exceptional customer experiences remains at the heart of their business – a constant," said Tasso Argyros, ActionIQ CEO and Founder. "What does evolve annually, however, are the novel tools, innovations, methods, and modalities through which these brands engage with their customers. 2023 brought significant transformations, forever altering the landscape of how brands conceptualize and craft customer experiences. In 2024, the way that enterprise brands design those customer experiences–and the solutions and tooling they use to achieve their business goals–will change dramatically."

6 Marketing, Data and Technology Trends We'll See in 2024

1. As marketing clouds lose their grip, a new incarnation of Database Wars emerges
The battle for who owns the data among marketing solutions will continue. This tension will continue as marketing clouds like Adobe and Salesforce seek to be the source of truth for enterprise data. In 2024, we will see marketing clouds lose adoption in favor of solutions that have an open infrastructure and integrate with true data sources of truth. Databricks will attack Snowflake on price and performance, and try to peel away the core SQL analytics workload. There will be a land grab for AI and ML workloads between the two, as both make major investments to improve those offerings.

2. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) Gain Household Recognition Among Enterprise Brands, Marked by Distinctive Innovators...and Followers
Impressive results at F500 and major analyst research supporting the space will create a buying spree among enterprises for CDP solutions — but not all are created equal. Martech contenders like Salesforce will continue to attempt and fail to build a CDP as customers who received free licenses realize it's smoke and mirrors. Adobe will try to jump on the Composable CDP trend with hollow announcements for data sharing integrations, but still operate on copies of data behind the scenes.

3. Enterprises will slowly but surely shift their focus back towards growth
With interest rates stabilizing and recession fears receding, along with huge amounts of cash saved during the past couple of years and valuations at very reasonable levels, inorganic growth will start to look attractive and will trigger acquisition sprees that may last 2-3 years. This will feel similar to the M&A spree that took place in 2010-2012 after the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2008.

4. Brands rush to adopt Generative AI – and many will fail due to a lack of the context they need to make it succeed
As brands rush to adopt GenAI they will need the right data foundation and right context to succeed — building their own products and services around customized models. LLMs will need to be trained on an enterprise's own data and context to operate effectively. Data warehouse vendors will try to ship SQL LLMs with their data, however LLMs will need to be trained on an enterprise's own proprietary data. Within the business context of an enterprise's own customer data, models will become richer and more effective. The cost of executing GenAI models, not just training them, will emerge as the main bottleneck in scaling AI. As a result, there will be a shift to smaller GenAI with higher quality training data that will be cheaper both to train and to evaluate.

5. We're in for a wave of mediocre, AI-generated content – and targeting is the only way out
The creation of marketing content will no longer be a constraint in reaching customers as marketers begin to acquire "prompt engineering" skills. As such, it will become even more important for marketers to cut through the noise in their communications so the brand voice remains unique — supporting micro-segmented messages with micro-segmented targeting, fueled by first-party data. Without those audiences and microtargeting, GenAI efforts will fall flat.

6. Martech will eat Adtech – forming a single tech stack commanded by IT teams
As IT teams increasingly take responsibility for managing the technology behind martech, we'll see a shift in priorities for adoption, toward flexible and open stacks. We'll also see the collision of adtech and martech accelerate with the final strike on the clock for third-party cookies, with martech eventually consuming adtech, and advertising becoming more and more reliant on a first-party foundation for more control, cleaner data, and more respect of privacy. This is already happening with DMPs getting replaced by CDPs, Data Clean Rooms becoming more prevalent, the rise of first-party data collection (CDI) vendors like Snowplow and Metarouter, and data onboarding vendors like LiveRamp becoming redundant and struggling to stay relevant with high onboarding costs.

"As we look ahead into 2024 where the interplay between data, technology and the customer experience will continue to adapt, make sure you keep focus on the solutions that will help your enterprise business best serve each customer," said Justin Debrabant, Chief Product Officer at ActionIQ. "Take advantage of the most cutting-edge solutions, but make sure they're balanced with the foundation to help you do it right and continue to innovate with the flexibility to adapt and the room to grow."

Report reveals broadest insight yet on how the general U.S. market is approaching digital accessibility

Level Access, the leading enterprise digital accessibility platform, in collaboration with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs (G3ict) and the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP), released its Fifth Annual State of Digital Accessibility Report today. This year’s expanded study reveals that making digital experiences accessible for people with disabilities is a mainstream priority for enterprise organizations, and it provides new insight into the challenges preventing progress for many organizations. Challenges include internal misalignment between executive leadership and practitioners, and confusion about compliance obligations.

“Organizations today understand that digital accessibility isn’t just a moral imperative and a compliance requirement–it’s a business best practice. The majority of enterprise organizations are implementing digital accessibility policies and report business improvements as a result,” said Tim Springer, Founder and CEO of Level Access. “However, our data reveals there are gaps between organizations’ intentions and what we know to be effective execution.”

Level Access expanded this year’s State of Digital Accessibility survey to include not only accessibility practitioners and managers—those actively invested in the day-to-day work—but also executive leaders at enterprise organizations.

Key findings in the report reflect a trend of rapid transformation toward accessibility, coupled with confusion over requirements and implementation:

1. Widespread adoption: More than 70% of respondents’ organizations have implemented digital accessibility policies, recognizing accessibility as crucial for enhancing user experience, customer satisfaction, and brand reputation.
2. Confidence versus reality: While 83% of respondents express confidence in the accessibility of their organization’s primary digital experience (such as their website), 40% report facing legal action in the past 12 months. This points to a misalignment between professionals’ perceptions of online accessibility and the reality of compliance requirements under accessibility laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
3. Leadership and practitioner disconnect: Senior leaders and practitioners have noticeably different perceptions of the state of digital accessibility at their organizations, with leaders often more confident and less aware of resource gaps. Almost half (45%) of senior leaders believe their digital accessibility practices are “highly developed,” versus less than a quarter of practitioners (23%).
4. Barriers to progress: Three-quarters of respondents report their organizations want to improve digital accessibility but have too many competing demands, and 69% say they lack adequate time to address accessibility issues.
5. Impact of proactivity: Successful digital accessibility initiatives are marked by a proactive approach. Incorporating accessibility when designing (56%) and testing during development (52%) were identified as the most impactful actions respondents’ organizations have taken to improve digital accessibility.

“This year's insights reveal more than we’ve ever known about what’s contributing to successful digital accessibility programs, how organizations are thinking, and where they're stalled,” Springer adds. “This deeper level of understanding validates our approach of supporting organizations with advanced, integrated solutions for building inclusive digital experiences.”

“In a world increasingly driven by digital interaction, creating digital experiences that work for all users is critical to organizational success,” said Christopher M. Lee, PHD, VP and Managing Director of G3ict and IAAP. “We hope our research inspires and empowers businesses of all sizes to prioritize digital equity and inclusion as a key business objective in 2024.”

Marketing 360 is excited to announce their new Zapier integration which will streamline lead management for businesses using the Marketing 360 software. The new integration will offer businesses a powerful solution to consolidating, nurturing, and tracking leads from different tools and apps, all within the Marketing 360 Leads Inbox.

Marketing 360 users can now connect the tools and apps they already use to their Marketing 360 Leads Inbox to automatically create and update new leads based on actions from other systems. Here are some examples of how a new lead can be automatically created:

• A sheet is added to Google Sheets
• A new Calendly invitee is created
• A new lead form entry is submitted in Google Ads
• You get a new lead through Facebook lead ads
• And more

The new integration has the ability to save business owners tons of time. Now, there is no need to spend time manually transferring information or working out of two systems at once. The integration will allow users to keep all their leads in one place so they can track and nurture leads easily. Lead nurturing, done correctly, is imperative in turning leads into paying customers, and nurturing leads has never been easier with Marketing 360. Automate email journeys, customize personalized email campaigns, automate follow-ups, and deliver targeted content to help keep leads engaged.

The integration also allows for more centralized data. Users can gather lead information across the tools their business uses. By centralizing lead data in one place, users can get an overview of all leads by lead source and accurately track leads over time.

The new Zapier integration has the ability to enhance lead generation strategies for business owners while allowing them to save tons of time.

This year, the volume of AI-generated identity attacks has escalated to such a level that it has become a topic of consideration for consumers, organizations, and even world leaders. Biometrics stands as a transformative force in reshaping how individuals interact with digital systems and how organizations safeguard sensitive information. As 2024 edges ever closer, the digital identity landscape is poised for significant advances, with innovations set to redefine verification, elevate security standards, and enhance user experiences.

Join us as we delve into the imminent future of biometrics, where the fusion of science and security promises a paradigm shift in how we authenticate, identify, and safeguard within the digital realm.

1. Biometrics will become the cornerstone of the US financial services market security infrastructure

Over the past year, many financial services organizations have expanded remote digital access to meet user demand. However, this has widened the digital attack surface and created opportunities for fraudsters. The US financial services sector has been slower to adopt digital identity technologies than some other regions which could be attributed to the challenges it faces around regulating interoperability and data exchange. Yet, with synthetic identity fraud expected to generate at least $23 billion in losses by 2030, pressure is mounting from all angles. Consumers expect to open accounts and access services remotely with speed and ease while fraudsters undermine security through online channels and siphoning money. All the while, there is the serious threat of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) non-compliance. Penalties for this include huge fines and potentially even criminal proceedings. Further, there is an increased risk of bypassing sanctions, and financing state adversaries. In response, many financial institutions are being prompted to take action. This has involved replacing cumbersome onboarding processes and supplanting outdated authentication methods like passwords and passcodes with advanced technologies to remotely onboard and authenticate existing online banking customers.

One of the front-runners is facial biometric verification technology, which delivers unmatched convenience and accessibility for customers while at the same time unmatched security challenges for adversaries. More financial institutions will recognize how biometric verification will reshape and redefine the positive impact that technology can have in balancing security with customer experience and will make the switch.

2. There will be a rapid increase in the number of developing countries building digital identity programs based on decentralized identity

An estimated 850 million people worldwide lack a legal form of identification, and without identity, people struggle to open a bank account, gain employment, and access healthcare, which leaves them financially excluded. Digital identity programs improve access to digital services and opportunities. They enable people to assert identity, access online platforms, and participate in digital government initiatives. Supported by investment from World Bank funds, digital identity programs can assist less advanced economies in preventing identity theft and fraud as well as provide an alternative way to prove their identities and access essential services such as benefits, healthcare, and education. Based on a decentralized identity these programs will enable users to digitally store and exchange identity documents, such as a driver’s license, and credentials, such as diplomas, and authenticate without a central authority. A decentralized identity puts the user in control by allowing them to manage their identity in a distributed approach. They will offer the convenience end-users now demand and open essential pathways for previously disadvantaged or marginalized individuals to access financial and welfare services.

3. Remote video calls to verify identity will be banned

Video call verification involves a one-to-one video call between the user and a trained operator. The user is asked to hold up an identity document, and the operator matches it against their face. However, video call verification is proven to provide little assurance that the end-user is a ‘live’ person and not generative AI-produced artificial imagery convincingly superimposed onto the threat actor’s face.

For example, in 2022, researchers at the Chaos Computer Club managed to circumvent video call verification technology by using generative AI and a forged ID. The case displayed how this technology, and the human operators it relies upon, are highly susceptible to synthetic imagery attacks. The German Federal Office for Information Security has since warned against video call verification for its vulnerability to these attacks.

If digital identity programs cannot defend against the threat of deepfakes at onboarding and authentication, they will be exploited for criminal purposes, such as payment fraud, money laundering, and terrorist funding. As such, we’ll see moves by financial services regulators to ban video call verification methods with a directive to choose more reliable methods based on hybrids combining automated AI matching and liveness detection with human supervision of the machine learning process.

4. Organizations will introduce mutual authentication between employees for high-risk communication and new employee remote onboarding

As organizations increasingly rely on digital means for confidential communication, the need for robust cybersecurity measures is paramount to mitigate risk. Introducing mutual authentication for high-risk communication and transactions is a crucial security measure that adds an extra layer of protection against unauthorized access and potential threats. In addition, in certain industries regulatory compliance mandates the implementation of robust security measures. Mutual authentication helps organizations meet these compliance requirements by demonstrating a commitment to ensuring secure communication channels and protecting sensitive information.

5. Corporate data breaches will triple due to successful AI-generated attacks

For some years now, organizations and individuals have relied on spotting phishing emails through spelling mistakes, and grammatical errors. That time has passed. Such is the quality of Chat GPT that threat actors can now use it to generate high-quality phishing attacks in very convincing communications with no suspicious clues. Consequently, 2024 will witness an acute increase in both the quality and volume of AI-generated phishing attacks. Security awareness training will become a redundant tool and organizations will be forced to seek alternative and more reliable methods to reliably authenticate both internal and external users of their platforms.

6. Crime-as-a-Service Speech and Video Syntheses kits will break the sub $100 barrier

Crime-as-a-Service and the availability of online tools accelerate the evolution of the threat landscape, enabling criminals to launch advanced attacks faster and at a larger scale. If attacks succeed, they rapidly escalate in volume and frequency, amplifying the risk of serious damage

Bad actors are using sophisticated generative AI technology to create and launch attacks to exploit organizations’ security systems and defraud individuals. iProov has witnessed similar indications of low-skilled criminals gaining the ability to create and launch advanced synthetic imagery attacks. In our most recent biometric threat intelligence report, we saw the emergence and rapid growth of novel video face swaps. Face swaps are a form of synthetic imagery where the threat actor morphs more than one face to create a new fake 3D video output.

The cost of the resources needed to launch attacks is reducing and we fully expect Crime-as-a-Service kits to fall below $100.

7. The potential of AI to spread political disinformation will see authenticated authorship of images and written content be a legally required tool

There will be a plethora of AI-generated deepfake videos being used to persuade voters as we move towards elections. To counteract this there will be broad moves by technology companies to provide ways for people to verify the authenticity of the images they upload. For example, solutions that enable people to watermark the images and sign them when they are created or modified.

2024 is likely to see many attempts in this area because the use of deepfakes is so widespread. It will be a prerequisite that any content using images must offer some way to assure their genuineness and failure to do so will see those images devalued.

8. An AI-generated Zoom Call will lead to the first billion-dollar CEO fraud

CEO fraud is targeting at least 400 companies per day and poses a significant threat to organizations worldwide. In this type of crime, attackers pose as senior company executives and attempt to deceive employees into transferring funds, disclosing sensitive information, or initiating other fraudulent activities. They often involve sophisticated social engineering attacks making them challenging to detect. Generative AI tools are now being widely used by fraudsters to create deepfakes to imitate a person. Bad actors can now create convincing AI-generated audio and imagery and deploy it across platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Without sophisticated monitoring and detection tools, it’s almost impossible to detect this type of synthetic imagery. As such, we fully expect to see an AI-generated Zoom call lead to the first billion-dollar CEO fraud in 2024.

AdCellerant makes quality digital marketing accessible to every business

As a leader in digital marketing and technology solutions, AdCellerant is excited to share its latest whitepaper, "Cracking the Compliance Code with AdCellerant." This comprehensive whitepaper breaks down common privacy laws, the risk of ignoring data privacy and security compliance, AdCellerant's compliance program, and more.

"Committing wholeheartedly to compliance, just like we are here at AdCellerant, paves the way for additional revenue streams," said Compliance Manager Douglas Ljung.

The Risks of Ignoring Data Privacy and Security Compliance

Seventy-three percent of consumers are more concerned about the security of their data privacy today than just a few years ago. When it comes to businesses and their partners or vendors, compromised data can significantly impact both parties, such as breaches in confidentiality, a loss of trust, and tarnishing of a brand's reputation and integrity. Aside from how a lack of data security can destroy a brand's image, organizations could face legal battles and financial loss. While this harms the organization, it can also extend to clients and partners.

Watch The Privacy Puzzle: Navigating Data Compliance with Confidence

In our latest webinar, our experts will explore the current privacy and data compliance landscape, its impact on digital marketing, AdCellerant's commitment to data compliance, and what to look for when choosing the right partner.

Transcend’s complete technical privacy platform is the next-generation technology for companies urgently replacing legacy privacy tools.

• Transcend is the privacy partner to the Fortune 500, Global 2000s, and the world’s fastest-growing start-ups.

• After expanding from 8 to 14 product modules in 2023, Transcend has completed the first modern connected privacy management platform.

• Transcend’s all-in-one privacy platform handles everything from AI impact to DPIA & PIA Assessments, DSR Automation to Consent Management, Structured to Unstructured Data Discovery, and everything in between.

Transcend, the all-in-one data privacy and governance platform, today announced an expansion of its product suite—going even further to help the world’s best brands manage complex privacy compliance challenges. Powering privacy for Fortune 100 companies, the global 2000s, and high-growth start-ups, Transcend easily solves current and future compliance challenges while dramatically increasing compliance, unlocking significant cost savings, and enabling improved user experiences.

Transcend is radically different from legacy privacy management platforms, because it encodes privacy directly into the systems that handle personal data, going beyond checkboxes and human processes to embed governance at the data layer. As the first all-in-one modern privacy platform with built-in automated data discovery & classification, full stack consent, DSR handling, data reports, assessments, AI governance, and more, Transcend now offers access to over a dozen products that support business privacy compliance. All Transcend products and integrations are built and maintained in-house by Transcend’s industry-leading engineering organization – with no white-labeled or acquired solutions. Transcend’s platform enables a seamless experience and easy navigation of the rapidly unfolding privacy frontier.

With this new release, Transcend expands its proven platform three-fold, aligning along five pillars of most urgent need, while reflecting its focus areas of proprietary technology innovation. These pillars are Data Asset Intelligence, Data Discovery & Classification, Autonomous Privacy Operations, Risk Intelligence, and AI Governance. Built on a robust integration network allowing for the precision orchestration of data across technical stacks, the Transcend platform offers industry-leading end-to-end encryption in a proprietary security model that ensures Transcend never sees customer API keys.

“We believe privacy only works when it’s encoded directly into the systems that handle personal data, and we’re on a mission to simplify privacy inside every business,” said Transcend co-founder and CEO Ben Brook. “The world’s best companies choose Transcend because our market-leading technologies don’t just incrementally improve their work, but transform their privacy operations end-to-end with improved compliance, reduced costs, and better user experiences. We’re now the all-in-one platform for switching off legacy manual tools.”

Transcend’s Solutions for Simple Privacy Compliance

Each of Transcend’s solutions can be deployed individually or in combination, enabling Transcend customers to quickly deploy the privacy compliance solution they need to switch out from legacy tools to next-generation technology:

• Data Inventory provides a base truth of all silos, datapoints, vendors, purposes, and other metadata—creating a system of record for all data in the business.
• Data Lineage offers a real-time view of data flows and the relationship between data silos, enabling proactive data governance and compliance assurance in one seamless solution.
• Silo Discovery leverages pre-built plugins to scan, discover, and automatically catalog data stores, SaaS tools, and databases.
• Structured Discovery continuously detects and classifies all objects and properties inside a given database.
• Unstructured Discovery uncovers and classifies personal data living in non-conventional data models, for comprehensive governance.
• DSR Automation is your all-in-one solution for deleting and returning any kind of personal data, across every system, at any scale.
• Consent Management collects consent and automates enforcement across every interface, from websites to mobile apps.
• Preference Store syncs user consent across any device, with a singular log of all user preference events.
• Privacy Center is a secure portal that gives end-customers an intuitive, self-serve way to exercise their data rights.
• Contract Scanning extracts privacy terms from vendor agreements, helping compare contractual requirements against system realities.
• Assessments enables centralized reviews of AI risk assessments, DPIAs, and vendor risk assessments with pre-built templates that tie directly into a customer’s Data Inventory.
• Pathfinder is an AI governance middleware that gives Transcend customers the control and auditability they need for data going in and out of LLMs.
• Prompt Manager powers governance prompts to identify risk gaps, extract metadata, and more.

A Truly All-In-One Privacy Compliance Platform

Early privacy tools in the market offered companies low-tech platform approaches to common privacy requirements, including clunky web banners, manual DSR delegation flows, manual surveys and outdated spreadsheets. As the complexity of privacy requirements and data systems evolved, companies began to feel compounding issues of unnecessary repetitive manual tasks, clear compliance gaps, and an out-of-date understanding of where personal data lives. A rise of end-point privacy solutions, or solutions that only handle one aspect of privacy, helped to increase automation in the industry but created inefficient alternatives to the legacy platform. It also left companies without a single unified source of truth to help govern interwoven privacy operations.

Today, companies are urgently switching from legacy solutions to the next-generation technology of Transcend’s all-in-one platform. It’s a full lifecycle of best-in-class automation that ensures modern and seamless privacy operation at scale – from assessments to automatically discovered data systems to automated DSR workflows to corresponding consent opt-outs. With the Transcend All-In-One platform, the world’s best companies experience:

• True automation that enhances their privacy transformation, removing manual tasks for legal teams and data owners, and minimizing resource drain.
• Significant cost savings by reducing wasted resources from manual tools or switching between different point solutions and saving dollars on promised functionality that doesn’t quite live up to the hype.
• Central intelligence for all privacy operations, giving customers the power to quickly go beyond check-the-box compliance while simplifying privacy through every part of a business.