New offering helps marketers bring unified data to life with 1:1 personalized journeys and audience activation - in 15 minutes

Blueshift, the leading platform for intelligent cross-channel engagement, today announced the launch of a free tier of its industry leading Customer Data Platform (CDP). The new free offering enables marketers to ingest customer data from multiple sources to build up to 10,000 unified profiles and to automate audience activation as well as 1:1 triggered journeys across multiple marketing, advertising and CX destinations.

According to Gartner's definition, CDPs "support marketing and customer experience use cases" and that they "optimize the timing and targeting of messages, offers and customer engagement activities". Unfortunately, most CDPs fall short in helping brands realize this promise, and 63% of marketers say that leveraging integrated customer data remains a challenge in their multichannel marketing efforts. Typically, CDPs have often focused on audience activation (in a batch mode), providing limited to no support for 1:1 personalization or journey orchestration across marketing & CX channels. Additionally, most CDP platforms are technically complex, with either limited or no self-serve offerings, further limiting their utility.

With Blueshift's new free tier for CDP, marketers can finally overcome these challenges. This is the industry's first comprehensive self-serve CDP offering that can not only unify profiles, but also deliver 1:1 engagement. Key features include:

• Ingest Real-Time Events + DWH Relational Data: The free starter offers the ability to combine real-time event stream data with relational data from sources like Snowflake to build unified profiles.
• Segment Your Customers Without Learning SQL: Marketers can build dynamic audiences with just a few clicks, using an intuitive visual interface. The audiences automatically refresh with new data.
• Connect to a Wide Range of Destinations: The free starter pack comes with pre-built integrations to 80+ destinations, including advertising destinations like Facebook, TikTok and Google, as well as marketing and CX platforms like Salesforce, Zendesk, Lob and Twilio.
• Activate Audience Sync as well as 1:1 Engagement: Marketers can schedule automated audience sync with paid media destinations or orchestrate 1:1 journeys across marketing and CX applications.

"We are thrilled to launch Blueshift's free CDP starter, a game-changer for brands looking to jumpstart their journey towards intelligent cross-channel engagement," stated Vijay Chittoor, Co-Founder and CEO at Blueshift. With this free offering, data savvy marketers can accomplish sophisticated use cases within 15 minutes:

• Dynamic Audience Activation: Users can dynamically ingest data from tables and views in Snowflake, and set up a recurring schedule to sync these audiences to destinations like Facebook, Google, and Tiktok.
• Triggered 1:1 Journeys: Users can easily set up triggered multi-step journeys based on events or dynamic segments. For example, in orchestrating an experience around a travel booking, you could trigger a journey that includes a welcome email at the time of booking, an SMS reminder for checking-in, and a triggered action from the NPS system to send a survey after the experience.

Khoros, a leader in customer engagement solutions, has today announced its groundbreaking achievements in becoming one of the first companies in its space to secure the ISO27701 certification, the ISO 27001:2022 certification, and the prestigious PCI DSS 4.0 certification. These certifications underline the company's unwavering commitment to security, privacy, and compliance standards.

The certifications were audited and conferred by Aprio LLC, a leading provider of audit, tax, and consulting services.

Dan Schroeder, Partner in charge at Aprio, said, "Khoros' commitment to privacy, security, and compliance is truly commendable. The team's dedication to achieving the ISO27701, ISO27001, and PCI 4.0 certifications showcases their progressive approach to safeguarding customer information. We are proud to recognize Khoros as a leader in their space and commend them for setting new benchmarks in information security and privacy management."

The ISO27701 certification focuses on the management of information related to privacy, including Personal Identifiable Information (PII), while the ISO27001 certification reflects the company's robust approach to information security management. The newly updated PCI 4.0 certification demonstrates Khoros' adherence to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards, ensuring the highest level of security for payment card data.

Abdul Badruddin, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Khoros, commented, "Achieving the ISO27701, ISO27001, and PCI 4.0 certifications marks a significant milestone for Khoros. These certifications reflect our unwavering dedication to privacy, security, and compliance. By becoming one of the pioneers in our industry, we demonstrate leadership and innovation. We remain devoted to maintaining these high standards and ensuring that our clients and partners can trust our commitment to excellence."

Survey Highlights the Growing Acceptance and Impact of AI in Shaping Consumer Shopping Experiences

Optimove, the first Customer-Led Marketing Platform, unveils findings from its report titled "Consumer Perspectives on AI-Driven Brand Marketing." Based on a survey of 305 U.S. citizens conducted in November 2023, the report sheds light on consumer perceptions of AI's role in shaping their shopping experiences. Results show that more than half of the respondents (55%) expressed positive sentiments toward companies that utilize AI in their marketing strategies—plus, more than a quarter of respondents (26%) described their feelings as "very positive," underscoring the growing appreciation for AI's role in customizing shopping experiences to individual needs. 

This report shows we are in a new era of AI-driven marketing, and understanding customer perceptions of AI is now essential for marketers looking to enhance the consumer experience and increase customer lifetime value (CLV). 

AI Personalization  

AI-driven personalization had 51% percent of respondents noting it was an overall positive experience. Among this group, 27% find it "very positive" because it significantly enhances their shopping experience. Even among those who view AI personalization as "somewhat positive," its helpfulness is recognized despite occasional inaccuracies. A quarter of respondents remained indifferent, while 24% expressed negative sentiments, with 13% finding it intrusive and 11% preferring brands not to use AI. 

AI Transparency  

Sixty-three percent (63%) of consumers claimed they can detect when AI is used in marketing campaigns, highlighting the need for transparent AI integration. Instead of concealing AI's role, retailers can build further trust with their customers' acceptance of AI by openly incorporating it into their strategies.  

AI's Accurate Recommendations 

Nearly half of consumers (46%) have purchased based on AI recommendations. Among these, 25% have done so repeatedly, citing AI's consistently accurate recommendations. For brands, AI's accurate recommendations can be a boon to impact customer satisfaction and loyalty positively. 

Navigating Data Privacy Concerns 

While the report highlights positive sentiments, it also underscores the importance of addressing data privacy concerns, with 34% of respondents expressing this as a top concern. Additionally, 19% of consumers felt that AI recommendations were occasionally "over-personalized," emphasizing the delicate balance between customization and intrusion. 

Dive Deeper and Download the Full Report 

These findings offer a glimpse into the transformative potential of AI in brand marketing. Read our report to unlock the full spectrum of insights and learn how to harness them to maximize AI's potential in driving customer loyalty.  

Download the complete 2024 Consumer Perspectives on AI-Driven Brand Marketing Report. Access the full report here. 

AI Can Now Optimize Marketing Workflows 

Separately, Optimove recently announced OptiGenie, a comprehensive AI-powered suite that empowers marketers to optimize workflows from insight to creation and through orchestration. With OptiGenie, marketers can now deliver personalized, relevant customer messages at the speed of a consumer's interaction with a brand.  

Global Technology Leader Brings More Than 25 Years of Experience in SaaS Software Development to Industry’s Leading Unified Defense SIEM Provider

Securonix, Inc., a leader in Unified Defense SIEM, today announced it has appointed Venkat Kotla as Chief Technology Officer. In this role, Kotla is responsible for leading and scaling the company’s engineering function and fostering partnerships with leading technology organizations to support the growing demand for the company’s Unified Defense SIEM platform.

“I am thrilled to have Venkat join our executive leadership team,” said Nayaki Nayyar, Chief Executive Officer, Securonix. “As we continue to evolve and move into our next phase of growth, it is critical for our platform to scale with enterprise-grade reliability and meet the growing needs of modern enterprises charged with defending an expanding threat landscape. Venkat’s deep experience with advanced technologies, including AI, successfully expanding technology partnerships and streamlining processes across multiple stakeholders will be invaluable in driving product development that protects our customers from internal and external threats.”

With more than 25 years of experience at world class enterprise software companies, Kotla brings an established track record of driving engineering innovation at global organizations. He most recently served as Vice President and Head of Engineering for Economy BU at Atlassian, a leader in workplace productivity tools such as Jira, Confluence, and Trello. Kotla helped grow the Economy line of business to more than $500 million ARR, which empowered global organizations to become more nimble, creative and aligned with the marketplace, ecosystem, partnerships, distribution and commerce billing platform. Prior to joining Atlassian, Kotla spent over 14 years in senior engineering leadership roles at Google. He spent more than three years at Google as the Senior Director of Engineering for Google Assistant and the Google Looker, a multi-cloud enterprise SaaS for business intelligence, data applications, and embedded analytics.

“I'm excited to join a team that is hyper focused on product development and deeply committed to innovation,” said Kotla. “SIEM is the backbone of cybersecurity defenses, and Securonix has long been the industry’s premier solution provider. I look forward to working with the leadership team to incorporate advanced technologies into the platform and aggressively develop new partnerships with the world's leading technology providers.”

The Securonix platform is purpose-built to defend modern enterprises against advanced threats in today’s complex hybrid environments. Securonix was named a leader for the fourth consecutive time in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and again named a Customers’ Choice in the 2023 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’: Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). The company recently launched the industry’s first Unified Defense SIEM that provides organizations with 365 days of ’Hot’ searchable data and introduced an integration with ChatGPT that delivers generative AI capabilities within Securonix Investigate to greatly reduce incident response time.

Partnerships with Hivestack, JCDecaux ANZ, Go Media, Lumo, and VIOOH enabled Scope3 to build and refine the model for measuring this growing channel

Scope3, the collaborative sustainability platform leading the decarbonization of media and advertising, today announced the addition of digital out-of-home (DOOH) to its emissions measurement. With DOOH ad spend predicted to grow from $17B in 2023 to nearly $24B by 2028, measuring this channel brings us one step closer to understanding the total impact of digital advertising on the planet.

The expansion includes advancements to Scope3’s emissions model to consider the unique variables of DOOH advertising. Taking into account various DOOH screen types and venues, such as taxi screens or billboards, Scope3 has identified which factors need to be considered when looking at the emissions of the channel and how to approach reduction. The model incorporates an impression multiplier which represents the average number of people within the proximity of a given screen to account for DOOH being a one-to-many format.

Granular and channel-specific data, including the geo location’s energy grid mix, makes it possible to precisely understand the source of emissions and identify meaningful reduction opportunities. One of Scope3’s early findings from modelling DOOH is that the more sustainable advertising option isn’t always the smallest screen — debunking a common myth large screens are always the biggest emitters of carbon.

Insight and expertise from global DOOH ad tech company, Hivestack, enabled Scope3 to build the foundation of the model. Ongoing adaptations of the Scope3 model are supported by Hivestack and DOOH media owners JCDecaux ANZ, Go Media, and Lumo, as well as VIOOH, a DOOH trading platform. These partners are the first in the industry to take action to minimize the carbon footprint of DOOH with Scope3.

“Brands need a sustainability partner that can provide reliable emissions data for every channel in their media plans,” said Brian O’Kelley, CEO and co-founder, Scope3. “Mapping and modeling a complex and interconnected media ecosystem can’t be done alone, it took a community of collaborators with deep channel expertise months of building and testing to bring DOOH measurement to life. This advancement marks both an exciting and important step forward in putting valuable and accurate DOOH emissions data into the hands of marketers.”

"We are thrilled to announce our collaboration with Scope3 in supporting the application of their first-of-its-kind carbon emissions model for DOOH formats,” said Andreas Soupliotis, founder and CEO at Hivestack. “We are proud to contribute our world-class DOOH ad tech expertise in building this innovative framework for our channel. Out of home (OOH) as a medium boasts great potential and it is our priority to put sustainability at the forefront of its future. This initiative goes beyond a singular outcome; it's about laying the foundation for a decarbonized ecosystem that will not only benefit advertisers, media owners, and data providers but will also pave the way for a more green future for DOOH advertising technology. We look forward to the myriad of opportunities this partnership will unlock."

Attributes from 100k screens worldwide currently power the Scope3 DOOH emissions model, with plans to expand this number further.

Open Text Corporation, today announced the appointment of Goldy Hyder to its board of directors. Mr. Hyder is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Business Council of Canada, a non-profit, non-partisan organization composed of the chief executives and entrepreneurs of Canada's leading companies, whose members collectively employ approximately two million Canadians in every major industry.

"Goldy brings very strong public and international policy perspectives to our Board," said Tom Jenkins, Chair of the Board of Directors. "His role as co-chair of Canada's World Trade Organization Business Advisory Council has created global and diverse experiences that are strategic assets further strengthening our Board."

Mr. Hyder was previously President and Chief Executive Officer of Hill+Knowlton Strategies (Canada), providing strategic communications counsel to the firm's extensive and diverse client base. Prior to joining Hill+Knowlton, he served as Director of Policy and Chief of Staff to The Right Honourable Joe Clark, former Prime Minister of Canada.

In addition to his achievements in business and public policy, Mr. Hyder has a long track record of service on behalf of several charities and non-profit organizations. He is a member of the advisory councils of the Canada-India Business Council and Coalition for a Better Future, a board member of the Business + Higher Education Roundtable, an executive committee member of the Century Initiative and co-chair of Canada's World Trade Organization Business Advisory Council. He is Past Chair of the Asia Business Leaders Advisory Council, a subsidiary of Asia Pacific Foundation. Mr. Hyder holds a B.A. and Masters degree in Public Policy from the University of Calgary.

The report provides a behind-the-scenes look at how brands like Walmart, Peloton, Redken, and VitaminWater are leveraging TikTok's best practices to drive ROI

With more than 1 billion monthly active community members, TikTok has become a driving force of digital culture and an integral platform for advertisers. To help advertisers develop more impactful experiences for the community, TikTok worked with creator marketing platform CreatorIQ to provide advertisers with the data-backed keys to success for campaigns and creative initiatives.

At a topline, the report found that creators overwhelmingly make the best-performing TikTok ads, with recommendations carrying more weight than traditional brand advertisements and celebrity spokespeople. In fact, after watching a creator-driven Spark Ad, 57% of TikTok community members say the creator is trustworthy, 56% say they can trust the brand because the creator shared it, and 71% say creator authenticity led them to buy a product.

With that said, not all creator ads are created equal. TikTok and CreatorIQ's analysis also uncovers the distinguishing characteristics that separate the platform's top-performing creator ads from the rest. This includes:

Grabbing Attention From the Start — An effective hook is critical not only to delaying that next swipe but for landing ad impact. TikTok found that:

• 90% of ad recall impact and 80% of awareness impact are captured within the first six seconds of an ad.
• Showing a person or creator in the first two seconds of an ad increases hooking power by 50% and improves ad recognition by 32%.
• Brand Example: A recent video from creator couple Matthew and Paul for Walmart hooked viewers and landed in the top 1% of all TikTok ads, according to CreatorIQ. The ad drove more than $168.3K in Earned Media Value, CreatorIQ's proprietary metric for quantifying the value of social media content.

Fostering a Personal Connection — More than 75% of TikTok community members say the platform's creators feel approachable and they can connect with them. Brands can harness that connection in ads by:

• Having the creator directly address the audience from the jump has a +112% uplift in brand recall.
• Ads in which creators say "you" within the first five seconds have a +128% uplift in purchase intent, and speaking directly to the audience is 1.5x more likely to hook.
• Showing the creator's face drives a +148% uplift in brand recall for entertainment ads.
• Including a creator voiceover drove a +63% uplift in purchase intent in a recent sample of Food & Beverage ads.
• Brand Example: A September Spark Ad from Peloton featuring fitness creator Ajahzi Gardner hits every one of the guidelines mentioned above, which has helped the brand drive $5.2M in EMV according to CreatorIQ.

Showing Your Product in Action — Consumers trust TikTok creators, which is why ads that show a creator using your product are so effective. For example:

• Unboxing videos garner a +31% uplift in attention.
• Videos with creators showing off products throughout have a +89% uplift in brand recall and a +47% uplift in purchase intent.
• Content that shows products in use sees a +25% uplift in recall, +23% in ad likeability, +65% in brand affinity, and +18% in consideration.
• Brand Example: Haircare powerhouse Redken drove $19.4M in EMV on TikTok in the first nine months of 2023 using product-driven videos, including one particularly strong example from creator Kylie Vazzana.

Using the Right Creative Elements — Ads perform best when created with the platform in mind. These three creative elements are essential to effective creator ads:

• Sound, which is vital to the TikTok experience according to 9 out of 10 community members, and creator ads that feature music drive a +61% uplift in brand recall and a +177% uplift in purchase intent.
• Text Overlays, which are 1.4x more likely to hook a user than ads that don't, with captions leading to a +31% increase in likeability and +95% in brand affinity.
• Pacing, which recently drove a +162% uplift for a sample of high-energy Beauty ads, and ads that feature seamless transitions from one shot to another have a +60% uplift in recall.
• Brand Example: In June 2023, comedian Jonathan Bynoe dropped a laughably relatable TikTok sketch about Vitaminwater, and the brand leveraged the audio for its #NourishEveryYou campaign, which drove over $1.6M EMV across all platforms.

Closing With a Clear Call to Action — An effective call to action is often the difference between an engaged fan and a paying customer, with strong CTAs proving essential across both Spark and In-Feed Ads. For example:

• Creator ads featuring strong written CTAs lead to a +205% uplift in purchase intent.
• Interactive Display Cards doubling as CTA buttons see a +69% uplift in brand recall.

Executive Commentary:

"TikTok is where today's audience, culture, and influence are bringing joy and entertainment across the world. Creators are the driving force behind it, and advertisers have started to excel in joining the community and growing their business outcomes along the way," said Jorge Ruiz, Global Head of Marketing Science at TikTok. "This report provides advertisers with a new playbook for how to execute successful creator campaigns, powered by data, insights, and real-world examples from leading brands identified by CreatorIQ. I look forward to seeing how clients will benefit from this new understanding and continue to progress their journey on TikTok."

"We've seen the usage of TikTok in creator marketing campaigns grow exponentially year-over-year, solidifying the platform as an essential part of the overall ecosystem," said Tim Sovay, Chief Business Development & Partnerships Officer, CreatorIQ. "We're honored to partner with TikTok on this initiative, which provides the industry at large with the intel for building more impactful creator marketing programs that can drive full-funnel results."

Insights powers customizable monitoring and dashboarding for enhanced visibility into first-party data strategies

Tealium, the largest independent and most trusted customer data platform (CDP), is helping businesses accelerate advanced business monitoring with its Insights intelligence tool, ultimately leading to enhanced in-the-moment customer experiences.

With Insights, marketers can increase visibility into first-party data strategies, empowering marketers with deeper, customizable reporting and measurement tools within the Tealium Customer Data Hub. Insights provides faster campaign insights, ensures reliable data flow, and offers stronger visibility into the value of data-driven marketing initiatives.

Phil Lockhart, Chief Digital Officer at leading consulting firm Credera, an Omnicom company, remarks that a key emphasis for digital marketers is compressing the time it takes to develop the deep customer insights required to create remarkable customer experiences.

“Tealium’s new Insights tool provides the type of plug-n-play data access that leads to quicker customer insights discovery. And its intuitive design helps democratize customer data insights across the enterprise,” said Lockhart. “Based on a leading industry data scaffolding (AWS QuickSight), the Insights tool is quick to deploy and easy for marketers to access via the intuitive Tealium interface. We are looking forward to the insights and remarkable customer experiences this new tool will unlock for our clients.”

Global interactive marketing company, Aunica, is also leveraging Insights for critical operational monitoring initiatives.

“Besides the usual capabilities expected from an analytical tool, Insights is key to understanding near real-time data that are critical to operational teams and allowing them to quickly respond to any alteration detected and identify short-term opportunities,” said Karine Camejo, Data Activation and Insights at Aunica. “In addition to that, we have dashboards that were built to monitor server-side connectors so that we can easily understand which ones are high on failure rate or need any repair. This is extremely valuable when considering large-scale data activation.”

Insights’ business intelligence capabilities powers reporting and dashboarding for the Tealium Customer Data Hub.