Rockerbox is announcing an integration with TikTok to help make measuring and showing the impact of advertisers' TikTok campaigns easier and more effective. Now, Rockerbox customers can see the impact of their TikTok ad video views and visibility on sales and revenue performance.

Nearly 5 million businesses in the US leverage the platform to reach and engage with TikTok's 1 billion global monthly active users, who come to TikTok to be entertained as they learn, shop, and discover something new. To help tap into the potential of TikTok's highly engaged audience, this new TikTok integration allows advertisers to leverage Rockerbox's measurement platform to see the impact all user interactions on TikTok have on the bottom line—conversions and revenue.

The integration helps B2C advertisers see the full impact of their TikTok advertising by showing the impact not only of TikTok clicks, but also views on content. Measuring views is pivotal to understanding TikTok's full impact on advertisers' campaigns. Through this update, brands can now measure TikTok's uniquely effective role in their customers' path to purchase, justifying greater time and investments in the platform.

In a series of initial tests conducted by Rockerbox, the results spoke volumes. Advertisers saw up to a 6x increase in conversions and 75% improvement in CPA with the TikTok integration (compared to relying solely on click-based metrics).

For brands like TULA, a beauty and skincare company, Rockerbox was integral to understanding their performance on TikTok: "At TULA we are a digital native, social first brand. TikTok became a huge priority for us when it began to pick up traction, but we lacked visibility into the effectiveness of our campaigns. Now with the integration between Rockerbox and TikTok, our insight into the platform has improved so dramatically that our ROAS jumped up over 5x from what it was historically—which is huge," said TULA Director of Growth Marketing, Caroline Valenzano. "Rockerbox is our source of truth, and at the forefront of our media decisions. The integration with TikTok gives us so much more confidence and clarity. Before this integration, we were optimizing blindly and now we have eyes to see the path forward."

Beyond providing insight into TikTok's impact on revenue, Rockerbox's platform goes the extra mile by helping marketers understand TikTok's role within the broader marketing funnel. This encompasses discerning which tactics on TikTok work best as top, middle, or bottom-of-funnel tactics, assessing its comparative impact on conversions in relation to other marketing channels, and exploring the dynamics of new versus returning user engagement with TikTok ads, among other insights. This ability unlocks even more numbers highlighting TikTok's unique impact on business. For example, based on customer data, nearly 60% of brands using Rockerbox to measure TikTok are seeing new total customer acquisition costs lower than other digital platforms.

"We're thrilled to be able to partner with TikTok on this expanded integration. TikTok's impact on the advertising world is undeniable, and it's an honor to be able to provide this level of visibility into the platform's performance," said Ron Jacobson, Rockerbox CEO and Co-founder. "I'm excited to see where we go with this partnership and how many other B2C brands we're able to help with this new level of analytics insight."

Creators Rank No. 1 in Brand Marketing Investment; 92% of Brands Report Creator Marketing Budgets will Increase in 2024

LTK, the platform that powers Creator Commerce™, today released findings from a brand survey in partnership with Northwestern University’s Retail Analytics Council, revealing the insights and biggest trends in creator marketing for 2024. As we enter the next wave of the estimated $21B creator marketing industry, brands and retailers are investing more than ever in creators because they are seeing the critical role they play in brand building across the entire marketing funnel, from awareness to consideration and conversion. The study revealed investment trends, business impact and strategies for creators from the top marketing decision makers at leading global brands.

Creators Most Trusted Among Consumers and Marketers

Creators have built significant consumer trust with their shopping communities as 73% of Gen Z, 68% of Millennials and 57% of the general population look to creators to make purchase decisions. Brands agree and understand that trust between creators and their communities. The majority of surveyed brands say consumers trust creators the most compared to social media ads and celebrities.

Creator Marketing Budgets are Growing the Quickest

Creators are driving meaningful business impact like never before - reaching $4B in annual retail sales among 30M monthly users on LTK alone - which is leading to creator budgets growing the quickest compared to other digital channels. 80% of brands said they increased creator budgets in 2023, and 92% of brands stated influencer marketing will have higher budgets or an increased role in their marketing strategy in 2024. 36% said they plan to spend at least half of their entire digital marketing budget on creators. When asked where their marketing dollars are shifting, creator marketing and connected TV shared the top position overall for investment growth, beating out channels like paid search and paid social.

Creator Strategies Drive Positive Business Impact

Brands and retailers are aligning themselves with creators, recognizing their unique ability to engage and influence consumers effectively. Creators have become a valuable asset for brands in driving immense business impact. According to the study, brands look to creators to support multiple strategies - increasing repeat purchases and basket, brand and product recognition, expanding consideration to new audiences, loyalty and retention. With consumer trust in creators being a driving factor, more than half of fashion brands and 45% of beauty brands said that creators improved their brand perception.

Brands have built multifaceted creator programs, averaging 3.8 different goals for creator programs. Brands report the top four most important goals for creators are generating content, driving loyalty, creating awareness and driving sales.

How to Win with Creators in 2024

Creator content is now more crucial than ever in the marketing mix with 98% of brands using it for channels outside social media, and creator investment is growing at a remarkable rate, outpacing other digital channels. Brands with winning creator strategies are investing in creators to maximize their impact across channels and focus their attention on full funnel impact by driving three key metrics - audience growth, awareness and sales.

“This study confirms that the creator economy is not just thriving—it's leading the charge in modern marketing, with brands witnessing tangible growth and a more profound consumer connection when they entrust creators,” said Rodney Mason, Vice President and Head of Marketing, Brand Platform at LTK.

“Social media is dramatically changing the way brands and retailers interact with consumers. This study confirms that creators are increasingly important in driving superior customer engagement and social commerce, compared to more traditional digital marketing methods,” said Frank Mulhern, Professor and Director of Retail Analytics Council, Northwestern University.

The reported data is from a brand survey conducted by LTK in collaboration with Northwestern University’s Retail Analytics Council in August 2023 among 164 marketing decision makers that have invested in creator marketing in the last 12 months. More than half of the global brands were $1B+ sized companies and included top retail, fashion, beauty and health, CPG, tech, entertainment, auto, travel and service industries.

PlainId extends its support for SaaS Authorization Management via PlainID Authorizer for PowerBI

PlainID, the Authorization Company™, has announced the launch of its PlainID Authorizer for Microsoft's Power BI. The Authorizer will be available via the PlainID Authorization Platform, which provides central policy management for both SaaS and homegrown application as well as for leading API, microservices and data technologies.

In today's data-rich environment, more businesses are relying heavily on Power BI to deliver self-service analytics, data collaboration and business decisions. High volumes of data and identities, along with the constraints of fragmented access control systems, have created holes in data security. While Power BI includes native access control features and is a powerful tool for extracting critical data to guide business choices, it is complex to manage and maintain, it lacks business visibility and auditability for its policies and doesn't have the ability to comply with the organizational data policies.

Through this partnership, PlainID will help organizations control data access in Power BI by centralized management of the authorization policies in a consistent and standardized way. PlainID Authorizers are accessible for applications, APIs, microservices and data tools. The platform is intended to assist businesses in adopting and disseminating authorization policies at scale with minimal effort while providing enterprises with:

• Streamlined Data Access: Centralize and automate policy management to reduce the manual effort required to enforce policies across BI tools and the data ecosystem, while increasing business agility and lowering operational expenses.
• Reduced security gaps: Using a Policy-based Access Control Framework to ensure that policies are uniformly applied across the company.
• Increased Visibility and Monitoring: Track access policies from a single dashboard that sends an alert when a policy changes.
• Adapted to Evolving Requirements: Allow for quick updates and adjustments to stay up to date with changing business requirements, security threats or regulatory changes for compliance.

"We understand the pivotal role that data collaboration and analytics play in driving innovation and efficiency," said Gal Helemski, CTO and co-founder, PlainID. "Users are frequently granted more permissions than their roles should allow due to security flaws or a lack of competence in the reporting tools they use. That is why PlainID created a Power BI Authorizer. Our goal is to develop a solution that easily scales to millions of authorizations while maintaining data security and frictionless access. PlainID provides organizations with the flexibility and agility they need to manage the granularity of data protection and industry standards both locally and worldwide."

Solar-powered outdoor advertising platform takes a strategic step forward as it welcomes a new CEO with 20 years of industry experience

Soofa, the pioneer of innovative solar-powered street-level digital media displays used for outdoor advertising and smart city communication, has announced Toby Sturek as its new Chief Executive Officer to lead the expansion of its out-of-home (OOH) offering in cities across the United States.

Sturek brings over 20-years of leadership in the OOH media industry and a proven track record of growing companies, sales teams, and revenues at industry-leading organizations. He most recently served as the President of Branded Cities, a premier out-of-home advertising company with a large premier digital and static footprint across North America. Previously, Sturek held executive roles during his 16-year tenure at Clear Channel Outdoor, solidifying his deep industry knowledge and showcasing his exceptional leadership abilities.

"I'm thrilled to lead the growing team at Soofa as we pursue our mission to transform every city into a smart, social, and sustainable environment," said Sturek. "With my extensive background in the out-of-home industry combined with Soofa's unique platform, we'll soon help more cities engage with their constituents and help more brands in reshaping their outdoor advertising strategies on their journey towards achieving Zero Carbon goals."

"Toby's arrival comes at an exciting time of growth and innovation at Soofa," said Lindsay Gardner, exiting interim Chief Executive Officer and a member of Soofa's Board of Directors. "Our footprint of Zero Carbon digital kiosks continues to expand into new markets and we're deepening our partnerships with leading advertisers, among them top wireless, entertainment and sports betting brands. Soofa's talented and committed team is eager to see this company scale to new heights under Toby's leadership, becoming a major player in the OOH space."

"Soofa's eight-foot tall solar-powered digital kiosks offer multiple ways for brands to reach their audience on hundreds of Soofa signs across the country," added Jeff Binder, Soofa's Executive Chairman. "Toby has a growing arsenal of benefits to offer cities and brands, including digital e-ink screens that 'pop' even in direct sunlight, beautiful full-color vinyl wraps on all sides, and the easiest OOH installation path anywhere in the world."

"The sustainable technology that powers Soofa signs is a game changer for the industry," added Sturek. "Advertisers not only witness a reduction in their carbon footprint but also gain a more profound comprehension, of their campaign's performance within the conventional OOH landscape, where obtaining the necessary metrics to measure ROI have been hard to come by. Soofa signs represent a truly unique and unparalleled proposition in today's market."

New capabilities expand Intentsify's global reach, leading to tremendous international growth

Intentsify, the leading provider of AI-generated intent intelligence and full-funnel customer-engagement solutions, today announced the release of multi-language intent data capabilities. Now synthesizing large volumes of intent signals captured across non-English sources, Intentsify has greatly expanded its coverage in the APAC and EMEA regions.

These new multi-language capabilities significantly increase Intentsify's value to global enterprise customers, boosting coverage by 64% in APAC and 54% in EMEA. Intentsify's brand-tailored intent models can now ingest signals in languages comprising 75% of the content available across the web. For global B2B go-to-market teams, this offering is paramount.

Intentsify's proprietary AI analyzes customers' websites and marketing materials to generate intent models unique to each customer's products and use cases. Arming GTM teams with this level of buyer intelligence—and engagement solutions—empowers Intentsify's customers to surround buying committees at in-market accounts with messaging precisely aligned to their unique buyer journeys and interests.

"At Intentsify, we pride ourselves on helping our customers deliver exceptional full-funnel buying experiences that drive revenue," said Gary Noke, President and CEO at Intentsify. "This year's release of Precision Intent, now married with our new multilingual solutions, allows customers targeting APAC and EMEA to increase their global program performance, while also supporting the market expansion efforts of customers who currently do not have a global presence."

Intentsify's commitment to helping customers expand their global reach has already led to tremendous triple-digit YoY growth across the company's international division. Intentsify recently saw a 100% increase in revenue growth and 206% increase in headcount in both APAC and EMEA to support demand.

The company has proven its continued momentum in 2023 with a string of notable successes. Intentsify was ranked number 278 on the Inc. 5000, an annual list of the fastest-growing private companies in America. Additionally, the Sales and Marketing Technology Awards, also known as "The Sammys," named the company a leader in sales and marketing technology. And in May, Intentsify was awarded Strong Performer status in The Forrester Wave™: B2B Intent Data Providers, Q2 2023 report and named a "MarTech Company to Watch" by TechRound.

Fivetran connects 70+ data sources for cloud storage leader, improving customer experience and marketing insights

Fivetran today announced that its data movement platform has been selected by Dropbox, Inc. to enable its marketing and customer experience teams to make faster, data-driven decisions. Fivetran is providing its platform to enable Dropbox to reduce data ingestion and reporting time from several weeks to 30 minutes, improving efficiency and helping the company uncover insights more quickly.

Previously, Dropbox built its own custom data connectors with data engineers taking up to 8 weeks for a pipeline to go live. Dropbox’s Customer Experience (CX) department tapped Fivetran to replace a critical Zendesk data integration that was not built to support its needs for real-time, self-service access to high-quality data for reporting.

“The CX team and I were able to turn on our first connector in less than 30 minutes,” said Lauren Lin, Data Engineering Manager at Dropbox. “Fivetran delivered tremendous time savings and has allowed Dropbox to transform how quickly it can access new data with the potential to unlock business-critical insights.”

Dropbox soon expanded its use of Fivetran as its enterprise-wide data platform. The Dropbox marketing team wanted more insights into their various channels to understand spend and ROI. Fivetran now regularly ingests data from LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter and Google Ads to provide the Dropbox marketing department a more complete picture of their return on ad spend. Now the team can make smarter decisions about where to allocate advertising dollars for the biggest impact.

Dropbox is now also ingesting terabytes of data from hundreds of sources and systems from the acquisitions of HelloSign, DocSend and FormSwift. With Fivetran, Dropbox is bringing data together to deliver key insights to streamline operations, eliminate redundancies, and empower leadership to answer questions they haven’t been able to previously address.

“Dropbox is a model example of what a data-driven organization looks like at scale. The company has invested heavily in giving its leaders the means to understand and drive decisions based on data, leading to a productive and engaged workforce as well as improving business outcomes and cost-efficiency,” said Rachel Thornton, Chief Marketing Officer at Fivetran. “Fivetran is a critical driver of the unified data environment that Dropbox has created across all lines of business to unlock new growth opportunities.”

Report Dives into the Everchanging Trends of an Industry Adapting to Short-Form Content

Tagger by Sprout Social, the global technology leader in making influencer marketing more intelligent, releases its first Automotive Industry Index today. The report, which looks at data for the first half of 2023, highlights which auto brands are winning at influencer marketing and how consumer preferences are shifting when it comes to consuming industry content.

Leveraging Tagger’s social intelligence engine, Signals, the report looks at overall platform performance for January 1, 2023 through June 30, 2023 and which types of content are driving the most engagement.

“In the past, the auto industry has faced barriers to entry when dipping its toes in the influencer marketing space,” said Dave Dickman, Global Head of Sales and Services at Tagger by Sprout Social. “The research and buying process for cars is long, with consumers wanting to consume as much content as possible before making such a big purchase. What we found in the first half of this year is a pivot to the short-form content of Instagram and TikTok, as opposed to longer-form videos on YouTube. Consumers are shifting their habits and looking for snackable videos of specific features, rather than half-hour review of all a car offers.”

The data shows Instagram as the favorite among influencers for posting content related to the industry, outranking all other platforms four times over. However, TikTok’s engagement rate still ranks the highest, outperforming Instagram by more than double.

Here are some key takeaways from the Automotive Industry Index:

• Brand Hashtags: The report dives into the most used hashtags across the industry, and unlike any other industry Tagger studies, brand name hashtags are the way to go, with #bmw, #porsche and #mercedes leading the way.
• Snackable Content: The top three most engaging forms of content were TikTok Videos, Instagram Reels and Instagram Carousel posts, showing consumers crave snackable video content.
• Topping the List: Porsche holds the top spot as the most mentioned auto brand across all platforms with Audi and Toyota rounding out the top three.

TanLIVE digital platform seeks to connect and empower green-tech change agents in the fight against climate change

Tencent, the world-leading internet and technology company, today announced that it will hold the global launch of TanLIVE, its climate community platform, at the upcoming COP28, the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

The launch will be undertaken in collaboration with the Innovate for Climate Tech coalition, a group of like-minded climate actors that seek to drive the growth of the climate technology ecosystem, which has been enabled by the COP28.

Designed to connect and empower organizations working toward carbon neutrality, TanLIVE offers collaborative tools including community networking, project listings, and an ecosystem of vetted technological and financing solutions for entrepreneurs, investors, and research institutions in the climate sector. The digital platform was originally launched by Tencent in China last year. Through TanLIVE's worldwide availability, and the addition of new features designed in collaboration with the Innovate for Climate Tech coalition, Tencent hopes to foster a global community of green technology innovators and like-minded partners.

Connecting Global Climate Experts at COP28

Taking place in the UAE in November 2023, COP 28 is a pivotal opportunity for transformative climate action, which will see global leaders come together to negotiate further action on key issues such as climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance.

At COP28, Tencent will showcase its dedication to climate solutions through TanLIVE, the first initiative of the Innovate for Climate Tech coalition. A collaborative effort between Masdar City, Tencent, and Catalyst as anchor partners, the coalition aims to identify and magnify ongoing and future initiatives to accelerate the growth of climate technologies and create ecosystems that support their development.

In addition to these anchor partners, a diverse group of climate technology stakeholders from around the world have joined the coalition as knowledge, program or roll-out partners to create an inclusive environment for collaboration to advance climate solutions. The coalition will also build upon the success of Masdar City's Innovate, launched in 2021 to support startups and showcase their work.

Innovate for Climate Tech will carry on its legacy beyond the two-week conference by initiating ongoing initiatives and expanding its network. Interested entities are welcome to contact the coalition at partnerships@innovateforclimatetech.org and innovation@cop28.com.

"We're proud to launch TanLIVE globally, as we strive to drive changes toward a low-carbon society," said Dr. Hao Xu, Vice President of Tencent Sustainable Social Value (SSV) and Head of Tencent Carbon Neutrality Lab. "By making the platform accessible worldwide and partnering with the Innovate for Climate Tech coalition with the support of COP28, we hope to accelerate the speed and scale of frontier technologies and connect like-minded individuals and organizations who are all working for the same goal: a greener, cleaner, and more sustainable future."

Since launching last year, TanLIVE has already established partnerships with many local and international organizations. This includes major institutional users such as Impact Hub Shanghai, New Energy Nexus, Plug & Play China, C Team, Meituan Qingshan Project and more. The broad network of members demonstrates Tencent's role in assembling a global community committed to driving climate action through collaboration. As the network expands further, TanLIVE looks forward to welcoming additional key players with shared urgent goals.

Digital Tools to Connect the Global Climate Movement

Built on Tencent's various technology solutions including Tencent EnerLink, TanLIVE offers a suite of innovative features to empower the global climate community and its global user base.

Its Programs feature provides the easy publishing, search, and subscription of climate tech supporting resources such as grand challenges, incubators, workshops and industry expo, enhancing the transparency and exchange of these resources. The Knowledge section is an open-source portal for sharing climate-related insights and best-practices in a reader-friendly format, fostering informed action. Through Solutions, climate innovators showcase climate technologies, bridging innovators, adopters and investors. Meanwhile, Tools consolidates critical data and analytics from partners, providing actionable insights. By offering these features at an international scale, the digital platform aims to streamline collaboration, aggregate learnings, and maximize climate action on a global level.

As TanLIVE is set to expand internationally, there has never been a better time to join the digital platform on its global mission to enable widespread carbon neutrality.