Persona's industry-leading unified identity platform provides LinkedIn users with a free, secure, and frictionless verification experience across LATAM, APAC, and EMEA

Leading identity platform Persona today announced that LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, is leveraging its platform to offer members in Brazil and Australia free identity verification. With Persona, millions of LinkedIn members across both countries will now be able seamlessly and securely confirm their identity through LinkedIn and add authenticity to their networks.

"We're pleased to be partnering with Persona to help users add an extra layer of trust and authenticity to their LinkedIn experience," said Oscar Rodriguez, LinkedIn Head of Trust and Privacy. "We're looking forward to continuing to scale verification with Persona's flexible, robust approach to identity." 

Persona is a unified identity platform that provides businesses with the building blocks they need to customize verification experiences, while mitigating fraud, and meeting ever-evolving compliance standards. With Persona, LinkedIn will now be able to offer members a frictionless and secure way to verify their government-issued NFC passports. Once a profile is verified, a verification badge will be visible on member's profiles.

"We share a common vision with LinkedIn to build authentic connections, regardless of where users are based," said Rick Song, CEO, Persona. "We're excited to continue collaborating with their team and support their global expansion."

New Version of TransPerfect's Visual Localization Software Adds Key Features

Alchemy Software Development, the world leader in visual localization solutions and a division of TransPerfect, marks its 21^st anniversary with the release of Alchemy Catalyst 2023, the latest iteration of its enterprise localization solution. Already recognized for its pioneering support of leading software formats, Alchemy Catalyst 2023 includes new features that further streamline the software localization process.

Alchemy Software Development's Catalyst platform is the translation solution of choice for multinational organizations looking to automate their localization for foreign markets. Visual reporting tools help to identify risks throughout the localization process, while advanced translation memory technology increases overall translation accuracy and further reduces implementation costs and turnaround times.

Alchemy Catalyst 2023 includes the following new features:

Support for Dot Net 5+:
Users are now able to localize binaries and .resx files written in the latest .NET versions from .NET 5 onward (currently .NET 5, .NET 6, .NET 7).

Native support for markdown files:
Markdown files (.md, .markdown) are now parsed natively and rendered as html for fully visual localization.

Filter navigator by resource status:
A feature request from our user base, this allows users to filter files by status at the navigator level (e.g., showing only files containing untranslated segments, or only files containing fuzzy segments, or only files containing memos, etc.).

Enhancement of segmentation engine:
Automatic segmentation has been extended to String Tables inside Win32 and .NET binaries, as well as database files (DDF). This allows automatic segmentation of html/xml content embedded in those resources. Segmentation can also be manually tweaked post-parsing (by further segmenting or joining previously segmented text). Moreover, custom segmentation rules now accept tags as delimiters, for improved accuracy.

"Catalyst 2023 is unique in its sophistication of support for software file formats," said Mark Hagerty, Chief Technology Officer of TransPerfect. "No other translation tool can be seamlessly integrated into the software build process while also mitigating the challenges faced by developers and engineers tasked with simultaneous shipment of software to world markets."

Frequence, a leader in advertising sales automation and workflow software, announced today a new integration with the Triton Digital audio streaming and podcast platform that will unify media proposals, workflow and analytics into a single dashboard that allows audio-focused media companies to sell more of their owned-and-operated inventory alongside comprehensive omnichannel campaigns.

“Streaming audio and podcasting are growing channels with unique requirements to get the most out of ad performance, and this integration will allow audio providers to maximize their advertising revenue and improve their workflow efficiency,” said Matt Robles, VP of Product at Frequence. “With the integration, Triton users will be able to create proposals, submit orders, and view their reporting performance all through Frequence’s platform as a unified solution for their advertising needs.”

The integration will allow account executives to propose a media plan that includes Triton-supported audio channels, collect the necessary information required to submit a Triton Digital order, and have Frequence output the order information to run campaigns within Triton Digital. It will also enable reporting on Triton Digital campaign performance, all through Frequence’s platform as a unified platform for media sales and planning.

“Triton Digital is all about optimizing audio content for distribution and monetization, and we’re always expanding our partnerships to drive better results,” said Benjamin Masse, Chief Product Officer of Triton Digital. “Audio is one part of an increasingly omnichannel advertising ecosystem, and our integration with Frequence gives our partners and customers more options than ever before.”

The world's largest and most sophisticated audio publishers and advertising agencies rely on Triton’s comprehensive suite of audio advertising technology to support their streaming strategies. With Frequence, users can leverage a multi-channel offering suite that includes managed products and best-in-class automation. Other features will enable users to:

• Select targeting information related to geography, demographics, and interests.
• Submit budget information related to monthly spend, duration, and CPM.
• Create data-driven omnichannel media plans that highlight the benefits of Triton.
• Ensure order details are automatically staged and prepared for seamless launch into Triton.
• Access detailed, real-time analytics, providing valuable insights into listener demographics, behavior, and preferences.

“Digital audio represents a powerful addition to omnichannel media campaigns, and Frequence is committed to driving performance for our partners across the ecosystem,” said Tom Cheli, CEO. “Our integration with Triton Digital will open up new opportunities for local-market media companies and advertisers to strengthen their businesses with the power of technology and automation.”

Setting a new standard for the most secure blockchain domain management and wallet custody solution available in the Web3 industry

Markmonitor, an industry-leading enterprise-level provider of corporate domain management solutions, today announced the launch of its new Web3 solutions to provide the most secure and robust blockchain domain management and wallet custody solution available in the Web3 industry.

The Web3 landscape and blockchain domains (also known as NFT or Web3 domains) represent new challenges for companies as this emerging space lacks traditional domain rights protections and regulation, amongst other risks. Brands need a deliberate strategy today to effectively mitigate these risks and protect their brands online, both now and in anticipation of Web3's future growth.

For over two decades Markmonitor has been instrumental in establishing and protecting major global brands online – and its trusted advisory role has grown even more vital in the evolving Web3 landscape. In response to customer feedback, Markmonitor has introduced a wide range of strategic NFT domain services that guide and protect companies in the evolving Web3 landscape, addressing the demand for guidance, support and security in blockchain and Web3 domain management.

The key solutions include:

• NFT Domain Registration and Management (including .eth)
• NFT Domain Protection Services 
• NFT Domain Acquisition
• NFT Domain Custody Solutions 

These solutions provide strategic guidance that helps companies better understand the functionality and complexity of blockchain domains.

Markmonitor has developed relationships with the most prominent NFT domain providers and other Web3 security partners – such as BitGo and MetaMask Institutional (MMI) – to provide a broad range of NFT domain solutions catered to corporate brands and their needs in the Web3 space.  

A key brand protection measure in the Web3 space is defensive registration of exact match NFT domains to prevent misuse by bad actors. NFT Domain Protection is a service that defensively registers Markmonitor's selection of extensions offered by Unstoppable Domains. By blocking a brand's Web3 domains, bad actors are unable to capitalize on them as opportunities for fraud. 

In the rapidly evolving Web3 environment, forward-thinking companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of securing desired blockchain domains before they become unavailable. If a desired blockchain domain is already registered, Markmonitor's NFT Domain Acquisition Services offer enterprises a strategic advantage, reducing both the cost and complexity of blockchain domain acquisition by having the Markmonitor team of experts takes charge of the process. Markmonitor NFT domain experts also coordinate the post-sale transfer of Web3 domains custody.

Markmonitor has implemented multiple best practice security procedures, including Multi-Signature transactions and wallet cold-storage, to enable our enterprise-grade wallet custody service to ensure the highest levels of security of our client's NFT domain assets.

Investment round led by Volpe Capital marks company’s official entrance into U.S. market, expansion of AI platform for retail and e-commerce businesses

Connectly, the leader in conversational commerce, today announced its $7.85 million Series A investment led by Volpe Capital, with participation from RX Ventures and Saurabh Gupta, managing partner of DST Global. This brings the total amount the company has raised to $17.25 million. Founded by industry veterans from Facebook, Google, Uber, and NASA, and backed by Unusual Ventures, Connectly uses proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) models to automate how businesses communicate with their customers and sell their products. Already, Connectly’s personalized AI-generated marketing campaigns have generated upwards of 30x returns for its customers.

In our digital-first world, retaining consumers’ attention and mindshare is becoming more difficult by the day. Businesses need a simple way to have impactful conversations with customers while more effectively creating personalized, one-on-one relationships. They must deliver the right message to the right person at the right time - and on the right platform.

Connectly provides a simple plug-and-play solution for businesses to create winning messaging campaigns and automate two-way conversations - to both leads and loyal customers - at scale and across any messaging platform.

“This investment marks a critical milestone in Connectly’s journey,” said Stefanos Loukakos, co-founder and CEO, Connectly. “Not only does it provide us the opportunity to expand our platform and continue developing state-of-the-art AI models, but it also marks our entrance into the U.S. market. What’s more, this funding round will aid our expansion onto new messaging platforms and further our position as a leader in conversational AI. This is just the beginning of an exciting new chapter for us.”

At the heart of Connectly’s platform is Sofia AI, an AI sales assistant that connects seamlessly with businesses’ backend platforms. Sofia AI can:

• Tailor suggestions powered by AI, ensuring customers discover products they'll love.
• Engage and assist customers wherever they are - on Instagram, WhatsApp, SMS or webchat.
• Leverage those insights to gain a deeper understanding of your customers.

“We believe in the transformative power of artificial intelligence to enhance customer interactions. Connectly’s innovative approach to AI-powered conversational commerce truly sets them apart in the market,” said Gabriel Marcassa, Partner, Volpe Capital. “The impact reaped by its customers across diverse industries is as substantial as the market opportunity that lies ahead. We are thrilled to support Connectly as they expand their presence in Latin America and enter into new markets.”

“Connectly is uniquely poised to become a transformative force in retail and e-commerce industries around the world,” said Analu Partel, head of New Business at Lojas Renner, the largest fashion retailer in Brazil. “RX Ventures intimately understands what modern brands need to succeed today as consumer shopping behaviors evolve. Winning brands will be those that can meet customers where they are - and today that is increasingly on messaging platforms. Using Connectly, brands can have personalized, automated conversations that will dramatically reshape the fundamentals of commerce.”

Ad spending in retail media, paid search and paid social grew from Q2 to Q3, with every channel seeing its strongest spending month of 2023 during the third quarter, according to Skai's Quarterly Trends Report.

Today, Skai, a leading omnichannel platform for performance marketing, published its Q3 2023 Digital Marketing Quarterly Trends Report, an in-depth analysis of the digital marketing trends that defined the second quarter of this year, along with an interactive infographic detailing key analysis. Spending levels in 2023 have risen nearly every quarter in every channel of the analysis, driving year-over-year (YoY) spending higher in some cases.

Strong sequential spending growth across channels
Quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) spending grew 10% for retail media, 3% in paid search and 27% in paid social. Spending in Q3 also exceeded that of the first quarter of 2023 in each of these channels.

Increasing consumer demand and higher prices drive YTD growth
Since Q1, retail media CPC is up 14%, paid search CPC has increased 18% and paid social CPM rose 8%. These increases in ad prices are a key factor in understanding spending growth throughout 2023 and are likely to continue through the end of the year as the holiday season builds on increasing consumer confidence, competition between advertisers and relatively low prices in 2022.

Healthy overall outlook for ad spending
Year-over-year (YoY) spending accelerated from +3% to +5% in paid search, while retail media extended its run of robust growth rates at +34%. Short-term growth and increased spending in key segments reinforced the consensus opinion of a rebound in paid social advertising, even as YoY spending growth of -3% in the channel was a clear outlier to the overall market trend.

Social spending grows up the funnel
There is a clear split in our data between growth rates of social campaigns based on program objectives. Upper-funnel tactics like branding and awareness increased spending by 13%, and mid-funnel objectives like post engagement were up 12%. These segments are shown to be heavier users of video ads and Reels placements.

Other QoQ and YoY findings include:

"So far 2023 has been remarkably consistent in that advertisers are continuing to grow spending in the key walled garden publishers from month to month and from quarter to quarter. In Q3, it looks like the positive spending trends in retail media and paid search earlier in the year spilled fully into paid social," said Chris Costello, Senior Director of Marketing Research at Skai. "In particular, when we look at commerce advertising through a more omnichannel lens–which is to say one that is inclusive of relevant publishers beyond just retailers–social spending seems to have fully flipped the switch going into the second half and the holiday period once the growth in those other channels was fully recognized."

Brands are well equipped to close out the year and prepare for 2024, with technology advancements that connect them with the modern consumer across digital and social channels

Emplifi, a leading unified customer engagement platform, announced its Fall ‘23 product innovations for the holiday season and in advance of brands assessing commerce technology for the upcoming year. Enhancements include influencer marketing power workflows, advancements in user generated content, and ratings and reviews for social proof that enable brands to connect with, convert, and care for the modern consumer across digital and social channels.

“We continue to take bold strides to unify marketing, commerce, and care,” said Emplifi CTO Todd McCaslin. “We are excited to unveil our groundbreaking influencer power workflows and analytics, backed by Emplifi’s vast database of 35 million influencers. It's more than just offering tools – it is about reshaping the way brands connect with the modern consumer in this dynamic digital landscape.”

End-to-end influencer workflows

Emplifi Influencers is a marketing platform that provides control and insights over influencer marketing campaigns, from the discovery stage to performance analysis. Recent new features include:

• Leveraging Emplifi’s GDPR-compliant database of 35 million influencers to build brand awareness and reach the right audience. The CRM database for influencers helps to establish and maintain lasting relationships and value-driven partnerships.
• AI-powered influencer analysis to scale campaigns, better enabling brands to understand individual influencer performance.
• Integrated campaign management with influencer ranking, internal notes, and custom validation stages for faster approvals.
• Powerful reporting to measure engagement, clicks, and direct sales at every stage, as well as calculating ROI to double down on effective campaigns.

Unified and enterprise-grade UGC features

Robust user-generated content for commerce has long boasted more sources to increase engagement, drive eCommerce and allow brands to connect with greater authenticity.

Emplifi UGC connects a brand’s library of approved ready-to-use UGC content with AI Composer and Emplifi Publisher, which frees up time for teams to strategize and focus on campaigns. Uploader enhancements provide brands AI-powered suggestions from their product catalog, and on-site collections such as crowdsourced product tagging add flexibility and improve time-to-value.

“Creators are the new ‘publishers’ in your media plan,” said Kelsey Chickering, Forrester Senior Analyst. “Creator marketing is a discipline that requires a centralized strategy that connects with other owned, earned, and paid channels.”

“The creator economy is more important than ever for brands trying to stand out in a competitive marketplace, scale operations, and improve time-to-value,” adds McCaslin. “Emplifi’s tools help brands increase authenticity by leveraging the voice of their consumers. Our clients have seen a 4x increase in UGC engagement and a 19% increase in conversions. It's about genuine connections, amplified engagement, and tapping into a vast library of brand-ready user-generated content.”

Social Care expands advanced case routing is a game-changer for agents

Emplifi Care helps brands address customer concerns on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter). New product features improve agent efficiency and boost customer experience, including:

• Real-time notifications to keep agents and supervisors informed of impending SLA breaches, promoting proactive action and accountability.
• Streamlined permissioning and adaptive case assignments to leverage each team’s unique skills, workloads, and availability to enhance overall performance.
• Advanced automation and intelligent case routing that trigger multiple actions with a single click, or field updates to eliminate repetitive tasks.
• Agile sentiment adjustments based on case outcomes for more accurate customer support analysis.
• Enhanced CSAT integrated insights that improve service quality by leveraging real-time Emplifi Voice of the Customer data.

Seamless escalation between marketing and customer service teams

Marketing and customer service teams can work within one unified platform. This gives both teams visibility of the conversation, activity, and case status, while removing silos, improving service and reducing case handling times.

Marketing teams can escalate messages to the service team directly from Emplifi Community and Emplifi Care into Emplfi Agent.

Emplifi Agent is used by customer service teams that need complete case management, advanced workflow, and built-in fulfillment capabilities. Recent enhancements include:

• Simplified maintenance of key features, including the ability to tailor screen layouts based on the specific needs of the organization.
• Integration with enterprise identity management services via System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM).
• Improvements to reporting that “normalizes” customer feedback based on product/location history, allowing product quality and field service teams to identify and focus on top performers or potential resolution areas.
• Emplifi Knowledge, the foundation for knowledge management workflows with Emplifi Agent, has also been updated to display tailored responses without having to switch screens, change apps, or refer to binders. As well as live collaborative editing and internal commenting amongst teams, the new update includes version control for responses and proofreading across 27 languages.

“We made a commitment earlier this year for revolutionary advancements that give brands the necessary tools to engage with the modern consumer, and we’re proud of what we’ve delivered – particularly in time for when businesses will be assessing their commerce technology for the year ahead,” concludes McCaslin.

Banuba, a leading provider of computer vision and augmented reality technologies, has announced major improvements to its white label video editing solution. The updates include an updated user interface (UI) that is more convenient for users and developers who customize it, as well as streamlined integration of the video editor with other software.

“The new UI design features a modern look that is both intuitive and easy to use. It allows users to quickly and easily navigate through the various features and tools available in the video editor,” Anton Liskevich, Chief Product Officer and co-founder of Banuba said.

Developers and designers who customize the UI will appreciate the improved flexibility and ease of use, making it easier to adjust screens to the style and specific needs of their clients.

In addition to the new UI design, Banuba has also added a number of elements that streamline integration of the video editor with other software.

Banuba offers a white label video editing solution, as well as a video editing SDK or an API, depending on the customer needs. The API version is more flexible, sacrificing certain features and UI elements but allowing deeper customization. However, all three options let developers save time and money by getting a video editor as a ready-made package, instead of writing it all from scratch.

Banuba’s video editor is commonly used in:

• Dedicated photo/video editing apps
• Social media
• Marketing software
• eCommerce
• Educational apps
• Lifestyle apps
• etc.

It is compatible with native Android and iOS, as well as React Native and Flutter.

Overall, the new updates to Banuba's white label video editing solution represent a significant improvement in both functionality and usability. With its modern UI design and streamlined integration options, this video editing SDK or API is sure to be a valuable tool for developers and users alike.