Data Ready for CDPs simplifies the process of collecting, cleansing, organizing, and transforming data into the structured format that CDPs often require, enabling data and marketing teams to import clean data into their CDPs more quickly and with less effort.

Syntasa, a leading provider of composable martech solutions, today launched a new capability for companies interested in CDPs that allows them to leverage the ‘Data Ready for CDPs’ solution within their private cloud to bring in relevant customer data for leveraging within their chosen CDP.

As companies are expanding their horizons to omni-channel understanding of customer journeys and experiences, they are increasingly looking at CDPs (Customer Data Platform) to enhance their marketing and customer engagement efforts. As privacy regulations become more stringent, companies are increasingly relying on zero and first party data to power their CDP program. However, collecting this zero and first party data from internal systems, cleansing and transforming it to power CDPs reliably has proven to be a challenge for marketing teams.

Marketing teams on their CDP journey are discovering that normal CDP programs routinely take 6-12 months just to launch the MVP. This is a major challenge for businesses because it means that they have to wait a long time to start getting the benefits of a CDP. Additionally, companies are still doing data preparation for CDPs manually, which is a labor-intensive and error-prone process. This increases time and cost for every new data point that needs to be integrated with a CDP. Lastly, customer data is usually scattered around different systems, is normally unclean and requires healthy collaboration between various teams to make it actionable. This makes it difficult to integrate data from different sources into a CDP.

Syntasa’s core platform runs within our customer’s own Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), giving them the ability to work directly against raw data to cleanse and transform their data using low-code to full-code transformations. Ultimately, out of all the data available, the marketing team can easily select data through the UI to connect to the CDP of their choice – all without needing support from a member of the technical team. In addition to providing such a collaborative environment where both data teams and marketing teams can work jointly, the solution also adds data observability components monitoring every field of data being sent to the CDP – making it easy to identify data issues immediately instead of finding them out weeks after it impacts business KPIs.

“In the past couple of years, I have witnessed companies going about their CDP journey and facing a number of challenges along the way. Being a data person, I want to make data work for our customers. Today, I am thrilled to unveil Data Ready for CDPs that directly addresses a key pain point around ready to use customer data for activation via a CDP,” said Charmee Patel, VP of Customer Data Solutions at Syntasa. "Our mission is to empower organizations to harness the power of data seamlessly, while drastically reducing time-to-value and operational costs. With Syntasa, the future of CDP implementation is here."

"Today's Customer Data Platform projects often struggle against the under-reported challenge of the 'garbage in, garbage out' scenario, leaving little room for post-input corrections. The time-intensive process of coordinating data requests for scaling CDP projects is a notable challenge. Establishing a Data Ready Zone, enabling seamless collaboration between data and marketing teams to address data quality issues, holds immense potential for enhancing CDP operations." - Nick Takashima, Reply Group [CDP Lead Consultant]

New integration offers brands unmatched control, accuracy, and efficiency for local social advertising campaigns.

Tiger Pistol, the most advanced collaborative advertising platform, announced its partnership with Yext, a leading digital experience platform, to empower users to build digital experiences across any channel and centrally manage local listings data. This integration not only reinforces Tiger Pistol's commitment to choosing best-in-class partners but also offers brands a key to unlocking unprecedented capabilities for local social advertising.

With the integration, clients can bring their own data to supercharge their social advertising programs, leveraging it to its fullest potential, by seamlessly integrating their Yext listings data to automatically onboard and connect local partner Facebook Business Pages, as well as dynamically group, target, and customize ad creative at scale. While there has been a partnership between the companies for more than five years, enhancements to our integration means that companies can harness and leverage local listings data with a new layer of granularity, personalization, and consistent accuracy. This solves one of the most frustrating challenges in the industry. 

"This collaboration is more than intertwining technologies; it's a representation of Tiger Pistol's philosophy," said Sarah Cucchiara, Vice President of Business Development at Tiger Pistol. "We believe in aligning with best-in-class companies like Yext, enabling our clients to unlock the full potential of their MarTech stack and set the gold standard in local social advertising."

The Yext integration with Tiger Pistol represents a nexus of precision and innovation. By weaving together Yext's trusted listings data with the power of Tiger Pistol's social advertising automation, clients can be assured that every campaign is anchored in unparalleled location accuracy. This alignment also paves the way for peak efficiency. Brands can now roll out locally optimized campaigns in mere minutes, fully harnessing the investment in enriched Yext location data within the Tiger Pistol ecosystem. Location store hours and addresses automatically localize ad copy, providing consumers with clear and immediate information. This transparency is further enhanced by our integrated synchronization, which ensures that no ad inadvertently promotes a closed location. Every crucial field is updated across Tiger Pistol's platform. This ensures social ads are launched with the most up-to-date information.

But the Tiger Pistol and Yext partnership is not just about providing information; it's about driving actionable results. Each advertisement is thoughtfully designed with a compelling call-to-action, seamlessly guiding consumers directly to the closest partner location, ultimately driving sales and fostering stronger brand-consumer relationships.

"At the core of our integration with Yext is the concept of data empowerment," said Cucchiara. "Brands are no longer passive consumers of static datasets; instead, they can actively harness their unique data, introducing a depth of personalization and relevance to their advertising campaigns that speak directly to local audiences."

Discover the benefits of our Yext integration and explore how best-in-class platforms like Tiger Pistol can elevate your local social advertising, then download our comprehensive guide, "The Missing Piece in All-In-One Local Marketing Solutions: How a Simple Integration Can Amplify Your Investment, Build Partner Loyalty, and Drive Consumer Action."

The number of weekly brand-creator campaigns has grown 300% in the first month

LTK, the platform that powers Creator Commerce™, today unveiled LTK Marketplace - the company’s latest innovative solution built to empower creators and brands to easily connect and collaborate on brand partnership opportunities. LTK Marketplace is an expansion of the company’s influencer marketing platform; brands have already invested more than $2.5B in influencer marketing through the LTK platform. Early results of LTK Marketplace are remarkable with the number of weekly brand-creator campaigns growing 300% in the first month.

LTK Marketplace is changing the way business is done in the influencer industry. The intuitive new platform fosters direct connection between brands and creators, empowering creators to pitch brands to collaborate on their upcoming campaigns. LTK’s expanded marketplace takes the previous slower and traditionally one-sided model and flips it on its head by expanding to a two-way, brand-to-creator connection.

“For the last decade, Influencer marketing has been like a dating app where only one side gets to pick who they want to date. Now, vetted, professional creators get to pitch the brands they love to participate in their upcoming campaigns and this dynamic is industry changing,” said Amber Venz Box, President and Co-Founder of LTK, and a legacy creator herself.

In the first month of beta testing, more than 15,000 proposals were sent by creators. Early feedback and results are remarkable; the number of weekly brand-creator campaigns has tripled. Brands like Caden Lane, Design Within Reach and LouLou Baker have already engaged with creators on campaigns through the new marketplace.

Brands can post their campaign request and receive templated pitches from premium, professional creators with the ability to accept proposals in just one click, accelerating the time to market for campaigns. And, LTK Creators now have the ability to increase their earning opportunities and visibility among more brands they’re eager to work with through LTK Marketplace.

Leading Sports Podcast Network Joins Forces with Cutting-Edge Ad-Tech Platform Specializing in Precise Brand Safety & Targeting Solutions

Premier sports podcast network Blue Wire and Sounder, the AI-powered audio intelligence platform, today announced they have partnered to provide Blue Wire's advertisers with access to Sounder's brand safety, suitability, and precision ad targeting tools across its entire catalog.

Sounder's cutting-edge technology will enhance brand safety and ensure suitability and precision in ad targeting, creating a win-win scenario for both content creators and advertisers. With this partnership, Blue Wire is poised to strengthen its position as the go-to destination for top-tier sports content while delivering a more personalized and engaging podcast experience for its listeners. This strategic alliance underscores Blue Wire's commitment to innovation and excellence in the sports podcasting arena.

"We are excited to partner with Sounder to provide our network with access to the best precision targeting and podcast analytics tools available," said Blue Wire CEO and Founder Kevin Jones. "Sounder's insights will boost tailored monetization opportunities across Blue Wire's network to align with relevant and suitable inventory in the ultimate win-win for our content creators and advertisers."

"We are thrilled to partner with Blue Wire," said Sounder's Vice President of Sales and Client Success, Brittany Hall. "Blue Wire's podcast advertising operations will scale with our AI-powered targeting tools, driving trust at scale for advertisers."

The partnership between Blue Wire and Sounder is a podcasting game-changer, creating new opportunities for advertisers to reach relevant content. Podcast fans can look forward to a new era of richer, more diverse listening experiences.

Innovative solutions and AI capabilities launched at Sitecore DX Minneapolis 2023

Sitecore®, a global leader in end-to-end digital experience software, today announced new offerings as part of its robust, cloud-based digital experience platform. The new solutions, XM Cloud Plus and Sitecore Accelerate, are designed to help brands speed up and simplify their move to the cloud by making it easier than ever before to embark on the journey to SaaS and leverage solutions with robust enterprise capabilities.

The evidence is clear that cloud-based solutions deliver faster integrations, regular technology updates with little downtime and – ultimately - more engaging customer experiences. Yet, there remains a perception that making the switch involves too much hassle, challenge, and complexity. XM Cloud Plus and Sitecore Accelerate are specifically designed to help remove these obstacles by providing the knowledge, tools and support needed to make it easier to migrate to Sitecore's leading cloud-based composable offerings.

Introducing XM Cloud Plus
In 2022, Sitecore launched XM Cloud, the industry's first fully-native cloud CMS solution, and it quickly became the company's fastest-selling SaaS product with over 100 major brand adoptions. Today, Sitecore is expanding the capabilities of XM Cloud, with the launch of XM Cloud Plus, an extended digital-experience solution that brings together content management, AI-powered search, personalization, customer data management and analytics.

XM Cloud Plus is designed to answer the needs of Sitecore XP customers who have enjoyed a powerful solution in a single product and are ready to make their transition to the cloud, and for brands that want to leverage a composable technology stack but use a proven product combination to simplify deployment and accelerate time to value.

"XM Cloud marked a significant moment in Sitecore's journey when we launched it a year ago. Our first-to-market experience offering a cloud-based composable solution resulted in rapid adoption and was the culmination of three years of development with extensive customer input," said Steve Tzikakis, CEO of Sitecore.

"Today, we expand the XM Cloud offering with XM Cloud Plus, bringing together a proven set of products that gives brands broader capabilities to offer an unrivalled customer experience, while simplifying and accelerating their move to the cloud, and delivering a powerful solution for the thousands of Sitecore XP customers that want additional enterprise capabilities."

Key features of XM Cloud Plus include:

• Content Creation and Management: User-friendly tools that allow teams to efficiently produce, optimize, and deliver captivating content to the right audience at the right time.
• AI-Powered Search and Content Recommendations: Includes dynamic personalization and targeting strategies, offering omnichannel personalization, intelligent search recommendations, and access to an extensive array of personalization development tools.
• Omnichannel Content Center: Teams can now efficiently manage all digital customer touchpoints from a single, unified content repository that ensures brand consistency and streamlined workflows.
• Seamless Integrations and Connectivity: XM Cloud Plus can be easily implemented within an existing tech stack to create connected, immersive customer experiences across all channels.
• Intuitive Form Builder: Our drag and drop form builder for XM Cloud and XM Cloud Plus, provides customers with an easy way to add data capture forms to their pages and components.

Sitecore Accelerate: Helping Brands Move to the Cloud
Companies often retain on-premises solutions due to the perceived difficulty of moving to the cloud. To address this, Sitecore has launched Sitecore Accelerate, a dedicated program to guide Sitecore XM and Sitecore XP customers to either XM Cloud or XM Cloud Plus and XC customers to OrderCloud. Sitecore Accelerate gives teams the knowledge, resources, tools, and human support needed to unlock the full potential of a SaaS-based future.

"We are at an inflection point where mature cloud technology is combining with AI computing to empower brands like never before," added Tzikakis. "To leverage this opportunity, brands need guidance, reassurance and actual step-by-step, proven assistance from knowledgeable peers and partners to make their DXP stack operate to full capacity and capability."

"By giving brands the support they need with Sitecore Accelerate, they can tap into the full power of Sitecore's solutions simply and easily. It is such a critical moment for online experiences, and we want to be the partner brands turn to when they want to build a better proposition."

Generative AI comes to the Composable DXP 
At DX Minneapolis 2023, new Generative AI features were announced that enhance content creation, management, and delivery of digital experiences. Brand marketers can:

• Generate text and images in Content Hub One that are consistently on-brand to achieve a new level of hyper-personalization for customer-facing content
• Author and edit brand content in Content Hub DAM (Digital Asset Management) to ensure it aligns with content models and brand consistency
• Deploy advanced Search that understands user intent to answer queries faster
• Leverage Visual Search from Content Hub to easily discover content and incorporate images into brand assets via similar image suggestions

"Sitecore introduced native machine learning features across our platform and composable DXP in 2019. With our ongoing focus on R&D, we are excited to bring the next level of AI to our customers. These additions accelerate the speed at which brands build content and experiences with Sitecore solutions, open new ways to empower marketing and heighten the level of insight brands get from their data," said Dave O'Flanagan, chief product officer, Sitecore.

"This is only the first step to embed AI deep into our SaaS DXP so our customers can continue to build better experiences for their customers. We are actively working on new ways to improve marketer workflows through automatic improvements and further down the line AI will be able to optimize the digital experience with limited manual oversight."

Leveraged By the World’s Leading Tech and Financial Services Companies; Yahoo To Remain Largest Customer and Investor

Today, Yahoo announced the spin-out of Vespa, its platform for applications that leverage AI and data online at scale, as a separate and independent entity to broaden accessibility of its technology platform. As part of Yahoo, external customers such as Spotify, Wix, major financial institutions, and more, have turned to Vespa since 2017 for a variety of AI needs – from searching millions of documents within a global organization, serving better data-driven online ads, or allowing AI-based language apps the ability to scale.

Vespa will continue powering Yahoo’s internal solutions across search and dynamic recommendations as well as enabling personalized content and ads to users. As part of the spin-out, Yahoo will continue to invest in Vespa and remain its largest customer.

"Vespa has been a critical component to Yahoo’s AI and machine learning capabilities across all of our properties for many years,” said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo. “While remaining Vespa’s biggest customer and a key investor, we’ll continue to leverage all that Vespa has to offer while simultaneously creating a new business opportunity that allows other companies to harness its technology as an independent entity.”

Vespa's technology currently underpins an impressive and diverse portfolio of approximately 150 applications that are integral to the company’s operations. These applications play a pivotal role in delivering personalized content across all of Yahoo’s pages in real-time and effectively managing targeted advertisements within one of the world's largest ad exchanges. Collectively, these applications serve an impressive user base of nearly one billion individuals processing a staggering 800,000 queries per second.

“Given Yahoo’s incubation and advancement of the technology over the years, now is the time to spin out Vespa and allow other companies to take advantage of Vespa Cloud in a meaningful way,” said Jon Bratseth, CEO at Vespa. “With Yahoo’s continued investment and support, Vespa will be able to maintain its position as one of the largest and most sophisticated machine learning and database management platforms globally.”

The combination of NICE’s industry-leading platform CXone, with LiveVox’s widely adopted proactive outreach portfolio creates a unique way for organizations to deploy conversational AI across all types of engagements on a unified platform

NICE and LiveVox today announced that NICE has entered a definitive agreement to acquire LiveVox, a leading AI-driven proactive outreach provider. NICE’s industry-leading platform CXone, with its advanced digital engagement capabilities, and Enlighten, the industry’s only AI purpose-built for CX, combined with LiveVox’s sophisticated and rich proactive outreach portfolio creates the only truly unified platform converging all interactions, voice and digital, attended and unattended, inbound and outbound. Together, NICE and LiveVox will help organizations accelerate their CX operations into the digital era with smart conversational AI at scale.

Joining forces, NICE and LiveVox will help enterprises around the globe to create proactive, personalized experiences for their end customers, meeting them on their preferred channel using a method that is right for them, mastering CX in the Digital and AI era with:

- an interaction-centric cloud platform,
- convergence of knowledge, data, channels and CX capabilities,
- purpose-built AI that fuses people, technology and processes.

NICE is recognized as a global market leader in CX with the most robust AI-driven cloud platform for managing customer interactions of all types, digital and voice, agent-assisted and consumer-led. NICE CXone has the largest array of native applications to manage customer journeys, improve employee engagement and drive complete performance. Moreover, CXone provides the most comprehensive embedded AI with Enlighten encompassing hundreds of CX-specific models that enable holistic and fluent consumer experiences.

LiveVox has over two decades of CX domain-specific expertise and leading capabilities in AI-driven proactive outreach serving some of the world’s largest enterprises. LiveVox has a diverse and loyal customer base comprising hundreds of enterprises of all sizes. NICE’s acquisition of LiveVox also builds upon both companies' domain expertise and incredibly talented teams. The acquisition will unite two CX leaders with supplementary technologies, deep domain expertise and a shared passion for innovation.

Barak Eilam, CEO, NICE, said, “Today, we are taking another major step in making smart conversational AI a reality. The era of Digital Engagement is already here and we are excited to enable organizations to propel their Digital Engagement and Conversational AI forward. In joining forces with LiveVox we now have the strongest and broadest proactive outreach portfolio. NICE has a remarkable track record in augmenting its leading innovation with complementary acquisitions. I am excited about this acquisition, and I am positive that together with the experienced and talented LiveVox team we will create an outstanding incremental value to our customers and shareholders.”

John DiLullo, CEO, LiveVox, said, “This is great news for our customers, employees, and shareholders. NICE is an amazing organization and its breadth, reach and commitment to continuous innovation promise to amplify our growth and the capabilities of the complementary solutions we can bring to market together. Today’s announcement marks the beginning of a thrilling new chapter for LiveVox, and we are excited to embark on this journey alongside a prominent global leader in Customer Experience platforms and trusted AI solutions.”

The full integration of the most advanced generative AI technology available today, ChannelGPT reinvents channel sales & marketing enablement for vendors and partners

StructuredWeb, a provider of the leading enterprise through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) platform, today announced the launch of ChannelGPT, a new generative AI tool seamlessly integrated into the company’s TCMA platform designed to revolutionize the way vendors and partners create, customize and distribute channel marketing content. This first-to-market solution for channel marketers enables vendors to engage their complex partner ecosystems in a completely ground-breaking way.

"While this is not the first time StructuredWeb has transformed the TCMA industry, but the introduction of ChannelGPT may be the most consequential. The AI-driven channel marketing engine transforms the way vendors engage with their partner ecosystems through the creation, management, and distribution of tailored marketing assets," said Daniel Nissan, founder & CEO of StructuredWeb. "By leveraging the latest generative AI technology, we are empowering vendors and their channel partners to work smarter together - enabling larger organizations to streamline channel marketing initiatives, while upleveling capabilities for vendors of all sizes.”

ChannelGPT allows vendors to simply upload their general sales, marketing and product content, which the system learns and uses to generate a wide array of marketing assets for their partners. Partners can then log in, input their unique business value propositions and requirements, and receive bespoke marketing assets that perfectly align with their marketing and go-to-market needs. The platform is capable of generating diverse content formats, such as press releases, blog posts, website copy, emails, social posts, positioning letters, banner ads, and even customized sales & video scripts.

"As content becomes easier, faster, and cheaper to create, the quantity of content will grow exponentially in an already noisy and cluttered environment," said Jay McBain, chief analyst for Canalys. "Customers will be further drawn to trusted sources and companies who leverage their partner ecosystem to deliver personalized, localized, and consistent value will be the winners."

The introduction of ChannelGPT represents a paradigm shift in the channel marketing landscape. By harnessing the power of advanced generative AI technology, StructuredWeb enables vendors and their channel partners to overcome numerous challenges, enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing efforts with the following capabilities.

• Tailored content for partners: Generates customized marketing assets (i.e., emails, videos, social posts, press releases and more) for each partner, considering their unique value propositions and target markets, ensuring higher engagement and relevance.
• Time and cost savings: ChannelGPT eliminates the need to create certain assets and focuses on training content to the system - Automating the entire content creating process, which allows for significant time and cost savings.
• Consistent messaging and branding: Helps maintain consistent messaging and branding across all content created for partners, ensuring a cohesive and professional brand image.
• Scalability: Allows vendors to efficiently create marketing materials for a large number of partners, ensuring that each partner receives customized content that meets their specific needs.
• Enhanced messaging and differentiation: Enables partners to more effectively communicate their unique value proposition and the benefits of their vendor's products, helping them stand out from the competition.

“The biggest challenge vendors have is channelizing their content for a partner’s (and ultimately their buyers’) specialized and segmented needs,” said Steven Kellam, chief revenue officer at StructuredWeb. “What this allows partners and vendors to do is automate the hyper-personalization of all channel marketing assets on a granular level to connect and resonate with their buyers more effectively.”