A seasoned leader with over 25 years of experience scaling high-growth companies globally, Suzuki will accelerate Glassbox's position in leading AI-fueled customer intelligence

Glassbox, a leading provider of digital experience analytics for web and mobile applications, announces the appointment of Michelle Suzuki as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Suzuki boasts more than 25 years of experience scaling and transforming high-growth companies globally, bringing a wealth of expertise in data-centric growth marketing to her new role at Glassbox. 

With a focus on leveraging cutting-edge technology and advanced data analytics capabilities, Suzuki will drive new growth opportunities for Glassbox, mirroring the company’s mission to empower organizations to deliver superior digital customer experiences. Additionally, Suzuki will spearhead initiatives to continue bringing Autonomous CX solutions to the market. These solutions will empower organizations to streamline and automate customer interactions across various touchpoints, delivering seamless and personalized experiences at scale. Through Suzuki's strategic leadership, Glassbox is poised to emerge as a leader in AI-fueled customer intelligence, providing businesses with the data, tools and insights they need to stay ahead in today's competitive landscape.

"We are thrilled to welcome Michelle to the Glassbox team as our new Chief Marketing Officer," said Glassbox CEO Yaron Morgenstern. "Michelle's extensive experience in global strategic marketing, coupled with her passion for innovation and commitment to driving exceptional customer experiences, make her the ideal leader to spearhead our marketing efforts as we continue to grow and expand our footprint in the digital analytics space."

Most recently, Suzuki led marketing at Instructure, where she was instrumental in transforming international regions into rapid-growth SaaS businesses amidst a $2 billion private-equity acquisition in 2019. Suzuki has a proven track record of building scalable and agile international marketing teams, optimizing demand generation engines, and driving significant growth across sales development, customer marketing, paid channels, field marketing, and regional communications programs. Under her guidance, Instructure achieved a successful $3 billion IPO in 2021 and maintained impressive year-over-year revenue growth and profitability.

“It’s an exciting time to join the Glassbox team, as the company enables some of the smartest digital brands to boost their brand loyalty and revenue by delivering exceptional digital customer experiences,” said Michelle Suzuki, CMO at Glassbox. “With a groundbreaking data-driven strategy, Glassbox has mastered the art of transforming customer journey data into proactive decisions, harnessing the power of advanced AI and analytics to craft self-optimizing solutions. By optimizing web and app experiences and reducing pain points for digital leaders and product/UX teams, Glassbox is reshaping the future of customer experiences. I am thrilled to contribute to Glassbox's journey and explore new avenues for growth as we continue to pioneer AI-fueled solutions in the market.”

Beyond her professional achievements, Michelle is a passionate advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as equal access to quality education. She proudly served as the executive sponsor for Instructure's Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (DIB) and Corporate Social Responsibility committees, and she holds positions on several advisory boards, including the Utah state Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Digital Marketing & Analytics Advisory Committee for Mountainland Technical College.

Recognized with numerous awards for her contributions to the industry, Michelle has been named among the Top 15 Most Influential Women in B2B Marketing, Drift's Top 25 Women in B2B Marketing, and Utah Business Magazine's Sales & Marketer of the Year. Her dedication and leadership have also earned her accolades such as Marketer of the Year from the Utah Marketing Association.

PubMatic will Reach Instacart’s Purchase-Minded Audiences Through Integration for Agency and Advertising Partners’ CTV Campaigns

PubMatic, an independent technology company delivering digital advertising’s supply chain of the future, today announced a new partnership with Instacart to leverage its first-party, retail media data off of Instacart in a privacy-compliant, scalable, and effective programmatic advertising solution via PubMatic’s Convert. Mars will be one of the first brands to activate Instacart’s retail media data with PubMatic via deal ID for CTV and premium video campaigns to enhance their advertising ROI.

“Advertisers today are grappling with signal loss and looking for new ways to effectively target and measure their campaigns,” said Tim Castelli, Vice President of Global Advertising Sales at Instacart. “Brands realize that Instacart’s retail media data is a valuable, performant solution. CPGs can reach consumers directly at the point of purchase with Instacart Ads on our platform with trusted closed-loop measurement, in addition to leveraging our rich, first-party retail media data off-platform to power and enhance all of their other ad buys, like CTV and premium video.”

PubMatic will use Instacart’s retail media data in connection with curated inventory for approved advertisers. By leveraging a single, closed-loop data set, PubMatic will facilitate direct measurement of return on ad spend (ROAS) and sales impact on Instacart of these campaigns. Through PubMatic’s Activate, brands will be able to design, optimize and track campaigns based on specific marketing objectives such as increased awareness, consideration, and purchases.

“With digital platforms that offer shoppers delightful commerce experiences and advertisers valuable audience exposure, Instacart is a strategic retail partner for our clients,” said Jessica Brown, Managing Director, Digital Investment at GroupM. “We are excited to build upon our longstanding partnership with PubMatic as one of the first agencies to seamlessly activate dynamic audience segments across PubMatic’s premium inventory, so our advertisers optimize campaign impact in real-time.”

“We are excited to partner with PubMatic and Instacart to scale this valuable retail media data across our programmatic campaigns to optimize performance and drive ROI,” said Ron Amram, Senior Director, Global Media at Mars. “By tapping into Instacart’s retail media data across all digital channels, we can boost brand recognition and encourage more consumers to buy our products online or in-store.”

“PubMatic’s partnership with Instacart is the future of how commerce companies will build out audience extension capabilities. Instacart’s new flexible solution will not require new integrations through PubMatic’s privacy-compliant ecosystem,” said Hashim Mian, Vice President, Commerce Media at PubMatic. “We look forward to growing our relationship with Instacart by enabling them to tap into our premium global inventory to offer a scalable, off-site commerce media solution to their leading consumer packaged goods brand clients.”

PubMatic’s partnership with Instacart coincides with the company’s recent expansion of commerce media solutions. In 2023, PubMatic launched Convert, to empower commerce media networks with a single, self-service platform that streamlines the complex and fragmented commerce media marketplace. Convert now enables seamless audience extension, which, alongside sponsored product listing support and onsite monetization, unifies multiple high growth channels for a commerce media network. Commerce companies and advertisers can now leverage one platform to upload, share, execute, and measure onsite and offsite full-funnel campaigns in a secure and efficient way.

Brands Can Now Increase CX Automation with the Verint Open Platform Integrated with Webex Contact Center

Verint^®, The Customer Engagement Company^®, today announced its expanded partnership with Webex by Cisco through the integration of the Verint Open Platform’s unified data hub into the Webex App Hub for Webex Contact Center. 

Verint Open Platform is built around a unified data hub, which collects all of a brand’s behavioral data in a single repository to maximize the business value hidden in their behavioral data. Behavioral data consists of customer interactions, customer experiences (CX), and workforce data that are created across every touch point of the customer with the brand. For many brands, this behavioral data is typically locked up in numerous data silos, where it is hard to access or use for deriving critical business insights. The unified data hub can connect these disparate data silos so the data can then be easily accessed and leveraged to empower employees, supervisors and managers with insights and turn the organization into a highly efficient, data-driven operation.

"Secure and accurate real-time data is critical for organizations to measure how they are performing against customer expectations," said Jono Luk, vice president of product management, Webex by Cisco. "Verint’s Data Hub is now available as an integration with Webex Contact Center, where customers will be able to enhance customer engagement across every area of the business.”

The openness of the Verint Platform fits a brand’s enterprise ecosystem and enables them to adopt new innovations at their own pace based on business priorities. Verint Open Platform delivers the flexibility that drives ROI and future proofs technology investments.

“We’re excited to bring the power of CX automation to Webex App Hub to help brands unlock rich customer engagement data and drive strategic advantage. Our open platform built with artificial intelligence and data at the core is now interoperable and compatible with Webex,” says Verint’s John Bourne, senior vice president, global channels and alliances.

Leading creator management platform’s first-of-its-kind, data-backed solution will help brands reach their campaign goals and take influencer marketing to the next level

GRIN, the world’s leading creator management platform, today announced the launch of Activations Benchmarking, its data-driven tool that takes the guesswork out of evaluating influencer marketing performance. Powered by billions of data points from over a decade of GRIN’s customer performance history, Activations Benchmarking helps brands better understand which areas of their influencer marketing program to prioritize by surfacing key performance metrics, custom recommendations, and their progress against similar brands. This is not a one-size-fits-all tool. GRIN tailors each benchmark to a brand's unique needs by considering campaign length, desired goals, company size and more. 

Activations Benchmarking arrives as more brands embrace influencer marketing, but still have uncertainty around how to reach their campaign goals. In fact, 47% of social marketers say measuring the effectiveness of campaigns is one of their top influencer marketing challenges. In just the past 5 years alone, GRIN has pulled benchmarking data from over 84,000 activations spanning various industries and brand sizes, which have collectively generated 786 billion impressions, 12 million content assets and $847 million in conversion revenue. With this proprietary data as a roadmap, Activations Benchmarking gives brands real-time insight into how their campaign-specific goals are progressing and shares precisely what they need to focus on to move the needle.

“GRIN’s vision is to democratize influencer marketing expertise and support every customer, regardless of their size and program maturity, on their path to success,” said Brandon Brown, CEO at GRIN, whose customers include Uber, Macy’s and SKIMS. “Benchmarking is the first of many solutions aimed at providing data-backed recommendations to customers to help run their programs more effectively and efficiently.”

Notable features include:

• Recommended key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • Activations Benchmarking automatically provides brands with the most impactful KPIs so the next step toward reaching their overall goal is always crystal clear.
• Real-time performance/progress tracking:
  • Activations Benchmarking tracks campaign metrics in real-time, helping users pinpoint performance gaps and monitor progress toward big-picture goals.
• Brand comparisons:
  • Activations Benchmarking allows brands to monitor the effectiveness of their current strategy by comparing their progress to historical customer data from similar brands — ensuring they’re on the right track to outshine others in their segment.

The vast majority (93%) of consumers report concerns surrounding the security of their personal information online, despite an increase in data privacy regulations globally

Today Cassie, the leading consent and preference management platform serving Fortune 500 companies globally, unveiled Privacy Beyond Borders, a new report that surveyed consumers across the US, UK, EU, and CA about global user expectations and the impact regional privacy laws have on their digital experiences. Alarmingly, 92% of consumers believe that companies often prioritize profits over data protection - despite the rising need to adhere to privacy regulations.

In 2023, 137 out of 194 countries put legislation in place to secure the protection of data and privacy. Yet, according to Cassie's report, 65% of consumers do not believe data privacy regulations in their country adequately protect their personal data. To mitigate these concerns, consumers desire clear expectations of how their data will be used, and for companies to use encryption and secure data storage practices.

However, in today's digital world, the reality is that companies must consider consumer preferences when it comes to data privacy, as there are many regional variances. Notably, US consumers were 24% more likely than EU consumers to value the trustworthiness or reputation of a website. Meanwhile, EU consumers were 17% less likely than average to value the use of encryption and secure data storage practices. UK consumers are reportedly 53% more likely than US consumers to believe that their country's data privacy regulations adequately protect their personal data. They are also 34% more likely than US consumers to feel more comfortable interacting with a website that showcases its compliance with data privacy regulations.

"The regional disparities in consumer attitudes towards online security and data privacy highlight the difficult environment that businesses must steer through in a globalized digital economy," said Nicky Watson, co-founder and chief architect of Cassie. "Understanding and addressing these global variances is crucial to success. Particularly as consumers become increasingly proactive in protecting their online privacy, companies must adopt transparent and secure data practices – lest they risk losing consumer trust and business opportunities."

Additional key findings from Cassie's Privacy Beyond Borders Report include:

Who should be in charge of data privacy
While 94% of consumers agree that companies should adhere to the strictest data privacy regulations globally, regardless of the country in which they operate, opinions on whose job it is to ensure they do so varies by region. US consumers were 55% more likely than EU consumers to believe data privacy should rest in the hands of companies. Meanwhile, European respondents were 83% more likely than US respondents to believe data privacy should rest in the hands of consumers.

Cookie consent and online behavior
Cookie banners are meant to protect and enforce users' data privacy preferences - but consumer reactions to them vary. According to the report, European respondents are 160% more likely than US respondents to never read a cookie consent popup before clicking a response. However, consent fatigue is a universal sentiment as 73% of consumers globally report feeling overwhelmed by the number of consent requests when using online services.

Concerns about data security
An overwhelming majority (93%) of consumers expressed they are concerned about the security of their personal information online. This is no surprise, considering half of consumers that have consented without considering the consequences reported their personal information has been leaked in a data breach. What's more, only 1 in 10 consumers consider themselves to be "very informed" when it comes to data privacy, leading 53% of consumers to abandon an online transaction due to concerns about a company's data security in the past 12 months.

eShare, a trailblazer in redefining how enterprises share and collaborate externally, is delighted to announce the appointment of Niki Sotiropoulou as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With an extensive career of over twenty years in marketing, Niki brings invaluable expertise in B2B and B2C marketing strategies to eShare, marking a significant addition to the leadership team.

Before joining eShare, Niki served as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at viva.com, a pioneering Tech Bank renowned for being the first Greek Unicorn. In this role, Niki was instrumental in laying the foundations and operational frameworks for a pan-European marketing team, spanning across 24 countries. Niki's strategic vision and hands-on approach enabled the marketing team at viva.com to function cohesively, driving unified marketing strategies that resonated across different regions.

Niki’s role at eShare will involve steering the marketing strategy, amplifying brand presence, and boosting customer engagement across various platforms.

Nick Stamos, Founder & CEO of eShare expressed enthusiasm about Niki's joining, stating, "Niki's comprehensive experience and her track record of spearheading successful marketing initiatives make her the ideal candidate to lead our marketing efforts. Her visionary leadership and strategic marketing approach are precisely what eShare needs to reach our ambitious objectives."

Niki shared her excitement about her new role, "I am thrilled to join eShare and collaborate with the talented team here. eShare's commitment to innovation and excellence aligns with my professional values, and I am eager to contribute to its triumph."

Niki's appointment underscores eShare's commitment to accelerating its expansion and consolidating its status as a leader in the SaaS sector, specifically in secure and compliant external data sharing and collaboration. Under her guidance, eShare is set to scale new heights in marketing excellence and customer satisfaction.

Six months after the announced closure of Puny Human in October 2023, its former Chief Executive Officer and Studio Manager has taken a new position. Mike Sanders, the former CEO of Puny Human, which closed its doors after 16 years, has been appointed the Chief Development Officer of Carbonated.

Carbonated is a mobile game developer led by former veterans of Zynga, Electronic Arts, and Blizzard. The studio raised $8.5 million for its mobile squad-based shooter in 2020 and another $11 million in March of this year. The developer is creating MadWorld, a post-apocalyptic third-person multiplayer shooter featuring AI squadmates and territory control.

In October 2023, Puny Human announced that it would close its doors before the end of the year, assisting in new roles for employees at other companies. The studio developed three original titles before 2015, including Blade Symphony, the third-person sword fighter. Later, Puny Human assisted or co-developed titles like The Bard’s Tale IV, Wasteland 3, Trover Saves the Universe, and The Callisto Protocol.

Mike Sanders took his first position in the games industry in 2006, at Epic Games, where he worked on the first Gears of War title, and later, he worked at Ubisoft RedStorm on numerous titles, including Far Cry 2 and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. Subsequently, Sanders established Puny Human with a team that had been creating game modifications, where he served as both engineer and producer on numerous titles.

"In 2023, I had the fortunate opportunity to meet and work with Mike on the O3DE engine project. It quickly became apparent that Mike is not just deeply knowledgeable about the gaming industry and passionate about the creative process, but crucially, he possesses a rare ability to successfully deliver," said Travis Boatman, CEO of Carbonated. "Mike is an exceptional leader and a seasoned professional in the gaming world. We are thrilled to welcome him to the leadership team here at Carbonated."

Travis Boatman founded Carbonated in 2015 after leaving Zynga, where he was the SVP of Mobile, to build high-fidelity live-service games, starting with MadWorld. Recently, the Linux Foundation announced that Carbonated, as an active member of the Open 3D Foundation, is developing the first mobile title for the Open 3D Engine (O3DE).

“Mike Sanders has helped Carbonated push the boundaries for O3DE, offering advice, suggestions, and valuable improvements along the way,” says Joe Bryant, newly appointed Executive Director of the Open 3D Foundation, “We are grateful to have contributors like Mike and his team working with O3DE.”

After recently increasing its presence on social media channels, Carbonated is expected to release a cinematic story trailer for MadWorld in Q2 of this year.

AutoLeap stands out as an industry leader for the auto repair industry after collecting five new awards in G2’s Spring 2024 Report.

AutoLeap, cloud-based auto repair management software, earned G2 badges across various software leader and relationship categories. Those badges include:

• Momentum Leader
• Best Relationship - Small Business
• Best Relationship
• Leader - Small Business
• Leader

This is far from AutoLeap’s first G2 recognition. The award-winning shop management software earned forty nine badges across several categories in G2’s earlier reports.

G2 scores products and vendors based on reviews gathered from our user community and data aggregated from online sources and social networks.