Closed ecosystems benefit; smaller publishers face daunting, costly challenges

Today IAB released its annual report, "State of Data 2024: How the Digital Ad Industry is Adapting to the Privacy-by-Design Ecosystem." 

The study, conducted by IAB in partnership with BWG Strategy, surveyed over 500 advertising and data experts at brands, agencies, and publishers. It reveals the substantial operational and financial adjustments being undertaken by the digital ecosystem as it moves towards a privacy-by-design architecture.

"The meaningful investments being made are proof positive of the industry's commitment to a privacy-first orientation," said David Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, IAB. "Executives are taking notice and funding the right initiatives for the next stage of industry growth."

Key findings from the study include:

Nearly all (95%) advertising and data decision-makers at brands, agencies, and publishers expect continued signal loss and/or privacy legislation in 2024 and beyond.
The industry is investing in hiring new Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), updating training for their staff, creating dedicated teams, expanding their legal expertise, leveraging new technologies, and increasing first-party data efforts.

Additionally, 82% of the respondents said the makeup and structure of their organizations have been impacted by legislation and signal loss. Nearly 80% are training or planning to train their staff directly in data/privacy-related topics, while half of companies are creating or planning to create dedicated teams/departments (49%) and hiring or planning to hire external SMEs (48%).

Respondents believe the new paradigm will challenge targeting, personalization, and measurement. 
More than half expect it to be harder to track conversions overall (55%), post-view conversions (52%), attribute campaign/channel performance (55%), measure ROI (55%), make optimizations (50%), and measure frequency (50%) and reach (47%). Nearly nine-in-ten ad buyers report shifts in personalization tactics, ad spend, and their mix of first, second, and third-party data. Over three-in-four cite selection changes in media channels and KPIs, along with more seller-direct deals.

To improve data quality, brands, agencies, and publishers are turning to first-party data and data-enrichment tools. 
The study found that 71% of brands, agencies, and publishers are currently or planning to grow their first-party datasets, nearly twice the rate of just two years ago (41%).

"To tackle data quality challenges, it's crucial for brands, agencies, and publishers to continue to adopt innovative analytical methods including Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and media mix modeling that are less dependent on tracking signals and third-party cookies," said Angelina Eng, VP Measurement, Addressability & Data Center, IAB.

The shift to privacy-by-design is transforming media planning and buying.
Ad spend that taps first-party data and engages audiences at scale are being prioritized. Nearly nine-in-ten ad buyers report a shift in message personalization strategies (89%), ad investment costs (87%), and over three-in-four cite selection changes in media channels (81%) and KPIs (79%), along with more seller-direct deals.

Ad buyers are shifting budgets to Connected TV, retail media, search, and social networks which rely less on cookies, provide access to valuable first-party data and precise targeting, and contain embedded measurement.

Overhauling and reinventing data processes is a costly sea change that will hurt small and medium-sized publishers and favor giants.
Large companies are investing more in identity anonymization training (79%) than small companies (64%). They are also investing more in training in privacy-preserving technologies (62%) — which can cost over $2 million annually — than small companies (44%).

Signal loss is already pushing advertising budgets toward closed ecosystems at a moment when independent publishers can least afford to lose revenue. 

"The industry's embrace of privacy-by-design is the right thing for the industry and consumers alike," Eng continued. "But if small independent publishers aren't protected, the vibrant, independent open web that consumers love is at serious risk."

The appointment of its first CMO marks a significant milestone for the company as it continues to expand its reach for the benefit of its enterprise clients 

Terakeet, the preferred performance marketing and technology company for Fortune 500 brands, announced the appointment of David Minifie as the company's first chief marketing officer (CMO). Bringing his extensive experience working with some of the world's largest companies, Minifie epitomizes Terakeet's commitment to elevating its brand presence and driving innovative marketing solutions for its enterprise clients.

As CMO, Minifie will play a pivotal role in shaping and executing the company's global marketing strategies. Leading a team of 10, he will be responsible for fostering brand awareness, expanding market reach, and further solidifying Terakeet's position as an industry leader and innovator.

"We are thrilled to welcome David to our leadership team as Terakeet's first chief marketing officer," said Mark Kennedy, Terakeet President. "With a history as an advisor to our organization, Dave has played a key role in strengthening our brand position. Dave's experience advising Fortune 50 brands, combined with his deep understanding of Terakeet, will allow him to quickly step in and support our mission of delivering exceptional value to our clients, stakeholders, and the communities we serve."

A former U.S. Marine and Naval Academy graduate, Dave spent more than a dozen years at Procter & Gamble learning the art and science of brand building. He also served as the chief experience officer of Centene, the largest Medicaid managed care organization in the United States. Most recently, he served as an advisor to enterprise brands looking to drive long-term growth potential by articulating and aligning organizational beliefs with business and brand strategies.

"I am honored to officially join the leadership team at Terakeet," said David Minifie, CMO, Terakeet. "I have had the opportunity to work with Terakeet for more than two years as an outside advisor. During that time, I witnessed the company's exceptional growth and dedication to creating innovative marketing technology solutions for their clients. I am proud to serve as the company's first CMO, and I look forward to supporting Terakeet's growth, evolution, and industry leadership in the months and years to come."

In addition to Minifie's appointment, the company revealed its strategic growth initiative, which includes strengthening its leadership team, continuing to advance its technology, and expanding its nationwide job recruitment efforts to deliver solutions for Fortune 500 brands looking to drive more meaningful consumer connections and increase ROI.

Sprout Social, Inc., an industry-leading provider of cloud-based social media management software, today announced the appointment of Crystal Boysen to chief people officer (CPO), effective March 25, 2024. As CPO, Boysen will oversee Sprout’s global people function and have an essential role in building and elevating Sprout’s world-class team.

Boysen brings more than 15 years of deep, cross-functional HR experience. Prior to Sprout, Boysen was the CPO at Vimeo where she was responsible for driving a people-first organization and culture, and attracting, engaging and retaining talent globally as the company scaled. Boysen also previously held the role of Global Head of People at Canva where she oversaw a people team of 140 and drove the people strategy to enable Canva’s hyper-growth. Under her leadership, Canva scaled from 500 to 2,500 employees while growing from $200 million to $750 million in annual recurring revenue, and was recognized as one of Australia’s Greatest Places to Work.

"The dedication and intentional focus Sprout has put on developing their people to reach their highest potential is inspiring, and I am energized by the opportunity to fuel innovation and growth with an exceptional team,” said Boysen. “Together, we'll foster a high-performance culture where everyone thrives and teams not only excel professionally, but find fulfillment in their work.”

“Crystal has the perfect combination of experience, passion, humanity and high standards that we look for in our leaders—with a deep understanding and thoughtful perspective on what it takes to build and elevate an engaged, inclusive culture and world-class team,” said Justyn Howard, CEO of Sprout Social. “Our team is critical to the success of our business and customers, and creating a workplace where they continue to be empowered to do their best work will be a key priority for Crystal and the People team.”

New offering brings together Brevo’s Marketing, Conversations, and Customer Data Platforms, providing a cohesive experience for customers

Brevo, a leading provider of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, announced the launch of Brevo Commerce Suite, a new solution that provides retailers and e-commerce companies with a 360-degree view of their customer data, empowering them to easily retain and engage customers with personalized, multi-channel communications. With 30 percent of its existing customers in the retail and e-commerce industries, Brevo Commerce Suite will accelerate the company’s position in the global e-commerce market, which is projected to be worth $8 trillion by 2027.

Tackling the Industry’s Most Complex Issues
Consumer demand for better customer experience continues to grow in line with the rapid growth of the global e-commerce market. However, providing an ideal customer experience has become increasingly complicated for merchants who have both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar locations, where online and offline data don’t always communicate with each other.

With the Brevo Commerce Suite, merchants can analyze the full spectrum of their customers’ purchasing habits across all channels, allowing them to send more personalized recommendations. They can also improve the customer experience through multi-channel communication adapted to each customer by email, SMS, chat, and social media.

“Today’s merchants face fierce competition when it comes to attracting and retaining customers,” said Armand Thiberge, CEO and founder of Brevo. “Consumers expect hyper-personalized content, immediate answers to their questions, and seamless customer experiences. Failing to meet these expectations could lead them to shop elsewhere next time.”

Brevo Commerce Suite: A Turnkey Solution
Brevo Commerce Suite extends the comprehensive suite of Brevo’s best-in-class solutions and capabilities and enables retailers and e-commerce companies to:

• Increase the customer lifetime value
  • Expand reach and push contacts closer to purchase with multichannel campaigns (email, WhatsApp, SMS, Web Push and more).
  • Use automation to increase abandoned cart recovery, make product recommendations, and more.
  • Personalize content and suggest relevant products using enriched data.

• Leverage consolidated customer and product insights
  • Unify online and offline customer data, mapping it to a multi-table retail data model.
  • Integrate with e-commerce store data to get a full view of their customer purchase history.
  • Incorporate analytics and built-in dashboards to help identify product performance, repeat customers, purchase frequency and more.

• Optimize customer experience and engagement
  • Empower customers to interact on their preferred channels, from website chat to social media messages and phone calls.
  • Humanize the digital buying experience by proactively starting live chat conversations with online visitors, helping them find what they need and get to checkout faster.
  • Provide instant 24/7 service using automated responses and predefined scenarios in a chatbot, even when agents are offline.

Teads, the global media platform, today announced an expanded global partnership with LG Ad Solutions, a global leader in connected TV (CTV) and cross-screen advertising, on exclusive CTV native advertising inventory in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and across 10 Asia Pacific countries, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and India.  These new territories extend Teads' current exclusive footprint on LG Smart TVs in France and Belgium. Now the sole premium partner for the first touch point on LG TVs in these regions, Teads is furthering quality advertiser reach on the largest screen in consumers' homes.

Bertrand Quesada, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Teads said: "Our expanded partnership with LG Ad Solutions enables brands and agency partners to extend exceptional creative across all screens and further their storytelling with vast audiences. In just less than a year, we've already seen tremendous success in France and Belgium, as they embrace CTV native advertising to leverage omnichannel strategies. We look forward to our elevated relationship as we deepen our CTV presence globally with a world-class leader."

In France, Teads partnered with Danone to launch their first CTV campaign as an Olympic Games sponsor, utilizing LG Ad Solutions' exclusive, high-impact CTV Native format. This omnichannel approach, augmented by Teads Studio and refined with contextual and retail data, effectively reached audiences across various devices, ensuring the brand's presence in an ultra-premium, brand-safe environment.

Thibaud Rivals, Lead Media Manager at Danone in Paris, shared, "The strategy deployed by Teads enabled us to respond to the challenges of media fragmentation and the new uses of our audiences. We were delighted to have been one of the first companies to test this new CTV screen, through the partnership between Teads and LG Ad Solutions."

Teads and LG Ad Solutions' exclusive deal across the globe supplements existing partnerships in Central and Eastern Europe on LG Smart TVs. The broader footprint allows advertisers to benefit from the targeting capabilities of LG Ad Solutions' Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology. The seamless ad integration and targeting accuracy promotes relevant experiences for viewers and optimized media performance for advertisers.

Serge Matta, President of Global Ad Sales said: "As Smart TVs are increasingly becoming the central device of the household around the world, we are thrilled to expand our exclusive partnership with Teads in these new regions. We're eager to further elevate our direct-to-glass strategy and shared mission in partnering with brands to deliver incremental audiences."

Brands can now benefit from LG Ad Solutions' ACR data in these regions, allowing them to understand the viewing behaviors of LG TV users via visual and audio recognition tools in a fully privacy-compliant manner. Teads will be able to target specific audiences based on the type of TV consumption (linear/streaming), content and ad exposures, and other relevant viewership data on LG Smart TVs. LG Ad Solutions' advertising formats create a bridge between linear TV and OTT content consumption on the largest screen in the home, providing prominent brand placement, interactive ad formats, and direct access to advertised content and products.

Teads works closely with industry-recognized partners such as Kantar, Comscore, and TVision to conduct comprehensive and reliable measurement solutions. This provides clients with robust insights and performance metrics, enabling them to assess the effectiveness of their campaigns and make informed strategic decisions. Teads collaborates with Comscore and LiveRamp on audience offerings, while also developing its own genre-targeting capabilities, enabling buyers to target their ideal consumers on CTV platforms efficiently.

This strategic partnership with LG Ad Solutions not only opens doors to new CTV audiences by expanding access to Teads' premium inventory but also allows brands to leverage Teads' holistic omnichannel targeting strategy to ensure precision targeting and impactful campaigns across screens. Combined with tailored ad formats that further amplify brand storytelling, Teads is empowering brands to cut through the clutter and captivate viewers on the biggest screen, thereby maximizing engagement and driving measurable results in the ever-evolving digital advertising landscape.

AIOps Company Expands Executive Team To Accelerate Growth 

BigPanda, Inc., the leading AIOps platform for automating IT Operations, announced it has appointed Tom Melzl as chief revenue officer. In his role, Melzl will oversee the BigPanda sales and go-to-market strategy, leading the team as they bring AIOps into the modern world for enterprises.

Melzl joins BigPanda with decades of sales leadership experience and a proven track record of driving results by leveraging data, engineering, and marketing. He has spent the entirety of his career in the technology and software industry, where he developed a passion for big data, AI, and generative AI in the realm of ITOps. Most recently, Melzl served as chief revenue officer at Coveo and supported the company’s IPO in 2021. During his tenure at Coveo, Melzl led the company from $50M ARR to $120M ARR. Previously, he served as chief revenue officer for FaceFirst and StackIQ.

“Tom’s proven track record of scaling high-performing revenue teams and fostering winning cultures is exactly what we were looking for at BigPanda,” said Assaf Resnick, CEO and founder of BigPanda. “His experience and customer-centric approach will be invaluable for BigPanda as we scale our go-to-market activities.”

“When I first met with Assaf and the team, I was blown away by BigPanda’s unique value proposition, market opportunity, and its clear ability to transform ITOps from reactive to proactive,” said Tom Melzl, chief revenue officer at BigPanda. “I was equally impressed with the intelligent, creative, and collaborative leadership team and their emphasis on working cross-functionally. I’m excited to continue elevating BigPanda as an AIOps leader alongside them.”

Over the past year, BigPanda announced multiple new features to improve the IT incident lifecycle. In July 2023, BigPanda unveiled its Automated Incident Analysis product a new generative AI capability that provides ITOps teams with fast, accurate, and consistent insights into every incident. In September, the company launched its updated Root Cause Changes feature, which leverages explainable artificial intelligence to correlate incident alerts with infrastructure change data. With these updates, BigPanda can dramatically improve incident root-cause identification and reduce response times by 50%.

Zumigo, Inc., the leader in mobile identity authentication, today announced the launch of new authentication and onboarding capabilities in Zumigo DeRiskify, the company’s award-winning flagship anti-fraud solution for e-commerce. The enhancements significantly improve the customer sign-up/sign-in experience by eliminating the need for passwords, as well as providing merchants with deeper transaction insights so that they can understand how fraud affects their business.

Zumigo DeRiskify leverages deterministic digital user information such as the customer’s phone number, payment details, email and IP addresses to authenticate transactions. The resulting trust score empowers merchants to fulfill only the low-risk transactions. Merchants reduce losses and eliminate chargebacks by stopping fraudulent orders before processing them.

“Merchants can now offer a more streamlined and more secure onboarding experience to customers, which will improve overall conversion rate,” said Chirag Bakshi, CEO of Zumigo. “In addition, the new dashboard provides details of each transaction which allow merchants to understand how their business is affected by fraudulent purchases.”

Learn more about these new capabilities to be unveiled at next week’s ShopTalk 2024 at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. Zumigo is hosting meetings with attendees. Contact Zumigo to schedule a meeting and demo before the event.

Zumigo DeRiskify’s expanded capabilities are in response to e-commerce merchants’ growing priorities to boost revenue and ensure customer satisfaction. The solution offers a passwordless log-in option to reduce customer friction and increase conversion, as passwords pose security risks and are often cumbersome to handle. To streamline the checkout process, after completion of initial enrollment, the customer’s shipping and billing information can be automatically filled in.

The transaction dashboard provides deeper insights into purchase activities. Merchants can see how their orders are performing at a glance, including the number of total transactions, what are the high-risk orders and customers, the number of fraud orders processed and their value, the type of merchandise that is high risk, and the location/origins of risky transactions. Merchants can also drill into each transaction for more information.

“We have been using Zumigo DeRiskify for two years now, and we have seen great results,” said Shoaib Ahmed, Founder and CEO from Scooty Mobility, Inc. “Our fraudulent purchases have declined by 26% – which is a significant amount. Our next step is to make the customer experience even more delightful. Now with the new passwordless log-in capability, we will be able to achieve that while preventing fraud.”

“The State of Email and Collaboration Security" 2024 (SOECS) report. According to the research, cyber threats are growing at an unprecedented pace, and the year ahead is fraught with cybercrime and incidents anticipated ahead of the busy election year where over 50 countries head to the polls. With new threats like AI and deepfake technology, the stakes are higher than ever to execute a strong cyber defense. 

Mimecast has expanded the eighth edition of this annual report to include insight on collaboration security in addition to email. SOECS is based on an in-depth global survey of 1,100 information technology and cybersecurity professionals.  

Highlights from this year’s report include: 

Human risk is today's biggest security gap, and IT teams must better equip employees with the right tools and training. 74% of all cyber breaches are caused by human factors, including errors, stolen credentials, misuse of access privileges, or social engineering.  

IT teams are proactively stepping up their defense strategies, especially as AI presents new challenges. The emergence of AI is accelerating the spread of phishing and ransomware by making it easier for threat actors to perpetrate successful attacks. 8 out of 10 respondents are concerned about new threats posed by AI and 67% say AI-driven attacks will soon become the norm. As companies prepare for new threats, they’re viewing cyber risks as a bigger business problem, not just an IT problem. 

Email remains the primary attack vector for cyber threats like phishing, spoofing, and ransomware, but collaboration tools pose new and dangerous points of entry for bad actors. 70% expect collaboration tools to pose new threats, and 69% believe it is likely that their company will be harmed by a collaboration tool-based attack.

“Emerging tools and technologies like AI and deepfakes, along with the proliferation of collaboration platforms are changing the way threat actors work; but people remain the biggest barrier to protecting companies from cyber threats,” said Marc van Zadelhoff, Mimecast CEO. “Cybersecurity and IT teams need to work with wider business leaders to prioritize understanding human risk. With the right tools and education, companies can better safeguard against threats and manage human risk.” 

For more insights download the full “The State of Email and Collaboration Security” 2024 report. 

Mimecast: Work Protected™  
Since 2003, Mimecast has stopped bad things from happening to good organizations by enabling them to Work Protected. We empower more than 42,000 customers to help mitigate risk and manage complexities across a threat landscape driven by malicious cyberattacks, human error, and technology fallibility. Our advanced solutions provide the proactive threat detection, brand protection, awareness training, and data retention capabilities that evolving workplaces need today. Mimecast solutions are designed to transform email and collaboration security into the eyes and ears of organizations worldwide.  

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