Equipping Marketers with Key Strategies for Boosting Attendance, Maximizing Focus, and Driving Engagement for Virtual Events

Banzai International, Inc., a leading marketing technology company that provides essential marketing and sales solutions, today released its 2024 Guide to Webinar Insights, aimed at providing key insights, trends, and strategies to enable marketers in navigating the unique challenges of virtual events.

In 2023, Banzai customers hosted over 800,000 webinars using Demio, the platform that helps businesses connect with audiences through webinars and virtual events, garnering valuable insights to guide marketers in optimizing attendance rates, maximizing the impact of email notifications and polls, and effectively addressing the common challenge of attendee drop-off rates. By leveraging the benchmarks provided across event types, focus rates, engagement tactics, company size, and company industry, marketers can confidently take action to improve their webinar programming.

“We're thrilled to offer marketers groundbreaking insights, in our most recent Webinar Insights Report, furthering Banzai's dedication to democratizing data and making data-centric strategy in webinar development accessible to all," said Ashley Levesque, VP of Marketing at Banzai. "Delving into these findings, our focus extends beyond enhancing webinar quality. We're committed to equipping marketers with innovative tools essential for navigating and excelling in the ever-evolving realm of digital marketing.”

2024 Webinar Insights Report Highlights

• Start-ups with less than $1 million in revenue have ½ the attendance rate of companies with $1 - $10 million in revenue
• Focus rates are lower (74.2%) during live webinars vs. on-demand webinars (86.3%)
• In on-demand webinars, focus rate increases significantly when attendees participate in a poll (88.3%) vs. when they do not (80.8%)

Instacart Ads Continues Off-Platform Expansion with Google Shopping Ads

Danone's Oikos, Kraft Heinz's Kraft, Lunchables, Oscar Mayer, and Philadelphia, and Publicis Media Among First to Pilot New Google Shopping Ads with Instacart's Retail Media Data

Instacart, the leading grocery technology company in North America, and Google, today announced Google Shopping ads are now accessible to Instacart's advertising partners, leveraging the company's retail media data. With this expansion, CPG partners on Instacart, including Danone's Oikos, Kraft Heinz brands: Kraft, Lunchables, Oscar Mayer, and Philadelphia, as well as Publicis Media's CPG clients can activate Google Shopping ads, powered by Instacart's first-party retail media data and closed-loop insights, to reach high-intent consumers searching on Google and get their products into consumers' hands in as fast as an hour.

Instacart offers unique, rich insights on consumer shopping behavior from its massive catalog of more than 1.4 billion products across more than 1,400 retail banners. Google Shopping ads, featuring the CPG brands available on Instacart, can now scale to consumers who are shopping across Google more than a billion times a day. With Instacart-powered Google Shopping ads, those consumers will be able to see ads for participating brands' products as they search and click to complete their shopping journey on Instacart with the convenience of getting their products delivered with same-day delivery. 

"Instacart's closed-loop platform and first-party retail media data are critical differentiators for CPG brands. Today, our team works with more than 5,500 brand partners to help them grow their businesses and drive incremental sales. With our collaboration with Google, we're now able to layer our valuable retail media data over Google Shopping ads' capabilities to enhance audience signals for our CPG partners' campaigns off of Instacart," said Laura Jones, Chief Marketing Officer of Instacart. "Over the last year, we've extended the power of Instacart Ads off-platform with a number of partners and now we're enabling our brand partners to reach the right audience while they search on Google and seamlessly drive them to purchase on Instacart. Every marketing dollar counts in today's macroeconomic environment and we're pleased with the early pilot results – from return on ad spend to 'new-to-brand' sales – that we're delivering for our partners."

"Danone is excited to participate in this pilot alongside Instacart to test new digital solutions with our partners, and continue to effectively utilize retail data to positively impact our health-driven brands," said MK Woltz, Director Media Connections at Danone. "We'll be interested to see the performance of this new ad solution that can hopefully enable a best-in-class consumer journey to purchase our brands directly from their search query."

"Retail media continues to be an important channel for our CPG clients and a core focus area for our business," said Jason Colon, EVP, Managing Director, Retail Media at Publicis Media. "Our agencies are constantly looking for innovative solutions that drive new levels of scale and client value. We look forward to testing these new Instacart-powered Google Shopping ads, which unlock a new way for our clients to engage with consumers, seamlessly drive them to purchase, and provide closed-loop measurement to demonstrate results."

The popularity of retail media is on the rise, with US digital retail media ad spend expected to double from $46 billion in 2023 to an estimated $109 billion in 2027 – anticipated to be larger than connected TV, digital audio, and linear TV combined (Insider Intelligence). The growth is fueled by the strength of first-party commerce data, which allows for more effective optimization and closed-loop results.

Today's news marks Instacart Ads' continued expansion and momentum to drive growth for its CPG brand partners' campaigns both on- and off-platform. Whether brands are utilizing search, social, programmatic, CTV, or linear TV, Instacart is committed to driving more performant and measurable outcomes through the power of its retail media data. Over the last 18 months, Instacart has built out its full-funnel tool kit of advertising solutions with new ad formats and features such as: pop-ups, shoppable video, promotions, and impulse, as well as new measurement capabilities, helping brand partners grow and prove the value of Instacart Ads. On average, Instacart Ads deliver more than 15% incremental sales lift, and in some cases twice that, for brand partners.

Global Salesforce C360 platform specialist Astound Commerce announced today that it has named industry leader Bill Donlan as its new Global CEO. For 23 years, Astound has created end-to-end digital experiences across technology, data, design, and marketing to drive revenue growth for global B2B and B2C brands. Bill's initiatives will include propelling Astound's growth, reaching into new verticals and capabilities (with an increasing focus on artificial intelligence and data), and setting and executing the vision and strategy for Astound's future.

Viewed as a thought leader across the Salesforce ecosystem, and with 30+ years experience helping clients address their digital transformation and business strategy needs, Bill will help Astound further accelerate its transition to a full range of multi-cloud capabilities within the Salesforce service offering. Prior to joining Astound, Bill led the Salesforce Practice at Capgemini, overseeing a group of 1200+ employees, and, most recently, led the Global Salesforce Markets Practice at KPMG.

Rob Rodin, CEO and Managing Director of RLH Equity Partners and Astound board member, said, "Bill has an impressive track record in driving top-line growth, with particular focus in helping large global brands best implement and leverage the Salesforce ecosystem. We feel strongly that his leadership and experience will help guide Astound and its clients to new heights into a future of innovation and excellence."

Ilya Vinogradsky, Astound co-founder and board member commented, "Bill is highly respected in the digital technology services space, and brings with him a wealth of experience.  His entrepreneurial spirit fits perfectly at Astound and our teams are excited for him to join us, as are our clients and partners."

Bill added, "I'm excited and honored by the opportunity to be part of Astound, a dynamic and forward-thinking organization. People are the most important element of a services firm and I pride myself on being a people-focused leader. I look forward to leveraging our strong history in commerce to continue our evolution across the Customer 360, leveraging data and responsible AI to deliver transformational solutions for our clients competitively."

Brooks will help fuel continued business momentum and growth in the U.S. and abroad

LG Ad Solutions, a global leader in connected TV (CTV) and cross-screen advertising, today announced the appointment of Mike Brooks as Global Head of Business Development and Partnerships.

Prior to joining LG Ad Solutions, Brooks was Chief Operating Officer for Verve Group, where he managed the global teams for the company’s leading SSPs, Smaato and Pubnative. He also previously ran marketing and revenue as SVP of Revenue at leading U.S. weather app WeatherBug.

Brooks also served as Global Director of App Advertising at Oath, where he managed and commercialized Verizon, AOL, and Microsoft assets for the app install ecosystem. Before that, he developed the mobile performance business of Advertising.com within the AOL Networks Umbrella.

“Mike has an impressive track record of growing publishing, mobile, and advertising technology businesses,” said Serge Matta, President of Global Ad Sales, LG Ad Solutions. “With his experience across channels–both on the supply and demand sides, Mike brings a holistic perspective and expansive expertise to the company that will be invaluable as we look to build upon our momentum in 2024 and beyond.”

“As CTV continues to take off, the growth opportunities for LG Ad Solutions are endless,” said Brooks. “Working with an OEM like LG which has 200 million connected televisions worldwide, brands can streamline the ad-buying process, reaching target audiences regardless of how they consume content on their TV – allowing for cross-platform audience insights and actionable campaign measurement. LG Ad Solutions is well positioned for the future and I look forward to helping the company continue to scale.”

AuthenticID, a global leader in identity proofing and fraud prevention solutions, proudly announces the appointment of Alex Wong as Vice President of Product Management. This strategic hiring decision underscores a pivotal advancement for AuthenticID, reaffirming its commitment to sustained growth and ongoing innovation.

“AuthenticID is poised for a big 2024, and with Alex at the helm of our product team we will undoubtedly not only expand our success in the identity verification space, but also deliver industry-leading products for the market this year and for years to come,” Reed Taussig, AuthenticID CEO.

Alex Wong is an industry veteran with over a decade of experience. He joins AuthenticID from Ping Identity, where he most recently served as a Product Leader for their Authorization portfolio. Prior to that, he steered product management at several industry leaders, including Early Warning and Symantec.

Wong brings a wealth of knowledge not just in the identity space but in leading high-performing, cross-functional teams and enterprise software. In his new role, Wong will be instrumental in driving AuthenticID’s product vision, strategy, and roadmap.

“I’ve known AuthenticID for several years and its bold vision has always resonated with me,” said Alex Wong. “AuthenticID’s continued growth and strong focus on developing the benchmark for our space is exciting. I look forward to being part of the company’s next phase of success.”

Rewst, a purpose-built automation platform for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), today announced a $31 million Series B led by Meritech Capital, joining existing investors OpenView, TDF Ventures, and Florida Funders. The funding will help accelerate Rewst's growth and the value delivered to MSPs through the expansion of its product, customer success, education, and Robotic Operations Center (ROC) teams.

Despite having hundreds of repetitive processes ripe for automation, MSPs have been vastly underserved by traditional Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vendors. That's because generic RPA tools are typically too expensive and resource intensive for MSPs. They also lack the multi-tenancy and native integrations unique to MSPs' IT environments.

Founded in 2020, Rewst set out to solve these challenges by building the first purpose-built automation platform for MSPs. With 45 out-of-the-box integrations to popular products like Acronis, ConnectWise, Datto, Duo, Huntress, ITGlue, Kaseya, Microsoft, OpenAI, Pax8, and SentinelOne, Rewst's vendor-agnostic approach allows MSPs to connect their entire tech stack. Users can then automate end-to-end processes by installing pre-built automations or visually designing their own workflows and forms. Common use cases include user onboarding/offboarding, billing reconciliation, adding/removing group membership, MFA alerting, just-in-time admin access, ticket categorization and prioritization, and more.

"At this point, we're averaging about 75 to 80 hours of time savings per week with Rewst," said Dustin Lepi, Automation Engineer at Network IT Easy. "That's 300+ hours saved per month, allowing us to focus on the tickets that need human intervention rather than wading through the endless noise from automated alerts."

"Since serving the MSP market, they've become my favorite market," said Aharon Chernin, Rewst's CEO and founder. "They know what they need, and they'll tell you if you ask! Automation is at the top of the list right now. From the beginning, we've focused on building not just the best platform for MSPs but a community where users learn from, and support, one another. With this funding, we will continue building out our ROC, training, and product, adding dozens of new integrations and enhancing the workflow-building experience. Rewst will be around for a long time to come, helping MSPs to succeed with automation."

Less than two years since its birth, Rewst has emerged as the de-facto leader in the MSP automation market. The company has more than 700 MSPs, with a strong base in North America and a growing foothold in the EU and APAC. In a recent 30-day period, MSPs used Rewst to execute more than 46 million workflows, with self-reported time savings exceeding 251,000 hours. This figure includes manual effort freed up by automation, and high-hanging fruit that was previously ignored because the return was too low to do these tasks manually. In addition to time savings, MSPs benefit from consistent service delivery, reduced technician burnout, and enhanced customer satisfaction.

"We're excited to partner with Aharon and the entire Rewst team," said Alex Clayton, General Partner at Meritech Capital. "The tailwinds behind Rewst in the MSP space are massive; the technology surface area is growing, and MSPs are forced to do more with less. Automation is the key to unlocking efficiency, happy customers, and increased bottom lines. We spoke to many Rewst customers, both large and small, and the feedback was resoundingly positive. Rewst's platform has become a no-brainer purchase for MSPs, and their pace of product development is unlike anything in the market today. This has created a vibrant community around the company. Additionally, we get excited about founders who are uniquely positioned to win a market, and Aharon represents that perfectly as someone who has seen this problem firsthand in the MSP space."

Rewst has executed on a number of initiatives in 2023 to shorten time to value and empower MSPs to be successful with automation, including:

• Crate Marketplace – Rewst released 50 pre-built automations, more than doubling its Crate Marketplace. Crates serve as ready-to-use templates, helping MSPs unlock immediate value.
• Cluck University – Rewst continued to build out its Cluck U training to help MSPs master the art of automation through live group sessions, self-serve videos, step-by-step guides, and more.
• Robotic Operations Center (ROC) – Rewst's in-house automation experts assist customers in overcoming any hurdles during the automation process, while building and maintaining Crates.
• RoboRewsty – The OpenAI-powered RoboRewsty is embedded in the platform to simplify the automation-building process, starting with automatic workflow documentation.
• App Platform – App Platform allows MSPs to visually design branded front-ends, or apps, for employees and customers to interact with Rewst workflows and forms.

The Series B round brings Rewst's total funding to $59 million.