David Raab
Martech in the Apolocalypse
I once read that the most accurate weather forecast is tomorrow will be the same as today. That may or may not be true, but it doesn’t matter. What’s really important is predicting when the weather will change. That’s what warns you to bring an…
Game of Thrones Meets Big Bang Theory: Welcome to CDP Industry’s Next Phase
The CDP Institute just published its latest Industry Update, our semi-annual overview of CDP vendors with data on employment, funding, locations, and more. (Download here.) There were three pieces of information that stood out: Only four new ven...
Where Do Low-Code and No-Code Fit in the Build vs Buy Debate?
I thought it might be my imagination, but Google Trends confirms that “build vs buy” really is coming up more often these days that it had in recent years. This surprises me, since I had thought that debate was over. It seemed that most organiz...
Seers Offers Easy-to-Use Cookie Consent
The growth in global privacy regulation has created an immense headache for thousands of businesses – and, thus, an immense opportunity for systems that offer relief. Small businesses in particular need simple, low-cost solutions to comply with rules t...
Build vs Buy Your Customer Data Platform?
The build vs buy debate has existed as long as packaged software itself. Any serious discussion quickly concludes that there’s no one right answer and real question is when to do one or the other. That discussion, in turn, usually leads to a recommend...
Is Peak Martech Approaching At Last?
Contrary to popular belief, forecasting is easy: tomorrow is nearly always like today. What’s hard is predicting when something will change: a snowstorm, stock market crash, or disruptive technology. Of course, predicting change is also where forecas...
Lego Blocks, Pickup Trucks, and Why Bloomreach Bought Exponea
Yesterday brought news that CDP Exponea had been purchased by ecommerce recommendation engine Bloomreach. The deal almost exactly parallels last year’s merger between RichRelevance and Manthan, as well the smaller-scale combination of CrossEngage with...
Software Has Stopped Eating the World
This August will see the tenth anniversary of Marc Andreessen’s famous claim that software is eating the world. He may have been right at the time but things have now changed: the world is biting back. I’m not referring to COVID-19, although it’s fitt...
MarTech Plot Lines for 2021
“Apophenia” – seeing patterns where none exist – is both occupational hazard and job requirement for an industry analyst. The CDP Institute Daily Newsletter provides a steady supply of grist for my pattern detection mill. But the selection of items f...
Trust-Hub Maps Company Data for Privacy and Other Uses
Marketers care about privacy management primarily as it relates to customer data, but privacy management overlaps with a broader category of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) systems that cover many data types. Like privacy systems (and Customer D...
Twilio Buys CDP Segment for $3.2 Billion
Friday afternoon brought an unconfirmed Forbes report that communications platform Twilio is buying CDP Segment for $3.2 billion. The deal would be Twilio’s third acquisition this year, following much smaller deals in January for telephony platform T...
Software Review: Skypoint Cloud Combines CDP and Privacy Management
There are obvious similarities between Customer Data Platforms and privacy systems: both find customer data in all company systems; both assemble that data into unified profiles; and both govern access to those profiles. Indeed, some CDP vendors have e...
Software Review: Osano Manages Privacy Consent and Access Requests
The next stop on our privacy software tour is Osano, which bills itself as “the only privacy platform you’ll ever need”. That's a bit of an overstatement: Osano is largely limited to data subject interactions, which is only one of the four primar...
When CDPs Fail: Insights from the CDP Institute Survey
We released a new member survey last week at the CDP Institute. You can (and should) download the full report, so I won’t go through all the details. You can also view a discussion of this on Scott Brinker's Chief Martech Show. But here are…
Software Review: BigID for Privacy Data Discovery
Until recently, most marketers were content to leave privacy compliance in the hands of data and legal teams. But laws like GDPR and CCPA now require increasingly prominent consent notifications and impose increasingly stringent limits on data use. Thi...
Data Security is a Problem Marketers Must Help Fix
Everything you need to know about 2020 is covered by the fact that “apocalypse bingo” is already an over-used cliché. So I doubt many marketers have found spare time to worry about data security – which most would consider someone else’s problem. But ...
Don’t Misuse Proof of Concept in System Selection
Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but marketers may actually be getting better at buying software. Our research has long shown that the most satisfied buyers base their selection on features, not cost or ease of use. But feature lists alone are never enou...
Here’s a Game about Building Your Martech Stack
I’ve recently been running workshops to help companies plan deployment of their Customer Data Platforms. Much of the discussion revolves around defining use cases and, in particular, deciding which to deliver first. This requires balancing the desire t...
Companies Scramble to Report on COVID-19 Business Impact
As marketers finish their initial emergency adjustments to coronavirus lockdowns, they are starting to think about longer-term plans. While the shape of things to come is impossible to guess, reporting on industry changes has become a marketing trend o...
Balandra Orchestrates Customer Journey Without a CDP
Balandra Customer Flow Diagram The need for a system that assembles unified, sharable customer profiles is now widely accepted. So is the label of “Customer Data Platform” to describe such systems. What people do still debate is whether a Cust...