David Raab
David Raab
David Raab is a consultant specializing in marketing technology and analysis. Clients have included major firms in financial services, retail, communications, and other industries. His B2B Marketing Automation Vendor Selection Tool provides detailed information and guidance to buyers of marketing systems. Mr. Raab has written hundreds of articles for DM Review, DM News and other industry publications. Many of these are available without charge at www.archive.raabassociatesinc.com.
Here’s a Game to Illustrate Strategic Planning
My wife is working on a Ph.D. in education and recently took a course on strategic planning for academic institutions. Her final project included...
2017 Retrospective: Things I Didn’t Predict
It’s the time of year when people make predictions. It’s not my favorite exercise: the best prediction is always that things will continue as...
Do Customer Data Platforms Need Identity Matching? The Answer May Surprise You.
I spend a lot of time with vendors trying to decide whether they are, or should be, a Customer Data Platform. I also spend...
TrenDemon and Adinton Offer Attribution Options
I wrote a couple weeks ago about the importance of attribution as a guide for artificial intelligence-driven marketing. One implication was I should pay...
Flytxt Offers Broad and Deep Customer Management
Some of the most impressive marketing systems I’ve seen have been developed for mobile phone marketing, especially for companies that sell prepaid phones. I...
When to Use a Proof of Concept in Marketing Software Selection — And When Not
“I used to hate POCs (Proof of Concepts) but now I love them,” a Customer Data Platform vendor told me recently. “We do POCs...
Wizaly Offers a New Option for Algorithmic Attribution
Wizaly is a relatively new entrant in the field of algorithmic revenue attribution – a function that will be essential for guiding artificial-intelligence-driven marketing...
Attribution Will Be Critical for AI-Based Marketing Success
I gave my presentation on Self-Driving Marketing Campaigns at the MarTech conference last week. Most of the content followed the arguments I made here...
Customer Data Platforms Spread Their Wings
I escaped from my cave this week to present at two conferences: the first-ever “Customer Data Platform Summit” hosted by AgilOne in Los Angeles,...
Vizury Combines Web Page Personalization with a Customer Data Platform
One of the fascinating things about tracking Customer Data Platforms is the great variety among the vendors.It’s true that variety causes confusion for buyers....
B2B Marketers Are Buying Customer Data Platforms. Here’s Why.
I’m currently drafting a paper on use of Customer Data Platforms by B2B SaaS marketers. The topic is more intriguing than it sounds because...
Self-Driving Marketing Campaigns: Possible But Not Easy
A recent Forrester study found that most marketers expect artificial intelligence to take over the more routine parts of their jobs, allowing them to...
Treasure Data Offers An Easy-to-Deploy Customer Data Platform
One of my favorite objections from potential buyers of Customer Data Platforms is that CDPs are simply “too good to be true”. It’s a...
Blueshift CDP Adds Advanced Features
I reviewed Blueshift in June 2015, when the product had been in-market for just a few months and had a handful of large clients....
The Personal Network Effect Makes Walled Gardens Stronger, But There’s Still Hope
I’m still chewing over the role of “walled garden” vendors including Google, Amazon, and Facebook, and in particular how most observers – especially in...
Amazon Buys Whole Foods: It’s Not About Groceries
Most of the comments I’ve seen about Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods have described it as Amazon (a) expanding into a new industry (b)...
SessionM Expands from Loyalty to Full Customer Engagement Management
SessionM launched in 2012 as a platform that increased user engagement by adding gamification and loyalty rewards to mobile apps. The system has since...
Dynamic Yield Offers Flexible Omni-Channel Personalization
There are dozens of Web personalization tools available. All do roughly the same thing: look at data about a visitor, pick messages based on...
Martech Vendors Can’t Avoid Ad Audience Battles
It’s been said that sports are soap operas for men. You can see business news the same way: a drama with heroes, villains, intertwining...
Here’s Why Airlines Treat Customers Poorly
Last week’s passenger-dragging incident at United Airlines left many marketers (and other humans) aghast that any company could purposely assault its own customer. As...