According to headlines, martech embodies technical sophistication, touting thousands of companies fueled by sumptuous features like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, personalization and more. Yet, a recent study found that what marketers really want is more, high-quality demographic data. I can’t help but think, did the data-driven era miss an exit? The modern marketer can use thousands of pieces of consumer information — demographics, purchases, hobbies, social activity, geolocation etc.—but many marketing efforts are still based on the same basic demographics of age, gender and income. The status quo may be considered the easier, more risk-averse route. But if we stay in autopilot, marketers will slowly lose speed, falling behind for failure to embrace new technology in the spirit of innovation. Time for an oil change of our way of thinking First of all, I don’t propose we do away with demographic data, as it is incredibly powerful. But it only represents a sliver of the in..

With the proliferation of martech and adtech tools over the past ten years, there’s no shortage of technology platforms available to help marketers understand, target and communicate with consumers more effectively. The sheer volume and range of tools can be downright dizzying: tools for planning and developing, tools for attracting and engaging customers, tools for identity and data management, as well as database tools and consumer-facing platforms. Combine all these with near-ubiquitous CRM and adtech platforms, ad networks and DSPs, and marketers have a suite of technology solutions that would be daunting to even the largest enterprise-level team. But marketers don’t need to implement every tech tool available. They just need the right combination of tools to help automate intelligent decision-making. Gathering information As with any decision-making process, decisioning in marketing starts with gathering accurate information, specifically customer data. Creating a single custome..

Pinterest is giving a handful of brands special gift-finding tools to help with their holiday strategies on the platform. Macy’s, Lowe’s and Kohl’s have all launched Pinterest “gift globes,” and the company partnered with Etsy to develop “The Etsy Gift Guide” — all tools designed to deliver a personalized shopping experience. Retailer Gift Globes. Pinterest partnered with Macy’s, Lowe’s and Kohl’s to design a special gift-finder tool to help users find gift ideas. Users enter who they are shopping for, and the gift globes deliver a personalized list of gift options from the retailers based on criteria. Macy’s Pinterest gift globe search by interests:To surface more gift ideas, users can shake their phone on the mobile version of the app, and the gift globe will display new product options. Clicking on the “Buy now” button listed under the product will launch a purchase page within Pinterest. To promote the gift globes, each of the three brands used Pinterest Promoted Videos at ma..

Buying a car these days often involves extensive online research before visiting a physical dealership. That’s a key reason why attribution has been difficult for auto dealers, says car marketing platform PureCars, which released a sales attribution/business intelligence platform this week that it says is the first one to fully track the path from online research to dealership visit. Called Signal Pro, it is complementary to PureCars’ existing Smart Advertising marketing automation platform for dealerships, which enables multi-channel campaigns. CEO Sam Mylrea said clients can use Signal Pro in conjunction with Smart Advertising, or separately. The challenge. Mylrea said that car purchases present a unique attribution problem, because buyers typically spend so much of the pre-purchase time conducting research online, with a physical trip only in the last stage of test driving, final negotiation and purchase. In other words, the funnel dynamic is particular to this industry. A solut..

Image credit: www.Curata.com Brands with an offline transaction point often struggle to measure the full customer journey from acquisition source through to revenue. Often times, if revenue can be attributed back to something, it’s to the marketing channel responsible for the lead. This measurement is usually implemented with either a first or last touch attribution model for channel attribution and completely leaves out the rest of the customer journey. The missing visibility and measurement is post lead acquisition. Once a lead enters our systems, how do we measure the effectiveness of our campaigns and lead treatments? Even better, how do we attribute revenue to content pieces and treatments applied to that lead in-funnel? The answer may be something we already have access to. If you’re using a CRM to house leads then you likely have the tools to track middle of funnel activity at your fingertips with Campaign Tracking. What is campaign tracking? Campaign tracking within a CRM is..

The continued success of Account-Based Marketing depends not only deploying on the right technology, but also having the right processes and mindset toward adoption and growth in your organization. As marketers get deep into planning for 2019, now is a great time to address fundamental considerations for how you can best build and grow your ABM practice next year. Here are five considerations to plan for the most effective ABM program. 1. Revisit your target account list While many companies have a target account list, it is often created by sales, passed to marketing and never subsequently updated. The list is only valuable so long as it has the right accounts with the most potential for your company. In some cases, that means the list will be fluid. If competitors jump on your heels, specific accounts may rise up the pyramid to avoid losses for example. Or if you’re trying to break into a new vertical space, winning a couple of high-profile logos becomes important. Here are a few ..

On Sunday, SAP again redefined the capabilities of its marketing platform, announcing the acquisition of survey and research firm Qualtric for $8 billion. Qualtrics offers survey software for assessing customer and employee attitudes for about 9000 enterprise customers. Based in Provo, Utah and Seattle, the company said it would maintain those headquarters and its separate brand, even as it integrates into the SAP ecosystem. Projecting $400 million in revenue this year, Qualtrics had been preparing to go public, following a similar path by its main competitor, SurveyMonkey. Why this acquisition? But, given the enormous price tag, the key question is: Why did SAP make this purchase? The two companies are pitching the idea that Qualtrics offers X-data, or experience-related data, which, when married to SAP’s operational data, provides a complete view of experience management: According to Andrew Joiner, CEO of customer experience management firm InMoment, the price shows the “strong..