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Qatar Innovation Week: Celebrating the Value of Future Technologies This November

Go on a 3-Day Networking Spree and Explore Opportunities in AI and 5G Technologies at Qatar Innovation Week That Will Host World Leaders of the Global Tech Space

Reiterating what the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai had said, “AI may become more profound than fire or electricity.” Artificial Intelligence, in all probabilities, is becoming an economic arsenal for most countries around the world today, including the West Asian country that sits on the Arabian Peninsula. Yes, we’re talking about Qatar, the country with one of the richest economies in the world. With a blueprint already in place to set the nation in the right direction, Qatar has joined the AI revolution among other leading countries of the world.

Qatar Event

For what can serve as a powerful technological enabler for the Qatar National Vision 2030, the country could harness all the innovation narratives around future cutting edge technologies from top experts to make this vision a reality.

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Talk about a festival that celebrates the value of future technologies. That is exactly what Qatar Innovation Week aims to deliver this November 2019. In what is going to be one of the biggest, grandest and most flamboyant technology festivals for avid tech enthusiasts, and for the best interest of Qatar – governments, enterprises, sports, investors, researchers, academicians, policymakers, startups and solution providers, the 3-day comprehensive innovation festival will centre on three separate technology events in a row that include World 5G Show (Inaugural edition under the theme of ‘5G Rollout to Propel Qatar’s Goal’), World AI Show (As part of the global series, WAIS is to be introduced in Qatar this year for the first time) and the Industry 4.0 Masterclass by Henrik von Scheel, all in all to usher Qatar towards producing world-class AI applications in areas of national interest.

Given that the 2022 FIFA World Cup is just around the corner and the first World Cup ever to be held in the Arab world, Qatar-the host country is reinvigorating its AI-enabled infrastructure to accommodate the massive influx of visitors for the upcoming world cup. By synergizing artificial intelligence-based applications and the power of 5G technology in areas such as transportation, logistics and live video streaming –  immersive Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) of the game to enhance viewing experience, Qatar Innovation Week is designed with the specific goal of stimulating strategies among stakeholders to catalyse the creation of AI-based solutions.

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When asked about the inspiration behind such an ambitious project, the CEO and founder of TresconMohammed Saleem said, “Qatar is the first nation to launch the 5G network commercially, and with the 2022 FIFA World Cup that is set to take place, it is the perfect time to create a platform that can drive opportunities for new businesses based on AI and 5G technology. Qatar Innovation Week will support the Qatar National Vision 2030 by bringing together governments, AI solutions providers, renowned international experts and foreign investors to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure capacity.”

In a bid to attract the world’s brightest minds from across the globe, Qatar’s first edition of World AI Show will also play host to the regional finals of the Startup World Cup, organised in association with Pegasus Tech Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based multinational VC firm. There will be 40+ regional events across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, leading up to the Grand Finale in the US Silicon Valley, where the global champion will be awarded a US$ 1 million investment prize.

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Evolv Technologies Makes Key Leadership Appointments & Continues Strong Customer Expansion

Evolv Technology Solutions announced key additions to its leadership, board of directors, and advisory teams as well as several major new contracts with global enterprise customers that have adopted the Company’s customer experience optimization platform to efficiently and continuously optimize online customer journeys.

New Leadership Appointments

Steve Bamberger – President & COO

Evolv has appointed Steve Bamberger as its President and Chief Operating Officer, a position from which he will lead all go-to-market activities.

Mr. Bamberger is a twenty-eight year veteran of the enterprise software and SaaS industries.  Most recently, Mr. Bamberger was Chief Revenue Officer at workforce intelligence leader, Visier, where he grew the business 90% annually over five years, oversaw a fourfold increase in deal size, launched four successful products, and expanded the business globally.

Prior to Visier, Mr. Bamberger was Chief Operating Officer at Netformx, and served as vice president of North America for Oracle Communications, a position which saw him double the number of million-dollar deals and deliver a $200 million impact on Oracle’s revenues during his tenure. He also spent seven years with Accenture working with the world’s leading communications service providers and held executive positions in sales, marketing, and business development with Clarify (now Amdocs), Cygent (now Convergys), Vitria Technology, and Siebel Systems (now Oracle).

“Evolv is disrupting the multi-billion dollar optimization industry,” Bamberger said. “Traditional tools can only test website changes. Only Evolv enables companies to perfect their online experience, driving more revenue and creating more customer loyalty. I am thrilled to join the leadership team at Evolv and work with some of the best brands in the world.”

Tyler Foster – Chief Technology Officer

Tyler Foster has been promoted to Chief Technology Officer and will lead all product development for Evolv including research, user experience, development, and technical operations.

Most recently, Mr. Foster served as vice president of engineering for Sentient Technologies where he was a key contributor to the technology and innovation that make up Evolv’s core product offering today.

Mr. Foster previously held a series of technical leadership roles delivering products as a founding member of the Navigator team at Cloudera, a Principal Architect on Apollo Group’s Online Learning Platform, and an Engineer in Intel’s Digital Home group.

Andrew Wait – Board Member

During his extensive career, Andrew Wait has been a successful president, general manager, business unit leader, and marketing and product executive. He has deep experience in growing and running digital businesses including Ancestry.com.

Mr. Wait joins Michael Scharff (Evolv Technologies CEO) and Bart Swanson (Horizons Ventures) on the Evolv Board.

Andrew is currently Executive Chairman at Seasoned.co and a Board Member at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Busuu and Proponent. He is the former President of Lynda.com which was sold to LinkedIn in 2015 in a deal worth approximately $1.5 billion.

Adam Cheyer – Advisor

Adam Cheyer is currently the vice president of research and development at Samsung. Previously, he was co-founder and vice president of engineering of Viv Labs, an artificial intelligence company acquired by Samsung in 2016.

Adam was also co-founder and vice president of engineering of Siri, acquired by Apple in 2010 to build their virtual personal assistant. Adam was a founding member and first developer at Change.org, the world’s largest petition platform with a quarter billion members. Previously, Adam was vice president of engineering at Verticalnet (enterprise software) and Dejima (mobile software).

Adam has authored more than 60 publications and 25 patents. At SRI International, he was Chief Architect of CALO, the largest AI project in US history. Adam graduated with highest honors from Brandeis University and received the “Outstanding Masters Student” award from UCLA’s School of Engineering.

In addition to the executive and advisory appointments at Evolv, five new appointments have been made in the last 30 days expanding talent and capacity within Evolv’s Customer Success, UI/UX and Marketing departments.

“We are very excited to welcome such a wealth of talent to our ranks — individuals who have deep industry experience and a history of delivering exponential growth and opportunity to organizations they’ve worked with in their careers,” said Michael Scharff, Evolv Technologies CEO. “We are responding to an immense level of opportunity in the market and ensuring that we have the depth of expertise and scalability to deliver market leading results to both new and existing customers.”

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Platform Name Change

In order to establish long term brand consistency, Evolv Technologies has officially renamed its automated experience optimization platform from ‘Ascend’ to ‘Evolv’.

New Customers 

The Evolv experience optimization platform is being used by an increasing number of major global, digitally-focused organizations. Notable new customers include:

Bouygues Telecom (France)

Bouygues Telecom, one of France’s largest mobile phone, Internet service provider and IPTV companies, has implemented the Evolv platform to efficiently and continuously optimize diverse customer journeys to drive product and services sales.

Rakuten TV (Japan)

Rakuten TV is one of the leading online video broadcast services covering sports, movies, drama and anime in Japan.

“With an increasing number of consumers looking for online media and entertainment across multiple device types, it’s essential that we’re providing the most frictionless, intuitive digital experience so that consumers are able to quickly find exactly what they want,” said Nozomu Miki, Office Manager of New Business Development, Rakuten Marketing Japan. “Through the Evolv platform, we are able to continuously optimize the consumer experience to best serve our expanding and diverse customer base.”

 LF Corp (Korea)

LF Corp is a luxury fashion retail organization (formerly part of LG corp) operating in domestic and overseas markets, including China and Europe, with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion. LF Corp is implementing Evolv to optimize its full sales funnel experience via AI-driven automation across web and mobile websites.

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 Essent / innogy SE (Europe)

Essent is the Netherlands’ largest consumer energy company and part of innogy, one of the largest in Europe. The Evolv platform was chosen due to its testing speed and scale over traditional A/B testing. Evolv is now deployed in Essent operations and in its parent company innogy across multiple European countries.

“We wanted to experiment across several specific variants at once and knew that traditional A/B testing was too slow and may not deliver winning results,” said Kuldip Singh, Digital & Data Director Retail International, innogy SE. “Evolv provided us with an agile, AI-based experimentation solution that allowed us to accelerate growth and scale our experimentation program with more velocity and accuracy than what was offered by other solutions on the market.”

Other notable customers include SAP Corporation, a leading enterprise application software provider, and Lifecare, a leader in work-life services and senior care management.

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Productsup Integrates with SAP Product Content Hub Solution, Delivering an End-to-End Product Content Flow to Customers

Productsup signs OEM agreement with SAP to leverage their leading content syndication and feed management capabilities for SAP Product Content Hub solution

Productsup announced it has signed an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with SAP. Through this agreement, SAP integrates Productsup’s leading product content syndication and feed management capabilities into their SAP Product Content Hub solution. The bundled cloud solution enables businesses to integrate, manage, syndicate and publish product content across numerous digital channels.

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“We’re committed to empowering businesses to break through digital walls in commerce and this partnership shows it. We’re proud to have been chosen by SAP to be a part of Product Content Hub and we’re excited to see how our joint customers benefit from this integration,” said Emile Bloemen, SVP Strategic Partnerships, Productsup.

Consumers nowadays look for product information on many social media, marketplaces and devices. To stay competitive, companies have to meet consumers across these multiple touchpoints with relevant information and maintain coherence while doing so. Companies need an agile solution that helps them conquer new channels and markets quickly and reliably.

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SAP Product Content Hub allows businesses to create a 360° view of their product data for use in omnichannel commerce. Product data can easily be onboarded from multiple source systems, then enriched and maintained in SAP Product Content Hub. Data can then be syndicated to a variety of sales channels using Productsup’s capabilities. As Productsup is fully integrated within the new offering, users don’t need to leave the platform to make use of it, nor do they need to sign an additional agreement with Productsup. Productsup powers SAP Product Content Hub with the following features:

  • Data load / import
  • Data transformation (source target attribute mapping),
  • B. I. driven data manipulation
  • Data syndication
  • Assessing channel readiness

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Automation Anywhere Named a Leader in Inaugural NelsonHall NEAT Evaluation of Intelligent Automation Platforms

Automation Anywhere rated highly as a leader in all market segments of automation

Automation Anywhere, a global leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), announced it was named a leader in NelsonHall’s inaugural NEAT evaluation of intelligent automation platforms. Automation Anywhere rated highly in the Leaders category in all five market segments, and in particular for its ability to enable business process owners to develop automations.

Automation Anywhere Named a Leader in Inaugural NelsonHall NEAT Evaluation of Intelligent Automation Platforms

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The RPA industry is growing at an unprecedented rate due to the high levels of efficiency and productivity achieved from intelligent automation. According to equity research firm KeyBanc Capital Markets, RPA has emerged as a $100 billion market opportunity.

“RPA technology continues on an upward trajectory as more organizations discover how this transformative technology can ultimately change how businesses operate and humans work,” said Prince Kohli, Chief Technology Officer at Automation Anywhere. “It is an honor to be named a leader in NelsonHall’s first IA platform NEAT evaluation, as this ranking further validates that intelligent automation has the ability to unlock human potential.”

“The NelsonHall Intelligent Automation Platform NEAT found that the Automation Anywhere AI-enhanced RPA platform allows users to develop, run and orchestrate bots with ease, which will only be further enhanced by the recent acquisition of Klevops,” said Mike Smart, Senior Analyst and Operations Officer, NelsonHall. “Automation Anywhere’s clients pointed out the ease of bot creation in particular, a vital aspect in intelligent automation as we move into an era in which a bot for every employee will become the norm.”

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Automation Anywhere’s customers span a variety of industries, and now include more than 85 percent of the world’s top banks and financial services companies, 90 percent of the world’s top healthcare companies, and expects to deliver three million bots by 2020.

NelsonHall’s NEAT is an evaluation tool, based on a combination of analyst assessment and feedback from interviewing vendor clients. “Leader” positioning is awarded based on vendors’ ability relative to their peers to deliver immediate benefit and a high capacity to meet client future requirements. Weighted criteria include human-to-bot collaboration, ability for business process owners to develop bots, and ease of intelligent automation adoption & scaling.

Founded in 1998, NelsonHall is a leading global business process services (BPS) and IT services analyst firm, dedicated to helping organizations understand, adopt, and optimize adaptive approaches to business and IT services that underpin and enable digital transformation within the enterprise. NelsonHall’s research is based on rigorous, all-original research, and is widely respected for the quality, depth and insight of its analysis.

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How You Should Be Using Chatbots in Your Business

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GetAppLogoAs chatbots become increasingly more developed, and the demand for instant online customer service continues to rise, the debate about whether we should be using chatbots in business is creating divided opinions. The truth is, there is a strong case for both sides. There is no doubt chatbots can be beneficial to both businesses and their consumers, but they can also be a nuisance for customers who have a more serious problem and just want human assistance.

Improving Online Experience

In the on-demand world we now live in, chatbots could be the solution to customer desires for constant customer service. When customers were asked about the issues they face with current online experiences, a recent survey revealed that 31% of people cited problems finding the answers to simple questions. 28% said basic details about a business are difficult to find, and 27% said it takes too long to find services they require.

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This is a huge percentage of people who are put off using a website due to these simple issues. Businesses are no longer providing the experience customers are looking for, and these issues could be fixed by Marketing Technology, specifically chatbots.

Using Machine Learning, chatbots are becoming ever more intelligent; when customers just need a simple question answered, chatbots are ideal – especially for small customer service operations that might not have the manpower to deal with all the consumer queries coming in.

Evidence of chatbots being used successfully is found in KLM Royal Dutch Airline’s Bluebot. This AI is used to assist people on the airline’s website, helping them book flights. KLM reportedly recorded over 1.7 million messages from 500,000 passengers sent to Bluebot. For human customer service agents to deal with that many customer queries would be time-consuming and extremely costly. KLM has shown that chatbots can be a great asset to companies with a high volume of requests from customers.

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Not only could these AIs improve customer satisfaction, but they can also benefit your business’s profit margins. A high number of online consumers will leave a site if they don’t find the right help in a short period of time, so chatbots’ ability to respond quickly could help you retain potential customers. Chatbots also massively reduce manpower needed to operate a business’s customer service, cutting costs and thereby resulting in bottom-line gains.

Be Smart with Chatbots in Business

Despite all the arguments for the use of chatbots, a large number of consumers still don’t like them. According to research done by GetApp, when asked what form of customer service they prefer, 36.8% said speaking to someone over the phone. 9% said chatbots would be their favorite form of communication.

9% of customers is still a considerable amount, especially considering that an additional 12% said they value a quick response the most when it comes to customer service.

Still, in order to find the perfect balance when it comes to customer service and online experience, you must be smart with when to use chatbots. AI is perfect for dealing with simple queries, but you shouldn’t put too much emphasis on chatbots — when customers face more serious or complex problems, a real-life assistant is of far more use.

Another survey revealed that 30% of customers are worried about chatbots making mistakes. The lack of trust in chatbots when it comes to dealing with bigger problems could lead to consumers getting frustrated if they have a query.

Moving forward, it seems sensible to use chatbots for smaller, simpler queries. When an instant response is necessary, they are great for helping customers navigate websites or offering further information on products. But you should avoid putting too much responsibility on AI. Make sure you have an experienced, professional customer service team at hand to deal with requests from consumers needing more complex solutions or looking to bypass chatbots.

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Is Your Sales Proposal Process Putting Your Company at Risk?

Solid Strategies to Ensure Compliance to GDPR for Your Sales Proposal Process

In our post-GDPR reality, compliance has become the watchword for companies of all sizes and industries across the globe. Each entity must ensure that every bit of content it produces adheres to both internal and external standards – and Marketing and Sales content has not escaped this scrutiny.

According to this Upland Qvidian survey, pulling together a winning Sales proposal or response to an RFP typically involves at least five people, as well as dozens of pieces of content, pulled from various sources within the organization. If there isn’t a reliable system in place for ensuring that every piece of content is compliant with the most up-to-date standards, companies are exposing themselves to serious risk. Essentially, the very process of building a robust customer base may open up companies to noncompliance vulnerabilities – an anxiety-producing thought.

So how can you ensure that your Sales proposal initiatives don’t put your company at risk for GDPR noncompliance? You should be asking the following four questions:

Can Your Teams Easily Access the Most Up-To-Date Content?

Tracking edits to content is important, but if those edited versions aren’t stored in a central, easy-to-navigate library, the chances that your proposal teams will be able to locate and use that content might be slim to none. Creating a library with all approved key messages, assets, and alternate responses will help your teams locate the important content they need with a minimum amount of effort—and minimal risk that they will use noncompliant or outdated information. 

Are You Using Manual Methods to Track the Content in Proposals?

Some organizations still track all their content manually, often in Excel spreadsheets or other internal databases. In addition to being a very time-consuming, labor-intensive process, this practice increases the chance of human error. Proposal and Sales teams can unknowingly use outdated or non-compliant information or may uncover old content that no longer fits current brand guidelines. Not only does this introduce opportunities for potential fines, it hurts the brand image by creating inconsistencies in tone, as well as a reputation for mishandling information during the sales process.

Does Your Workflow Enable Sales Teams to Work Efficiently?

Be sure that the tools you’re using enable efficient workflows. All changes should be tracked and logged even after they’re approved, and changes should sync automatically to ensure that every update is reflected in the version of the content that is available to the whole team. Streamlined review cycles and detailed reports on content performance and usage help teams stay both compliant and effective. 

Are You Creating Audit Trails for Transparency, Future Tracking, and Compliance?

This is especially important in highly regulated industries, such as financial services. Compliance and audit teams will need to see who reviewed the approved content, and when and what changes they made. Time spent manually gathering that information after the fact is the time that your teams could be using it to complete new RFPs and proactive proposals.

Clear audit trails also help to ensure that all required parties have approved the content in question. Trails created in tracked changes disappear once those changes have been accepted, so it’s important to ensure that the tracking system you use can maintain records of changes and authors – even after the content has been finalized.

In an increasingly data-driven world, adherence to GDPR and other data privacy regulations is critical to keep pace and ensure consumer confidence. For Proposal and Sales teams on the front lines, putting the right controls in place to ensure compliance is being met will not only help avoid fines and damage to your company’s reputation, but it’s will also help them to put their best foot forward and deliver compelling proposals to score the next big win.

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Nitro Circus Launches New Channel on OTT Platform, Joins New Generation of Companies Bringing TV to AVOD

Joining the new wave of companies bringing their content to OTT platforms, Nitro Circus is using Unreel to launch their new brandchannel, Epic Makes Misses & Mayhem, as an AVOD streaming service

Nitro Circus, one of the world’s largest action sports brands global sports entertainment leader, has just launched its new brand channel, Epic Makes Misses & Mayhem, onto OTT as an AVOD streaming service with Unreel.me, a leading top platform for networks and publishers launching over-the-top (OTT) streaming services. The new partnership will help Nitro Circus distribute and monetize their extensive content library onto OTT by developing feeds for syndication to popular AVOD streaming platforms and by building Nitro Circus custom-branded apps to launch their new brand channel.

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Unreel builds smart OTT branded apps for video content owners. The platform gives publishers full control over their content, providing them with tools to boost viewer engagement, build their community, and monetize content. In its new partnership with Nitro Circus, Unreel will pull their content from an OVP into their CMS and then encode it for distribution on each OTT platform. For the new Epic Makes Misses & Mayhem brand channel, the content will be plugged into Unreel’s adstack TV to optimize ad monetization.

“We are thrilled to be able to help Nitro Circus reach new audiences on Xumo and start to develop their own owned-and-operated strategy on OTT with the launch of ‘Epic Makes Misses & Mayhem’ across iOS, Android, Apple TV, and Roku,” said Unreel CEO Dan Goikhman.

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Nitro Circus, a preeminent media producer specializing in action-packed feats and outrageous stunts, is yet another example of a large and progressive brand utilizing existing streaming services via syndication and dipping their toes expanding into O&O strategy across all platforms. As the cord-cutting revolution continues and content consumption options multiply, advertisers are expected to follow consumers as they migrate to OTT grows. The OTT video industry is already worth $64 billion in annual revenue and is predicted to exceed $120 billion in the next four years.

“This is a great opportunity for Nitro Circus to expand our reach and offer our short form quick-hit content in a dynamic way while retaining control. We are excited to be doing so alongside Unreel and the great team therein”, said Nitro Circus Global Head of Business Development Nick Crooks.

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TapClicks Raises $10 Million to Advance Predictive Analytics and Attribution In Marketing Operations Platform

BOATHOUSE CAPITAL PROVIDES FUNDING FOR ACQUISITIONS, GROWTH, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING INTEGRATIONS

TapClicks, the global leader in marketing intelligence, analytics, reporting, workflow and orders management, today announced it has raised $10 million in equity funding from Boathouse Capital, a private equity firm with over $350 million under management. TapClicks will utilize the funding for acquisitions and growth, as well as integrating predictive analytics and modeling capabilities and advanced attribution solutions using intelligence gathered from marketing campaign data into its extensive suite of automated omnichannel operations and intelligence solutions. These innovations will enable marketers from small businesses, media companies, agencies and franchises to predict marketing and business outcomes across an unlimited number of scenarios at the click of a button.

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Predicting the optimal advertising spend for ROI is a long-running marketing dilemma. With budgets tight and executive teams demanding results, marketers must be able to predict how marketing investments will drive campaign success. A recent study by AlixPartners found that of the $60 billion spent by global consumer product advertisers on digital ads, more than half had either a negative return or the ROI was not even measured. Gartner research predicts advances in automated marketing systems will help marketers extend the reach of multichannel campaigns to increase response rates by 25% over the next four years.

“Recent acquisitions in the data analytics space — Datorama and Tableau by Salesforce, Looker by Google, and Origami Logic by Intuit — signal the hunger for technologies that can draw intelligence from massive sets of data. But competing solutions can be expensive, require extensive support for deployment, and don’t make the best use of the available data,” said Babak Hedayati, CEO, TapClicks. “TapClicks is on a mission to make the results of marketing investments easier to predict through the integration of artificial intelligence into an easy-to-use, simple-to-deploy solution.”

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As marketers seek new ways to drive efficiencies in operations and return on marketing investment, TapClicks’ SaaS-delivered platform provides a single, intuitive dashboard that simplifies data sharing and integration, enhancing visibility into marketing operations and campaign performance to effectively map omnichannel customer journeys and evaluate the effectiveness of marketing channels side by side. With further development in AI and machine learning, TapClicks can boost the availability of intelligence marketers need to solve their ROI challenge.

“TapClicks’ analytics capabilities provide a real benefit to our agency as well as our customers – helping us grow while improving the accuracy of campaign analysis and success as a result,” said Todd Schumacher, founder and managing partner, Vici Media, a full-service digital advertising technology company. “We expect TapClicks’ newest developments will help us more effectively manage our clients’ digital campaigns and deliver intelligence to determine the optimal targeting and channel mix as our customers scale their programs.”

A repeat investor in TapClicks, Boathouse Capital is committed to the vision of the company and value that it delivers to its users. “With a growing demand for data analytics capabilities in today’s market, TapClicks is a leader in marketing data and intelligence,” said Chong Moua, general partner, Boathouse Capital. “TapClicks’ strategy, emphasizing automation and scalable omnichannel optimization, is fueling rapid growth, which validates our sustained investment in the company.”

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LiveIntent Taps Drawbridge and Tapad Vet Jon DeGennaro as VP of Identity Sales

Industry Veteran to Lead Growth of Company’s New Identity Business

LiveIntent, the people-based marketing platform powered by the email address, announced that it has hired Industry veteran Jon DeGennaro as VP of Identity Sales to lead growth for the company’s newly launched Identity Business, centered around its on-boarding service. 

Launched in April, LiveIntent’s on-boarding service seeks to right the wrongs of the industry by bringing the value of first-party data back to the brands and publishers who are able to produce it, not the disintermediating walled gardens that profit from it.  By providing publishers the ability to on-board advertiser segments directly to their first-party identifiers, this service unlocks the ability for publishers to increase their addressable inventory (including in cookie challenged environments like mobile) and allows advertisers to run more efficient campaigns by leveraging Identity at every step of the way. 

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DeGennaro comes to LiveIntent after serving as the VP, Enterprise Partnerships at Drawbridge for over two years. Jon held the leadership position at Drawbridge, renowned for being able to deliver cross-device identity graphs built on probabilistic modeling, until they were purchased by Microsoft’s LinkedIn platform. 

“When I started selling identity solutions years ago, a large part of the sell was education,” said DeGennaro. “The market has matured significantly and there is unprecedented demand for an independent identity provider with the highest caliber quality that has proven itself. LiveIntent’s unparalleled data asset allows to provide our customers a sophisticated identity graph like no other enabling our customers thrive during the upcoming cookie apocalypse. LiveIntent customers get access to the largest hash-based graph built through direct relationships with brands and publishers who execute people-based marketing with LiveIntent. LiveIntent’s graph has over 250 million verified people identified in a 1-to-1 way at its core, allowing for true people-based marketing wherever people are paying attention.”

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LiveIntent’s offerings are differentiated by its flexible pricing models, customized segments (not a one-size-fits-all product) and gives its customers better control over their own first party data. The service is very easy to use and removes the dependence that marketers and publishers have on third-party identifiers.

“We’re committed to returning the power back to those who have worked hard to amass troves of first-party data in this new era where the third-party cookie is losing its prominence,” said LiveIntent President, Identity Brian Silver. “Publishers and brands have used compelling email content to drive consumers to raise their hand and ask for a deeper relationship, and that leaves them in the driver’s seat of this new era. They should benefit from it by making their inventory more addressable and increasing the effectiveness of marketing. Jon’s extensive background as a pioneer in Identity means we’ll be off to a running start.”

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Chinese Consumers Live on ‘Super Apps’ Thanks To In-App Payment System

WeChat remains China’s king of social media with its 94% adoption rate towering over second-place Tencent QQ, which got 70%

China’s ‘super apps’ enable a variety of capabilities from third-party service providers within a single app including ride-hailing, ordering food delivery, messaging and mobile payments. Many of these services started primarily as mobile payments platforms which is why WeChat Pay and Alipay are currently the two largest apps in China, boasting a 90% and 94% usage rate by adult internet users, respectively, with 86% reporting that they use both, according to results from a survey by Kagan, a media research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence.

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Among other mobile payments users, 45% of survey respondents indicated that they use UnionPay’s mobile payment system, with 43% of all respondents saying that they use both UnionPay and WeChat Pay, and 44% saying that they use both UnionPay and Alipay.

“WeChat Pay, Alipay and UnionPay dominated China’s mobile payments industry, with 43% of our survey takers reporting using all three providers,” said Julber Osio, Research Associate for Kagan at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “In most emerging markets in Asia, including China, people access the internet primarily through their mobile phones. This “mobile-first” culture meant that app developers had to find a way to capture a variety of services in the simplest way possible.”

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The 2019 China Online Consumer Survey includes over 10,000 data points based on feedback received from 1,000 online adults in China on mobile operator providers, mobile payment providers, video subscription services, device usage, device activities, attitudes towards new technology, social media and e-commerce platforms and basic demographics.

Takeaways from Kagan’s 2019 China Online Consumer Survey results: 

  • Among China’s mobile payments industry, UnionPay users are most likely to be younger, more affluent and have higher education.
  • Most popular e-commerce sites for our respondents are Tmall, with 84% reported usage rate, Taobao with 81% and Jingdong Mall with 72%.
  • WeChat usage is highest among ages 40-49, whereas relatively smaller platforms such as Sina Weibo, Meituan and Zhihu have a younger user base, peaking at the 18-29 age bracket.
  • 47% of Chinese users keep their phones for one to two years, and most respondents consider price and affordability as important factors when buying new devices.
  • Video streaming remains a niche activity. iQiyi, Tencent Video and Youku Tudou remain the most popular online video subscription services, with 62%, 53% and 40% reported usage rates respectively.

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