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Yext Transforms Search with Brand Verified Answers

Next-Generation Yext Platform Enables Businesses to Capitalize on Paradigm Shift in Search From Results to Answers

Yext, Inc., the platform for Brand Verified Answers in search, kicked off a new era in the world of search today with the next generation of the Yext platform. New enhancements to Yext enable businesses to answer the questions consumers ask about them: in search, using voice assistants and chatbots, and on their own websites. Brand reputations are increasingly at stake with what consumers find online, and so businesses need to be able to provide verified answers to their questions. Now any business can deliver an authoritative, brand-verified answer.

“There’s a massive paradigm shift going on in the world of search from chaotic results to brand verified answers. Today’s customer journey starts with a question, and consumers expect answers,” said Howard Lerman, Founder and CEO of Yext. “Today’s expansion of Yext allows companies to build their complete knowledge graph, which is the foundation of meeting the consumer at the precise moment of intent.”

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Yext allows businesses to create and connect all the facts about themselves in an answers-ready knowledge graph, so they can power their own sites and services and sync with search, voice assistants, and chatbots. New custom entities and fields make Yext adaptable to any business, so brands can connect any type of fact to the information about it consumers want to know, from a store location and open jobs there, to a menu item and its nutritional information, to a doctor and her specialty and educational background. This allows a consumer asking something like “Who is a wealth advisor in San Francisco who speaks Mandarin?” to get an accurate, direct answer.

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“The customer journey starts with a question. It’s up to every business to provide the brand verified answer,” said Marc Ferrentino, Chief Strategy Officer of Yext. “Yext’s comprehensive fact platform contains hundreds of millions of connected facts about our clients’ businesses. Facts in Yext are structured for search so that businesses can meet their customers in the moment of intent. Today marks the first step toward a world of perfect answers everywhere.”

Yext’s founding principle is that the ultimate authority on a business should be the business itself. Businesses need a platform to provide verified answers to drive digital discovery, customer engagement, and reputation enhancement.  Yext leads brands into the future of search, bringing the world one step closer to perfect answers everywhere.

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US Podcast Ad Revenues Hit Historic $479 Million in 2018, an Increase of 53% over Prior Year, According to IAB & PwC Research

Podcast Ad Market Forecasted to Surpass $1 Billion By 2021

In 2018, marketers spent $479 million to advertise on podcasts in the U.S., an uptick of 53 percent from $314 million in 2017, according to the latest IAB/PwC Podcast Advertising Revenue Study. The report, conducted by IAB and PwC US, forecasts that U.S. podcast marketplace revenues will double by 2021, surging to over $1 billion. Self-reported revenues by leading podcast companies show a similar trajectory, reaching $345 million, a rise of 34 percent over $257 million in 2017.

“Today’s technology has created an audio-first environment where audio is the preferred interaction—and consumers have put podcasts front-and-center”

Direct-to-consumer Retailers and Financial Services spent more on podcast advertising than other industry categories. Overall, five business categories represented nearly three-quarters of all advertising revenue captured:

  • Direct-to-Consumer Retailers (22%)
  • Financial Services (21%)
  • Business-to-Business (14%)
  • Arts and Entertainment (10%)
  • Telecommunications (7%)

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Host-read ads continued to be the preferred ad type, constituting nearly two-thirds of all podcast advertising. Direct response campaigns were still the most popular ad type, but are decreasing in popularity, as brand awareness and branded content ad types rose in use. Cost-per-thousand was by far the most dominant pricing method.

“Today’s technology has created an audio-first environment where audio is the preferred interaction—and consumers have put podcasts front-and-center,” said Anna Bager, Executive Vice President, Industry Initiatives, IAB. “Podcast storytelling is deeply engaging and provides marketers with a brand safe environment that enhances the appeal to advertisers. IAB has been a strong supporter of the podcast marketplace, and we look forward to spotlighting the medium’s latest at this fall’s IAB Podcast Upfront.”

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“The steady climb in revenues for the podcast ad market underscores the value of the platform’s flexibility and reach,” said David Silverman, a Partner at PwC US. “Consumers are listening to podcasts wherever and whenever—from their morning workout to their evening commute—making it appealing to brands that want to reach today’s audiences.”

ABC Radio, Adswizz, AudioBoom, Authentic, ESPN, Gimlet, iHeartMedia, Market Enginuity, National Public Media, Megaphone LLC, Podcast One, Inc., PMM, Inc., Rawvoice, Stitcher, WarnerMedia, Westwood One, and Wondery sponsored the IAB/PwC Podcast Advertising Revenue Study.

Read More: Extreme Reach Launches AdBridge for Sellers, A New Ad Distribution Platform for Sell-Side Teams and Their Advertising Partners

Extreme Reach Launches AdBridge for Sellers, A New Ad Distribution Platform for Sell-Side Teams and Their Advertising Partners

Solution simplifies the complexity caused by today’s fragmented viewership; taps into AI capabilities within VAST tags

Extreme Reach (ER) announced the launch of AdBridge for Sellers, a solution built to address the challenges faced by programmers and ad operations teams in a content-everywhere world. The viewer expectation of finding content they love on a myriad of screens and platforms has added tremendous complexity to sell-side workflows as teams look to ensure that quality ads align with quality content everywhere it is seen.

AdBridge for Sellers connects the buy and sell sides to simplify the distribution of ad creative to every serving point: OTT, VOD, CTV, Digital and linear TV.  The current complexity of this workflow, industry-wide, has prompted many players to begin building their own siloed solutions that essentially act as Operational Walled Gardens that prevent ads from being efficiently distributed and trafficked. This, in turn, creates significant redundancies for brands, agencies, programmers and MVPDs as it multiplies the number of requests for the same creative assets. The multiple hand-offs of those assets that take place between receipt from the buy-side and serving the ad, can result in missed opportunities for all. The buy side misses the chance to get in front of valuable eyeballs and the sell side loses the opportunity to monetize valuable content.

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“Fragmentation of audience based on new and innovative video delivery platforms is creating complexity on the sell side as ads need to be positioned everywhere,” said Bunker Sessions, VP Sell-Side Solutions at Extreme Reach. “AdBridge for Sellers is shedding light on these challenges and the friction that exists in campaign execution on the sell-side, and delivering a true solution that ensures the industry can realize the full value of every ad impression.”

VAST Tags Are Key to Simplified Process

Using AI, AdBridge for Sellers taps into the power of VAST tags which enables simplified campaign trafficking and also preserves the original Ad-ID through a maze of sell-side point solutions and Operational Walled Gardens. This is a key differentiator in the sell-side workflow. Unifying inventory across all Dynamic Ad Insertion opportunities allows sellers to serve ads more quickly, almost in real time, into environments that have traditionally been very hard to serve into and to monetize.

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“With AdBridge for Sellers, we’re bringing our powerful technology and deep expertise to bear on the serious complexities of asset management on the sell-side,” said Extreme Reach CEO and Co-Founder, Tim Conley. “We must make it easier for publishers and programmers to monetize their premium content across every platform by transforming the most fundamental element of campaign execution—the sourcing, preparing and deployment of the ad assets themselves down the waterfall of parties that need them to launch on time and with precision. AdBridge for Sellers leaves sluggish, legacy processes behind in exchange for a modern solution, leveraging powerful technology.”

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QuickLogic Appoints Donald Alexander as Vice President of Worldwide Sales

QuickLogic Corporation, a developer of ultra-low power multi-core voice-enabled SoCs, embedded FPGA IP, and Endpoint AI solutions, announced the appointment of Donald Alexander as Vice President of Worldwide Sales.

Mr. Alexander will be entrusted to accelerate QuickLogic’s overall revenue from strategic customer accounts as well as through direct and channel sales worldwide.

“Don is a veteran of the semiconductor industry with over 25 years of sales and management experience. He has vast knowledge of programmable logic products, AI use cases in IoT applications, and a deep understanding of the dynamics of both strategic accounts and channel sales. We are fortunate to have him on board and look forward to an immediate positive impact on the company’s sales initiatives,” said Brian Faith, president and CEO of QuickLogic.

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“QuickLogic is uniquely positioned to address huge, emerging opportunities in consumer and industrial IoT with their complete voice and AI end-to-end solutions,” said Alexander. “The team has done an excellent job laying the groundwork with the right platforms and ecosystems, and I am excited to be joining them in this pivotal moment in the company’s history.”

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Mr. Alexander joins QuickLogic from Lattice Semiconductor where he was senior director of sales for strategic mobile and consumer accounts. There, he and his team achieved one of the highest volume FPGA-based design wins in history in US-based mobile phone handset and tablet platforms. He also achieved a very high volume, multi-product design win for one of the largest US-based smart speaker platforms. Prior to Lattice, Mr. Alexander held sales and management positions at many semiconductor companies, including Xilinx and Altera.

Alexander holds a bachelor of science degree in physics from the University of California at Riverside, and a master of science degree in electrical engineering from California State University at Long Beach.

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Medallia Becomes Premier-Level Partner in Adobe Exchange Partner Program

Giving marketers unprecedented solutions to manage and personalize end-to-end customer experience

Medallia, Inc., the global leader in experience management, announced its status as a Premier partner in the Adobe Exchange Partner Program, a global technology partner ecosystem. This top-tier partner designation recognizes a select group of innovative, best-in-class solutions and provides in-depth collaboration in categories that are critical to the success of Adobe customers. The Premier partnership offers deep core integration and addresses strategic customer needs.

Currently one of only 12 Premier partners, Medallia will work with Adobe to improve the omni-channel customer experience by combining behavioral data from Adobe with customer feedback from Medallia and bridge the online/offline divide. Medallia’s solutions securely integrate with Adobe Experience Cloud products including Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, and Adobe Audience Manager.

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Medallia customers can now leverage Adobe’s wealth of digital behavior data and analytics to improve customer interactions and multi-channel journeys in the physical world. Meanwhile, Adobe customers can magnify the outcomes of digital analytics and marketing personalization with Medallia’s highly predictive combination of online and offline experience data.

“Our customers want to understand and optimize every experience along each customer journey,” said Farooq Javed, Medallia’s VP of Alliances and Partnerships. “Integrating with Adobe Experience Cloud vastly improves our ability to shape the way companies engage with prospective and active customers in a personalized way, giving marketers a better chance of reaching consumers with an exceptional experience every time.”

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“With a shared passion and ability to dramatically improve individuals’ experiences with our joint customers, Medallia and Adobe are natural partners in this exciting space,” said Cody Crnkovich, Head of Platform Partners and Strategy for Adobe Experience Cloud. “As we evolve our partner programs, we are thrilled to welcome Medallia as a key part of the program to build on our existing successes and to accelerate impact and value together.”

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WorldRemit Raises $175 Million in Series D Funding

Investment shows confidence in the vast global potential of mobile payments

Leading mobile payments company WorldRemit has entered into a definitive agreement to raise $175 million in a Series D funding round led by returning investors, TCV, Accel and Leapfrog Investments.

Founded in 2010, WorldRemit is a global leader in smartphone and online payments – providing a convenient, low-cost alternative to expensive brick-and-mortar agents.

WorldRemit handles a growing share of the $700 billion remittances sent each year by expatriates and migrant workers to their home countries. Today, the company serves almost 4 million customers transferring money from 50 “send” countries to 150 “receive” countries.

Breon Corcoran, Chief Executive Officer of WorldRemit, said: “For more than eight years our core purpose has been and continues to be to help migrants send money to their families, friends and communities. Our customers play a key role in the economies where they work and their remittances are important to their home countries.”

“Our mission is to help them transfer money as securely and speedily as possible while reducing the cost to our customers. We will grow our business through differentiation on speed, service, security and value.”

“The leadership team is grateful to our investors for their continued commitment to the business. The new money will help us to further develop the offering and we will launch a solution for small and medium-sized businesses.”

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The Series D funding round comes at a pivotal stage in the company’s growth. In 2018, the USA became WorldRemit’s largest send market, following the company becoming one of the first UK financial service firms to secure licenses in all 50 states.

WorldRemit will use this new investment to further drive global growth and diversify the company’s product offering for both money transfer senders and recipients. The company is also set to launch a new money transfer solution targeting small and medium-sized business owners who trade internationally, especially in emerging markets. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including FCA approval.

TCV General Partner John Doran said: “Over the past eight years, Ismail and his founding team have built a fantastic business that offers customers a compelling solution and value proposition. Since passing the reins to Breon and the new management team last year, the business has continued to build on this platform and accelerated. We believe the opportunity and proposition is larger than ever.”

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“In 2018, mobile and online payments to emerging markets reached a record high of $528 billion and we expect this number to increase. As WorldRemit handles a growing share of this market, we look forward to continue working with the company to scale its digital platform and expand its service to reach many new customers across the globe.”

Accel’s Harry Nelis said: “Having first partnered with the WorldRemit team in 2014, I have seen the company grow from a London-founded startup to a global business pioneering the future of the remittance market and making international mobile payments more accessible and affordable for millions of individuals and businesses. This investment and CEO Breon Corcoran’s experience leading consumer service-oriented, global digital businesses will help fuel the next phase of global growth. We are excited to deepen our relationship with the team and help them fulfil the company’s vast potential.”

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Pixability Hires Ex-Google Executive Chris Woods as Chief Revenue Officer

Woods will lead growing global sales team as the company sees increased use of its powerful software and analytics services for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and CTV

Pixability, the leading provider of software and insights to target, optimize and deliver video advertising on YouTube as well as Facebook, Instagram and major Connected TV (CTV) platforms like Amazon, announced the addition of Chris Woods as the company’s Chief Revenue Officer. Woods will apply over a dozen years of sales experience to Pixability’s comprehensive video advertising platform, helping to build revenue growth and promote the company’s holistic video marketing solutions as it expands them to include CTV. Woods’ arrival is expected to boost Pixability’s already impressive growth, having recently been named the 15th-fastest growing private company in Massachusetts.

Woods’ extensive experience with YouTube will also bring new insights to one of the company’s strongest performance areas. Woods served as a sales executive for Google for seven years, rising to become the Head of U.K. Sales Strategy and Global Industry Relations. Immediately prior to joining Pixability, Woods served as Chief Growth Officer at the independent advertising agency Allen & Gerritsen, where he drove revenue growth three times the industry average. Prior, as Chief Revenue Officer at Visual Measures, he successfully led a turnaround phase that resulted in the company being acquired by AcuityAds. In addition to Woods’ work in sales, he has advised CEOs on sales and marketing issues as President of Boston Bridge Partners, LLC. The company, founded by Woods in 2013, donates a portion of its profits to support at-risk children in the inner city.

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As Pixability grows to apply its industry-leading data science across more video platforms, Woods’ expertise in leading sales teams and driving revenue growth will ensure strong financial performance and profitability. Pixability is now leveraging its powerful analytics and insights to target CTV audiences and manage and report on video campaigns seamlessly across social and CTV platforms.  Helping clients break out of siloed marketing strategies, Pixability, for the first time, provides a holistic view of the effectiveness of video advertising in addition to enabling more efficient buying across all platforms.

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“Pixability has demonstrated the strength of its video advertising platform with rapid growth, and we are confident that Chris Woods is the right person to further propel us to the next level,” said David George, CEO of Pixability. “Chris knows what works for each sales vertical and his record of success in growing revenue across all of them, along with his crucial experience at Google, will point us in the right direction as we continue to deliver more unified campaigns across social video platforms and CTV.”

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