5 Ways 5G Will Affect Data-Driven Marketing on bdex.com

5 Ways 5G Will Affect Data-Driven Marketing
April 17, 2019| | in category analysis methods, bdex, Big Data, business, buy data, daas, Data Exchange Platform, Data Industry News, data management platform, data marketplace, Data Vendors, digital marketing, direct mail targeting, Email Marketing, First Party Data, in-market data, IT, linear analysis, location-based data, Mobile Marketing, Real Time Data, sell data, Thick Data, Third party Data, Web Design, Web Hosting Comments Off on 5 Ways 5G Will Affect Data-Driven Marketing

With the next generation of wireless technology expected to accelerate device proliferation, marketers need 100 percent deterministic cross-device matching more than ever.

A little girl rides her tricycle in her home, and as she passes a glass window, an illustration of a friendly monster appears. A fashion designer uses an AR-enabled screen to create his latest work. A group of gamers immerses themselves in an all-out virtual battle on their mobile phones…

If you didn’t see the Samsung ad that first appeared during the Super Bowl earlier this year, these images might seem like far-off fantasies, but with 5G on the horizon, they will soon become a reality.

For marketers, the opportunities 5G will bring are nearly endless. Here are just a few examples.

New marketing mediums will emerge

The proliferation of mobile devices has allowed people across the United States and around the world to access the internet, but not everyone with a smartphone enjoys the same level of connectivity. While they can typically browse the web or watch a short video, a host of problems, from a lack of bandwidth to latency, can keep these users from actively engaging in the content they consume.

The arrival of 5G will give mobile marketers the opportunity to create immersive user experiences like they never have before. Think interactive mobile games that allow users to talk and see each other in real time or AR-enabled apps from brands and retailers that allow users to try on clothes in the comfort of their home.

5G will make waves outside of the mobile space too. Better wireless internet will lead to better location intelligence, allowing marketers to geo-target potential customers with coupons, store updates, and more relevant marketing material with greater precision. In other words, getting the right message to the right customer at the right time—the goal of any marketing campaign—will finally be possible on a broader scale.

Of course, these scenarios are only a few examples of how marketers can create bigger, better campaigns and user experiences with 5G. Only time will tell how marketers take advantage of 5G once it’s widely available.

Marketers will have access to more real-time data

5G will boost network speeds from about 100 megabits per second to 10 gigabits per second, nearly 100 times faster than what is available through 4G now. Increased network speeds, along with increased bandwidth, will enable retailers and brands to collaborate in new ways.

Adweek predicts 5G will disrupt retailing by enabling in-store purchases via AR mirrors, distribution of long-form video content via MMS, foldable multi-screen devices and even location-based delivery.

Programmatic advertising will get a revamp

We’ve discussed how 5G will open up new avenues for data-driven marketing campaigns, but the current programmatic advertising infrastructure will also change as demand grows.

Open X, a programmatic advertising company, says it currently handles 100 billion ad requests per day. That number may seem high, but when 5G arrives, brands, retailers, and other companies will request programmatic ads even more. Advertisements will load faster and richer audio and video experiences will be possible, giving brands even more reason to invest in programmatic advertising.

Programmatic advertising costs could change as well. More demand could lead to higher prices, but advertisers and publishers also predict there will be more ad formats and pricing options to choose from as well.

Marketing across multiple devices will be a must

With 5G, more consumers will access the internet on more devices at the same time. While the interaction between devices includes smartphones, desktop, and laptops, smart home and voice-enabled devices powered by the IoT will be accessed more frequently as well.

To reach users across all their devices, marketers will have to identify them. Tools like BDEX’s ID Graph, which uses 100 percent deterministic cross-device matching, will become indispensable.

Marketers that fail to prepare could get left in the dust

It’s important to recognize that even though 5G is expected to change how marketers approach data-driven marketing, it will take years to reach the average consumer. In its downloadable report “The 5G era in the US,” the GSMA estimates 5G won’t become the leading mobile network technology in the United States until 2025 when it’s expected to account for about half of mobile connects.

That gives marketers plenty of time to prepare. Whether your company is a startup or a multi-million dollar establishment, the BDEX DXP has an audience and other datasets across more than 500 industries, making it an ideal resource for marketers who want to get ahead and start reaching more potential customers now.

By combining the functionality and reach of a traditional DMP in a true marketplace environment, BDEX enables companies to create and target audiences like never before. Contact us today to learn more.

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The Martech Training Boom on bdex.com

The Martech Training Boom
April 10, 2019| | in category analysis methods, Analytics, bdex, Big Data, business, buy data, custom segment building, Data Exchange Platform, Data Industry News, data management platform, digital marketing, Direct mail, email retargeting, First Party Data, in-market data, Internet of Things, Launch Advertising, location-based data, Mobile Marketing, Real Time Data, sell data, Thick Data, Third party Data, Web Design, Web Hosting Comments Off on The Martech Training Boom

The Martech arms race is creating tremendous demand for trained and certified digital marketing professionals. Trade organizations, for-profit companies, colleges, and universities are responding with a growing array of online and in-person options.

One of the primary challenges facing CMOs today is developing in-house digital marketing expertise needed to harness the power of in-house and third-party data.

Many companies are working to bring core data marketing technologies as well as digital marketing and advertising functions in-house. The effort will require not only spending billions of dollars on IT infrastructure but training or recruiting thousands of employees needed to build, maintain and run highly complex and often AI-enabled systems.

Marketers need new skills

A traditional marketing or advertising education consists of a bachelor’s degree in advertising, marketing, or journalism, with classes on consumer behavior, market research, sales, and the like. As marketing has become increasingly data-driven, marketers must continually build upon that foundation by becoming fluent in a wide and rapidly changing array of technologies and platforms.

Today’s marketing ecosystem is complex and poised to get more so as data continues to grow exponentially. In 2019, digital voice assistants and smart TVs will swell the amount of real-time data signals available to marketers. As the torrent of consumer data grows, companies need employees who can decide which data matter and how to integrate it into an increasingly complex data marketing infrastructure and strategy.

To stay competitive, CMOs are increasingly turning towards training and certification programs. Below we highlight just a few being offered by reputable trade organizations, companies, and academic institutions.

MarTech® Conference Workshops

MarTech® offers a variety of workshops at its conferences designed to provide marketers a deep dive into such topics as agile marketing, customer data platforms, buying marketing technology, creating connected experiences, or building a marketing team with talent optimization. Workshops offered at MarTech’s recently concluded conference in San Jose, California included “The Right Way to Buy Marketing Technology,” “Using CDP to Make the Most of Your Customer Data,” and “Agile Marketing Advantage.” The company’s next conference, MarTech® East, is scheduled to take place in Boston in September 2019.

IAB training certifications

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) offers certifications in Digital Media Sales, Digital Media Buying and Planning and Digital Ad Operations.

More than 9,500 participants representing more than 300 publishers, agencies, and ad technology vendors have enrolled in IAB’s certification programs since they were established in 2012. Many of the nation’s leading media companies—including AOL, Bloomberg, CBS Interactive, Collective, Condé Nast, Discovery Communications, NBCUniversal, Time Inc., Time Warner Cable Media, and Tremor Video—have pledged to have all eligible digital sellers across their organizations become IAB-certified.

The Digital Media Sales and Digital Ad Operations programs earned the American National Standard Institute’s (ANSI) first accreditation in digital advertising in 2015. The ANSI accreditation process, based on international benchmarks, increases the integrity, confidence, and mobility of certified professionals, and represents the highest standard in personnel certification.

Shoptalk

Shoptalk launched two education initiatives at its 2019 conference, which drew 8,400 people to Las Vegas from March 3-6. The first is a standardized set of sessions referred to as Shoptalk’s Core Curriculum, which covers many of the fundamentals of retail and will be repeated annually with updated perspectives and examples.

Shoptalk also launched an Annual Retail Education Certificate which is awarded to those individuals who complete 10 credits of continuing education at Shoptalk conferences. This certificate helps recipients distinguish themselves at a time when there is a significant divide in retail industry professionals’ knowledge of digital innovation.

Collegiate degree and certificate programs

A growing number of academic institutions are offering certification programs, ranging from community colleges to elite business schools such as Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.

Duke University has partnered with Simplilearn, an online training provider, to deliver a curriculum that provides students with advanced knowledge of the eight most important digital marketing domains and includes real-world projects and virtual simulations for practical experience. The program offers hands-on simulation labs and projects for practical learning with 350 combined instruction/study hours. Completion of the program meets the course criteria to sit for the Online Marketing Certified Professional certification exam.

As one of the world’s first data exchange platforms, BDEX is dedicated to building the infrastructure to power human connectivity. Contact us today to learn how we marketers access the best third-party data inexpensively, quickly and easily.

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One Stop Data Shopping: Find Your Audience on bdex.com

One Stop Data Shopping: Find Your Audience
April 3, 2019| | in category analysis methods, audience groups, bdex, Big Data, business, buy data, custom segment building, Data Exchange Platform, data management platform, data marketplace, digital marketing, Email Marketing, First Party Data, in-market data, Launch Advertising, Real Time Data, sell data, Thick Data, Third party Data, Web Design, Web Hosting, website re-targeting Comments Off on One Stop Data Shopping: Find Your Audience

By using the right tools and strategy, you can find consumers when and where they need you most

The key to a successful marketing campaign boils down to meeting consumers where they’re at – in both the purchasing process and in life. E-commerce and the widespread adoption of mobile devices have revolutionized the way information is collected, stored, referenced, and employed, with the end result being an abundance of data that defines users more clearly than ever before. Although this surplus of information is a boon to advertisers, it can become overwhelming and costly if its use isn’t approached thoughtfully.

The BDEX DXP allows advertisers to identify and refine a potential audience at every stage along a spectrum of behavior and when the data was collected. The combination of the robust BDEX ID Graph and cross-device matching authenticates customer information across devices, allowing advertisers to reach individuals at every point of their progress through the sales funnel. Using data strategically means more opportunity to target your message to reach – and appeal to – the most qualified consumers, resulting in a higher conversion rate and increased return on investment.

Find your target

Ironically, one of the greatest challenges in digital marketing in recent years is related to the proliferation of devices. According to information from Cisco, there will be an average of 13 devices per person in North America by 2021. This increase has actually made it more difficult to chart a consumer’s path to purchase as they switch between smartphones, tablets, laptops, and smart TVs to do their research and shopping.

The BDEX ID graph uses authenticated customer information such as log-in data, email addresses, and credit card purchases to recognize consumers by assigning each user a customer ID for accurate matching. This enables marketers to seamlessly reach individuals across their many devices.

Perfect timing

Timing is everything in advertising. Finding the right segment of the population to deliver your message to is only half the battle – true success involves finding the right people at the right time. For instance, say your product is a family-friendly minivan with features such as a built-in hand vacuum, ample storage, and ease of installation for car seats; something clearly designed to appeal to parents.

Sure, you could perform a broad search to find people who are car shopping and in the age range to be parents, casting a wide net; however, customizing your audience to include parents (of multiple young children) who have explicitly researched safety features and/or recently purchased a car seat would vastly help you narrow your targeting and increase conversion rates.

The BDEX Explore Data tool allows you to mine through various data sets to reach customers throughout their purchasing process:

1. Build a custom audience

In the above example of marketing a family-friendly minivan, you’d want to direct your messages to people with children who are shopping for a new vehicle. The BDEX Explore Data tool offers many creative ways to do that. The various industries and taxonomies allow you to define your audience by their actions, preferences, interests, or behavior in an easily searchable database.

For instance, start by selecting the audience class under “Recreation/Autos,” where available options include visits to autotrader.com in the last 30 days, or people searching for safety ratings. Combine that with other criteria such as age, sex, income, marital status, and number and age of children to narrow your audience for relevancy and specificity.

2. Early sales funnel

Defining an audience profile gives you the ability to create relevant content that is tailored to their specific interests. With your customer persona in mind, brainstorm keywords and topics to inspire your blog and social media content for inbound marketing.

Designing content around information that is useful to your audience – versus outright advertising – improves search engine optimization, increases brand recognition, and can help position your brand as a trusted source.

The BDEX Explore data tool can help you find people interested in purchasing a vehicle. Choose the “Shopping/Vehicles” industry tab and the “In Market for” taxonomy to provide results of 346,600,348 unique devices. From there, the “Audience class” taxonomy offers an option for Van/minivan which returns 64,689,710 results and the “Before buying a car, I will find the safety rating” taxonomy narrows your audience to 5,478,601.

Content around tips for keeping your car clean and organized, automobile safety features every parent should know, and car seat installation tips would all be good examples of organic content ideas that would appeal to parents in the market to purchase a family-friendly minivan.

3. Real-time targeting

So, you know your audience and have content that is relevant to their interests … how do you make sure they see it? The data tool uses programmatic advertising to help direct your efforts. It ensures that your display ads appear for your targeted audience on digital content they are consuming in real time.

Your parameters could include people visiting a particular blog, content tagged with specific keywords, or people watching a certain television show. The “Persona/Family” industry includes a “Has Children” taxonomy with a count of 130,154,415 devices.

Under the “Audience Class” taxonomy for the “Shopping/Children” industry, options include households which have bought children’s clothing within the past 12 months, as well as people who buy diapers or have shopped at Babies R Us within the last three months.

4. Post-purchase

Continue to build brand loyalty and increase the chance of repeat sales by cross-referencing clickstream data, geofencing data, and purchase history to personalize post-transaction messaging.

For instance, the “Persona/Auto” industry tab has a taxonomy for “Auto Class” which leads to an option to target owners of specific car makes and models. You could create a geofencing parameter to target visitors to particular car lots or repair stations and send messages about service reminders or purchase anniversaries under one of many taxonomies in the “Shopping/Vehicles” industry tab.

There is no shortage of data available to interested advertisers, but having a strategy that includes the ability to identify your audience and place yourself in their path at every section of the sales funnel will exponentially increase your chances at winning their attention – and making the most of your marketing budget.

Building your own custom audiences allows for the type of focus and flexibility that gives your agency an edge over competitors. Learn how BDEX data can strengthen your strategy.

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Using BDEX to Navigate Digital Transformation on bdex.com

Using BDEX to Navigate Digital Transformation
March 27, 2019| | in category analysis methods, bdex, Big Data, business, buy data, daas, Data Exchange Platform, Data Industry News, data marketplace, Data Vendors, digital marketing, Email Marketing, email retargeting, geofencing, in-market data, Internet of Things, IT, Launch Advertising, location-based data, Mobile Marketing, Real Time Data, sell data, Thick Data, Third party Data, Web Design, Web Hosting, website re-targeting Comments Off on Using BDEX to Navigate Digital Transformation

Whether your organization’s MarTech integration efforts are going smoothly or have created a Frankenstein stack, BDEX has the third-party data solution it needs.

Global CMOs are getting stretched thin these days. On top of their traditional mandates of lead generation and brand building, they are being asked to find and implement technologies needed to extract marketing intelligence from the growing torrent of data their organizations produce each day.

The complexity and dollars involved in this digital transformation make it a high-risk/high-reward undertaking. CMOs who succeed stand to create powerful data marketing platforms, turbo charge their real-time personalization efforts and gain a step in the MarTech arms race. Those who fail, risk squandering millions of dollars in resources creating what the industry has lovingly come to call a “Frankenstein stack.”

Nearly all – 96 percent – of respondents to the Marketo 2017 Marketing Benchmark Report agreed that the task of finding and integrating MarTech solutions can distract CMOs from their primary mission of helping acquire and keep more customers.

Such is the price we pay when it comes to learning how to implement new technologies, and indications are that global brands are still in the early days of their digital transformations. CMOs, it would appear, will have to keep tabs on multi-million-dollar, multi-year IT integration projects on top of their day jobs for years to come.

Where BDEX comes in

The good news is that thanks to BDEX, CMOs and the brands they represent don’t have to miss a beat during this tumultuous period. They can rely on BDEX to fulfill all their U.S. consumer data needs whether they are halfway through their digital transformation, have completed it or plan to forego it and continue relying on agencies and other vendors for marketing data.

BDEX can say this because of how we have integrated an unparalleled network of third-party data providers with an extremely robust ID graph and uniform taxonomy to power human connectivity.

The BDEX ID Graph

These all come together via the BDEX ID Graph, which tags all data signals coming in from our partners in real-time using a uniform taxonomy that spans more than 5,500 tags and 500 industries. This enables us and our customers to query nearly a trillion real-time data signals from more than 70 data providers using the same taxonomy.

On top of this, the BDEX ID Graph constantly reviews logins, app downloads, credit card purchases, and other authenticated real-time signals to make sure the incoming data signals are matched to the right Customer ID.

We do this by building one of the industry’s largest cross-referenced libraries of email addresses, mobile device identifiers, browser cookie IDs and U.S. Postal addresses. Our library spans 800 million mobile-to-email ID and cookie-to-email matches. If someone upgrades from an iPhone 8 to a Samsung 10 or switches from a Google Pixelbook to a Microsoft Surface, the BDEX ID Graph detects it the moment the user downloads an app or logs into an authenticated account tracked by any one of our data partners.

Our use of authenticated identifiers enables 100 percent deterministic cross-device matching, which means you can have 100 percent confidence our ID graph is assigning billions of incoming data signals to the appropriate Customer ID.

The BDEX DXP

Thanks to the BDEX ID Graph and our uniform taxonomy, the BDEX Data Exchange Platform (DXP) presents 290 million consumer identities, 1.3 billion email addresses and more than 900 billion data signals in a highly searchable database.

You can peak under the hood and get a sense of how broad and deep our data is using Explore BDEX Taxonomies, our free and highly intuitive taxonomy tool.

API or batch-mode access

Thanks to our uniform taxonomy, querying this massive database is quick and easy. You can match IDs instantly (10ms response time) using a real-time API query or upload ID lists via batch mode and have IDs returned in hours.

Custom segment building

Either way, you can harness real-time data signals to build or enhance custom audience segments for programmatic advertising, personalization and other projects.

The BDEX DXP provides access to hundreds of pre-built audiences uploaded by our partners. You can use these to fast-track your own audience-building efforts or use them as is until you whip your own MarTech stack into shape.

Whether your organization’s MarTech stack ends up humming like a Lamborghini or shrieking like Frankenstein, or your organization opts to continue relying on agencies and other external vendors, it’s going to need access to third-party data. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better one-stop shop for that than BDEX.

To learn more about how BDEX helps marketers maximize ROI, visit the BDEX solutions page.

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Using Real-Time Data to Build Brand Loyalty on bdex.com

Using Real-Time Data to Build Brand Loyalty
March 13, 2019| | in category analysis methods, bdex, Big Data, business, buy data, Data Exchange Platform, data marketplace, digital marketing, direct mail targeting, Email Marketing, First Party Data, in-market data, Internet of Things, linear analysis, location-based data, Mobile Marketing, Real Time Data, Thick Data, Web Design, Web Hosting, website re-targeting Comments Off on Using Real-Time Data to Build Brand Loyalty

Customer marketing focuses on retaining and enriching the customer relationships you already have, and the more competitive your industry is, the more you are going to need real-time data.

At BDEX we talk about how we are building the data infrastructure that powers human connectivity by delivering the right insight into the right people at the right time – to close the sale. But the value of our real-time data goes far beyond that. It can be just as valuable for building customer loyalty as for audience segmentation and targeting.

In fact, learning how to integrate real-time data into customer marketing could be a great way to pull away from competitors, particularly in more mature industries where customer loyalty is critical to sustaining growth. Research from Forrester and DataStax has shown that 95 percent of companies can’t yet make sense of customer data, and thus they struggle to pull any meaningful, real-time insight out of it.

Targeted marketing vs. customer marketing

The term “customer marketing” may seem redundant since all marketing is aimed at customers. But in this context, we are using the term to refer to marketing to existing customers rather than targeting new ones.

Targeted marketing markets products or services to potential customers, not current customers based on known preferences and behavior.

Customer marketing aims to not just retain customers but keep them buying repeatedly and success hinges on integrating data that is often scattered throughout an enterprise. For instance, product marketing and management and account management, as well as the customer marketing team, need to work together to build a single customer database.

Each team on its own wouldn’t have all the information about what customers value most and what brings them the most satisfaction, all of which are factors that lead to brand loyalty. In a study from the CMO Council, almost half of marketers still fail to deliver “contextual, personalized engagements” across points of contact.

Often, marketers can get that context more quickly by partnering with high-end data exchange platform like BDEX, which aggregates and classifies billions of real-time data signals from dozens of vetted partners using a uniform taxonomy to help marketers quickly build custom audiences.

Enhancing the customer experience

The first consideration for customer marketing should be enhancing the customer experience across all touchpoints to create a seamless and immersive brand experience. This will lead to greater customer loyalty, which will lead to repeat purchases and lifelong customer relationships.

A report released from Motista showed that emotionally connected customers are much more valuable to brands overall. These loyal customers spend up to two times more than other customers, have a 306 percent higher lifetime value, and stay with a brand for 5.1 years on average.

So, how do you enhance the customer experience and foster customer loyalty in 2019?

One way is to find new ways to use real-time data to push further toward true 1:1 customer personalization.

For instance, you could layer real-time data signals available from third parties on top of your existing customer data to enhance the product recommendation engine on your online store.  Personalizing recommendations can make the difference between a returning customer making add-on purchases and abandoning their shopping cart.

Or you could make a commitment to omnichannel personalization. This involves using cross-device matching and real-time data to tailor content not just to the customer’s preferences and behavior, but to the channel being used to present a consistent and integrated customer experience. This means adjusting content to exploit the strengths of each channel, whether that be email, text messages, an online store or SERP, a mobile app, an addressable cable TV box, digital signage, smart appliances or direct mail. This capability will become more critical the more humans become enmeshed in the Internet of Things and it’s only possible when you have access to the technology listed below.

Identity resolution

Your organization likely already has a data gathering system in place. But are you using that data as much as you could be? Each data transaction should be linked to a unique customer identifier, which allows you to create a more granular picture of your customers for not just real-time personalization, higher resolution targeting, and audience management, but more omnichannel personalization.

The more data you have in your ID Graph the more you can segment your audience and personalize your content. This allows you to send different messages to potential customers and existing customers so that both groups aren’t seeing the same ads and thus becoming alienated if a message doesn’t apply to them.

Deterministic matching

Deterministic cross-device matching uses customer information like anonymized log-in data or email addresses to match connected devices to Customer IDs and it ’s essential to omnichannel personalization and integral to building a robust ID Graph.

Geofencing

Geofencing allows marketers to draw a virtual fence that will alert them any time someone enters or exits a specific area. This can be used by brands and retailers to email coupons and other content to customers once they get within a certain distance of a store or even a section of a store. The technology provides a tremendous way to connect with existing customers at or near the point of purchase.

Clickstream and POS data

Combining geofencing data with other real-time signals such as a customer’s browsing activity or brick-and-mortar purchases can provide even greater insight into customer intent. This can help you decide not only whether and how to connect with the customer, but what content to send.

The above provides just a glimpse of how real-time data can be used to enhance customer loyalty, boost customers’ lifetime value and improve your marketing ROI.

Why loyalty matters?

Research shows investors are much more likely to reward brands with repeat customers and customer loyalty with premium valuations. That’s primarily because repeat purchasers spend more, refer more people, and bring in more business, according to Bain and Company research. As any marketer knows, it’s also significantly less expensive to retain a customer than acquire a new one.

This is why more auto dealerships are now focusing their marketing efforts toward retention, rather than just target marketing. Real-time data, it turns out, can turbocharge customer loyalty just as much as customer acquisition and sales.

BDEX is committed to building the infrastructure marketers need to power human connectivity. Call (917) 410 6616 or email us at info@bdex.com today to learn how brand-building solutions from BDEX can help you put the right messages in front of the right consumers at the right time.

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MarTech M&A Accelerates on bdex.com

MarTech M&A Accelerates
March 6, 2019| | in category analysis methods, Analytics, bdex, Big Data, business, buy data, clustering, daas, Data Exchange Platform, data management platform, data marketplace, digital marketing, Direct mail, Email Marketing, email retargeting, First Party Data, in-market data, IT, Mobile Marketing, Real Time Data, Responsive, sell data, Thick Data, Third party Data, Web Design, Web Hosting, website re-targeting Comments Off on MarTech M&A Accelerates

Could the big surge in MarTech deals last year signal the end of one wave of consolidation and the beginning of the next? Either way, it’s clear brands are more focused on harnessing data to connect with customers than ever.

In a synopsis of 465 mergers and acquisitions that took place in the advertising and marketing world last year, the consulting and publishing firm R3 Worldwide concluded that the consolidation that swept through the agency world in recent years finally spilled over, into and around the MarTech stack.

R3 estimated global M&A spending in the industry rose 144 percent to $33 billion in 2018 but noted that only 20 percent of transactions completed involved a global holding company. The overwhelming majority of growth came not from a global holding company acquiring an agency but from what R3 dubbed “unconventional buyers” targeting MarTech companies.

“M&A activity in 2018 signaled that the grand view of MarTech is becoming actualized and 2019 will be about how companies move beyond facilitating the intersection of marketing technology and management to real integration into the enterprise,” Greg Paull, principal and co-founder of R3, wrote in the report.

The activity is being driven in part by global CMOs, who after years of experience with digital marketing are opting to bring more expertise and technology in-house in a bid to extract more value from their own data and streamline sprawling – and often less-than-transparent – marketing supply chains.

Consolidation hits the MarTech Stack

In terms of targets, personalization remains front and center, as evidenced by Walter J. Thompsons merger with Wunderman. The two companies said they combined to create a one-stop, data-driven creative shop capable of meeting the needs of global brands.

“We already share many core clients, who will now have simpler access to our combined expertise,” the companies said in a joint statement announcing the merger. “And, as technology reshapes marketing, we have existing partnerships with Adobe, Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, and SAP.”

Adobe spent $4.5 billion to acquire Marketo, while Salesforce.com acquired Cloudcraze in deals each company said was aimed at bringing MarTech to the lagging B2B sphere. Forrester predicts that U.S. B2B commerce will grow from $889 billion today to $1.2 trillion by 2021.

“The imperative for marketers across all industries is a laser focus on providing relevant, personalized and engaging experiences,” Adobe’s Executive Vice President and General Manager Brad Renche said of the $4.5 billion deal to acquire Marketo. “The acquisition of Marketo widens Adobe’s lead in customer experience across B2C and B2B and puts Adobe Experience Cloud at the heart of all marketing.”

Salesforce also gobbled up Mulesoft to help companies unlock data across legacy systems, cloud apps and devices; as well as Rebel, which allows brands to “turn emails into an extension of their website or app – collecting data, removing friction from the conversion process, and enhancing the customer experience.”

Smaller, but potential seminal deals included Singapore-based InMobi’s decision to acquire Reserve for $90 million and as part of its plan to launch the world’s first, largest and most transparent in-app and video programmatic exchange.

What do these M&As signify for the industry?

The deals signaled an acceleration of consolidation in the MarTech space being driven in large part by global CMOs eager to rationalize their marketing supply chains. Clearly, investors have heard their plaints and are rushing to stitch together companies that can provide integrated solutions spanning the entire length of the customer journey from content marketing to programmatic advertising, check out and customer loyalty programs.

The quest for ever deeper levels of personalization was apparent in both the Adobe and the Wunderman Thompsons deals, which hinge in part on the bet that data can be used in new ways to not just automate marketing but inspire creativity.

The BDX data difference

The one thing all these deals have in common, of course, is that they will either add to the volume of third-party data or rely on it to succeed.

As one of the world’s first data exchange platforms, BDEX stands ready to help marketers access the best of that data as inexpensively, quickly and easily as possible. Our 100 percent deterministic cross-device matching and a uniform taxonomy spanning more than 5,000 industry categories enable us to verify and aggregate more than 900 billion data signals generated by tens of millions of U.S. consumers in real time.

We do this so marketers can focus more on marketing and less on scrubbing data – or who owns which layers of their marketing stack.

Why not call 917-410-6616 or contact us today to see how BDEX is building the infrastructure for human connectivity that can help take your personalization, real-time targeting and other marketing initiatives to the next level.

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