Martech Roundup Part 1, February 2021: Terminus Launches New Platform Capabilities and More

This is the mid-month martech roundup of the top product launches, surveys, and funding in February 2021.

The last couple of years, specifically 2020, have taught brands and marketers one thing: customers should be at the center of all their strategies. This is especially true when it comes to delivering personalized experiences and being responsible for how they collect personal information from consumers. The last few weeks witnessed significant movement in both these facets. For example, Genesys and Limitless together announced a new digital experience for consumers. At the same time, BluConic announced new functionality to its CDP to help clients build their first-party data assets and free up their marketing tactics from technologies that rely on third-party cookies.

Read more about these and other interesting product launches, research, and funding in our first roundup for February.

Table of Contents

Top Martech Product Updates in February 2021

• Google adds new contextual data panels to search results to inform users about site information
• Microsoft will allow advertisers to level up their bidding with Enhanced Manual Bidding
• Hootsuite launches Curate by UpContent to make finding and sharing social content easy
• Genesys and Limitless announce new digital experience for consumers
• Contentstack announces a redesigned UI for its headless CMS
• Terminus launches new platform capabilities for optimizing ABM strategies
• BluConic announces new functionality to its CDP

Top Martech Surveys and Reports in February 2021

• SMS performs better than any other channel for promotion, brand awareness, and advertising shows survey
• 3 million new users joined social media every day during 2020, shows Hootsuite report
• More than 50% of brands will have failed to unify customer engagement channels by 2022, shows Gartner research
• Customers are ready to shop and spend but have new expectations, shows Kitewheel report
• CDP industry to reach $1.55 billion in 2021 says CDP Institute report
• Mobile frauds increased by 48%, according to a study by LexisNexis Risk Solutions

Top Funding in February 2021

• Leadspace bags $46 million in growth funding
• Tealium secures $96 million in Series G funding, raising total valuation to $1.2 billion
• Provar raises $17 million in Series A funding

Top Martech Product Updates in February 2021

Google adds new contextual data panels to search results to inform users about site information

 On February 1st, Google announcedOpens a new window adding a menu icon next to most search results, which users can tap to learn more about the site or feature and where the information comes up. With this information, they can make informed decisions about the websites they may want to visit. If available, they will also see a description of the website on Wikipedia. Through Wikipedia, users will be able to learn more about a website they may not have heard of before.

If the website’s information is not available on Wikipedia, then Google will show users an additional context that may be available. Further, users can quickly see if the connection to the site is secure.

Microsoft will allow advertisers to level up their bidding with Enhanced Manual Bidding

Microsoft announcedOpens a new window that all manual bidding strategies would be optimized by Enhanced CPC (eCPC) starting this spring. This will help advertisers take advantage of automated bidding. Enhanced CPC will be the bid strategy for all search, dynamic search ads, and shopping campaigns that have not yet opted into automated bidding. Microsoft believes that advertisers using eCPC will achieve 5-10% more conversions while maintaining their CPA. The average CPC will also not exceed the maximum bid they set. eCPC will help search partners’ performance by optimizing for high-quality clicks.

A few benefits of enhanced manual bidding include:

• Elevated bidding practice: The base bids advertisers set will be honored as the primary lever in the eCPC bidding strategy. Those bids will be optimized at auction time.
• Futureproofing with real-time responsiveness: Advertisers can use real-time and other auction signals such as search queries, bid modifiers, and operating systems to stay on top of the dynamic marketplace.
• Using flexibility to select tailored strategies: Advertisers can use eCPC for any performance goal. They can also choose from other strategies, such as Maximize Conversions, Maximize Clicks, or Target ROAS.

Hootsuite launches Curate by UpContent to make finding and sharing social content easy

 Hootsuite announcedOpens a new window the launch of Curate by Upcontent, an integration that enables brands, businesses, and solopreneurs to discover and distribute high-quality social content directly from Hootsuite’s dashboard. Upcontent is an active content discovery technology, and its intelligent discovery engine is available to all Hootsuite accounts. It automatically surfaces articles on topics that matter. It also meets the compliance requirements through an added layer provided by Proofpoint. The combination offers social media managers in regulated industries the right variety and volume of content matching their customers’ interests.

“Hootsuite found that 45% of users aged 16 to 64 are searching for brand information on social networks. So, it is safe to say that brands need to provide their audience with valuable, informative, industry-related content now more than ever,” said Henk Campher, VP of corporate marketing, Hootsuite. “Because Curate makes content discovery so simple, it is the perfect tool for small-to-medium size businesses and large enterprise organizations to show their customers that they really understand them and their industry.”

Genesys and Limitless announce new digital experience for consumers

Genesys announcedOpens a new window a partnership with Limitless, a provider of Gig Customer Experience (GigCX). Together, they will help businesses extend their contact center teams using a gig workforce, constituting brand experts who can provide new levels of trusted support to customers worldwide. End-customers will benefit from reliable answers to their queries via their preferred digital channels, such as chat and text. Limitless is already filling the gap in service experience by providing customers access to trusted brand advocates.

By bringing Genesys Cloud^TM and Limitless GigCX platform together, brands can provide a more contextual and connected experience across the customer journey. Genesys brings about this integration by leveraging its AI capabilities, which predict and blend the resources necessary to address a customer’s query, irrespective of a contact center agent, Limitless Expert, or a bot.

“By partnering with Limitless, we are enabling brands to connect customers with credible, authentic support that has the power to elevate ordinary transactions into more meaningful, lasting relationships,” said Olivier Jouve, executive vice president and general manager, Genesys Cloud. “Together, we are helping businesses deliver unique customer experiences driven by AI that ultimately offers digital consumers more value while extending the capabilities of their contact centers.”

Contentstack announces a redesigned UI for its headless CMS

Contentstack, a content experience platform (CXP), announcedOpens a new window a redesigned and reimagined user interface (UI) for its headless content management system (CMS). The new design brings a simplified user experience to developers and editors, ending the struggle between user-friendliness and technological capabilities. The new user interface brings simplicity and elegance to content management. It provides a streamlined editing experience with more space for content, fewer clicks in the editorial process, and faster content discovery.

“Content creators are the lifeblood of every brand and it is time to stop slowing them down,” said Matthew Baier, COO, Contentstack. “We have completely redesigned the user experience so content creators are free to work at the speed of their imagination. Contentstack is removing the learning curve for CMS, enabling content to come from anywhere in your organization.”

Terminus launches new platform capabilities for optimizing ABM strategies

Terminus, the account-based marketing (ABM) platform, releasedOpens a new window new platform capabilities for optimizing ABM strategies. These capabilities include global ad targeting, chat playbooks, and ‘Live View’. The new features bring ABM and sales managers together to drive full-funnel revenue generation. Here are the new capabilities in detail:

Global ad targeting: Customers can scale ABM campaigns beyond the U.S. directly in Terminus Ad Experiences, i.e., international campaigns can be created and managed directly on the platform.

Live View: Customers can proactively engage accounts currently visiting their website before they reach out.

Chat playbooks: This release includes playbooks designed to collect visitor data, trigger sales automation, and qualify inbound traffic in real-time. To make it easier to build powerful chatbots, the company has released a visual builder in addition to a linear builder.

BluConic announces new functionality to its CDP

BluConic, a pure-play customer data platform (CDP), announcedOpens a new window new functionality to its CDP. This new functionality enables customers to continue building first-party data assets amid rising privacy-related data and third-party cookie restrictions. It will give companies the ability to manage first-party server-side cookies centrally. This will help them continue to build their first-party data assets and free up marketing tactics from technologies that rely on third-party cookies. Collected consented, first-party data in unified profiles allows companies to power personalization tactics on web channels.

BluConic customers can leverage a centralized, easy-to-use console to manage the implementation of first-party cookies across the web channels. They can continue capturing on-site data to enrich the unified customer profiles stored with the BluConic database.

“BlueConic is focused on helping customers drive transformational growth through the collection and use of consented first-party data. Unfortunately, browser technology changes, which rightly prioritize consumer privacy over third-party tracking, have the potential to disrupt legitimate first-party data collection,” explains Bart Heilbron, CEO and co-founder, BlueConic. “This new functionality ensures our customers can continue to make first-party data the cornerstone of their customer-centric strategies as privacy policies proliferate.”

TopTop Martech Surveys and Reports in February 2021

SMS performs better than any other channel for promotion, brand awareness, and advertising shows survey

Mitto, a global omnichannel communication solution provider, in associations with Demand Metric, released the State of Customer Engagement in B2C MarketingOpens a new window survey report. The report’s focus is to detail how marketers are shifting priorities in 2021. According to the report, about 90% of marketers are taking ownership of customer experience (CX) moving forward. Two-thirds of marketers expect that increased digital communications usage will deliver CX success.

The following are a few other key findings:

• 97% of marketers already use or plan to use digital communications to support their customer engagement efforts and objectives. This includes establishing more meaningful connections with customers (49%), improving accessibility/ease of use (46%), delivering/optimizing contactless experience (42%), and improving omnichannel communications (42%).
• Enterprise B2C companies heavily leveraging SMS, live chat, chat apps, and chatbots were more likely to report revenue growth in the last fiscal year than those who did not adopt them.
• Among marketers who use SMS, close to 80% report it performs much better than any other channel, particularly brand awareness and advertising. 77% of marketers using SMS to send promotions or offers reported revenue growth in the last fiscal year, compared to only 23% of marketers not using SMS.
• The most significant barrier to digital communications implementation and usage is deliverability, alternatively described as “getting messages through” (37%).

1.3 million new users joined social media every day during 2020, shows Hootsuite report

 Hootsuite recently released its Digital 2021Opens a new window annual report, presenting its findings on the latest global findings on social media and digital trends. The report shows that social media users grew at the fastest rate in three years. There are now 4.2 billion social media users showing a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 13%. The number of social media users now exceeds more than 53% of the world’s population. Facebook continues to be the most used platform, followed by YouTube and WhatsApp.

Here are a few other findings from the report:

• People spent the same amount of time on social media each day as they did the previous year – 2 hours and 25 minutes.
• 45% of users (aged between 16 to 64) search for brand information on social media platforms and 40% use social media for work purposes.
• 91% of internet users (aged between 16 to 64) now use chat apps each month; messaging has surpassed social media use, currently in second place at 88%.
• Overall time spent online has increased, with the average internet user now spending almost 7 hours per day using the internet across all devices.
• Mobile became the first screen, accounting for a more significant amount of people’s time than live TV.
• 77% of internet users aged between 16 to 64 say that they buy something online each month. Food and personal care are the fastest-growing consumer ecommerce categories.
• Older age groups (over the age of 50) are the fastest-growing segments among the top social platforms’ audiences. They are growing more quickly than any other age group on Facebook and Snapchat.
• More than 90% of Gen Z internet users say they play games, compared to 67% of those aged 55 to 64.

More than 50% of brands will have failed to unify customer engagement channels by 2022, shows Gartner research

Gartner’s Digital Commerce for Marketing Leaders 2021Opens a new window report shows that 50% of large organizations will have failed to unify engagement channels by 2022. This will lead to a disjointed and siloed customer experience that lacks context. The report further shows that companies should deliver frictionless omnichannel experiences to create more connected experiences.

According to the report, organizations with store footprints are in an excellent position to leverage frictionless omnichannel experiences. Those without a physical presence can still tap into the benefits of frictionless omnichannel experiences by partnering with third parties. Frictionless omnichannel experiences should go beyond just buying online, in-store pickup, and curbside pickup. They should enable a truly seamless experience for selling, serving, fulfilling, and delivering.

To do that, the research suggests marketing leaders focus on the following areas when they collaborate with other organizations and optimize their 2021 strategy:

• Incentivize omnichannel sales: Test the thresholds for incentivizing omnichannel sales. For example, you can offer a gift card to encourage customers to buy online and pick up in-store or curbside.
• Feature Fulfillment Options: Highlight the fulfillment options clearly within the purchase journey to increase overall sales.
• Ensure Consistent Messaging: Work with customer service leaders to ensure that messaging is consistent for customers when switching between channels.
• Integrate Digital Inventory: Partner with supply chain leaders to push for better inventory integration across digital touchpoints.
• Prioritize Partnerships: Select partnerships that extend frictionless omnichannel shopping, including online marketplaces.

Customers are ready to shop and spend but have new expectations shows Kitewheel report

Kitewheel, a customer journey orchestration and analytics solution provider released its first annual State of the Retail IndustryOpens a new window report. The research explores key retail industry trends and provides recommendations on how brands can make the best of the changing landscape. The study shows that customers are now ready to spend, but they have new expectations and approaches. Further, it is more important now to make the digital customer experience flawless. The analysis emphasizes the continued and the increased importance of customer journey orchestration to perfect customer experiences (CX). The following are the key insights and suggestions from the report:

• More than 90% of consumers miss shopping in-store, and 100% of those consumers cite instant gratification of store purchases as the major reason. Yet, only 5% of consumers plan to increase in-store shopping in 2021. About 30-45% do not intend to change back to primarily in-store shopping after the pandemic ends. Hence, brands should invest in an alternative pickup and meet customers where they want to shop.
• 77% of consumers are willing to switch brands and have done so since the beginning of 2020. This willingness to experiment is an opportunity and risk for brands. Ultimately, consumers will stick with a brand based on their customer experience. Hence, retailers must capture new customers and retain current ones with personalized experiences.
• 39% of surveyed people have unsubscribed from a brand email at least once since January 2021. The primary reasons are ‘too many’ and ‘irrelevant emails’. Hence, brands should send fewer and more relevant emails by customizing content for each individual.
• 66% of ecommerce interactions occur primarily on mobile devices. Consumers are more eager than ever to engage with brands on their phones. Hence, brands should invest in mobile-friendly experiences to meet customers where they are interacting.

CDP industry to reach $1.55 billion in 2021 says CDP Institute report

According to CDP Institute’s latest Industry UpdateOpens a new window report, customer data platforms (CDPs) are increasingly being embedded into larger systems. The semi-annual report shows that ten out of 13 vendors entering the market during the second half of 2020 provide message delivery or campaign management services besides the core CDP function. These firms now account for 70% of the CDP vendors identified in the report. Here are a few more key findings:

• The report estimates CDP Industry revenue at $1.3 billion for 2020 and expects 2021 revenues to touch at least $1.55 billion.
• CDP employment grew by 25% in 2020, to just over 10,000. The number of CDP vendors grew by 35% to 133.
• The period saw several CDP acquisitions. The most notable was that of Twilio’s $3.2 billion purchase of Segment. In this and other deals, the buyer was a software company that planned to use the CDP as part of an integrated product stack. Previous CDP purchases were often by firms outside of the software industry, who wanted to offer CDP capabilities to supplement other services.

Mobile frauds increased by 48%, according to a study by LexisNexis Risk Solutions  

LexisNexis Risk Solutions recently released its Fraud Trends to Watch in 2021Opens a new window study. According to the study, as consumers increasingly go digital and mobile, there has been a 48% increase (YoY) in fraud attacks hitting mobile devices. Additionally, there was a 36% increase YoY in bot volume targeting financial institutions. Here are a few other disturbing trends.

• There was a 42% growth in digital transactions YoY of which, 60% were through mobile devices. This makes identity proofing more challenging.
• Over 4,500 data breaches were made public since 2005, and 45% of Americans have had their personal information exposed in a data breach in the last five years.
• Consumer stress and fear can lead to riskier transaction behaviors. It can lead to an increased malware infection on devices and theft of personal identification information.
• Ecommerce witnessed an 83.1% increase in fraud volume, while retail saw an increase of 61.5% since the start of the economic shutdown.

The study also gives the following recommendations:

• Utilize multiple layers of fraud defense
• Leverage a 360-degree view of customers
• Prioritize customer experience

TopTop Funding in February 2021

Leadspace bags $46 million in growth funding

Leadspace, a customer data platform (CDP), announcedOpens a new window that it received a $46 million growth funding led by JVP. The funding values the company at $10.3 billion by 2025. The company plans to use the funds to grow the teams in the U.S. and Israel. The company also plans to use the funding to meet the increasing demand it saw in 2020.

The company further announced that Erel Margalit, founder and executive chairman, JVP, will become the chairman of the company’s board. Margalit has earlier led investments, including QLIK Technologies, CyberArk Software, and Cogent Communications, among many others.

“Leadspace – through its revolutionary AI platform – is changing the way enterprises manage their internal and external customer data. In the coming years, enterprise CDP will be established as a new category, using AI to obtain the identity, title and roles of companies and individuals, creating true added value for clients,” said Margalit. “The company has added an impressive roster of new clients — including Salesforce, American Express, Zoom, Microsoft, Verizon, and more — to establish its leadership in the category. Building on the company’s technological center of excellence based in Israel, Leadspace will now augment its business leadership in the US.”

Tealium secures $96 million in Series G funding, raising total valuation to $1.2 billion

Tealium, a real-time customer data orchestration solution provider, receivedOpens a new window a $96 million Series G funding. The funding was led by existing investors Georgian and Silver Lake Waterman. This funding raises the company’s evaluation to $1.2 billion. The funding will be used for accelerating product innovation to meet the increasing demand for CDPs that deliver real-time, compliant, personalized, and omnichannel customer experiences to enterprises. Tealium has built a CDP to enable companies across industries worldwide to leverage data to provide in-depth insights.

“Key factors in the market have come together and created an environment where organizations have to adopt a first party data strategy to stay competitive and viable — and this trend is only increasing,” said Jeff Lunsford, CEO, Tealium. “We have seen an acceleration in global enterprises selecting Tealium’s CDP because we can help them realize business value quickly, which is critical in these dynamic times. This new capital will be invested in expanding our customer success, ecosystem development and product development teams around the world. We are committed to supporting our customers with high-touch industry expertise, from our team and our partners, and to delighting them with new products and services that make their jobs easier.”

Provar raises $17 million in Series A funding

Provar, a test automation platform for Salesforce worldwide, raisedOpens a new window a $17 million Series A funding led by Kennet Partners. This growth fund supports Provar’s mission to help teams capitalize on Salesforce investment through a scalable and robust solution to improve release agility, mitigate system errors, and drive innovation.

Since the platform’s launch seven years ago, the company has grown its customer base worldwide organically and opened offices in the U.K., North America, and India. Provar plans to invest the fresh funding to grow its test automation platform, scale the team globally, expand operations, and broaden Salesforce test automation possibilities.

“Customers are hungry for a Salesforce-centric test automation solution that can create break-resistant tests, release after release, while also extending into integrated systems when needed,” said Geraint Waters, co-founder and CEO, Provar. “Given the accelerated demand for Salesforce release deployments and the tools connected to them, traditional methods that require an excruciating amount of test maintenance just are not feasible anymore. That is why Provar is designed to fill that gap using an intelligent metadata-driven model.”

We would love to hear from you what you think of our February mid-month roundup. Do let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .