October 2020 Martech Roundup Part 2: SEMrush Releases New Features, Customers Increase Digital Spending, Calvin Klein Appoints a New CMO

This is the final martech roundup of top product launches, surveys, and hiring in October 2020

With the annual holiday shopping season here, studies show that the COVID-19 pandemic is playing a key role in driving customer sentiments, marketing strategies, business decisions, and market trends. Besides evolving market trends, there have been a few important product and feature launches and shake-ups in the marketing world. Here is a quick roundup of the big news items we tracked this October.

Table of Contents  

Top Martech Product Updates – October 2020

• Concentrix launches Concentrix Experience Platform for digital customer experience management
• SEMrush adds two new features to its Listing Management tool
• Facebook Audience Network to exclusively use bidding to fill ads in iOS apps in 2021
• Acquia announces important updates to Open DXP
• Progress launches new DataDirect connectors for martech stack

Top Martech Surveys and Reports in October 2020

• Almost 90% of organizations have updated their CX strategies owing to COVID-19, Corinium and Precisely report finds out
• Comscore report unveils significant increase in digital customer spending this year owing to coronavirus pandemic
• Affectiva research shows advertisers are improving their effectiveness in eliciting consumer emotions
• There is a significant investment and broadening of ABM programs amid budget cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic, shows Terminus report
• No free shipping among other holiday hold-ups stop customers from an online purchase with a particular brand, according to Scalefast report

Top Martech Movers and Shakers in October 2020

• COMMB announces Amanda Dorenberg as new president
• Calvin Klein appoints Linh Peters as a new chief marketing officer
• Blue Ridge appoints Ed Rusch as the new

Top Martech Product Updates – October 2020

Concentrix launches Concentrix Experience Platform for digital customer experience management

Concentrix, a customer experience solutions provider, launched a cloud platform, Concentrix Experience Platform (XP)Opens a new window . Concentrix XP is a new platform in the industry for CX management. It offers advanced cloud and AI-enabled technologies for digital-first contact centers and self-service centers. The platform’s key capabilities include business messaging, AI bots, omnichannel journey orchestration, virtual assistants, and Amazon Connect-powered cloud contact center capabilities.

XP integrates with leading customer relationship management (CRM) and workforce management (WFM) systems. It also integrates with Concentrix’s voice of the customer (VoC), Analytics, and SecureX biometrics solutions. Further, the platform is fully customizable. Hence, companies will pay only for the features they use. XP is available as a managed service. It also has pay-as-you-go pricing options.

SEMrush adds two new features to its Listing Management tool

SEMrush users can now access new featuresOpens a new window in their Listing management tools to improve their local SEO. Users will have to upgrade any of their locations to the Premium level to access these features. Each Premium location will cost $40 per month.

The two major features include:

• Local ranking heatmap: Users can track up to five keywords on a hyper-local level, with rankings listed in a heatmap around a target area. This feature will help them understand where and how well their SEO efforts are faring.
• Review management: Users can collect all of their reviews and respond to them on Facebook and Google My Business directly from the platform.

Facebook Audience Network to exclusively use bidding to fill ads in iOS apps in 2021

In response to changes in Apple’s iOS 14 operating system, Facebook said that its Audience Network would use only bidding to fill adsOpens a new window in iOS apps starting in Q2, 2021. The company said its goal has been to support publishers and developers through a bidding-only process since it began to test it in 2017.

Facebook projects that before the end of 2020, it will see advertisers conducting transactions of 50% of revenue using bidding. In the company’s recent publisher’s report, data suggests companies can save up to 50% of the time spent on ad operations by switching to bidding from waterfall ad buying. The waterfall method refers to the traditional programmatic form of ad buying.

For now, Facebook will continue to support both waterfall and bidding ad buying processes for Android apps. It, however, recommends moving to bidding to take advantage of operational efficiencies.

Acquia announces important updates to Open DXP

Acquia, a digital experience company, announced a few important upgradesOpens a new window to the Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP) in its annual customer conference, Acquia Engage. The Acquia Open DXP is powered by Acquia Drupal Cloud and Acquia Marketing Cloud. Developers can innovate digital experiences faster with the new upgrades. They are also expected to help marketers make data-driven and smarter decisions across campaigns.

The latest upgrades to the Drupal Cloud help developers reduce the time to build, design, and run applications and sites. Significant upgrades to Acquia Marketing Cloud provide marketers data and analytics to make smarter decisions.

Progress launches new DataDirect connectors for martech stack

Progress, an application development and digital experiences technology provider, released new DataDirect connectorsOpens a new window . These connectors will help companies overcome challenges of accessing data and information from diverse martech applications. The new set includes connectors for marketing automation, CRM, and web analytics platforms, including HubSpot, Google Analytics, and Oracle Eloqua.

These set of connectors offer marketing, IT teams, operations, and analytics vendors access to almost real-time data and information. This helps them gain a better view of the performance of marketing campaigns and spends. It also enables IT and operations teams to spend less time on custom coding and data recovery. Other benefits of these connectors include:

• They provide a relational view of data to data analysts and BI developers
• They highlight data trends to show marketing program and budget performance
• They secure faster throughput of data
• They offer continued secure data transfer and round-the-clock customer support

Speaking to exclusively to Toolbox Marketing James Goodfellow, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Progress, added, “With the sheer number and complexity of marketing tools available, it’s often challenging for marketing and IT teams to find solutions that fulfill business needs, fit into their overall technology stacks, and enable them to garner all of the insights needed to make real-time, business-critical decisions,” said James Goodfellow, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Progress. “With the rollout of DataDirect connectors for the martech stack, marketing operations teams can overcome the challenge of accessing data from disparate marketing technology applications, enabling them to better analyze their programs’ performance. This, in turn, alleviates tasks on the IT side,”

Top Martech Surveys and Reports in October 2020

Almost 90% of organizations have updated their CX strategies owing to COVID-19, Corinium and Precisely report finds out

A survey reportOpens a new window from Corinium and Precisely examined the changes organizations need to make in their CX strategies owing to the COVID pandemic. The report showed that almost 90% of organizations and CX leaders had updated their customer experience (CX) strategies in response to the pandemic. About 25% of the respondents said that they have completely rethought their approach to CX.

Other key findings include:

• 25% of respondents plan to fully replace their physicals locations completely with digital alternatives
• 50% of respondents say that customers expect more integrated and seamless experiences during their interaction with brands
• Yet, about 66% of the respondents say that customers prefer to talk to humans when doing business
• 60% of respondents plan to invest more in data integration and enrichment technologies to achieve data integrity.

Greg Van den Heuvel, EVP, and GM, Precisely said, “The pandemic has accelerated the digital shift dramatically, increasing timelines from years to a matter of months. These data-driven investments are about engaging people in a personal and interactive way – across different channels of engagement – to ensure they get to the answers they need quickly. It’s about making the complex simple”.

Comscore report unveils significant increase in digital customer spending this year owing to coronavirus pandemic

Comscore released a 60-page 2020 State of Retail reportOpens a new window earlier this month. The report explores the changing trends, the coronavirus pandemic’s impact, and how the holiday season may look like for the retail industry. The report also provides insights into how consumer sentiment and digital commerce has changed this year, which segments are seeing rapid growth, and how brands can connect and engage with their audiences in a better way.

Key insights include:

• Total digital commerce accounted for about 25% of discretionary spendings by consumers
• During the COVID pandemic, the first quarter of 2020 saw the highest share of digital spending
• Mobile spending grew by 16% year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in the second quarter of 2020 compared to a 5% increase in desktop spending
• Free shipping is a significant factor when consumers shop online. In fact, 50% of consumers said it was the most crucial factor
• There was a massive increase in grocery spending. Mobile spending on groceries touched $13.1 billion during Q2 2020

Affectiva research shows advertisers are improving their effectiveness in eliciting consumer emotions

Affectiva, a company that deals with emotional AI, released key findingsOpens a new window on the emotional engagement of consumers with ads over the last eight years. The study showed that advertisers are increasingly leveraging consumer emotions to elicit a response and have become more effective in that. The study also found that the trend was moving toward invoking more polarized and sad feelings. Several ads that referenced the COVID pandemic this year showed this pattern.

Affectiva’s analysis revealed the shortcomings and effectiveness of advertisers’ efforts in creating emotionally resonating ads, along with other valuable insights. The insights are based on the data collected from 10 million consumer responses in more than 90 countries to over 53,000 ads. Some of the key findings include:

• The emotional reactions to ads have increased, which indicates that advertisers have become better at telling emotionally persuasive stories
• There is a trend toward showing more negative reactions to ads than positive emotions. The analysis recommends that advertisers should work more toward eliciting positive reactions
• Consumer reactions to ads have become more polarized. The gap is also increasing between highly negative and positive reactions to the same ads
• Happy ads do not necessarily imply happy viewers. Developing a powerful narrative that resonates with ad viewers can create more positive engagement

Speaking exclusively to Toolbox Marketing, Graham Page, Global Managing Director, Media Analytics at Affectiva, said, “Most ad agencies will tell you that a key to building brands and sales is emotion – and they’re right. Purchase decisions aren’t sterile, rational processes, and campaigns that ignite passions are hugely powerful. Our data suggests that advertisers have become better at engaging viewers emotions in recent years. The question is whether they are evoking the right emotions? Our past analysis has shown that positive emotions are more motivating, so the drift towards ads that evoke negative feelings is perhaps concerning. Compelling narratives need emotional highs and lows, but we’d argue that it’s still important to leave people on a high, or brands may not accrue the benefit of more engaged viewers.”

There is a significant investment and broadening of ABM programs amid budget cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic, shows Terminus report

Terminus released its 2020 Terminus State of ABM reportOpens a new window . The report showed that the coronavirus pandemic led to increased adoption of account-based marketing (ABM), increased investment and scope of ABM programs, and a few other findings. The report surveyed over 310 respondents, among which more than 76% were marketing practitioners. The survey found a wave of early maturity ABM programs, which suggested that the COVID pandemic had led to a surge in ABM adoption.

A few other key findings include:

• Findings show that companies having sophisticated ABM programs increased their budgets for ABM programs amid overall budget cuts. This trend shows the resilience of ABM programs
• This year, more than 94% of respondents have an ABM program compared to 23% in the year 2019
• Mature companies showed 73% of revenue and generation of 78% of opportunities from ABM. Only 10% used paid attention to generate leads from ABM
• 61% of the respondents this year have retention and expansion of customers as part of their strategy compared to 38% last year

No free shipping among other holiday hold-ups stop customers from an online purchase with a particular brand, according to Scalefast report

Scalefast, a digital commerce solution company, released its 2020 Holiday Hold-ups Report Opens a new window earlier this week. According to the report, some of the common hold-ups stopping customers from purchasing online with a particular retailer this year include no/discontinued free shipping (42%), long delivery windows (29%), and no good enough discounts or deals (29%). A few other hold-ups include difficulty assessing the brand’s credibility (22%) and if a brand has poor or no tracking around shipping timelines or delays (21%).

The study was conducted online with YouGov, a third-party research firm. It revealed consumer sentiments around their holiday hold-ups. It also uncovered how brands and retailers could mitigate the stress they feel around this holiday season. A few other findings include:

• 25% of holiday shoppers feel stressed this holiday season
• 30% of shoppers plan to spend less this holiday shopping season
• Areas that require the most attention from brands and retailers logistics and shipping, affordability and availability, and safety and security
• 35% of holiday shoppers care less about the brand and more about the affordability
• 31% of shoppers prefer to buy on Amazon because of Prime member benefits
• 26% of shoppers feel that robust payment security features would make their holiday shopping less stressful
• 20% of holiday shoppers prefer more payment options to alleviate their stress

“This holiday season is different from any other, meaning that shoppers have different concerns and priorities that retailers need to take into account as we head into the busiest part of the season. We’ve already seen major retailers like Target responding to these fears with options like in-store reservations and curbside pickup to give shoppers the flexibility to shop according to their own comfort levels. Brands themselves need to be thinking in the same vein when it comes to consumer comfort, both online and in store, added Olivier Schott, CMO & Co-founder, Scalefast while speaking to exclusively to Toolbox Marketing.

Top Martech Movers and Shakers in October 2020

COMMB announces Amanda Dorenberg as new president

As Rosanne Caron retires as the president of The Canadian Out of Home Marketing and Measurement Bureau (COMMB) at the end of 2020, Amanda Dorenberg will join as the new presidentOpens a new window from November 1st. Amanda earlier worked with Cieslok Media, Dynamic Outdoor, and OUTFRONT. Her most recent role was with FrontRunner Technologies. Dorenberg will play an important role in launching the COMMB Media Suite (CMS) and the new OOH audience measurement data.

Calvin Klein appoints Linh Peters as a new chief marketing officer

 With Marie Gulin-Merle moving out of Calvin Klein last October, Linh Peters will be taking up the company’sOpens a new window chief marketing officer (CMO) role, effective November 2nd. As CMO of the brand, she will develop the brand experience, product marketing, and data-driven marketing innovation. She will further oversee all aspects of the company’s consumer marketing organization.

Peters worked recently with Starbucks as vice president, loyalty, partnerships, and licensed stores products and marketing. She was responsible for overseeing Starbucks’ loyalty program as well as digital engagement strategies and marketing. She also led the company’s go-to-market (GTM) strategy for consumer experience and brand products. Before Starbucks, Peters held senior marketing roles at Target and Ulta Beauty.

Blue Ridge appoints Ed Rusch as the new CMO

Ed Rusch joined Blue RidgeOpens a new window , a supply chain planning and solutions provider, as their new chief marketing officer. He will be reporting to CEO Jim Byrnes. Rusch earlier worked with Command Alkon, a supply chain technology platform for heavy construction, as a global marketing vice president. Before that, he worked with another digital supply chain and logistics network, Elemica, as vice president of Corporate Marketing.

At Blue Ridge, Rusch will be responsible for developing its marketing strategy and helping them drive growth, product, and customer experience ambitions. He will also be an integral part of developing and communicating its vision, exploring the science of price optimization and demand planning.

We would love to hear from you what you think of our October roundup on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .