🎛️ Data is at the heart of everything, but we're still struggling to handle it

How long have we been in a data-driven business environment? Remember the term “big data”? That goes back at least 10 years. If we don’t hear it used much today, I think it’s because we’ve become accustomed to data being big, and very fast too. But how are marketing teams handling that? All the time, I speak with brand marketers who haven’t yet got their data unified and under control.

Some companies are still working on internal data lakes; some have abandoned that route and invested in CDPs as their single source of truth; some are still patching things together with data from marketing automation and CRM systems. “The CDP trend seems to have peaked,” said Chris Penn, Chief Data Scientist at TrustInsights.ai, “at least in terms of visible search interest.

David Raab, head of the CDP Institute, disagreed: “The data we see on CDP penetration keeps going up, although the term CDP is so broadly applied that it makes it hard to look at any survey data and make sense of it.” But a CDP isn’t an easy solution to the problem. M.H. Lines, CEO of Stack Moxie, told us she has been on a three-month journey to implement a CDP, and it’s not over yet.

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Two leaders in the AI-powered call tracking and analytics space came together today as Invoca announced the acquisition of DialogTech. The two companies, operating as Invoca, will become the largest conversation intelligence platform in the market, with more than 2,300 customers and $100 million in revenue.

At a high level, Invoca and DialogTech are both known for tracking and recording calls and using AI to surface insights from them. Will the acquisition add to Invoca’s capabilities? “Oh completely,” Invoca’ CEO Gregg Johnson told us. “On the go-to-market front, the eco-system front, and the technology front, there are things that are actually quite complementary. Both companies have focused heavily around conversation intelligence and AI, but taken slightly different approaches and solved slightly different problems.”

COVID-19 surely accelerated the category, as it has accelerated innovation in so many areas of technology. “Everybody had to shop from home, and certainly if I’m going to buy a $15 book I can go click buy, but when I’m thinking about these more complicated purchases — automobiles, mortgages, insurance products — brands had to deliver that human value-added touch when people can’t walk into a store or visit a dealership. Because the pandemic’s effects lasted long enough, those behavior changes aren’t going to just bounce back to normal. A lot of that stuff will persist.”

Why we care. Two notable vendors bringing their customer bases, partner ecosystems and technologies together is always news. In this case, it’s yet another example of catching and riding a wave, not created, but enhanced by the pandemic months. And it’s a reminder that customer engagement is multi-channel, and that people still use phones.

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We’ve known all year that the fun level for this summer was closely linked with the vaccine rollout. Now that restrictions are lessening, how do consumers want to see this joyous occasion messaged in ads? They want to see a return to normal life, according to analysis by Pattern89, which uses AI to predict creative performance. They provided a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) for current hits and misses in creative:

Strengths. For video and image ads, people are engaging with content that shows a return to regular life. Direct your creative to showcase a more normal summer.

Weaknesses. If you’re focusing on video, don’t include people in your shots. Instead, opt for showing off scenery, settings and objects.

Opportunities. Image ads and video have similar CTRs, with image ads delivering slightly higher numbers of clicks.

Threats. Make sure your marketing spend is in the right place. If you’re running image ads, Facebook Audience Network is the most cost-effective platform. For videos, reallocate spend to Instagram.

Why we care. Some of these recommendations might go against conventional wisdom, but the new normal isn’t the same as the old normal. People don’t want to see ads with crowded destinations since crowds were a health risk for over a year. But people do want to see friends and family. Maybe ads that personalized a beach scene with faces populated from profiles in your friend network would be more friendly. Except, that might also be very creepy. Best to use data to inform every creative decision moving forward.

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Yelp’s profile attributes continue to grow. Yesterday, the company announced the LGBTQ-owned attribute to enable businesses to self-identify as such, adding to its existing women-owned, Black-owned, Latinx-owned and Asian-owned attributes. In addition, during Pride Month (the month of June) Yelp is also featuring rainbow-colored map pins to highlight businesses that are LGBTQ-owned or “Open to All” (a non-profit, anti-discrimination campaign).

These attributes appear on business profiles in both Yelp’s mobile app and the Yelp website, and both the attribute and Pride Month map pin can help you stand out to customers looking to support LGBTQ-owned businesses. Domestic searches on Yelp’s platform for LGBTQ+-owned businesses rose by more than 150% in April, compared to the same period last year, so there’s new demand that might benefit your business. And, as the pandemic subsides, consumers may look to express pent-up demand by traveling or patronizing businesses they’ve been reluctant to due to safety concerns — distinguishing yourself can enable you to make the most out of that pent-up demand.

Read more here.

“At Tenshey, we measure success by asking ourselves a few questions… Are we helping more women and minorities to lead teams and organizations? Are we helping companies become more inclusive and by this, we mean inclusive of people of all backgrounds?” Maggie Chan Jones, founder and CEO, Tenshey (advancing diverse leadership in organizations)