Machine learning technology is making strides and offers potential for companies to deliver increasingly tailored, user-specific online experiences. Machine learning seeks to discover meaningful patterns within large amounts of data. Coupled with continuing innovations in cloud computing and big data analytics, this technology could radically change how enterprises manage digital content to produce innovative online […]
The explosion of digital technologies over the past decade has created “empowered” consumers so expert in their use of tools and information that they can call the shots, hunting down what they want when they want it and getting it delivered to their doorsteps at a rock-bottom price. In response, retailers and service providers have […]
Marketing technology these days is increasingly focused on the future, as marketing moves away from its traditional role of generating demand and more toward a new role of anticipating demand. Instead of a focus on the “mechanization” of common processes like email management, marketing tech is becoming infused with a kind of “marketing intuition” — […]
Most travel brands saw their industry with tunnel vision this year through the ambient ‘authentic,’ ‘millennials’ and ‘personalization’ catch phrases as marketing campaigns rolled out, flights and hotels were at capacity and some destinations welcomed a record number of visitors. Most came as close to perfecting their millennial marketing as they’ll likely get and several […]
My favorite bartenders always remember my name. They know what I like and how to talk to me. I expect that from them and, in return, I frequent the bars where they work. There’s nothing worse than being treated like a total stranger at a bar that I’ve been visiting for years. E-commerce is no […]
This morning, just like every Monday morning, 75 million Spotify users received a great new mixtape: 30 songs that feel like a gift from a music-loving friend, who might once have made a cassette tape with your name scrawled across the front. But these playlists, from Spotify’s Discover Weekly service, were cooked up by an […]
For most of their history, media companies have controlled the two great pillars of publishing success: production and delivery. They owned the content we wanted and the the means of delivering it — and therefore monetizing it. But that’s changing rapidly. Distribution is no longer a competitive advantage: content isn’t constrained to any one time, […]
Airlines are now able to collect more data than ever on their passengers, and they’re using this data to build profiles on individual passengers. By building individual profiles on passengers with information such as lifestyle purchase choices, flying habits, and even passenger financial position, they’re able to come up with clever ways to give you […]
Two decades of innovation and disruption have built a world where it no longer makes sense to distinguish between digital and traditional forms of marketing. The future isn’t jet packs and SoLoMo (remember that one?), it’s traditional ideas brought to life with new tools and traditional channels reinvigorated by new ideas. This new, omnichannel world […]
Marketers who rely only on demographics to reach consumers risk missing more than 70% of potential mobile shoppers. Why? Because demographics rarely tell the whole story. Understanding consumer intent is much more powerful. Lisa Gevelber, Google’s VP of marketing, shares how starting with intent can help you reach more of the right people than demographics […]
With Net-a-Porter, founder Natalie Massenet set out to close the gap between fashion content and commerce. So in 2014, it launched Porter magazine in print and iPad app, with long-form articles and 7,500 products that could be bought through the iPad app or by scanning the print edition with a smartphone. Now, with mobile commerce […]
A new study by Forrester, commissioned by SAP Hybris, finds that although marketers are prioritizing personalization efforts across channels, they are less advanced than their customers think or expect. The study compares the perspectives of 200 marketers with those of 1200 consumers. Although two-thirds of the marketers surveyed rate their personalization efforts as “very good” […]
Imagine that instead of queuing up in a coffee shop in the morning, you make a quick stop at a kiosk on your way to work and buy a bottle of cold brew coffee and a protein bar with a scan of your smartphone. As you pay, you notice a shelf with an Oculus Rift […]
Marketing has entered its “uncanny valley” moment. That term was first used to describe the deep unease people feel when a robot or computer-generated human facsimile nearly succeeds in passing itself off as the real deal. It may walk like a person and talk like a person, but without the nuance, context, and tone that […]
Web personalization is different from other marketing channels, according to a new study by Andrew Jones for VB Insight. In Jones’ most recent study, he explains that the majority of your web visitors — 95-98 percent for B2C and 57-90 percent for B2B — are anonymous. That means you can’t rely on the kind of […]
I recently gave a talk about recommender systems at the Data Science Sydney meetup (the slides are available here). This post roughly follows the outline of the talk, expanding on some of the key points in non-slide form (i.e., complete sentences and paragraphs!). The first few sections give a broad overview of the field and […]
An awesome study was just conducted by the folks at Folio Magazine and WhatCounts. It surveys a bunch of publishers, asking them about their challenges, goals and the opportunities presented to them by email marketing. It took place through the month of September, and we’re happy to share the results with all of you email […]
As the autumn air turns crisp and the leaves fall, retailers around the country are gearing up for what they hope is a highly profitable holiday season. But besides making sure they’re fully stocked with the holiday gifts customers want, they are also taking stock of everything they learned in 2015 – so they can […]