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AZK Media

Latest CDP insights across the APAC region

In partnership with the CDP Institute


The customer data platform (CDP) landscape in the APAC region is evolving fast. Changes in regulatory compliance, pressure to improve customer experience, and the increased need for a 'single source of truth' of customer data, means the CDP is critical within many a marketing mix.


AZK Media is passionate about helping CDP vendors and implementation partners grow in the APAC region. We're proud to partner with The CDP Institute, to provide this weekly insider on the customer data platform landscape across the APAC region. Check out the latest issue below:



LATEST ISSUE

Cotton On has selected Lexer’s homegrown customer data platform (CDP) to power its customer experience and personalisation ambitions. With CDP, Cotton On aims to better understand customers at an individual level and use that insight to build more relevant, personalised communications through the customer’s preferred communication channel. Read more



The report found that Aussie influencers and brands are not jumping on the NFT bandwagon as fast and as eagerly as its counterpart countries. The top 3 categories for NFTs in Australia are Art (12.7 percent), Music (10.4 percent) and Photography (8.4 percent). Read more



Consumer advocate CHOICE has revealed that three of Australia's largest retailers - Kmart, Bunnings and The Good Guys are using facial recognition technology in their stores, often without shoppers realising that they are being surveilled and their biometric information stored, raising concerns among privacy experts. Read more





Zitcha has officially launched with the ambition to empower retailers to become publishers by monetising their owned and external media ecosystem. It connects the media assets of a retail brand including email, apps, digital in-store screens, Web and social media, allowing retail suppliers to connect directly with consumers. Read more



Head of data and analytics Glen Shields shares the journey to bring together multiple marketing and data systems together to start driving personalisation. Shields dives into how to form the data team, get the data side of things happening better and also to manage the Salesforce environment that Leukaemia consolidated all of those different CRMs into. Read more



Selligent's new report reveals that only half of Gen Z respondents say they have control over their personal data. This generation is also rewriting the rules of consumer engagement in areas like technology, shopping, media and brand loyalty. it’s vital marketers forge a new toolkit aimed at reaching and engaging with Gen Z exclusively. Read more





Australian online advertising continued to grow in the first quarter of the year, buoyed by political and government spending. On the flip side, retail experienced the biggest decline in share, dropping from 16.4 percent to 13.5 percent of the general digital advertising market over the quarter. Read more



Data-driven loyalty offers tailored to a segment of one and across multiple brands and regions is one step closer to reality for Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group. With plans to open upwards of 10 venues a year across different brands and locations, the utility of a consolidated loyalty program will also continue to grow. Read more



Cisco, one of the Australia’s leading IT and networking companies, has joined Lifeline in pushing for better Mental Health in the workplace. For the second year running, Cisco will take part in The Push-Up Challenge as it aspires to top the community fundraising chart. Read more






New Ipsos report for the World Economic Forum looks at consumer familiarity with VR, AR and metaverse, the gender attitude towards them and use cases. The report surveyed adults across 29 countries and found 52 per cent overall are familiar with the metaverse, compared to 44 per cent in Australia. Read more



Convo Ink offers a smart content marketing engine designed to connect marketers, content producers and publishers in order to deliver branded content to audiences. The new seed funds will be used to expand content platform capabilities and further invest in the recently launched attention measure, the Quality Attention Score. Read more



Australian broadcast giant ABC has reported that learning software providers were slurping up data of students during the pandemic without clearly indicating they were doing so, but failed to disclose that both its iview service and its news website do something quite similar Read more



According to the new Sisense Future of Data Analytics Report 2022 - Asia Pacific Edition, data professionals in the APAC region see data and analytics as valuable to digital transformation and future-proofing their business, yet find their organisations’ strategic capabilities are far from reaching their true potential. Read more



Robotic Marketer, has unveiled a new digital marketing dashboard to complement what it says is the world’s first marketing strategy technology platform. The technology uses data-driven benchmarking, peer-sourced insights, data mining and machine learning to help marketing teams create and execute more effective marketing strategies. Read more



CommBank has moved to the next phase of its plan to build a huge loyalty platform of linked services for banking customers. It is launching loyalty scheme Yello to six million retail banking customers in a bid to retain customers in the face of global competition from big tech while getting ahead of incoming data privacy regulatory changes. Read more




According to the latest Bazaarvoice Shopper Experience Index, reviews and photography from peers, along with an ability to view other consumer insights and purchase via social channels are rising up the ranks when it comes to how Australian shoppers convert. Read more



Enterprise data platform for Salesforce, Odaseva, is extending operations across the Asia-Pacific region as well as UK as it also releases new product offerings. Odaseva chief revenue officer said. “We are meeting rising demand for our solutions which can keep data close to the customer across geographies, while also keeping the enterprise in line with local data regulations.” Read more



Smaller telcos could be exempt from obligations under Australia’s consumer data right (CDR), if a proposal by Treasury is adopted. Federal Treasury and the Data Standards Body suggest the telecommunications sector follow the model used in the energy sector, where the CDR doesn’t apply to companies below a minimum number of customers. Read more




Aussie brand Dissh launched phase one of the rollout in February to link up all email, social advertising and customer data. It is expected to deliver greater customer visibility by automating and integrating of audiences across all channels, while built-in test-and-learn capabilities will eventually be extended across all touchpoints to bring personalisation into business processes. Read more



It’s time for customer experience leaders to open the aperture and think more broadly about the ways they can impact, align with and accelerate key business initiatives. Forrester’s CX executive partner and senior analyst, Su Doyle said the trajectory of customer experience leadership maturity today is following a similar path to marketing leadership in terms of demonstrating value of widespread business benefit. Read more



NAB is accelerating its digital plans with further acquisitions and the continued rollout of a digital home loan platform. NAB chief executive Ross McEwan told investors it has “more than 60 percent of our apps migrated to the cloud”. The bank credited its investment and technology work for better positioning it to combat cybercrime, and its use of digital data and analytics for improve consumer outcomes. Read more



Aussie fintech HelpPay has created a technology that turns a bill into a shareable link and payment page, which consumers then share via email, social channels and chat with multiple individuals so they can pay any amount directly towards the bill in order to understand what’s driving customer engagement and rapid-fire website innovation. Read more



The new personalised digital gift messages are being facilitated by Melbourne tech startup, gift flick, which has created an ecommerce plug-in allowing consumers to virtually send a product or gift voucher in an online retailer’s store via their preferred messaging channel and at a time they set. The gifts are then revealed as part of a ‘gift story’ featuring a personalised message, photo and/or video. Read more



UserTesting, a video-based human insight, released the 2022 CX Industry Report that reveals a strong demand for actionable human understanding in the APAC region across every industry and organisations of all sizes. The report found that more than 57% of APAC respondents noted that CX is a top investment area. Read more



The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) initially launched legal proceedings against Trivago in 2018, alleging the site’s hotel comparison service had been misleading consumers for nearly four years. The highlighted prices were often not the cheapest, but instead those Trivago was prioritising for advertisers willing to pay the best cost-per-click rates for promotion. Read more



At the Independent Media Agencies of Australia’s ‘Operation Bounceback’ event earlier this month, SMI’s Managing Director AU/NZ Jane Ractliffe said it is notoriously difficult to get a breakdown of programmatic spend, which is usually lumped in with digital – but that would soon change for News media. Read more



The ABC has been asked to clarify whether iview users are being informed about the extent to which their data is being shared with commercial entities or whether they are in the dark about it altogether. The question was posed by the Australian Privacy Foundation on Friday. It was a follow-up to a missive from ABC chairman Ita Buttrose in which she had responded to the APF's concerns over the introduction of compulsory logins. Read more



Alida plans to launch a data centre in Sydney in winter 2022 in order to provide enhanced data services as well as scale to serve more customers operating in the Oceanic region.

Having an onshore data centre will help it not only to better meet the needs of customers in Australia and New Zealand but also enhance the data collection process and efficiently meet clients’ regional compliance requirements. Read more



Indie agency Optimising has become a preferred search engine optimisation (SEO) vendor for global e-commerce platform Shopify, joining its Shopify Plus Partner Program after a lengthy screening process, citing its good client relationships, trust and genuine approach. Read more



TotallyAwesome is the world’s first programmatic solution aimed at younger people in the APAC region, engaging with users contextually via apps, websites and games in an attempt to provide brand-safe environments for teens. The platform aims to deliver over 300 million monthly active online users under 18 across Asia Pacific, without collecting any personal information or data. Read more



The report, 2022 Digital Consumer Trends: Australian edition has revealed consumers across Australia trust ads less and prefer to interact with a brand in more personalised ways. According to the report, email continues to sit comfortably as Australian consumers’ preferred channel. Read more



The federal government will pour another $130.1 million into its digital economy strategy over the next four years, the new funding will build on the $1.2 billion provided in last year’s budget in a bid to help make Australia a top ten data and digital economy by 2030. Read more



Head of product for Nine’s BVOD service 9Now, Lewis Evans said right now one of the risks associated with personalisation can come in the pursuit of ‘perfect personalisation’. The risk with personalisation right now is ‘doing it too well and being creepy’ . Read more




The 2022 Global Digital Consumer Trends Index, released by Cheetah Digital, a cross-channel relationship management solution provider, in conjunction with eConsultancy, examined consumer attitudes and year over year trends across personalisation, privacy, messaging, advertising and brand loyalty. Read more



Adobe’s recent 2022 Digital Trends Report across Asia-Pacific paints a clear picture of digital’s significance today and into the future on CX, it tells us about digital and data maturity and how organisations continue to keep up with with customer experience expectations. A/NZ businesses in particular are set to outstrip other global regions in customer experience investment in 2022. Read more



Consumers and citizens are demanding ever more tailored communication experiences from the brands and organisations they’re engaging. Soprano said it’s looking to leverage ubisend’s AI-powered communication technology to launch, manage and monitor conversational solutions and scale AI communications and automation across an organisation. Read more



Based on analysis of 46 billion web sessions from around the globe and across 14 industries, these findings and the report are designed to help brands benchmark their digital performance against industry averages, highlighting where they should focus their attention and resources to gain a competitive advantage in today’s crowded market. Read more



A coalition of independent news publishers including Broadsheet, Concrete Playground, Urban List, Star Observer, Australian Jewish News and Australian Chinese Daily have stopped publishing news for 24 hours as part of collective action called WaitingOnZuck, pressuring Facebook to pay small and medium organisations for journalism. Read more



Australia ranks number one in Asia Pacific for most ransomware attacks, and seventh globally according to new research which reveals that 37% of all attacks on Australian organisations targeted the commercial and professional services sector, research also found that ransomware payments hit new records in 2021 as cybercriminals increasingly turned to Dark Web “leak sites”. Read more



In conjunction with eConsultancy, the global report looks at consumer attitudes and year over year trends in personalisation, privacy, messaging, advertising and brand loyalty based on survey insights. The report details consumer preferences including: What they expect from the brands they buy from; The channels and formats they prefer to communicate; The type of data they’re willing to share; and the terms under which they’re willing to share it. Read more



CPG giant Kimberly-Clark is backing ad verification providers to underpin programmatic advertising after Google kills cookies, unlocking the ability to optimise media investment to attention and enabling brands to plug automated creative directly into programmatic pipes. It's a big call given recent shenanigans, but Global Programmatic Capability Lead Rachel Mervis is confident the likes of IAS, Double Verify and White Ops can deliver. Read more



The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is lining up alongside Twiggy Forrest and taking Facebook parent company, Meta, to court for publishing scam celebrity cryptocurrency advertising on its platform. The regulatory watchdog last week confirmed it had instituted Federal Court proceedings against the two businesses making up Meta - Meta Platform and Meta Platforms Ireland – alleging the business engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by publishing scam advertisements featuring high-profile Australia business entrepreneurs and public figures. Read more



After a fraught time recovering and rebuilding from the loss of a crucial global data verification alliance with Facebook, Nielsen is launching a new online advertising measurement service here that is no longer reliant on one provider – and will ultimately match and measure ad exposure to sales impact. Nielsen Identity System, which starts in early April and will underpin Nielsen's plans to create a rival audience measurement service to the IAB-sanctioned Ipsos contract, takes local data from Unpacked by Flybuys, The Trade Desk, Equifax and others. Read more



A Yabble survey of insights professionals found that only 35 per cent of Australian respondents currently use text analytics tools to glean insights from data, but 91 per cent plan to use them the same or more in the next 12 months. Respondents describe the advantages they’re looking for in AI driven tools as removing manual processes (42 per cent), making analysis faster (41 per cent) and making analysis easier (52 per cent). Hey Yabble is meeting all of those needs and has already helped to save insights teams nearly 100,000 hours of manual processing. Read more



The integration enables advertisers across APAC to increase performance on campaigns by targeting and retargeting more precisely when using Yahoo’s demand-side-platform (DSP). Through the partnership, Yahoo clients now have access to more accurate campaign measurement and attribution plus a complete offline-online view of audiences, crucial in today’s fragmented world. Nearly 40 advertisers have since adopted the integration into their campaigns and achieved outstanding results, including BIG W’s “Toy Mania” artificial reality omnichannel campaign. Read more



Home grown media intelligence startup, Truescope, has secured $6.2 million in funding to support its international expansion efforts.

The latest investment round was led by venture capital firms, Investible and Jelix Ventures, as well as other private investors. The funds will be used to launch and support Truescope’s USA market entry and accelerate engineering and technology innovations in the SaaS platform’s pipeline. Read more



Data breaches in Australia are on the rise, particularly in the financial and healthcare industries. The Australian government is revising its cybersecurity frameworks and policies to strengthen resilience against nation-state threat actors. However, even the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) admits that proposed security frameworks only raise the baseline of security. To help Australian businesses avoid some of the common malpractices that facilitate data breaches, we've compiled a list of some of the biggest data breaches in Australia, ranked by magnitude of impact. Read more



A Yabble survey of insights professionals found that only 35% of Australian respondents currently use text analytics tools to glean insights from data but 91% plan to use them the same or more in the next 12 months.

Respondents describe the advantages they’re looking for in AI driven tools as removing manual processes (42%), making analysis faster (41%) and making analysis easier (52%). Yabble CEO and founder Kathryn Topp says this evolution will allow businesses to spend time on what really matters — capitalising on opportunities — rather than manually analysing data. Read more




Zonos, a company that provides cross-border commerce solutions, has opened its first international office in Australia’s Gold Coast and appointed Travis Robinson as its APAC general manager. With Asia-Pacific expected to continue to lead global ecommerce sales, the need for accurate cross-border duty and tax calculations, VAT compliance and HS code classification will continue to grow, the company said. Read more



The Australian government fell outside the top industry sectors for data breaches in the second half of 2021, despite agencies logging 28 notifications during the six-month period.

The latest notifiable data breaches report, released on Tuesday, shows there were 464 notifications in total received by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) between July and December 2021, up from 446 in the first half of the year. Read more



TechConnect CEO Mike Cunningham says it was already clear that 2022 will be a pivotal year for how Australian organisations use data to differentiate themselves. He says, “The Australian economy, like many others, is facing a once in a hundred-year period of fundamental change, driven by forces like new global rules for operating in the face of climate change, faster decision making at scale due to COVID, and an avalanche of information to come to terms with. Read more



Deloitte Digital has acquired three digital experience consultancies – Blended Digital, New Republique and Venntifact – adding a team of 70 professionals to its ANZ headcount. With now over 1,100 consultants and technologists across Australia, Deloitte Digital is one of the largest players in the digital transformation space at the nexus of creativity, marketing and technology. Read more


Optus rolls out 5G innovation program and new Australian 'hub'


Optus Enterprise, has announced the launch of a new 5G led Innovation Program, designed to bring enterprise, SMBs and startups together. Read more



Group M Australia has become the latest country in the Group M network to launch Inca, an AI-powered influencer and content marketing platform designed to promote brand safety and return on investment. The platform was first rolled out for APAC in 2019, and launched in New Zealand in early 2021 and – with the addition of Australia – now spans across 30 countries. Read more



A 17 per cent lift in active loyalty members, increase in unaided brand awareness, higher Net Promoter Score and significant omnichannel take-up are among the highlights touted by Baby Bunting in its half-year report.

The retailer reported a 10 per cent increase in comparable sales growth in the first half of FY2022 to $239.1 million, 23.8 per cent of which was sales conducted online. Total online sales including click-and-collect were up 32.6 per cent to $56.8m Read more



CommBank is leading the counteroffensive against platforms that are eating the world, with Woolies, Coles and the major card providers hot on its heels, powering first party data markets and moving away from legacy digital economics. But what does that mean for everybody else? Opportunity for those that can collaborate, reckons Tim Tyler, Managing Partner at Ellipsis & Co. Read more



Samba TV, a leading global provider of omniscreen advertising and analytics, today announced a partnership together with PubMatic (Nasdaq: PUBM), an independent technology company delivering digital advertising’s supply chain of the future, to bring programmatic omniscreen TV audience targeting to Australia. The announcement marks an expansion of Samba TV’s existing European partnership with PubMatic. Read more



Cyara was co-founded in Melbourne in 2006, its flagship offering is the SaaS-based Automated CX Assurance Platform, which has more than 250 global brands clients. The investment will be used to accelerate product innovation, expand CX assurance into new emerging digital channels, fund strategic acquisitions of complementary technologies and fuel geographic expansion. Read more



Google saw that replication of Australia’s framework would force information to be consumed in a particular manner, “favouring a narrow range of sources for the diffusion of knowledge.”

In effect, this would carry the huge implication of undermining democratic discourse and media diversity. Read more



Covid gave Reckitt Benckiser a snapshot of just about every Australian who could possibly buy cleaning products – and along with retailers, a huge trove of shopper data to fuel digital campaigns. Harnessing that data has already driven 2.5x better returns, says Reckitt Hygiene product marketing boss Saurabh Jain. Read more



Livewire is a global gaming marketing and gametech company that creates integrated gaming marketing strategies. The partnership with Anzu will allow advertisers to run non-disruptive ads within many of Roblox’s most popular games. As of January 2022, Roblox claims to have over 40 million games and be reaching 9.4 million daily active users across APAC in Q3 2021. It also claims 110 million global active monthly users. Read more



Australia’s brands continue to scramble to digitally transform. The problem is, they don’t have the capability. Chronic underinvestment in people and skills, combined with high churn and a tightening talent crunch, means the wheels are spinning but marketing departments are getting nowhere fast. We can’t just hire our way out of trouble. Here’s an alternative plan. Read more



Advertising investment is forecast to grow by 9.2 per cent globally in 2022, according to the latest dentsu Global Ad Spend Forecast report. Ad spend in Asia Pacific is expected to grow by 5.9 per cent, with digital forecast to increase 9.6 per cent to a share of 61.1 per cent of total APAC advertising spend. Read more



Report shows organizations rely on CDPs to comply with data privacy and security regulations as well as deliver relevant customer experiences in an increasingly competitive digital landscape. This survey helps to understand why global businesses implemented their CDP, priorities for customer data management, and what's coming next in the age of data. Read more



2022 will be a critical year for marketers. Digital and eCommerce are accelerating, and Google’s 2023 plan to end support for third-party cookies is Chrome inching closer. Colin Barnard looks at how this is causing a last-minute scramble to implement first-party data strategies and martech integrations. Read more



Purebaby was on the hunt for a software solution that would enable them to send personalised email messages to their existing and prospective customer base and allow them to move away from ‘batch-and-blast’ customer emails. Read more



Salesforce believes in having flexible, connected, and highly-personalised shopping experiences. Utilising their existing and new technology, they will endeavour to provide a gateway for organisations looking to scale up their cloud systems with the latest commerce technology. Read more



According to a new report by Deloitte, the APAC region is set to enter the ‘golden age’ of digital trade over the next three years. This evolution is due to the dynamic nature of cross-border e-commerce, a consumer trend towards digital lifestyles, the development of digital infrastructure, and regional cooperation. Read more



Twitter and Snapchat have voiced privacy concerns over proposed laws that would force Australians to verify their age on many popular websites. Such legislation would effectively require technology companies to keep users’ IDs and contact information. Read more



It’s a stressful time for marketers. Many believe that their lives will be disrupted to the nth degree without cookies. Meanwhile consumers are more protective of their personal data than ever. Read more



As artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced automation progress, capabilities being introduced into the ever-growing array of martech stacks and customer engagement technologies is exploding. Read more



Sports technology platform provider talks through the data intelligence and analytics approach that's helping it to improve internal commercial reporting as well as new and existing customer opportunities. Read more



For brands, data is everything. Those key insights into core consumers – how & when they shop, their key interests, and what makes them tick – are crucial in order to create powerful and tailored marketing strategies. Read more



Digital marketing platform Constant Contact will acquire Vision6, a provider of SMS and email marketing software based in Brisbane, Australia, the firm announced on Tuesday. Terms were not disclosed. Read more



Australian-based marketing, customer experience and cloud technology company, Xpon Technologies Group, has today listed on the ASX, under the ASX code XPN. Read more



Australian AgriFood Data Exchange is the latest step to connect the agricultural supply chain. Read more



Australian Marketers face challenges in reaching organisation-wide consensus on what it means to achieve the 360-degree customer view. Read more



The re-platforming improves delivery of new features and performance under the hood. Read More



InterSystems has partnered with Veromo to deliver Veromo’s Registration-as-a-Service (RaaS) capabilities directly within online banking websites. Read more


Too Many Kiwi SMEs Still Playing Loose With Customer Data


Escalating cyberattacks require companies to get serious about protecting customers. Read more


Dentsu ANZ appoints new CEO of its CX management business Merkle


Dentsu ANZ has announced the appointment of John Riccio as CEO of Merkle, its customer experience management business (CXM) across Australia and New Zealand. Read More



Ernst & Young (EY) Australia and Microsoft have established a working group tackling Consumer Data Right (CDR) compliance deadlines for the energy sector. Read more



Located in Sydney, the data centre is hosted by AWS, with regional customers’ data hosted locally. The company claims that the results will see improved customer experience from a faster cloud-based platform. Read more



The acquisition of Absolute Analytics means that Uprise Digital will have one of the largest independent Data & Analytics offerings in New Zealand and bring the total number of employees to 42. Read more



The modern consumer expects truly personalised experiences on whatever touchpoint they engage with your brand. Challenge accepted. They want this complemented by heightened privacy, tighter data controls and the right to have the information erased with the click of a button. Read more



The secret to using data for fantastic customer experiences is being able to engage customers not merely spy on them. Read more




Zeotap, the next-gen Customer Data Platform (CDP), announced its availability on Google Cloud Marketplace. Read more



Sports technology platform provider talks through the data intelligence and analytics approach that's helping it to improve internal commercial reporting as well as new and existing customer opportunities. Read more



Simpro, a field service management software company based in Brisbane, Australia, today announced that it raised $350 million from K1 Investment Management with participation from existing investor Level Equity, the new funding brings Simpro’s total capital raised to nearly $400 million. Read more




The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is going hard on retail with the unveiling of AI-enabled ‘brand discovery and deals’ app Cheddar in the same week as the launch of in-app shopping platform Little Birdie. Read more




As COVID-19 restrictions slowly lifted over the past year, retailers realised that consumer shopping habits created in lockdown were here to stay. Read more


In this insights and trends piece, Cheetah Digital’s Billy Loizou, VP go to market APAC and Miles Toolin, principal solution consultant, unpack the key innovations and trends driving customer engagement, loyalty and retention for the year ahead. Read more



The ForgeRock Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform will be used to support the delivery of Australia’s new application for Digital Passenger Declaration (DPD) cards to accelerate the safe reopening of its borders to vaccinated citizens, followed by international travellers post-pandemic. Read more



Nearly one in every three Australian mid-tier credit unions, building societies and other institutions do not comply with open banking, while others that are compliant on paper have systems that do not work in practice. Read more



Ticketek-owner TEG and Cricket Australia have announced a world first by merging fan data across ticketing, membership, merchandise and participation to create a comprehensive understanding of engagement, buying behaviour and grassroots involvement in the sport of cricket. Read more



Sysdig has officially launched its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering in Australia and New Zealand. Read more



After Canada, now Australia has found that controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI, broke national privacy laws when it covertly collected citizens’ facial biometrics and incorporated them into its AI-powered identity matching service — which it sells to law enforcement agencies and others. Read more



When Zendesk announced it was acquiring Momentive Global Inc for $4.13 billion last week, it might have felt like a steep price to pay, but it seems that companies are willing to pay a high price to understand what users and customers are thinking. Read more



The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has seen application development services support the push for digital transformation projects, new research has claimed. Read more



Amazon Web Services (AWS) will open its first data centre and cloud region in New Zealand by 2024 as it continues to spread its wings in key Asia-Pacific markets. Read more



A new study from Hazelcast has revealed 8 in 10 (79%) of retail and financial services companies struggle to harness real-time data and combine it with historical data to gain better insights for engaging customers. Read more


Salsify, the Commerce Experience Management platform has acquired SKUvantage to help retailers, distributors, and manufacturers deliver engaging digital product content to buyers, with less time, cost, and effort. Read more



The partnership sees Lacework data available in the Snowflake Data Cloud, enabling organisations to analyse and report on risk and threats across their cloud and container environments. Read more



Housing Industry Association (HIA), the largest residential building organisation in Australia, has partnered with award-winning Platinum Sitecore Implementation Partner, Switch, to overhaul its suite of web-based content platforms and provide a connected digital experience to its 20,000+ member businesses across the country. Read more


CDP Public Cloud Regional Control Plane is now available in Australia and Europe. This addition will extend CDP Hybrid capabilities to customers in industries with strict data protection requirements by allowing them to govern their data entirely in-region. Read more



Software company Splunk is launching a significant update to its partner program today, including rebranding the program as the “Splunk Partnerverse”. Read more



A decade's worth of digital development ensured Purebaby, Australia's largest independent babywear brand was able to adjust and grow during the huge shift to digital consumption forced upon retailers by the COVID disruption. Read more



Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (API) has announced it is turning to Google Cloud as part of plans to leverage data, machine learning, and AI to personalise the customer journey. Read more



The majority of Australians are concerned about data privacy, with 50 per cent stating companies are requesting too much personal information, according to new research by Toluna, a leading consumer intelligence platform. Read more



Perth Airport is implementing a range of digital technologies to simplify the customer experience when passing through its facilities, while also helping the operator to better understand the breadth of customer interactions. Read more


The fourth annual event will feature keynote addresses from Lauren Bush Lauren as well as a selection of speakers from Arsenal Football Club, Bloomin Brands, Del Taco, GSK, Renault, The North Face, Torchy’s Tacos, Vans and more. Read more



Ad tech and martech companies are using humorous brand creative to talk about a future beyond third-party cookies. Read more



The rapid growth in ecommerce during the pandemic has heightened the need for real-time insights to accommodate fast-changing customer behaviour. Read more



A parliamentary inquiry has heard the government’s COVIDSafe app has now cost taxpayers more than $9m despite being rarely used to assist contract tracers in their efforts. Read more



Loyalty programs have evolved significantly, from the simple ‘stamp card’ days to now becoming exciting, dynamic, multifaceted and interactive rewards programs customers love. In fact, according to a Point of Loyalty report, 68% of Australians say that the loyalty program they belong to enhances their brand experience. Read more



Trend Micro has officially launched its Trend Micro Cloud One regional data centre in Sydney, with the intention of helping to uphold data sovereignty and safeguard data privacy in Australia. Read more



SugarCRM is enabling full data residency in Australia to allow customer data to be stored in-country for local users. Read more

Female leaders in Australia discuss the importance of women in technology


For National Coding Week in Australia, Elsa Gonzalez, Senior Solution Architect at Cheetah Digital discusses why it is important for organisations to shift their mindset from ‘tech being a predominantly male industry’ to it being about ‘people who enjoy solving problems’. Read more


How Twilio Transforms Customer Engagement For Businesses In Australia


The series of lockdowns that ensued has disrupted business operations, putting tremendous pressure on such vital services as customer engagement. Read more


Diversity and inclusion is a CX opportunity but change must start at the top


Beyond the campaigns and virtue signalling, there is an opportunity in corporate Australia to create more diverse and inclusive customer experiences, but it must start in the boardroom. Read more


How to deliver digital excellence for the personalised experiences consumers now crave


With a choice in the marketplace growing exponentially, organisations must be prepared to pivot their approach when it comes to engaging with customers and employees. Read more


Register for Cheetah Digital Signals


Register here for the award-winning content series that kicks off on October 6 where thought leaders will help marketers help humanise their engagement with customers. Read more



According to a new market research report the Customer Data Platform Market size to grow from USD 3.5 billion in 2021 to USD 15.3 billion by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 34.6% during the forecast period. Read more



For every brand offering any type of product, there are a hundred others offering the same thing. Just step into the supermarket and look at how many different types of laundry detergent there are. The prices don’t vary much, making it even more difficult for customers to make decisions. Read more



Tea retailer T2 Tea, in collaboration with eCommerce and digital consulting specialists Amblique, has selected Fluent Order Management, the distributed Order Management System (OMS) from Fluent Commerce, to enhance in-store and online customer experience. Read more


Australian buy now, pay later company Zip this week acquired South Africa-based BNPL player Payflex for an undisclosed amount. Read more



Ever-sophisticated use of intent data and predictive intelligence, along with a stronger emphasis on marketing’s contribution to revenue, are firmly in the sights of Boomi’s marketing chief as she looks to fuel growth at the tech vendor. Read more



Apple, Google, Facebook and other big tech companies are facing tough new regulations in Australia to rein in their anti-competitive behaviour. Read more


With the pandemic forcing many retailers to shift online, the digital transformation of the retail experience has never been more urgent. Read more.



ASX-listed comparison site details plans to capitalise on the Open Energy initiative driven by the CDR legislation. Read more.



Zendesk has its eye on Japan and the enterprise segment while building up its partner ecosystem to grow its business in the Asia-Pacific region. Read more.


The panel, Marketing State of Play: Leadership Material will be held on Wednesday September 8. Panellists will discuss the current state of play in marketing, the challenges and success that come from MarTech and digital adoption, giving insight on how to best make the leap into the new era of digital. Register here.



CMO’s State of the CMO is an annual industry research initiative aimed at gauging how Australian marketing leadership is evolving both in terms of functional role, as well as contribution to business. Read more



Every marketing technology platform out there promises this end result. One especially, the Customer Data Platform (CDP), has been hailed as the “brain” of marketing technology platforms but marketers tend to overlook an EDP. Read more



Twilio Segment is bringing a new developer toolkit to market which aims to build on its customer data platform and help users customise their customer data stacks. Read more




Marketing, customer and product leader details the personalisation technology investments that are helping the Aussie brand not just engage in better odds with customers but to also go bigger than the bet. Read more



News Corp Australia has appointed Louise Cooper to the new role of director of data strategy & management to lead the company’s enterprise-wide data strategy. Read more



Salesforce's State of Marketing report finds optimism amid challenges of meeting customer expectations and masses of data. Read more



Kmart Australia has swapped out several core AWS components powering the retailer’s ‘next generation’ data platform and replaced them with a combination of Snowflake and Microsoft Power BI. Read more



Dovetail, a Sydney-based software company that enables teams to make better decisions through deep customer understanding, today announced that it has raised $5 million AUD to further scale the reach of its customer research platform. Read more



More than 30 per cent increase in revenue off email marketing, lifts in customer lifetime value and omnichannel marketing are wins from a marketing and customer technology investment. Read more



Citi Australia is getting into the buy now, pay later (BNPL) market with its new product called Spot, which is being issued by company subsidiary Diners and will officially launch in October. Read more


Square announced today that it is acquiring Australian buy now, pay later giant Afterpay in a $29 billion all-stock deal. Read more.



LinkedIn has published the latest edition of its annual survey of B2B technology buyers, which looks at key industry trends in APAC and notes in order to help tech marketers maximise their performance and outreach. Read more.



UpGuard, the third-party risk and attack surface management platform, today released the ASX 200 Security Report, an analysis of the data security of the top 200 companies in Australia. Read more.


Australian tourism body explains the process of rolling out its AI chatbot capability and the internal and consumer benefits it's triggering. Read more.



Telecommunications is all about connections, but tech teams are seeing a steep rise in service complexity. As a result, it’s becoming harder for IT to manage increasingly complex network structures, diverse products and bundles while ensuring high levels of customer satisfaction and retention. Read more.



Data technology provider InterSystems has been recognised as a leader in multimodel data platforms by research firm Forrester. Read more.



Australia Post has said it is overhauling its event management platform to further improve parcel tracking through its warehouses. Read more.




10 Viacom CBS has joined forces with LiveRamp to allow advertisers to connect first-party data with the media company’s audiences and improve insights when executing and reporting on BVOD and digital campaigns. Read more.



Jacqui Visch is PWC's new chief digital and information officer, who discusses her new role and remit at the firm, what the next transformation “horizon” looks like, and opportunities to leverage the global PwC ‘network’ to drive change in the local operations. Read more.



As the amount of digital data in the world continues to grow exponentially, extracting meaning from it is becoming an increasingly challenging task, says Peter O’Connor, Vice President – Sales, Asia Pacific, Snowflake. Read more.



Global advertising company Publicis Groupe is on the acquisition trail, picking up Australian-based software as a service platform CitrusAd which helps retailers sell digital advertising to brands. Read more.



As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organisations are making new customer experience (CX) investments, particularly in data management and customer data platforms, to generate greater value out of customer data, improve resiliency, and accelerate growth, IDC says. Read more.



The increasing spending for marketing and advertisement operations by organizations is one of the prime factors bolstering the customer data platform software market. However, data privacy laws are hampering the growth of the market. Read more.



Telehealth platform Eucalyptus raised a $22.3 million Series B round of funding to build a digital health portfolio for primary care in Australia. Read more.



Ampol is leveraging the Boomi AtomSphere platform to drive agility and speed to market for critical business projects, Boomi announces. Read more.



 

ARCHIVED ISSUES

Issue 6: Friday 9 July 2021

Wolki Farm in Australia has opened its first unattended store with Scan & Go from FutureProof Retail. Read more.



Pathmatics, the digital marketing intelligence platform used by the likes of Nestle, MediaCom, Target, and Reddit, today announced its expansion into the Australian and New Zealand markets. Read more.



Dialpad, the industry leader in AI-powered communication and collaboration, announced Cricket Australia selected Dialpad’s Cloud Contact Center to improve its customer and fan experience. Read more.



How can marketers begin to better utilise their marketing performance data to engage customers and drive growth? To answer those questions and more, Salesforce has surveyed 1,050 decision-making marketers across Australia, the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan and Singapore. Read more.


Issue 5: Friday 2 July 2021

Talend, a global leader in data integration and data integrity, today announced the opening of its newest regional cloud data infrastructure in Australia to support Talend’s expansion and growth in the Asia Pacific. Read more.


The new capabilities in Adobe Experience Cloud will help brands across all industries, including retailers, succeed in their first-party data strategies to deliver more personalised customer experiences at scale, and effectively prepare for peak sales periods, including the festive shopping season. Read more.


Forward looking retailers are evolving their in-store digital capabilities to create smarter stores and cater to this demand shift by automating store occupancy and monitoring social distancing compliance. Read more.


Tabcorp’s successful pivot to personalised data-driven marketing to customers of its TAB brand has been recognised with the team behind it named the Adobe Experience Maker Team of the Year for Asia Pacific region. Read more.


The majority of Asia Pacific (APAC) financial services firms say automation delivers competitive advantage, according to new research commissioned by Appian in collaboration with Longitude. Read more.


Issue 4: Friday 25 June 2021

Leading Australian and New Zealand education technology company Education Perfect, global investment firm KKR, and Australia-based private equity firm Five V Capital announced the signing of definitive agreements pursuant to which KKR will acquire a majority stake in the Company. Read more here.


Third-party cookies have been critical to online advertising, credited with fueling its growth over the years, so their demise has been described as the most significant shakeup the industry has seen. Read more here.


Services delivery specialist ServiceRocket and value stream management provider Digital.ai are working together in Australia and New Zealand to help enterprises successfully scale and optimise software delivery. Learn more here.


Australian firm Ultra Commerce has struck an acquisition deal with New Zealand’s Vesta eCommerce, which will see the two companies come together to create a new, integrated eCommerce platform. Read more here.

 
Issue 3: Friday, 17 June 2021

Twilio Segment has launched Journeys, a new product built on the Segment CDP which allows marketers to easily build sophisticated customer journeys and orchestrate personalisation at scale. Read more here.



A lack of data maturity and actionability is hampering utilisation of customer data platforms (CDPs), a new joint study by Epsilon, Adobe and Publicis Groupe and conducted by Forrester Consulting has found. Read more here.



Building out a unified view of customers and creating increasingly personalised experiences is firmly in the sites of Australian finance and consumer products comparison website, Canstar, due to adoption of a customer data platform (CDP). Read more here.



Bunnings is planning to use a new enterprise data platform that offers a greater “level of insight” to improve its customer experience and make smarter business decisions. Read more here.



Singapore-based Rainforest will look to buy fast-growing brands that sell on Asian e-commerce platforms and build tools to help them centrally manage their transactions across these different marketplaces. Read more here.


 

Issue 2: Friday, 11 June 2021


The sunsetting of third-party cookies renders data management platforms (DMPs) largely obsolete, sparking broader confusion and concern over tech stacks and the application of CDPs. Read more here.




Melbourne-quartered retailer Harris Scarfe has implemented a data platform to create a single view of customers and bring personalisation to its marketing. Read more here.



What New Zealand credit card loyalty managers have been fearing for years finally happened at the start of May. The regulator cut the value of their credit card loyalty points in half. The useful news is that there’s a specialist loyalty or customer experience solution for any customer offering. Simon Rowles reports technology and solutions are not the challenge. Picking the right customer strategy to navigate the coming changes is where winners and losers will be decided. Read more here.


Sinch has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MessageMedia, a leader in mobile messaging solutions for SMEs in the United States and Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Sinch will pay a total enterprise value of USD 1.3 billion, with a total cash consideration of USD 1.1 billion and 1,128,487 new shares in Sinch. Read more here.


 

Issue 1: Friday, 4 June 2021



Digital experience platform raids $1.2bn raised in January to make double martech swoop. CEO Steve Tzikakis says Sitecore aims to prove wrong those predicting marketers will abandon personalisation efforts. Read more here.



The marketing technology landscape is fiercely competitive, so how can you stand out from the crowd? Experts discuss how to grow your marketing technology company in a crowded marketplace, the differences between growing in different regions and how PR is just a piece of the puzzle when going to market. Read more here.



Adobe Experience Cloud fresh features and tools canvass first-party data collaboration, customer journey analytics and optimisation, ecommerce and marketing workflow management. Read more here.

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