The MarTech Minute: Acast Marketplace for podcast ads, Validity buys 250ok, more

MarTech Minute briefs always appear first in our daily newsletter throughout the week. Click here to subscribe. The following is our compilation of the past week’s briefs from those newsletters.

The Stackie’s are coming!

Here are five reasons why you should visualize your martech stack:

1. You’ll spot redundant or outdated tools and technologies.
2. Filling in integrations and connection points will highlight gaps in your marketing flow and potential issues within your customer journey.
3. It’s a terrific collaborative exercise: You’ll talk to folks outside your department — always a good idea with side benefits!
4. It helps onboarding new hires and consultants.
5. It will help your marketing teams understand your stack and integrations, and enable them to step back to see your stack from a different perspective.

Enter today. Support Girls Who Code. There’s still time.

Acast launches ad marketplace. The podcast hosting, analytics and advertising platform Acast rolled out the Acast Marketplace this week, giving advertisers the ability to buy podcast advertising both directly and via an automated system. “Acast Marketplace sets a new standard for the entire podcast industry by bringing everything we do for advertisers under a single, easy-to-access umbrella,” said Acast SVP of Sales Joe Copeman. The Acast Marketplace has three primary advertising pillars: Ads, Sponsorships and Branded Content. The company reports advertiser spend jumped 90% last year.

Validity to buy 250ok email platform. Validity, a customer data solutions provider, announced it has entered into an agreement to buy 250ok, an email marketing analytics and deliverability tool. “Amongst the many players in the email market, the 250ok team is such a perfect fit within the Validity family,” said Validity CEO Mark Briggs. Validity already owns a number of customer data management tools, including DemandTools, BriteVerify, Return Path, Trust Assessments and GridBuddy.

Sprinklr bulks up capabilities with winter 2020 release. Sprinklr rolled out its latest product release on Saturday, announcing more than 400 new capabilities. The martech platform which positions itself as a “unified front office” has added a combined 150 new features to its Modern Marketing and Modern Advertising platforms. There is also a new Facebook Messenger feature that is part of the Sprinklr Modern Care platform that allows marketers to follow up on customer inquiries via Messenger beyond the 24-hour deadline Facebook Messenger is enforcing next month: “Beginning March 4th 2020, ​brands will have up to 24 hours to respond to a customer in Facebook Messenger. But, Sprinklr customers will still be able to support Facebook Messenger engagement after 24 hours, up to 7 days from the last engagement in a conversation.” 

Lytics adds Google Cloud BigQuery integration. The customer data platform Lytics has added a built-in integration with Google Cloud BigQuery, allowing marketers to push “massive amounts” of customer and raw data from the CDP into Google’s cloud-based data platform. “Through Lytics’ intelligence, marketers can now receive a deeper real-time understanding of their customers’ behaviors, interests, and motivations from the customer data that resides in BigQuery,” said Lytics CEO James McDermott. 

Vertify buys Synthio. The customer data intelligence platform has bought Synthio Inc., a data quality and enrichment technology solution. Synthio CEO Bill Curran will join Vertify as president, overseeing the martech company’s revenue teams. “Advancing our platform with this acquisition brings to market a true customer intelligence platform that automates data movement between applications, normalizes and enriches data, and provides valuable insights,” said Vertify CEO Matt Klepac. Vertify is adding other Synthio employees to its staff, including Mike Mitchell who will serve as the VP of marketing, as well as members of Synthio’s customer service, sales, marketing, product and engineering teams. 

On the Move

Jim Halliday has been named chief marketing officer at TickPick. His hiring marks the first CMO-role for the online ticketing marketplace. Prior to joining TickPick, Halliday was the CMO for Plated, a subscription food service. “Jim’s success in introducing a new pricing strategy at Plated stood out as our initial conversations progressed,” said TickPick co-CEO Brett Goldbert. Halliday is the third C-level executive to join the company since it received $40 million in funding last year: Vince David came on board as Chief Data Officer and Michelle Rusnak as Chief Financial Officer.

The real-time conversational marketing provider Resulticks has appointed Dinesh Menon as its new global chief marketing officer. The announcement follows Resulticks’ recent expansion of its North American headquarters in New York. Before joining Resulticks, Menon served as the CMO of State Bank of India and had held leadership roles at the National Bank of Oman and American Express. “His experience in market innovation, business transformation and global brand positioning will help strengthen our footprint worldwide,” said CEO Redickaa Subrammanian.

Ekos, a business management software for craft makers, has hired Christina Kyriazi as its new VP of marketing. She will report to CEO Josh McKinney and tasked with expanding the company into new markets. “Christina is a data-driven marketer with a passion for putting the customer first,” said McKinney. Kyriazi comes to Ekos from Passport where she was the senior director of marketing. Chris Smith also joined Ekos as the VP of engineering. “Ekos had a banner year in 2019 with a game-changing Series A funding round,” said McKinney, referencing the $8 million Ekos raised in October of last year.

LiveXLive Media, a digital media company focused on live entertainment, has named Jackie Stone chief marketing officer. She will lead the company’s consumer and product marketing programs and be responsible for subscriptions, branding, user engagement and partnership programs. “She is a perfect fit for LiveXLive — she’s a fierce innovator, and we’re a disruptive company,” said CEO Robert Ellin. Prior to joining LiveXLive Media, Stone held various marketing leadership roles at Madison Square Garden, MSNBC, About.com, Digitas and AOL.

The digital marketing agency Firewood has promoted Jennifer Fey to senior VP of digital media. She will manage the agency’s media operations and client servicing and help drive digital media programs for client companies. “Jennifer and her team are experts at understanding a client’s brand and business, and using insights to drive more efficient models of media strategy,” said CEO Juan Zambrano. Fey has been with the agency since 2018 and has more than 20 years experience working in digital media.

Kristin Naragon has been hired by Akeneo to serve as VP of strategy and growth. She will report to CEO Fred de Gombert and lead growth opportunities for the product experience management platform. “Kristin is a highly consummate professional with an exceptional track record in driving business expansion, customer success, and strategic partnerships for high-growth enterprise software companies,” said de Gombert. Prior to coming on board Akeneo, Naragon was the head of go-to-market strategy for Adobe’s marketing automation products.