Oracle Cloud Infrastructure utilised by Microsoft for Bing conversational search

A telescope by a lake.

Oracle has signed a multi-year agreement with Microsoft to support the explosive growth of AI services.

Microsoft is using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) AI infrastructure, along with Microsoft Azure AI infrastructure, for inferencing of AI models that are being optimised to power Microsoft Bing conversational searches daily. Leveraging the Oracle Interconnect for Microsoft Azure, Microsoft is able to use managed services like Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to orchestrate OCI...

14 November 2023 | Organic Search

Darabase launches ‘world-first’ property inventory platform for outdoor AR advertising

Darabase has launched its global property inventory platform for augmented reality (AR) advertising campaigns, darabase.io.

The platform enables property owners to register their Property's Digital Rights (PDRs), set rules about what digital content can be displayed in their locations, and receive an additional income stream from AR advertising in the real world. It also sees the introduction of a marketplace for PDRs.

With an estimated 1.4 billion AR-enabled devices...

13 November 2023 | Advertising

Amazon Ads unveils AdTech capabilities to improve advertiser outcomes

Amazon Ads has announced a host of new capabilities across campaign planning, activation and measurement that give advertisers more control over the audiences they reach and faster, more actionable insights into ad performance.

Kelly MacLean, VP of Amazon DSP, said: “Advertisers tell us demonstrating the impact of their marketing is their biggest challenge, and that they are still having difficulty measuring performance across the customer journey. They need more actionable...

8 November 2023 | Advertising

88% of marketing and event professionals are using AI

Kaltura, a video experience cloud firm, has released a new report titled 'Riding the Wave: 2024 Survey Report on the Use of AI Technologies in Marketing Teams'.

Based on a global survey involving hundreds of marketing professionals, the report provides a comprehensive overview of AI’s influence on the marketing and events industry, exploring how they harness AI to enhance their marketing operations. 

The marketing industry has largely embraced AI tools, with 88%...

7 November 2023 | Automation

67% of UK’s leading e-commerce giants fall short on website performance standards   

Website design sketches.

Research from vshosting~, one of Europe’s leading providers of cloud and managed hosting services for e-commerce and IT businesses, today reveals a major performance gap in UK’s e-commerce landscape.

While UK’s largest e-commerce businesses have enjoyed significant online success, these businesses are trailing behind UK’s fastest-growing businesses when it comes to vital web metrics – a disparity that could impact future security and...

6 November 2023 | Best Practice

Customer adoption of Amperity for paid media soars to over 50%

Amperity, an AI-powered enterprise customer data platform (CDP) for consumer brands, has announced more than 50% of its customer base has adopted Amperity for Paid Media.

The rapid adoption of this new application of Amperity demonstrates the important role first-party data will play in informing paid media strategies.

Since its launch in May 2023, Amperity for Paid Media has used industry-leading ad connectors and first-party data to deliver more than 11 billion...

1 November 2023 | Advertising

1 in 3 customer service agents may quit soon

Two-thirds of customer service agents report that their job is as difficult or more difficult than it was a year ago. More than one in four agents say they are unhappy in their roles, and one in three is considering quitting in the next year.

This is according to research carried out by the Call Centre Management Association (CCMA) and supported by Intradiem.

The survey uncovered a disparity between the intentions of businesses and the reality of agent life. When asked,...

1 November 2023 | Best Practice

Why social listening platforms can’t listen – and how SocialVoice is looking to step in

The market opportunity for brands who get influencer marketing right is huge.

According to Goldman Sachs, the creator economy is worth around $250 billion (£205.4bn) today. By 2027, it could hit $480bn (£394.5bn), in line with predicted growth for global digital advertising spend. In line with this trend is an increasing preference for brands to use nano- and micro-influencers in their campaigns. The State of Influencer Marketing 2023 Report puts this at 39% and 30%...

31 October 2023 | Data-driven marketing

91% of shoppers won’t purchase from brands who serve ‘intrusive’ ads

Adverts and bright signs in Times Square, New York.

Intrusive ads that disrupt consumers’ browsing experiences or shopping journeys risk lower engagement and, crucially, lost conversion and sales opportunities, according to research from Wunderkind, a performance marketing channel that scales one-to-one messages for retailers and brands.

Research of 1,000 digitally-active shoppers in Wunderkind’s latest ‘Kindness in Advertising’ report showed that 70% believe advertisers don’t respect their digital...

30 October 2023 | Advertising

Digital marketing skills show positive growth but sector demands outpace professional development 

Core digital skills marketers rely on have improved but that the growing demands of new and evolving technologies are contributing to a skills gap across the majority of industries. 

This is according to research published by the training body Target Internet, in association with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).

This year’s report analyses data from more than 10,000 marketing professionals, gathered between 2018 to 2023 and highlights key short and...

24 October 2023 | Advertising