Articles - Page 156

The Top 10 AI Tools for Small Business: From Automation to a Coordinated Team of AI Agents

matt-garrepy

Today, <a href="http://www.sdl.com" target="_blank">SDL</a> launched a unified suite of offerings to help marketers create and deliver seamless customer experiences across all channels, devices, regions and languages. 
 For a number of years, SDL have provided innovative software and service solutions via web content management, analytics, social intelligence, campaign management and translation services. Today, over 1,500 organizations, including 42 of the top 50 global brands, rely on SDL to deliver locally relevant customer experiences throughout the customer journey.
The <a href="http://www.sdl.com/CXC" target="_blank">SDL Customer Experience Cloud™</a> has been introduced in order to make it easier to deliver data-driven experiences at each point of the buying journey, regardless of location or device. 
<h2>Any Language, Any Context, Anywhere</h2>
Regarding the launch of the SDL Customer Experience Cloud™, Mark Terauchi – general manager at the Corporate Brand Office at Fujitsu, had this to say:
<blockquote>
“With thousands of customers all over the world, it’s especially important to have technology that allows us to engage with our user base in real time, in any language and context, from anywhere. We believe SDL can provide us with the ability to deliver a comprehensive customer experience, and the new releases from SDL will help us to advance our customer strategy more effectively.”
</blockquote>
Additionally, Mark Lancaster – the CEO of SDL, also commented:
<blockquote>
“We are in a new age of customer marketing where the journey and post-sale behavior can glean insights for brands to make smarter decisions about how they build relationships. This Customer Experience Cloud packs all the critical elements of customer experience management into one accessible suite and delivers on our vision that every marketer can meet the expectations of their global customer base and remain connected and responsive throughout the entire buyer journey.”
</blockquote>
<h2>Everything in the Cloud</h2>
Based on customer demand, SDL has spent the last several years integrating its Customer Experience Management products to work together and to deliver the entire solution in the cloud.  
Highlights of this new release include:
<ul>
<li>A single intuitive user interface across all SDL’s CXM products that has been significantly enhanced to provide a seamless marketing user experience that is modern, easy to use and easy to deploy.</li>
<li>SaaS delivery model for all SDL products, available now, with continuous enhancements quarterly throughout 2014.</li>
<li>Industry-first, integrated CXM Suite which enable marketers to create engaging, personalized and contextual customer experiences leveraging real-time data to drive better marketing decisions.</li>
<li>SDL Social is the only social intelligence solution with real-time analysis of social data and conversations across all social channels to effectively predict buying and brand advocacy across the entire customer journey.</li>
<li>The introduction of SDL Language Cloud, the industry’s first cloud translation solution offering both machine and human translation for radically simplified global translation – enabling marketers to engage customers in their preferred language across all interactions quickly and cost-effectively.</li>
<li>SDL Web Content Management is the first to enable marketers to easily target and drive consistent, contextually relevant digital customer experiences across all channels and devices from a single, intuitive interface.</li>
<li>SDL Marketing Campaign enables campaign testing, simulation, optimization and advanced segmentations – enabling customers to drive large-scale campaigns faster and more cost-effectively.</li>
<li>SDL E-Commerce provides advanced digital merchandizing features, which give retailers precise control over campaign context and prioritization over the placement of product and offers across search, navigation and promotional activities.</li>
<li>SDL Analytics provides real-time customer intelligence to understand, target and convert customers across the entire buyer journey.</li>
<li>SDL Documentation enables seamless post sales customer support by providing easy access to online materials including manuals, support information and other important documentation.</li>
</ul>
To find out more about the newly launched SDL Customer Experience Cloud™, check out <a href="http://www.sdl.com/CXC" target="_blank"> SDL's official website </a> .

SDL Launches SDL Customer Experience Cloud™, Aiming to Deliver Personalized Customer Experiences

mike-johnston

<a name="_GoBack"></a>You’re not the little guy, anymore. Or maybe you never were to begin with. You have a huge cast of employees, spread out across a dozen offices across the country (or the globe). You’ve got a deep product or services offering and customers engaging an array of properties with little or no direct connection to each other. 
You’re a national organization, you’re a franchise-model business, you’re a big deal. There are hundreds of moving pieces in your marketing effort and you’re the one who has to keep it all together. 
Is your CMS helping or hindering you in this herculean task?
<h2>Holding the Centre: the Human Element</h2>
The most basic element of any marketing effort, big or small, is the human component; the living, breathing operators of your content machine. Organizing a large, diverse group of content creators, moderators and publishers of that content and strategic overseers can be a task too big to handle without the tools you’re using lending a helping hand. Workflow and permission tools are the first line of defence against the collapse of a complicated multi-site marketing effort. A solid workflow and permissions tool should allow you to manage the users of your CMS to function to the utmost of their skill, bound by the authority that you (and their immediate overseers) grant them. It should be granular – customizable on as many fronts as possible; give your users the ability to create, modify and delete entire pages but also give them a custom toolset to work with on any given page. 
What you want to aim for is a system that allows the highest and lowest skilled users to flourish. Have an employee with CSS and HTML knowledge? They should be allowed to directly edit the code of any given page. Have an employee who struggles with Microsoft Word? They need an interface on that exact same page that’s tailored to their level of expertise.
Seamlessness is crucial – the more work that your team can accomplish directly within your CMS, the better results you’ll have. An integrated CMS incorporating as many content tools as possible (text creation and management, image creation and editing, web and email campaigning tools, forms, landing pages, analytics, etc.) will boost your users ability to dedicate their attention on the task at hand. 
Every time a window closes and a program has to load is an opportunity for a focus breakdown. A system with fully-integrated marketing tools will allow you to reduce training time, add new members to your growing team with a minimum of fuss and allow you a single point of escalation should anything go wrong. Think big and look for a CMS that does, too.
Above the content layer itself, a nuanced workflow tool should empower you to customize the process of content creation. It should allow you to tweak the flow from ideation to collaboration to publication. At the most basic level, you should be able to assign publishers to any workgroup (product teams, faculties, offices) who can approve or reject content. 
Beyond that, a good CMS will incorporate lateral workflow elements – the ability for users to comment on and task content to each other along the same lines. If you’re working on a multi-locational campaign, for example, each office should be able to access that content, pass it back and forth and then submit it to head office for approval. This process should feel like playing ping-pong, not pulling teeth. Make sure your CMS encourages momentum instead of slowing you down.
<h2>Content Control from the Top Down</h2>
Whether you’re implementing a single site with many sub-sites or operating multiple sites within the same organization, you’ve got content fragmentation to worry about. There are elements of every multi-site layout that need to be the same; mandated from the top and integrated downward. Privacy policies, header and footer content, brand-guideline styles are all elements for which central control is required, among others. 
Your CMS should allow you to manage and deliver this content to your sub-sites with as little fuss as possible.
Generally, for centrally-controlled content, the bare minimum should be the ability to easily recognize what content is aggregated from elsewhere. Users of any operational authority level should be able to look at a page or email and know where the content comes from. This way, even if they aren’t enabled to edit that content themselves, you’re saving time answering questions when someone in the Montreal office thinks they need a different header graphic than the one the New York office uses. Users who have a solid grasp on what their responsibilities will be more inclined to focus on the content they do have ownership over. 
Beyond that, when changes are necessary, they should be easily performed by the users who have the mandate to make top-level edits and should populate down to all the sub-sites and accounts with the same instant speed you’d expect in publishing any individual piece of content. This should be instantaneous for all accounts necessary, whether part of a larger whole or an individual sub-account. If your CMS requires you to manually edit each and every time you need to update this kind of content, it may be time to rethink your CMS.
<h2>Ease of Aggregation </h2>
As websites grow, the library of press releases, news items, event listings and other general content tends to pile up. As new items are added, deciding what gets pushed to sub-sites and regional offices can be an organizational nightmare. Does the Product team page contain news releases from the home page? Does the Los Angeles office get news releases from the San Francisco office? 
If you have to deal with these kinds of questions on a post-by-post basis, you’re wasting time and energy that could be better served with bigger tasks. Look to your CMS for answers.
Content aggregation tools will allow you to tag and organize posts at the content-release level. So when you create a news article about acquiring that new San Diego property, you can tag it as “California” and “acquisition”. Once that’s done, an automatic listing of that content will appear wherever it is appropriate. This will allow you to create custom objects that can be placed on any given page and updated automatically whenever a new item is created. 
Imagine, then, that this California acquisition post will appear on the LA site, the San Francisco site, the head office news feed and the board-only site that displays all upcoming business news. All because your CMS enabled your user to tag that content. A little work setting up aggregation in the early stages will lead to a massive time savings later down the line.
This kind of aggregation should work multi-directionally; your head office should be able to create items that cascade down to individual sub-sites and your sub-sites should be able to populate back up to your main site. This kind of content sharing, controlled by automatic listing aggregation, provides a plethora of benefits – it’s a known fact that fresh content provides a massive SEO boost. Doubtless that there is content being created by your various teams that could be implemented elsewhere to keep pages full with fresh content and draw in Google and Yahoo crawlers like ants to a picnic.
<h2>A CMS to Make You, Not Break You</h2>
When choosing a CMS for your multi-site setup, keep in mind that there are two major elements to consider. The first is the human aspect of your business. You have a team or several teams of varying skill levels and discipline all working together to create your marketing effort on the web. You need a CMS that can be customized to wring the absolute best out of that team. You push them for perfection; give them a tool that will help them reach that high goal. 
The other side of the coin is the content itself, once it’s been created is it being implemented and managed in a way that supports your site setup? Aggregation, workflow and permission control that is granular and powerful can save time and effort and help you focus on the tasks that really matter. Coordination and compliance is the key to success in a complicated environment. Choose a CMS that empowers, not disables you.

In the Widening Gyre: Keeping Control of a Multi-Site Marketing Environment

SEO Samba, the premier organic search &amp; web marketing platform, will introduce SEO Toaster, its new free and open-source integrated Web marketing software application that no “do it yourself” entrepreneur should be without at this year’s annual PubCon.
SEO Toaster represents a serious alternative to Yahoo Stores for small e-commerce websites or WordPress when used as a corporate or affiliate CMS.  SEO Samba will showcase SEO Toaster at its exhibitor booth # 201 on November 11 and 12, and introduce it officially tonight as a sponsor of the Kick Off Networking Blast between 5.30 PM and 7.30 PM (PST).
SEO Toaster is a content management system (CMS) with an unique architecture that grows with your business, and makes piloting SEO execution and marketing for multiple websites from a central automated web marketing location possible. SEO Toaster makes it easier than ever for the small business owner to do the following:
<ul>
<li> Set-up their Web presence fast with an SEO CMS “right out of the box” solution:  no plug-in or complex set-up required</li>
<li> Embed all latest SEO techniques automatically right into their website from the get-go to achieve high rankings with Google and other search engines: No blog to read, or SEO expert fees to pay</li>
<li> Access a library of ready-to-use themes to jump-start your presence online</li>
<li> Have your regular <a href="http://www.design2work.net/">web designer</a> build, customize themes for your new or existing website is inexpensive thanks to the use of standard technologies and just 4 HTML and 2 CSS required templates</li>
<li> Add and edit their web pages without ever leaving their website thanks to front-end inline editing and pre-configured widgets such as featured areas, related pages, image gallery, comment system and more Sell products online with pre-built payment buttons for Paypal, 2checkout</li>
<li> Customize and integrate open source shopping cart and other applications</li>
<li> Build one, two, three and more money-making websites with SEO Toaster for free, then with a subscription to SEO Samba just a click away, centralize management of all your websites marketing and compound its effectiveness with access to powerful link building, Google News submission, email marketing, landing page optimization, Google Webmaster Tool and Web analytics modules, all of which are there to easily assist you in obtaining first-page rankings cost-effectively for multiple websites.</li>
</ul>
“We designed and introduced SEO Samba in December 2008 with the express purpose of automating many of the time consuming and manual search optimization processes,” said SEO Samba CEO, Michel Leconte. “Early adopters, such as B2B, franchises, affiliates, services and small e-commerce websites, have already seen the benefits of using SEO Samba, including building a Web presence that is cost-effective and producing thousands of top rankings in Google and other leading search engines. Case studies with actual live clients’ website rankings featured on our website at <a href="http://www.seosamba.com/" target="_blank">http://www.seosamba.com</a> undeniably back our claims up.”
Leconte added: “We created SEO Toaster, for the millions of small business owners, affiliate marketers, and e-tailers who suffer from the lack of search engines rankings visibility, cost, expertise and time investment necessary to bring WordPress and the plug-in “can fix it all ” (albeit late and often not reliably) patchwork mentality, or Yahoo store and their very limited proprietary web marketing and SEO functionalities”
In comparison, SEO Toaster enables the entrepreneur, e-tailer, or local small business owner or marketer to quickly establish their Web marketing presence with a single overarching objective:
Acquire top websites rankings, generate leads and sales.
David Culot is SEO Samba CTO and the leading force behind the easy-to-use, and easy-to-design CMS software. Culot comments; “SEO Toaster use an easy, front-end CMS, where you log-in and simply surf your live website and edit content right onto the page itself, and building, importing or customizing a website theme takes as little as 30 minutes for a web designer.”  Unique features include automated re-directs; onsite optimized linking, and link sculpting using Java script, and everything is ready and easy-to-use out of the box.
SEO Toaster is also the first cloud CMS and offers a foundation to scale successful web businesses with a one-click subscription to SEO Samba. Leconte explains:
“When you reach the point where you want to take your website to the next level of visibility, can’t afford the time to pilot each of your websites individually, or have already standardized your network of franchise or affiliate websites on SEO Toaster, push one button, and all your websites come together under an unified interface. Your entire portfolio of websites is now ready to receive and execute your orders such as modifying all pages URL’s, creating optimized links across your websites, landing page experiments, Google news ready articles and press releases…” These are advanced unseen functionalities that no CMS, whether open source such as Joomla, or Drupal, nor proprietary CMS and web marketing software provides.
Learn more at <a href="http://www.seotoaster.com">SEO Toaster</a>

SEO Toaster, the new free and open-source integrated Web marketing software application

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the three main social media platforms that guide most of the traffic from a wide audience. Yet, those media platforms have rules, agendas, and limitations that can be constricting to certain businesses, people, and viewpoints. Whether it is the lack of individuality inherent in these easily recognizable social networks, or simply because the company or cause sees something greater, utilizing a social networking content monitoring system (CMS) platform to create a social network is an intriguing option.
Here are five of the best social networking CMS platforms available use today.
<h2>SocialEngine</h2>
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/social-engine" target="_blank">SocialEngine</a> started in 2007 and was co-founded by Charlotte Genevier and Alex Benzer. Originally, this now open-source social networking CMS was created simply to help businesses create their own branded social network platform. This system boasts having no limits in customization, in-depth analytics, built-in security, and anti-spam.
SocialEngine also has two distinct options when it comes to specifically how you want to build your social network.
<h3>SocialEngine PHP:</h3>
SocialEngine PHP is designed to be downloaded and utilized in a format that is created completely by the individual user. Having a license to utilize this software means that the social network that a person creates is completely their own. Since this product was the first out of the duo, it is an extremely in-depth, extremely analytical, completely personalized response from your social network platform.
<h3>SocialEngine Cloud:</h3>
SocialEngine Cloud boasts an instant setup, total social integration and, while less in-depth and slightly less customizable than it’s PHP counterpart, it is also a simple, faster way to start an online network. The cloud version is easy to link to existing websites and if you need more than one social network, this platform can be enabled to host different social networking accounts.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
The biggest advantages that SocialEngine is known for is their customization and the ownership of the data that is put on the network. While SocialEngine hosts the platform on which the social network is built, all the contents, in addition to the network itself, is owned by the user.
<h3>Cons:</h3>
The biggest issue with SocialEngine is that many third-party plug-ins are not compatible with the platform. Therefore, the customization, although vast, can be dampened significantly by this inability.
Also, there are reports that despite multiple users complaining about this and other issues, the platform is slow to initiate change.
<h2>phpFox</h2>
In January of 2018, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/out/phpfox" target="_blank">phpFox</a> released its latest and biggest update, phpFox 4.6.0. This tells users that this is a platform that is keeping up with the times and always improving. Regardless of how good software is, complacency can hastily become their terminal downward spiral into tech history.
Therefore, one of the biggest ways phpFox continues to stay afloat is their focus on relevance; which is a theme that is inherent throughout their website and platform design.
phpFox has a free demo that allows their potential social networking creators to try out their basic service before committing to buying a license.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
The highlights of this system are their affordability, the abundance of features and their user-friendly interface.
With a one-time fee of their three-tiered system that allows social networkers to choose the capability of their network, such as whether to have video chat, makes it highly affordable.
The abundance of features makes customization and the ability to make a platform unique easy and accessible. Many of these features are available in the first tier of their pricing.
Last, the user-friendly interface, that has recognizable similarities to Facebook, make it appealing to the eye and recognizable.
<h3>Cons:</h3>
The biggest issue with phpFox is the customer service. While this platform has good representatives who are helpful, once you get ahold of them, the help is generally frustrated by their service pricing and schedule.
Customers who wish to get in touch with the company to help them with an issue must pay for their service (even those on the highest pricing tier).
Additionally, their scheduling for customer service representatives is strictly between business hours. This means that globalization of this platform is at a major disadvantage and, more importantly for the individual networker if you have a pressing issue after they close, or on the weekend, help will likely not arrive until the next business day.
<h2>eXo</h2>
The idea for <a href="https://www.exoplatform.com" target="_blank">eXo</a> was conceived in 2002 and was initially supposed to be an open-source project. However, after a lot of hard work and determination, in 2003, the project morphed into a company, taking on the US Department of Defense as their first client.
For the pricing platform of eXo, there are three main options, which are decided by the number of people who utilize your platform.
The first is the Professional Plan, which is available up to 200 users. The second option is the Enterprise plan, which services up to 1,000 users. The third option is the Enterprise Plus tier, which hosts an unlimited number of users.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
Considering that many users tend to have a good experience with eXo, there are many benefits to utilizing this platform. However, these pros are the most common:
eXo is hailed for having excellent content management, high sociability tools, and easy to use customization.
eXo has a reputation for being a complete platform, having perfected the balance between a social and collaborative effort. While there are a pleasing amount of add-on and exclusive features that can be easily integrated into the user’s social network, the open source programming gives users the freedom to build their network exactly as they see fit.
Plus, the customer service is always helpful, with a quick and detailed response (at no additional cost). 
<h3>Cons:</h3>
The only true disadvantage that eXo has on a wide scale, is that they offer so much, sometimes some of the larger features can slow the network down. While this is possible to fix, the completeness of such a true open source network makes it hard for some new users to navigate.
<h2>BoonEx</h2>
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/boonex" target="_blank">BoonEx</a> was started in 2001 by Andrew and Julia Boon. Originally, the couple only sought to focus on the software community. However, over the span of a decade, which is now reaching close to twenty years, the company has morphed into a reliable social CMS platform.
The company’s main product is often what people refer to the company as Dolphin.
With the full name of BoonEx Dolphin, this platform has gone through four major updates, the most current of which is Dolphin Pro.
*Fun Fact: With each update, the company ‘adopts’ a dolphin and pays for its care, in addition supporting many other animal, environmental, and human disability foundations.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
BoonEx is hailed for withstanding the test of time and updating itself to stay relevant. Some unique pros for this system are the membership ads, the ability to create a blog right on the platform and the ability to collect payments.
The way that their ad space is filled up is by the members. This keeps the network growing and expanding, while individual networkers are getting noticed on the platform that they chose to work with.
Also, in addition to being fully customizable, both with templates and social media connectivity, BoonEx also allows networkers to plan and present their own content. Members are easily able to add and update blogs to their network, create custom RSS feeds and even share documents.
Third, BoonEx allows network users to collect payments through their social network. It is easy to set up and makes the network, especially for a charity or other like-minded idea, look extremely put together and professional. For some networks, this could change the entire way they operate, simply by the ease of being paid right through the social network they created.
<h3>Cons:</h3>
The major issue with this platform is the lack of options for certain functions, such as templates. While they do have a marketplace that negates that con slightly, having to pay for something as simple as a template, when a networker is already paying for a membership is cause for annoyance.
<h2>NING</h2>
<a href="https://www.ning.com/" target="_blank">NING</a> started in 2004 and is proud to be one of the major CMS platforms in the industry. The company boasts a simple, customizable, drag and drop design that is completely socially integrated, mobile, and refined by up to date SEO and analytics features.
Even though they are a company conceived in the USA, their globalization is on point, with the ability to read the contents of their website in six different languages proudly displayed on their website.
<h3>Pros:</h3>
The benefits of using NING are that they have a reputation to be easy to work, the content tends to show up high on Google searches, and the platform can easily be monetized.
The NING platform is synonymous with being easy to work with and seamless in its customization. This platform is always striving to keep up its relevance and achieves this goal through apps, plenty of features and affordability.
Secondly, NING focuses its efforts on staying SEO savvy, which helps the contents for all the platform’s users to show up high on Google searches. This is useful, both for seasoned networkers and those who are still trying to build their user base.
Additionally, NING is one of the CMS platforms that has made monetization of the network a priority. If a possible networker is looking to sell ad space, this is a good option, especially for those who are just starting out.
<h3>Cons:</h3>
NING is not without faults, however. While it has its benefits, there are also a few complaints among the users.
The first of which is that although the packages are affordable, they come with limited bandwidth, which once a networker has exceeded, they must upgrade their package. This tends to get frustrating extremely quick.
Secondly, since the NING site is integrated with each individual social network on the platform, there is a higher possibility for spamming. To rectify this situation, NING limited the number of friend requests a networker can send to fifty. This helped a little bit but the aggravation for the legitimate networker was heightened.
Also, another one of the most prevalent issues that users seem to have with NING is that the platform has a reputation for being inexpensive. While it is far from looking cheap, some people seem to have that opinion of the platform. Thus, if the networker intends to use the platform for its monetary capabilities, they might be faced with issues, simply because of the affordability of the platform.
Nevertheless, if a networker can build a reputable social platform, it won’t matter where the site is hosted. 
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
In conclusion, there is no CMS platform on this list that is necessarily better than another. At the end of the day, there is a social networking CMS platform that is better suited for every business. After all, each business is unique and therefore, deserves to choose an equally unique platform on which they host their social network. However, hopefully, this list has shed some light on the options that are available and helped make that decision a little more manageable.

5 Best Social Networking CMS Platforms

<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/eden" target="_blank">Eden</a> is a unique new CMS from Durham, North Carolina based firm, Preation.
What makes it unique in a sea of content management systems you ask? Let us show you.
First off, anyone can create a free trial account (no credit card required) by accessing the <a href="../eden" target="_blank">Eden</a> website.
Once you've done so, you'll enter the dashboard which provides an overview of available options:

The dashboard gives you quick updates from the Preation team as to what has changed recently, as well as site statistics (if you scroll down you will see these):

Exploring the various options, there is an Album link which will allow you to define an album for your media as well as create and select a folder.
Next there is an authentication tab where you can define which user roles are able to see various areas of the CMS.
There is then a calendar feature which lets you define and categorize events with quite a bit of detail (Note: screenshot does not show all available options as it would be too long ):

Following the calendar is the file manager which gives you an interface where you can import images from a URL or select files individually.
The file manager is very fast and works very well.

Selecting multiple files with the ctrl-key and uploading them worked without issue as you can see from the 3 images we randomly selected below. They were all uploaded quickly and the system provides nail shots of each.
They can then be renamed and descriptions added:

Form management is the next selection in the dashboard. From here you can create as many custom forms as you like and the system will provide you with plenty of options to adjust them to your needs:

Next is the optimization tab which shows your calculated SEO scores for each of your pages:

Now here's our favorite part of this system.. the Page tab.
This tab shows you the hierarchy of your website represented as follows:

What's neat about this is the way they have handled the content and page editing.. clicking on any of the pages presents a dialog with options.

Selecting the settings option will provide you with the following options:
<ul>
<li>Name</li>
<li>Description</li>
<li>Layout (you can select the number of columns)</li>
<li>Page type</li>
<li>Whether or not to show the page in navigation</li>
<li>SEO info such as page title, keywords, description, SEO target keywords, optimization info, and more.</li>
<li>Analytics code entry (for Google Analytics)</li>
<li>Copyright information</li>
<li>Logo selection and Header image</li>
</ul>
Selecting the edit option lets you get your hands dirty and begin building your pages / content:

What's unique is that as you are populating the page with content, the SEO value is being analyzed and presented in real time to give you an idea as to how well you can expect your site to perform. We're not sure how accurate it is and what it is judging based on but it's a nice feature and we certainly appreciate having it as a guide.
The theme tab has a few themes which you can select from to give you a starting point for your site:

The final two options include user management and URL management and are pretty straight forward.
Pro's
<ul>
<li>Easy to use</li>
<li>Quick and responsive</li>
<li>Reasonably priced</li>
</ul>
Con's
<ul>
<li>No integrated CSS or HTML editing</li>
</ul>
Overall, it's a great starter system and being that you can upload your own designs to use with the system, the lack of integrated CSS and HTML editing isn't a massive issue but it would be nicer if it was included.
Eden is definitely a step in the right direction for ease of use and we can only hope that they keep improving.
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/eden">Check it out for yourself.</a>

Eden CMS Review

Adobe today announced the integration of two big content solutions, its <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/digital-publishing-suite-family.html" target="_blank">Adobe Digital Publishing Suite</a> (DPS) with <a href="http://www.adobe.com/solutions/web-experience-management.html" target="_blank">Adobe Experience Manager</a>, part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Adobe's integration was designed for both publishers and brands to deliver content-centric apps, dramatically reduce publishing costs across channels and utilize app measurement capabilities from Adobe Analytics, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud. 
 So, let's get into exactly what's new. 
<h2>Faster App Content Authoring &amp; Brand Consistency </h2>
This new integration, in combination with <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adobe.com%2Fsolutions%2Fdigital-analytics.html&amp;esheet=50813174&amp;newsitemid=20140226006784&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Adobe+Analytics&amp;index=4&amp;md5=d4080747a3211a8619358cc9767d8845" target="_blank">Adobe Analytics</a>, enables publishers and brands to create, deliver and measure experiences across content-rich apps, like digital magazines and the Web, using  just one set of assets in the process.
 As a result, organizations can accelerate application authoring, reduce publishing costs across channels, and deliver a consistent brand experience and content marketing strategy on the Web and mobile devices.
Now, the combination of DPS and Experience Manager allows organizations to deliver relevant, timely branded content by:
<ul>
<li>
 Authoring compelling app content faster —using Adobe Experience Manager’s intuitive, drag-and-drop interface, content and creative assets can now be seamlessly added to responsive HTML templates, which are then synced with DPS. Templates are uploaded as articles into an existing .folio within DPS for publishing to tablets, smartphones and the Web. Responsive templates automatically size to different mobile screen sizes allowing organizations to design once and streamline content publication to multiple devices and the Web.
</li>
<li>
 Decreasing publishing costs across channels —creative teams, production staff and business managers can now leverage approved creative assets for delivery into content-centric apps, reducing dependence on Web production and design staff. They can ensure more timely delivery of content with greater control over mobile brand experiences as well as the ability to quickly update content as needed.
</li>
<li>
 Maintaining a consistent brand and user experience —production staff can ensure brand consistency across Web and content-centric apps by using approved, versioned assets that are centrally located and managed through Experience Manager’s <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.adobe.com%2Fsolutions%2Fweb-experience-management%2Fdigital-asset-management.html&amp;esheet=50813174&amp;newsitemid=20140226006784&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Digital+Asset+Management&amp;index=7&amp;md5=4cb157ed8d8d05b650850cdd0d0a5f86" target="_blank"> Digital Asset Management</a>.
</li>
</ul>
<h2>A Time &amp; Money Saver</h2>
Regarding the announcement, Nick Bogaty, head of digital publishing for Adobe, had this to say: 
<blockquote>
“DPS and Adobe Experience Manager make it significantly easier for publishers and brands to produce consistent, rich content for customers on mobile and the Web. Delivering interactive magazines for mobile devices and content for the Web used to require separate assets, teams and time. That’s now a thing of the past. The combination of our tools will arm savvy CMOs with a tremendous advantage, helping save time and money and providing a competitive brand advantage.”
</blockquote>
As the quote implies, publishers and brands can look forward to a streamlined content production process across channels, which will naturally result in savings to both time and money.
In addition to the new integration with Experience Manager, DPS also offers full app measurement capabilities from Adobe Analytics, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud. 
The combination of DPS and Adobe Marketing Cloud allows publishers and businesses to create, deliver and measure rich-content mobile apps, ensuring the most impactful content reaches the right audience. 
 For more information on the Integration, check out the <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/" target="_blank"> official Adobe DPS Blog</a>.

Adobe Announce Integration of Adobe Digital Publishing Suite & Adobe Experience Manager

PaperThin Inc., a leading cloud-based Web content management solution provider, today announced the launch of its <a href="http://www.paperthin.com">CommonSpot</a>™ Winter 2012 release. This is the first in the company’s strategy to issue more frequent releases per year using a new Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall naming convention. Geared towards marketers, features in the Winter 2012 release help marketers fully realize their Web strategies and drive high impact results. Key new marketing features include:
Visitor Context Rules—Marketers can easily deliver targeted content to site visitors based on the context of their Web activity, such as entering through a specific landing page, search term or referring URL; the presence of cookies from email campaigns or site actions; visits from a specific IP address, and so on. This provides for a more personalized visitor experience that drives higher conversions.
Google Analytics Integration—Marketers can conveniently view Google page analytics, graphs, and reports while authoring a page and use that insight to optimize content for better marketing results. Tied in with content’s version history, marketers can now see how changes to content affect analytics.
SEO Redirect Support and Vanity URLs—Appropriate SEO redirects are automatically created as content is moved or renamed within a site, thus preserving search engine rankings. Additional tools also allow marketers to easily create and manage legacy or vanity page redirects to improve branding or create short aliases for long URLs.
In addition to new marketing features, the Winter 2012 release also includes several platform updates (including Google Chrome and Mac Safari browser support, updated browser support for Firefox 10, and beta-level support for running under the Railo open source CFML engine), as well as numerous customer requested feature enhancements (such as multi-file uploads through a drag-and-drop interface, new reports to easily see all content scheduled for publication or expiration, improved cache management, and site performance options).
<blockquote>
“This release represents a significant leap forward in our product strategy to deliver a continuously evolving and comprehensive suite of features that help marketers achieve impactful results from their digital marketing efforts while delivering outstanding Web experiences to customers,” said Todd Peters, president and founder of PaperThin.
</blockquote>
About CommonSpot:
CommonSpot is a secure Web platform that includes a powerful content management solution, a suite of marketing solutions, Web 2.0 and social media apps, and an open-source application development framework that allow organizations to create world-class Web experiences. CommonSpot features a marketing suite that helps organizations increase site traffic, brand loyalty, and conversion rates. Its intuitive user interface allows everyday users to easily publish Web content via any delivery channel (social media, streaming media, video, mobile, etc.). And results from customers indicate that CommonSpot gives IT the ability to create and deploy tailored functionality 50% faster than the norm, and at half the cost—whether deploying out-of-the-box apps, designing new ones, or importing and exporting apps. Available on premises or in the cloud, CommonSpot serves as a Web foundation that puts power into the hands of marketers for amazing digital results.

Marketers Analyze, Optimize, and Personalize Websites Using New CommonSpot Release by PaperThin

Power your CMS on AWS

Manage your websites & apps in the most trusted cloud.

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OpenText  has announced enhancements to the OpenText Online Marketing solution that helps marketing organizations transform ordinary Web sites into dynamic, exceptional customer experiences across Web, social, mobile, print and more. The new capabilities in OpenText Web Experience Management pave the road to new customers, boost loyalty among existing customers, and demonstrate the value of digital marketing efforts.
The days are long gone when marketers could count on an email campaign, and a basic corporate website to drive results. Today's media campaigns must deal with the complexity of an engaged, always on, always connected society with an ever-cautious eye on customer experience, brand consistency and governance.
<blockquote>
“Increasingly, companies are making it an imperative to not only understand expectations that customers have of their brand, but also deliver on those brand expectations through all of the different channels,” said Forrester Research, Inc.* “Customers are on the empowerment side: They have lots of choices, it has become easier to switch, they have a powerful voice, and they demand more. Companies are on the engagement side; the smart ones realize that new interaction channels open up new opportunities to deliver value in the context in which customers use their products or services.”
</blockquote>
The OpenText Online Marketing solution is designed to meet marketing's needs in this multi-channel world. Instead of attempting to cobble together campaigns, or simply skipping channels completely because of cost or platform limitations, marketers can use this solution to target and reach diverse online audiences with consistent messages whether those audiences are on social media, mobile devices or elsewhere, such as partner and affiliate sites.
Further, OpenText Online Marketing supports a closed loop marketing process that lets marketers plan marketing campaigns, attract high-value visitors, convert them into loyal customers and measure the return on marketing investment (ROMI) gained from online programs. The solution can adapt to any organizational size or complexity, making it the premier choice for global entities with intricate marketing and governance requirements.
<blockquote>
“It almost goes without saying that CMOs in today's world are tasked to deliver measurable returns for their digital marketing programs. This entails reducing customer acquisition costs, increasing customer loyalty and maximizing the lifetime value of the customer,” said James Latham, Chief Marketing Officer, OpenText. “By bringing Web, social and mobile activities together, we are giving marketing executives the ability to not only roll out successful multi-channel marketing initiatives, but to demonstrate their value.”
</blockquote>
OpenText customer experience solutions are used by some of the largest brands in the world including major hotel chains, multi-national consumer product companies, major automobile manufacturers, and global restaurant chains among many others. More than 95 percent of OpenText's online marketing customer base has a global Web presence and manages thousands of Web pages and customer interactions daily.
Web Experience Management Updates
In addition to the new Online Marketing solution, OpenText announced the release of service pack 1 for Web Experience Management 8.1 that offers new and enhanced capabilities along with updates based on customer feedback. Web Experience Management is the core platform for OpenText online customer experience management solutions.
Enhancements in the service pack include native updates, plug-ins and third-party add-ins that offer: rapid templating to design a Web page in three easy steps using any Web page from around the world; a multivariate testing for digital marketers; mobile Web page preview, OpenText Web and Social Analytics for insight into the customer experience; archival of whole Web sites to individual elements; and enhancements for multilingual distributed global websites for French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese.
OpenText Online Marketing is the second solution to incorporate Web Experience Management 8.1 and other OpenText Web technologies to provide a comprehensive Web solution. OpenText Social Communities solution, announced in October, helps companies promote and drive the shift to a social business model.
Availability
The OpenText Online Marketing Solution and Web Experience Management 8.1 SP1 are available now. To learn more about how OpenText customer experience management solutions make a long story short, go to: <a href="http://www.opentext.com/longstoryshort/">http://www.opentext.com/longstoryshort/</a>

OpenText Enhances Online Marketing Solution for Today's Always-On World

Adobe will be hosting their annual Digital Marketing Summit this year in Salt Lake City, Utah and CMS Critic will be in attendance to bring you the latest coverage of this event. With key speakers such as Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post and Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter, this event is sure to offer valuable insight to those looking to expand their marketing strategies.
On Wednesday, Adobe is bringing in a surprise headliner for a concert on site. Last year, attendees were surprised with a concert by Lenny Kravitz and nobody knows who will be playing this year.
This event offers  more than 70 unique breakout sessions exploring the latest trends around social, mobile, web analytics and more.
A full breakdown of the sessions can be found here: <a href="http://summit.adobe.com/tracksandsessions.html">http://summit.adobe.com/tracksandsessions.html</a>
You can learn more about the summit in it's entirety here:  <a href="http://summit.adobe.com/">http://summit.adobe.com/</a>
Will you be in attendance? Be sure to search me out and say hi!

The Adobe Digital Marketing Summit

<a href="http://www.adobe.com">Adobe</a> introduced Adobe Social today, a new product within the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite.  Adobe Social combines social publishing and engagement with monitoring, social ad buying and analytics that can help marketers attribute social activities with results for their businesses.  Adobe Social builds on the social media management technology Adobe acquired earlier this year as part of the Context Optional/Efficient Frontier acquisition, as well as the social media monitoring and analytics of Adobe SocialAnalytics.  The product will expand this year with added social marketing features as well as integrations with other products within the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite.
With Adobe Social, digital marketers can now carry out the following with a single product:
<ul>
<li>Streamline and centralize publishing across social platforms</li>
<li>Automate targeting and personalization of content and experiences in social applications and across social platforms</li>
<li>Seamlessly integrate Sponsored Story ad creation within the publishing workflow to maximize the reach of important content and campaigns</li>
<li>Monitor and moderate conversations both within your communities and anywhere it happens on the social web</li>
<li>Import analytics data from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, blogs and other social platforms into Adobe Social and tie social activities to business results</li>
<li>Identify and engage key influencers to drive positive conversations about your brand</li>
<li>Monitor the sentiment of conversations and receive alerts on relevant trends</li>
<li>Easily create and deploy social apps, such as contests or forms, without the need for design or development resources</li>
<li>Directly measure across the customer journey how social media interactions and engagement drive purchase behavior</li>
</ul>
<h3>Social Ad Campaign Optimization</h3>
The capabilities of Adobe Social are complemented by technology acquired from Efficient Frontier, which brings social ad buying and social campaign optimization to the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite.  This technology provides multi-channel campaign management and optimization across the leading digital ad marketplaces.  In addition to search, display and Facebook support, the former Efficient Frontier technology now supports campaign management and optimization capabilities for LinkedIn Ads.
Brad Rencher, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Adobe's Digital Marketing business states:
<blockquote>
“The sheer scale of word-of-mouth that can be accomplished on social media can become a powerful boost or tragic descent for any company and is best-managed if a company’s social marketers are in lock-step. Adobe Social brings to social marketing the control and accountability expected across other digital channels. The ultimate aim is to help social media as a marketing channel mature and prove its worth alongside other digital marketing investments.”
</blockquote>
<h3>Availability</h3>
Adobe Social, a new offering within the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite, will be available in the latter half of 2012.

Adobe introduces Adobe Social -  One product for Ad Buying, Analytics, Publishing and Social Media Monitoring

Adobe has announced the availability of a major update to its Web Experience Management (WEM) solution, part of the Adobe® Digital Marketing Suite. At a time when marketing budgets are under intense scrutiny and a one-size-fits-all approach to reaching customers is no longer acceptable, the WEM solution helps organizations drive engagement by delivering more consistent, contextually relevant experiences on the Web, mobile devices and social media.
Through a unique combination of the latest Adobe Digital Marketing Suite products and services, Adobe WEM empowers marketers, in partnership with IT, to quickly personalize brand and e-commerce experiences, optimize landing pages and micro sites, and engage in social communities and conversations. The latest solution consists of:
<ul>
<li>Easy-to-use, unified Web Content Management (WCM) that helps marketers leverage customer context to personalize online experiences and better reach digitally immersed customers</li>
<li>Innovative HTML5 Mobile Application publishing support for the rapid, simultaneous launch of content across websites, mobile sites and smartphone and tablet apps</li>
<li>Enterprise-class Digital Asset Management (DAM) intuitively integrated with Adobe creative tools and the forthcoming Adobe Creative Cloud™ to streamline creation and re-use of rich media</li>
</ul>
At the heart of the WEM solution is Adobe CQ, a recognized industry leader in WCM software built on open standards. The new Adobe CQ 5.5, available today, significantly builds on this leadership position through several innovations, as well as integration with other products in the Digital Marketing Suite, including Insight for analyzing large volumes of data in real-time; Scene7® for converting rich media to dynamic content optimized across channels; Search&amp;Promote for targeted site search and surfacing relevant product and content matches; SiteCatalyst® for actionable online analytics; and Test&amp;Target™ for website optimization and personalization. In addition to new e-commerce capabilities delivered via an open framework and partnership with market-leader, hybris (see separate release), Adobe CQ 5.5 advances include:
<ul>
<li>Client Context—Deliver contextualized content and consistent brand experiences as customers move from channel-to-channel and device-to-device. Harnessing rich profile, segmentation and analytics data from the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite, Client Context empowers digital marketers to create, preview and optimize the personalized experience of target customer audiences.</li>
<li>Mobile App Development—Empower marketing to rapidly create HTML5-based mobile apps through new integration with PhoneGap, Adobe’s standards-based framework for building cross-platform apps. Intuitive, drag-and-drop functionality takes full advantage of device features, such as the accelerometer, camera and GPS.</li>
<li>DAM—Enable collaboration on rich media assets, including video, beyond the borders of the organization. Marketers can easily find, share, add comments to, and revise and publish assets regardless of format, speeding time to market on digital campaigns. Now includes integration with Adobe Creative Suite® tools, as well as Adobe Creative Cloud, which is expected in the first half of 2012.</li>
<li>Cloud Manager (beta)—Ensure optimal performance during peak customer demand by eliminating bottlenecks and accelerating time-to-market on new campaigns. New cloud service enables marketers to take control of fluctuating peak customer traffic while minimizing turnaround time of key online initiatives.</li>
</ul>
According to Kevin Cochrane, vice president of Product Strategy and Solution Marketing:
<blockquote>
“Web Content Management as we’ve known it just doesn’t cut it any longer. Not for CMOs tasked with enhancing corporate image and contributing to the bottom line in an age when the expectations of the CEO and customer have never been greater. And certainly not for consumers who expect highly pertinent information at the right time, whether on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone. Our Web Experience Management solution and Adobe CQ 5.5 were built with this in mind, and provide today’s digital marketer the power to personalize each experience, across channels, to build brand, drive demand, and reach new audiences.”
</blockquote>
To learn more about CQ 5.5, visit their website <a href="http://www.adobe.com">http://www.adobe.com</a>

Adobe CQ 5.5 Now Available; Integrated with Digital Marketing Suite to Build Brand and Drive Demand

Regardless of whether you have a successful business that meets all of its sales goals, or you’re a brand-new startup that is still struggling to keep afloat, you need to be able to analyze important data in order to make informed decisions about your brand.
There are so many different aspects to running a business, even though sometimes they may not seem connected.
However, it’s these subtle connections that can make all the difference between a successful company that really takes off, and one that crashes and burns.
By understanding and implementing <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/business-intelligence-vs-analytics-whats-difference-alexia-p-bullard">business intelligence and analytics systems and programs</a>, business owners are better able to keep track of important data and use those numbers to their advantage.
<h2>Business Intelligence vs. Business Analytics</h2>
Business Intelligence concentrates on a consistent grouping of data in order to organize and track performance and to guide business planning. It answers the questions of “what happened”, “Where can we improve,” and “how often does this occur.”
Business Analytics consists of the skills, technologies, and applications required for exploration and investigation into the data acquired through business intelligence. This data is then used to predict future events, or to find patterns within a business’ data that would have never otherwise been found. This answers questions like, “Why is this occurring,” “what will happen if this trend continues”, “what is going to happen next”, and “Given x, what is the best possible outcome.”
For example, if a company that sells band patches checked their business intelligence and analytics, they would discover their band patches sales tend to peak in July. They would also see that barely any patches are sold in December.
With this information, they could find the optimal times to put their band patches on sale, and when they should stock up on their inventory.
When you compare BI and BA, you will see that BI involves collecting data and analyzing current data with the intent to improve business operations. BA, on the other hand, analyzes past data in order to create predictions of a business’ trends with the intent to improve the business and prepare it for upcoming changes.
<h2>Importance of Business Intelligence &amp; Analytics</h2>
Business intelligence systems and analytics are essential for the maintenance, optimization, and streamlining of current business operations, regardless of industry or type of business.
For example, most people associate business analytics with <a href="https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/">Google Analytics</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/#?modal_active=none">Google Search Console</a>, and other popular programs for analyzing the performance of e-commerce businesses and other websites.
These systems offer several key benefits for business owners, making them a salient aspect of the behind-the-scenes business operations:
<h3>Increase productivity</h3>
Traditional methods of data collection, organization, and analysis are time-consuming and require more manpower than business owners may have the budget for. By using a BI and analytics program, business owners can collect data and create reports with just a couple of clicks of the mouse. This drastically frees up time and resources, allowing employees and other staff members to focus on their core tasks.
<h3>Nurture Leads</h3>
As a business owner, you’re likely to be very aware of the importance of keeping track of leads and existing customers, as well as guiding them through the sales funnel of your organization. Having business intelligence and analytics systems in place will allow you to collect and organize vital data about your customers and leads, and present that data in a way that makes sense, complete with charts and tables.
This will make it easier to guide your leads through the sales funnel, from initial website visit to email list subscription, on through purchasing to post-sales services.
<h3>Reach Sales Goals</h3>
By being able to collect and analyze sales data and customer information, it will be far easier to understand how close you are to reaching your goals and to know what you need to do in order to improve. Additionally, BI allows you to keep track of all of that information, so it can be accessible to the partners or other organizations who need it.
<h3>Large Return on Investment (ROI)</h3>
Business intelligence and analytics systems offer better strategy, awareness, faster and more efficient data reporting, and <a href="https://www.gooddata.com/blog/discover-money-saving-insight-how-cloud-based-bi-reduces-costs-engaging-users">lower costs and overhead</a>. Employees are able to focus on their core sales tasks, and the administrative and marketing teams gain deeper insight into the behavior of their customers.
By having a better understanding of what your customers are buying or not buying, and why, business owners will be able to offer or develop products that match the current consumer trends for their industry, thereby boosting their profitability and brand visibility.
<h2>Final Thoughts</h2>
Business intelligence and analytics systems offer business owners the tools they need to gather and organize important data, and then have it presented to them in a way that makes it easier to create actionable plans for improving their business organization.
These systems make it possible to identify key trends in your organization’s data, so you can compare them to industry trends and see where you match up. By having this data, especially sales information and customer profiles, you can create more connections between different areas within your business and boost your sales.

Business Intelligence and Analytics: What You Need to Know

alexia-bullard

<a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blueconic.com%2F&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=BlueConic&amp;index=1&amp;md5=f5f59d42303e50dd86d2c39d288f392d" target="_blank">BlueConic</a> today announces a free customer data platform (CDP) assessment tool for marketers. The tool, <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.blueconic.com%2Fproficiency%2F%3Futm_source%3Dpress%26utm_campaign%3Dproficiency-assessment-pr&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=available+here&amp;index=2&amp;md5=fb716321292a27a83e2691864cb1a6ed" target="_blank">available here</a>, will help marketers understand organizational maturity for implementing a CDP and craft a roadmap for adoption.The $300 million CDP market is growing at an estimated 50% annually, according to the CDP Institute. 
The Institute defines a CDP as a marketer-managed system that creates a persistent, unified customer database accessible to other systems. These systems ingest data from first-party sources such as a company’s website, CRM, point-of-sale systems and mobile apps and differ from data management platforms (DMPs) in their support of real-time data and persistent (longer than 90 days) storage to support omnichannel, personalized marketing campaigns.
CDP distinctions are important because they meet consumers’ expectations of brands and how they want to interact with them. <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.avaya.com%2Fen%2Fdocuments%2Fthe_autonomous_customer_survey_2013.pdf%3Ft%3D0&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Research+shows&amp;index=3&amp;md5=39d34d581ba17f4191831850a733b8f5" target="_blank">Research shows</a> that nearly 70% of customers expect their data to be shared across channels.
How it works
BlueConic’s CDP assessment tool consists of four questions and should take just a minute or two to complete by a marketer or anyone with a solid grasp on the company’s marketing resources, budget, and technology. The assessment score places organizations in one of three levels of maturity: Experimenters, Accelerators, and Visionaries. Among BlueConic’s customer base, 30% are visionaries, the most mature category. One such visionary is <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.randallreilly.com%2F&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Randall-Reilly&amp;index=4&amp;md5=bdbfa55f03f99d0530bc45ed5c0c423f" target="_blank">Randall-Reilly</a>, which has so far been able to integrate first, second, and third party data sources at the customer and account levels, enabling new audience discovery for micro-campaigns. “We had this picture of trucking entities across multiple databases and wanted to marry it together in a 360º view, not only for our own marketing but for our advertisers’ business intelligence and CRM purposes as well,” says <a href="http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fgeoffdeakin%2F&amp;esheet=51685495&amp;newsitemid=20170919005188&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Geoff+Deakin&amp;index=5&amp;md5=4d41a1120dc2425ca6c2b8ce250e7e14" target="_blank">Geoff Deakin</a>, product director, enterprise solutions, Randall Reilly.
“As marketers derive greater value from customer data modeling efforts and resulting personalization initiatives, the challenge to unify and manage customer data is more pressing than ever,” according to Gartner authors in the July 2017 Hype Cycle for Customer Experience Analytics, 2017. “The customer data platform promises to provide the necessary connective tissue between and among tools in the marketer's stack and help marketers harness and activate their first-party data.”
“We’ve seen marketers’ awareness and knowledge of CDPs skyrocket in 2017,” says Bart Heilbron, Founder and CEO of BlueConic. “But many still struggle with knowing where and how to get started. This assessment is the first step in knowing a company’s actual readiness for a CDP, which then allows us to work together to tailor a roadmap that produces early wins and sets them up for long-term success.”

BlueConic Unveils Free Tool to Help Marketers Determine Readiness for Customer Data Platforms

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

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