MarTech Today: Salesforce smartens Commerce Cloud, Skimlinks gets more granular & Google I/O roundup

Here’s our daily recap of what happened in marketing technology, as reported on MarTech Today, Marketing Land and other places across the web.

From MarTech Today:

• Salesforce makes Einstein a bit smarter in its Commerce Cloud
  May 17, 2017 by Barry Levine
  The company has enhanced its customer-based Predictive Sorting, plus updated Order Management to better support ‘order online/pickup at store.’
• Mobile is not the only channel to the customer, but it’s the most powerful one
  May 17, 2017 by Josh Todd
  Columnist Josh Todd makes the case for using your mobile data to inform every part of your digital marketing strategy and strengthen your relationship with your customers.
• Skimlinks can now ‘pre-target’ users down to a product category
  May 17, 2017 by Barry Levine
  London-based company now offers segments of users interested in buying a given kind of product, even if they’ve only read about it and not clicked on a link to buy.

From Marketing Land:

• Google I/O Roundup: Search-by-picture Google Lens & other Google Assistant features announced
  May 17, 2017 by Danny Sullivan
  The ability to search-by-picture or translate-by-picture gives Google Assistant a powerful advantage against other digital assistants.
• Amazon says push notifications are coming soon to Alexa-enabled devices
  May 17, 2017 by Matt McGee
  The opt-in-only alerts will be tested in select skills before Amazon opens the feature to all developers.
• [Reminder] Live webinar: Track, qualify & convert your leads using call and SMS data
  May 16, 2017 by Digital Marketing Depot
  Voice search now accounts for 20% of queries on Google’s mobile app and Android devices. Inbound call volume is continuing to increase even as messaging apps and chatbots become more popular. Facebook expects 37 billion call conversions by 2019, as social media’s share of mobile calls to businesses explodes.

From Around The Web:

• Google quietly debuts Chatbase, a chatbot analytics platform, TechCrunch
• The Best Collaboration Tools for Bloggers, The Blog Herald
• How Artificial Intelligence Could Help Fill Gaps In UX Design, Usability Geek
• WordPress 4.7.5 Patches Six Security Issues, Immediate Update Recommended, WordPress Tavern
• Domain Spoofing Be Gone: Ads.Txt Will Filter Out Imposter Sites, AdExchanger
• Forget the headlines, ad tech’s best days lie ahead, Econsultancy
• How Blockchain Could Give a Big Boost to the Fight Against Ad Fraud, eMarketer
• What Blockchain Means for Ad Tech, AdAge
• Use These 10 Creative Photography Hacks To Crush It On Instagram, Fast Company
• YouTube is bringing 360-degree videos to TVs, VentureBeat

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech Today. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.