In this edition of our regular wrap of news and announcements from the world of marketing technology… A survey says most people are average while others fall into either extreme; Social media platform adds a feature; Ecommerce DIYers are now able to retarget easier; Large technology vendor buys a smaller technology vendor to improve its suite; Digital out-of-home network expands; and, Digital agency licences some software.

Survey: B2B marketers not seeing great performance gains from martech

An international survey of B2B marketers conducted by lead gen agency Ascend2 has found that fewer than a third of B2B marketers said martech was improving their marketing performance.

13% of those surveyed reported no change, while 55% said performance was improving marginally.

The biggest challenge to success with martech cited was the complexity of integrating technologies (50%). Other challenges included inadequate budget (39%), lack of effective strategy (39%) and inefficient workflows and processes (38%).

Sprout Social launches a new employee advocacy platform

Social media management platform Sprout Social has released a new social advocacy platform for employees, called Bambu.

It’s designed for marketing and HR leaders, or anyone responsible for an organisation’s education and communications. Sprout Social says Bambu has the following features:

• Designated teams of contributors can add and organise content such as articles, job postings, social posts and more from around the web,
• employees stay up to date on their organisation’s content and initiatives, such as marketing campaigns, media mentions, industry-relevant news or important events,
• marketers can efficiently approve and distribute content for employees to share across their own social networks, and
• reporting capabilities track the content employee advocates share and how well content performs across networks – giving stakeholders insights into performance at the team, department and individual level.

AdRoll retargeting now integrates with Shopify stores

Retargeting platform AdRoll now integrates with cloud ecommerce platform Shopify, allowing merchants the ability to retarget customers across devices from within the Shopify platform.

Shopping cart abandonment is the main target here. AdRoll says around 70% of all ecommerce shopping carts are abandoned, quoting BI Intelligence data that more than $4 trillion worth of product will be left behind.

Once integrated, Shopify merchants can:

• Leverage their own customer data to run retargeting campaigns across the web, mobile, and social media,
• upload and test ad creative without ever leaving the Shopify platform,
• retarget customers from their email database,
• manage campaigns using auto-generated target segments, and
• capture anonymised information via website traffic for cross-device attribution.

Oracle buys Maxymiser

Oracle has signed an agreement to acquire Maxymiser, a provider of cloud-based software that enables marketers to test, target and personalise what a customer sees on a web page or app, increasing engagement and revenue.

Maxymiser optimises more than 20 billion customer experiences per month for brands such as Allianz, HSBC, Lufthansa, Tommy Hilfiger, and Wyndham.

It will become part of the Oracle Marketing Cloud suite.

The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently.

AdShel announces digital screens and beacons

AdShel has announced it will increase the number of its digital screens on the Sydney Trains network to 200 after beginning the year with 130. Stations to gain digital screens will include Circular Quay, Newtown, Redfern, Milson’s Point, St Leonards, Edgecliff, Hurstville and Hornsby.

From Q4 the company will partner with Site Tour to open automated trading to all these 200 digital screens.

In New Zealand, AdShel is rolling out 1000 beacons in major metropolitan and key regional markets from October. It is also planning to expand its digital screen street furniture network across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch during 2016. AdShel recently digitised 35 street furniture panels in Auckland.

APD chooses IBM

Asia-Pacific agency APD – which formed recently as a combination of DGM, Next Digital and Jericho – has expanded its marketing automation capabilities with the licensing of IBM Marketing Cloud across the region.