June 2023 Summaries

Snowplow has released updated SDKs for media tracking, enhancing their capabilities to track video playback across web and mobile apps. The new version introduces universal media tracking APIs that can integrate with any media player, allowing for comprehensive tracking of events such as play, ad views, and live video progress with customizable settings. A new media session entity provides detailed playback statistics, including time spent playing and ads watched. The plugin supports tracking linear, non-linear, and companion ad breaks, enabling developers to optimize ad campaigns. Additionally, the SDKs offer new event schemas and are compatible with iOS and Android, matching the features available for web tracking. This update aims to provide developers with real-time, detailed insights into media playback, supporting future updates to dbt media data models.

Snowplow has launched Snowplow Digital Analytics, a new application designed for the Snowflake Data Cloud, which allows organizations to gain first-party insights into customer journeys across digital platforms. This application offers real-time analysis of customer data, providing transparency, ownership, and control over data processing and privacy. As Google Analytics transitions from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, Snowplow Digital Analytics emerges as a compelling alternative, addressing concerns about data obfuscation, GDPR compliance, and vendor lock-in associated with GA4. This solution empowers marketing and data teams with core visualizations, real-time enrichment of user journey data, and the ability to build sophisticated marketing analytics and AI models in Snowflake. By re-platforming digital analytics to Snowflake, it offers a scalable and flexible data foundation for Customer 360 use cases, enabling organizations to outperform competitors in customer acquisition and experience optimization. Snowplow Digital Analytics is designed to be AI-ready and provides a modular architecture with pre-built analytics components, easing the development process and accelerating insights for users.

Over the past decade, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) have experienced significant growth, but emerging trends such as open-source tooling, cloud data solutions, and increased data privacy scrutiny have challenged traditional CDPs. These legacy systems often suffer from use case gaps, vendor lock-in, and insufficient data privacy compliance, limiting their ability to meet evolving customer and regulatory demands. In contrast, the Composable CDP offers a more modular and flexible approach, allowing businesses to tailor their data infrastructure to specific needs and easily adapt to new technologies and regulations. This approach mitigates risks associated with traditional CDPs, such as use case limitations and vendor dependency, by enabling businesses to retain control over their customer data and integrate diverse data sources to build a comprehensive Customer 360 profile. As a result, a Composable CDP not only addresses current challenges but also provides a future-proof data strategy that can evolve with changing business needs.