Business and Marketing

The data collection firm heralds its new name by introducing the Open Data Platform.

Signal CEO Mike Sands

Cross-channel data collector BrightTag has changed its name to Signal, reflecting its rebranding as a company that focuses on “helping marketers strengthen the signals between brands and consumers.” At the same time, it has introduced Open Data Platform that incorporates its Fuse product, which reports customer data from sources such as mobile devices, call centers, and physical stores.

Signal President and CEO Mike Sands says the new corporate identity is built around a marketplace need for coalescing disparate data sources into one easily managed platform. “Leading brands tell us they've typically invested in about 17 different marketing technologies to the tune of tens of millions of dollars,” Sands says. “But few technologies are able to talk with one another.”

A company release likens the Open Data Platform to an always-operative power grid that allows brands to wire together data collection points with technologies and vendors in their marketing stacks.

Business Breaking News: Facebook to Target Ads Based on Internet Browsing History

Starting soon, Facebook will use member's Internet browsing history to better target them with the social network's advertisers' ads.

Currently, the ads a user sees on Facebook are primarily based on the things they do on Facebook, such as the pages they like. Soon, the company will also be able to target marketers' ads based on the websites Facebook users visit and the apps they use when they are not on the social network. A Facebook spokesperson told Business News Daily that the company will not be sharing this customer browsing habit information with advertisers, despite earlier reports, including in this story, that it would be doing so.

"Enhancing interest-based advertising with information from websites and apps people use will improve performance for marketers by making sure your ads go to people who are the most interested in your products and services, and those who are the most likely to respond," Facebook wrote on its company blog. "These signals will improve our existing ad capabilities and be built into our existing interfaces."

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