With the advance of automation, the field of digital marketing is changing in profound ways. While advertisers used to outsource their campaigns to external partners in the past, many are now increasingly shifting to carrying them out in-house due to the increasing accessibility of technological resources. Although this may seem simple at first glance, it proves to be much more complicated when faced with the harsh reality of onboarding a variety of tools. Advertisers need consulting, which presents itself as an opportunity for a growing number of IT consultancies on the market. Will they eventually eliminate established media agencies?

In an ideal world, businesses would know exactly how much they can sell, when and where. But building an effective demand prediction model is easier said than done, especially when the retail sector is getting increasingly fragmented.

Data deluge Day two of CogEx (or #SogEx as some wag has christened the event on Twitter in the aftermath of yesterday’s downpours), thankfully the skies have remained clear and positivity has shone through. This was apparent in today’s opening session on the main stage, ‘Transformation in the age of machines’ from Salim Ismail of OpenEXO.