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Optimove Acquires Kumulos to Expand Personalized Mobile Capabilities of Its Multichannel CRM Marketing Platform
Acquisition will empower brands to natively orchestrate personalized mobile, web, and in-app messages
Optimove, the leading CRM Marketing Platform, announced its acquisition of Kumulos, a Dundee, Scotland-based provider of a personalized messaging platform for mobile applications. The acquisition furthers Optimove’s efforts to expand the native messaging capabilities of its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Marketing platform, which empowers brands to connect with existing customers and deliver personalized multichannel journeys, at scale.
Optimove helps data-rich brands across industries manage large-scale CRM marketing frameworks. By personalizing thousands of campaigns to hundreds of segments, Optimove allows brands to reach their customers with the right message on the right channel. Unlike other technologies that rely on common, rule-based orchestration, Optimove’s AI-driven solutions autonomously determine the next-best-action for each individual customer, eliminating the need for marketers to manually map every customer journey.
With a Customer Data Platform (CDP) at its core, Optimove offers marketing teams direct access to their customer data to build, test, and optimize hundreds of CRM campaigns weekly. The Kumulos acquisition bolsters Optimove’s AI engine, adding native mobile capabilities to allow brands to seamlessly orchestrate multichannel marketing journeys across web, email, and mobile channels.
“Our accelerated growth has been driven by building the most powerful orchestration ‘brain’ in the market on top of our CDP,” said Optimove Founder and CEO, Pini Yakuel. “To support our next stage of growth, we will continue to add expanded capabilities to help marketers reach customers in many different ways. We already do this in email and Kumulos was a natural fit to offer this across mobile marketing as they provide an easy way to build out sophisticated mobile and web campaigns.”
With the Kumulos acquisition, Optimove now empowers marketers to:
Re-engage customers with mobile push notifications that support rich media, templates, and deep linking, which are delivered based on each customer’s usage history.
Create customized in-app messages with on-brand overlays and inbox messages for onboarding experiences, customer-based messaging, and rich in-app communications that provide the ultimate personalized experience to every customer.
Maximize opt-ins and conversions with fully customizable permission overlays and soft prompts as well as personalized rich media web push messages that dynamically adapt to each customer’s on-site behavior.
Trigger higher-accuracy automated messages leveraging geofences and beacon technology combined with realtime behavior, customer attributes, and preferences.
Acquire new mobile app users from websites, emails, social media, digital advertising, out-of-home advertising, and more with award winning deferred deep linking powered by universal smart links and web-to-app banners that intelligently navigate each customer to a unique destination.
“We were already partnered with Optimove and share an open, collaborative culture, so integrating our technology into its UI as a fully native solution was seamless,” said Bob Lawson, co-founder of Kumulos, who will assume the role of Director of Mobile Offering at Optimove. “Kumulos brings a unique blend of mobile messaging and engagement features to enable personalized mobile-first experiences for brands. Customers will be able to build these mobile campaigns and journeys directly from within Optimove from day one.”
Kumulos co-founder Mark Petrie will also join Optimove, serving as the Director of Engineering for Mobile Services.
Today, Optimove’s CRM Marketing platform sends more than 81 billion optimized messages every year, helping brands grow their customer lifetime value by more than 33 percent. The company serves more than 500 brands – including Dollar Shave Club, Entain, BetMGM, Staples, JD Sports, Papa John’s, Pennsylvania Lottery, Family Dollar and others across sports, gaming, retail, telecommunications, and financial services. Kumulos’ customer base deepens Optimove’s penetration in retail and finance and extends its reach into other key verticals such as quick service restaurants (Subway, Pizza Pizza), logistics (CargoLux, UPS), travel and hospitality (Sandals and Beaches, Network Rail) and healthcare (Sanofi, Roche, Ellerca Health).
Over the past six months, Optimove has raised $75 million in funding to accelerate its platform development through M&A and strategic hiring, already increasing its workforce to 340 employees. On the heels of the acquisition, Optimove is set to invest in Scotland locations as an R&D center to complement the development locations currently in Tel Aviv and Ukraine. The team will leverage existing SDKs for all leading operating systems, including iOS, Android, React Native, Flutter, Cordova/Ionic, Unity, and Xamarin to bring differentiated mobile marketing solutions to market.
The Kumulos acquisition closed in March 2022. Optimove plans to continue its product enhancement through additional value-add technology acquisitions this year.
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Totogaming Joins Cernica Pantelimon RunFest: Not Just Present, But Fully Participating
“We weren’t just present — we were participants of Runfest. And that’s one of the most important aspects,” said Artak Ashkhatoyan, Deputy CEO of Totogaming.
On July 6, Totogaming joined the Cernica Pantelimon Runfest in Romania, once again emphasizing the importance of promoting amateur sports and a healthy lifestyle.
“Supporting such initiatives is a priority for TotoGaming. First, 50% of the proceeds from RunFest will be donated to the CLOVES Romania Foundation, supporting children affected by CLOVES Syndrome. And second, we’ve always believed in showing our passion for sports through actions, not just words. Have you noticed how we’re constantly rushing through life, yet when we look back, it often feels like we haven’t moved at all? It’s important for us to lead by example and show the importance of participation. This is exactly the message we’re promoting through our team’s active involvement in the marathon. After all, there can never be too much sport in our lives,” said TotoGaming’s Deputy CEO, Artak Ashkhatoyan.
A Simple Concept, a Powerful Impact
The concept of this sports event is straightforward: choose a distance between 1 to 21 kilometers and run. The goal? Make sport an integral part of everyday life. The crowd certainly embraced that, gathering as early as 8:30 a.m. — on a Sunday morning.
Totogaming contributed in two distinct capacities: as an official sponsor and as an active participant. A dedicated team of 13 employees represented the company at the Cernica Pantelimon RunFest, with 7 of them proudly taking part as runners.
More Than Just a Run
It wasn’t an easy challenge — especially because among Totogaming’s runners were people for whom running isn’t a daily habit, or even part of their life at all. Yet they couldn’t miss the opportunity, not least from the perspective of corporate responsibility.
“We just finished the 7.5-kilometer race!” shared Petrut-Adrian Toea from the Totogaming team.
“It was amazing, honestly. Around the 2-kilometer mark, I had this little battle with myself — I told myself I had to finish the race, no matter what. And I did it! I came in around 60th place out of over 100 runners, which for me is a really good result.”
“I see my participation as a small contribution toward promoting a healthy lifestyle. In my close circle, everyone knows I’m not exactly the sporty type. I’m not athletic, and I usually prefer having fun in other ways. But showing up here, early in the morning, in this intense heat, and completing almost 8 kilometers with just one short break — I think it set a good example.”
“I hope seeing someone like me finish this challenge motivates my friends to try something similar for their own health. I believe that’s a meaningful contribution”, – added Petrut-Andrea.
Totogaming also made it possible for every attendee to bring sport into their lives — quite literally. At the Totogaming tent, participants could ride stationary bikes and receive prizes based on the number of points they earned through their efforts.
Whether they were running, cycling, or simply cheering for friends, the goal for everyone was the same: to reach the destination of champions — by bringing sport into everyday life.
The post Totogaming Joins Cernica Pantelimon RunFest: Not Just Present, But Fully Participating appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
BMM Testlabs, the world’s original gaming test lab renowned for exceptional product compliance and certification services, today announced the promotion of Sacha McLaughlin to Vice President of Global Quality Assurance.
BMM’s President of Land-Based Gaming & Inspections, Kirk White, said, “Sacha has consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership, operational excellence, and a customer-first attitude. Her experience and passion will be critical as we continue to grow our QA services to meet the always-evolving needs of the global gaming industry.”
With over 18 years of experience in software implementation and seven years in the gaming industry, McLaughlin brings extensive knowledge of both agile and waterfall development methodologies, test planning, project management, and cross-regional team leadership. She is recognized for her ability to build and scale QA organizations that deliver quality, speed, and value to customers.
McLaughlin joined BMM in 2018 and has held roles of increasing responsibility within the Company, most recently serving as Senior Director of Quality Assurance. Throughout her tenure, she has been instrumental in expanding BMM’s QA capabilities and helping customers launch products into the global gaming market more quickly, with a focus on regulatory compliance, functionality, fairness, and security.
The post BMM TESTLABS PROMOTES SACHA MCLAUGHLIN TO VICE PRESIDENT OF GLOBAL QUALITY ASSURANCE appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.
Major findings from the newly launched report include playable ads having the potential to deliver impression-to-install rates 16 times that of non-playable formats for emerging gaming apps and a 20% increase in spending on interactive ads year over year.
Liftoff, a leading AI-enabled growth platform for the mobile app economy, has published its seventh annual Mobile Ad Creative Index. The report explores top creative trends that are attracting and scaling in ad spend across consumer apps and games. It also highlights the expanding role of AI in creative production, testing, and optimization.
This year’s Mobile Ad Creative Index specifically analyzes creative concepts that have excelled in scale for Liftoff’s highest-spending advertisers over the past 12 to 48 months. It is based on findings from over 4.7 trillion impressions, 263 billion clicks, and 1.1 billion installs between 1 January 2023 and 31 May 2025.
Highlights from the report include:
Top consumer apps are investing in interactive ads to compete for engagement
In 2024, the share of spend on interactive ads for top apps increased by 20% year over year. The share of spend increased by 2% for spenders outside the top tier. Top-spending apps differentiate their campaigns by adding innovations to evergreen concepts such as social scrollers, carousels, and scratch-offs.
Playable ads deliver returns across ad budgets for mobile game advertisers
In 2024, the share of spend on playable ads for top games averaged 35% higher than other games. Across all ad budgets, however, playable ads delivered higher conversion rates. Impression-to-install rates were 8 times that of non-playable formats for top spenders and 16 times that of non-playable formats for other game advertisers.
Tailoring “metaplay” elements to motivations can improve performance
“Metaplay” elements—gameplay that diverges from an app’s core design to appeal to a broader audience—are widespread, but top games gain an edge by tailoring their metaplay ads to the publisher audience. The report found that aligning “metaplay” creative with publisher audiences resulted in a 93% increase in installs-per-mille.
UGC is becoming a key differentiator in driving scale for consumer apps
The share of spend on user-generated content (UGC) increased 11% for top-spending apps, with social and utility apps seeing the most significant jump of nearly 30% between 2023 and 2024.
Widespread adoption of Gen AI leads to more customized ad experiences
Creative teams increasingly leverage AI to enhance top-performing assets with 3D and motion and to create and test variations. Top advertisers also use AI to recombine their assets in customized ad experiences that break away from standard video to playable formats.
Yann Zeller, Chief of Staff, Creative at Liftoff, said: “Today’s creative landscape is shaped by a single, powerful truth: attention is the commodity, and brands, games, and influencers are all vying for it. Great mobile ad experiences can earn attention by aligning context with behavior. As ad formats become richer and AI expands our ability to personalize and adapt creatives at scale, we’re able to unlock new insights into user behavior and motivation. We see users spend meaningful stretches with the right content, sometimes 60 to 90 seconds when the ad feels personal or prompts meaningful participation. This isn’t just a better way to advertise—it’s a better way to tell stories and the most exciting brief we’ve had in years.”
Soren Steelquist, Director of Creative Production, said: “The proof is in the data—more and more consumer apps are incorporating UGC into every stage of their marketing, and programmatic is no different. UGC works because it’s authentic and relatable, and users are more likely to be influenced by ad when it’s coming from a trustworthy source. To see higher impact from UGC creatives, work with a partner that can match the right creator with your brand and develop winning concepts that resonate with audiences.”
The post Liftoff’s 2025 Mobile Ad Creative Index Reveals UGC Is a Key Differentiator for Top Apps appeared first on Gaming and Gambling Industry in the Americas.
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