Salesforce Media Cloud, AWS partner for streaming video

A new integration between Salesforce Media Cloud and AWS enables subscription management for streaming media companies and brands that want to monetize content.

The services bundle combines AWS's high-quality video-hosting services with both Salesforce Media Cloud and customer data platform (CDP). It enables streamers to personalize content recommendations with AI as well as run viewer analytics, collect feedback and analyze it, and manage subscription lifecycles.

The rollout of the video streaming services bundle from the two tech giants comes as consumers continue cord-cutting. Statista reports that one in four U.S. households have quit paying TV subscription services, with more to come in the next three years.

"We see people are cutting the cords, but they're interested in specialized experiences," said Rebecca Wetteman, CEO of analyst firm Valoir. "This gives an opportunity for Salesforce customers to say, 'You know, I'm going to create a channel -- or create an offering -- an experience around my brand that is very specific for my brand advocates. And that's where this potentially gets really interesting."

Salesforce expanded its previous investments in vertical-specific platform customizations when it bought Vlocity in 2020. The Salesforce Industries division arose from that acquisition, and Salesforce Media Cloud grew out of it to give users a ready-made setup for content monetization.

Around the same time, Salesforce launched its CDP, an underlying data service that automates one-to-one marketing and makes it happen in real time.

Users of the Salesforce-AWS consumer offering can potentially take content consumption data and use it to drive additional content consumption, live stream shopping campaigns, or deliver targeted advertising, said Eric Iverson, director of products at Amazon Studios. Iverson helped develop the Salesforce-AWS partnership in his previous role as AWS CTO of media and entertainment until the end of last year.

"It's amazing the data that we can bring together when we pair the Salesforce CDP and our first-party data," Iverson said, "We understand the customer with the consumption pattern data coming off the Amazon layer. That is about as rich as it gets right now."

The Salesforce-AWS media services bundle comes as the two companies are more tightly integrating their technologies based on a long-term strategic partnership. It includes a new developer experience, as well as integration of Amazon Connect and Salesforce Service Cloud for contact centers in which AWS provides the telephony.

"I think we'll continue to hear about different ways that they're working together," Wetteman said. "For example, in the AI space, Salesforce has Einstein and a lot of embedded capabilities in their app, whereas AWS has the deep TensorFlow toolkit with what they're providing at the developer level. There are a lot of complementary technologies."

The media platform is priced on a subscription fee, plus per-seat/per-month pricing. The cost is added to AWS services priced on consumption, said Christopher Dean, vice president and general manager of Salesforce Media Cloud. He added that Salesforce's own video streaming video channel, Salesforce+, is not yet on the joint Salesforce-AWS offering, but the company hopes to get it there.

Don Fluckinger covers enterprise content management, CRM, marketing automation, e-commerce, customer service and enabling technologies for TechTarget.