AI content is not hurting your search rankings, but it is not giving you an automatic edge either. That is the central takeaway from Semrush’s “Does AI content rank well in search?” study, which examines how AI content performs across a wide range of real-world search results. The findings challenge both extremes of the debate, …
Read more “AI content can rank, but quality still decides winners”
I had a conversation recently with the head of operations at a large nonprofit. It wasn’t about which AI tool is best or what platform is trending. It was about something much simpler and, honestly, much more important: why so many teams still struggle to get real value from AI. If you’ve spent any time …
Read more “Using AI isn’t the same as getting value from it”
Apple is bringing ads to Maps, and for marketers, this is less about a new format and more about a new battleground. The company announced that advertising will be part of its new Apple Business platform, with Maps ads rolling out in the U.S. and Canada this summer. That puts Apple directly into territory long …
Read more “Apple Maps’ ads shift focus to context and intent”
We’ve treated the customer journey as something neat and measurable, where users search, click and convert in a way that can be easily tracked, attributed and optimized. That model no longer reflects reality, as AI-generated answers, summaries and aggregated results change how people discover information and make decisions. Clicks still matter, but they don’t capture …
Read more “The customer journey now centers on exposure, recall and return”
For years, Salesforce Marketing Cloud was the safe choice. Powerful. Enterprise. Trusted. But lately, we’re hearing something different: “Our data is too tangled to activate.” “We’re locked into contracts.” “We’re stuck sending the same emails on repeat.” “Everything is Band-Aids and duct tape — I don’t know how we can move without breaking everything.” “We …
Read more “How marketing leaders are getting unstuck from Salesforce by Stitch”
There’s a flood coming. A downpour of noise — more content, more channels, more AI-generated everything, moving faster than most teams can keep up with. Somewhere in that volume, your customers are quietly drowning — overwhelmed, underserved, and one bad experience away from choosing someone else. You’ve probably felt it on your team, too. Another …
Read more “AI and empathy define the next era of marketing systems”
In MarTech’s “MarTechBot explains it all” feature, we pose a marketing question to our very own MarTechBot, which is trained on the MarTech website archives and has access to the broader internet. Question: Identify the top three first-party data collection strategies most effective for mid-market retail brands since the deprecation of third-party cookies began in …
Read more “Three first-party data strategies retail brands are prioritizing now”
“AI slop” was named 2025’s word of the year by Merriam-Webster. Consumers are clearly hyperaware of the overuse of generative technologies and are increasingly allergic to it, especially when it degrades their experience. The artistic community has seen some of the strongest backlash and brands considering generative AI in creative should proceed with care. The …
Read more “Why AI-driven creative is failing and how to fix it”
Recently, I spoke with a business owner who’s been running his company for more than 20 years. His team wanted to implement AI-powered lead scoring and automated follow-up sequences. The technology made perfect sense. The ROI projections were solid. But he kept saying no. When I asked why, he finally admitted, “What if it sends …
Leaders often treat fees as a pricing decision, but customers experience them as a trust decision. Every fee sends a signal about how a company thinks about the relationship — whether it’s trying to remove friction for customers or, sadly, monetize it. Some fees feel reasonable, while others feel like punishment, deception or laziness disguised …
Read more “What the fees customers hate reveal about your pricing strategy”