This holiday season, marketers are staring down a paradox that’s hard to ignore: Consumers are feeling cautious, cutting back and worried about affording gifts — yet total retail sales are expected to hit an all-time high. On the one hand, sentiment surveys paint a picture of a financially strained shopper. Nearly half of Americans (47%) …
Read more “Marketers navigating low consumer confidence amid high holiday sales”
MarTechCharts regularly highlights data of interest to marketers and marketing operations professionals. There is an enormous disconnect between marketers’ perceptions of AI’s impact on customer experience and how consumers actually experience it. According to Invoca’s “B2C AI Marketing Impact” report, 86% of marketers believe AI is enhancing the customer journey, only 35% of consumers agree. …
Read more “Most marketers think consumers like AI, few consumers agree.”
Within five years, saying your platform offers personalized recommendations will sound as dated as asking someone to rewind the tape. Personalization has already shifted from competitive differentiator to baseline expectation — and the transition is moving faster than most marketing teams realize. The evidence is already visible: 61% of consumers will abandon brands that miss …
Read more “The overlooked infrastructure problem holding personalization back”
Salesforce is expanding the capabilities of its Agentforce 360 Platform with new observability tools designed to give organizations real-time visibility into AI agent performance. The update, announced today, aims to help companies scale their use of AI agents with greater confidence, transparency, and control. As AI-powered agents assume more customer-facing and operational roles, the need …
Read more “Salesforce adds observability to Agentforce, aiming to boost AI performance and trust”
I just got back from visiting a friend — a 9-hour drive each way. As I often do on trips like this, I use the time away from my screens to reflect on whatever is occupying my attention at the moment. It’s not as relaxing as sipping a cocktail under a hot Caribbean sun, but …
Business buying may be fairly standardized worldwide, but cultural and environmental differences still shape how B2B marketing gets done. Here’s a roundup of what’s working for business marketers in Asia to offer ideas and inspiration for the rest of the world. (Sneak preview: You’ll notice a lot less reliance on email.) China’s B2B marketing runs …
Read more “What B2B marketers can learn from Asia’s fast-evolving strategies”
For much of its history, marketing thrived on creativity, intuition and an almost magical ability to connect with audiences. Campaigns were conceived in brainstorming sessions, executed over weeks or months and celebrated (or dissected) once the results rolled in. Theodore Levitt’s “The Marketing Imagination” stays on most marketers’ bookcases alongside their team’s awards. Much of …
Leading SEO platform Semrush is being acquired by software company Adobe. Adobe announced the acquisition today. The all-cash deal is valued at about $1.9 billion and is expected to close in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals. Semrush acquired Third Door Media, publisher of MarTech, in October 2024 What Semrush is …
Two pillars of modern marketing — digital channels and personalized engagement — are falling apart and CMOs must do a radical rethink to survive, according to a new Gartner report. “The foundations CMOs once relied on are eroding fast, from how teams operate to how brands earn trust and drive growth,” Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst and …
Read more “CMOs face a make-or-break moment as digital channels and personalization collapse”
Marketing leaders often find themselves in a constant struggle. Expected to drive growth, build brands and shape customer experience, they face ongoing scrutiny from CFOs and boards who want to know, “What’s the return?” Even with sophisticated data tools and analytics platforms, many marketing teams struggle to make a compelling financial case for additional funding. …
Read more “The real reason marketing budgets get cut — and how to stop it”