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Phone conversations are now one of the most important first-party data sources in modern marketing measurement. As privacy changes weaken traditional attribution signals, conversation intelligence platforms are emerging as a critical layer of marketing measurement infrastructure. Marketers have spent the better part of a decade getting serious about measurement. We’ve built attribution models, invested in …

Read more “The marketing data most companies still fail to measure”

Buy-versus-build considerations are interesting martech scenarios. There’s never a clear answer, which makes martech far more an art than a science. At times, there’s also the buy-and-build option to consider. Recently, in an episode of Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast about vibe coding, guest Noah Brier, co-founder of Alephic, argued that AI models that produce software …

Read more “Why vibe coding will disrupt martech’s buy-or-build debate”

A static annual plan is a liability in a zero-click world where AI models update their knowledge of a brand every few weeks. We must move from traffic seeker to authority source quickly. But how? For a few clients, I’m embracing the uncertain future of market behavior by developing a 90-day authority sprint content marketing …

Read more “A 90-day plan to build AI-citable authority”

Most organizations treat AI as a productivity upgrade. The real leverage is in how evaluation criteria are encoded into systems that increasingly shape vendor selection. As B2B buying becomes machine-mediated, CMOs have an opportunity to shape how AI evaluates vendors — and elevate marketing’s strategic influence in the process. B2B buyers are increasingly using AI …

Read more “How shaping AI buying can boost B2B CMO strategic influence”

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: As AI agents become more capable of comparing products and aiding purchase decisions, how should B2B vendors optimize content and structured data …

Read more “How B2B marketers can prepare for AI agents that do the buying”

If your organic traffic is down but impressions are up, AI is likely citing your content without sending clicks. If both are down, you’re being ignored. Either way, the search behavior your marketing strategy was built on has changed, and waiting for traffic to rebound isn’t a strategy. This is the reality you’re facing in …

Read more “Organic search is fundamentally disrupted. Here’s what to do about it. by Brightspot”

AI has quickly moved to the center of customer experience strategy. Many organizations now see predictive models, AI-driven personalization and unified data platforms as the long-awaited answer to persistent CX challenges. AI introduces real new capabilities. But before we assume it fundamentally changes customer experience, it helps to separate what’s truly new from what remains …

Read more “AI speeds up CX, but alignment still decides success”

HubSpot and Salesforce both recently announced major changes to their partner programs — moves that executives say will improve quality and help partners deliver better AI-driven outcomes. But analysts and partners see something bigger: a strategic reset as both companies compete to remain central platforms in an AI-driven software stack. The changes affect how partners …

Read more “Salesforce and HubSpot reshape partner programs for the AI era”

Direct traffic is often interpreted as a sign of brand strength. When it increases, teams assume awareness is growing and customers are returning on their own. The metric frequently appears in board reports as evidence that people are seeking out the business directly rather than discovering it through search or ads. The logic is simple …

Read more “Why direct traffic in GA4 isn’t what it looks like”

If you’re an organic search marketer, you know the industry has been fundamentally disrupted over the last two years. As a community, we continue to debate short-term tactics rather than pivot toward a holistic strategy aligned with general marketing principles. Despite the frustrating landscape, we must stop focusing on outdated hacks and shift our thinking …

Read more “Why organic search is becoming a brand trust channel”