Every CDP vendor says they’re real-time. But marketers don’t buy real-time. They buy outcomes: timely personalization, smarter lifecycle messaging, cleaner suppression, fewer awkward experiences and less wasted spend. In 2026, the gap between real-time claims and real marketing impact shows up in one place: how quickly your CDP can turn fresh customer behavior into updated …
Salesforce introduced Agentforce for Communications, a set of prebuilt, telecom-specific AI agents designed to turn routine customer interactions into revenue and retention opportunities. The goal is to give teams the info to turn every billing question, service visit and quote request into an opportunity to increase customer loyalty and upsell. Telecom needs new ways to …
Most B2B marketing teams underperform because they lack audience validation. We build campaigns on untested assumptions: that buyers are in an active cycle, that they want our content or that 12 emails in six weeks will generate MQLs. We publish, promote and then stare at dashboards and ask, “Why didn’t this land?” Open rates dip. …
Read more “How to turn everyday marketing campaigns into market research”
Most marketing assumes recognized pain points. Customers know they have issues, so they search for solutions. Your job as a marketer is to position your product as the best answer. But what happens when your innovation solves a problem audiences haven’t recognized yet? When customers are satisfied with the status quo, even though better alternatives …
Read more “How to create demand when buyers don’t see the problem”
The ground is shifting beneath your feet again. We know the feeling. Just when you thought you’ve mastered the latest algorithm update, things seem to change entirely. It’s exhausting to feel like the goalposts are constantly moving, especially when your leadership team is looking to you for a definitive roadmap through the AI fog. Traditional …
AI has made publishing faster and easier than ever. And the result is saturation. As AI lowers the barrier to production, the web is filling with content that is technically sound, reasonably optimized and increasingly indistinguishable. When everything looks polished and competent, standing out becomes harder. AI has changed content output, but users still arrive …
Read more “How to make your content stand out in the age of AI”
Did you know technical debt costs global enterprises approximately $400 million annually? It’s a staggering amount of money, and that debt arises from — among other things — a cultural resistance to change or budgetary limitations, which lead organizations to add new applications rather than replacing outdated systems. Technical debt can accumulate practically anywhere in …
Read more “Your technical debt is crushing your bottom line”
This article was co-authored with Lucas Walshe, digital analytics consultant at fifty-five. Privacy is becoming increasingly important in the U.S. With more than 20 states now enforcing privacy laws, companies face a patchwork of regulatory requirements, further complicated by limited case law and formal guidance. However, the state leading the way — California — has …
Read more “GPC compliance must be a legal priority for U.S. marketers”
Marketing organizations have never had more visibility into performance. Dashboards track campaigns in real time, attribution models connect touchpoints to revenue and project management systems quantify output, timelines and cost efficiency with precision. Yet when it comes to creative work, measurement often narrows instead of expands. Creative teams are typically evaluated by throughput — how …
Are empathy, sympathy and humanity bad now? That’s what I hear from some thought leaders and government officials who say we can’t afford to be so soft anymore. I couldn’t disagree more, and I urge my fellow marketers not to abandon these values. The COVID-19 pandemic showed us how important they are. With the turmoil …
Read more “We need more humanity in email, especially at unsubscribe”