Marketing tech

Marketing tech

Lead management in B2B has evolved into a systems challenge that spans teams, platforms and the entire revenue lifecycle. It is a complex engineering discipline that requires a holistic, lifecycle-driven approach rather than a simple marketing-to-sales handoff. In a recent strategy session, we examined what it takes to build a lead management engine today. We concluded that many organizations are still attempting to solve 2026 problems with a 2010 mindset.

No app required: browser-based AR as the go-to for brand content Web-based AR, or WebAR, will see a significant increase in adoption in 2023. The simple, compelling promise of WebAR is that it allows consumers to access AR content via their browser, from anywhere in the world, with no app required. Whether you're on Android, iOS, or a future headset, all you'll need is web access to engage with the infinite possible experiences brands can bring to life through this technology.

The Trade Desk operates a demand-side platform (DSP), a type of adtech software that helps media buyers plan, measure, and optimize data-driven campaigns across digital channels. The most recent version of its DSP, called Kokai, leans on artificial intelligence (AI) to manage budgets, customize bids, and dynamically target audiences. The investment thesis for The Trade Desk revolves around its independent business model, meaning it does not own media content that might bias ad spending on its platform.

Perusing the grocery aisle in the Westside Market on 23rd Street in Manhattan, you might not even notice the screens. They look just like paper price labels and, alongside a bar code, use a handwriting-style font we've come to associate with a certain merchant folksiness. They're not particularly bright or showy. The only clues that they're not ordinary sticky shelf labels are a barely distinguishable light bulb and, on some, a small QR code.

As of 1st September, 2025, IPA member agencies employed 24,963 people, down 6.8% year on year from 26,787. The decline was driven primarily by a 14.3% fall in headcount at creative and other non-media agencies, while media agencies posted modest growth of 2.4%. Staff turnover rose to 24.8%, retention fell to 68.6%, and vacancies dropped 40.8% to 680 open roles, reflecting a broader slowdown in hiring.

Mike Pastore is the Head of Content & Media at Third Door Media, the publisher of the Martech and Search Engine Land websites and the producer of the SMX and MarTech Conferences. In nearly three decades in B2B marketing, Mike has worked as an editor, writer, and marketer. He first wrote about marketing in 1998 for internet.com (later Jupitermedia). He then worked with marketers at some of the best-known brands in B2B tech, creating content for marketing campaigns at both Jupitermedia and QuinStreet.

By the end of 2026, more than 80% of small businesses will be using artificial intelligence for marketing. That's the picture emerging from Constant Contact's Q1 2026 Small Business Now report, which surveyed over 1,500 SMB owners across five countries. The numbers tell the story: 54% of small businesses already use AI marketing tools, and another 27% plan to start this year. In a single calendar year, AI will go from a slight majority to near-universal adoption among small businesses.

During my week-long binge, I played games that paused their own tutorials to run ads. I saw endless fake X icons and banners that hid the close button under the iPhone's Dynamic Island. Now, I'm not against ads, but I hate it when they feel like a penalty. I'm a gamer, and from what I've seen, PC and console games integrate ads much better. If mobile devs followed suit, mobile games might finally climb out of the mess they're in.

"We've heard so much from our customers recently that they have so much data, but less than a third of them feel like they are confidently using that data in their browsing behavior. Are they using the right strategy? And they're really overwhelmed by the fragmentation of where all that data sits," Diana Williams, VP of product at Intuit Mailchimp, told MarTech.

First, publishers should be thinking about how to work with LLMs and how to take advantage of this new answers economy - including enabling answers on their own sites. There's an opportunity for publishers to beat the LLMs at their own game. We're already seeing companies do this by embracing the concept of an answers economy on their own properties.

Intent IQ, a leader in next-generation identity technology, announced the company will integrate identity-driven performance at scale in Horizon Media's newly launched HorizonOS-the industry's first marketing operating system built on an open, interoperable ecosystem of best-in-class technology partners. Audience amplification: Expanding the reach of prospecting campaigns to include users in iOS mobile web and In-App environments, as well as CTV and cookieless desktop browsers (Safari, Edge, Firefox, Chrome WebViews). ID-less retargeting: Enabling remarketing and re-engagement campaigns in ID-less environments Performance CTV: Driving CTV audiences down the purchase funnel by retargeting exposed CTV viewers on their iOS and other ID-less devices

On Tuesday, the ad measurement firm iSpot introduced SAGE, an agentic AI platform with a "ChatGPT-like interface" that media buyers can use to generate campaign planning ideas, according to iSpot CEO Sean Muller. The platform includes separate agents for creative planning and performance analysis, along with features for competitive intelligence. ISpot joins a growing list of ad tech companies launching conversational AI dashboards that let clients query campaign data directly,

Oracle today announced more role-based AI agents for revenue teams using Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications. The new agents are embedded within marketing, sales and service processes to provide insights into unified data, help automate processes and deliver predictive insights. Like the previous batch of AI agents Oracle announced in October 2025, there are agents for marketing, sales and customer success professionals in the latest release. The agents are prebuilt and natively integrated within Oracle Fusion Applications at no additional cost.

Google is rolling out controlled A/B testing for creatives directly inside Performance Max. You can now test two asset sets in a single asset group, with a defined traffic split and experiment structure. Select a Performance Max campaign and one asset group Define: - Assets A = control (existing live assets) - Assets B = treatment (new or alternative creatives) Common assets = shared assets that keep serving in both variants

Sales teams in the United Kingdom operate under intense pressure to balance responsiveness with resource efficiency. Customer expectations have shifted toward immediate engagement, while internal teams must manage increasingly complex pipelines and fragmented communication channels. Within this landscape, technologies designed to automate scheduling and lead engagement are no longer niche curiosities but strategic enablers of workflow efficiency. Systems such as AI Appointment Setter are part of that broader shift, representing tools that can reduce manual burden and streamline early-stage interactions between sales teams and potential clients.

Running a business in a major UK city has never been for the faint of heart. Between the skyrocketing rents in London, the competitive salaries in Manchester, and the general cost of keeping the lights on in Birmingham, the overheads are enough to keep any founder awake at night. But lately, there's another headache that's becoming impossible to ignore. The cost of paid media advertising has shot up from being a manageable expense to a serious drain on resources.

Today, we're beginning to test ads in ChatGPT in the U.S. The test will be for logged-in adult users on the Free and Go subscription tiers. Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education tiers will not have ads.

Influencer marketing has evolved far beyond vanity metrics. What started as product seeding and one-off partnerships has become a core pillar of digital strategy, helping brands engage audiences authentically while driving measurable growth. With consumer attention firmly rooted on social platforms, creators now shape discovery, build trust and influence purchase decisions more quickly. Despite this shift, many brands still struggle to fully leverage influencer marketing.

The new Amazon Ads MCP Server is built on the Model Context Protocol, an open standard enabling AI platforms to communicate with external tools. The Amazon Ads MCP Server acts as a translation layer between AI agents and the Amazon Ads API, turning natural language prompts into structured campaigns. Additionally, the Amazon Ads MCP Server includes pre-built capabilities and workflows to reduce the complexity of launching and running Amazon Ads campaigns.

While those questions matter, the secret sauce is understanding the context behind a person's interaction with your brand at a given moment. A frequent traveler might visit an airline's website one day to research a family vacation. The next time they see, they might be booking a flight for work. Their attitudinal profile hasn't changed, but what their context - and therefore what they want from you - has.

It's not exactly a secret that many advertisers are using generative AI in their marketing, from producing copy to editing images. What isn't always as obvious is exactly when those tools are being used, and when advertisers ought to make AI usage clear to their audiences. Last month, the IAB launched a new framework to standardize when AI in ads should be disclosed.

Will Critchlow catches up with Mike King, founder and CEO at iPullRank to talk about GEO, fanout queries, agents, and what the cutting edge feels like at a top agency. Mike and Will go way back, so this episode covers a lot of ground, from SEO to Mike's view on the place of AI in the production of art. This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

At the same time, learning technology buyers are under pressure. Budgets are scrutinized. Buying committees are larger. Risk tolerance is lower. Decisions that once involved a single L&D leader now require alignment across HR, IT, compliance, procurement, and executive leadership. In this environment, vendors are not evaluated only on functionality; they are evaluated on credibility. This is where thought leadership marketing becomes a strategic advantage rather than a branding exercise.

From smartphones to smart speakers and smart TVs, conducting web searches with our voices is common. In many cases, it's even faster, more convenient, and easier than typing in a query. That's likely why the global speech and voice recognition market is projected to grow from $9.66 billion in 2025 to $23.11 billion by 2030. Here's the catch, though: Voice search isn't the same as a text search.