While devices are ever-present, most users do not welcome intrusive messages at inconvenient times. In the Shopping category on iOS, the average push notification opt-in rate is just 33.2%, so two-thirds of users opt out. As a result, most intended recipients never receive these messages.

Interruption-based messaging has declined in the U.S. Although smartphones remain largely unchanged, user attention has shifted. Mobile users increasingly dislike frequent interruptions, and the volume of push notifications has become a significant annoyance. For example, receiving notifications during an important conversation can be disruptive.

Attention Has Quietly Moved Elsewhere

Users remain engaged, but their attention has shifted. According to the Pew Research Center’s Mobile Fact Sheet, approximately 91% of U.S. adults own a smartphone. The user base is stable, but people are increasingly resistant to interruptions that disrupt their focus.

Audiences now use mobile devices with clear intent, such as when they actively open an app. Push notifications fall outside this context, as they attempt to regain attention users have already shifted elsewhere. As attention becomes more session-driven, the gap between message delivery and user readiness widens.

This rejection is often passive. Messages may be absorbed, ignored, or filtered out, reducing the effectiveness of interruption-based communication.

The Moment Push Notifications Lost Their Edge

Push notifications were designed to capture attention through urgent alerts such as buzzes, banners, or badges. Initially, this approach was effective, with notifications treated like incoming calls. However, as users have become more familiar with smartphones and exposed to frequent advertising, the impact of these messages has diminished.

Now, users rapidly filter through numerous notifications, often without reading them. Messages that follow familiar promotional patterns are quickly dismissed before they are even processed.

A key issue is the language in push notifications, which often relies on exaggeration and urgency rather than relevance. Over 70% of brand messages use hype-driven language that audiences increasingly ignore. As this tone becomes predictable, notifications lose their impact and relevance.

Retail’s Shift to Behavioral Triggers

Retail brands continue to prioritize mobile engagement, but they are adopting new methods that align with changing user behavior.

Starbucks relaunched its rewards program to include personalized offers and challenges based on purchase frequency and past activity, keeping customers engaged through its app.

Albert Heijn, a Dutch supermarket chain, has also achieved measurable results by shifting to personalized in-app engagement. After implementing behavior-driven messaging, the company reported a 16% conversion rate within its loyalty program, demonstrating the impact of timely and relevant communication.

Inside Behavioral Trigger Systems

Modern systems send messages based on user behavior, such as repeated product browsing, cart abandonment, or incomplete actions. Timing is critical; messages sent during active sessions receive more attention than those delivered hours later. These systems prioritize real-time interaction over traditional broadcasting.

Why a Behavioral Notification Model Works

The move to behavioral triggers aligns with how people use mobile devices. Interruptions cause friction by forcing context-switching, while in-session messaging feels like a natural extension of the user’s current activity.

Raj De Datta, co-founder and CEO of Bloomreach, said, “Agency remains with the consumer when technology is designed to respond to their intent, stay transparent in its decisioning, and keep humans in control of outcomes. When it drifts from that, it stops being helpful and starts becoming opaque.”

In-session messaging is central to modern user experience. Approximately 69% of people value micro interactions that guide them through a website or app. A seamless user journey drives engagement and loyalty.

What Changed in the Results

As retail apps move away from broadcast push, organizations are shifting focus from traditional metrics like delivery volume and open rates to in-session metrics such as engagement and conversion throughout the user journey.

The same shift is happening in engagement systems. Brian Wisniach, content brand manager at OneSignal, points out, “Notifications are expected to be less about summoning users back into an app and more about solving something instantly on the surface. A food delivery update, a fraud alert, a sports score — all now deliver standalone value without demanding another tap.”

In engagement strategies, appearance and timing of messages are now more important than quantity.

What This Signals About Mobile Engagement

Push notifications remain relevant, but their role is evolving. Interruption is less effective than before. Better results occur when users are already engaged with the software. Retail’s adoption of behavioral triggers reflects a broader trend toward sending fewer, more timely messages based on user signals.

The post Push Notifications Are Broken. Here Is What Comes After Them appeared first on MartechView.

Every January, marketing declares a revolution. Every December, it realizes that most of it was PowerPoint.

But something genuinely structural is unfolding now. The experts may disagree on vocabulary, but not on trajectory: by 2026, marketing will be less about campaigns and more about systems; less about creativity-as-output and more about creativity-as-judgment; less about data accumulation and more about data governance.

If the first three parts of this series charted the industry’s emotional arc—from AI skepticism to proof to the return of authority—this chapter confronts the operational reality. The profession is being rewired, not upgraded.

And the people running it know they’re running out of time.

From Assistants to Autonomous Systems

The most immediate shift is the one already humming under the surface: AI is graduating.

“From ‘Co-pilots’ to ‘Agents’ (The rise of Agentic AI): We are moving past the phase where marketers chat with AI to generate text,” says Palmer Houchins, VP of Marketing at G2. “In 2026, we will continue to see the rise of autonomous AI agents that can execute complex workflows—optimizing ad spend, reallocating budgets, and deploying campaigns with minimal human oversight. Brands need to prepare their data infrastructure now to support this level of automation.”

This is not a future of smarter tools. It is a future of smaller human teams.

Lisa Sharapata, VP of AI & GTM Strategy at Metadata, sees the same consolidation coming. “Marketing teams will get smarter. By 2026, small senior teams will oversee fleets of AI agents that handle the executional heavy lifting, including campaign setup, testing, and optimization. The brands that embrace this model will scale faster and cheaper; the ones that don’t will be outpaced by lean teams focused on strategy, creativity, and outcomes.”

That last line should send a chill through middle management.

Rick Erwin, CEO of Adstra, frames it even more starkly: “AI-native marketing will be mainstream by the end of 2026. This is different from the way that most industry participants have looked for ways to ‘bolt on’ AI aspects into their existing workflows. For brands, this changes workforce planning, shifting marketers’ duty to supervising AI performance and away from their old tasks.”

Supervision instead of execution. Judgment instead of labor.

This is the managerial class’s existential pivot.

The Collapse of the Old Martech Empire

For a decade, the answer to every marketing problem was the same: buy another platform.

That era is ending.

Erwin predicts a reckoning: “The phenomenon of overgrown, complex martech stacks will begin to consolidate and collapse due to the mainstream adoption of AI-based app coding. As English increasingly becomes the primary developer language, brands can satisfy their ‘all I need this application to do is x’ by quickly and inexpensively building that solution themselves, rather than licensing massive software packages that perform more operations than the brand needs.”

In other words, the $200,000 annual license is about to meet the $20 AI prompt.

Sharapata goes further, declaring the conceptual framework itself obsolete. “The funnel is dead; the customer journey mesh takes over. Buyers zig-zag across channels, platforms, and conversations; they no longer follow a neat linear path. The winners of marketing will use AI to read and influence this messy, multi-touch reality. Anyone still relying on last-click attribution or linear funnels will be making decisions with a 2015 playbook.”

If the funnel dies, so do many of the dashboards built to worship it.

Meanwhile, in regulated and high-stakes environments like healthcare, the transformation looks more surgical but no less profound. Julius Ramirez, EVP & GM, Global Data & AI Products and Partnerships at Doceree, argues that intelligence—not scale—will be the new battleground.

“Behavioral intent signals will replace traditional audience targeting. The real differentiator won’t be knowing who the audience is, but understanding when a decision is forming and what signals indicate that moment. Second, AI will move from optimization to real-time orchestration, dynamically selecting channels, formats, and messaging based on context rather than static plans.”

This is marketing as live navigation rather than preplanned travel.

Trust Becomes the New Algorithm

If AI is the engine of 2026, trust will be its fuel.

Houchins believes the industry is quietly shifting from attention to authenticity. “The ‘Trust Premium’ replaces the ‘Attention Economy’: As the web gets flooded with AI slop, consumers will become incredibly skeptical. The most valuable currency in 2026 won’t just be grabbing attention, but in proving authenticity.”

Sharapata echoes that sentiment with a more regulatory lens: “Cookies are gone, transparency and trust take over. The collapse of third-party tracking ends surveillance-style marketing. Zero-party data becomes the new currency — information customers choose to share because the brand delivers value.”

This is where the expert consensus fractures.

Erwin calls “zero party data” the most misleading buzzword of the year. “The issue is that most brands will never collect a sufficient amount of this data for conducting marketing and advertising at scale… self-reported consumer preferences that are typically considered ‘zero party data’ are notoriously inaccurate, and therefore poor intelligence for improved marketing outcomes.”

Same diagnosis, different prescriptions.

Ramirez brings the argument back to ethics: “The truth is, real personalization requires something far deeper: understanding clinical context, behavioral intent, and the timing of decision-making, and then engaging responsibly within those moments. It’s not about delivering more messages; it’s about delivering the right one with respect for the care pathway.”

In 2026, privacy will not just be a compliance function. It will be a competitive differentiator.

The Buzzword Graveyard

Every era needs its villains. This one has several.

For Houchins, the prime offender is the promise of omniscience. “Most overhyped buzzword: ‘Full-funnel AI.’ It’s everywhere this year, but most brands still use it as a catch-all promise rather than a practical capability.”

Sharapata sets her sights on a more generic sin: “The most overhyped term this year is ‘AI-powered’. It’s a label slapped on everything from email tools to schedulers, usually meaning nothing more than basic, isolated automation.”

And Ramirez takes aim at a word the industry has abused for years: “The most overhyped term this year is ‘personalization.’ It’s become a catch-all promise everyone claims to deliver, yet very few define what it actually means.”

Strip away the hype, and the message is consistent: marketing has been naming the destination long before building the road.

Advice for the Next Generation

The final question posed to each executive was deceptively simple: What should young marketers do to survive all this?

The answers were remarkably aligned.

“Become the ‘Editor-in-Chief,’ not just the Creator,” says Houchins. “In an AI world, creating average content is free and instant… Don’t compete with the bots on volume; compete on insight and speed.”

Erwin offers a pragmatic mantra: “Humans will not ‘outcompute’ AI in the long run. But humans using and managing AI effectively… will outperform humans alone and autonomous AI alone. The mantra of the young marketer should be, ‘am I managing AI for outcomes (good), or am I using it merely as an answer engine vending machine to do my work (bad).’”

Sharapata distills it into identity: “Stop building your career around the ‘how’ of marketing… Become the person who directs the agents, not the one doing the button-pushing.”

And Ramirez keeps it human: “AI won’t replace people who think critically, understand context, and apply judgment; it will replace tasks, not talent.”

The Uncomfortable Truth

Across four installments of this series, a clear narrative has emerged.

The age of AI experimentation is over. The age of AI operations has begun.

In 2026, marketing will not be defined by who buys the most technology, but by who redesigns themselves most courageously around it. It will not reward those who shout the loudest about innovation, but those who quietly build systems of trust, data discipline, and human judgment.

The real controversy is not whether AI will transform marketing.

It’s whether most marketers will transform fast enough to matter.

The post Part 4: The Future of Marketing Isn’t Smarter Tools — It’s Smaller Human Teams appeared first on MartechView.

The second chapter of this series traced how artificial intelligence faded into infrastructure—priced in, expected, and increasingly invisible. What follows is the consequence of that shift. As AI becomes the default interface between people and information, marketing’s leverage point moves earlier, upstream, and often out of sight. Discovery now happens before brands speak. Decisions form before funnels begin. And in many cases, outcomes are determined without a single human interaction.

This is not a story about better targeting or faster automation. It is a story about authority—who gets cited, who gets trusted, and who gets recommended when machines, not people, are asked to decide.

The Rise of Invisible Gatekeepers

Curtis Sparrer, Principal at Bospar, recounts a moment that would have been unthinkable even two years ago: generative AI platforms declaring a living company dead. The firm’s client, RealSense, was incorrectly written off by multiple large language models—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot—despite being active and preparing for a spinout from Intel.

There was no appeals process. No corrections desk. The only remedy was visibility.

Sparrer’s team responded not with ads, but with structure and authority: new content, schema markup, FAQs addressing the false narrative—paired with an aggressive earned media campaign that generated more than 500 stories. Only then did the models update their understanding.

The episode has since become illustrative. Public relations, long treated as a supporting function, is re-emerging as a core system of record for AI-mediated discovery. “Earned media is literally the diet that AI munches on,” Sparrer says. When machines decide what is real, credibility is no longer inferred from brand voice—it is inherited from citations.

The implications ripple outward. In Sparrer’s research, 84 percent of final decision-makers report having made purchases based on AI’s first recommendation. In large enterprises, more than two-thirds of C-suite executives have already developed formal AI strategies for vendor selection. When a CFO asks an assistant for accounting software and receives a competitor’s name, the sale is effectively over before it begins.

The funnel, in any recognizable form, collapses.

From Search Monopoly to Polytheistic Discovery

Google once functioned as marketing’s primary gatekeeper—a single, dominant interface for intent. That era is closing. Executives are now navigating a fragmented landscape of AI-native environments, each with distinct preferences, citation behaviors, and cultural gravity.

Sparrer describes the shift as theological: from monotheism to polytheism. ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, and others do not value the same signals equally. Developers gravitate toward one system, writers toward another. Optimization for a single platform no longer ensures visibility elsewhere.

This diffusion is already reshaping behavior. Nearly half of professionals predict AI will replace Google for business research by 2030. Executives are not waiting that long. Ninety-four percent are already using AI tools today—nearly double the rate of employees without purchasing authority.

Bob Walczak, CEO of MadConnect, frames the change more bluntly: discovery has moved upstream into AI-native environments. Consumers and buyers no longer begin with a browser or a search bar. They begin with a question—and an intermediary that decides which answers are worth surfacing. Ad dollars, media strategies, and brand architectures are reorganizing around this reality in real time.

When Precision Becomes the Experience

Nowhere is this shift more consequential than in healthcare and life sciences, where the margin for error is thin and trust is inseparable from outcomes.

Cristin Liberatore, Head of Digital Strategy and Enablement at IQVIA Digital, argues that the brands that win in 2026 will be those that stop treating patients as audiences and start treating them as people. That principle is already reshaping pharma marketing—away from blunt awareness plays and toward experience-driven engagement.

Telehealth interfaces that remove friction, predictive scheduling models that reduce wait times, secure systems that respect privacy while improving continuity of care—these are no longer operational details. They are marketing.

Liberatore notes a surge in direct-to-consumer investment not merely to build awareness, but to create urgency: to start treatment, switch therapies, or engage more deeply. Patients, increasingly willing to pay out of pocket, expect relevance and emotional resonance in the channels they already use.

At the same time, media strategies are becoming more selective. Programmatic now accounts for more than half of pharma digital budgets, with connected TV close behind. Social platforms are bifurcating: some brands retreat into safety and sameness; others embrace transparency, clearly labeling sponsored content while telling more tangible, human stories.

Precision, in this context, is not about efficiency alone. It is about respect.

AI Scales—But Accountability Sharpens

If 2025 was defined by experimentation, 2026 is defined by scale. AI-driven personalization already shows measurable impact: IQVIA data points to a 67 percent lift in healthcare professional engagement and a 47 percent increase in prescribing likelihood. As a result, AI is becoming embedded across the marketing lifecycle—from dynamic content creation and compliance review to real-time measurement models that prioritize outcomes over vanity metrics.

But scale also brings restraint.

Agentic AI, despite its prominence in headlines, is one of the year’s most contested ideas. Liberatore cautions against granting full autonomy, particularly in consumer-facing healthcare contexts where compliance, privacy, and trust are non-negotiable. The value of AI, she argues, lies in co-intelligence—speeding signal detection, informing decisions, and enabling faster response without displacing human judgment.

Walczak echoes that skepticism from a different angle. AI is overhyped, not because it lacks potential, but because adoption is often overstated. Most organizations remain in early stages, using AI to automate narrow workflows rather than orchestrate end-to-end systems. The gap between narrative and reality is wide—and closing it requires discipline, not spectacle.

What the Next Generation Must Learn First

For marketers entering the field now, the advice from leaders is strikingly aligned.

Sparrer urges them to fix what has long been ignored: foundational clarity. About pages, press releases, and wire services—once optimized for human readers or journalists—are now read continuously by machines. These artifacts shape how AI understands a company’s identity and relevance. Old assumptions no longer apply.

Liberatore emphasizes something more timeless: deep customer understanding. Data and models are only useful if they serve real human needs. The marketers who endure will be those who combine fact-based rigor with emotional intelligence.

Walczak offers a final inversion. Legacy thinking, he says, is a liability. New entrants, unburdened by “how it’s always been done,” can move faster, learn faster, and translate emerging technology into tangible value. In an era where AI lowers barriers to contribution, curiosity and speed outperform tenure.

The Quiet Reordering

What unites these perspectives is not optimism or alarm, but realism.

Marketing in 2026 is not about mastering new tools. It is about understanding where decisions now happen—and how little room there is for correction once they do. Authority is earned earlier. Trust is built indirectly. Visibility is no longer guaranteed by spend alone.

The most consequential work happens quietly: in structured data, in earned credibility, in experiences that remove friction rather than add noise. AI remains central—but only insofar as it disappears into systems that work.

The future belongs to brands that understand this shift not as a loss of control, but as a redistribution of it. Discovery still matters. Persuasion still matters. But the moment they occur has moved.

And marketing must move with it.

The post Part 3: Authority, Not Attention, Wins in 2026 appeared first on MartechView.

Omnicom, the newly expanded global marketing and sales powerhouse, announced the strategic structure and executive leadership of its unified organization, following the historic completion of its acquisition of Interpublic on November 26, 2025.

The combination creates a marketing entity positioned to address critical client growth challenges by integrating a comprehensive portfolio of capabilities, all powered by its advanced intelligence platform, Omni.

“I am proud to welcome the people, agencies and clients of Interpublic to Omnicom and create a global community of the best and brightest professionals in the industry,” said John Wren, Chairman and CEO of Omnicom. “Together, we will be the go-to company that shapes how brands grow, people connect and culture evolves.”

The new Omnicom is structured around five strategic advantages designed to offer clients a competitive edge across modern marketing and sales:

• Strongest Media Ecosystem: Leveraging the world’s largest media network, powered by Acxiom RealID and ID-less solutions, to unify paid, owned, earned, and commerce channels for measurable, privacy-first growth.
• Most Influential Content: Fusing creativity with intelligence, driven by generative AI, to deliver superior personalized content at scale from an unrivaled roster of award-winning talent.
• Connected Commerce Excellence: Integrating intelligence and marketplace capabilities to directly connect marketing investment to sales performance, accelerating omnichannel growth.
• Enterprise Generative AI Capability: Capitalizing on first-mover partnerships with all leading frontier AI model providers to reengineer client marketing operations for speed and growth.
• Identity Leadership: Anchored by the next generation of Omni and Acxiom RealID, unifying 2.6 billion verified global IDs to provide an unparalleled, privacy-first understanding of consumers worldwide without relying on third-party cookies.

Also Read: Unlocking Mobile Growth: Why Tracking Powers Partnerships

New Capability Leadership

The Connected Capabilities will be led by a new executive roster, merging talent from both legacy organizations:

Omnicom also established enterprise-wide solutions to ensure client success: Jacki Kelley (Chief Client & Business Officer) and Andrea Lennon (Client Experience Officer) will lead the Client Success Leaders to provide holistic client solutions. George Manas, transitioning from OMD Worldwide, will lead the Global Growth Team focused on new business and integrated solutions.

Near-Term Milestones

The company noted positive feedback from initial client conversations and outlined several upcoming milestones:

• CES 2026 (January): The new Omnicom, along with the launch of the next generation of the Omni platform, will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show.
• Year-End Earnings (February 2026): Results will include an update on integration progress and synergy expectations.
• Investor Day: Scheduled shortly after earnings, the company will update on its capital allocation strategy, including a potential increase in its share repurchase program.

Reflecting confidence in the company’s financial strength and synergy capture, the board has already increased its dividend to $0.80 per outstanding share of common stock, effective November 26, 2025.

The post Omnicom and Interpublic Unite, Setting Leadership for a New Era appeared first on MartechView.

Over the years, marketing has been called creative, qualitative, and intuitive, all of which are strengths in their own right. But when it comes to measurement, that legacy becomes a liability. Too often, vanity metrics serve more as post-hoc justifications than decision-making tools.

The irony is that measurement should be the most scientific part of marketing. We have tools, models, and data. We run tests and generate forecasts. However, the results regularly lack many of the qualities we expect from good science, including rigor, transparency, repeatability, and, most importantly, falsifiability.

In a world of ever-increasing economic uncertainty, marketing worth its spend needs to treat measurement as a scientific discipline. This doesn’t mean turning marketers into statisticians. Instead, it means adopting a mindset and a set of practices that create better, faster feedback loops, ultimately leading to more confidence in the decisions that marketing leaders make.

What Science Measures (and Marketing Often Doesn’t)

In most scientific disciplines, measurement goes beyond simply reporting what happened by testing hypotheses, validating mechanisms, and falsifying assumptions. Importantly, scientific results need to be independently verified. Newton didn’t ask everyone to trust his interpretation of gravity; he showed them the math, the experiment, and the results.

In marketing, we unfortunately don’t always have that luxury. Budgeting decisions are made based on aggregate models and historical patterns. Assumptions go untested. Models tend to get built and rolled out before they can be validated. Once a number hits a dashboard, it’s often treated as truth, without an audit trail or uncertainty range in sight.

In my work with large marketing teams, this has led to three major issues:

• Leaders act on metrics that can’t be proven 
• Models produce single-point answers, where they should show a range
• Measurement becomes a justification tool, not a learning tool

If your model says “CTV has a 3.2x ROI,” there’s not much room for uncertainty or debate, even if the underlying data is weak or the assumptions are flawed. It may feel like science, but it’s not.

Bringing scientific thinking into marketing measurement

What would it look like to bring scientific rigor into marketing measurement? I’d argue it starts with five core principles:

1. Make your hypotheses explicit. Before analyzing a channel, campaign, or creative strategy, articulate what you believe to be true. For example, “This media investment will drive incremental conversions,” or “This offer will increase account funding.” When you write the hypothesis down, you give yourself the chance to test it properly (and to learn when you’re wrong).
2. Design tests with counterfactuals in mind. Scientific experiments tend to rely on a control group. Marketing experiments should do the same. Geo holdouts, audience splits, and staggered rollouts can all measure not just what happened, but what would’ve happened without the spend. If you’re not doing this, you’re measuring correlation, not incrementality.
3. Prioritize falsifiability. The goal of measurement shouldn’t be just to prove something works. You also need to disprove what doesn’t work. That means that if your current model can’t be wrong, it’s not useful. Ask yourself: “What would it take for this measurement to tell me this channel isn’t working?” If the answer is at all unclear, your measurement isn’t falsifiable.
4. Forecast, then validate. Most marketers use MMMs and other models to explain past results. A better approach is to use those models to make predictions and then verify whether those predictions were correct. This is how science builds confidence in models. Forecast validation is the most straightforward way to determine whether your measurement is valid or merely a complex calculation.
5. Embrace uncertainty. Every scientific discipline quantifies uncertainty. In marketing, we need to do the same. Don’t just report that Meta drove $1.3M in sales. Instead, say that based on your model, you expect Meta to drive between $1M and $1.6M, and use that range to plan—confidence intervals like these separate proper measurements from guesswork.

Changing the role of measurement

Measurement shouldn’t end with reporting. It should guide planning. That’s why when CMOs ask where to invest the next $5 million, the answer needs to come from a model that’s transparent, testable, and tied to business outcomes, along with a clear sense of how confident the team is in that recommendation.

This approach provides marketing measurement with a scientific foundation, featuring clear hypotheses, consistent testing, an honest reflection of uncertainty, and a willingness to revise the plan if the data don’t hold up. You don’t need a PhD to work this way. You do need a culture that’s built around learning, where getting it “wrong” is baked into the (scientific) method. Because that’s the only way that you’ll actually get marketing right.

The post Marketing Measurement Isn’t a Science — But It Can Be appeared first on MartechView.

For years, retailers have relied on AI-powered ad campaigns to fuel online growth. But many are now unlocking the opportunity of how digital marketing can drive offline outcomes — from store visits to in-store purchases.

In 2024, in-store sales still dominated retail, accounting for over 80% of transactions in the US and a large majority in Europe, even as e-commerce grew. Yet, consumer behavior continued to be influenced by online channels. A Deloitte holiday survey revealed that 8 out of 10 retail executives expected sales growth in both in-store and online channels, highlighting the critical role of the omnichannel approach. This underscores marketers’ challenge: connecting digital touchpoints to physical foot traffic and real-world sales. 

Leading retailers across industries — from autos to jewelry to fashion — are using AI-powered marketing on Google and YouTube to:

1. Generate offline sales leads
2. Increase in-store traffic and purchases
3. Maximize ROI with online-to-offline attribution
   

Here’s how brands are doing it today.

Generating Offline Sales Leads: From Screens to Showrooms

The challenge: Customers often show intent online but drop off before visiting a store or booking an appointment. Retailers need seamless ways to capture that intent in the moment and convert it into offline engagement.

How Kia turned YouTube into a test-drive generator
Kia used YouTube on Connected TV (CTV) to engage with premium audiences in their living rooms. Through Shoppable CTV ads with QR codes, viewers could instantly scan their TV screens to explore offers or book a test drive.

Impact: Kia India’s campaign for its Seltos SUV drove a 10X increase in site visits and a 3.6X improvement in verified test-drive leads.

This model applies globally. In the US auto sector, Cox Automotive estimates that 87% of car buyers research online before entering a dealership. Retailers who bridge this intent-action gap see faster lead conversion and higher-quality foot traffic.

Increasing In-Store Traffic and Sales: Omnichannel AI Campaigns

The challenge: For big-ticket or experiential categories like jewelry, furniture, or luxury goods, shoppers may begin online, but they almost always complete their purchase in-store. Marketing needs to guide them across both environments seamlessly.

How Pandora turned online shoppers into in-store customers
In Europe and Australia, jewelry brand Pandora used a mix of:

• Shopping ads to highlight policies and product info online
• Performance Max for store goals to drive awareness of promotions at physical outlets
• Local inventory ads to show consumers which products were available nearby, with click-and-collect options

Impact: Pandora saw a 21% YoY uplift in return on ad spend in Australia, and globally in 2023, it achieved a 220% YoY increase in offline revenue attributed to these campaigns.

Takeaway for Europe & US retailers: As inflation makes holiday spending more considered, formats like local inventory ads can close the gap between online browsing and in-store buying by emphasizing convenience, immediacy, and local stock.

Maximizing ROI: Smarter Measurement of Offline Impact

The challenge: Retailers often struggle to prove how digital campaigns impact in-store results. Without visibility into attribution, optimizing budgets is guesswork.

How Tanishq unlocked ROI clarity with store sales measurement
Tanishq, a leading fine jewelry brand, found that while most sales happened in-store, nearly all journeys began online. It used Google’s Store Sales Measurement solution to measure and optimize across this funnel.

Impact: Analysis revealed 26% of in-store sales had a Google Ads touchpoint, driving confidence to reinvest in omnichannel campaigns. This boosted store footfall and cut acquisition costs by 38%.

For US and European retailers, attribution matters more than ever: Google data shows that businesses using AI-powered store goal campaigns with offline sales measurement see ROI lifts of 20–30% on average, as they can better optimize their omnichannel spend.

The Blueprint: AI-Powered Offline Growth at Scale

To generate high-value leads:

• Use YouTube CTV with interactive elements (QR codes, shoppable formats) to capture intent and bookings directly from audiences relaxing at home.

To increase foot traffic & in-store purchases:

• Run Performance Max for store goals to drive awareness of promotions and leverage local inventory ads for convenient availability messaging.

To maximize ROI & attribution:

• Implement Store Sales Measurement to close the loop between digital ads and in-store transactions.

Key Takeaway

Even in an increasingly digital retail landscape, stores remain the heart of commerce. The winning formula for 2025 and beyond will be:

• Reach shoppers online with messages that inspire action
• Seamlessly connect digital touchpoints to nearby store visits
• Measure and optimize the full journey to maximize ROI

By blending Google’s AI-powered ad innovations with omnichannel retail strategies, businesses can turn searches into store visits, clicks into checkouts, and views into visits.

“Winning retailers see digital not as separate from physical, but as the ultimate driver of in-store growth.” — Google Retail Insights, 2025

The post How Retailers Are Using AI in Marketing to Drive Store Visits and Offline Sales appeared first on MartechView.

Why do some brands stick in our minds—and wallets—while others fade into irrelevance? According to internationally recognized brand strategist Ulli Appelbaum, the answer lies in a secret hiding in plain sight and one of marketing’s most overlooked yet most essential concepts: brand associations. 

In his groundbreaking new book, “The Science of Brand Associations: Win Minds, Win Markets” (Publication August 18, 2025), Appelbaum draws on cutting-edge neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and decades of evidence-based marketing research to reveal the hidden operating system that drives brand growth — and why mastering it is no longer optional in today’s crowded marketplace. 

“Ulli connects the dots between marketing science and real-world branding like no one else. This is the OS behind how brands actually grow.” — Jacob Cass, Co-host, JUST Branding Podcast

While most branding advice remains opinion-based or driven by fads, Appelbaum’s approach is refreshingly rigorous—and practical. The book distills decades of research into a hands-on playbook for marketers, brand strategists, and agency leaders who want to audit, build, and strengthen their brand association networks. 

“While researching this book, I deliberately avoided opinion-based frameworks or philosophies in favor of those supported by rigorous data and research. The former typically just confuse and don’t provide any clarity or direction,” says Appelbaum.

The Core Idea: Associations Drive Brand Growth & Success 

Appelbaum argues —and proves — that brand associations aren’t just one component of branding; they are the one concept that silently drives every successful brand. 

In fact, cognitive psychology and neuroscience show us that brands are mental networks of meanings, feelings, and experiences stored in consumers’ minds and memories. They shape perception, trigger recall, drive preference, and ultimately, determine purchase. They allow your brand to grow faster than the competition, acquire more customers, command a higher price premium, and weather recessions better. 

In the book, Appelbaum outlines:

• 10 data-backed reasons why brand associations drive business results
• 9 proven strategies and 14 evidence-based principles for building stronger brand association networks
• Diagnostic scorecards and practical frameworks to assess and strengthen brand health
• Insights from respected thought leaders including Mark Ritson, Byron Sharp, Jenni Romaniuk, Kevin Lane Keller, etc. and global research firms such as Ipsos and Kantar.

“Too often today, marketers operate without direction or focus, wasting precious investment. This book delivers the frameworks needed to build powerful, winning brands.” — Paul Chibe, CEO, Pabst Brewing Company 

A Strategic Classic in the Making 

Already being hailed as a modern marketing classic, “The Science of Brand Associations: Win Minds, Win Markets” is quickly becoming the go-to resource for brand builders who are tired of fads and ready to embrace science-backed and evidence-based strategies.

“Understanding how brand associations are formed and retrieved doesn’t just lead to smarter marketing—it leads to better strategies, better stories, and better results.” — Jami Guthrie, VP of Strategy, Insights & Prioritization, McDonald’s 

A Career Built on Results

With more than 25 years of global brand strategy experience, Appelbaum has worked with blue-chip clients across four continents, including Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, General Mills, Harley-Davidson, and many others.

Prior to founding his boutique strategy consultancy First The Trousers Then The Shoes Inc. in 2014, he held senior strategy roles at top global agencies such as BBDO Germany, Leo Burnett Chicago, Fallon Worldwide, and SapientNitro. His work has earned seven Effie Awards and an ARF Ogilvy Award for Excellence in Research. 

He is also the author of several popular marketing resources, including “The Brand Positioning Workbook,” “Brand Positioning Method Cards,” and “Aha! The Ultimate Insight Generation Toolkit,” which all continue to inspire and guide thousands of marketers worldwide. 

Appelbaum is a frequent contributor to marketing publications in the U.S. and Europe, a guest lecturer at the University of Minnesota’s Hubbard School of Journalism, and a popular podcast guest and keynote speaker.

“The science and data don’t lie,” says Appelbaum. “Brands that understand and consistently apply these principles grow faster, build stronger preference, and outperform their competitors. The real question is: do marketing leaders have the discipline to execute consistently?”

The post Brand Strategist Ulli Appelbaum Reveals Science of Winning Brands appeared first on MartechView.

An Omnisend survey of 1,200 Americans finds U.S. adults now spend an extra $12.2 billion* each month—averaging $47 more per person following Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese goods. One in seven reports monthly increases of $100 or more.

Two-thirds (66%) say they noticed higher prices after the tariffs announcement. Shoppers most commonly point to Amazon (39%), Temu (30%), and Walmart (27%) as places where they noticed a pricing shift.

As for tariff sentiment, 49% of Americans say they oppose tariffs, 28% support them, and 23% don’t have an opinion. This is compared to only 42% who opposed tariffs on Chinese goods in a similar survey conducted in February 2025. There has also been a slight increase in the number of Americans (43%) who are willing to pay more for goods from the U.S. compared to 40% in February.

“You won’t see a ‘tariff’ line at checkout – you feel it in the grocery total, the back-to-school cart, and the small online orders that now cost a bit more to bring to your door. For most families, it just means less breathing room at the end of the month,” says Marty Bauer, ecommerce expert at Omnisend.

“The impact comes in waves as new shipments arrive, which is why many people felt it first on the big marketplaces and will likely feel it later on at local stores. Even things made here, in the U.S., can increase in cost when imported parts or packaging get pricier.”

Shoppers are changing where and how they buy

With budgets squeezed, consumers are cutting unnecessary spending and have started looking for alternatives. Two-thirds (68%) have reduced or moved away from Chinese marketplaces like Temu and Shein as the end of the de minimis rule for Chinese goods removed much of their price advantage. Price increases is the #1 trigger to switch with 34% of Americans citing it as the main reason for no longer shopping on Chinese marketplaces. 

“De minimis once let small packages under $800 enter the U.S. duty-free, and platforms like Temu and Shein built their low-price models around it. When that break ended for China, their biggest advantage vanished overnight. Temu paused U.S. ad campaigns for a few months and blocked shoppers from seeing China-shipped items. With fewer listings and higher prices, shoppers started looking elsewhere,” says Bauer.

Shoppers are also looking for workarounds – 23% have already purchased or are actively looking to buy from Canada or Mexico to dodge price shocks, and another 26% say they’ll do so if prices keep rising.

“Tariffs have people looking for cheaper options, and right now, buying from Canada or Mexico online still avoids extra fees thanks to the $800 de minimis rule. If you bring something back yourself, there’s a separate duty-free allowance for travelers. However, that is not for long, as on August 29, the de minimis rule will expire for the rest of the world,” continued Bauer.

The post Tariffs Add $12.2B Monthly to U.S. Consumer Costs appeared first on MartechView.

Customer acquisition specialist, esbconnect, has launched Optivo, its new audience retargeting tool, Optivo. In a UK first, Optivo enables brands to retarget anonymous website visitors not on their CRM system with an email. Retargeting website visitors via email has long been proven to be effective. Cart abandonment emails uplift conversions by 26% on average, but it is estimated that 90% of a brand’s website traffic are “ghosts”, who visit sites without identifying themselves or starting a purchase. esbconnect now enables brands to identify those anonymous visitors, link them to an email address, suppress any of their current customers, and retarget them by email, encouraging them to purchase or subscribe.

Using esbconnect’s GDPR-compliant database of 17 million opted-in UK email addresses, Optivo can match up to 20% of unknown visitors to real email records that are not in a brand’s CRM. Within minutes of a visit, matched users are enrolled into a compliant email journey, offering them a chance to subscribe and later to purchase. For those that choose to subscribe,  they are immediately added into the brand’s CRM to nurture towards a conversion.

esbconnect has already seen that between 40-70% of people who enter into this process convert to a subscriber, and the ROI is typically 2.6 times higher than a straight, purchase-led campaign. esbconnect estimates that Optivo will be able to match 20% of anonymous site visitors to an email address, much more efficiently and cost-effectively than retargeting ads on Meta or Google.

This is the first GDPR-compliant service to launch in the UK. It enables brands to potentially retarget anyone who visits their site via email, not just the 10% of visitors who typically add to a cart, whether they complete the purchase or not. Email is extremely effective for retargeting, delivering the best ROI of any channel, according to the DMA. It typically delivers read rates in excess of 40% and an ROI of 4x, with some retail pilot test partners reporting 2.2x this figure.

“With customer acquisition costs growing, and retargeting becoming less effective as more stringent privacy regulations take hold, we are seeing a lot of interest in Optivo from UK brands,” said esbconnect CEO, Suzanna Chaplin. “In the US, tools like Retention.com have proven this model can work, but until now, there was no GDPR-compliant solution in the UK. Optivo changes that.”

esbconnect is currently running a pilot programme with a number of selected brands in the Fashion, Home & Garden and Travel sectors, with a full roll-out scheduled for later this month. The platform integrates quickly and easily with existing marketing tech stacks and CRM platforms like Klaviyo, Ometria, Adobe and Salesforce. Brands interested in early access can register at www.optivo.digital to start recovering lost website traffic before the peak H2 sales period.

The post esbconnect Launches Optivo to Retarget Anonymous Visitors appeared first on MartechView.

Mobile commerce is no longer just an afterthought. It’s the core of how consumers interact with brands. In 2024, mobile transactions accounted for nearly half of all e-commerce revenue, which is expected to increase significantly in 2025. So, while consumers expect seamless experiences across devices, marketers must ensure they deliver a seamless experience and implement tracking and attribution that support accurate, persistent tracking amidst the rise in mobile-first behaviors.

The Challenge of Mobile Attribution

Traditional web tracking models often do not translate well to mobile environments. App-based transactions introduce complexities that standard cookie-based tracking can’t capture. Without a straightforward way to track mobile events, brands risk losing visibility into performance-driven conversions, undervaluing their partnerships, and misallocating spend. Specifically, marketers must address the dual challenges of consumer experience and proper tracking infrastructure. They must eliminate friction for consumers moving from web to app, while ensuring tracking infrastructure remains intact and reliable across web, m-commerce, and in-app events.

Many tracking solutions rely on identifiers like IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers), but privacy changes have made this approach unreliable. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework now requires user consent, with a majority opting out. Marketers need more resilient ways to track mobile partnerships without losing critical insights.

The Role of SDKs and Mobile Measurement Providers

To ensure accurate tracking of mobile app events, brands have two primary options: Software Development Kits (SDKs) and Mobile Measurement Providers (MMPs). Performance tracking infrastructure may not extend to mobile apps, specifically for tracking in-app events like downloads. So, without dedicated tracking in place, mobile app activity is not reliably tracked. Each approach has its value:

• SDKs: Installed within an app, SDKs provide direct, real-time tracking of in-app events. They offer detailed insights into user interactions and conversion paths and ensure that partners are appropriately credited for their role in outcomes.
• MMPs: These third-party solutions aggregate data from multiple sources, helping brands track mobile activity across different platforms. They often integrate with deep linking technology to ensure seamless user journeys from web to app.

Both options help bridge the gap between mobile web and in-app experiences, ensuring that consumer activity and transactions are accurately tracked and attributed. The choice between SDKs and MMPs depends on factors such as ease of integration, long-term maintenance, and the need for cross-channel attribution.

Why Accurate Tracking Matters on Mobile

Without persistent mobile, m-commerce, and in-app tracking, brands risk:

• Data Fragmentation: Failing to implement mobile tracking infrastructure risks unreliable data, making data-driven decision-making and spending optimization impossible.
• Underreported Conversions: Without proper attribution, brands may undervalue partners or performance channels that drive in-app activity and transactions, mobile app installs, purchases, or subscriptions.
• Inequitable partner rewards. Mobile tracking solutions are necessary to ensure that your data is accurate and reliable, support partner optimization, and automate the deployment of equitable partner rewards in exchange for value provided. 
• Limited optimization Opportunities: When mobile events aren’t captured correctly, potential optimizations, such as dynamic commission structures based on mobile behaviors, go unrealized. When consumers shift from mWeb to app activities, the likelihood of inconsistent tracking increases, which creates data silos between the partner channel and mobile experience. 

Steps to Ensure Accurate, Persistent Mobile Partner Tracking

1. Evaluate Your Current Tracking Setup: Audit whether existing systems effectively capture mobile, m-commerce, and in-app events. Identify gaps in tracking that could lead to inaccurate reporting and attribution.
2. Identify and Integrate the Right Technology: Talk to your performance marketing provider about their mobile and in-app tracking solutions, or consider leveraging a third-party to meet your business’s needs. Don’t forget to review vendors already integrated with your performance marketing platform to simplify onboarding. 
3. Focus on the User Journey: Enable a cohesive path to purchase for consumers without sacrificing tracking capabilities with an SDK or MMP that supports seamless transitions from mobile web to in-app experiences.
4. Test and Iterate: Regularly analyze performance data to refine tracking strategies and optimize partner incentives.

The Future of Mobile Tracking

As mobile-first commerce continues to evolve to suit shifting consumer preferences, tracking solutions must keep pace to ensure accurate, persistent tracking from web to mobile experience. Brands that invest in persistent, complementary, or additive tracking methods will be better positioned to maximize their partnership marketing efforts. With the proper infrastructure, affiliate and partnership teams can confidently scale mobile initiatives while ensuring that every conversion is appropriately tracked and attributed.

Accurate mobile tracking is partly about measurement. It’s mainly about unlocking the full potential of partnership marketing in an app-driven world.

The post Unlocking Mobile Growth: Why Tracking Powers Partnerships appeared first on MartechView.