Insights & Resources

Marketing uncertainty will persist in 2026, but cutting spend can make your brand invisible when conditions rebound. The smarter approach is to stay visible without being reckless: protect brand investment, tighten measurement to prove what’s working, and build flexibility into your media plan so you can pivot fast. Pair that with empathetic, utility-driven messaging, a stronger focus on retention, and AI that accelerates execution without replacing human judgment. Teams that treat volatility as a competitive advantage—through discipline, scenario planning, and constant optimization—will outperform those that freeze or retreat.

CMOs are moving beyond using AI for efficiency and into a new phase where AI can drive innovation. The piece highlights agentic advertising, faster product and experience ideation through digital twins, multimodal brand intelligence, and emotion AI to improve creative impact. It closes with a call for CMOs to use AI to create new value, not just reduce costs.

A year-end breakdown of the five biggest forces that reshaped digital marketing in 2025, from GenAI operationalization to answer-first search, retail media growth, privacy-driven measurement changes, and rising regulatory pressure. The post closes with what these shifts are likely to mean for marketing leaders in 2026 and where to focus next.

AI is reshaping how CMOs measure marketing by expanding the portfolio beyond short-term performance metrics. This post outlines a three-tier measurement framework that balances efficiency and ROI with growth and loyalty signals, plus emotional resonance and brand resilience. It closes with practical steps to modernize measurement, align data capabilities, and connect brand impact to business outcomes.

Modern audience growth requires more than acquisition. Brands must expand into new segments while protecting the loyal customers who built their success. This article explores why preserving loyalty and pursuing growth must happen together, how audiences naturally evolve over time, and why brands that embrace structured expansion will sustain relevance and performance in an increasingly competitive landscape.

The post explores how CMOs can use AI to uncover audience truths, sharpen creative strategy, personalize with consistency, and accelerate learning—while keeping human creativity at the heart of authentic brand storytelling.

This final installment of the From Data to Decisions series ties together every component of a modern marketing intelligence engine—governance, data quality, visualization, interpretation, and stakeholder empowerment. It shows how these elements operate as a living system that evolves with your business, enabling proactive decision-making, scalability, and long-term competitive advantage.

Effective data interpretation requires more than simply viewing dashboards — it demands curiosity, structure, and disciplined decision-making. This section explains how to turn visual insights into meaningful action by identifying true signals, forming testable hypotheses, and driving accountability across your marketing organization.

Medium-sized agencies offer the perfect balance of speed, expertise, and hands-on partnership—making them ideal for modern CMOs seeking agility and results without the red tape of large networks.