#martech

#martech

Take the size of the market: there are now 15,000 active, credible martech vendors, according to McKinsey. These providers were collectively worth $131bn in 2023 - a number that McKinsey projects to reach $215bn by 2027.

A vertical agent is more than a chatbot. It's a core part of the martech stack, built with autonomy, context and memory to drive business goals. Vertical agents are powered by the LLM of choice but are trained on a company's catalogs, knowledge base, policies, and brand tone - all centralized in a unified data source. They: Embody the roles a brand requires (i.e., sales, support, etc.). Understand industry language. Adapt across multiple languages. Deliver credible responses.

I've seen companies with job postings for Drupal developers that require applicants to have expertise with PHP, but no experience with the platform. Drupal is based on PHP, and any developer working with it must know that programming language. However, there's so much more to Drupal than PHP, and the platform and community have numerous standards and practices that aren't involved in knowing PHP. As a result, many companies hire competent PHP developers who, despite their best intentions, didn't use Drupal effectively from the outset.

ActiveCampaign used its Fall 2025 Innovations Keynote to showcase its AI capabilities and its vision for autonomous marketing, which includes over 25 AI agents that work continuously to assist marketers. The company previously introduced its Active Intelligence workspace, where users receive suggestions from context-aware AI agents focused on outcomes, understanding what works, and proactively searching for new opportunities. ActiveCampaign views its approach to AI and agents as a paradigm shift.

The theme of this week's coffee break is social media marketing. Find the five social media marketing terms in this word search below while you take a breath. Click on the first and last letter in each word to make a selection. Remember, words can run up, down, left, right or diagonal. Good luck! Marketing Coffee Break - Word Search Nice! You found a word. Fuel up with free marketing insights.

Creative operations (CreativeOps) powers martech-driven organizations by turning technology's potential into reality. Tools alone can't implement themselves, run efficiently or deliver value. CreativeOps brings the discipline, processes and accountability that make martech work. It ensures content and creative are scalable, measurable and fully integrated into technology and data ecosystems. More than process efficiency, it's a core enabler of business value.

Most of us already have multiple tools in our martech stack with AI capabilities - models that can ingest trillions of signals on behavior, preferences and context to surface the next best action in milliseconds. But poor data quality, weak integration and limited CDP optimization have many of us paralyzed, struggling to see opportunity in a landscape that changes by the minute.

AMP acts as a centralised "marketing brain," blending human expertise with AI-powered insights to deliver faster decision-making, scaled campaign execution and measurable outcomes linked directly to business performance.

Marketers today aren't just swimming in data - they're besieged by it. Every campaign, click and customer touchpoint continuously generates insight. But this data only matters when it's activated. That requires systems to ingest, analyze, orchestrate and act on it successfully. Far too often, data remains siloed, fragmented or trapped in disconnected tools, leaving businesses with noise instead of clarity.

From AI content generation to personalization at scale, technology is constantly breaking new barriers when it comes to connecting marketers and audiences. New tools and platforms leveraging generative AI, along with changing consumer behaviors, are rewriting the marketing rulebook. Opportunity is everywhere, yet many businesses struggle to integrate technology and strategy in a way that drives real growth. Working with companies of all sizes to help them understand and implement tech strategy, I see plenty of good and bad practices.

Described as an app store for marketing solutions, Alli Marketplace enables brands to browse, compare, and install a wide range of tools - from audience data and measurement to creative and AI - directly into their workflow. "Think of Alli Marketplace as a bazaar of marketing and ad technology," says Chris Alvarez, vice-president of AI and technology at PMG: "[You] can see, browse, discover, and install new marketing technologies within the platform where marketing, planning, buying and strategic decisions are made."

The execs kick things off: Why are we here? What will this achieve? Then the consultants descend. Let the process mapping begin. Swim lanes. Handoff points. Decision makers. Stakeholders. RACI charts. Today is all about people and process. The message is clear: fix the people side first - because until you do, no technology will save you. No more silos. No more pain points. Content, data and insights delivered on time and on spec.

In 2024, cost emerged as the top consideration for marketers when selecting new technology tools, with integration and the ability to measure ROI closely following.

Shoppers won't wait around; if they can't find the right product fast, they'll bounce, taking potential revenue with them.

"Martech integration is not a technical problem. It's an organizational one."