EJ White

Industry Analysis

Forrester Crowns Cordial and Zeta as Email Marketing Leaders

Mar 25, 2026

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8 min read

Forrester Crowns Cordial and Zeta as Email Marketing Leaders

The Forrester Wave for Email Marketing Service Providers Q1 2026 evaluated 12 vendors and named three Leaders. The results signal a shift toward AI-native platforms that unify data, decisioning, and execution in a single system.

EJ White

Platform Updates

DaVinci Commerce Debuts Agentic BrandStore, Backed by Accenture

Mar 25, 2026

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9 min read

DaVinci Commerce Debuts Agentic BrandStore, Backed by Accenture

With traffic from generative AI platforms up 693% year over year, DaVinci Commerce is betting that brands need conversational storefronts inside LLMs to avoid becoming commoditized data points. Accenture is putting money behind that thesis.

EJ White

Platform Updates

ChatGPT's Ad Pilot Is Live, But Advertisers Can't Tell If It's Working

Mar 25, 2026

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9 min read

ChatGPT's Ad Pilot Is Live, But Advertisers Can't Tell If It's Working

OpenAI is preparing to show ads to all U.S. free-tier ChatGPT users in the coming weeks. Early advertisers say the platform offers almost no performance data, no automated buying, and no way to prove ROI.

EJ White

Product Launch

Google Brings Gemini to Ads, Automating Media Buying

Mar 24, 2026

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8 min read

Google Brings Gemini to Ads, Automating Media Buying

Google's NewFront 2026 announcement embeds Gemini AI deep into Display & Video 360, introducing auto-campaign setup, an AI advisor agent, and a new privacy-safe CTV measurement model that connects streaming impressions to purchases.

EJ White

Industry Analysis

75% of Marketers Don't Truly Understand Their Audiences, Brandwatch Report Finds

Mar 21, 2026

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7 min read

75% of Marketers Don't Truly Understand Their Audiences, Brandwatch Report Finds

Brandwatch surveyed 1,028 marketers and analyzed 750,000 online conversations for its "Marketer of 2026" report. The headline finding: three out of four marketers admit they don't truly understand their audiences. In an era of unprecedented data access, that number should alarm every CMO with a budget to defend.

EJ White

Product Launch

MediaScience Debuts AI Ad Cloning Without Reshoots

Mar 21, 2026

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6 min read

MediaScience Debuts AI Ad Cloning Without Reshoots

MediaScience's "Creative Twin" technology generates AI replicas of ads so convincing that 812 test subjects couldn't tell the difference. Then it lets researchers swap out individual elements to measure exactly what drives effectiveness. Creative testing just got its most radical upgrade in decades.

EJ White

Product Launch

ActiveCampaign Launches Proactive AI for SMB Marketing

Mar 21, 2026

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7 min read

ActiveCampaign Launches Proactive AI for SMB Marketing

ActiveCampaign unveils "agent-to-user" AI that initiates recommendations before marketers ask, plus brand-voice personalization that lets SMBs configure how their AI behaves. The autonomous marketing race just shifted from enterprise down to Main Street.

EJ White

Funding

Multiply Raises $9.5M to Build Self-Learning Ads That Rewrite Themselves Weekly Using Sales Call Data

Mar 21, 2026

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8 min read

Multiply Raises $9.5M to Build Self-Learning Ads That Rewrite Themselves Weekly Using Sales Call Data

Multiply exits stealth with $9.5 million from Mayfield to build "self-learning" ads that rewrite themselves weekly using sales call transcripts and CRM data. The B2B advertising market just got its first AI-native agency.

EJ White

Funding

Statusphere Secures $18M Series A to Turn Micro-Influencer Marketing Into Enterprise Infrastructure

Mar 20, 2026

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6 min read

Statusphere Secures $18M Series A to Turn Micro-Influencer Marketing Into Enterprise Infrastructure

The influencer marketing industry hit $32.55 billion in 2025. Statusphere's $18M bet: the only way to spend that money efficiently at enterprise scale is to automate everything except the humans creating the content.

EJ White

Funding

Letter AI Closes $40M Series B, Launches Letter Compass to Bring Deal-Level Intelligence to Revenue Teams

Mar 19, 2026

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8 min read

Letter AI Closes $40M Series B, Launches Letter Compass to Bring Deal-Level Intelligence to Revenue Teams

Letter AI's $40M raise isn't just another sales enablement round. It's a signal that the $3.6 billion enablement market is about to be rebuilt from scratch, and the incumbents know it.

EJ White

Funding

Sequen Raises $16M Series A to Democratize TikTok-Grade Personalization for the Enterprise

Mar 19, 2026

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8 min read

Sequen Raises $16M Series A to Democratize TikTok-Grade Personalization for the Enterprise

Sequen's $16M bet: if TikTok's algorithm can predict what you want before you know it, every consumer app should be able to do the same. The catch? Most companies don't have a billion users to train on.

EJ White

Product Launch

Treasure Data Launches Treasure Code, Bringing Agentic AI to CDP’s Toughest Problem

Mar 18, 2026

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8 min read

Treasure Data Launches Treasure Code, Bringing Agentic AI to CDP’s Toughest Problem

A quarter of Treasure Data's customer base adopted the new command interface within days of launch. That adoption speed tells you everything about how painful CDP operations have become.

EJ White

M&A

ShowHeroes Acquires Traffective, Expanding Publisher Monetization in Europe

Mar 18, 2026

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8 min read

ShowHeroes Acquires Traffective, Expanding Publisher Monetization in Europe

The Berlin-based CTV and video ad tech company swallows a Munich programmatic specialist, creating a combined business that reaches nearly 2,000 publishers and generates over 25 billion ad impressions monthly.

EJ White

Funding

Rox AI Hits $1.2 Billion Valuation as Autonomous Sales Agents Rewrite the CRM Playbook

Mar 18, 2026

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8 min read

Rox AI Hits $1.2 Billion Valuation as Autonomous Sales Agents Rewrite the CRM Playbook

Backed by General Catalyst and Sequoia, the two-year-old startup is betting that AI agents can replace the patchwork of tools sales teams have tolerated for decades.

EJ White

Funding

Parade Founder Cami Tellez Launches Devotion, a $4M Bet That AI Can Fix Creator Marketing at Scale

Mar 18, 2026

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8 min read

Parade Founder Cami Tellez Launches Devotion, a $4M Bet That AI Can Fix Creator Marketing at Scale

The entrepreneur who turned a Gen Z underwear brand into a cultural moment is back with a new company, a new co-founder from TikTok, and a thesis that the influencer economy's biggest problem isn't talent. It's operations.

EJ White

Platform Updates

Instagram Tests Clickable Links in Post Captions for Meta Verified Users. Your 'Link in Bio' Era May Be Ending.

Mar 17, 2026

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7 min read

Instagram Tests Clickable Links in Post Captions for Meta Verified Users. Your 'Link in Bio' Era May Be Ending.

Instagram is finally letting some users add links to post captions, ending years of refusal, but the restrictions reveal exactly how Meta plans to monetize the feature.

EJ White

Funding

Koah Raises $20.5M Series A to Build 'AdSense for AI' as Conversational Apps Scramble for Revenue

Mar 17, 2026

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9 min read

Koah Raises $20.5M Series A to Build 'AdSense for AI' as Conversational Apps Scramble for Revenue

The company building advertising infrastructure for AI apps just raised $20.5 million, and its lead investor helped create the last generation's answer to the same problem.

EJ White

Platform Updates

Criteo Becomes First Ad Tech Partner in OpenAI's ChatGPT Ad Pilot. The $60 CPM Era of AI Advertising Begins.

Mar 17, 2026

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10 min read

Criteo Becomes First Ad Tech Partner in OpenAI's ChatGPT Ad Pilot. The $60 CPM Era of AI Advertising Begins.

Criteo's integration with OpenAI's ad pilot puts 17,000 advertisers inside ChatGPT, and the $60 CPM price tag tells you exactly how valuable conversational AI inventory has become.

EJ White

Platform Updates

Meta's Original Content Push Doubled Reels Views on Facebook, and Your Content Strategy Needs to Catch Up

Mar 17, 2026

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7 min read

Meta's Original Content Push Doubled Reels Views on Facebook, and Your Content Strategy Needs to Catch Up

Original Reels views and time spent approximately doubled in the second half of 2025 compared to the prior year. Meta removed over 20 million impersonation accounts. If you're still posting repurposed clips, the algorithm has moved on.

EJ White

Funding

Profound Hits Unicorn Status With $96M Series C, Declaring AI Search the Biggest Platform Shift in Marketing History

Mar 16, 2026

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8 min read

Profound Hits Unicorn Status With $96M Series C, Declaring AI Search the Biggest Platform Shift in Marketing History

The answer engine optimization startup has crossed $1 billion in valuation, backed by Lightspeed and Sequoia, with more than 700 enterprises paying to influence how AI systems talk about their brands.

EJ White

M&A

Infillion Acquires Catalina, Pulling $600 Billion in Purchase Data Behind Its Walled Garden

Mar 16, 2026

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8 min read

Infillion Acquires Catalina, Pulling $600 Billion in Purchase Data Behind Its Walled Garden

The adtech platform's latest acquisition locks deterministic retail data inside its own ecosystem, challenging the open data marketplace model that defined shopper marketing for decades.

EJ White

M&A

Mar 16, 2026

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9 min read

Webflow Acquires Vidoso.ai, Betting That AI Content Needs Brand Guardrails

Webflow's acquisition of the four-person AI startup signals its ambition to become a full agentic marketing platform, not just a website builder.

EJ White

Funding

Levitate Raises $16M for AI Relationship Marketing. Software Alone Isn’t Enough.

Mar 13, 2026

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9 min read

Levitate Raises $16M for AI Relationship Marketing. Software Alone Isn’t Enough.

While enterprise AI gets the mega-rounds, Levitate just raised $16M to prove that AI for small businesses works best when it comes with a human attached. The Service-as-Software model is getting real traction.

EJ White

M&A

Opensend Acquires Fueled.io to Combine Identity Resolution and First-Party Data

Mar 13, 2026

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9 min read

Opensend Acquires Fueled.io to Combine Identity Resolution and First-Party Data

Identity resolution meets first-party data activation. Opensend's acquisition of Fueled.io aims to solve the biggest headache in e-commerce marketing: turning anonymous traffic into known customers.

EJ White

Industry Analysis

IAB Tech Lab Proposes AI Content Payment Rails. Will AI Companies Comply?

Mar 13, 2026

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9 min read

IAB Tech Lab Proposes AI Content Payment Rails. Will AI Companies Comply?

Publishers have watched AI systems devour their content without paying for it. The IAB Tech Lab just proposed the plumbing that could change that. Whether AI companies will actually use it is another matter.

EJ White

EJ White

Forrester Crowns Cordial and Zeta as Email Marketing Leaders

DaVinci Commerce Debuts Agentic BrandStore, Backed by Accenture

ChatGPT's Ad Pilot Is Live, But Advertisers Can't Tell If It's Working

Google Brings Gemini to Ads, Automating Media Buying

75% of Marketers Don't Truly Understand Their Audiences, Brandwatch Report Finds

MediaScience Debuts AI Ad Cloning Without Reshoots

ActiveCampaign Launches Proactive AI for SMB Marketing

Multiply Raises $9.5M to Build Self-Learning Ads That Rewrite Themselves Weekly Using Sales Call Data

Statusphere Secures $18M Series A to Turn Micro-Influencer Marketing Into Enterprise Infrastructure

Letter AI Closes $40M Series B, Launches Letter Compass to Bring Deal-Level Intelligence to Revenue Teams

Sequen Raises $16M Series A to Democratize TikTok-Grade Personalization for the Enterprise

Treasure Data Launches Treasure Code, Bringing Agentic AI to CDP’s Toughest Problem

ShowHeroes Acquires Traffective, Expanding Publisher Monetization in Europe

Rox AI Hits $1.2 Billion Valuation as Autonomous Sales Agents Rewrite the CRM Playbook

Parade Founder Cami Tellez Launches Devotion, a $4M Bet That AI Can Fix Creator Marketing at Scale

Instagram Tests Clickable Links in Post Captions for Meta Verified Users. Your 'Link in Bio' Era May Be Ending.

Koah Raises $20.5M Series A to Build 'AdSense for AI' as Conversational Apps Scramble for Revenue

Criteo Becomes First Ad Tech Partner in OpenAI's ChatGPT Ad Pilot. The $60 CPM Era of AI Advertising Begins.

Meta's Original Content Push Doubled Reels Views on Facebook, and Your Content Strategy Needs to Catch Up

Profound Hits Unicorn Status With $96M Series C, Declaring AI Search the Biggest Platform Shift in Marketing History

Infillion Acquires Catalina, Pulling $600 Billion in Purchase Data Behind Its Walled Garden

Webflow Acquires Vidoso.ai, Betting That AI Content Needs Brand Guardrails

Levitate Raises $16M for AI Relationship Marketing. Software Alone Isn’t Enough.

Opensend Acquires Fueled.io to Combine Identity Resolution and First-Party Data

IAB Tech Lab Proposes AI Content Payment Rails. Will AI Companies Comply?

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