Good morning {{first_name|friends}},

Ah, the week before Christmas—when half the industry is "OOO until January" and the other half is frantically trying to spend down budget before it evaporates. While you were debating whether to roll that remaining $20K into LinkedIn or just buy the team a really nice holiday party, the market decided to give martech investors an early lump of coal. Let's dig in.

We're in an overcorrection phase. MarTech stocks are down across the board, but not because the technology isn't working—it's because expectations got ahead of reality. The companies winning right now (Totaligent, Storyly, the blockchain-for-ads crowd) are the ones solving specific problems rather than promising to revolutionize everything. Meanwhile, the privacy-first analytics movement (Plausible, Matomo) is proving that sometimes less data is more valuable than all the data. The 2026 playbook is becoming clear: bet on tools that do one thing exceptionally well, built on foundations you actually trust.)

The market just reminded martech investors that gravity still exists.

Salesforce dropped 2.92% to $254.58, HubSpot fell 2.96% to $364.85, and Oracle slid 2.70% to $184.92—all in a single session. Adobe fared slightly better at -1.48% ($351.15), but the message is clear: the AI hype premium is getting repriced. The only bright spot? Meta, up 0.50% to $647.51, proving that actual ad revenue still beats "AI roadmap" slides.

For CFOs planning 2026 budgets, this is either a buying opportunity or a warning sign—depends entirely on whether you think the "AI-powered everything" thesis has legs.

(Via Reuters)

Another day, another AI platform claiming to "revolutionize" marketing.

But Totaligent's approach is actually interesting: instead of bolting AI onto existing workflows, they've built the platform from the ground up around real-time ROI optimization and audience engagement signals. The beta launch focuses on enterprise customers drowning in data but starving for actionable insights—a market segment that's been underserved by the "we do everything" platforms. Whether it lives up to the hype remains to be seen, but the thesis is solid: don't automate bad processes, redesign them.

(Via NewsTrail)

Everyone's talking about Marketing Mix Modeling because cookies are dying and attribution is a mess. But here's the uncomfortable truth: most companies' data isn't ready for prime time.

You can either spend $50K on a consultant to tell you your taxonomy is broken, or you can take the free MMM-Readiness Quiz from MediaMixModel.com.

3 minutes. No sales pitch. Just honest answers about whether you're ready to model—or if you need to fix your pipes first.

👉 Take the Quiz →

Here's a stat that should make your data team uncomfortable: most "real-time" marketing dashboards are actually showing you data that's 15-30 minutes stale. which in the age of algorithmic bidding might as well be last week.

A new paper proposes using hybrid Graph Neural Networks and Temporal Transformer frameworks to actually deliver on the real-time promise, learning content diffusion patterns as they happen rather than after they've already impacted your spend. The implications for MMM are massive: if you can't trust your input signals, your model's outputs are just expensive guesses.

(Via arXiv)

If you can't beat TikTok, at least you can steal their UX.

Storyly has raised a $35M Series B to bring "Stories" functionality to mobile apps and websites, letting brands create swipeable, full-screen content experiences that feel native to how Gen Z consumes media. The pitch is simple: your app's static product pages are competing with infinitely scrollable entertainment—you're going to lose. Early adopters are reporting 3x engagement increases on story-enabled content. For e-commerce brands still debating whether to add video, this is the nudge you needed.

(Via TechCrunch)

Remember when blockchain was going to revolutionize everything and then... didn't?

Turns out it was just waiting for a problem annoying enough to justify the complexity. Ad fraud verification is that problem. New blockchain-based solutions are making impressions, clicks, and conversions auditable in ways that the current "trust us" model simply can't match. Smart contracts are ensuring that advertisers only pay for verified human engagement, and the transparency is forcing bad actors out of the supply chain. It's not sexy, but it's real—and for the first time, the "blockchain for ads" pitch actually makes sense.

(Via Emergen Research)

The great unbundling of Google Analytics continues.

Plausible Analytics and Matomo are seeing record adoption as marketers realize that GDPR and CCPA compliance doesn't have to mean flying blind. These privacy-first platforms avoid individual user tracking entirely—and the data quality is actually better because you're measuring behavior, not trying to stitch together identity graphs that break every time someone clears their cookies. The irony? By collecting less data, you're getting more accurate insights. European regulators are taking notes, and the US is likely next.

(Via MarTech News Forum)

You've probably seen the discourse: Jaguar unveiled a dramatic rebrand with a new modernist logo and "Copy Nothing" manifesto—and the internet absolutely lost its mind.

Critics called it "soul-less" and "generic tech startup energy." Defenders praised its boldness. But here's what matters: everyone is talking about Jaguar for the first time in years. The luxury EV market is brutally crowded, and being forgettable is far worse than being controversial. Early engagement data suggests the rebrand is driving massive awareness spikes. Sometimes the best creative strategy is making something people feel strongly about—even if that feeling is confusion.

(Via Design Week)