Hesitant buyers, maturing AI and market swings pushed marketers to adapt. Here’s what those shifts mean for 2026.
Ryan Phelan on November 20, 2025 at 8:38 am | Reading time: 7 minutes
I just got back from visiting a friend — a 9-hour drive each way. As I often do on trips like this, I use the time away from my screens to reflect on whatever is occupying my attention at the moment.
It’s not as relaxing as sipping a cocktail under a hot Caribbean sun, but it’s still a great way to gain a fresh perspective. This time, I spent much of the drive back thinking about everything that 2025 brought me professionally and personally.
This year was tumultuous across all industry verticals. Here are three developments that defined our industry this year.
- Martech spending remained sluggish
Much like 2024, spending on marketing technology stayed stuck in neutral in 2025. It reminds me of the first years under COVID-19, when companies remained in stasis, focusing on keeping the lights on rather than pursuing innovation or expanding martech spending.
In those stagnant years, many companies learned their tech stacks were obsolete or unable to keep up with the changes those stressful years demanded. They solved their problems by updating their martech stacks, fueling an increase in spending. That uptick didn’t sustain, however. By 2024, the market saw a decline in spending, a trend that continued into 2025.
Based on market behavior, some companies are not ready to spend. Others upgraded in recent years and are either still implementing their new technologies or are happy with their decisions. It’s hard to figure out which is which without a comprehensive industry survey. But one factor that differentiates 2025 is that we’ve seen more tire kicking this year.
Dig deeper: Why your martech still feels like a cost center — and how AI changes that
Companies are exploring new technologies, integrations and strategies, but they aren’t getting close enough to pull the trigger. The market is still dogged by hesitancy around capital spending. It’s not surprising, but it’s affecting spending across email tech, SEO and the wider B2B industry. That’s troubling because it goes beyond the tech stack. It reflects your program’s structure and sophistication. Even if people aren’t switching platforms or adding new tools, we also aren’t seeing many ask for help.
That’s worrisome because we all need it. In my 27 years in the industry — working with one and two-person teams to Fortune 500 firms — I’ve never met one that couldn’t benefit from a knowledgeable third party. That’s not bragging. It highlights the advantage that an outside perspective can bring.
Something to think about for 2026 — when was the last time you asked for help or an objective opinion, one not mired in interdepartmental politics or gamesmanship? Outside resources can accelerate your innovation and program sophistication. Your company might not be open to capex spending, but you can still seek help from outside skilled leadership.
- Expansion of AI beyond basic content creation
Generative AI has grabbed attention, but it’s only part of the story. AI can do much more. We’re learning how it illuminates the trends and behaviors that influence email performance and helps us make better decisions about planning and resource management.
It gives email marketers something we’ve wanted for years — advanced technology we can use in our daily work. We can use AI to analyze and optimize cadence, understand why subscribers disengage and how to retain and re-engage them and produce more informative, insightful reports in less time.
This last move is major, especially if you don’t have ready access to your data. AI brings email marketers advanced technology we can use at scale, whether it’s synthesizing data into easily understood dashboards for insights and analysis or accounting for bot traffic that can obscure email performance.
We’re also seeing an increase in ethical AI marketing guidelines and conversations at top companies. It’s not just about creating a prompt. It’s about the ethics behind that prompt and whether it crosses an ethical boundary. This conversation will continue because we need more education on marketing ethics.
Dig deeper: Building AI agents that move from conversation to conversion
Email technology vendors are embracing leadership in expanding AI beyond genAI. Zeta Global’s recent user conference demonstrated real thought leadership in this area. Athena’s rollout could transform the space and accessibility of AI for marketers, as its voice-driven prompts shift the process from query-based decision-making to conversational interactions. This embrace of expanded AI use will carry into 2026 with some exciting possibilities.
At the same time, we have to acknowledge that AI is not everything. It’s still in its infancy and it won’t solve all of our problems. We need to see this kind of AI leadership across other platforms and vendors. We can’t allow one or two vendors to dominate and define AI use and priorities. Companies that lack a clear vision or practical roadmap for developing tools that advance AI adoption among marketers are rapidly falling behind.
- Marketers grappled with uncertainty and instability
If there’s anything people across the political spectrum could agree on, it would be this — 2025 has been one hot mess of a year. Tariffs were on, off, up and down. Inventory management issues and supply chain challenges added to the uncertainty around consumer spend and overall positioning. Consumer sentiment, like tariffs, ping-ponged between optimism to pessimism.
It’s no surprise that I’m getting post-COVID vibes again. Once again, we had to learn how to market in the face of uncertainty. We had to deal with it by juggling operations within our own companies. Beyond that, we had to work with a changing customer base that was sensitive to unstable prices. Some consumers continued to spend freely while others shifted to heavily discounted options.
Dig deeper: How to lead marketing through economic uncertainty
In the post-COVID years, marketers coped with daily uncertainty and instability by embracing authenticity and consumer education. A new unified approach grounded in that consumer-centric perspective could show us the path we need in these tumultuous times. After all, we can’t change the world. But we can change the part of the world we live in. Unifying our teams around a shared direction can move us forward.
This takes more than a directive from leadership. It starts with your team. That’s why I always recommend taking time away from work to bond over social activities like drinks or dinner and to celebrate the people who keep things running.
Inspiring creativity is essential, too, whether it’s coming up with a new email automation or building a new testing program — so is celebrating success. It’s easy to fixate on failures, but we also need to acknowledge the wins.
Finding clarity after a chaotic 2025
Yes, 2025 was a challenging year. 2026 will be, too. We’re in a new reality for many reasons, from AI’s growing impact to socioeconomic and political change. The marketer’s job is to unify a company’s goals into communication that serves the end user.
We need to continue tapping into authenticity, not just because customers expect and respond to it, but because it underpins our potential for success. We also need more sophistication, or we risk devaluing our channel by falling back on the same old approach — sending more email, not better email.
Our email channel will succeed when we embrace the need to change. That can come through new technology, new practices, a willingness to seek and accept help, and many other paths. No matter what anybody says, marketing is hard. We have to work hard to succeed.
As we head into 2026, our mission should be to make the email experience different, better and more meaningful for everyone, including our customers. Email marketing is one of the greatest jobs out there. No one can tell our story better than we can. We are the ambassadors. Let’s wear the badge proudly.
Recent Comments