A staggering 85% of respondents were worried their brand is not being used correctly within their organisation. Given the huge levels of investment that businesses make into their brand, this may be seriously jeopardising the integrity of Marketing's efforts.
Performance is a critical factor in user engagement, where even minor delays in loading can deter users. A clean and simple user interface also contributes significantly to user retention.
Customer service in the UK has a problem. According to recent survey data, almost half of UK customers have experienced poor customer service over the past year. That's not a minor data point, but rather a warning sign. Long wait times, unhelpful responses, and automated loops that dead-end are just the beginning, and they erode customer trust quickly. While many businesses have invested heavily in digital tools and AI to help address these problems, that comes with its own drawbacks.
When a site feels unsafe, unreliable or even slightly "off," users don't rationalize the problem. They react to it. They leave. And in many cases, they don't just abandon the session - they go straight to a competitor.
That's a problem. Without a doubt, a great website and top-level marketing will help generate new sales, but it's the delivery experience that warrants future ones. This is because today's consumer not only has options for where they'll buy but also a high set of expectations. What's more, they remember the way a product arrives at their doorstep more than how it was sold.
As the market grows increasingly saturated with traditional digital content, brands are exploring new ways to stand out by engaging more than just sight and sound. Advances in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), spatial audio and other immersive technologies are opening the door to richer, more memorable brand experiences that feel interactive rather than interruptive. The challenge is knowing how to experiment thoughtfully and how to use these tools to deepen connection without novelty overshadowing their purpose.
Mike Pastore is the Head of Content & Media at Third Door Media, the publisher of the Martech and Search Engine Land websites and the producer of the SMX and MarTech Conferences. In nearly three decades in B2B marketing, Mike has worked as an editor, writer, and marketer. He first wrote about marketing in 1998 for internet.com (later Jupitermedia). He then worked with marketers at some of the best-known brands in B2B tech, creating content for marketing campaigns at both Jupitermedia and QuinStreet.
Performance has always been the foundation of commerce media because it tied spend to measurable behavior. From sponsored search to sponsored products, the category scaled by delivering outcomes that could be directly attributed to transactions. Automation, AI-driven optimization and closed-loop measurement accelerated that model and made outcomes-based buying the norm. Outcomes still matter. But as AI reduces friction and increases competition, outcomes alone no longer create separation.
B2B buyers now enter the purchasing process already considering at least one vendor. Increasingly, AI-powered answer engines like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, and Microsoft 365 Copilot inform their choices. These tools are becoming one of the first places buyers turn for vendor insights. If a company doesn't appear in these AI-generated answers, it risks being excluded from buyer shortlists. To improve visibility, companies must strengthen their answer engine optimization strategies by leveraging their customers.
Martech is a team sport, and no one wins it alone. Success depends on coordination across internal teams and external partners. A customer success manager, or CSM, is one of the most important - and often underutilized - partners for marketing technology practitioners. They play a critical role in shaping the vendor-client relationship and long-term success. The value of customer success managers
