The cross-channel picture: strategy, maturity, and the tool stack that ties it together.
Seventeen percent of chief marketing officers (CMOs) have cut marketing jobs because of AI. Thirty-six percent expect to within two years. The gap between those numbers is where the restructuring is actually happening.
In 2026 the billboard reports back. Programmatic buys the majority of digital out-of-home, measurement moved from impressions to incrementality, and outdoor screens now compete for performance budgets, not just awareness lines.
Connected TV takes 43.8% of US TV viewing but just 7.7% of ad spend. The gap is the last piece of underpriced reach in video, if you can survive the measurement and frequency chaos to claim it.
Pay 10% on every affiliate sale and a chunk of those buyers were coming anyway. The 2026 shift is away from coupon volume toward deeper partnerships, but the number that decides whether the program pays is the one nobody prints on the invoice.
The most cited number in marketing came from analyzing 996 campaigns and taking the mean. It was never a law, and applying it to a three-year-old brand burning runway is how good research becomes bad strategy. The rule is real. The dogma is the problem.
