American Marketer

By Mark Boothe Across most organizations, there's a conversation happening amongst marketing leadership that isn't being talked about enough. It goes something like this: "We invested in AI. We ran the pilots. We saw productivity gains. So why does our AI bill keep going up?" As AI adoption matures, a new challenge is emerging that few organizations saw coming: the cost of running AI at scale.

By Richard Ashbaugh Let’s say the quiet part out loud: the traditional agency model is dying. Not because agencies lack talent, and not because technology replaced creativity. It’s dying because the way companies buy growth hasn’t evolved in the same way that growth actually occurs. The gap between those two realities is where momentum goes to die. Most companies silo their marketing: brand, digital, campaigns and sales enablement purchased, optimized and measured separately.

Frank Vella By Frank Stella When times get tough, the old playbook says to tighten your belt and cut costs wherever you can. But small businesses in 2026 are flipping the script. For Constant Contact's latest Small Business Now report, we surveyed more than 1,500 small business owners to understand their concerns and strategies around marketing for 2026. While they see the current economic hurdles loud and clear, the vast majority are refusing to hit the brakes.

The answer isn't scrapping the way you do TV media buying. It's augmenting it. Image credit: Shutterstock, Stock-Asso By Cory Treffiletti I was having a conversation with a media planner last week, and it started with a familiar complaint: "We're spending more on TV than ever, but it feels like we're shouting into the void." Does that sound familiar?

The most important thing you need to know to successfully set up your CRM is what business needs it should fulfill. Image credit: Shutterstock, Wright Studio By Patricia Rollins The importance of a customer relationship management (CRM) software is something you may already know about as a small business owner. If trying to manage your business with spreadsheets is too overwhelming, a CRM probably sounds like salvation to you.

India's Taj Mahal in Agra is one of the most visited tourist sites in the world By Abhay Gupta For decades, we have spoken of the "Incredible Indian Luxury Bazaar" as a paradox - a land of deep-pocketed maharajas, nawabs and modern-day tech-titans, yet one guarded by some of the most formidable tariff walls in the world. But as we stand in February 2026, the walls have not just been breached - they have been re-engineered into a gateway.

Founded by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a conversational artificial intelligence that can chat with users, answer follow-up questions and challenge incorrect assumptions. Image credit: OpenAI By Mike Ford In traditional SEO, the playbook was clear: write for humans, optimize for Google. You chased rankings with keywords, backlinks and clean technical setup. If you landed on search page one, you'd get the clicks. AI search doesn't work that way.

For creative teams to get what they need from AI, they need to collaborate much more closely with their analytics teams. Image credit: Shutterstock By Lee James Marketing is arguably one of the largest and most scrutinized investments in any business, but for too long, marketers have had to rely on lagging indicators, dashboards and attribution models that tell them what happened, but not why.

Craftsman working on a chair. Image credit: Gorodenkoff, Shutterstock By Smita Wadhawan As we close out 2025, one message from small businesses is clear: marketing has never been more competitive, more dynamic or more essential to growth. The latest findings from Constant Contact's latest Small Business Now report, along with new data from a December 2025 follow-up study, reveal not only how much the marketing landscape has shifted this year, but where small businesses are headed next.

Finding the right point-of-sale partner is key to effective retail expansion. Image credit: Communis VOX By Lynne Laba A marketing strategy must evolve along with a business. As retailers expand, they often find their in-house marketing capabilities no longer cut it, so they will bring in an advertising agency to amplify their messaging. However, a lot of retailers' work and related costs are wasted when products at the point-of-sale (PoS) fail to engage the consumer.