TLDR Marketing 2026-01-12

Last year's predictions became this year's reality: AI was embedded, upper-funnel budgets expanded, omnichannel stopped being optional - and measurement and identity lagged behind…

StackAdapt is hosting a live session on January 28 with EMARKETER's Paul Verna and U of Digital founder Shiv Gupta – who's trained media teams at Google, Amazon, and Roku – to unpack how to use the lessons of 2025 for the benefit of 2026.

You'll walk away with concrete moves on channel mix, targeting, and ROI measurement. Save your seat and get the full State of Programmatic Advertising 2026 benchmark report when you register.

Register for the webinar →

Short-form video dominates attention across platforms. AR glasses and interactive experiences are becoming more common. Threads is growing as a real-time discussion hub, while Reddit faces saturation, and teen-focused apps are emerging. AI-generated content may reduce sharing, and algorithm opt-outs could reshape engagement.

Google is pushing back on the growing SEO practice of “content chunking”. Breaking articles into ultra-short sections to appeal to LLMs can hurt long-term search performance. Google representatives say these tactics are based on false assumptions about how Gemini and other AI systems influence rankings. Google does not reward bite-sized formatting designed for bots, and continues to rely heavily on human behavior signals like clicks and engagement to determine relevance.

Most companies ask creators to share content and get ignored. The ones that win supply the benchmarks, frameworks, and original research that creators need for their audiences. This give-first approach turns brands into upstream sources that get cited without pitching, which brings warmer leads, lower acquisition costs, and shorter sales cycles. It works only with consistent value over months.

Quarterly billing works better for products that require setup because it filters for serious buyers and reduces early churn. Removing seat limits and pricing on usage metrics increases adoption and speeds monetization when collaboration drives value. Raising prices across all plans while increasing entry tiers more, i.e., a ~27% increase vs. ~12% on higher tiers, pushes customers toward upgrades.

This course walks through how to build an LLM workflow, a low-autonomy AI agent, and an autonomous agent from scratch using n8n, a combined workflow automation and agent-building platform that can handle use cases like competitor monitoring, chatbot-style assistants, inbox workers, and multi-agent research systems.

Chris Long (Nectiv) and Josh Spilker (AirOps) will discuss how LLMs retrieve content from searches via fan outs and share real-world examples of how content changes can increase LLM mentions and citations in this free event on January 14 at 1 PM ET.

Underlining links improves usability and accessibility, even if it affects visual appeal. Google's tests showed that removing underlines reduced clicks, slowed interaction, and lowered revenue. Hover underlines had little impact and were shipped for competitive reasons. Details matter because hover states and larger targets can help recognition, while color-only links hurt performance. Accessibility standards warn against relying on color alone, since many users are colorblind and hover cues fail on touch devices.

Streaming is expanding sports marketing reach by bringing in younger viewers and boosting engagement beyond linear TV. Traditional broadcasts still deliver scale, with football driving a 20% lift in broadcast viewership and the Super Bowl reaching 127M viewers, but streaming skews younger. On Tubi, 26.2% of Super Bowl viewers were 18 to 34. Sports documentaries add momentum, with viewing minutes rising from 4.7B in 2021 to 16.9B in 2024.

Instagram argues that a “raw aesthetic” preserves authenticity, but AI already mimics those cues through UGC generators and AI influencers with large followings. As AI realism improves, audiences are growing more skeptical. Surveys show discomfort and declining trust in AI-generated content.

SEO and AEO should be measured primarily by revenue, not rankings, clicks, or traffic volume.

Most brands should avoid slang unless it naturally fits their voice and audience.

Master the funnel, goals, messaging, marketing ops, and team building.