CQL, a leading digital commerce agency and Shopify Platinum Partner, has acquired Riess Group, another Shopify Platinum Partner known for scalable omnichannel commerce solutions for brands including Warner Brothers Discovery, Stüssy, Perry Ellis, and Fashionphile. The move positions CQL as a premier agency for unified commerce, connecting digital and physical touchpoints to deliver seamless customer experiences across websites and point-of-sale (POS).

A Strategic Union in Shopify Commerce
Founded in 2006 with offices in the US and France, Riess Group brings 18 years of experience building Shopify-powered ecommerce and POS solutions. Mike Riess, Owner of Riess Group, will join CQL as VP of Unified Commerce and Managing Director of EMEA, guiding the combined agency’s unified commerce strategy.

“Unified commerce isn’t a trend—it’s the new standard. Consumers don’t think in channels. They expect one brand, one relationship, one frictionless experience,” said Dave Barr, CEO of CQL. “With Riess Group, we’re now the leading Shopify agency delivering that across every touchpoint for mid-market through enterprise brands.”

Mike Riess added, “The combination with CQL makes us the only scaled agency delivering unified commerce for mid-market to enterprise merchants. With growing demand for seamless retail experiences, we’re proud to lead these critical implementations.”

Implications for the Shopify Ecosystem
With only 12 Platinum Shopify agencies in the U.S., this merger of two top-tier partners reshapes the Shopify agency landscape. The union combines strategy, design, enterprise-level development, and POS expertise, creating a full-service solution for brands seeking cohesive experiences that span online and offline.

Kim Seabrook, Head of Enterprise at Shopify, noted, “More clients are asking for a complete solution integrating ecommerce, checkout, and POS. CQL and Riess Group together are uniquely positioned to deliver on that vision.”

The acquisition expands CQL’s capabilities in POS and unified commerce, enabling mid-market and enterprise brands to create inspired, end-to-end customer experiences while driving loyalty and growth across every touchpoint.

Klaviyo (NYSE: KVYO), the only CRM built specifically for B2C brands, today released commissioned research from Forrester Consulting highlighting a widening gap between marketing and service teams. While both groups prioritize customer retention and loyalty, fewer than one in four organizations report consistent collaboration, creating inefficiencies, wasted resources, and lost growth opportunities.

When marketing and service operate in silos, customers pay the price—bouncing between channels, repeating information, and experiencing disjointed, impersonal service. Unified platforms, however, allow teams to build on the same customer understanding across campaigns and support interactions, turning service from a cost center into a revenue driver.

Key Findings from Forrester’s Survey of 363 North American Decision-Makers:

• Top priorities aligned, but execution isn’t: 69% of leaders cite retention and loyalty as their main focus amid economic uncertainty, yet siloed systems and fragmented data hinder progress.

• Barriers to collaboration: 61% point to organizational silos, 57% to misaligned KPIs, and 52% to disconnected data.

• Technology gaps: Only 15% have the right unified tools in place, despite 66% deeming them critical. 46% struggle with disconnected platforms and 41% with fragmented data.

• Unified customer views lag: 76% say a single customer view is essential, but only 17% can achieve it.

• Personalization gap: While 82% see personalization as critical, just 11% have the tools to deliver it.

• Collaboration drives results: 61% believe joint efforts improve retention, 55% boost revenue, and 53% increase customer lifetime value.

Jamie Domenici, CMO of Klaviyo, highlighted the impact of unified data: “Take Happy Wax, a home fragrance brand. By integrating marketing and service data, they pause campaigns for customers with open issues, give service teams full context, and even deliver personalized offers. That’s the power of one platform where every interaction builds on the last.”

Klaviyo’s Data Platform underpins this approach, processing over 2 billion daily events across 7+ billion customer profiles. This unified, real-time view allows marketing and service teams to act cohesively, bridging the collaboration gap and unlocking measurable growth opportunities.

Implications for B2C Brands: As customer expectations for seamless, personalized experiences rise, brands that fail to unify marketing and service risk losing loyalty and revenue. Klaviyo’s platform exemplifies the trend toward data-driven, customer-centric CRM solutions that break down silos and turn insights into action.

Brick Marketing, the Boston-based B2B digital marketing agency with nearly two decades under its belt, just went all-in on artificial intelligence. The agency unveiled three new services—AI Marketing Solutions, AI SEO (GEO) Search Optimization, and AI Agents for Marketing—each aimed at helping businesses not only keep pace with AI-driven competitors but sharpen their own digital edge.

This is more than a feature refresh; it’s Brick Marketing staking a claim on where B2B marketing is headed. In an industry where generative AI hype often outpaces actual utility, the firm is pitching tangible use cases that promise measurable results.

AI Marketing Solutions: Smarter Decisions, Faster

The new AI Marketing Solutions offering weaves predictive analytics, content optimization, and workflow automation into daily marketing ops. The pitch is simple: use AI to analyze mountains of customer and campaign data faster than humans ever could, then layer in human strategic oversight to keep decisions aligned with business goals. The result? Better targeting, quicker pivots, and the kind of efficiency CFOs actually notice.

AI SEO (GEO): Search With Intent

SEO may be a decades-old discipline, but Brick Marketing’s AI SEO (GEO) takes a fresh stab at it. Instead of broad keyword guesswork, the platform applies AI to predict how buyers search differently depending on geography, industry, and where they are in the funnel. The promise here is sharper visibility for mid-market B2B firms looking to climb rankings both locally and globally. Competitors like Conductor and BrightEdge have already layered AI into search, but Brick Marketing’s GEO twist could appeal to firms that want intent-driven insights without enterprise-level bloat.

AI Agents: Digital Assistants for the Marketing Team

If chatbots and scheduling tools feel like old news, AI Agents for Marketing aim to go a step further. Think digital assistants that don’t just automate repetitive tasks but also analyze performance data and even handle customer interactions. By offloading tasks like campaign scheduling or lead segmentation, marketing teams can spend less time babysitting dashboards and more time on strategy and creative.

The Bigger Picture

Brick Marketing’s president, Nick Stamoulis, framed the move as a logical extension of the agency’s “fractional CMO” model, combining strategy with execution. And it’s timely: B2B marketers are under pressure to prove ROI while adapting to faster cycles of change. AI adoption isn’t optional anymore—it’s the competitive baseline.

For Brick Marketing, the bet is clear: mid-sized B2B firms may not have the budgets for in-house AI teams, but they still need AI-driven outcomes. These services aim to bridge that gap, positioning the agency somewhere between a traditional digital shop and a future-ready consultancy.

Whether the market buys in depends on execution, of course. But in a sea of vague AI promises, Brick Marketing’s three-pronged approach—practical, measurable, and integrated into existing strategies—just might stand out.

The holiday ad race is officially on, and X (formerly Twitter) wants a bigger slice of marketers’ budgets. This week, the platform launched its Holiday Marketing Hub, a resource center aimed at advertisers, publishers, and agencies gearing up for the busiest shopping stretch of the year.

Packed with creative guidelines, webinars, and even an “aesthetic scoring” system, the hub underscores a truth advertisers already know: winning the holiday season isn’t just about showing up—it’s about showing up with ads that look sharp, load fast, and speak clearly.

What’s Inside the Hub

• Webinar Series: Led by X’s ad team, the sessions cover everything from using the X pixel effectively to optimizing creative assets and tapping advanced ad features. For teams that need a crash course before peak season, it’s essentially free training on the tools.

• Creative Guidelines: The rules of thumb are blunt: keep copy between 50–100 characters, be authentic, lean into urgency—but leave the clutter behind. That means no hashtag stuffing, minimal @mentions, and definitely no emoji spam.

• Aesthetic Scoring: Perhaps the most intriguing feature, X now grades ads based on their visual polish. High scorers will see broader reach, making design quality more than just a matter of taste—it’s an algorithmic advantage.

• Visual-First Playbook: With most users scrolling on mobile, the hub pushes for mobile-optimized videos, thumb-stopping imagery, and multi-format campaigns with 3–5 creative variations to test and scale.

Why It Matters

Holiday ad spending is the Super Bowl for digital platforms, and X is jockeying to prove it can still deliver reach and performance in a fiercely competitive adtech market. The aesthetic scoring system in particular signals a shift: ad quality isn’t just about messaging anymore—it’s about how good your creative looks. That makes X’s guidance less of a “nice to have” and more of a new performance benchmark for publishers and marketers.

For advertisers, the hub could streamline creative production just in time for the holiday surge. For rivals like Meta and TikTok, it’s another reminder that X, despite its recent turbulence, is still fighting for relevance in the premium ad mix.

The Bottom Line

X’s Holiday Marketing Hub isn’t revolutionary, but it’s pragmatic. By combining creative discipline, visual quality standards, and mobile-first execution, the platform is giving brands a tactical playbook to maximize seasonal ROI. Whether marketers embrace the aesthetic scoring system—or grumble about yet another metric to optimize against—remains to be seen. But with holiday CPMs climbing, advertisers may find that following the rules is the fastest way to the top of the feed.

Adsquare is putting the real world into Amazon’s walled garden. The Berlin-based location intelligence provider has officially integrated with Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC), enabling advertisers to layer geospatial insights onto campaigns running through Amazon DSP.

For brands and agencies, the move means a deeper view of customer behavior beyond the screen—and a clearer link between ad impressions and in-store visits.

Why Location Matters in Amazon’s Ad Ecosystem

AMC already offers a clean-room environment where advertisers can combine their own data with Amazon’s signals while keeping everything privacy-safe. Now, with Adsquare’s datasets, campaigns gain a new dimension: place visits, commuting patterns, seasonal shopping behaviors, and lifestyle attributes.

That translates into more contextually relevant audience segments—think families who shop at certain malls, commuters likely to stop at QSR chains, or seasonal travelers in-market for luggage.

Measurement Moves Offline

The partnership isn’t just about targeting. Adsquare’s footfall analytics allow advertisers to measure whether a user exposed to an Amazon DSP ad actually walked into a physical store. In a landscape where ROI is often debated in impressions and clicks, tying spend to real-world conversions gives marketers something far more tangible.

Key Benefits for Marketers

• Sharper Targeting: Blend location intelligence with demographic and intent data to build high-value profiles.

• ROI You Can See: Link exposures to store visits for measurable business outcomes.

• Privacy-Safe Execution: AMC’s clean-room framework keeps insights compliant.

• Global Scale: Available across Europe, the Americas, and APAC for multiregion campaigns.

The Bigger AdTech Picture

This integration underscores a larger industry trend: programmatic isn’t just about digital reach anymore—it’s about bridging online ads with offline behavior. Rival platforms like The Trade Desk and Google have also leaned into real-world attribution, but Adsquare’s AMC tie-up gives Amazon DSP advertisers a competitive edge just as retail media spend accelerates.

Bottom Line

The Adsquare-AMC integration makes Amazon’s ad platform more powerful by fusing location data with programmatic activation and measurement. For marketers chasing omnichannel precision, it’s another sign that the line between digital engagement and physical action is blurring—and that future ad buys will increasingly be judged by real-world results, not just click-through rates.

PCI Pal®, the global SaaS provider of secure payment solutions, has tapped Kathy Varney as its new Chief Marketing Officer, signaling a push to accelerate enterprise growth and strengthen partner engagement worldwide.

Varney brings over 20 years of experience scaling B2B technology brands and leading high-performing marketing teams across SaaS, AI, and healthcare technology sectors. Her previous roles include CMO at Holon Solutions, Global Brand Marketing lead at LogMeIn (now GoTo), and Senior VP of Marketing at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

Driving Growth Through Strategic Marketing

According to CEO James Barham, Varney will spearhead PCI Pal’s expanded marketing engine and go-to-market strategies, focusing on enterprise customer acquisition and deeper engagement with channel partners. Based in the U.S., she will leverage her regional expertise to grow North American operations while supporting the company’s global expansion in EMEA and APAC.

“Joining PCI Pal at this stage of growth is incredibly energizing,” Varney said. “Organizations worldwide are prioritizing data protection and experience-driven solutions. PCI Pal’s cloud-native, partner-centric platform is more relevant than ever. I look forward to elevating our brand and supporting customer success across all regions.”

Reinforcing Global Momentum

PCI Pal’s secure payment solutions are deployed in more than 50 countries, serving some of the world’s most regulated industries, including financial services, healthcare, retail, and government. The appointment of Varney reinforces the company’s focus on partner enablement, customer-centric innovation, and long-term global growth.

With Varney at the helm of marketing, PCI Pal aims to further integrate its offerings with leading CCaaS, CRM, and payment gateway platforms, while supporting enterprise clients and AI providers seeking secure, flexible, and industry-agnostic payment solutions.

San Diego, CA – Informa TechTarget, a leading growth accelerator for the B2B tech sector, is set to spotlight the power of trust in content marketing at Content Marketing World 2025, running September 15–17. The conference, produced by the Content Marketing Institute, is the largest global gathering of content marketing professionals, offering actionable insights to navigate today’s complex B2B landscape.

Marketers today face a tough challenge: up to 95% of buyers aren’t ready to purchase at any given moment. Decisions are increasingly influenced by outside stakeholders, peer networks, and AI-generated content, making authenticity and trust critical differentiators.

The Trust Advantage: Session Highlights

Informa TechTarget leaders will present “The Trust Advantage: Content Strategy at the Intersection of Innovation & Expertise” on September 16, featuring:

• Mandi Tompkins, Head of Studio

• Travis Gonzalez, Director of Strategy, Studio

Key takeaways for session attendees include:

• The Trust Crisis: Why transparency and authenticity are now mandatory for effective B2B content.

• The Expert Advantage: How collaborations with SMEs, analysts, and media voices establish authority with buyers.

• The Innovation Imperative: Building connected content ecosystems to guide buyers through nonlinear journeys.

“At Informa TechTarget, we see firsthand how critical trust is in today’s B2B marketing landscape,” said Tompkins. “By combining our first-party audience data with authoritative content and expert voices, we give marketers the competitive advantage to cut through AI-driven noise and engage the right audiences at the right time.”

Engaging With Marketers Onsite

Attendees can visit booth #625 to explore Informa TechTarget’s solutions for accelerating growth, engaging high-value B2B audiences, and driving meaningful buyer connections.

With the rise of AI-generated content and increasingly complex buying journeys, the company’s focus on trust and expertise positions it as a critical resource for tech marketers seeking to stand out in a crowded content ecosystem.

Joe Hand Promotions, the nation’s top distributor of live sports to commercial establishments, is entering the streaming arena with the Joe Hand Promotions App, built in partnership with interactive streaming technology company Kiswe. Set to launch on October 1, the platform targets bars, restaurants, and other venues across North America.

The app combines Joe Hand Promotions’ expansive distribution network with Kiswe’s award-winning streaming expertise, offering venue operators seamless access to premium live sports. Select content will be available immediately upon launch, with additional programming rolling out over time.

Maintaining Flexibility for Venues

While the new app represents a digital-first approach, Joe Hand Promotions continues to deliver content via DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS, cable, and traditional streaming platforms, ensuring operators can choose the delivery method that works best for their location. This hybrid model reinforces the company’s commitment to service, convenience, and customer choice.

“This collaboration ensures optionality for our customers in the hospitality industry,” said Joe Hand Jr., President of Joe Hand Promotions. “We are the only company in the commercial space that can offer venue operators the very best live sports experience in a simple, scalable way. Together with Kiswe and our partners across DIRECTV and cable platforms, we’re raising the bar for communal viewing.”

Transforming the Commercial Viewing Experience

Glenn Booth, CEO of Kiswe, highlighted the partnership’s industry impact: “We are thrilled to partner with Joe Hand Promotions to launch this groundbreaking commercial distribution service. This collaboration brings fans closer to the content they love on every screen and fundamentally transforms the commercial viewing experience for the digital age.”

The Joe Hand Promotions App reflects a broader trend in hospitality-focused streaming, giving bars and restaurants new tools to enhance customer engagement, streamline operations, and deliver premium live sports experiences in a mobile-first era.