Consumers are opening their wallets this holiday season—but they’re not opening their inboxes to just anything.

According to the Optimove Insights 2025 Consumer Holiday Shopping Report, nearly half (48%) of consumers plan to boost their holiday shopping budgets this year, offering a promising outlook for retailers. But there’s a catch: 84% of shoppers are worried about tariffs, 80% are concerned about inflation, and 82% admit to unsubscribing from marketing emails while shopping online.

In short, people are spending—but they’re also skeptical, overloaded, and demanding more from brands than ever before.

Shoppers Are Spending More—Just Not Waiting for November to Do It

The research, based on a July 2025 survey of 345 U.S. consumers aged 21 and up (with household incomes of $75K+), outlines a major shift in behavior and timing:

• 64% will begin holiday shopping before Halloween

• 88% prefer early offers from brands

• 66% are still discount-driven, but 81% prioritize overall price-value

The 2025 season will start earlier and require more from marketers—not just in volume, but in speed and strategy.

And brands that bombard inboxes with irrelevant campaigns? They’ll pay the price. Nearly half of consumers report fatigue from holiday marketing before November even starts.

Positionless Marketing: Why Traditional Campaign Models Won’t Cut It Anymore

To meet this changing landscape, Optimove is pushing a marketing framework it calls Positionless Marketing—a model that strips away cross-departmental dependencies and empowers marketers to act on real-time customer signals themselves.

“Traditional, assembly-line marketing is too slow for today’s consumer,” said Rony Vexelman, VP of Marketing at Optimove. “If you’re waiting on analysts or creative teams, you’re already late.”

Marketers embracing Positionless Marketing can:

• Instantly access customer data

• Personalize messages based on behavior or preference

• Launch multichannel campaigns in minutes instead of days

Some Optimove clients are cutting campaign launch time from five days to five minutes—a competitive edge when shopping behaviors are shifting by the hour.

The New Mandate: Empathy + Speed + Precision

The report doesn’t just flag problems—it offers strategies. To connect with a more value-conscious and digitally fatigued audience, Optimove recommends a three-pronged approach:

1. Lead With Empathy and Value
   Price remains the top driver, but tone and timing matter. Transparent, financially sensitive messaging resonates more than flashy discounts.

2. Personalize With Purpose
   With 63% of shoppers ignoring most emails, personalization needs to go beyond name tags. Marketers must use behavioral and preference data to drive actual relevance.

3. Act in Real Time
   Trends change quickly, and delays cost money. Real-time responsiveness—enabled by Positionless Marketing—keeps campaigns aligned with consumer sentiment, product shifts, and competitive pricing.

A Holiday Marketing Wake-Up Call

If there’s one takeaway from the 2025 Optimove report, it’s this: the winners this season won’t just offer better deals—they’ll offer better timing, better targeting, and better understanding.

As Vexelman put it, “The brands that succeed this year will be the ones that stop waiting and not only respond to, but anticipate customers’ needs.”

With consumer budgets rising and patience shrinking, the challenge isn’t whether shoppers will spend—it’s whether marketers can keep up.

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6sense, the AI-powered revenue marketing platform credited with turning complex B2B sales into a more data-driven science, just made a decisive move to cement its leadership. The company today announced three strategic hires: Tim O’Neil as Chief Sales Officer, Amir Ravandoust as Chief Operating Officer, and Raj Gupta as Chief Development Officer.

Each brings a different kind of muscle to a company riding the wave of AI’s infiltration into go-to-market (GTM) strategy. These appointments come as 6sense pushes to deepen its AI capabilities and expand globally while competitors race to pivot from fragmented marketing tools to smarter, more unified platforms.

“We’re building the company that sets the standard for world-class revenue performance,” said CEO Jason Zintak. “That means great tech and a team that can lead a market in transformation.”

The Why Behind the Who

Let’s be clear: This isn’t a reshuffle. It’s a playbook upgrade.

6sense is seeing customer outcomes that speak volumes—4x higher win rates, 2x larger deal sizes, and 20–40% faster sales cycles. It’s also been crowned a Leader by both Forrester and Gartner for its account-based and revenue marketing prowess.

But what really sets the stage here is a growing market hunger for connected, intelligent GTM ecosystems. The rise of “Revenue AI” as a category signals that B2B sales and marketing teams are no longer willing to fly blind with scattered tools.

Enter the new leadership trio:

• Tim O’Neil, Chief Sales Officer: With experience at ThoughtSpot, Alation, and Bynder, Tim’s known for translating analytics into action. He’ll lead global sales with an eye on enterprise expansion and smarter customer relationships.

• Amir Ravandoust, Chief Operating Officer: Previously at Alteryx and Marigold, Amir will bring a surgeon’s precision to internal operations, ensuring the company’s rapid scaling doesn’t compromise agility.

• Raj Gupta, Chief Development Officer: With stints at Oracle, Cyara, and Cogito, Raj’s focus will be AI and platform innovation—especially advancing 6sense’s Signalverse™, the intelligence layer powering its predictive insights.

Industry Context: Revenue Intelligence or Bust

This move fits a broader trend where tech vendors—from Salesforce to startups—are converging around revenue intelligence. The difference? 6sense is betting heavily on AI agents and automation that proactively guide GTM teams, rather than merely serving up dashboards.

That’s a bold bet in a market fatigued by overhyped “AI” tools that underdeliver. But if the new exec team can execute, 6sense may become the template for AI-driven revenue teams.

What This Means for B2B Marketers and Sellers

For users, this could mean faster onboarding, more personalized outreach strategies, and stronger pipeline predictability. And for the industry? Expect a sharper pivot toward AI-native, not AI-retrofitted, GTM solutions.

As Zintak put it, “The B2B landscape is changing fast... These leaders will help us scale smarter, move faster, and lead the market forward.”

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Marketing tools aren’t in short supply—but coherence, clarity, and leverage often are. Enter Glue, a new AI-powered workspace from MindLight Tech Inc., launched today with a bold promise: turn one marketer into a full-stack growth team.

Calling itself the “Cursor for revenue,” Glue is designed to replace the bloated and fragmented marketing stack B2C brands have long tolerated. Rather than forcing teams to juggle a dozen tools and freelancers, Glue offers a single intelligent interface where campaigns are ideated, launched, optimized, and scaled—all with minimal human bottleneck.

Beyond Another Martech Wrapper

Unlike typical "wrappers" that stitch together existing tools, Glue is a ground-up, full-stack platform. It integrates key marketing functions—campaign orchestration, ad creative generation, landing page testing, lifecycle automation, and predictive analytics—into one tightly unified experience.

Co-founder and technical architect Nicket Uttarwar put it bluntly:

“Marketers aren’t short on tools—they’re short on leverage. Glue replaces chaos with clarity.”

That clarity stems from what Glue calls its agentic architecture—an AI framework that dynamically assembles best-in-class models and data pipelines to run and refine full-funnel campaigns. Instead of toggling between Shopify dashboards, Meta Ads interfaces, and Google Sheets, marketers work within a single, always-learning workspace.

Engineering for Marketers

If this sounds more like software for developers than marketers, that’s no accident. Glue takes cues from tools like Cursor and VSCode, rethinking the marketing workflow from a developer’s perspective. The result? A workspace that feels more like an intelligent IDE than a spreadsheet-heavy dashboard.

And it’s not just about convenience. According to early users:

• Revenue grew 3x via AI-orchestrated campaign execution

• Marketing ROI jumped 10x

• Setup and testing time dropped 90%

In Glue’s interface, marketers can simulate campaigns before spending, generate conversion-focused creatives on the fly, and analyze outcomes in real time—all from a conversational UI that responds like a teammate, not a tool.

Built for DTC, Ready for Scale

Glue is laser-focused on modern DTC and ecommerce operators, especially teams running lean. With native integrations into Shopify, Meta Ads, Google Ads, Klaviyo, and other performance platforms, Glue ingests first-party and performance data to forecast outcomes and adapt strategies without manual guesswork.

And while its ambition is lofty—streamlining the entirety of revenue marketing for B2C brands—it’s precisely the kind of market disruption the martech space has been hungry for. In an environment where tools outnumber outcomes, Glue’s unified, intelligent workspace could offer a powerful alternative to Frankenstack fatigue.

A Marketing OS in the Making?

As more marketing teams chase leaner, faster, and AI-enhanced operations, tools like Glue are poised to define a new category. Much like Notion did for documentation or Figma for design collaboration, Glue aims to own the operating system for revenue growth.

Whether that promise scales across verticals or stays niche remains to be seen—but for B2C marketers looking to escape the labyrinth of disconnected dashboards, Glue might just stick.

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If your sales team is chasing more meetings and stuffing the pipeline to hit quota, it might be time to pause and rethink the strategy. According to the newly released 2025 Ebsta Sales Qualification Report, the real revenue driver isn't hustle—it's discipline.

Analyzing over 655,000 B2B opportunities worth $48 billion, Ebsta found that well-qualified deals are 6.3 times more likely to close and close an average of 21.6% faster than poorly qualified ones. That kind of efficiency isn't just a nice-to-have in a resource-constrained environment—it's mission critical.

“Qualification isn't a one-time gate,” said Guy Rubin, CEO of Ebsta. “It’s a dynamic, ongoing process that shapes every stage of the deal.”

Yet despite the data, sales orgs are often flying blind. Only 36% of deals that pass Discovery include a qualification score and supporting notes. That’s not just sloppy—it’s setting up teams for forecasting errors, longer sales cycles, and wasted effort.

Key Takeaways from the Report:

• Win rates jump to 50% for highly qualified deals vs. just 8% for weakly qualified ones.

• Well-qualified deals are nearly 2x less likely to slip past their forecasted close date.

• Top-performing teams disqualify faster, manage nearly twice the pipeline, and keep deals moving.

• Weak qualification correlates strongly with slippage, no decisions, and late-stage churn.

Warren Zenna, Founder of The CRO Collective, cuts to the heart of the issue:

“The goal of qualification isn't to weed out bad deals. It's to unify the org around what a good deal actually looks like.”

That clarity creates organizational alignment and, more importantly, predictable growth.

Sales Rooms, Champions, and Shorter Cycles

Beyond scorecards and notes, the report also features tactical gems from sales leaders like Ollie Sharpe (CRO, trumpet), who notes that:

“When your champion shares a sales room internally at least twice, the sales cycle shortens by an average of 15%.”

That's a simple signal that many RevOps teams overlook—internal champion engagement is a better predictor of momentum than most CRM fields.

Implications for CROs and RevOps Leaders

This report isn’t just another data dump—it’s a wake-up call for Chief Revenue Officers and sales enablement pros. Ebsta recommends doubling down on rigorous qualification frameworks like MEDDPICC, not just in early Discovery, but throughout the entire deal cycle.

Why? Because qualification rigor is a leading indicator of:

• Forecasting accuracy

• Coaching effectiveness

• Pipeline velocity

In short: Get qualification right, and everything else starts to align.

As the economy continues to pressure B2B sales teams to do more with less, this study from Ebsta makes one thing clear: Discipline is the new growth hack.

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In the always-on world of policymaking, catching a whisper before it becomes law can make or break an advocacy strategy. FiscalNote just made that a whole lot easier.

The AI-powered policy intelligence company today launched a new social media listening capability within PolicyNote, its flagship platform for tracking government action. The tool allows users to monitor real-time social posts and conversations from federal and state lawmakers on platforms including X (formerly Twitter), Truth Social, and Bluesky, as well as editorial insights from FiscalNote's CQ News.

It's not just about noise. It’s about signal.

“Policies can change quickly, and the earliest signals often surface long before a bill is introduced,” said Josh Resnik, CEO & President of FiscalNote. “PolicyNote’s social listening acts as an early-warning system, surfacing those first murmurs before they become mandates.”

Social Intel Meets Legislative Workflows

The feature is built directly into PolicyNote’s existing dashboard, creating a seamless link between legislative analysis and public sentiment. It doesn’t just track mentions—it interprets them. Using AI personalization, the assistant tailors alerts to fit the organization’s top priorities—be it specific lawmakers, key products, or rival companies.

Whether a legislator is floating new tax reforms on X or hinting at tech regulation on Bluesky, users get alerted fast—well before traditional tracking tools would notice. The tool also pinpoints emerging voices, sentiment trends, and issue framing that can help teams get ahead of the curve.

This marks a smart evolution for PolicyNote, which already combines legislative data, regulatory updates, and CQ News reporting. Now, users can connect the dots between what lawmakers say online and what they file on the floor—all in one place.

Why This Matters

Traditionally, social listening in the policy world has been fragmented, slow, and reactive. Advocacy and public affairs teams have had to jump between platforms or pay for third-party monitoring systems that weren’t designed for legislative intelligence.

PolicyNote closes that gap.

The platform now gives policy professionals the tools to:

• Detect sentiment shifts and topic surges in real time

• Receive personalized alerts tailored to their mission

• Track public conversations about their org or sector

• Spot new stakeholders or influential voices early

• Refine advocacy messaging based on real-world chatter

In a landscape where lawmakers now tweet before they legislate, FiscalNote is betting that real-time social insights will become essential for public affairs, government relations, and policy teams.

With this rollout, the company further positions itself at the intersection of AI, media monitoring, and government intelligence—a space that’s rapidly heating up as agencies and enterprises scramble for faster, smarter insight into policymaking.

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Veza Digital, one of the fastest-growing Webflow agencies in the B2B and SaaS space, is doubling down on its ambitions. The company has acquired Hedrick, a boutique Webflow studio known for pixel-perfect builds, clean design systems, and founder-led finesse. It’s a calculated move—one that puts added creative force and operational rigor behind Veza’s mission to be the go-to Webflow agency for startups and enterprises alike.

“We were immediately aligned,” said Veza CEO Stefan Katanic. “Hedrick's attention to detail and streamlined execution model gives us the speed and clarity we need to serve growth-focused teams at scale.”

What’s New: Strategy Meets Execution

This is Veza Digital’s second acquisition in its current expansion cycle—and arguably the most strategic. Hedrick, founded by Cole Ryan, made a name for itself building sleek Webflow experiences for early-stage startups. With Cole staying on in a strategic advisory role, Veza isn’t just acquiring talent—it’s banking on experience and reputation.

More than a team add, this acquisition brings:

• Expanded creative firepower across brand and UX

• Faster Webflow delivery pipelines for client launches

• Increased depth in conversion-focused infrastructure

• Stronger positioning in funded SaaS and B2B verticals

The implications are clear: Veza is not trying to be just another design agency—it wants to become the infrastructure layer for Webflow-powered growth.

The Bigger Picture

Webflow has been gaining steam among startups and digital-first B2B platforms looking for faster deployment without compromising on design. Veza’s aggressive expansion strategy is tapping into that demand, aiming to offer full-stack support—from brand to build to go-to-market execution.

While other players in the Webflow space scale slowly or stick to design-only offerings, Veza is positioning itself as a compound growth engine: part agency, part infrastructure partner.

And with Hedrick’s founder staying involved, the acquisition avoids the usual “culture clash” trap that derails many creative mergers.

Veza Digital’s acquisition of Hedrick signals more than just growth—it’s a stake in the ground for leadership in a platform-driven agency model. If you're a SaaS startup or a B2B venture betting on Webflow, this new combo might just be the most streamlined path from MVP to market traction.

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One of the largest independent PR firms in the U.S., 5WPR is rewriting the rules of consumer public relations. In a bold shift, the agency has introduced a new communications framework that links earned media directly to e-commerce outcomes, signaling a broader move toward measurable, conversion-oriented storytelling.

This isn’t just a strategy refresh. It’s a recognition that the age-old goal of “brand awareness” has evolved into a more complex equation—where visibility, trust, and purchase intent must work in tandem. And in today’s digital economy, PR has more skin in the sales game than ever.

PR That Pulls Its Weight in the Funnel

5WPR’s retooled approach merges the charm of traditional media engagement with the muscle of performance marketing. Their consumer team is now laser-focused on helping clients turn press wins into sales wins—whether in direct-to-consumer (DTC) storefronts or retail channels.

“Awareness is no longer enough,” said Leigh Ann Ambrosi, Managing Partner and EVP, CPG & Lifestyle at 5WPR. “Media coverage must influence both perception and purchase.”

That philosophy powers their fusion of narrative development, earned media outreach, and calls to action that support the full customer journey—from discovery to conversion.

AI, Authority, and the New Influence Equation

An increasingly AI-driven search environment is adding urgency to this model. With voice assistants and AI-generated answers relying on authoritative third-party sources, media coverage is becoming more than a brand’s vanity metric—it’s a path to digital discoverability.

Earned media from credible publications often carries more weight in AI rankings than paid ads or brand content. That makes strong media relationships and high-quality storytelling not just PR gold, but search strategy essentials.

From Headlines to Checkout: A Full-Funnel Philosophy

5WPR’s updated PR engine is designed to work seamlessly across the entire marketing funnel. The agency doesn’t stop at buzz—they’re aligning PR with paid social, influencer campaigns, and conversion-focused digital efforts to squeeze more ROI out of every feature and mention.

Each campaign comes with custom performance tracking, measuring both visibility and the bottom-line impact—be it clicks, conversions, or retail lift.

The move also mirrors a larger industry trend: brands are demanding authentic content that doesn’t just make noise but drives behavior. And as audiences grow more skeptical, traditional ad formats often fall flat. That leaves room for story-led PR to shine—as long as it’s smart, strategic, and optimized for action.

Walking the Walk

5WPR’s consumer division has already steered success for heavyweights in food & beverage, beauty, wellness, home goods, parenting, and more. With this reimagined framework, the agency aims to future-proof PR—ensuring it remains a growth driver in a commerce-first, algorithm-filtered world.

And if the playbook works as promised, don’t be surprised if other firms rush to follow.

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Spreetail’s Price Pulse Turns Up the Heat on Marketplace Pricing

The race for ecommerce dominance just got a bit more tactical. Spreetail, a leading ecommerce marketplace accelerator, has unveiled Price Pulse, a predictive pricing engine that aims to help brands win the Buy Box—and do it without playing a self-destructive game of discount chicken.

Unlike traditional repricers that rely on aggressive undercutting, Price Pulse is engineered for strategy, not desperation. It uses AI to factor in real-time seasonal trends, inventory awareness across channels, and billions of dollars in marketplace data to power smarter, more dynamic pricing.

The result? Brands can now respond to market shifts with agility—boosting visibility, conversions, and share of shelf—without bleeding profit.

From Price Wars to Precision Pricing

"Price Pulse gives brands a competitive edge by optimizing for market share gain, not just price,” said Kyle Kaluza, SVP of Operations at Spreetail. “Pricing can’t happen in a vacuum—brands need to understand the competitive landscape and act quickly to outmaneuver rivals.”

The tool analyzes how marketplace algorithms like Amazon’s Buy Box operate, folding in factors that influence ranking beyond just pricing—inventory velocity, promotion history, and channel-wide stock levels.

It’s also integrated with Spreetail’s promotion engine, enabling seamless coordination of flash sales and seasonal offers—without slipping into the trap of over-discounting. That’s particularly useful for maintaining low out-of-stock (OOS) rates and climbing up organic rankings.

Part of a Bigger Smart Shelf Strategy

Price Pulse isn’t just a standalone solution—it’s the newest member of Spreetail’s expanding Smart Shelf suite, a collection of tools designed to make brands sharper, faster, and more effective across digital shelves.

It follows June’s release of Listing Doctor, an AI-powered listing optimizer that diagnoses and fixes underperforming product pages. With several new tools already in the pipeline, Spreetail is positioning itself as a one-stop shop for brands chasing ecommerce excellence at scale.

And here’s the kicker: Price Pulse is free for Spreetail partners, further sweetening the deal for brands aiming to expand across major marketplaces.

Smarter Pricing, Better Margins, Real Growth

With Buy Box capture rates at an all-time high for Spreetail, Price Pulse is already proving to be more than a fancy algorithm. It’s a strategic lever—one that gives brands real-time intelligence to adjust pricing, maintain momentum, and fend off pricing pressure without sacrificing margin.

In a market where every click matters and margins are constantly squeezed, Price Pulse might just be the quiet power tool that lets brands outsmart instead of outspend.

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