Attentive is doubling down on a simple but increasingly critical idea: in modern marketing, identity starts on mobile—even when shopping doesn’t.

The omnichannel marketing platform announced a major expansion of its patented two-tap™ technology, extending it from mobile-only flows to desktop shopping experiences for mobile subscribers. At the same time, Attentive rolled out a slate of new tools designed to help brands navigate tightening platform rules, shifting inbox behavior, and rising expectations for personalization across SMS, email, and beyond.

Together, the updates signal a clear strategic bet: as inbox filtering, privacy controls, and AI-driven experiences reshape digital marketing, brands that own durable, mobile-first customer relationships will have a structural advantage.

Why two-tap on desktop matters now

Two-tap™ has long been one of Attentive’s signature differentiators. The patented technology lets consumers subscribe to SMS marketing with minimal friction—typically two quick taps on their phone—dramatically increasing opt-in rates compared to traditional forms.

Until now, that experience lived primarily on mobile. But consumer behavior has changed. Shoppers increasingly browse on desktop at work or at home, then complete purchases—or engage with brands—on mobile.

By extending two-tap™ to desktop via a QR-based opt-in flow, Attentive is targeting a common blind spot in ecommerce: high-intent web traffic that never converts into a lasting, owned relationship.

Instead of asking desktop shoppers to fill out forms or remember to opt in later, brands can now prompt them to scan a QR code and instantly subscribe on their phone. The result is a cleaner handoff between devices—and a higher-quality subscriber entering the brand’s mobile ecosystem.

“Expanding two-tap™ to desktop increases the surface area for list growth and strengthens the long-term value of brands’ owned audiences,” said Nakul Narayan, Attentive’s Chief Product Officer.

Mobile identity over channel-first marketing

The two-tap expansion reflects a broader shift in how Attentive sees the market. Rather than treating SMS, email, push, and ads as separate channels, the company is positioning mobile identity—the phone number and its associated signals—as the connective tissue across the customer journey.

“Platform changes and shifting consumer habits are forcing marketing into a new era that favors mobile-first identity,” said Eric Miao, Attentive’s Chief Strategy Officer.

That framing is notable. As cookies fade, inbox algorithms tighten, and paid acquisition costs rise, first-party data has become the most valuable asset a brand can own. Attentive’s pitch is that mobile—specifically SMS—offers the most direct, resilient path to capturing and activating that data.

iOS inbox filtering raises the stakes

The timing of these updates is no accident. Apple’s continued evolution of iOS inbox behavior has made message visibility less predictable, particularly for promotional content.

According to Attentive’s internal data, messages routed into filtered inbox experiences can suffer 30–40% lower clickthrough and conversion rates. Combine that with the reality that 81% of consumers ignore irrelevant messages, and the margin for error gets thin fast.

To address this, Attentive introduced new inbox visibility tools that help brands identify messages at risk of filtering and apply proactive mitigations before performance drops. While the company hasn’t disclosed the exact mechanics, the focus is on preserving deliverability without resorting to volume-driven tactics that erode trust.

This aligns with a broader industry trend: inbox providers are increasingly rewarding relevance, consistency, and compliance over raw send frequency.

Compliance without the operational headache

Alongside visibility, compliance is becoming more complex—especially for brands operating across regions with different quiet-hour rules and consent requirements.

Attentive’s new capabilities aim to reduce that burden through automation rather than manual configuration. Key additions include:

• Automated state-level quiet hours, reducing the risk of sending messages at non-compliant times

• Improved location detection, minimizing operational lift for distributed audiences

• Audience size controls, helping marketers balance reach, budget, and performance

These features reflect a reality many teams face: compliance failures are rarely strategic—they’re operational. Automating guardrails allows marketers to move faster without increasing risk.

AI shifts from novelty to workflow engine

AI also plays a larger role in Attentive’s latest updates, but with a practical tilt. Rather than positioning AI as a creative replacement, the platform is using it to compress time-to-value.

New AI-driven features include:

• AI email template generation for faster, on-brand creation

• AI-powered campaign and journey enhancements to test, learn, and optimize with less manual effort

• Workflow intelligence that adapts messaging across SMS, email, push, ads, and loyalty integrations like Yotpo

The emphasis here is efficiency. As marketing teams are asked to do more with fewer resources, AI that reduces setup and iteration time is becoming table stakes.

Bridging online and offline experiences

Attentive also introduced barcode generation for email, allowing brands to connect digital campaigns to in-store experiences without custom HTML. While not flashy, it addresses a persistent challenge for omnichannel retailers: tying online engagement to physical-world behavior.

In an era where attribution is increasingly probabilistic, even small improvements in online-to-offline linkage can unlock more confident decision-making.

Proof points from the field

For brands already using two-tap™, the expansion to desktop builds on proven results. TeePublic and Redbubble report that Attentive’s approach has driven roughly 2x higher opt-in rates, a meaningful lift as inbox filtering and sender trust become stricter.

That kind of performance matters less for vanity metrics and more for durability. High-intent subscribers are more likely to engage, convert, and stick around—exactly the signals platforms reward.

The bigger MarTech picture

Attentive’s announcement highlights a broader recalibration underway in MarTech. Growth is no longer about adding more channels; it’s about owning fewer, stronger relationships and activating them intelligently.

As platform rules harden and consumers become more selective, frictionless consent, inbox visibility, and relevance aren’t optimizations—they’re prerequisites.

By extending two-tap™ beyond mobile screens and reinforcing its platform with compliance and AI-driven workflows, Attentive is betting that the future of personalization isn’t louder marketing. It’s smarter, more respectful, and rooted in identity brands truly own.

For marketers navigating mobile’s next era, that distinction may define who keeps their reach—and who slowly loses it.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Rocket Doctor AI Inc., a physician-built digital health company operating at the intersection of artificial intelligence and virtual care, is stepping up its market visibility.

The company (CSE: AIDR; OTC: AIRDF; Frankfurt: 939) announced it has engaged Vancouver-based Danayi Capital Corp. to provide digital marketing services over a two-month period starting February 9, 2026. The agreement comes with an upfront payment of USD $125,000 and is focused on online investor outreach and digital advertising via WallStreetLogic.com.

While short in duration, the move signals a broader push by Rocket Doctor AI to sharpen its narrative with investors and the market—particularly as competition intensifies across AI-enabled healthcare platforms.

A targeted marketing push, not a speculative play

According to the company, Danayi will operate strictly as a third-party service provider. The firm holds no direct or indirect ownership in Rocket Doctor AI or its securities, and all parties are described as operating at arm’s length.

That distinction matters. In today’s small-cap and emerging-tech markets, marketing engagements often attract scrutiny from regulators and investors alike. Rocket Doctor’s disclosure—covering Danayi’s compensation, scope of work, and lack of equity interest—reads like a preemptive move to reinforce transparency.

The marketing effort will focus on digital campaigns and online advertising, an increasingly common tactic among health-tech firms looking to stand out in crowded capital markets without resorting to splashy product announcements.

Equity incentives signal continued reliance on external expertise

Alongside the marketing engagement, Rocket Doctor AI also disclosed new equity compensation grants to consultants.

The company issued:

• 33,353 stock options, exercisable at $0.77 per share, with a three-year term

• 205,065 restricted share units (RSUs), also valid for three years

Both the options and RSUs vest over one year and were granted under the company’s existing share compensation plans.

While modest in size, the grants point to Rocket Doctor’s ongoing reliance on external consultants—a common approach among growth-stage AI and healthcare firms balancing speed, specialization, and cost control. Rather than expanding headcount aggressively, many companies in this space are opting for flexible, incentive-aligned expertise.

Why this matters in the AI health market

Digital health is no longer just about virtual visits. The sector is shifting toward AI-powered decision support, automation, and scalable care delivery—areas where Rocket Doctor AI is positioning itself aggressively.

At the center of the company’s technology stack is its Global Library of Medicine (GLM), a clinically validated AI decision-support system developed with input from hundreds of physicians worldwide. Unlike consumer-facing symptom checkers, GLM is positioned as a professional-grade tool designed to support clinical judgment rather than replace it.

That physician-first framing is increasingly important. As regulators and healthcare systems scrutinize AI tools for safety and bias, platforms built with direct clinician involvement are gaining credibility over black-box alternatives.

Beyond AI: a full-stack virtual care platform

Rocket Doctor AI’s ambitions extend beyond algorithms. Through Rocket Doctor Inc., the company operates an AI-powered digital health platform and marketplace designed to help physicians launch and manage independent virtual or hybrid practices.

To date, the platform has supported:

• 300+ licensed physicians

• 700,000+ patient visits

The value proposition is straightforward but timely: reduce administrative burden, restore physician autonomy, and expand patient access—particularly in underserved regions.

In Canada, that means rural and remote communities with limited access to family doctors. In the U.S., it includes patients covered by Medicaid and Medicare, where provider shortages and reimbursement complexity often limit care options.

Marketing meets mission

The decision to invest in digital marketing comes as healthcare AI companies face a dual challenge: proving clinical value while also communicating that value clearly to investors, partners, and regulators.

Rocket Doctor AI’s technology story—AI decision support, large language models, connected medical devices—sits squarely within some of the most hyped (and scrutinized) areas of modern healthcare. Cutting through the noise requires not just innovation, but disciplined messaging.

By engaging Danayi Capital for a defined, short-term campaign, Rocket Doctor appears to be testing how targeted digital outreach can amplify its story without overcommitting resources.

A crowded field with rising stakes

Rocket Doctor AI is far from alone in this race. Teladoc, Amwell, and a wave of AI-native startups are all vying to define the next generation of virtual care. Meanwhile, Big Tech continues to circle healthcare with AI-powered tools, raising the bar for differentiation.

In that context, visibility matters. Not just with patients or providers, but with capital markets increasingly selective about which AI narratives they believe.

The company’s recent disclosures suggest a strategy focused on incremental execution rather than headline-grabbing moves—tight marketing windows, measured equity incentives, and a steady emphasis on physician-led design.

The takeaway

Rocket Doctor AI’s engagement of Danayi Capital may not be transformative on its own, but it reflects a broader reality of the AI healthcare market in 2026: innovation alone isn’t enough. Companies must also prove credibility, transparency, and momentum.

As AI continues to reshape healthcare delivery, the winners are likely to be those that balance technical ambition with disciplined growth—and know how to tell that story clearly.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

As AI-powered search engines increasingly reshape how information is discovered, marketers are running into a new problem: they can’t see what’s actually influencing AI-generated answers. Today, Stacker believes it has a fix.

The earned media distribution platform announced a strategic partnership with Scrunch that brings AI search visibility and citation reporting directly into the Stacker platform. The integration aims to help brands understand how third-party placements—news articles, syndicated content, and other earned mentions—affect their visibility and authority inside AI search tools.

That’s a growing concern as tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and Perplexity pull from a mix of owned, earned, and third-party sources to generate responses. While marketers have plenty of data on how their own websites perform, what happens off-site has largely remained a black box.

Why earned media matters more in AI search

Traditional SEO rewards well-structured owned content. AI search, however, plays by different rules. Large language models tend to favor signals of credibility—citations, brand mentions, and authoritative third-party sources—often outside a brand’s direct control.

Most AI visibility platforms today focus on owned content discovery: whether a brand’s site is cited, summarized, or referenced in AI-generated responses. That approach misses a key piece of the puzzle: earned media.

Stacker’s core value proposition has always been earned reach—distributing brand stories across trusted publishers to generate third-party credibility. Scrunch, meanwhile, tracks how brands appear in AI search prompts, responses, and citations. Together, the companies are attempting to connect those dots.

The result is a unified view of how distributed stories and earned placements influence AI-driven discovery.

What the Stacker–Scrunch integration actually does

Once integrated, Scrunch’s AI search analytics will be embedded inside the Stacker platform. Customers will be able to track:

• AI prompt responses where their brand appears

• Brand mentions and citations in AI-generated answers

• The role third-party URLs play in AI visibility

• How earned placements compare to owned channels in shaping AI authority

Unlike standalone AI search tools, the Stacker integration adds context—linking AI visibility data directly to specific earned media placements and distribution campaigns.

For marketers trying to justify earned media spend, that connection is critical.

“AI search rewards credibility, and credibility is increasingly built outside your owned channels,” said Noah Greenberg, CEO of Stacker. “We’ve seen anecdotally how distributing owned content across third-party publications can directly impact AI search visibility, but nothing provided a comprehensive reporting solution for isolating the impact of earned media.”

In other words, this turns gut instinct into measurable insight.

Closing a major measurement gap

The partnership highlights a broader industry shift. As AI-generated answers replace traditional blue-link search results, marketers are being forced to rethink what “visibility” even means.

Clicks are declining. Attribution is fuzzier. And influence increasingly comes from being cited, summarized, or referenced—sometimes without a user ever visiting a brand’s site.

Scrunch CEO Chris Andrew framed the problem bluntly.

“If you are not showing up in AI search, it’s because there’s a gap between knowing which sources impact visibility and the ability to grow your brand presence in said sources at scale,” he said.

By pairing Scrunch’s AI monitoring with Stacker’s earned distribution engine, the companies aim to close that loop—showing not just where brands appear, but why they appear there.

How this compares to other AI visibility tools

The AI search analytics space is crowded but fragmented. Tools like Profound, BrandRank, and other emerging platforms track brand mentions in AI outputs, but most stop short of tying that visibility back to specific marketing activities.

Stacker’s approach stands out because it starts with distribution. Rather than treating AI visibility as an abstract metric, it ties performance to concrete earned placements—news articles, data-driven stories, and publisher syndication.

That could give communications and content teams a clearer path from action to outcome, especially as budgets tighten and leadership demands proof of impact.

Implications for PR, content, and SEO teams

This integration also blurs the traditional lines between PR, content marketing, and SEO.

AI search doesn’t care which team produced a piece of content—it cares about authority, context, and credibility. Earned media, long treated as a brand awareness play, is becoming a direct input into search visibility.

For PR teams, that elevates the strategic value of third-party placements. For SEO teams, it signals that optimizing owned pages alone is no longer enough. And for content teams, it reinforces the importance of stories designed to travel beyond a brand’s website.

Rollout timeline and availability

The Scrunch-powered AI Search Insights integration is scheduled to begin rolling out to Stacker customers in March 2026. While pricing and packaging details haven’t been disclosed, the feature will be embedded within the existing Stacker platform rather than offered as a standalone add-on.

That positioning suggests Stacker sees AI visibility not as a bolt-on metric, but as a core part of earned media strategy going forward.

The bigger picture

As AI search becomes the default interface for information discovery, marketers face an uncomfortable truth: influence is increasingly earned elsewhere.

The Stacker–Scrunch partnership reflects a broader recalibration happening across MarTech. Measurement frameworks built for websites and clicks are giving way to systems that track authority, citations, and presence across the wider information ecosystem.

For brands navigating that transition, visibility into earned media’s role in AI search may soon be less of a nice-to-have—and more of a survival skill.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Campaign Monitor is making a clear bet on practical AI—not flashy automation for its own sake, but tools designed to help small and mid-sized businesses actually make better email marketing decisions.

The company has announced three new AI-powered features—Marketing Monitor, Segment Mapper, and AI Email Booster—aimed at giving marketers always-on guidance directly inside the platform. The goal: reduce guesswork, shorten optimization cycles, and help lean teams improve results without changing how they work.

Marketing Monitor is already live for customers, while Segment Mapper and AI Email Booster roll out on January 28.

AI as an In-App Marketing Partner, Not a Black Box

Campaign Monitor’s new features are positioned less as autonomous AI and more as a built-in marketing advisor—surfacing insights, recommendations, and next steps without forcing users to hand over control.

That distinction matters. Many SMB marketers are surrounded by dashboards and metrics but lack clarity on what to act on next. Campaign Monitor’s approach focuses on turning data into direction.

Together, the three features cover the core email marketing loop: performance analysis, audience targeting, and campaign optimization.

Marketing Monitor: Performance With Context

Marketing Monitor tackles one of email marketing’s biggest blind spots: knowing whether your results are actually good.

The feature benchmarks campaign performance against relevant industry standards, adding context to metrics like opens, clicks, and engagement. Instead of just showing numbers, it highlights where marketers should focus next—helping teams prioritize fixes that will have the most impact.

For SMBs without analysts or dedicated optimization teams, this kind of guidance can dramatically speed up decision-making.

Segment Mapper: Audience Building Without the Technical Headaches

Segment Mapper lowers the barrier to advanced targeting by letting marketers describe their audience goals in plain language. The AI then translates that intent into usable audience segments inside Campaign Monitor.

This removes a common friction point for non-technical users who know who they want to reach but struggle with filters, logic rules, and segmentation syntax. It’s a notable step toward making personalization more accessible—especially as inbox competition continues to intensify.

AI Email Booster: Optimization Inside the Builder

AI Email Booster works directly inside the email builder, analyzing content as it’s created and surfacing clear, actionable recommendations. Marketers can apply suggestions with a single click, rather than switching tools or interpreting abstract scores.

The focus here is speed and clarity. Instead of overwhelming users with AI-generated rewrites or opaque predictions, Campaign Monitor is aiming for small, confident improvements that compound over time.

Why This Matters for SMB Marketers

Email remains one of the highest-ROI channels, but expectations for personalization and relevance keep rising. At the same time, most SMBs don’t have the time, staff, or budget to experiment endlessly or interpret complex analytics.

Campaign Monitor’s AI strategy is designed to close that gap by:

• Reducing time-to-value for campaign improvements

• Making advanced tactics accessible to non-experts

• Preserving human control over creative and strategy

“AI should make email marketing easier, not more complicated,” said Elizabeth Smalley, Chief Product Officer at Campaign Monitor. “We built these new AI features to provide always-on guidance directly inside the platform, helping marketers better see what’s working to optimize faster, without losing control of their strategy.”

That emphasis on collaboration—AI assisting rather than replacing human judgment—sets Campaign Monitor apart from more aggressive automation-first approaches in the email marketing space.

Launch Events and Availability

To showcase the new capabilities, Campaign Monitor will host two live launch webinars:

• Tuesday, February 3 at 1:00 PM EST

• Wednesday, February 4 at 10:30 AM AEST

The sessions will walk marketers through real-world use cases and demonstrate how the tools can simplify decision-making and boost performance.

The Bigger Picture

Campaign Monitor’s update reflects a broader MarTech shift: AI is moving from experimental features to embedded decision support. Rather than asking marketers to trust AI blindly, platforms are increasingly focused on delivering contextual guidance that fits naturally into existing workflows.

For SMBs, that balance—between intelligence and control—may be exactly what’s needed to stay competitive as inboxes grow more crowded and customer expectations continue to rise.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

MiningLamp Technology has added a major credential to its fast-growing reputation in enterprise AI. The Hong Kong–listed company (2718.HK) took home the Grand Prize at the national finals of the 3rd China’s Innovation Challenge on Artificial Intelligence Application Scene (CICAS)—one of the country’s most competitive and influential AI events—cementing its status as a serious force in Agentic AI and multimodal large models.

The winning project, developed in collaboration with Peking University, is called “Intelligent Platform for Brand Globalization Creative Generation and Emotional Connection Based on Multimodal Large Models.” Beyond the long name, the idea is straightforward and timely: help companies expand globally by using AI to localize creative content, predict emotional response, and generate marketing assets faster—without losing cultural nuance.

The project was also named a “2025 National Artificial Intelligence Application Scenario Exemplary Case,” a designation reserved for AI systems with strong real-world commercial and societal impact.

A Fierce Competition With National Significance

CICAS is not a typical startup pitch contest. Jointly organized by the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, the Suzhou Municipal People’s Government, and Soochow University, the competition is designed to surface AI technologies that can scale across industries.

This year’s challenge drew more than 3,250 registered teams, with 113 elite teams advancing to the national finals. Over 350 participants—from China and abroad—competed in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, placing MiningLamp’s win firmly in “best-of-the-best” territory.

For MiningLamp, this marks a symbolic moment. While the company has been active in enterprise AI since 2006, the CICAS Grand Prize represents its first major national AI competition win since its Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing in November 2025.

Why Brand Globalization Is an AI Problem Now

Global expansion has become harder, not easier, for brands. Cultural missteps go viral instantly, consumer sentiment shifts faster than traditional research can track, and content localization remains expensive and slow.

MiningLamp’s platform is built around a clear thesis: global brand marketing is no longer a creative-only problem—it’s a data, emotion, and automation problem.

According to Wu Minghui, Founder, CEO, and CTO of MiningLamp, brands going global face three persistent barriers:

• Cultural and emotional differences across markets

• High costs and long timelines for content localization

• Limited data-driven insight into how creative will actually land

The platform addresses these challenges by combining multimodal AI, Agentic workflows, and proprietary data intelligence into a single system designed for marketing teams—not just data scientists.

Four Technologies Powering the Platform

At the core of MiningLamp’s winning solution are four tightly integrated capabilities. Together, they form an end-to-end workflow that spans insight generation, emotional evaluation, and content creation.

1. A Global Multimodal Content Asset Library

The platform includes a multimodal content library covering major global markets, incorporating video, image, and text assets. Rather than starting from scratch for every campaign, brands can draw from culturally relevant creative materials aligned with regional norms and preferences.

The practical upside is speed and cost efficiency. Localization cycles that once took weeks can now be compressed into days—or even hours—while maintaining cultural relevance.

In a market where brands are expected to “think global but act local,” this library becomes a strategic advantage rather than a simple repository.

2. Trustworthy Data Collection via the “Dexterous Hand” Mano Model

MiningLamp’s Mano model—described internally as an AI “dexterous hand”—is one of the platform’s most distinctive features.

Mano can operate across browser environments, visually identifying interface elements and interacting with them much like a human would. Users simply provide a URL and a description of their data needs; Mano handles the rest, collecting multi-source web data with minimal manual intervention.

This capability matters because global market analysis often fails due to fragmented, unreliable data. Mano’s human-like perception allows it to gather cleaner, more contextual datasets—critical for downstream decision-making.

Technical benchmarks underscore Mano’s maturity:

• Ranked first in the specialized model category of the OSWorld benchmark

• Ranked second overall, just behind Anthropic’s Claude-Sonnet-4.5

• Achieved SOTA performance on the Mind2Web benchmark

• A 7B-parameter version supports private deployment for enterprise security needs

For enterprises wary of black-box AI, this emphasis on transparency and controllability is notable.

3. Subjective Emotional Perception Analysis With HMLLM

Perhaps the most ambitious element of the platform is its Hypergraph Multimodal Large Language Model (HMLLM), designed to simulate how different audiences feel about content—not just how they engage with it.

Unlike traditional sentiment analysis, HMLLM models subjective emotional response across dimensions like attention, emotion, and cognition. It can estimate how viewers from different cultures, age groups, and genders are likely to react to advertising content before it goes live.

The model is trained on uniquely rich datasets:

• Video-SME and SPA-ADV, built from EEG and eye-tracking data

• Data collected from over 10,000 real human subjects

• Emotional response modeling with R² consistency exceeding 89%

The research behind HMLLM earned a Best Paper Nomination at ACM MM 2024, lending academic credibility to what is often treated as a fuzzy marketing problem.

For global brands, the implication is clear: fewer cultural misfires, less guesswork, and more confidence in creative decisions.

4. AI-Driven Video Generation at Scale

Once insights and emotional assessments are complete, the platform can automatically generate and optimize video content. This closes the loop—from market understanding to creative output—inside a single AI-driven workflow.

MiningLamp claims the system can compress traditional video production timelines from weeks to hours, a meaningful advantage as short-form video and rapid campaign iteration become standard across platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and connected TV.

This positions the platform not just as an analytics tool, but as a full-stack AI marketing engine.

Enterprise-Grade AI, Not Just a Demo

MiningLamp’s broader technical credentials reinforce the seriousness of the platform. The company has published 20+ papers in top-tier international journals and conferences, including:

• ACM MM 2024 (CCF-A): Best Paper Nomination for HMLLM

• TPAMI (SCI Q1): Few-shot video instance segmentation

• IJCV (SCI Q1): Image generation methods

• AAAI 2026 (CCF-A): Mano model compression, accepted as an oral presentation

These aren’t marketing whitepapers—they’re peer-reviewed contributions that help explain why MiningLamp is increasingly described as China’s first “Agentic AI” public company.

Strategic Implications for MarTech and Global Brands

MiningLamp’s win highlights a broader industry trend: AI is moving from content optimization to content decision-making.

While many Western MarTech platforms focus on performance metrics after launch, MiningLamp is betting on AI that evaluates cultural fit and emotional resonance before content reaches consumers. That shift could reshape how global campaigns are planned, especially in regulated or reputation-sensitive industries.

The platform also aligns with the growing enterprise demand for trustworthy AI—systems that are explainable, auditable, and deployable in private environments.

What Comes Next

At the CICAS closing ceremony, MiningLamp signed a cooperation intent with Gusu District, signaling plans to expand AI R&D and real-world deployment scenarios locally.

The company says it will continue applying its “data-driven trustworthy productivity” philosophy beyond brand globalization, targeting additional vertical industries where Agentic AI can deliver measurable impact.

As global competition intensifies and AI-driven differentiation becomes table stakes, MiningLamp’s platform could emerge as a critical infrastructure layer for companies trying to scale internationally without losing cultural intelligence along the way.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

G2 is making one of the most consequential moves in the history of B2B software discovery. The company announced it has formally agreed to acquire Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp from Gartner, uniting four of the most influential software review and recommendation platforms under one roof.

The deal reshapes the software buying landscape at a moment when AI-driven search, buyer intent data, and trust signals are rapidly redefining how businesses evaluate technology. Once finalized, the acquisition will give G2 unmatched scale, data depth, and reach—positioning it as the default infrastructure layer for software discovery in the AI era.

For buyers, vendors, investors, and partners alike, the implications are substantial.

A Power Shift in B2B Software Discovery

Individually, G2, Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp have long been go-to destinations for researching business software. Together, they form what may be the most comprehensive dataset ever assembled on how companies discover, evaluate, and purchase technology.

The combined platform will offer:

• 6 million verified customer reviews

• More than 200 million annual software buyers globally

• 10,000+ software vendors served

• Coverage across 2,000+ software and service categories

• An expanded foundation of first- and second-party buyer intent data

That scale fundamentally changes the competitive dynamics of the software marketplace industry, particularly as AI-powered recommendations begin to replace traditional listicles, rankings, and keyword-based search.

“This acquisition represents a transformational moment for G2 and, more importantly, the global B2B software industry,” said Godard Abel, CEO and co-founder of G2. “By integrating the verified reviews, insights, and audiences from Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, we’re building the trusted data foundation for buyers and sellers of software for the age of AI.”

Why This Deal Matters Now

Software buying has reached an inflection point.

Traditional discovery models—search engines, analyst reports, and static comparison pages—are struggling to keep pace with exploding category complexity and accelerating AI adoption. At the same time, buyers increasingly expect personalized, context-aware recommendations rather than generic rankings.

This is where G2’s timing becomes critical.

By consolidating trusted review platforms and layering AI-driven intelligence on top, G2 is positioning itself not just as a marketplace, but as the decision engine behind modern software purchasing.

The acquisition also reflects a broader trend: as AI reshapes search behavior, companies with proprietary, high-quality data gain outsized power. Verified reviews, buyer intent signals, and real behavioral data are becoming more valuable than traffic alone.

What Changes for Software Buyers

For buyers, the most immediate impact will be smarter, faster, and more personalized discovery.

G2 plans to integrate the newly acquired platforms’ datasets directly into G2.ai, its AI-driven recommendation engine. With a much larger pool of verified feedback and behavioral data, G2.ai aims to move beyond surface-level comparisons toward genuinely contextual guidance.

That means:

• More accurate recommendations based on role, industry, company size, and intent

• Faster shortlists with fewer irrelevant options

• Greater confidence that insights are based on real, verified user experiences

In practice, G2 wants to become the AI-powered “guide” that buyers consult before, during, and after evaluating software—reducing friction in a process that has become notoriously time-consuming.

A Bigger Opportunity for Software Vendors

For vendors, the acquisition dramatically expands both reach and revenue potential.

By absorbing Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, G2 gains access to massive inbound buyer traffic—much of it coming from high-intent searches near the moment of purchase. That creates new leverage for demand capture, advertising, and intent-based sales activation.

According to G2, vendors can expect:

• Expanded global visibility across traditional search and AI-driven discovery

• Up to 3x more Buyer Intent signals through unified datasets

• Stronger performance across SEO and answer engine optimization (AEO)

• A more advanced digital advertising infrastructure

• A forthcoming pay-per-lead model designed to convert intent into sales-ready opportunities

This is a notable evolution from review platforms as passive awareness channels to active revenue drivers—especially for B2B SaaS companies under pressure to improve pipeline efficiency.

The SEO and AI Search Angle

One of the most strategic aspects of the acquisition is its impact on search—both traditional and AI-powered.

Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp are already dominant players in organic search across thousands of high-intent software keywords. Combining that footprint with G2’s review depth and buyer intent intelligence gives the company a commanding position as search behavior shifts toward AI-generated answers.

G2 has explicitly framed this as an AEO and SEO play, preparing for a future where:

• Buyers ask AI tools for software recommendations instead of clicking through multiple websites

• Search engines prioritize trusted, structured datasets over generic content

• Discovery happens inside conversational interfaces rather than static web pages

In that context, owning the underlying data becomes more important than owning the front-end experience—and G2 now controls more of that data than any competitor.

What Gartner Gets Out of the Deal

While G2’s upside is clear, the deal also signals a strategic recalibration for Gartner.

By divesting Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, Gartner appears to be sharpening its focus on its core strengths: research, advisory services, and enterprise decision support. The move allows Gartner to step back from operating high-scale, consumer-style marketplaces while still benefiting from its broader position in the enterprise ecosystem.

For G2, acquiring assets previously backed by Gartner also adds credibility and reinforces trust—particularly among enterprise buyers who already rely on Gartner insights.

Implications for the Broader Software Ecosystem

Beyond buyers and vendors, the acquisition has ripple effects across the industry.

Partners and integrators gain access to richer datasets that can improve targeting, personalization, and workflow automation.
Consultants and investors can leverage deeper, verified insights to assess market trends, competitive positioning, and category growth.
Product teams gain clearer visibility into customer sentiment and unmet needs across thousands of categories.

In short, the combined platform becomes not just a marketplace, but a system of record for software adoption and sentiment.

Competitive Landscape: Who Can Keep Up?

This deal raises uncomfortable questions for competitors.

Smaller review sites and comparison platforms may struggle to compete with G2’s combined scale, especially as AI systems increasingly favor authoritative data sources. Even large digital publishers face challenges as AI-driven discovery reduces reliance on traditional content models.

Meanwhile, adjacent players in intent data, ABM, and B2B advertising will need to rethink integrations as G2 consolidates more of the buyer journey inside its ecosystem.

The message is clear: in the AI era, fragmented data loses value. Unified, trusted datasets win.

The Bottom Line

G2’s acquisition of Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp marks a defining moment for B2B software discovery.

By uniting the industry’s most trusted review platforms, G2 is building what it describes as the trusted data foundation for software buying in the age of AI—one that serves buyers seeking clarity, vendors chasing demand, and partners navigating an increasingly complex market.

As AI reshapes how decisions are made, this deal positions G2 not just as a marketplace, but as the intelligence layer behind the global software economy.

G2 is making one of the most consequential moves in the history of B2B software discovery. The company announced it has formally agreed to acquire Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp from Gartner, uniting four of the most influential software review and recommendation platforms under one roof.

The deal reshapes the software buying landscape at a moment when AI-driven search, buyer intent data, and trust signals are rapidly redefining how businesses evaluate technology. Once finalized, the acquisition will give G2 unmatched scale, data depth, and reach—positioning it as the default infrastructure layer for software discovery in the AI era.

For buyers, vendors, investors, and partners alike, the implications are substantial.

A Power Shift in B2B Software Discovery

Individually, G2, Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp have long been go-to destinations for researching business software. Together, they form what may be the most comprehensive dataset ever assembled on how companies discover, evaluate, and purchase technology.

The combined platform will offer:

• 6 million verified customer reviews

• More than 200 million annual software buyers globally

• 10,000+ software vendors served

• Coverage across 2,000+ software and service categories

• An expanded foundation of first- and second-party buyer intent data

That scale fundamentally changes the competitive dynamics of the software marketplace industry, particularly as AI-powered recommendations begin to replace traditional listicles, rankings, and keyword-based search.

“This acquisition represents a transformational moment for G2 and, more importantly, the global B2B software industry,” said Godard Abel, CEO and co-founder of G2. “By integrating the verified reviews, insights, and audiences from Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, we’re building the trusted data foundation for buyers and sellers of software for the age of AI.”

Why This Deal Matters Now

Software buying has reached an inflection point.

Traditional discovery models—search engines, analyst reports, and static comparison pages—are struggling to keep pace with exploding category complexity and accelerating AI adoption. At the same time, buyers increasingly expect personalized, context-aware recommendations rather than generic rankings.

This is where G2’s timing becomes critical.

By consolidating trusted review platforms and layering AI-driven intelligence on top, G2 is positioning itself not just as a marketplace, but as the decision engine behind modern software purchasing.

The acquisition also reflects a broader trend: as AI reshapes search behavior, companies with proprietary, high-quality data gain outsized power. Verified reviews, buyer intent signals, and real behavioral data are becoming more valuable than traffic alone.

What Changes for Software Buyers

For buyers, the most immediate impact will be smarter, faster, and more personalized discovery.

G2 plans to integrate the newly acquired platforms’ datasets directly into G2.ai, its AI-driven recommendation engine. With a much larger pool of verified feedback and behavioral data, G2.ai aims to move beyond surface-level comparisons toward genuinely contextual guidance.

That means:

• More accurate recommendations based on role, industry, company size, and intent

• Faster shortlists with fewer irrelevant options

• Greater confidence that insights are based on real, verified user experiences

In practice, G2 wants to become the AI-powered “guide” that buyers consult before, during, and after evaluating software—reducing friction in a process that has become notoriously time-consuming.

A Bigger Opportunity for Software Vendors

For vendors, the acquisition dramatically expands both reach and revenue potential.

By absorbing Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, G2 gains access to massive inbound buyer traffic—much of it coming from high-intent searches near the moment of purchase. That creates new leverage for demand capture, advertising, and intent-based sales activation.

According to G2, vendors can expect:

• Expanded global visibility across traditional search and AI-driven discovery

• Up to 3x more Buyer Intent signals through unified datasets

• Stronger performance across SEO and answer engine optimization (AEO)

• A more advanced digital advertising infrastructure

• A forthcoming pay-per-lead model designed to convert intent into sales-ready opportunities

This is a notable evolution from review platforms as passive awareness channels to active revenue drivers—especially for B2B SaaS companies under pressure to improve pipeline efficiency.

The SEO and AI Search Angle

One of the most strategic aspects of the acquisition is its impact on search—both traditional and AI-powered.

Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp are already dominant players in organic search across thousands of high-intent software keywords. Combining that footprint with G2’s review depth and buyer intent intelligence gives the company a commanding position as search behavior shifts toward AI-generated answers.

G2 has explicitly framed this as an AEO and SEO play, preparing for a future where:

• Buyers ask AI tools for software recommendations instead of clicking through multiple websites

• Search engines prioritize trusted, structured datasets over generic content

• Discovery happens inside conversational interfaces rather than static web pages

In that context, owning the underlying data becomes more important than owning the front-end experience—and G2 now controls more of that data than any competitor.

What Gartner Gets Out of the Deal

While G2’s upside is clear, the deal also signals a strategic recalibration for Gartner.

By divesting Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, Gartner appears to be sharpening its focus on its core strengths: research, advisory services, and enterprise decision support. The move allows Gartner to step back from operating high-scale, consumer-style marketplaces while still benefiting from its broader position in the enterprise ecosystem.

For G2, acquiring assets previously backed by Gartner also adds credibility and reinforces trust—particularly among enterprise buyers who already rely on Gartner insights.

Implications for the Broader Software Ecosystem

Beyond buyers and vendors, the acquisition has ripple effects across the industry.

Partners and integrators gain access to richer datasets that can improve targeting, personalization, and workflow automation.
Consultants and investors can leverage deeper, verified insights to assess market trends, competitive positioning, and category growth.
Product teams gain clearer visibility into customer sentiment and unmet needs across thousands of categories.

In short, the combined platform becomes not just a marketplace, but a system of record for software adoption and sentiment.

Competitive Landscape: Who Can Keep Up?

This deal raises uncomfortable questions for competitors.

Smaller review sites and comparison platforms may struggle to compete with G2’s combined scale, especially as AI systems increasingly favor authoritative data sources. Even large digital publishers face challenges as AI-driven discovery reduces reliance on traditional content models.

Meanwhile, adjacent players in intent data, ABM, and B2B advertising will need to rethink integrations as G2 consolidates more of the buyer journey inside its ecosystem.

The message is clear: in the AI era, fragmented data loses value. Unified, trusted datasets win.

The Bottom Line

G2’s acquisition of Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp marks a defining moment for B2B software discovery.

By uniting the industry’s most trusted review platforms, G2 is building what it describes as the trusted data foundation for software buying in the age of AI—one that serves buyers seeking clarity, vendors chasing demand, and partners navigating an increasingly complex market.

As AI reshapes how decisions are made, this deal positions G2 not just as a marketplace, but as the intelligence layer behind the global software economy.

G2 is making one of the most consequential moves in the history of B2B software discovery. The company announced it has formally agreed to acquire Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp from Gartner, uniting four of the most influential software review and recommendation platforms under one roof.

The deal reshapes the software buying landscape at a moment when AI-driven search, buyer intent data, and trust signals are rapidly redefining how businesses evaluate technology. Once finalized, the acquisition will give G2 unmatched scale, data depth, and reach—positioning it as the default infrastructure layer for software discovery in the AI era.

For buyers, vendors, investors, and partners alike, the implications are substantial.

A Power Shift in B2B Software Discovery

Individually, G2, Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp have long been go-to destinations for researching business software. Together, they form what may be the most comprehensive dataset ever assembled on how companies discover, evaluate, and purchase technology.

The combined platform will offer:

• 6 million verified customer reviews

• More than 200 million annual software buyers globally

• 10,000+ software vendors served

• Coverage across 2,000+ software and service categories

• An expanded foundation of first- and second-party buyer intent data

That scale fundamentally changes the competitive dynamics of the software marketplace industry, particularly as AI-powered recommendations begin to replace traditional listicles, rankings, and keyword-based search.

“This acquisition represents a transformational moment for G2 and, more importantly, the global B2B software industry,” said Godard Abel, CEO and co-founder of G2. “By integrating the verified reviews, insights, and audiences from Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, we’re building the trusted data foundation for buyers and sellers of software for the age of AI.”

Why This Deal Matters Now

Software buying has reached an inflection point.

Traditional discovery models—search engines, analyst reports, and static comparison pages—are struggling to keep pace with exploding category complexity and accelerating AI adoption. At the same time, buyers increasingly expect personalized, context-aware recommendations rather than generic rankings.

This is where G2’s timing becomes critical.

By consolidating trusted review platforms and layering AI-driven intelligence on top, G2 is positioning itself not just as a marketplace, but as the decision engine behind modern software purchasing.

The acquisition also reflects a broader trend: as AI reshapes search behavior, companies with proprietary, high-quality data gain outsized power. Verified reviews, buyer intent signals, and real behavioral data are becoming more valuable than traffic alone.

What Changes for Software Buyers

For buyers, the most immediate impact will be smarter, faster, and more personalized discovery.

G2 plans to integrate the newly acquired platforms’ datasets directly into G2.ai, its AI-driven recommendation engine. With a much larger pool of verified feedback and behavioral data, G2.ai aims to move beyond surface-level comparisons toward genuinely contextual guidance.

That means:

• More accurate recommendations based on role, industry, company size, and intent

• Faster shortlists with fewer irrelevant options

• Greater confidence that insights are based on real, verified user experiences

In practice, G2 wants to become the AI-powered “guide” that buyers consult before, during, and after evaluating software—reducing friction in a process that has become notoriously time-consuming.

A Bigger Opportunity for Software Vendors

For vendors, the acquisition dramatically expands both reach and revenue potential.

By absorbing Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, G2 gains access to massive inbound buyer traffic—much of it coming from high-intent searches near the moment of purchase. That creates new leverage for demand capture, advertising, and intent-based sales activation.

According to G2, vendors can expect:

• Expanded global visibility across traditional search and AI-driven discovery

• Up to 3x more Buyer Intent signals through unified datasets

• Stronger performance across SEO and answer engine optimization (AEO)

• A more advanced digital advertising infrastructure

• A forthcoming pay-per-lead model designed to convert intent into sales-ready opportunities

This is a notable evolution from review platforms as passive awareness channels to active revenue drivers—especially for B2B SaaS companies under pressure to improve pipeline efficiency.

The SEO and AI Search Angle

One of the most strategic aspects of the acquisition is its impact on search—both traditional and AI-powered.

Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp are already dominant players in organic search across thousands of high-intent software keywords. Combining that footprint with G2’s review depth and buyer intent intelligence gives the company a commanding position as search behavior shifts toward AI-generated answers.

G2 has explicitly framed this as an AEO and SEO play, preparing for a future where:

• Buyers ask AI tools for software recommendations instead of clicking through multiple websites

• Search engines prioritize trusted, structured datasets over generic content

• Discovery happens inside conversational interfaces rather than static web pages

In that context, owning the underlying data becomes more important than owning the front-end experience—and G2 now controls more of that data than any competitor.

What Gartner Gets Out of the Deal

While G2’s upside is clear, the deal also signals a strategic recalibration for Gartner.

By divesting Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, Gartner appears to be sharpening its focus on its core strengths: research, advisory services, and enterprise decision support. The move allows Gartner to step back from operating high-scale, consumer-style marketplaces while still benefiting from its broader position in the enterprise ecosystem.

For G2, acquiring assets previously backed by Gartner also adds credibility and reinforces trust—particularly among enterprise buyers who already rely on Gartner insights.

Implications for the Broader Software Ecosystem

Beyond buyers and vendors, the acquisition has ripple effects across the industry.

Partners and integrators gain access to richer datasets that can improve targeting, personalization, and workflow automation.
Consultants and investors can leverage deeper, verified insights to assess market trends, competitive positioning, and category growth.
Product teams gain clearer visibility into customer sentiment and unmet needs across thousands of categories.

In short, the combined platform becomes not just a marketplace, but a system of record for software adoption and sentiment.

Competitive Landscape: Who Can Keep Up?

This deal raises uncomfortable questions for competitors.

Smaller review sites and comparison platforms may struggle to compete with G2’s combined scale, especially as AI systems increasingly favor authoritative data sources. Even large digital publishers face challenges as AI-driven discovery reduces reliance on traditional content models.

Meanwhile, adjacent players in intent data, ABM, and B2B advertising will need to rethink integrations as G2 consolidates more of the buyer journey inside its ecosystem.

The message is clear: in the AI era, fragmented data loses value. Unified, trusted datasets win.

The Bottom Line

G2’s acquisition of Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp marks a defining moment for B2B software discovery.

By uniting the industry’s most trusted review platforms, G2 is building what it describes as the trusted data foundation for software buying in the age of AI—one that serves buyers seeking clarity, vendors chasing demand, and partners navigating an increasingly complex market.

As AI reshapes how decisions are made, this deal positions G2 not just as a marketplace, but as the intelligence layer behind the global software economy.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

InMarket is making a clear statement about where it believes the advertising industry is headed—and how it plans to compete there. The real-time marketing and measurement company has appointed Natalie Bastian as Chief Marketing Officer, tasking her with sharpening InMarket’s market position as advertisers push harder for measurable outcomes over traditional reach-based metrics.

The hire comes at a pivotal moment for InMarket, which has been doubling down on AI-powered measurement, real-world outcomes, and full-funnel attribution. With brands under increasing pressure to justify every dollar of media spend, InMarket is betting that strong product innovation must be matched with equally strong storytelling, market education, and go-to-market execution.

Bastian will lead InMarket’s global marketing organization, overseeing public relations, product marketing, brand, content, events, creative, and inside sales—effectively owning how the company shows up across the broader marketing, commerce, and data ecosystem.

A Strategic Hire for an Outcomes-Driven Market

InMarket has long positioned itself around real-world measurement—connecting digital media exposure to physical-world outcomes such as store visits, conversions, and incremental lift. That value proposition is gaining urgency as marketers grapple with signal loss, fragmented identity, and rising scrutiny from finance teams.

CEO Todd Morris framed Bastian’s appointment as a growth accelerator rather than a brand refresh.

“Natalie brings a proven track record of driving business growth at scale that will build on our double-digit growth trajectory and our recognition as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America,” Morris said. “As InMarket continues its mission to help move advertising from impressions to outcomes, Natalie’s leadership will drive the expansion of our market presence and strengthen the value we deliver to our clients.”

The emphasis on outcomes is deliberate. As cookies fade and probabilistic attribution becomes less reliable, platforms that can tie media exposure to verifiable business results are moving from “nice to have” to essential.

Why Natalie Bastian—and Why Now

Bastian’s background reads like a roadmap through modern ad-supported media and platform growth.

Most recently, she served as Global CMO at Teads, where she played a central role during the company’s nearly $1 billion acquisition by Outbrain. During that transition, she helped reposition Teads from a premium video player into a global omnichannel platform, aligning brand, product narrative, and sales enablement under a single strategy.

Before Teads, Bastian was SVP, Head of Marketing at Tubi, where she helped scale the free streaming service during a period of rapid growth that culminated in its acquisition by FOX. There, she focused on integrated marketing and sales strategies that expanded brand awareness while unlocking new revenue streams—experience that translates directly to InMarket’s enterprise ambitions.

Her earlier roles at Roku, DISH Media, and A&E Networks further anchor her expertise at the intersection of media, advertising, and data—an increasingly crowded and competitive space.

For InMarket, that mix matters. The company isn’t just selling technology; it’s selling a new way of thinking about media performance.

From Product Innovation to Market Education

In the past year, InMarket has rolled out a series of major product updates aimed squarely at enterprise advertisers:

• Predictive Moments, designed to identify high-intent consumer behavior in real time

• Unified Measurement, bringing together media exposure and real-world outcomes

• Lift Conversion Index for CPG, focused on incremental impact in retail and commerce

These launches signal a broader strategy: positioning InMarket as a platform that doesn’t just report what happened, but helps advertisers predict, optimize, and prove impact across the funnel.

Bastian’s role will be to translate that technical sophistication into clear, compelling narratives that resonate with CMOs, performance marketers, and analytics leaders alike.

That includes evolving InMarket’s go-to-market strategy, sharpening its brand voice, and increasing visibility with brands, agencies, and ecosystem partners who are reevaluating their measurement stacks.

Marketing Leadership as a Growth Lever

Unlike many CMO appointments that focus narrowly on demand generation, InMarket’s description of the role underscores its strategic weight.

Bastian will be responsible for:

• Refining InMarket’s brand and product narrative

• Driving go-to-market and growth strategies

• Elevating InMarket’s relevance across marketing, commerce, and data ecosystems

• Aligning marketing more tightly with sales and enterprise value creation

That scope reflects a broader trend in adtech and martech: marketing leaders are increasingly expected to shape category definition, not just pipeline.

As the line between data platforms, measurement providers, and media execution continues to blur, companies that articulate a clear point of view tend to win mindshare—and budgets.

Industry Context: Measurement Is the Battleground

Bastian’s appointment comes as advertisers are reassessing long-held assumptions about measurement.

With privacy changes limiting deterministic attribution and walled gardens controlling their own metrics, marketers are searching for independent, outcome-based measurement frameworks that can withstand scrutiny.

InMarket’s approach—grounded in real-time location intelligence, AI-powered insights, and closed-loop measurement—positions it at the center of that shift. But standing out in a crowded field requires more than technical credibility; it requires trust, clarity, and consistency.

That’s where Bastian’s experience scaling brands through inflection points becomes particularly relevant.

Bastian’s Perspective on the Opportunity

For her part, Bastian sees InMarket as well-positioned to capitalize on a fundamental change in how advertisers evaluate performance.

“As marketers increasingly seek better ways to attribute media investment and understand its impact on their business, InMarket sits at the center of this inflection point—delivering forward-looking solutions that close the gap and prove real, meaningful outcomes,” she said. “I’m excited to step into this role and build on the momentum of the brand’s transformation.”

Her focus on meaningful outcomes speaks to a growing frustration among marketers with metrics that look impressive but fail to move the business forward.

Recognition and Industry Credibility

Bastian also brings significant industry credibility. She has been recognized as:

• Chief Marketer’s Top Woman in Marketing

• Winner of She Runs It’s Changing the Game Award

• Finalist for AWNY’s Future is Female

She currently serves on the board of IRTS, is an active member of She Runs It’s Executive Class, and has previously served on the board of the Ad Council.

That visibility matters in an industry where relationships, trust, and thought leadership influence buying decisions as much as feature sets.

What This Signals for InMarket’s Next Phase

InMarket’s leadership move suggests the company is entering a new phase—one focused on scale, category leadership, and long-term enterprise value.

With double-digit growth already in place and a steady drumbeat of product innovation, the next challenge is differentiation in a market crowded with measurement claims. By investing in senior marketing leadership now, InMarket is signaling that it intends to define the conversation around outcomes-based advertising, not just participate in it.

For advertisers navigating a complex, privacy-constrained ecosystem, that clarity could be decisive.

Bottom Line

Natalie Bastian’s appointment as CMO is more than a personnel update—it’s a strategic bet on where advertising is going next.

As marketers move away from impressions and toward provable outcomes, InMarket is aligning leadership, product, and positioning to meet that demand head-on. With Bastian at the helm of marketing, the company is sharpening its voice at a moment when the industry is listening more closely than ever.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Rural hospitals are under strain from nearly every direction: declining patient volumes, workforce shortages, tighter reimbursement, and growing competition from large regional health systems with far deeper marketing budgets. Yet visibility, trust, and service-line growth have never been more critical to survival.

Against that backdrop, 121G Marketing (121GM) is making a clear bid to become the marketing partner of record for rural healthcare systems, and it’s backing up that ambition with data.

The company has released a new case study detailing its partnership with Russell Medical, a rural hospital that overhauled its marketing performance and community reach in just seven months—without building a costly internal marketing department or relying on fragmented agency vendors.

The results point to a larger shift underway in rural healthcare marketing: from ad hoc tactics to embedded, accountable, performance-driven partnerships.

The Rural Hospital Marketing Gap

Marketing has long been a weak spot for rural hospitals—not because leadership doesn’t value it, but because the economics rarely work in their favor.

Many rural systems face a familiar set of constraints:

• Limited or nonexistent in-house marketing teams

• Reliance on small vendors handling isolated tasks (web, email, social)

• Inconsistent branding across service lines

• Minimal access to real-time performance data

• Pressure to justify every dollar spent

At the same time, patient expectations have evolved. Consumers now research providers online, expect clear digital communication, and increasingly choose care based on trust, convenience, and perceived expertise—not just proximity.

This gap between expectations and capabilities is where 121G Marketing is positioning itself.

A Different Agency Model—Built for Rural Healthcare

121GM describes itself not as a traditional agency, but as an embedded marketing partner designed specifically for rural hospitals. Rather than delivering isolated campaigns, the firm operates as an extension of the hospital—handling strategy, execution, analytics, and service-line growth under one roof.

“Rural hospitals don’t need cookie-cutter agencies or fragmented vendors,” said Alex Hoskins, Managing Partner at 121G Marketing. “They need a true partner—one that understands their communities, operates with transparency, and delivers measurable results.”

That philosophy guided the firm’s engagement with Russell Medical, which had reached a turning point in its marketing maturity.

Russell Medical’s Challenge: Visibility Without Overhead

Like many rural hospitals, Russell Medical was navigating growing competition from larger systems with more sophisticated marketing operations. Its leadership team recognized the need for a more strategic, data-driven approach—but faced two hard realities:

1. Building a full internal marketing department was cost-prohibitive

2. Piecing together vendors had already led to inconsistent messaging and limited accountability

What Russell Medical needed wasn’t more tools—it was a cohesive marketing function aligned with clinical, operational, and community priorities.

That’s where 121GM stepped in.

From Fragmented Efforts to an Embedded Marketing Function

Rather than acting as an external agency, 121GM assumed the role of Russell Medical’s marketing department of record.

The engagement spanned the full marketing lifecycle, including:

• Developing a unified brand and messaging framework across the hospital

• Launching integrated digital and community-focused campaigns

• Implementing real-time dashboards to track performance and ROI

• Aligning marketing priorities directly with service-line and operational goals

• Reducing vendor overlap and unnecessary spend

This approach replaced fragmented execution with a single, accountable team—while preserving institutional knowledge and community context.

The emphasis wasn’t just on visibility, but on sustainable, measurable growth.

Measurable Gains in Just Seven Months

Between April 1 and October 31, 2025, Russell Medical recorded significant improvements across digital reach, engagement, and operational efficiency.

Key outcomes included:

• 1.5 million Facebook impressions, reaching more than 204,700 users

• 238,757 email sends with a 39% open rate, exceeding healthcare benchmarks

• 78,000 active website users and 79,000 new users, with organic search as the top traffic driver

• 34% growth in LinkedIn followers, supporting recruitment and provider visibility

• Approximately $40,000 in vendor cost savings through strategic optimization

• The hospital’s first-ever unified brand and messaging system

These weren’t vanity metrics. Increased engagement translated into stronger awareness of specialty services, more consistent community communication, and a modernized marketing infrastructure that Russell Medical could sustain.

Crucially, all of this happened without adding internal headcount.

Why the Results Matter Beyond One Hospital

While the case study focuses on Russell Medical, its implications extend far beyond a single organization.

Rural hospitals nationwide face similar pressures:

• Declining inpatient volumes

• Greater reliance on outpatient and specialty services

• Heightened competition for clinicians and staff

• Increased scrutiny of marketing spend and ROI

The Russell Medical engagement suggests that enterprise-level marketing capability doesn’t have to come with enterprise-level costs—if the model is built for rural realities.

121GM’s approach replaces the traditional agency-client dynamic with something closer to operational integration, where marketing decisions are tied directly to clinical and organizational priorities.

A Repeatable Playbook for Rural Healthcare

121G Marketing is explicit about its ambitions. The firm isn’t positioning Russell Medical as a one-off success story, but as proof of a repeatable model.

“Our success with Russell Medical isn’t an exception—it’s a repeatable model,” Hoskins said. “We’ve built a playbook specifically for rural hospitals, allowing them to gain enterprise-level marketing capabilities without enterprise-level costs.”

That playbook is grounded in a few core principles:

• 100% in-house execution, avoiding vendor sprawl

• Senior-led strategy, rather than junior account handoffs

• Custom engagements, not templated packages

• Performance transparency, with real-time reporting

In an industry where trust is paramount, that level of accountability is increasingly attractive.

Marketing as a Trust-Building Function

One of the less discussed—but most important—outcomes of Russell Medical’s transformation was its impact on community trust.

For rural hospitals, marketing isn’t just about growth. It’s about reinforcing the hospital’s role as a community anchor. Consistent messaging, clear service-line communication, and accessible digital channels all contribute to patient confidence.

By unifying Russell Medical’s brand and improving how it communicates across platforms, 121GM helped modernize the hospital’s presence without alienating its core audience.

That balance—modernization without corporatization—is a delicate one for rural systems, and a key differentiator for partners that understand local dynamics.

The Competitive Landscape Is Shifting

As healthcare marketing becomes more data-driven and consumer-centric, rural hospitals risk falling further behind if they rely on outdated or under-resourced approaches.

Large health systems continue to invest heavily in digital acquisition, brand building, and recruitment marketing. Without comparable capabilities, rural providers may struggle to compete for patients, clinicians, and partnerships.

Embedded marketing models like 121GM’s offer a potential path forward—one that scales expertise without scaling overhead.

What This Signals for Rural Healthcare Leaders

For hospital executives and boards, the Russell Medical case study highlights several strategic takeaways:

• Marketing performance can improve rapidly with the right structure

• Unified strategy beats fragmented execution

• Data transparency is essential for trust and sustainability

• Outsourcing doesn’t have to mean losing control

As margins tighten and expectations rise, rural hospitals will increasingly be forced to rethink how marketing fits into their broader growth and sustainability strategies.

Bottom Line

121G Marketing’s partnership with Russell Medical underscores a growing realization in rural healthcare: marketing is no longer optional, and it can’t be an afterthought.

By acting as an embedded, accountable partner rather than a traditional agency, 121GM helped a rural hospital achieve measurable gains in visibility, engagement, and efficiency—without the burden of building an internal department.

For rural systems searching for a viable path to growth in an increasingly competitive healthcare landscape, the model offers a compelling alternative—and one that may soon become harder to ignore.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.