ising and visibility initiative designed to support The Filipino American Museum in Las Vegas (TFAM) while spotlighting local leaders, entrepreneurs, and advocates.

The campaign aims to enroll 100 Legacy Circle Members, each committing to a $1,500 total contribution structured to ensure both direct nonprofit support and sustainable media visibility:

• $1,000 donated directly to The Filipino American Museum in Las Vegas

• $500 allocated to professional video podcast production and promotional visibility

Direct Support for Cultural Preservation

The $1,000 museum donation goes directly to TFAM and supports operational costs, cultural programming, preservation initiatives, and long-term sustainability. By routing donations straight to the museum, the program emphasizes financial transparency and donor confidence—a growing priority in community-based fundraising initiatives.

“This project is about legacy, transparency, and community impact,” said Jocelyn Bett, Co-Founder and CEO of Optimize Media Marketing. “By clearly separating the museum donation from production sponsorship, we ensure the museum receives direct support while honoring contributors with meaningful visibility.”

Visibility as a Force Multiplier

The remaining $500 sponsorship funds the production and promotion of a professionally produced video podcast feature, designed to amplify both the donor’s story and the cultural mission of TFAM. The sponsorship covers filming, editing, multi-platform distribution, and promotional support across OMM’s local and community-focused media network.

As part of the Local Visibility Legacy Package, each Legacy Circle Member receives:

• A professionally produced video podcast interview, recorded either on-site at TFAM or at the OMM office and studio

• Strategic promotion across high-visibility community media platforms

• Official recognition as a TFAM Legacy Circle Member

Podcast interviews will be hosted by Jocelyn Bett and filmed inside the museum when possible, creating a setting that connects personal stories with Filipino American history, culture, and advocacy.

Multi-Platform Community Reach

Each Legacy Circle feature will be distributed across OMM’s community media ecosystem, including:

• FilipinoSpotlights.com

• FilipinoTownLVDirectory

• LasVegasSpotlights.com

This multi-channel approach is designed to extend reach beyond a single audience, helping donors increase local visibility while reinforcing awareness and engagement around TFAM’s mission.

Open Through April 30

The Legacy Circle Giving Project is open now through April 30, with all museum donations made directly to The Filipino American Museum in Las Vegas. OMM emphasizes that this structure ensures clarity, accountability, and measurable community impact.

By combining cultural philanthropy with modern storytelling and media amplification, the Legacy Circle Giving Project reflects a growing trend toward impact-driven visibility—where support for community institutions and personal brand storytelling reinforce one another.

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As enterprise digital experiences grow more complex—and less forgiving—Dataweavers is sharpening its commercial edge. The platform operations company has appointed Cüneyt Uysal as Vice President of Sales, North America, and Jill Roberson as Vice President of Global Marketing, signaling a clear push to scale adoption as demand accelerates for modern digital operations platforms.

The hires arrive at a moment when digital experience (DX) teams are under mounting pressure. Customers expect fast, always-on, consistent digital interactions, while enterprises grapple with ballooning cloud complexity, rising operating costs, and brittle infrastructure. Dataweavers’ bet is that execution—not just tooling—has become the decisive differentiator.

From Infrastructure Headaches to Execution Advantage

Founded to address what many enterprises quietly struggle with, Dataweavers positions itself as a platform operations layer for digital experience ecosystems. Instead of forcing organizations to stitch together cloud infrastructure, DevOps tooling, and platform management on their own, the company provides a standardized foundation designed for reliability, performance, and scale.

That pitch appears to be resonating. Dataweavers counts Toyota, Global Payments, QBE, and Rio Tinto among its enterprise customers, reflecting traction across industries where downtime and inconsistency are costly—financially and reputationally.

“Enterprises don’t win digital experience with tools alone—they win with execution,” said Ben Shapiro, Founder and CEO of Dataweavers, underscoring a sentiment that’s increasingly echoed across the MarTech and DX landscape. As stacks become more composable and cloud-native, the operational burden hasn’t disappeared—it’s multiplied.

Why These Hires Matter Now

The appointments are less about filling roles and more about aligning leadership with market reality.

A Marketing Mandate That Goes Beyond Awareness

As VP of Global Marketing, Jill Roberson takes on the task of reframing platform operations as a business-critical discipline, not just an engineering concern. That’s a notable shift. Historically, uptime, performance, and reliability lived deep in IT conversations. Today, they’re inseparable from growth, retention, and brand trust.

“Customer expectations have never been higher, and there is no tolerance for slow, inconsistent, or unreliable digital experiences,” Roberson said. Her framing reflects a broader industry trend: operational excellence is now a front-line growth lever, not back-office hygiene.

For Dataweavers, this means educating the market on why platform ops deserves the same strategic attention as CMS selection, personalization engines, or commerce platforms—especially as DX leaders confront tighter budgets and higher scrutiny around ROI.

Scaling Enterprise Sales in a Crowded Market

On the revenue side, Cüneyt Uysal steps in as VP of Sales, North America, with a mandate to deepen enterprise relationships and expand footprint. Enterprise buyers are increasingly skeptical of “silver bullet” platforms, favoring solutions that demonstrably reduce complexity while accelerating time to value.

“Digital experience is the front door for every brand,” Uysal noted, pointing to the growing expectation that DX investments show measurable returns faster. Dataweavers’ value proposition—improved performance and security, lower operating costs, and faster innovation without infrastructure drag—aligns neatly with this demand.

The Bigger Picture: Platform Ops Enters the Spotlight

Dataweavers’ leadership moves reflect a larger shift across MarTech and enterprise IT. As organizations embrace composable architectures, headless CMSs, and best-of-breed stacks, operational consistency has become the weakest link.

Rival approaches—from hyperscaler-native tooling to DevOps-heavy frameworks—often leave enterprises managing complexity themselves. Platform operations vendors like Dataweavers are carving out a middle ground: abstraction without loss of control.

This is particularly relevant as AI-driven experiences, real-time personalization, and global rollouts raise the stakes for performance and reliability. A glitchy digital front door isn’t just annoying anymore—it’s a competitive liability.

What Comes Next for Dataweavers

With go-to-market leadership reinforced, Dataweavers says it will continue investing in product innovation, strategic partnerships, and global expansion. The implicit message: execution speed is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a sustainable competitive advantage.

For enterprise digital leaders, the takeaway is clear. The battle for better digital experiences is shifting away from feature checklists and toward operational maturity. Vendors that can simplify, standardize, and scale execution may find themselves increasingly indispensable.

Dataweavers is betting that the market agrees—and these appointments suggest it’s gearing up for a much louder conversation.

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Reddit has quietly become one of the most influential forces in modern digital marketing—and one of the hardest to crack. In a space where overt promotion is often punished and authenticity is non-negotiable, Everso Media has emerged as a standout. The digital marketing agency has been named Best Reddit Marketing Agency for February 2026 by SoftwareExperts.org, a recognition that underscores a growing shift in how brands pursue visibility, trust, and long-term growth.

Unlike traditional social platforms where paid reach can still brute-force attention, Reddit rewards nuance, credibility, and restraint. SoftwareExperts.org’s latest evaluation suggests that Everso Media has figured out how to operate within those constraints—while extending Reddit-driven conversations into search engines, news platforms, and AI-powered discovery tools.

Why Reddit Marketing Suddenly Matters More Than Ever

Once dismissed as a niche forum for power users, Reddit now plays an outsized role in shaping purchase decisions, brand perception, and search behavior. Reddit threads routinely rank on the first page of Google results. They’re increasingly cited by journalists, referenced in buyer research, and surfaced by AI systems like ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

That influence cuts both ways. Brands that try to “market” on Reddit the same way they do on LinkedIn or Instagram often face backlash—or outright bans. The platform’s communities expect participation, not promotion.

Everso Media’s recognition reflects this reality. SoftwareExperts.org pointed to the agency’s Reddit-native execution, editorial discipline, and future-facing SEO strategy as differentiators in a crowded agency landscape still adapting to Reddit’s growing power.

A Native Approach, Not an Ad Playbook

At the core of Everso Media’s model is a simple premise: Reddit rewards contribution, not campaigns. Rather than treating subreddits as media placements, the agency approaches them as communities with distinct cultures, rules, and expectations.

Campaigns are designed to blend naturally into discussions—sometimes through comments, sometimes through original posts—always with an emphasis on relevance and transparency. The goal is not virality for its own sake, but credibility that compounds over time.

“Reddit rewards honesty and insight,” said Drew Thomas, Founder of Everso Media. “The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing—it earns its place in the conversation.”

That philosophy runs counter to many short-term growth tactics still common in digital marketing. But it aligns closely with how Reddit users—and increasingly search algorithms—evaluate content quality.

Why SoftwareExperts.org Picked Everso Media

SoftwareExperts.org evaluates agencies on more than surface-level performance metrics. Its February 2026 review emphasized effectiveness, adaptability, transparency, and real-world impact—criteria that increasingly favor long-term visibility over quick spikes in traffic.

In naming Everso Media the Best Reddit Marketing Agency, the organization highlighted several factors:

Reddit-native execution
Campaigns are built around genuine participation rather than forced promotion, reducing risk while increasing trust.

Rule-compliant, ethical strategies
Everso Media prioritizes transparency and adherence to subreddit guidelines, a critical factor on a platform with little tolerance for manipulation.

SEO and discoverability impact
Reddit discussions are structured to rank in Google Search, extending their lifespan far beyond the initial post.

AI-ready visibility
Content is optimized for large language models, increasing the likelihood that Reddit threads and supporting articles are referenced in AI-generated answers.

Together, these elements create what many brands are now chasing: visibility that doesn’t disappear when ad spend stops.

Reddit as a Long-Term Visibility Engine

One of the most notable aspects of Everso Media’s approach is how it treats Reddit not as a standalone channel, but as part of a broader earned visibility strategy.

Reddit threads created or influenced by the agency are often reinforced with high-quality editorial content designed to surface in Google Search, Google News, and Top Stories. This dual-layer approach—community discussion plus authoritative publishing—helps brands show up consistently across discovery touchpoints.

The result is visibility that feels organic, because it is. Instead of pushing messaging outward, the strategy allows brands to be discovered where users are already looking for answers.

Services Built for a Post-Algorithm World

Everso Media’s offering reflects how digital discovery has evolved beyond simple keyword rankings. Its services span:

• News that ranks: Editorial content designed to perform in Google Search and Google News without sacrificing credibility.

• Native Reddit exposure: Carefully planned Reddit participation that builds trust and sparks discussion.

• SEO and AI optimization: Content engineered to surface in LLM responses as search behavior shifts toward AI answers.

• End-to-end strategy: From planning through execution and optimization, ensuring Reddit fits into a cohesive growth model.

This integrated approach matters as brands face fragmentation across platforms—and as traditional SEO alone becomes less predictable.

Optimized for Humans—and Machines

As AI-generated answers increasingly mediate how people find information, credibility signals matter more than ever. Everso Media has leaned into this shift, structuring content and Reddit discussions to be well-sourced, context-rich, and authoritative—traits favored by both human readers and AI systems.

For brands, this translates into a rare advantage: exposure that persists long after campaigns end. Reddit threads continue ranking. Articles continue being cited. AI systems continue pulling from the same trusted sources.

In a landscape dominated by fleeting attention, that durability is becoming a competitive differentiator.

A Decade of Navigating Change

Everso Media brings more than ten years of experience across SEO, content marketing, and digital brand strategy. That longevity matters in an industry shaped by constant algorithm updates and platform shifts.

“Our goal has never been quick wins,” Thomas said. “We build strategies that last—threads that rank, articles that get cited, and stories that keep working months or years later.”

That long-view mindset helps explain why the agency has attracted clients ranging from early-stage startups to established brands rethinking how they show up online.

Recognition That Signals a Broader Shift

Being named Best Reddit Marketing Agency for February 2026 reflects more than campaign performance. It signals a broader industry recalibration toward authenticity, earned trust, and sustainable visibility.

As Reddit’s influence over search rankings, buyer research, and AI-generated recommendations continues to grow, agencies that understand its culture—and its downstream impact—are likely to shape the next phase of digital marketing.

Everso Media’s recognition suggests it’s already operating in that future.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Refurbished electronics have officially crossed a psychological—and commercial—threshold. Back Market closed 2025 with more than $3.5 billion in global gross merchandise value (GMV), up 32% year over year, marking one of the strongest signals yet that recommerce is no longer a side bet in consumer tech.

The company also delivered its largest Black Friday ever, posting 41% year-over-year growth during the period, further underscoring that refurbished devices are becoming a default consideration, not a last resort.

“These numbers matter because they show refurbished is no longer a fringe or experimental category,” said Thibaud Hug de Larauze, co-founder and CEO of Back Market. “It works as a disciplined business model, at scale, across markets.”

That statement carries weight in a consumer electronics industry long built on rapid upgrade cycles and planned obsolescence. Back Market’s results suggest the model is bending—and possibly breaking.

From Bargain Hunting to Deliberate Choice

Back Market’s 2025 growth wasn’t driven by a single breakout product or market. Instead, it reflects a deeper behavioral shift: repeat purchasing, broader category adoption, and rising trust in refurbished devices beyond smartphones.

Laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, and audio products all gained traction as consumers increasingly opted for last-generation, proven devices instead of the latest releases. The decision is less about compromise and more about value optimization—paying less for hardware that’s already validated in the real world.

This trend mirrors a broader change in how people evaluate technology. Performance improvements between hardware generations have slowed, while price increases have not. In that context, refurbished becomes a rational default rather than a budget fallback.

Europe Shows What “Mature” Looks Like

Europe remains Back Market’s most mature region—and its most instructive one.

In markets like France, where Back Market launched more than a decade ago, refurbished electronics are already normalized. Device replacement cycles are longer, consumer expectations are clearer, and trust infrastructure—warranties, grading standards, returns—has been fully established.

France delivered 35% EBITDA margins, and Back Market has now reached EBITDA break-even at the global level, a milestone that distinguishes it from many growth-first marketplaces still chasing profitability.

Europe, in effect, functions as a living case study for how the refurbished category behaves once it exits its adolescence. Growth becomes steadier, margins improve, and refurbished becomes less about thrift and more about system efficiency.

The U.S.: Earlier, Faster, and Catching Up

The United States tells a different story—one that may be even more consequential.

While still earlier in its adoption curve, the U.S. is now emerging as one of Back Market’s largest markets by GMV. In 2025, core U.S. test markets grew more than 40 percentage points faster than the company’s broader average, signaling the start of an acceleration phase.

That gap suggests pent-up demand rather than temporary tailwinds. American consumers have historically been slower to embrace refurbished electronics, often equating “new” with “better.” That assumption is eroding.

Back Market believes this shift is structural, not cyclical—and the company’s data increasingly supports that view.

Software Eats Hardware (Again)

One of the most compelling explanations for refurbished’s rise has little to do with sustainability messaging or inflation—and everything to do with how technology now evolves.

As AI systems, cloud platforms, and software-defined features become the primary engines of innovation, hardware is playing a different role. Devices are less about raw compute leaps and more about serving as durable access points to intelligence delivered elsewhere.

“The argument is not that devices matter less,” said Joy Howard, Chief Marketing Officer at Back Market. “They matter differently.”

When performance, security, and intelligence are delivered through the cloud, longer device lifespans become a feature, not a flaw. Frequent hardware replacement starts to look inefficient rather than aspirational.

This reframing quietly undermines the logic of annual upgrade cycles—and creates fertile ground for refurbished marketplaces.

Changing U.S. Consumer Behavior, by the Numbers

Back Market’s internal data shows that this shift is no longer theoretical in the U.S.:

• Older, proven models consistently outperform newer releases on the platform

• Non-smartphone categories now account for ~40% of U.S. GMV

• Nearly 50% of Gen Z consumers say their next smartphone will be refurbished

That last data point is particularly telling. Gen Z’s relationship with technology is pragmatic rather than status-driven. Performance, price, and longevity matter more than novelty—and refurbished fits neatly into that value system.

For brands and manufacturers, this raises uncomfortable questions about future demand curves.

Implications for the Device Economy

Back Market’s growth doesn’t exist in isolation. It reflects mounting pressure across the entire device ecosystem:

• OEMs face longer replacement cycles and weaker incentives for marginal hardware upgrades

• Carriers must rethink subsidy and trade-in strategies

• Retailers are forced to acknowledge recommerce as a parallel, not secondary, channel

• Policymakers increasingly view refurbishment as both an economic and environmental lever

The refurbished market challenges the idea that growth must come from producing more devices. Instead, it suggests growth can come from using existing devices better, longer, and more efficiently.

What’s Next: From Marketplace to Movement

Looking ahead to 2026, Back Market plans to deepen its engagement with industry leaders, partners, and policymakers, positioning itself not just as a marketplace but as a convener in the evolving device economy.

This includes participation in global forums like Mobile World Congress, where discussions will focus on how AI, cloud infrastructure, and durability are reshaping assumptions about hardware value.

“Globally, refurbished already works,” Hug de Larauze said. “The next chapter is about how quickly the U.S. catches up.”

If 2025’s numbers are any indication, that catch-up phase may already be underway.

The Bigger Takeaway

Back Market’s $3.5B year isn’t just a financial milestone—it’s a signal.

Refurbished electronics have crossed from alternative to inevitable. As innovation migrates up the stack and economic logic favors durability over novelty, recommerce is becoming a core pillar of the tech industry’s future.

For a sector long addicted to the new, that may be the most disruptive development of all.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Websites were once the center of digital marketing. Then came ad platforms, personalization tools, CDPs, and AI-driven targeting—while the website itself largely stayed frozen in time. Fibr AI wants to change that, and investors are betting it’s overdue.

The company announced $7.5 million in Seed funding, led by Accel, with participation from WillowTree Ventures and MVP Ventures, along with angel investors and advisors drawn from Fortune 100 operators. The funding positions Fibr AI to push forward what it calls the Agentic Web Experience Layer—a system designed to make websites adaptive, context-aware, and revenue-driving in real time.

It’s an ambitious pitch, but one that lands squarely in the middle of a growing problem for modern marketers: traffic has become intelligent, but websites haven’t.

The Website Is the Weakest Link in the Growth Stack

Marketing today is dynamic by default. Ads adjust in milliseconds. Recommendations personalize continuously. AI-driven discovery—through search engines, chat interfaces, and LLM-powered assistants—routes users to brands with increasingly specific intent.

Yet most websites still assume a one-size-fits-all experience.

Whether a visitor arrives from a branded search, a performance ad, a product comparison thread, or an AI-generated answer, they’re often dropped onto the same static page. The result is familiar: broken journeys, leaky funnels, wasted spend, and revenue left on the table.

Fibr AI was founded to close that gap.

“Marketing has become intelligent everywhere except the website,” said Ankur ‘AJ’ Goyal, CEO and co-founder of Fibr AI. “We’re building the Agentic Web, where every URL operates as a living experience system that understands context and responds in real time—for humans, cohorts, and even AI agents.”

In other words, the website stops being a destination and starts acting like software.

What Fibr AI Is Actually Building

At its core, Fibr AI reimagines high-traffic, consumer-facing websites as adaptive systems rather than static endpoints.

Instead of publishing a fixed experience and layering optimization tools around it, Fibr embeds AI agents directly into the web experience layer. These agents interpret context—traffic source, intent signals, user behavior, and increasingly, non-human actors like AI crawlers or agents—and dynamically adjust the experience in real time.

The goal is not just personalization in the traditional sense, but continuous optimization at the URL level, tailored to why someone (or something) arrived in the first place.

This approach reflects a broader shift in how discovery works:

• Users increasingly arrive with high intent, pre-informed by AI summaries and recommendations

• Conversion windows are shorter, not longer

• The cost of mismatch between intent and experience is rising

Fibr’s bet is that future-ready websites must behave less like content repositories and more like intelligent systems that react instantly.

Why Accel Is Leaning In

For Accel, the investment thesis hinges on timing as much as technology.

“Most websites today still run on infrastructure built years ago,” said Prayank Swaroop, Partner at Accel. “CMS platforms are effective at publishing content, but not at understanding context or adapting in real time.”

That limitation is becoming increasingly visible as conversational discovery takes hold. When users arrive from ChatGPT, LLM-driven ads, or AI-powered search, they’re often ready to act immediately. A static page isn’t just inefficient—it’s a conversion killer.

What differentiates Fibr, according to Accel, is its focus on embedding AI directly into the experience layer, rather than bolting it on through plugins, scripts, or fragmented tooling.

The implication is consolidation. What previously required a stack of personalization tools, experimentation platforms, analytics systems, agencies, and manual workflows could be handled within a single adaptive system.

That’s a compelling narrative for CMOs facing stack sprawl, rising costs, and pressure to show ROI.

From Personalization to Agency

Personalization isn’t new. What’s changing is agency.

Traditional website optimization relies on rules, segments, and experiments that marketers configure in advance. Fibr’s agentic approach flips that model. Instead of asking marketers to anticipate every scenario, AI agents continuously interpret context and decide how the experience should adapt.

This matters in a world where traffic sources are fragmenting and evolving faster than teams can keep up.

AI agents don’t just change how users search—they change how they arrive, what they expect, and how quickly they decide. A website that can’t respond in real time risks becoming the slowest part of the growth loop.

The Rise of Non-Human Visitors

One of the more forward-looking aspects of Fibr’s positioning is its acknowledgment that not all visitors are human anymore.

As AI agents increasingly browse, summarize, and recommend content on behalf of users, websites must serve dual audiences: people and machines. That requires clarity, adaptability, and structured intelligence at the experience layer—not just SEO markup and fast load times.

Fibr’s platform is designed to optimize for both, treating AI-driven discovery as a first-class channel rather than an afterthought.

This aligns with a broader trend across MarTech and SEO, where visibility increasingly depends on how well systems interpret and surface content—not just how users click on it.

A New Layer in the MarTech Stack

Fibr AI’s emergence points to a growing category gap.

CMS platforms manage content. CDPs manage data. Experimentation tools test variants. But none of them fully own the real-time experience layer—especially one that adapts autonomously based on live context.

That gap is becoming more painful as expectations rise. CMOs are being asked to deliver one-to-one experiences at scale, with fewer resources and tighter budgets. Static infrastructure simply doesn’t support that mandate.

By positioning itself as an Agentic Web Experience Layer, Fibr is effectively proposing a new foundation—one that sits between traffic acquisition and conversion, orchestrating experiences dynamically rather than statically.

Founders With a Clear Point of View

Founded by Ankur Goyal and Pritam Roy, Fibr AI reflects a clear frustration with how disconnected modern marketing systems have become from the website itself.

While tools around the site have evolved rapidly, the site has been treated as immutable. Fibr challenges that assumption, arguing that the website should be as intelligent and adaptive as the channels feeding it traffic.

That philosophy resonates at a moment when marketers are rethinking fundamentals, not just optimizing at the margins.

What This Means for Marketers and CMOs

If Fibr succeeds, it could reshape how teams think about web optimization entirely.

Instead of asking:

• “Which variant should we test?”

• “Which segment should see which page?”

Teams might ask:

• “What intent is arriving right now?”

• “How should the experience respond instantly?”

That’s a shift from configuration to orchestration—and from static journeys to adaptive systems.

It also reframes the website as an active revenue driver, not a passive conversion endpoint.

The Bigger Picture: The Agentic Web Is Coming

Fibr AI’s funding round isn’t just a startup milestone. It’s a signal.

As AI reshapes discovery, advertising, and decision-making, the web itself must evolve. Static pages built for generic users are increasingly misaligned with a world of contextual, intent-rich interactions.

The next generation of digital experiences will be agent-driven, adaptive, and responsive by default. Fibr AI is betting that the companies who modernize their websites accordingly will capture disproportionate value.

With Accel and a roster of experienced operators backing the vision, Fibr now has the runway to test whether the Agentic Web is not just possible—but inevitable.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Retail execution has never suffered from a lack of data. What it has lacked—until now—is confidence. GOcxm is betting that artificial intelligence, applied at the right layer, can close that gap.

The retail execution and consumer engagement platform announced it has acquired Emotive Technologies, the company behind Apex, an AI-powered consumer insights and decision intelligence platform. The move adds predictive modeling, simulation, and behavioral-science-trained AI directly into GOcxm’s Shopper Engagement and Execution Platform, signaling a clear push beyond reporting toward real-time decisioning.

In short: GOcxm wants brands to stop reacting to data after the fact—and start acting on it before execution even begins.

From Data-Rich to Decision-Ready

For global CPG brands, the challenge is no longer collecting data. Between loyalty programs, digital activations, promotions, and retail touchpoints, brands are awash in zero- and first-party signals. The harder problem is translating that information into clear, confident actions that drive performance at shelf and across channels.

“Brands have more data than ever but often struggle to translate it into confident action and workflows,” said Gary Kalk, CEO of GOcxm. “Apex adds a powerful intelligence layer that allows teams to model outcomes, validate strategies, and optimize performance using predictive intelligence and AI-driven decisioning.”

That framing reflects a broader industry shift. Retail is increasingly viewed not just as a point of sale, but as a continuous feedback loop—one that can inform strategy if insights are surfaced quickly enough and tied directly to execution.

What Apex Adds to the GOcxm Platform

Before the acquisition, GOcxm’s platform already covered a wide span of the retail lifecycle. Brands use it to:

• Activate consumers and shopper campaigns

• Capture zero- and first-party data

• Validate initiatives in-market

• Gather shopper sentiment

• Verify proof of purchase

Apex extends this foundation upstream.

The AI platform combines proprietary datasets with applied data science to simulate outcomes and generate predictive recommendations. Rather than telling teams what happened, Apex focuses on what is likely to happen—and what actions are most likely to work.

Embedded into GOcxm’s execution layer, that intelligence allows brands to design, test, measure, and continuously optimize initiatives inside a single system, rather than bouncing between analytics tools, dashboards, and agencies.

Predictive Intelligence Meets Retail Reality

What makes the acquisition notable is how tightly Apex is being integrated into execution, not just analytics.

In many CPG organizations, insights live in one place while activation happens somewhere else—often weeks later. That lag undermines the value of even the best data.

GOcxm’s strategy is to collapse that distance. By pairing predictive modeling with real-world retail execution, teams can:

• Validate strategies before rollout

• Model different scenarios and trade-offs

• Adjust programs during execution, not after

• Tie outcomes directly back to consumer behavior

That shift reflects a growing expectation among enterprise marketers: intelligence should be operational, not observational.

A Behavioral Science Angle

Another differentiator in Apex’s approach is its emphasis on behavioral-science-trained AI. Rather than relying solely on historical correlations, the platform is designed to account for how consumers actually make decisions—particularly in retail environments where context, incentives, and timing matter as much as messaging.

This is increasingly important as CPG brands face tighter margins and higher execution costs. Incremental gains now depend on making fewer, better decisions, not just more campaigns.

“Apex was built to help organizations make better decisions with greater confidence,” said Jordan Van Schyndel, Founder of Emotive Technologies. “By joining GOcxm, we’re able to extend our mission at a greater scale and help brands learn faster, prioritize actions, and turn insight into confident, measurable decisions.”

Consolidation in Retail Tech Continues

The acquisition also fits into a broader consolidation trend across retail and shopper marketing technology.

Brands are pushing back against fragmented stacks that separate insights, activation, and measurement. The demand is shifting toward unified platforms that can close the loop—from data capture to execution to performance validation.

By absorbing Apex, GOcxm is positioning itself less as a point solution and more as an intelligence-driven operating system for retail performance. That’s a competitive stance in a market where differentiation increasingly comes from how well platforms drive action, not how many metrics they expose.

What This Means for CPG Brands

For CPG teams under pressure to justify spend and prove ROI, the implications are significant.

Instead of relying on static reports or post-mortem analysis, brands gain the ability to:

• Predict outcomes before committing budget

• Optimize execution while campaigns are live

• Treat retail touchpoints as a continuous insight engine

• Align teams around a single source of truth

That alignment is especially valuable as retailers demand more precision and accountability from brand partners.

Looking Ahead: Intelligence as the Core of Execution

GOcxm says Apex’s technology and team will be fully integrated into its product roadmap, with continued investment in AI and data science. The goal is to ensure that insight, activation, and measurement operate as one connected system, rather than as loosely coupled functions.

The larger signal is clear: retail execution platforms are evolving beyond task management and reporting into decision intelligence systems.

As data volumes grow and execution windows shrink, brands that can simulate, predict, and adapt in real time will hold the advantage. With this acquisition, GOcxm is making a decisive move to compete in that future.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Performance advertising is entering a decisively algorithmic phase—and Cognitiv is riding the center of that wave. The advanced performance partner reported strong business momentum in 2025, led by 388% growth in ContextGPT™ and accelerating adoption of its deep learning advertising platform across brands and agencies.

The results reflect more than a good year. They signal a structural shift in how performance marketing is executed as marketers contend with signal loss, media fragmentation, and rising expectations for measurable outcomes. In that environment, Cognitiv’s pitch—custom deep learning algorithms operating in real time—has found a receptive market.

Industry forecasts help explain why. Algorithm-driven spending is expected to account for 71.6% of global ad spend in 2026, rising to 76% by 2028, placing Cognitiv squarely in the fastest-growing segment of digital advertising.

From Self-Serve Optimization to Deep Learning Systems

For years, performance marketing has relied on incremental optimization inside self-serve platforms. That model is starting to show strain.

“Our growth reflects a clear shift in how brands and agencies are approaching performance marketing,” said Jeremy Fain, CEO of Cognitiv. “Advertisers are moving beyond self-serve optimization toward automated deep learning systems that can understand context, interpret intent, and drive outcomes at scale.”

Cognitiv’s differentiation lies in how those systems are deployed. Rather than running containerized models that process data after the fact, Cognitiv co-locates its infrastructure with leading SSPs, allowing algorithms to make bidding decisions in milliseconds.

According to the company, that architecture delivers up to 10 times the computing power of many competing solutions, enabling real-time optimization of metrics like viewability, video completion rate (VCR), and clicks—while impressions are still being auctioned.

In an environment where milliseconds increasingly determine outcomes, that speed advantage matters.

The Curated Contextual Era Takes Shape

At the heart of Cognitiv’s growth is what it calls the Curated Contextual Era—a move away from static audience segments toward real-time, algorithmic decisioning driven by content and context.

This strategy centers on ContextGPT, which Cognitiv positions as the industry’s first real-time contextual targeting intelligence platform. Unlike legacy contextual tools that rely on keyword matching or rigid taxonomies, ContextGPT uses deep learning and advanced language models to interpret content with human-like nuance.

The platform allows advertisers to activate performance without cookies, pixels, or user IDs, a capability that has become table stakes as privacy restrictions and signal loss reshape digital advertising.

In 2025, ContextGPT customer adoption grew more than 44%, fueled by continued product innovation. New features such as Interactive Audience Exploration and an upgraded Relevance Engine delivered up to 40% greater accuracy in connecting brands with custom-defined audiences.

The result is advertising that is not only more privacy-resilient, but often more relevant—because it’s grounded in real-time intent rather than inferred identity.

Performance Gains Drive Customer Expansion

Cognitiv’s momentum isn’t limited to adoption metrics. Customer performance improved meaningfully over the course of the year.

In 2025, the company saw:

• A 67% increase in new clients year over year

• A 29% improvement in average ROAS from the first half to the second half of the year

Those gains translated into deeper customer relationships. Existing clients expanded spend and launched more campaigns as results improved, particularly across verticals like CPG, pharma, and travel, where contextual relevance and brand suitability are critical.

This performance-driven expansion highlights a broader trend: advertisers are increasingly willing to consolidate spend with partners that can prove incremental value, not just incremental reach.

Talent and Leadership Signal a Scaling Phase

Cognitiv’s growth in 2025 wasn’t purely technical. The company also invested heavily in organizational readiness as demand increased.

Over the year, Cognitiv added new talent and promoted dozens of team members across engineering, data science, product, customer success, and go-to-market functions—a sign the company is building for scale rather than chasing short-term growth.

A notable milestone was the promotion of Justine Frostad to Chief Marketing Officer, marking the company’s first CMO appointment. The move signals a more deliberate investment in brand, narrative, and executive visibility as Cognitiv enters a new phase of maturity.

The company also added four new VP and SVP leaders, alongside multiple senior-level promotions, reinforcing a stated commitment to developing talent from within.

At the board level, Cognitiv strengthened its strategic perspective with the addition of Michael Kassan, a longtime marketing and media industry veteran—an appointment that underscores the company’s long-term ambitions.

Why This Matters for the Ad Industry

Cognitiv’s results arrive at a pivotal moment for digital advertising.

As identifiers disappear and platforms fragment, performance advantage is shifting toward infrastructure, algorithms, and execution speed, not audience ownership. Contextual intelligence—once viewed as a fallback—has become a primary strategy, especially when paired with deep learning that can operate in real time.

Cognitiv’s growth suggests that advertisers are no longer experimenting at the edges. They are committing budget to systems that can autonomously interpret context, optimize bids, and adapt continuously.

If forecasts around algorithm-driven spend hold, companies built natively around deep learning—not retrofitted onto legacy stacks—will shape the next phase of performance marketing.

The Takeaway

Cognitiv’s 2025 momentum tells a clear story: performance advertising is becoming a machine-led discipline, and contextual intelligence is no longer optional.

With ContextGPT growing nearly fourfold, improving ROAS, and a platform designed for speed at scale, Cognitiv is positioning itself not just as a tool provider, but as an infrastructure partner for the algorithmic future of advertising.

As the industry moves toward 2026 and beyond, the question may not be whether deep learning drives performance marketing—but which platforms are fast enough, smart enough, and close enough to the exchange to matter.

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As tracking weakens and retargeting becomes less reliable, opt-in has quietly become one of the most valuable moments in marketing. Intuit is making that case forcefully with a new global report that suggests list building isn’t the finish line—it’s where the real work begins.

Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU) has released The Art of the Opt-In: Why List Building is Only the Beginning, a research report developed by Intuit Mailchimp in partnership with Ascend2. Drawing on insights from thousands of marketers and consumers across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia/New Zealand, the report maps a widening gap between what brands ask for at opt-in—and what consumers are actually willing to give.

The conclusion is blunt: brands are still optimizing for volume, while consumers are optimizing for trust.

Opt-In Is the Last Clean Signal

In a marketing ecosystem shaped by privacy regulation, signal loss, and platform fragmentation, opt-in has become something rare—a moment of explicit permission.

“As tracking and re-targeting become more complex, the opt-in stands out as one of the few moments when a brand can earn a direct relationship,” said Matt Cimino, product manager at Intuit Mailchimp. “Sign-up is the first signal that someone is willing to engage, and what a brand does in that moment sets expectations for everything that comes next.”

That framing reflects a broader shift underway in MarTech. As third-party data erodes, first-party relationships are no longer just valuable—they’re fragile. The inbox and SMS channel are increasingly guarded spaces, and consumers are far more selective about who they let in.

Marketers Have Lists—But Not Confidence

The data reveals a paradox at the heart of modern marketing execution.

Nearly all marketers maintain email and SMS lists. Yet:

• Fewer than one-third consider their lists “very high quality”

• Only 8% report conversion rates above 20%

• Just 21% have fully automated email and SMS campaigns

• Only one-third feel very confident about which channels drive opt-ins

In other words, most brands are collecting contacts—but few are convinced those contacts will actually convert.

That lack of confidence has consequences. Without clarity on source, intent, or preference, marketers struggle to personalize responsibly. The result is more messaging, not better messaging—fueling consumer fatigue.

Consumers Are Paying Less Attention, Not More

On the other side of the relationship, consumers are noticing the increase in marketing messages—but that doesn’t mean it’s working.

According to the report:

• Only 40% of consumers say they’re paying more attention to marketing emails and texts

• About 25% say they’re tuning these channels out more than a year ago

For those who remain engaged, the expectations are clear:

• 56% want content that genuinely adds value

• 40% want messaging frequency that doesn’t feel like spam

The problem isn’t the channel. It’s relevance.

Asking Too Much, Too Soon

One of the report’s most telling findings highlights how early missteps at opt-in can erode trust before a relationship even starts.

For example:

• 65% of brands ask for a phone number in popup forms

• Only 28% of consumers are willing to provide it

That gap signals a trust mismatch. Brands are optimizing for downstream value, while consumers are still deciding whether the relationship is worth starting.

“Most opt-ins come up short because they’re created only thinking about what the business needs, not what the customer actually wants,” Cimino explained.

The data suggests brands perform better when they focus on high-intent moments rather than intrusive interruptions:

• 50% of consumers are more likely to opt in after browsing

• 39% are more likely during checkout

Timing, context, and restraint matter more than aggressive data capture.

Trust Is Generational—and Visual

The report also reveals sharp generational differences in how trust is formed.

• 39% of Gen Z assume brands will follow privacy laws

• That number drops to just 19% among Baby Boomers

For younger consumers, trust is often immediate and design-driven:

• 43% of Gen Z say clean, simple design makes them more comfortable completing opt-in forms

• Only 29% of Boomers+ say the same

This suggests that for Gen Z, trust is communicated visually and experientially, not through fine print or lengthy explanations. For older audiences, skepticism remains higher—and harder to overcome.

Automation Separates List Builders From Leaders

One of the report’s clearest signals is the role of automation in closing the relevance gap.

Brands that consider their contact lists best-in-class—dubbed “List Quality Leaders”—are:

• 3x more likely to have fully automated email and SMS programs

• More likely to run structured welcome series (64% vs. 53%)

• More likely to deploy cross-sell and upsell flows (45% vs. 36%)

Automation, in this context, isn’t about sending more messages. It’s about responding appropriately, consistently, and at scale.

Omnichannel Orchestration Beats Channel Optimization

The research also challenges channel-by-channel thinking.

Brands with highly aligned omnichannel messaging and timing report significantly higher value across nearly every channel:

• Organic social: 62% vs. 43%

• Paid social: 56% vs. 40%

• Emerging channels like generative engines: 10% vs. 5%

The implication is clear: when channels reinforce each other, each one performs better. When they operate in silos, even strong channels underperform.

This is especially relevant as AI-driven discovery reshapes how consumers find and evaluate brands. Opt-in no longer sits downstream of awareness—it’s part of a continuous, cross-channel conversation.

Data Isn’t the Problem—Fragmentation Is

Despite access to more data than ever, marketers struggle to turn signals into relevance.

Only:

• 30% use preference or frequency data

• 29% use browsing behavior

These are among the strongest predictors of engagement, yet they remain underutilized—largely because data lives in disconnected systems.

“Relevance comes from clarity, not volume,” said Diana Williams, Vice President of Product, Intuit Mailchimp. “When data is fragmented, even the best intentions fall short.”

Mailchimp’s strategy, as outlined in the report, centers on unifying behavioral signals, automations, and omnichannel insights so marketers can act with confidence—not guesswork.

Why This Matters Now

The timing of the report is notable.

As privacy regulations tighten and AI reshapes discovery, permission-based marketing is becoming the foundation of sustainable growth. Opt-in is no longer a mechanical step—it’s a value exchange that sets the tone for the entire relationship.

Brands that treat opt-in as a checkbox will continue to see list fatigue and declining engagement. Those that treat it as a moment of trust—earned through relevance, restraint, and clarity—stand to build relationships that compound over time.

The Takeaway

The Art of the Opt-In makes a simple but uncomfortable point: most brands are still designing opt-ins for themselves, not for their customers.

In a world where attention is scarce and permission is precious, list building is no longer the goal. Earning the right to stay relevant is.

For marketers navigating signal loss, AI disruption, and rising consumer skepticism, the opt-in moment may be the most strategic lever left—and one too often mishandled.

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