AI-first marketing compliance platform Blee has raised $20 million in Series A funding, bringing its total funding to $27 million as it expands technology designed to help enterprises govern the growing volume of AI-generated marketing content.

The Series A was co-led by Fin Capital and SMBC Fin Atlas Beyond Fund, with participation from Hannah Grey VC and National Bank of Canada. Existing investors including Y Combinator, Penny Jar Capital, Cardumen Capital and Treasury also participated.

The funding comes as enterprise marketing teams increasingly use artificial intelligence to automate content creation. Blee cited a Gartner survey in which marketing leaders expect the share of content automated by AI to increase from 16% in 2026 to 36% by 2028.

That growth creates a challenge for legal, compliance and brand teams responsible for reviewing customer-facing materials. As content is produced faster across advertising, social media, video, affiliate marketing and other channels, traditional manual approval processes can become a bottleneck.

Market Landscape

The expansion of generative AI is changing enterprise content operations by allowing marketing teams to create and modify material at significantly higher volumes. However, greater production capacity also increases the amount of content that requires regulatory, legal and brand oversight.

Blee's approach is to operate alongside existing content creation tools rather than replace them. Its platform uses AI to provide feedback across areas including regulatory requirements, compliance, legal considerations and brand standards before content enters formal review.

The company says legal and compliance teams using its platform have reduced average review times by up to 65%. The figure is a company-reported performance claim rather than an independent industry benchmark.

Strategic Outlook

Blee's platform is designed to cover the content lifecycle from submission and review through approval and comment cycles. It also maintains an audit trail intended to provide organizations with documentation of the review process.

The system extends beyond pre-publication workflows. After content goes live, Blee says it can monitor materials including influencer websites and social media for regulatory compliance and brand adherence.

This continuous approach reflects a broader shift in marketing compliance. As AI agents increasingly participate in content creation, organizations may need governance systems that operate continuously rather than relying exclusively on periodic manual reviews.

For enterprise marketing organizations, the issue is therefore not simply whether AI can create content. It is whether businesses can establish controls that allow that content to move quickly while maintaining legal, regulatory and brand standards.

Blee said its annual recurring revenue increased tenfold between June 2025 and June 2026 and that it works with companies across financial services, travel, life sciences and consumer brands. Customers named in the announcement include SoFi Technologies and Expedia Group.

The company plans to use the new capital to expand its content governance capabilities, enter additional industries and geographies, and increase adoption among enterprise legal, compliance, marketing and brand teams.

Top Insights

• Blee raised $20 million in Series A funding, bringing total funding to $27 million.
• The company focuses on AI-powered marketing compliance and content governance.
• Blee supports review workflows across legal, regulatory and brand requirements.
• Its platform can monitor published content as well as materials before publication.
• Blee reports a 65% reduction in average review times among legal and compliance users.
• The company says its ARR grew tenfold between June 2025 and June 2026.
• The funding will support product development and international and industry expansion.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Franchise marketing agency Thunderly Marketing has appointed advertising and creative strategy veteran Carlos Cortinas as its chief strategy officer, adding a dedicated strategic leadership role as brands adapt to changes in search, media and consumer discovery.

The newly created position is intended to strengthen the strategic foundation behind client marketing programs, with particular attention to brand visibility in an increasingly zero-click search environment.

Cortinas joins Thunderly after approximately 15 years leading creative strategy at advertising agencies, where he worked on campaigns for global brands. His appointment adds experience across creative strategy and marketing communications to Thunderly's franchise-focused operations.

The move reflects a broader challenge for franchise marketers. Consumers increasingly encounter brands through search results, social platforms, AI-generated answers and other digital touchpoints before visiting a company's website. As a result, maintaining a consistent brand position across these environments is becoming more important.

Market Landscape

Franchise brands operate across multiple locations while needing to maintain consistency in messaging, positioning and customer experience. Traditional marketing channels remain relevant, but search behavior is changing as consumers increasingly use AI-powered search experiences and large language models to discover and evaluate businesses.

The shift toward zero-click search also changes how visibility is measured. A consumer may encounter a brand, answer or recommendation without clicking through to the company's website. This makes brand authority, structured information, topical relevance and consistent messaging increasingly important components of digital marketing strategy.

For franchise organizations, the challenge can be more complex because national brand positioning must coexist with local marketing needs. A clear strategic foundation can help align those layers rather than treating every channel or location as a separate marketing activity.

Strategic Outlook

Thunderly recently introduced its proprietary Thunderly AIM Model (Amplified Integrated Marketing) in response to the growth of AI-generated search and LLM-based discovery.

According to the company, the model is designed to provide a flexible approach for maintaining control over brand messaging as the marketing environment evolves. Cortinas' appointment adds a senior strategy role to that broader effort.

His focus is centered on establishing a stronger point of view across marketing communications rather than simply expanding the number of channels a brand uses.

That approach reflects a wider change in modern marketing strategy. As brands distribute content across search, social, advertising and AI-powered discovery platforms, channel expansion alone does not necessarily create stronger visibility. Consistent positioning and differentiated messaging can become important inputs across those environments.

For franchise marketers, the strategic question is increasingly how to make a brand recognizable and relevant wherever consumers encounter it, while preserving enough flexibility for local markets.

Top Insights

• Carlos Cortinas has joined Thunderly Marketing as chief strategy officer.
• The newly created role focuses on strengthening strategic marketing foundations.
• Cortinas brings around 15 years of creative strategy experience.
• Thunderly is responding to changes in AI-powered search and zero-click discovery.
• Its AIM Model is designed around integrated marketing and adaptable brand messaging.
• Franchise brands face the additional challenge of balancing national positioning with local marketing needs.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

FouAnalytics has launched Practitioners Spotlight, a weekly LinkedIn profile series designed to recognize professionals whose hands-on work contributes to digital marketing, advertising and adtech.

The initiative moves away from conventional influencer rankings and instead focuses on the practitioners working directly with campaigns, data, measurement and marketing decisions. FouAnalytics founder Dr. Augustine Fou said the series was created because there are more practitioners deserving recognition than can reasonably fit into a traditional “Top 100” list.

Each Spotlight profile will introduce an individual, explain the work they perform and examine the problems they help solve. The series will also highlight lessons that other marketing professionals can apply to their own work.

The launch comes as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into everyday marketing workflows. AI tools can generate reports, summarize campaign performance and produce recommendations at increasing speed, but the ability to assess whether those outputs are accurate remains a critical part of marketing operations.

Market Landscape

Digital marketing has become increasingly dependent on data-driven decision-making, spanning advertising platforms, analytics, attribution, audience measurement and campaign optimization. At the same time, AI is adding another layer to these workflows by automating analysis and generating recommendations.

That shift creates a growing distinction between producing an answer and determining whether the answer is useful. Experienced practitioners can identify unusual metrics, question inconsistent results and investigate recommendations that appear credible but may require additional validation.

FouAnalytics is positioning its Spotlight series around that practical expertise. Rather than emphasizing job titles, audience size or industry visibility, the profiles will examine how professionals approach real marketing problems and use data to make decisions.

Strategic Outlook

The initiative extends the company's FouAnalytics Practitioners Newsletter, which focuses on real campaign data, practical analysis and insights drawn from hands-on digital marketing experience.

Publishing the profiles through LinkedIn also reflects how professional knowledge is increasingly distributed through social platforms. Short, practitioner-focused content can provide examples of marketing problems and solutions while creating visibility for professionals who may not have large online audiences.

The emphasis on specific examples could become particularly relevant as marketers adopt AI-assisted workflows. As automated systems take on more analytical and repetitive tasks, practitioners may increasingly be differentiated by their ability to validate information, understand context and translate data into appropriate actions.

For marketing teams, this suggests that AI adoption does not necessarily reduce the value of experience. Instead, practical expertise can become an important layer of oversight around automated analysis and recommendations.

Top Insights

• FouAnalytics has introduced a weekly Practitioners Spotlight series on LinkedIn.
• The series focuses on hands-on professionals across digital marketing, advertising and adtech.
• Profiles will prioritize practical work over titles, follower counts and generic career advice.
• AI-generated reports and recommendations increase the importance of human validation.
• The initiative builds on the FouAnalytics Practitioners Newsletter.
• Each profile is intended to provide examples and lessons other practitioners can apply.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

The Marketing + Media Alliance (MMA) has announced the finalists for the SMARTIES Philippines 2026 awards, highlighting campaigns that combine local cultural understanding, emerging technology and measurable business outcomes.

This year's shortlist reflects how Philippine marketers are adapting to changing consumer behavior through social-first strategies and integrated digital ecosystems. Among the themes identified by MMA are shoppertainment, digital wallet integration and purpose-led campaigns built around bayanihan, the Filipino concept of communal unity.

The finalists illustrate a marketing environment in which cultural relevance and technology increasingly operate together. Rather than treating innovation as a standalone technology exercise, the shortlisted campaigns demonstrate how emerging tools can be applied to audience engagement, commerce and brand growth.

Market Landscape

The Philippine marketing market is becoming increasingly shaped by mobile-first and social-first consumer behavior. Brands are connecting content, commerce and payments across digital touchpoints, creating more continuous customer journeys.

Shoppertainment is one example of this convergence, combining entertainment and shopping experiences to reduce the distance between discovery and purchase. Digital wallets similarly provide brands with opportunities to connect marketing engagement with transaction-oriented experiences.

At the same time, purpose-led marketing remains part of the competitive landscape. The SMARTIES finalists' emphasis on bayanihan indicates how local cultural values can become a strategic component of campaigns rather than simply a creative theme.

Strategic Outlook

The 2026 SMARTIES framework evaluates campaigns across four areas: Purpose Driven Marketing, Impact Marketing, Media & Growth, and Creative & Innovation Impact. The categories reflect the growing expectation that successful campaigns demonstrate both creative strength and commercial or societal relevance.

Purpose Driven Marketing covers campaigns designed to generate meaningful cultural or societal impact, including sustainability, diversity and inclusion initiatives. Impact Marketing focuses on measurable business outcomes and stronger brand relationships.

Media & Growth evaluates integrated media strategies and audience development, while Creative & Innovation Impact recognizes campaigns using creativity, data and emerging technology to create new forms of brand engagement.

The judging process also places significant emphasis on business impact. Submissions first undergo review by a qualifying jury of senior advertising professionals before a final jury made up exclusively of marketers, including CEOs and CMOs, evaluates the campaigns.

This structure highlights an important shift in marketing awards: innovation increasingly needs to demonstrate what it changed, not simply what technology or creative execution it used.

For brands operating in Southeast Asian markets, the Philippine finalists also demonstrate the potential value of combining global marketing capabilities with highly localized cultural insights.

Top Insights

• MMA has announced the SMARTIES Philippines 2026 finalists.
• Shortlisted campaigns combine cultural insights with technology and business objectives.
• Shoppertainment and digital wallet integration are among the highlighted themes.
• Purpose-led marketing draws on the Filipino value of bayanihan.
• SMARTIES evaluates Purpose Driven Marketing, Impact Marketing, Media & Growth, and Creative & Innovation Impact.
• Final judging focuses on measurable business impact.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Solera is expanding its artificial intelligence capabilities for automotive dealerships with AI Sales Coach, a DealerSocket CRM feature designed to turn sales-performance data into daily, individualized coaching recommendations.

The company says the tool continuously analyzes sales performance across dealership teams and locations, assigns sales representatives performance tiers and generates coaching notes that managers can access from the CRM dashboard. The launch reflects a broader movement in automotive retail toward embedding AI directly into customer relationship management and sales workflows rather than using analytics as a separate reporting layer.

AI Sales Coach follows Solera's earlier introduction of conversational AI for lead response and AI-powered lead scoring in 2026. The three capabilities are positioned as components of the company's Solera AI Engine, which connects dealership data and workflows across its technology portfolio.

Market Landscape

Automotive dealerships have access to increasing amounts of customer and sales data, but converting that information into timely action remains a challenge. CRM systems can contain information about leads, interactions and sales activity, while managers must still determine which representatives require attention and what coaching intervention may be appropriate.

AI-based sales tools are increasingly addressing that gap by moving from descriptive reporting toward recommendations and workflow automation. Lead scoring can prioritize opportunities, conversational AI can support response processes, and performance coaching can focus managers on employee development.

The approach also reflects the continuing convergence of automotive retail technology and marketing technology. Lead generation, follow-up, CRM engagement and sales performance are closely connected, making data continuity increasingly important across the customer journey.

Strategic Outlook

Solera says AI Sales Coach identifies coaching opportunities and provides targeted guidance within DealerSocket CRM. The intended outcome is to make sales coaching more consistent and less dependent on managers manually reviewing fragmented reports.

The company's broader strategy is based on a shared data foundation. Solera says its AI Engine connects dealership information and orchestrates workflows across products, with AI Sales Coach using the same connected customer record as other capabilities.

That model could offer an advantage over disconnected point solutions if signals from lead activity, customer interactions and sales performance can be combined effectively. It also creates a potential feedback loop in which additional data improves the usefulness of subsequent recommendations.

However, AI-generated coaching still requires managerial judgment. Performance data can identify patterns, but managers remain responsible for understanding context, setting expectations and determining how individual employees should be supported.

For automotive retailers, the more significant development may therefore be the integration of AI into everyday dealership operations rather than AI as a standalone analytics product.

Top Insights

• Solera introduced AI Sales Coach within DealerSocket CRM.
• The tool analyzes sales performance and identifies coaching opportunities.
• Managers receive individualized coaching guidance through the CRM dashboard.
• AI Sales Coach follows Solera's AI lead response and lead-scoring capabilities.
• The capabilities operate on the company's Solera AI Engine and connected data foundation.
• The strategy connects sales performance, CRM data and AI-driven decision support.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

TechDigital Labs has introduced an expanded Enterprise SEO Services offering for large websites, SaaS businesses, e-commerce companies and organizations managing multiple digital properties. The program focuses on technical SEO, crawling and indexing, website architecture, internal linking, Core Web Vitals and enterprise content management.

The move comes as organizations with hundreds or thousands of pages face increasingly complex challenges in maintaining consistent organic search performance. Unlike smaller websites, enterprise properties can have numerous product, service, location, brand and educational pages, meaning a structural issue can potentially affect large groups of URLs.

TechDigital Labs says its approach is designed to identify these issues and establish priorities for long-term search performance across large and multi-site environments.

Market Landscape

Enterprise SEO increasingly involves managing search infrastructure rather than optimizing individual pages in isolation. Google's documentation recommends that websites maintain logical structures, ensure important pages are accessible to crawlers and use internal links to help search engines understand relationships between pages.

For SaaS businesses, this can involve managing product, solution, comparison and educational content. E-commerce organizations face additional complexity across product catalogs, categories, filters and other navigational elements. International companies may also need to coordinate SEO across markets, languages and domains.

Technical performance remains another consideration. Google says Core Web Vitals measure loading performance, interactivity and visual stability and are used by its systems as part of evaluating page experience.

Strategic Outlook

TechDigital Labs' updated service covers enterprise website audits, crawl and indexing analysis, duplicate-content reviews, page-speed assessments, mobile functionality, structured data and internal-linking structures. It also evaluates content quality, relevance and alignment with search intent.

The company says its process includes analysis, issue identification, prioritization, recommendations, implementation monitoring and continuous improvement. For organizations with multiple properties, the strategy can extend to multi-site and multi-brand SEO, international SEO and SEO migration management.

The emphasis on governance is particularly relevant to large organizations where SEO responsibilities can span marketing, content, development and business teams. Establishing common processes can help prevent technical and content changes from creating inconsistencies across a large digital ecosystem.

TechDigital Labs is also examining changing search behavior and AI-driven search visibility. This reflects an emerging consideration for enterprise marketers: maintaining conventional search visibility while ensuring content is structured and useful enough to be surfaced in newer generative search experiences.

However, AI-search optimization does not replace fundamental technical SEO. Crawlability, indexing, useful content, site architecture and clear information remain foundational requirements for large websites.

Top Insights

• TechDigital Labs has expanded its Enterprise SEO Services for large digital properties.
• The offering targets enterprise websites, SaaS, e-commerce and multi-site organizations.
• Technical SEO, indexing, architecture and internal linking are central components.
• Core Web Vitals and mobile functionality are included in the technical assessment.
• The strategy supports multi-brand, international and multi-site SEO requirements.
• The company is also exploring enterprise visibility across AI-driven search.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

TechDigital Labs has expanded its e-commerce SEO strategy, focusing on product and category visibility, site architecture, technical SEO, internal linking and content optimization as online retailers compete for qualified organic traffic.

The update targets e-commerce websites where increasing numbers of product and category pages can make search optimization more complex. TechDigital Labs says its approach is designed to improve how search engines understand an online store while helping businesses reach consumers actively searching for relevant products.

The strategy applies to stores operating on Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Wix and custom e-commerce platforms.

Market Landscape

E-commerce search optimization increasingly depends on more than individual keyword targeting. Google says search engines analyze relationships between pages through internal links to understand an e-commerce site's structure and the relative importance of pages. Its guidance recommends navigation that connects categories, subcategories and products while ensuring important products can be discovered through crawlable links.

Structured data is another important component. Google says Product structured data can help its systems better understand product information and can make pages eligible for richer search experiences. Merchant Center feeds can complement structured data by providing product information directly to Google.

Against this backdrop, TechDigital Labs is emphasizing the broader search environment rather than treating product-page optimization, technical SEO and content as isolated activities.

Strategic Outlook

The company's updated process begins with an assessment of an online store's rankings, traffic and conversion performance. Keyword research and mapping are then used to identify relevant search terms and inform optimization of product and category pages.

Areas covered include product titles, descriptions, headings and metadata, category architecture, internal links, image optimization and alt text, URL structures, schema markup, page speed and mobile usability. The company also evaluates crawling, indexing, duplicate content and Core Web Vitals issues.

The emphasis on internal linking aligns with Google's guidance that links help its systems understand the relationship and importance of pages within an e-commerce site. Google also recommends using consistent URLs across internal links, sitemaps and canonical tags.

For retailers, the strategic implication is that organic search performance cannot be assessed solely through visitor volume. Search intent, product relevance, technical accessibility and the path from discovery to purchase all influence the commercial value of organic traffic.

TechDigital Labs says it will track rankings, organic traffic, conversions and sales to identify areas requiring further optimization. The approach therefore positions e-commerce SEO as an ongoing process rather than a one-time technical exercise.

Top Insights

• TechDigital Labs has expanded its e-commerce SEO strategy.
• The approach covers product and category pages, technical SEO and site architecture.
• Internal linking is positioned as a core part of the strategy.
• The company targets qualified organic traffic rather than traffic volume alone.
• Google recommends crawlable navigation linking categories, subcategories and products.
• Product structured data can help Google understand e-commerce content and support richer search experiences.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

A viral social post does not necessarily translate into revenue. Sabrina Ramonov, founder of social media automation company Blotato, says two of her recent reels demonstrate the difference: one generated roughly 200,000 views and added $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue, while another exceeded 4 million views but primarily generated audience growth.

Ramonov discussed the funnel during a September 3 episode of HubSpot's Marketing Against the Grain, hosted by HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodnar. The episode examined how creators can move audiences from social platforms into channels they control, rather than relying solely on platform-owned relationships.

The 4-million-view reel reportedly added about 100,000 Instagram followers and another 100,000 Facebook followers. Ramonov said 80% of viewers were not followers, illustrating the challenge of converting large volumes of unfamiliar social traffic into owned leads.

Market Landscape

Social media marketing increasingly combines content distribution with lead capture, CRM and automation. The shift is particularly relevant as brands and creators compete for attention on algorithm-driven platforms while seeking more reliable paths from reach to revenue.

Ramonov's approach centers on comment-to-DM automation. A viewer responds to a post using a designated keyword, after which an automated sequence can request a follow and email address, deliver a promised resource through direct message and send captured information to a newsletter platform or CRM through a webhook.

The model addresses a fundamental distinction in social marketing: audience growth and customer acquisition are not the same metric. A post can generate substantial reach and follower growth without producing equivalent commercial results.

Strategic Outlook

The episode also demonstrated how AI agents could increasingly become an operating layer for marketing automation. Ramonov reportedly built a working DM flow using Blotato as a custom connector inside Claude, illustrating how natural-language instructions can be used to configure marketing workflows.

Blotato currently promotes a unified API and hosted MCP server that can connect social publishing, scheduling, comments, DMs and analytics with AI agents including Claude and ChatGPT.

That direction reflects a broader movement toward agentic marketing infrastructure, where marketers can use AI systems to execute operational tasks rather than simply generate content.

However, automation introduces its own risks. Ramonov's live demonstration exposed a friction point in the follow-gated experience: users could be asked to follow an account without having a direct follow button in the DM interface. Such details illustrate why marketers need to test automated journeys from the customer's perspective before deploying them at scale.

Top Insights

• Ramonov reported contrasting revenue and audience outcomes from two reels.
• A roughly 200,000-view reel reportedly generated $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
• A 4-million-view reel generated significant follower growth instead of comparable direct revenue.
• Comment-to-DM automation can create a bridge from social reach to owned customer data.
• AI agents are increasingly being connected to social marketing infrastructure through APIs and MCP.
• Funnel testing remains important even when the underlying automation works technically.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.