Huntington National Bank has appointed Ameesh Vakharia as executive vice president and chief marketing and digital products officer in a newly created role that brings the bank's marketing and digital product management functions together.

Vakharia will lead an integrated organization covering brand, marketing and digital product management, with a mandate to strengthen Huntington's brand, support customer growth and create more connected sales and service experiences across digital and physical channels. He will report to Brant Standridge, president of consumer and regional banking.

The organizational change reflects a broader shift in how financial institutions approach customer experience. Rather than treating marketing as a communications function separate from product development, Huntington is combining teams responsible for the brand promise with those responsible for the digital products through which customers interact with the bank.

Vakharia joins Huntington with more than two decades of experience spanning strategy, digital, product and channel management, customer growth and brand leadership. Most recently, he was executive vice president and chief strategy and brand officer at USAA, where his responsibilities included enterprise strategy, innovation, digital, marketing, communications, corporate responsibility and membership growth.

Before USAA, Vakharia served on the Operating Council at Truist, leading areas including retail deposits, small business banking, contact centers, strategy, analytics and omnichannel client experience. He also held senior leadership positions at SunTrust focused on deposits, digital channels, customer experience and enterprise strategy.

For Huntington, the appointment places digital product development and marketing closer together at a time when customer journeys increasingly cross channels. A marketing message can influence customer expectations, while the digital product determines whether those expectations are met during account opening, servicing or other interactions.

Vakharia described the rationale in similar terms, arguing that customers do not separate a brand promise from their experience with a product. The organizational structure is intended to make those elements more closely connected and enable faster movement from strategy and ideas to customer-facing solutions.

The appointment follows expanded enterprise roles for Vijay Konduru and Mark Sheehan. Konduru now leads Huntington's business innovation and AI products organization, while Sheehan leads the bank's digital assets organization.

The broader restructuring indicates that Huntington is also establishing dedicated leadership around emerging technology areas while combining marketing and digital product responsibilities under one executive.

Market Landscape

Financial institutions are increasingly managing customer experience across interconnected digital and physical channels. Mobile applications, websites, contact centers, branches and marketing communications can all influence the same customer journey.

This makes organizational alignment between marketing and digital product teams increasingly relevant. Marketing can shape customer expectations, while product teams control many of the digital interactions through which those expectations are delivered.

Strategic Outlook

Huntington's newly created role signals an integrated approach to brand, customer growth and digital product development. Bringing these functions together could reduce organizational distance between identifying customer needs, developing digital capabilities and communicating their value.

The appointment also places customer experience within a broader technology transformation at Huntington, with separate enterprise leadership for business innovation, AI products and digital assets.

Top Insights

• Huntington appointed Ameesh Vakharia as chief marketing and digital products officer.
• The newly created role combines marketing and digital product management.
• Vakharia will oversee brand, marketing and digital product functions.
• His mandate includes customer growth and connected sales and service experiences.
• He previously held senior leadership roles at USAA, Truist and SunTrust.
• Huntington has also expanded leadership around AI products and digital assets.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Listrak has launched a free Email Marketing Audit tool designed to help retailers evaluate marketing emails against more than 30 email marketing best practices. The tool analyzes content, compliance and composition, providing recommendations covering deliverability, accessibility, mobile optimization and conversion.

The audit is available without signup and returns results within seconds. Listrak positions the tool as a way for retail marketers to identify potential issues in email campaigns before they affect engagement or conversions.

Its content analysis evaluates elements including preheaders, subject-line spam triggers, early calls to action, clickable logos, social media links, SMS opt-in invitations and preference-management links. These checks are intended to assess whether an email provides the information and calls to action needed to encourage subscriber engagement.

The compliance component focuses on requirements and accessibility considerations. The audit checks for factors including CAN-SPAM compliance, ADA accessibility criteria and SMS compliance when applicable. It also reviews unsubscribe links, image alternative text, color contrast, company physical addresses and urgency claims.

Composition analysis examines how email construction can affect rendering and performance across inboxes and devices. Checks include mobile-first design, Gmail clipping risk, image payload size, coupon-code accessibility, GIF usage, button-style calls to action and live text.

The launch comes as retailers face pressure to optimize a channel that remains important to ecommerce while dealing with changing inbox requirements and declining engagement metrics. Listrak said its platform data showed email click-through rates fell 11% year over year in the second quarter of 2026.

At the same time, the company said email continues to generate 30% of ecommerce revenue, underscoring the commercial importance of maintaining email performance even as engagement becomes more challenging.

Listrak's approach is notable because the audit focuses on practical execution rather than simply reporting campaign metrics. By evaluating the email itself against a defined set of criteria, the tool is designed to identify issues that marketers can address before or during campaign optimization.

The company said the tool draws on email marketing practices developed through its 25 years of experience and work with more than 1,000 retail brands. CEO Ross Kramer said the audit is intended to identify blind spots that can emerge when email creation is distributed across creative, merchandising and marketing teams.

Market Landscape

Email remains a core retail marketing channel, but effective execution increasingly requires marketers to balance engagement, accessibility, compliance, mobile rendering and deliverability.

The growing number of factors affecting email performance can make manual quality assurance difficult, particularly for organizations producing campaigns across multiple teams. Listrak's audit addresses this operational challenge by bringing multiple checks into a single evaluation.

Strategic Outlook

The tool reflects a broader move toward automated marketing quality assurance. Rather than relying solely on post-campaign metrics such as opens and clicks, marketers can assess campaign construction against established practices before deployment.

For retailers, the strategic value lies in identifying relatively small technical or content changes that may affect email usability and conversion. As inbox requirements and consumer expectations evolve, automated auditing could become an increasingly useful layer within email marketing workflows.

Top Insights

• Listrak launched a free Email Marketing Audit for retailers.
• The tool evaluates emails against 30+ email marketing best practices.
• Audits cover content, compliance and composition.
• The tool checks accessibility, mobile optimization and deliverability factors.
• Listrak reports an 11% year-over-year decline in email click-through rates in Q2 2026.
• Listrak says email continues to drive 30% of ecommerce revenue.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Moore and RMI Direct have announced a strategic alliance under which RMI is recommending that clients transition their list management and brokerage services to AudienceFirst Media, a division of SimioCloud, a Moore company. The companies emphasized that the arrangement is an alliance rather than an acquisition.

RMI concluded operations on September 1, with client notifications and a transition process intended to maintain continuity as customers move their list management and brokerage activities to AudienceFirst Media.

The agreement brings RMI's established client relationships and list management operations into a company focused on data-driven audience strategies. AudienceFirst Media provides data solutions for nonprofits, publishers, catalog and retail organizations, developing audience strategies intended to improve performance and the use of customer data assets.

List management and brokerage remain important components of data-driven, particularly for organizations that depend on audience identification, segmentation and third-party data to support acquisition and engagement programs. The transition therefore centers on transferring both operational services and client relationships rather than simply moving technology.

According to Moore, AudienceFirst Media's capabilities include identifying audiences and developing integrated data strategies across multiple verticals. Those capabilities overlap with the services RMI has historically provided, creating a basis for the transition.

Several RMI account representatives have also joined Moore's AudienceFirst Media team. Their continued involvement is intended to preserve client relationships and business knowledge during the changeover.

The alliance reflects a broader evolution in data services, where list management increasingly intersects with audience strategy and broader data activation. Organizations are not only looking for access to audiences but also for ways to use their existing data assets more effectively across programs.

For RMI clients, the immediate focus is continuity. For Moore and AudienceFirst Media, the arrangement expands the scope of their client relationships while adding experienced account personnel familiar with the transferred accounts.

RMI President Rich Leary said the company selected Moore and AudienceFirst Media because of their expertise in list management, brokerage and data-driven audience strategies. Moore CEO Gretchen Littlefield said AudienceFirst Media would build on the foundation established by RMI while maintaining service continuity.

Market Landscape

Audience data remains a foundational component of direct and data-driven marketing. List management and brokerage services help organizations identify and manage audiences, while increasingly sophisticated data strategies seek to connect those audiences with broader marketing objectives.

The Moore-RMI alliance reflects this convergence. Rather than treating list management as an isolated operational function, AudienceFirst Media positions it within a broader framework of data solutions and audience strategy.

Strategic Outlook

The transition highlights the importance of combining audience data expertise with established client relationships. Keeping RMI account representatives within AudienceFirst Media could help preserve institutional knowledge while clients move to a new service provider.

For the broader marketing data market, the alliance also illustrates how traditional list management services can evolve toward integrated audience strategies designed to improve the value and performance of organizational data assets.

Top Insights

• Moore and RMI Direct Marketing announced a strategic alliance.
• RMI is recommending clients transition list management and brokerage services to AudienceFirst Media.
• The companies stated that the arrangement is not an acquisition.
• RMI concluded operations on September 1.
• Several RMI account representatives joined Moore's AudienceFirst Media team.
• AudienceFirst Media focuses on data solutions and data-driven audience strategies.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Givsly has expanded its AI-powered Values-Based Audiences solution into political advertising, giving campaigns and political media buyers a way to segment audiences around values, issues and behavioral signals rather than relying exclusively on traditional demographic characteristics.

The solution uses a vector-based methodology to create audience segments from values, inferred motivations and behavioral signals. Givsly says the audiences are modeled at the ZIP code level using aggregated community-level signals rather than individual voter files.

The approach is designed to help political campaigns identify differences in what communities prioritize. More than 150 tracked values, issues and cultural signals can be used to develop audience segments, including interests related to healthcare, education policy, public safety, attitudes toward AI, green mandates, energy dominance and civic engagement.

Rather than assigning characteristics to individual voters, the platform statistically models communities and develops representative profiles from observed patterns. Campaigns can then layer these modeled audiences over their own voter files, turnout models or CRM data.

This creates a hybrid targeting approach in which aggregated audience intelligence is combined with campaign-specific data. Givsly says the model can help media buyers identify communities where particular issue priorities are more prominent and potentially focus advertising on audiences more receptive to specific messages.

The expansion also brings Values-Based Audiences into programmatic advertising supply. Givsly says the political advertising segments are currently available through select partners, including OpenX and Index Exchange via Index Marketplaces, ahead of a broader rollout.

The move comes as political campaigns, PACs and political advertising agencies increase their use of data and AI for campaign planning and media activation. For these organizations, the challenge is increasingly about finding additional signals that can complement established targeting factors such as age, party registration and past turnout.

The privacy implications of political audience targeting also remain important. Givsly says its offering uses aggregated and modeled signals rather than individually identifiable voter data. The distinction allows the company to position its audience segments as community-level intelligence that can be layered onto campaign-owned targeting information.

For programmatic buyers, the availability of these segments through supply-side partners adds another dimension to the proposition. Index Exchange and OpenX characterize the offering as a way to bring values and issue signals closer to the media supply and incorporate them into programmatic strategies.

Market Landscape

Political advertising has traditionally relied heavily on demographic, geographic and voter-related data. AI-based audience modeling introduces another layer by attempting to identify communities according to shared values and issue priorities.

Givsly's approach focuses on ZIP-code-level modeling rather than individual voter classification. This positions the technology between broad geographic targeting and individualized voter-data strategies, while allowing campaign-owned data to be layered onto the modeled audience.

Strategic Outlook

The expansion illustrates how AI-driven audience intelligence is moving beyond conventional commercial marketing applications into political advertising. Values and issue signals can provide campaigns with an additional way to organize media strategies around message relevance.

For advertisers and agencies, access through OpenX and Index Exchange could make these signals more usable within programmatic workflows. The key strategic consideration will be how effectively modeled community-level signals complement campaign data while maintaining the aggregated approach described by Givsly.

Top Insights

• Givsly expanded Values-Based Audiences into political advertising.
• The solution uses AI modeling and a vector methodology.
• Audiences are modeled at the ZIP code level.
• More than 150 values, issues and cultural signals are tracked.
• Campaigns can layer their own voter files, turnout models or CRM data onto the audience segments.
• The audiences are available through select partners including OpenX and Index Exchange.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Postalytics has launched MailBack, a direct mail automation capability designed to help marketers identify eligible anonymous website visitors and turn them into addressable direct mail audiences. The product connects website activity with Postalytics' campaign automation tools, allowing marketers to trigger personalized physical-mail campaigns based on visitor engagement.

The launch targets a persistent challenge in digital marketing: acquiring website traffic without being able to identify or follow up with visitors who leave without converting. Postalytics cites Ruler Analytics' 2026 benchmark study of more than 110 million website sessions across 13 industries, which reported an average website conversion rate of 5.13%.

MailBack uses a website pixel and identity resolution process to identify eligible U.S. consumer and business visitors. Postalytics says the system can match qualifying visitors to names, verified mailing addresses and validated email addresses. Depending on the selected data tier, marketers can also receive demographic or firmographic information.

The product is available in three tiers. B2C Value provides core contact and behavioral data. B2C Premium adds demographic information and, according to Postalytics, identifies 50% to 65% of unique U.S. consumer visitors. The B2B tier focuses on business contacts and firmographic data for organizations targeting other companies.

Once visitors are identified, their information can flow directly into Postalytics Flows, the company's campaign automation environment. Marketers can use the connection to create multi-touch direct mail sequences, conduct creative A/B tests, create demographic-based branches and connect external platforms through webhooks.

This integration is central to Postalytics' positioning. Rather than requiring marketers to export identified prospects or build a separate connection between visitor identification and campaign execution, MailBack feeds the data into the company's existing automation workflow.

The capability is aimed at marketers across sectors including ecommerce, telecom, home services, financial services, healthcare, real estate, automotive, nonprofit, technology and SaaS. Agencies and resellers can also provide the service through Postalytics Agency Edition, which supports white-labeling and wholesale pricing.

Postalytics says MailBack is now available to U.S. customers as a $99-per-month add-on to its Free, Marketer, Pro and Agency plans. Per-lead budgets cover visitor identification and data costs, while direct mail production and postage are charged separately.

Market Landscape

Direct mail is increasingly being incorporated into multi-channel marketing strategies as marketers look for ways to connect digital intent with offline engagement. Postalytics cites data showing that 95% of marketers plan to maintain or increase direct mail budgets this year, while 69% of consumers say they need two or more mailings before taking action.

MailBack sits at the intersection of website analytics, identity resolution, audience activation and direct mail automation. Its proposition is to make physical-mail retargeting part of an automated digital marketing workflow.

Strategic Outlook

The product illustrates a broader shift toward connecting online behavioral signals with offline marketing channels. Instead of treating direct mail as a separate campaign process, marketers can use website engagement as a trigger for personalized outreach.

The key strategic consideration will be how accurately visitor identification translates into actionable audiences while maintaining appropriate data practices. For marketers already using Postalytics Flows, the native connection could reduce operational friction between audience identification and campaign execution.

Top Insights

• Postalytics launched MailBack for identifying eligible anonymous website visitors.
• The platform connects visitor identification with direct mail automation.
• Three data tiers support B2C and B2B use cases.
• B2C Premium identifies 50%–65% of unique U.S. consumer visitors, according to Postalytics.
• MailBack integrates with Postalytics Flows for automated campaigns.
• The service is available as a $99/month add-on for U.S. customers.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

CaliberMind has launched Activations, a new capability designed to connect multi-touch attribution insights directly with marketing and advertising execution platforms. The functionality allows revenue marketing and demand generation teams to synchronize dynamic audience segments with downstream destinations, including Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, HubSpot and more than 170 additional activation platforms and tools.

The launch addresses a familiar gap between audience intelligence and campaign execution. Marketing and Revenue Operations teams can build detailed segments using customer data platforms (CDPs), data warehouses and marketing analytics tools, but manually exporting those audiences into execution systems can introduce delays and reduce data fidelity.

Activations is designed to create a continuous connection between audience segmentation and downstream campaign destinations. Once a segment is created in CaliberMind, teams can configure it for a one-time push or establish a continuous mirror sync. The latter automatically adds or removes prospects as their status changes within CaliberMind.

The capability also incorporates field mapping to improve destination match rates. CaliberMind says guided mapping requires unique synchronization keys such as business email, name or title, helping organizations maintain audience accuracy when moving segments between systems.

Scheduling provides another layer of control. Teams can configure synchronization to run hourly, daily or on custom days based on their campaign cadence. This is intended to reduce the risk of activating campaigns against outdated audience lists.

Activations builds on CaliberMind's Agent Cal, an AI assistant that allows users to create targeted lists through natural-language prompts. For example, teams can use the assistant to identify high-intent account-based marketing (ABM) accounts associated with specific campaign touchpoints before sending those audiences into activation workflows.

The combination moves CaliberMind further from analytics as a reporting function toward closed-loop marketing execution. Instead of treating attribution insights as information reviewed after campaigns run, the platform is designed to feed those insights into subsequent audience and campaign decisions.

Activations is immediately available. Existing CaliberMind customers receive a complimentary package containing one connected destination and up to 250,000 synced records per month. Additional destinations or higher synchronization volumes are available through upgraded packages.

Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads and HubSpot are available at launch, while CaliberMind says more than 170 additional destinations are supported.

Market Landscape

Marketing technology stacks increasingly combine CDPs, data warehouses, attribution platforms, advertising systems and marketing automation tools. The resulting fragmentation can create a gap between identifying valuable audiences and putting those audiences into market.

Audience activation platforms are addressing this problem by automating data movement between intelligence and execution layers. CaliberMind's approach differentiates Activations by connecting its multi-touch attribution data directly with downstream destinations rather than requiring teams to recreate segments inside individual platforms.

Strategic Outlook

The strategic value of Activations is its potential to make attribution data operational. Continuous audience synchronization can help marketing teams keep campaigns aligned with changing buyer journeys instead of relying on static audience exports.

Combined with Agent Cal's natural-language segmentation capabilities, the platform creates a workflow from identifying revenue opportunities to activating audiences. For demand generation teams, this could shorten the operational distance between analytics, audience creation and campaign execution.

Top Insights

• CaliberMind launched Activations for audience synchronization and campaign execution.
• The capability connects with Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, HubSpot and 170+ additional destinations.
• Teams can use one-time pushes or continuous mirror synchronization.
• Hourly, daily and custom scheduling options support campaign cadences.
• Guided field mapping is designed to improve audience match rates.
• Activations builds on CaliberMind's Agent Cal AI assistant.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

LEADSCALE has launched LEADSCALE ONE, a new demand generation offering designed to consolidate supplier sourcing, campaign management and delivery for advertisers and agencies. The platform provides access to more than 100 vetted suppliers through a single operating environment, with LEADSCALE specialists managing the process from brief through delivery.

The offering is built around a straightforward proposition: one platform, one team and a one-business-day turnaround. Rather than requiring marketing teams to coordinate separate supplier relationships, specifications, quotes, contracts, budgets, assets and delivery files, LEADSCALE ONE brings these activities into one workflow.

A central element is the platform's supplier orchestration model. Customers provide a campaign brief, audience, specifications and budget, after which LEADSCALE says its team can return a composed demand generation solution within one business day. The proposed solution can draw on suppliers, channels and capabilities across the company's ecosystem.

The approach targets a common operational issue in demand generation: managing multiple external suppliers while keeping campaign requirements, budgets and delivery processes aligned. LEADSCALE ONE combines technology with human specialists rather than positioning itself solely as a supplier marketplace.

According to LEADSCALE, its proprietary technology provides orchestration, governance and visibility across the process, while its demand generation specialists select, manage and optimize the supplier combination. This creates a managed-service layer around supplier sourcing and campaign execution.

For agencies and advertisers, consolidating these activities could reduce the administrative work associated with coordinating multiple demand generation providers. The model also puts the platform between buyers and suppliers, with LEADSCALE taking responsibility for managing the workflow.

The launch comes as B2B marketers increasingly operate complex demand generation programs involving multiple channels, suppliers and campaign assets. In such environments, the challenge is not necessarily finding another supplier, but managing the operational processes required to activate and measure multiple suppliers efficiently.

LEADSCALE's one-business-day proposition therefore makes speed a central part of its positioning. The company is effectively combining supplier aggregation with workflow orchestration and specialist oversight rather than offering an open marketplace where advertisers independently select providers.

Market Landscape

Demand generation has become increasingly multi-channel, creating operational complexity for advertisers and agencies managing external suppliers. Campaigns can involve different specifications, budgets, creative assets, delivery requirements and commercial relationships.

LEADSCALE ONE addresses this fragmentation by bringing supplier management and campaign objects into a single platform. Its model reflects a broader marketing technology trend toward consolidating workflows while retaining access to specialized external capabilities.

Strategic Outlook

The platform's strategic differentiator is the combination of supplier access, technology-driven orchestration and human expertise. Its one-business-day turnaround could appeal to advertisers and agencies that prioritize campaign activation speed without wanting to manage numerous supplier relationships themselves.

The longer-term opportunity will depend on how effectively LEADSCALE can maintain supplier quality, governance and delivery visibility as customers use the platform across increasingly complex demand generation programs.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

Validity has launched Heatwave, a new email blocklist designed to identify domains associated with artificial domain warming and other practices that can manipulate sender reputation for large-scale cold email campaigns.

The initiative targets a growing challenge in email marketing infrastructure: the use of synthetic engagement to create the appearance of legitimate sender activity. Validity says its analysis of millions of data points from the Validity Intelligence Network has already identified more than 1 million domains exhibiting behavioral patterns associated with unethical email warming.

Synthetic domain warming typically involves creating or connecting domains and artificial accounts to generate messages, opens, clicks and replies. The activity is intended to manufacture engagement signals that mailbox providers can use when evaluating sender reputation.

Validity's Heatwave system is designed to provide another signal for identifying that infrastructure. The company has also incorporated the Heatwave signal into its existing domain name system (DNS) reputation zones, allowing message-security and mailbox partners already using Validity reputation data to access the signal without adopting a separate feed.

The development is particularly relevant to email service providers (ESPs), mailbox providers and marketing teams managing outbound email infrastructure. Validity says Heatwave can help ESPs identify customers whose domain reputation may have been built through artificial warming rather than legitimate list development.

The company also highlights a less visible risk for brands: some synthetic warming activity may be conducted by subcontractors or third-party providers without the direct knowledge of the organization whose brand or domain is being used. Validity says searching a primary domain through its Heatwave lookup can reveal related domains associated with suspected synthetic warming activity.

Market Landscape

Email deliverability depends heavily on sender reputation and the signals mailbox providers use to distinguish legitimate communication from unwanted or abusive traffic. Synthetic engagement introduces a challenge because it attempts to make automated or unsolicited activity resemble genuine recipient interaction.

The emergence of specialized reputation signals reflects a broader effort across email infrastructure to identify manipulation before it affects the wider ecosystem. Validity says Heatwave is being used or evaluated by mailbox-provider, message-security and ESP partners, including Comcast, Proofpoint, Spamhaus and SURBL.

The issue also intersects with marketing compliance. While legitimate email warming can be part of infrastructure preparation, the behavior targeted by Heatwave involves artificially generated engagement intended to influence reputation systems.

Strategic Outlook

Heatwave gives Validity an additional layer for domain reputation analysis while extending its existing role in email deliverability infrastructure. Rather than operating only as a standalone blocklist, the signal is being incorporated into Validity's existing reputation zones.

That integration could make the technology more useful to ecosystem partners already consuming Validity reputation data. For brands, the development also underscores the importance of knowing which vendors and domains are operating on their behalf.

The competitive value of Heatwave will ultimately depend on the accuracy of its signals and how effectively mailbox providers, security companies and ESPs can combine them with other reputation and abuse indicators.

For marketers, the development reinforces a broader shift toward treating sender reputation as an infrastructure and governance issue rather than simply an email campaign metric.

Top Insights

• Validity launched Heatwave to identify domains linked to synthetic email warming.
• The company says more than 1 million domains have already been listed.
• Heatwave analyzes behavioral signals from the Validity Intelligence Network.
• The signal has been incorporated into Validity's existing DNS reputation zones.
• Validity says mailbox, security and ESP partners are using or evaluating Heatwave.
• The system is intended to help identify artificial engagement and deceptive cold-email infrastructure.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts