B2B software companies are expanding the number of digital channels available for selling software, but many routine transactions are still being processed through relatively costly sales and partner-led models, according to new research from Cleverbridge and Ascend2 Research.

The report, The Cost of Selling Software, surveyed 608 B2B software sellers and 551 software buyers across six global markets. It examines the economics of different software purchasing routes and identifies a gap between growing buyer acceptance of digital purchasing and the ability of sellers to execute routine transactions through self-service channels.

The research found that sellers are using multiple routes to generate revenue. Cloud marketplaces were used by 63% of surveyed sellers, followed by direct sales at 61%, owned digital channels at 55%, channel partners at 53% and mobile app stores at 47%.

Each route introduces different costs. Among sellers using direct sales, 71% reported variable compensation equivalent to at least 10% of first-year contract value. Among channel sellers, 69% reported partner margins, discounts or commissions between 10% and 30% of deal value. Meanwhile, 38% of cloud marketplace sellers reported an effective take rate of at least 10%.

Those economics can make sense for complex purchases involving negotiations, custom pricing, procurement requirements or strategic support. However, the report identifies a substantial volume of lower-complexity transactions, including standard renewals, seat additions, upgrades and smaller expansions.

Nearly three-quarters of sellers surveyed said more than 25% of their new-purchase, renewal and expansion volume is routine. Yet more than half reported spending at least $1,000 internally to process a typical routine transaction, while more than one-third spend six or more internal hours.

Market Landscape

The findings point to a growing role for self-service digital commerce in B2B software. Ninety-three percent of surveyed buyers said they would use self-serve digital checkout for routine software purchases if the option were available and permitted by company policy.

The research also indicates that online purchasing is not limited to small transactions. More than half of buyers said they would complete a routine software purchase worth $25,000 or more online, while 17% would go beyond $100,000.

At the same time, digital self-service is not replacing human involvement across every stage of the B2B buying journey. Buyers continue to value personal support when transactions involve security or compliance reviews, procurement exceptions, complex configurations, custom pricing or special terms.

Strategic Outlook

The research identifies an execution gap between market expectations and seller infrastructure. Although 96% of sellers and 95% of buyers agree that routine software transactions will increasingly move through self-service digital channels, only 17% of sellers said they have a meaningful path operating at scale.

For software companies, the implication is less about replacing sales teams or partners and more about matching the buying motion to transaction complexity. Routine, repeatable purchases can potentially move through governed digital commerce while sales and channel resources remain focused on complex or strategic opportunities.

This model could also change how B2B organizations approach cost-to-serve. Instead of assigning every transaction to the same sales process, companies can evaluate where human intervention creates value and where digital purchasing can reduce operational friction.

Top Insights

• 93% of surveyed buyers would use self-service checkout for routine software purchases when permitted.
• Nearly three-quarters of sellers say routine transactions represent more than 25% of relevant volume.
• More than half of sellers spend $1,000 or more internally processing a typical routine transaction.
• Only 17% of sellers have a meaningful self-service path operating at scale.
• Human assistance remains important for complex procurement and compliance requirements.
• B2B software companies are using multiple digital and sales-led routes to generate revenue.

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Intermarché Belgium has reduced creative production time by an average of 40% per batch of visuals after adopting AI-powered creative generation tools from AdCreative.ai, according to the companies. The French mass-market retailer's Belgium design team is now generating more than 135 static and video assets each month using the platform's Stock Image and Stock Video solutions.

The collaboration highlights how enterprise marketing teams are applying generative AI to address growing demands for advertising, social media and newsletter content without proportionally expanding design resources.

Intermarché BE's design team faced several production challenges, including converting basic product cutouts into polished visual compositions, sourcing royalty-free imagery and increasing video production. Rather than treating each asset as a new production task, the team used AdCreative.ai to transform existing materials into campaign-ready creative.

Using the platform's Stock Image capability, designers can turn isolated product assets such as PNG cutouts into compositions featuring elements such as shadows, depth and visual consistency. The tool also provides access to royalty-free visuals on demand, reducing the need for external image sourcing and licensing processes, according to the companies.

The Stock Video capability extends the workflow from static to moving creative. Intermarché's team can repurpose existing static assets into video formats with limited additional production work. The approach is designed to help the retailer respond to increased demand for video across advertising and social channels.

For marketing organizations, the significance extends beyond image generation. The workflow demonstrates a broader move toward creative asset repurposing, where existing brand materials become inputs for multiple formats and channels.

AdCreative.ai, an Appier group company, says its platform incorporates brand identity calibration, prompting frameworks and generative-model selection into its creative-generation process. The company says these elements are intended to help marketing teams maintain brand consistency while producing assets at scale.

Market Landscape

Generative AI is increasingly becoming part of advertising creative workflows, particularly as marketers face pressure to produce more variations for different channels and formats. Retail marketing teams can be especially affected by the need to maintain product-focused creative across advertising, social media and owned channels.

The Intermarché case illustrates one approach: using AI not only to generate new imagery but also to transform existing creative into different formats. This can shift AI's role from an experimental content tool toward a production layer within established marketing operations.

The reported 40% reduction in creation time is specific to Intermarché BE's experience and should not be interpreted as an industry-wide benchmark. Similarly, the 135-plus monthly assets represent the retailer's reported output through the platform.

Strategic Outlook

The adoption of AI-powered creative production could increasingly change how enterprise design teams allocate their time. Repetitive production and asset adaptation can potentially be automated, while designers remain responsible for brand direction, creative judgment and quality control.

For retailers, the competitive advantage may therefore come less from simply generating images and more from building scalable workflows that connect existing product assets with multiple campaign requirements.

Intermarché BE's experience suggests that creative automation is moving toward a model where static assets, video, brand guidelines and channel requirements can be managed within a more integrated production process.

Top Insights

• Intermarché BE reported a 40% reduction in creative production time per batch.
• The team generates more than 135 static and video assets per month.
• AI is being used to transform product cutouts into campaign-ready visuals.
• Static creative can be repurposed into video with limited additional production effort.
• The workflow supports advertising, social media and newsletter content.
• The case demonstrates AI's growing role in enterprise creative operations.

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Lifelong and Electronic Payments, Inc. (EPI) have announced a partnership to provide kava bar operators with an integrated platform combining point-of-sale (POS) technology, payment processing and marketing capabilities.

The partnership follows EPI's decision to begin underwriting the kava industry, giving Lifelong an opportunity to extend its all-in-one platform to businesses that have historically faced challenges obtaining payment processing. Atlanta-based Lifelong provides POS, merchant services and marketing technology, while EPI operates the Cygma® authorization and clearing platform.

For MarTech, the more significant element of the announcement is the integration of transaction data with customer engagement tools. Lifelong says customer information captured at the point of sale can flow directly into marketing campaigns, loyalty programs and reporting dashboards. The model eliminates the need for operators to export data between separate systems and provides a unified view of customer and business activity.

That connection illustrates how POS systems are increasingly becoming sources of first-party customer data rather than serving solely as transaction infrastructure. For businesses with frequent repeat visits, purchase information can potentially support more connected loyalty and marketing workflows.

Lifelong's platform also incorporates operational features designed specifically for bar environments. Its native support for pre-authorized bar tabs allows payment information to be captured when a tab is opened and settled when it closes. The system also supports split checks, gratuity adjustments and tab transfers between bartenders.

The partnership comes as kava bars expand beyond their traditional concentration in Florida, with the companies citing locations in states including Oregon, New York, Utah and Texas. EPI's entry into the category is intended to provide a dedicated payment-processing option for operators that have historically depended on high-risk providers.

Market Landscape

The integration of payments, customer data and marketing reflects a broader convergence between operational software and marketing technology. Traditionally, POS, merchant services, loyalty and marketing platforms have operated as separate systems, requiring businesses to connect or manually transfer information.

An integrated architecture can reduce that fragmentation by making transaction data available within marketing workflows. For multi-location operators, combining sales, inventory, labor and customer information can also create a more centralized foundation for performance analysis.

However, the value of such integration depends on how effectively businesses can turn transaction data into relevant customer engagement while maintaining appropriate data practices. Simply connecting systems does not automatically produce more effective marketing.

Strategic Outlook

Lifelong's strategy is to position POS and payments as part of a broader business-management and marketing environment. The partnership with EPI provides the payment-processing infrastructure, while Lifelong brings customer-facing technology, marketing and operational tools together.

For kava bar operators, the proposition could reduce the number of vendors required to manage core business functions. For MarTech, the development is notable because customer transaction data is becoming increasingly connected to loyalty, campaign execution and reporting.

The platform also provides multi-location reporting, allowing operators to consolidate inventory, sales and labor information and compare performance across venues.

Top Insights

• Lifelong and EPI are partnering to serve kava bar operators nationwide.
• The platform combines POS, payments and marketing capabilities.
• Transaction data can flow into marketing campaigns and loyalty programs.
• Native bar-tab and payment functionality is built into the platform.
• Multi-location operators can consolidate sales, inventory and labor reporting.
• EPI's underwriting of the kava category expands payment-processing availability for the sector.

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Totaligent, Inc. has published the first white paper in its Future of Enterprise Communications series, arguing that fragmented marketing technology stacks are becoming a structural constraint as enterprises move toward AI-directed marketing.

Titled The Marketing Stack Is Dead. AI Wrote the Obituary. The Evidence Is In., the paper argues that the next phase of enterprise marketing will require unified communications infrastructure capable of giving AI systems access to shared audience and engagement data.

The company's argument centers on what it describes as a "memory problem." Rather than simply generating more traffic, marketers need systems capable of retaining information about previous customer interactions across channels. Totaligent contends that disconnected marketing applications make it difficult to maintain this context, potentially resulting in organizations repeatedly engaging consumers without a complete view of previous interactions.

The release points to several indicators of complexity in the current marketing technology environment. According to the supplied release, U.S. internet advertising reached $294.6 billion in 2025, based on the IAB/PwC Internet Advertising Revenue Report. It also cites Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma's State of Martech 2026, which counted 15,505 commercial marketing-technology products.

The release further cites Gartner's 2025 Marketing Technology Survey, which it says found marketers using approximately 49% of the capabilities they already pay for. It also references McKinsey research arguing that the larger economic opportunity from AI in marketing lies in orchestration rather than isolated AI applications.

These figures support Totaligent's broader thesis that adding more individual tools may not necessarily resolve the underlying problem of disconnected data and workflows. Instead, the company argues that AI-directed marketing requires an infrastructure layer capable of coordinating audience intelligence, content, distribution and measurement.

Totaligent's proposed architecture is built around a shared source of audience and engagement information. Its platform includes Smart Capture, Smart Engage, Smart Links and Smart Cookies, which the company says operate on a shared ledger recording customer interactions.

Market Landscape

The marketing technology ecosystem has expanded into thousands of specialized products covering advertising, analytics, customer data, content, automation and engagement. That breadth has created significant choice for marketing organizations but can also introduce integration and data-management challenges.

The emergence of generative and agentic AI adds another layer to the problem. AI agents can potentially automate tasks across multiple marketing functions, but their effectiveness depends on access to relevant data and the ability to coordinate activities across systems.

This makes orchestration and first-party audience intelligence increasingly important elements of enterprise marketing infrastructure. The competitive landscape is therefore shifting beyond individual AI features toward platforms capable of connecting data, decisions and execution.

Strategic Outlook

Totaligent is positioning its architecture as infrastructure for an AI-directed marketing model rather than another standalone marketing application. Its longer-term concept, which the company calls the "communications singularity," envisions users specifying desired outcomes while AI agents operate the underlying communications infrastructure.

The company opened a public beta of its consumer-facing platform in March 2025 and announced completion of quality-assurance testing across its core marketing and campaign platform in December 2025.

The strategic question for Totaligent will be whether a unified architecture can deliver meaningful advantages over existing marketing stacks while providing the governance, data access and interoperability required for enterprise AI adoption.

Top Insights

• Totaligent has released the first paper in its Future of Enterprise Communications series.
• The company argues fragmented marketing stacks create a significant data and memory problem.
• The release cites 15,505 commercial martech products in the 2026 landscape.
• Totaligent proposes a unified audience and communications infrastructure for AI.
• Its platform includes Smart Capture, Smart Engage, Smart Links and Smart Cookies.
• The company describes its long-term vision as a "communications singularity."

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.

AIgency™, an artificial intelligence platform for property management operators, has received an investment from IA Global Ventures as it expands an AI-powered occupancy engine designed to connect marketing activity with signed leases and property occupancy.

The investment is intended to support AIgency's market expansion. The platform combines property website creation, digital advertising and performance optimization within a single system, with the goal of helping property managers evaluate which marketing decisions contribute to qualified leads and signed leases.

The announcement reflects a growing emphasis on connecting marketing technology with business outcomes rather than measuring campaigns primarily through activity metrics. For property operators, that means moving beyond website traffic, clicks, impressions and dashboards toward a clearer relationship between marketing investment and occupancy performance.

AIgency says its platform continuously analyzes performance data, adjusts to changing market conditions and updates its recommendations over time. The system is also designed to explain the reasoning behind its recommendations, giving operators greater visibility into why particular marketing actions are suggested.

The company is addressing what it describes as a fragmented property marketing model. Property managers have traditionally worked with multiple vendors and platforms for website development, search engine optimization, digital advertising, social media marketing and reporting. Managing these activities separately can make it harder to determine which channels or decisions are producing qualified prospects and ultimately signed leases.

AIgency's approach is to consolidate those functions into one platform focused on measurable property performance. That positioning places the company at the intersection of marketing technology, advertising optimization and vertical-specific AI.

Market Landscape

Marketing measurement has increasingly shifted toward connecting digital activity with downstream commercial outcomes. AIgency is applying that concept specifically to property management, where occupancy represents a direct business objective.

The company's integrated model also addresses the operational challenge created when websites, advertising and performance reporting are managed independently. A centralized system can potentially give property operators a more connected view of campaign activity and business performance, although the effectiveness of such a model depends on the quality and consistency of the underlying data.

AIgency reports that participating properties in its early pilot program achieved a median 33% increase in organic leads within 90 days. The figure is based on the company's pilot data and should be viewed in that context rather than as an independently validated industry benchmark.

Strategic Outlook

The investment from IA Global Ventures gives AIgency additional support as it expands its occupancy-focused platform. Its differentiation lies less in offering another standalone marketing tool and more in connecting marketing recommendations to a property operator's commercial objective.

The company's ability to demonstrate that its AI recommendations consistently improve lead generation and translate into signed leases will be central to its expansion. Transparency around how recommendations are generated could also become an important consideration for property operators evaluating AI-based marketing systems.

Top Insights

• AIgency received investment from IA Global Ventures.
• Its platform combines websites, digital advertising and performance optimization.
• The company's AI occupancy engine connects marketing decisions with signed leases.
• AIgency reports a median 33% increase in organic leads within 90 days among participating pilot properties.
• The platform targets fragmented property marketing workflows.

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ImpactFactory.ai has released Version 1.3 of its AI-powered digital marketing platform, adding conversational website creation and optimization capabilities aimed at small businesses. The update allows businesses to create a new website or improve an existing site through interaction with the platform's AI agent.

The release extends ImpactFactory.ai's positioning as a consolidated digital marketing platform, bringing website development into a broader environment that also covers content creation, social media, email, advertising, media placement and optimization.

For businesses starting without a website, the platform uses a conversational process to gather information about the company, customers, products, services and business goals. It then generates an initial website and allows the business owner to request changes through further conversations with the AI agent.

That workflow shifts website creation from a collection of separate specialist tasks toward an AI-assisted process. Traditionally, businesses may need different expertise for web design, copywriting, SEO and other digital marketing functions. ImpactFactory.ai is attempting to bring those activities into a single interface where business requirements can be expressed through natural-language interaction.

The Version 1.3 release also addresses website discoverability across multiple types of search. According to the company, newly created websites are optimized for search engine optimization (SEO), answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO). The objective is to help businesses become discoverable through traditional search engines as well as answer engines and AI-powered discovery experiences.

The platform can also host websites created through the service. ImpactFactory.ai says hosting is available for businesses without an existing domain and hosting solution at a cost of $5 per month in Impact Factory credits.

For businesses that already maintain a website, Version 1.3 adds diagnostic capabilities designed to identify opportunities to improve SEO, AEO and GEO performance. The platform can reassess websites as search technologies, competitors and optimization practices change, positioning ongoing optimization as an alternative to a one-time website launch.

Market Landscape

AI is increasingly being incorporated into website development and marketing workflows, but ImpactFactory.ai's approach goes beyond automated page generation by combining website creation with optimization and broader digital marketing functions.

The emphasis on SEO, AEO and GEO also reflects the changing nature of online discovery described in the release. Businesses are no longer focused solely on traditional search visibility; they also need to consider how their information can surface when users seek recommendations or answers through AI-powered systems.

For small businesses in particular, consolidating these activities into one AI-driven workflow could reduce the operational complexity associated with managing multiple marketing functions. The competitive question will be whether conversational AI can deliver sufficient quality, control and ongoing optimization for businesses with different marketing requirements.

Strategic Outlook

Version 1.3 strengthens ImpactFactory.ai's strategy of positioning AI as an operating layer for small-business marketing rather than as a standalone content or website-generation tool.

By combining website creation, diagnostics and optimization with existing content, social, email and advertising capabilities, the company is moving toward a broader AI-assisted marketing workflow. Its ability to maintain website performance as search environments evolve will be an important part of that proposition.

Top Insights

• Version 1.3 adds AI-powered website creation and optimization.
• Businesses can create websites through conversations with an AI agent.
• The platform supports SEO, AEO and GEO optimization.
• Existing websites can receive ongoing diagnostics and recommendations.
• Website hosting is available through Impact Factory credits.
• The release expands an existing AI-powered digital marketing platform.

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Instant Web Tools, LLC is expanding its focus on local businesses across Wayne County, Indiana, offering web design, search engine optimization (SEO), call and appointment tracking, and digital marketing services built around measurable customer acquisition.

The Richmond, Indiana-based company says its approach centers on connecting businesses with consumers who are actively searching for relevant products and services rather than relying solely on broad awareness campaigns. A key component of its offering is measurement, with client websites equipped to track website traffic, phone calls, and appointment bookings.

The emphasis on measurable outcomes reflects a broader shift in local marketing toward connecting digital activity with business results. For small businesses, website traffic alone may provide limited insight into whether marketing investments are generating customers. Tracking calls and bookings can provide additional signals about how online campaigns contribute to customer actions.

Instant Web Tools' service portfolio combines several components of the local digital marketing stack. Its custom web design service focuses on mobile-friendly websites intended to convert visitors into customers, while its SEO offering targets visibility among nearby consumers searching for specific services.

The company also provides proprietary call and appointment tracking tools designed to measure activity generated by websites and marketing campaigns. Its digital marketing strategy services are positioned around using those measurements to identify which activities are producing results.

Instant Web Tools operates three brands supporting different parts of its offering: instantwebtools.co serves as the central hub, rwebdesigns.com focuses on custom web design, and instantseo.me specializes in local SEO.

Market Landscape

Local businesses increasingly depend on digital channels to reach consumers during the discovery and consideration stages of the buying journey. That makes the connection between search visibility, website performance and measurable customer actions an important consideration for smaller organizations with limited marketing resources.

The combination of SEO, web development and conversion tracking also illustrates the growing overlap between marketing technology and digital execution. Rather than treating a website as a standalone presence, businesses can use tracking data to evaluate whether digital interactions are translating into calls, bookings and other commercially relevant actions.

For local marketers, this creates a practical measurement challenge: visibility is valuable, but understanding what happens after a consumer reaches a website can provide a more actionable view of marketing performance.

Strategic Outlook

Instant Web Tools is currently serving businesses throughout Wayne County, Indiana, and plans to expand into neighboring markets in the coming months. Its positioning around calls, appointments and traffic places measurement at the center of its local marketing proposition.

The company's expansion will ultimately test whether a results-focused combination of web design, SEO and tracking can differentiate it as it moves beyond its current geographic market.

Top Insights

• Instant Web Tools is targeting local businesses in Wayne County, Indiana.
• Its offering combines web design, SEO and digital marketing.
• Call and appointment tracking is central to its measurement approach.
• The company emphasizes measurable customer actions rather than traffic alone.
• Expansion into neighboring markets is planned.

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Solera has launched Sales Radar Marketing within CRM by Solera, connecting dealership equity intelligence with automated, personalized marketing campaigns. The capability is designed to help automotive retailers turn customer equity signals and current manufacturer incentives into targeted upgrade opportunities across email and direct mail.

The launch addresses a gap between customer data and campaign execution. Dealerships using Revenue Radar can identify customers who may have an opportunity to move into another vehicle based on equity and financing conditions, but traditionally turning those signals into campaigns required separate list building, incentive matching, creative development and campaign management.

Sales Radar is designed to automate that workflow. It uses Revenue Radar signals alongside live OEM finance incentives to identify customers with a potential financial reason to consider an upgrade. Four opportunity types are supported: Smart Payment, Lower APR, Equity Upgrade and Loan Term End.

The system also prioritizes opportunities when a customer qualifies for multiple campaigns. It selects the highest-value offer and applies communication controls intended to prevent customers from receiving excessive outreach. Targeting rules automatically exclude recently purchased customers, people who no longer own the relevant vehicle, businesses and customers on do-not-contact lists.

Personalization extends across campaign creative. Messages can include the customer's name, current vehicle, recommended replacement vehicle, applicable incentive, financial opportunity and dealership branding.

Solera also positions measurement as a core component of the capability. Campaign performance is tracked back to the resulting sales, allowing dealerships to evaluate marketing expenditure against sold units rather than relying solely on impressions or engagement metrics.

Sales Radar is powered by the Solera AI Engine, a cloud-native intelligence layer designed to connect dealership data and coordinate workflows across Solera products. Its integration with the customer record means the marketing capability can combine information about the customer, vehicle equity, incentives and sales activity.

The company cited results from Pat Lobb Toyota, which reported 50% monthly sales growth and a 55% close rate, representing a 13-percentage-point increase, after moving to CRM by Solera. Solera attributes the reported results to a combination of CRM structure, manager coaching, campaign execution and channel optimization.

Market Landscape

Automotive retail marketing has increasingly shifted toward first-party customer data, personalized outreach and automated campaign execution. Dealerships already collect substantial information through CRM systems, vehicle transactions and customer interactions, but converting those signals into timely marketing actions remains a technology challenge.

Solera's approach combines customer intelligence, financing information and campaign automation within the CRM workflow. This reflects a broader MarTech trend toward activating customer data directly rather than requiring marketers to move information between disconnected systems.

Strategic Outlook

The significance of Sales Radar lies in connecting a revenue signal with automated marketing execution. Instead of treating equity mining as a standalone analytical task, Solera is embedding it into a broader CRM and marketing workflow.

For dealerships, the potential benefit is faster activation of customer signals and more consistent targeting. For marketing teams, tying campaigns to sold units can provide a clearer connection between marketing activity and revenue outcomes.

The longer-term strategic question is whether connected CRM platforms can reduce the operational complexity created by specialized marketing and sales tools while maintaining accurate targeting, personalization and customer-contact controls.

Top Insights

• Sales Radar connects Revenue Radar equity signals with marketing automation.
• Four opportunity types support targeted vehicle upgrade campaigns.
• Live OEM finance incentives are incorporated into offers.
• Automated rules help prioritize opportunities and control customer outreach.
• Campaign performance can be measured against sold units.
• The capability is powered by the Solera AI Engine.

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