Articles

marketing Article

11,000 Days and Counting: CoreMedia’s Sören Stamer on AI, Digital Sovereignty, and Seizing Opportunity 

matt-garrepy

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/critics/amber-bar">Amber Bartholomeusz</a> is the founder of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.abmarketedge.com/">ABMarketEdge</a> and a CMS Critic contributor.<hr /> In early 2025, CMS Critic published <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/in-a-fast-and-furious-tech-world-cms-kickoff-25-was-a-love-letter-to-slow-down">In a fast and furious tech world, CMS Kickoff 25 was a ‘love letter’ to slow down.</a> At the time, it felt like a thoughtful counterweight to an industry that rarely pauses long enough to reflect.A year later, that message reads less like a cultural observation and more like a warning that many organizations chose to politely acknowledge – and then ignore.Instead of slowing down, the industry accelerated. AI became the headline, the shiny penny, the roadmap bullet, the board-level talking point. Every LinkedIn feed or technology blog suddenly had its own take on AI. Companies rushed to prove they were “doing AI” before they had decided what doing it well actually meant, driven by a quiet panic about being left behind.And a lot of the fundamental work was skipped. That is why an AI reckoning feels imminent. Not eventually. Not hypothetically. Very likely in 2026, when expectations collide with reality and the tools, workflows, and promises made start to fall apart.<h3 id="ai-tactics-outran-strategy,-governance,-and-standards">AI Tactics Outran Strategy, Governance, and Standards</h3>The first and most obvious fault line is that AI adoption became a tactic before it was ever a strategy.In many organizations, AI showed up as a response to pressure. Competitive pressure. Board pressure. Market pressure. But it was also a cultural pressure, amplified by social media posts, conference keynotes, event themes, and industry commentary delivered with total confidence and authority. The signal was subtle but clear: if you were not already doing it, you were behind.The result was predictable. Tools were implemented before anyone slowed down to ask the uncomfortable questions, the ones that are actually hard to answer, and don’t fit neatly into a demo or a LinkedIn post. Questions like:<ul><li>What does success actually look like beyond “we launched something with AI in it”?</li><li>How does this align with our overall business strategy, not just this month’s roadmap?</li><li>Who owns the decision when AI output is wrong, and who is actually qualified to pass judgement?</li><li>What data is acceptable to use, and what gaps are we pretending not to notice?</li><li>Where is human judgment required, and where are we quietly replacing actual expertise because AI feels faster?</li><li>How is risk measured, documented, and revisited once the novelty wears off?</li></ul>(And no, asking ChatGPT or Claude to figure this out for you is not a strategy.)In far too many cases, the answer to those questions is still unclear.Instead, AI has been treated like a checkbox. If it exists, it must represent progress. If it is deployed, it must be valuable. If it produces output, it must be working.That assumption holds until it doesn’t.Without a clear operating model, AI initiatives turn into collections of disconnected experiments. Without standards, quality and trust are impossible to measure. Without strategy, organizations automate confusion and call it momentum.You can’t scale what you don’t control. And right now, many organizations do not actually control their AI programs. They are running them, watching the outputs, and hoping the gaps do not surface.<h3 id="interoperability-was-always-an-organizational-problem-first">Interoperability Was Always an Organizational Problem First</h3>There is a persistent belief that AI readiness is primarily a technology problem. It never was.Long before AI entered the picture, most organizations struggled with interoperability for a much simpler reason: alignment. Teams operated in silos. Goals conflicted. Some departments were rewarded for outcomes produced by the whole, even as the machine itself remained deeply fragmented and no one seemed to be accountable for fixing it.AI did not resolve that tension. It exposed it.Models trained on fragmented inputs produce fragmented outputs. Tools introduced without cross-functional buy-in struggle to gain adoption. Systems that lack transparency generate mistrust, especially among the people expected to rely on them day to day.Before interoperability was about APIs, it was about people.That truth did not disappear when AI arrived. It just became easier to ignore. Technology offered an illusion of mass progress. It felt easier to buy a tool than to align teams. Easier to automate than to clarify. Easier to move fast than to build shared understanding.AI amplifies whatever organizational dynamics already exist. In cohesive organizations, it can accelerate progress. In fragmented ones, it accelerates friction.<h3 id="unsexy-fundamentals-were-skipped,-and-ai-is-about-to-punish-that">Unsexy Fundamentals Were Skipped, and AI Is About to Punish That</h3>The third issue is the least exciting and the most consequential: data fundamentals.Data connectedness, consistency, taxonomy, and context are deeply unsexy. They don’t demo well. They don’t create buzz. You don’t see technology influencers chasing mainstage speaking slots by talking about data hygiene, and budgets rarely materialize for work that does not look impressive on LinkedIn.So they are postponed.Then AI gets layered on top.Fragmented data sources produce inconsistent outputs. Poorly defined schemas lead to confident but incorrect results. Missing context turns into misleading answers delivered at scale, often with far more confidence than accuracy.There is a growing body of research, including work out of MIT, that points to the importance of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/to-help-improve-accuracy-generative-ai-add-speed-bumps">deliberate friction</a> in complex systems. Small constraints, checkpoints, and moments of pause are not inefficiencies. They are what allow humans to apply judgment, verify assumptions, and catch errors before they compound.In this scenario, data fundamentals are that friction.When they are skipped in the rush to automate, AI does not compensate. It accelerates and often amplifies the failures. Outputs become harder to explain, harder to trust, and impossible to trace back to reliable sources. At that point, the problem stops being technical very quickly. It becomes operational, reputational, and much harder to dismiss. And that is usually when the finger-pointing starts.The irony is that the most important work enabling effective AI is the work least likely to be prioritized because it is not flashy. But those fundamentals are the difference between AI as leverage – and as liability.<h2 id="why-2026-is-the-‘collision-year’">Why 2026 Is the ‘Collision Year’</h2>Taken together, these patterns create the conditions for a reckoning.Not because AI is experimental. Not because the technology does not work.But because much of what has been built has not yet been tested under real pressure.Tactical adoption without a clear strategic throughline. Organizational fragmentation reframed as technical complexity. Foundational data gaps obscured by polished interfaces and confident demos.For a while, that can look like progress.In 2026, it starts to look like exposure.This is when it stops being theoretical. Boards want real answers, not roadmap slides. Regulators get clearer about standards and governance. Customers notice when things don’t add up. Internal teams push back on systems that create more friction than value. And claims made in 2024 and 2025 start getting measured against what actually happened, not what was promised.And to be clear, this is not an argument against AI. It is an argument against assuming readiness. The organizations that struggle will not be the cautious ones. They will be the ones that moved fast without thinking through how this would actually hold together. The ones that mistook visible activity for progress and assumed technology would somehow make up for the structural gaps they never addressed.CMS Kickoff 25 talked about slowing down as a cultural counterpoint to nonstop acceleration. Looking back, it reads less like commentary and more like advice some organizations were too busy to take.The next phase of AI will not be decided by speed alone. It will be shaped by clarity, alignment, and whether the fundamentals underneath were ever solid, especially when that work was unglamorous and easy to overlook.The gap between hype and reality is closing fast. When it does, it will be clear who built something that can actually hold up and who just moved quickly.The AI reckoning is coming.2026 might be when it stops being theoretical. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:30.06%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2026/01/cms-summit-26-logo.jpg" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-summit-26"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26">CMS Summit 26</a></h4>May 12-13, 2026 – Frankfurt, GermanyThe best conferences create space for honest, experience-based conversations. Not sales pitches. Not hype. Just thoughtful exchanges between people who spend their days designing, building, running, and evolving digital experiences. CMS Summit brings together people who share real stories from their work and platforms and who are interested in learning from each other on how to make things better. Over two days in Frankfurt, you can expect practitioner-led talks grounded in experience, conversations about trade-offs, constraints, and decisions, and time to compare notes with peers facing similar challenges. Space is limited for this exclusive event, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmssummit26/tickets">so book your seats today.</a> <img style="width:30.13%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/12/image-1765546475634.png" /><h4 id="umbraco-codegarden-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Umbraco Codegarden 2026</a></h4>June 10–11, 2026 – Copenhagen, DKJoin us in Copenhagen (or online) for the biggest Umbraco conference in the world – two full days of learning, genuine conversations, and the kind of inspiration that brings business leaders, developers, and digital creators together. Codegarden 2026 is packed with both business and tech content, from deep-dive workshops and advanced sessions to real-world case studies and strategy talks. You’ll leave with ideas, strategies, and knowledge you can put into practice immediately. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://codegarden.umbraco.com/">Book your tickets today.</a>

The AI Reckoning Is Coming. 2026 May Be the Turning Point

amber-bar

<hr /> When I recently connected with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeep-menon-1087901/">Sandeep Menon</a>, we talked a lot about the customer journey. In many ways, it's a perilous trek for marketers. Kind of like scaling Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings.But good prevails in that epic tale – and there's hope for downtrodden teams that are trapped by monstrous hoards of data. As co-founder and CEO at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://auxia.io/">Auxia</a>, Sandeep spends a lot of time thinking about ways to improve the marketer's magic across a growing expanse of channels and touchpoints. Auxia is part of that solution: an AI-powered platform that enables enterprise marketing and product teams to harness their first-party data to seamlessly orchestrate 1:1, adaptive, hyper-personalized customer journeys. Built by former <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/google-cloud-platform">Google</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_Platforms">Meta</a> engineers and leaders, the Auxia platform is giving marketing teams the ability to unlock hidden signals from their data, fueling a flexible suite of intelligent growth models that automate months of data science and engineering work.Customer Journey Orchestration – or often just “Journey Orchestration” – has become a fixture in DXPs, marketing clouds, and CDPs. It’s a concept that’s found its way into myriad features, enabling brands to identify audiences throughout the buying cycle and connect relevant marketing campaigns that align with their behaviors.At the center of it all is data, the Gold Standard in digital currency that fuels the tailoring of customer experiences with real-time, AI-driven personalization. It also enables meaningful cross-channel coordination that can send proactive alerts or actions based on specific signals. This is where agents entered the conversation with Sandeep, because they’re having a profound impact on how Auxia is evolving the space. As he explained, his tool combines advanced infrastructure with agentic AI to seamlessly orchestrate hyper-personalized customer journeys. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:33.88%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/10/image-1761791281990.png" /></figure>Auxia co-founder and CEO Sandeep Menon. Source: LinkedIn “We’re really trying to be an agentic customer journey orchestration platform,” he said. “We are going from the ‘Old World,’ which is about static, rule-based systems, to one that is much more dynamic.”Now, Auxia is taking a major leap forward with its marketing platform, launching a new AI-native interface for marketers that brings decisioning, insights, and content generation together in one unified experience. The new interface addresses a central challenge for marketers that we’ve been talking a lot about recently: cognitive overload. The transformative design replaces complexity with clarity, so marketers can see their ideas, data, and creative work come together in a visual manner. Armed with enhanced strategic and holistic control, they can manage disjointed campaigns and design, optimize, and analyze every customer journey in a unified space. Auxia’s agentic capabilities are key to this, but it all feels streamlined and thoughtfully crafted, more like a ride-along co-pilot and less like another tool in the toolbox. And for marketers, less chaos means more calm. They don't need another unruly dragon to ride – but they do want the power to rule it all. <h3 id="harnessing-the-potential-of-ai-for-marketers">Harnessing the potential of AI for marketers</h3>Since launching in early 2024, Auxia has been on a meteoric rise. The scale-up has added several Fortune 1000 clients and delivered some astounding results. That led to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://venturebeat.com/ai/auxia-raises-23-5-million-to-tackle-enterprise-marketings-reacquisition-treadmill">$23.5 million Series A</a> funding round to tackle a huge gap in the marketing ecosystem: transforming raw data into personalized customer experiences.AI has been a core pillar for Auxia since its inception. When I spoke to Sandeep a few months ago, they were on the cusp of introducing new agents that were focused on enhancing various dimensions of the marketing experience. At that time, marketing teams were still dealing with fragmented experiences that lacked intuitiveness – where campaigns, assets, and insights were piled together without clear guardrails based on use case or objective.Like many modern enterprise software platforms, AI capabilities have been historically reactive in nature. Marketers needed to ask the right questions, rather than having an AI system that could proactively anticipate their needs. Again, this exacerbated the cognitive load – especially for teams juggling multiple campaigns.As Sandeep explained, the ideas for Auxia’s agents sprang from the needs of real marketers who have been hamstrung by these challenges, specifically the “black box” areas where data science needed to shine a light on the missing insight. Back in July, the company released an enhanced version of its <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250709871181/en/Auxia-Announces-New-AI-Analyst-Agent-to-Help-Marketing-Teams-Convert-Campaign-Data-Into-Revenue-Insights">AI Analyst agent.</a> Using a natural language interface, it provides marketing teams with high-speed insights into campaign performance. Before, it was hard to know why AI-powered campaigns were succeeding or failing without complex data analysis. Now, marketers can just ask Auxia’s agent for the answers.“One of my frustrations as a marketer was that I would launch, and I would have these systems doing stuff on my campaigns,” he said. “And then if I wanted to go back and determine what worked, or what didn't work, I had to rely on a data scientist or spend endless hours playing with Excel to find out. Now, imagine you can get those answers within a platform through a natural language interface. That's what prompted us to launch our Analyst agent, where you, as a marketer, can go in and interact with the data set and gain deep insights. So you don't need to rely on a data scientist or data engineer. We do it.”With Auxia’s new interface, teams have these agent resources in arm’s reach through a more unified experience, powered by agentic AI that’s helping them move from idea to execution with less friction. Built from the ground up with native AI capabilities, the console is designed to think and act alongside marketers – surfacing insights, suggesting actions, and automating complexity behind the scenes.<h3 id="a-unified-experience-that-streamlines-everything">A unified experience that streamlines everything</h3>One thing that immediately pops up for me is the elegance of Auxia’s new UX. It’s lightweight, intuitive, and makes it incredibly simple for marketers to navigate the ecosystem. You can access its agentic capabilities – like the Decisioning or Analyst agents – from one consistent, chat-based interface that modifies content based on your query. And rather than waiting for prompts, Auxia’s AI is humming constantly in the background, anticipating what you might need next. It surfaces insights and content recommendations automatically, cutting through the noise and reducing cognitive load.The console offers a reimagined home screen experience that brings campaign health, performance trends, and creative recommendations into a single view, helping teams take action faster. There’s also this concept of a “Spark,” which is a lightning moment of insight that agents uncover and proactively surface for marketers. You can review the insight daily from the dashboard, where it is ranked based on overall confidence. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:84.6%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/10/auxia-featured-2.jpg" alt="" /></figure>Auxia home screen featuring Sparks. Source: Auxia “One big shift that we are making is this whole idea of a Spark,” Sandeep described. “You have our Analyst agent working in the background, trying to understand and highlight insights that they are seeing. It will take an analyst team maybe days, if not weeks, to come up with insights like these, and then they would also need to know what to look for. Our agents are constantly working in the background, trying to determine what insights are relevant based on the current campaigns you're managing.”Drilling into the insights also provides recommendations, and you have the persistent presence of the “Ask Auxia” copilot for targeting natural language queries. <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:84.97%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/10/image-1761772811781.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer

AI-generated content may be incorrect." /></figure>Detail view from a Spark. Source: Auxia Campaigns are now organized into core marketing workflows called Journeys that align with customer needs. This includes Evergreen journey, which are always-on journeys optimized for continuous AI decisioning – and Burst journey, which are time-bound campaigns where marketers can override and steer based on their desired experiences.<h3 id="availability-and-pricing">Availability and pricing</h3>Auxia’s new console is already rolling out to select enterprise partners, with general availability planned for Q4 2025 – so any time now. If you’re interested in early access or live demos, you can visit<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://auxia.io/"> auxia.io</a>I asked Sandeep about pricing, which is a bit of an enigma. That said, this isn’t a standard model. As he explained, a typical engagement would involve going deep into a specific marketing journey or use case that an enterprise wants to transform, and pricing is based on the calculated volume of decisions and usage. In other words, it’s highly custom – so you’ll need to connect with their team for details.<h3 id="the-verdict">The verdict</h3>Customer Journey Orchestration is becoming an elevated imperative as marketers look for new ways to optimize and enhance their campaign performance. Enterprises are hungry to get personalization right – and the stakes have never been higher. Journey orchestration is bridging the gap, but AI is making it more effective than ever. Auxia’s pure-play solution is challenging some of the built-in features of other platforms. From a first-party data standpoint, it’s been handling security and privacy from day one with GDPR compliance and other features that help ensure governance. Sure, pricing is vague, but that’s part of the discovery process. That said, if you can fill the role that data scientists play to divine insights and automate decisioning, it could be worth its weight in gold. One thing I do like is the composable, agnostic nature of the product. As Sandeep indicated, they work natively at the cloud layer, and they’re able to play with CMS and enhance 1:1 personalization with content decisioning via their agents.“We connect to content management systems, where you can use our agents to determine what is the right content to showcase to somebody at a point in time in their journey to get them to the objective,” he said. The redesigned UX is something to marvel at. It’s clean, concise, and delivers the unified experience that Auxia was aiming for. For marketers, reducing those “swivel chair” moments and crushing cognitive overload is key – especially in a dark landscape drowning in data and apps. If that sounds a bit like Mordor, relax. Auxia might just be your one UX to rule them all.  <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:31.61%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/storyblok-joyconf-2025-logo.jpg" /><h4 id="storyblok-joyconf-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://joyconf.storyblok.com/">Storyblok JoyConf 2025</a></h4>November 4, 2025 – New York, NY November 6, 2025 – Los Angeles, CAJoin us at JoyConf 2025, where the future of content meets the people shaping it. Built for developers, marketers, and digital innovators, this free conference goes way beyond product updates or yet another strategy playbook. It’s where you’ll get inspired, get real, and get connected – to ideas, to the community, and to what’s possible when you build joyfully. Whether you're building lightning-fast frontends or launching cross-channel campaigns, this is where content becomes connection and collaboration becomes second nature. Come for the talks. Stay for the community. Leave with joy. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://joyconf.storyblok.com/">Save your spot.</a> <img style="width:28.9%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/sitecore-symposium-2025.jpg" /><h4 id="sitecore-symposium-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://symposium.sitecore.com/">Sitecore Symposium 2025</a></h4>November 3-5, 2025 – Orlando, FLAt Sitecore Symposium, you’ll learn how to meet your customers where they are – across channels, moments, and touchpoints that didn’t exist a year ago. You’ll hear how the boldest brands in the world are transforming content into outcomes and creating experiences that are fast, relevant, and human. Join 1,500 marketers, digital leaders, and technologists in Orlando to see what’s possible when personalization scales, AI accelerates creativity, and trust becomes your competitive edge. This is the Third Wave of the Internet. And this is your moment to lead in it. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://symposium.sitecore.com/">Get your tickets today.</a> <figure class="image image-style-block-align-left image_resized" style="width:28.08%"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/10/image-1759840698475.png" /></figure><h4 id="raise:-lifting-content-into-the-future-with-agentic-cms"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://kontent.ai/events-and-webinars/raise/">RAISE: Lifting Content into the Future with Agentic CMS</a></h4>November 11, 2025 – London, UKJoin Kontent.ai at RAISE: Lifting Content into the Future with Agentic CMS, a premier free event for forward-thinking marketing and technology leaders shaping the way today’s most ambitious brands create and deliver content. Expect bold ideas, discover innovative strategies, engage with industry leaders, and gain insights that will lift your content strategy to new heights. At RAISE, you'll learn how to deliver faster, more engaging content experiences while AI does the busywork of audits, compliance, and localization with Agentic CMS, built to give you and your teams more time on creativity that matters. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://kontent.ai/events-and-webinars/raise/">Reserve your seat today.</a> <img style="width:29.67%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/10/image-1761136749603.png" /><h4 id="live-webinar:-can-we-ever-get-composable-without-complexity?"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/webinar-cmscritic">Live Webinar: Can We Ever Get Composable Without Complexity?</a></h4>November 20, 2025 – 6 PM (CET) / 5 PM (GMT) / 12 PM (EST)Composable architecture promised to simplify digital experience creation by giving organizations the flexibility to combine the technologies that met their needs. But for many enterprises, it’s done the opposite, which has led to complex integrations, spiraling costs, and what some are now referring to as composable regret. In this live conversation, Umbraco CEO Mats Persson joins Matt Garrepy, Chief Content Officer at CMS Critic, for a candid exploration of what went wrong in the first wave of composable and what needs to change. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://umbraco.com/webinar-cmscritic">Register for the webinar.</a> <img style="width:29.08%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/10/image-1761594434824.png" /><h4 id="typo3-conference-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://t3con.typo3.com/">TYPO3 Conference 2025</a></h4>November 25–27, 2025 – Düsseldorf, GermanyT3CON is the premier annual event for web professionals, developers, marketers, and decision-makers. Much more than just a TYPO3-focused conference, T3CON spotlights the latest trends, innovations, and leaders shaping the future of content management, covering everything from grassroots initiatives to new technologies, strategies, and success stories. The event is designed to empower businesses and organizations with the knowledge and tools they need to thrive in the evolving digital landscape. The conference culminates in an awards ceremony celebrating the best TYPO3 projects across various industries. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://t3con.typo3.com/">Get your ticket.</a> <img style="width:31.44%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/cms-kickoff-2026-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">CMS Kickoff 2026</a></h4>January 13-14, 2026 – St. Petersburg, FLMeet industry leaders at our fourth annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global CMS event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">so secure your tickets today.</a>

One UX to rule them all: Auxia powers customer journeys with AI agents in new unified experience

<hr /> Every conversation I'm having right now with vendors, agencies, and enterprises is squarely focused on agentic AI. Without question, it represents a game-changing initiative for organizations as they look to transform their operations – and prepare for the promise of the agent-to-agent ecosystem.While I've been steadily tracking the evolution of digital experience platforms and their customer data layers, I've also been paying close attention to the pure-play CDPs and data platforms, each of which is leveraging its composable position and innovating in unique ways. As the data warehouse takes on an even more strategic role in the AI landscape, we're seeing more transformation – and faster. That's certainly been the case with <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/hightouch">Hightouch</a>, a composable CDP and AI decisioning platform that's keenly focused on activating data warehouses to power personalized marketing. They've been aggressively solving some of the key operational challenges within the data channel, adding <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/hightouch-adds-new-ai-powered-adaptive-identity-resolution-to-its-cdp">AI-Powered Adaptive Identity Resolution</a> to its CDP, and even <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/hightouch-partners-with-narrative-io-to-power-multi-vendor-identity-resolution-and-activation">partnering with Narrative I/O and Snowflake</a> to provide multi-vendor identity resolution and activation.Hightouch is definitely blazing its own trail, ignited by an <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/u-cant-touch-this-cdp-hightouch-nails-80m-series-c-to-power-its-ai-decisioning">$80 million Series C</a> that closed earlier this year. While AI decisioning continues to be a key emphasis (and a category we're following with several other vendors), the company is driving its position as a data and AI agent platform for marketers. With agentic AI exploding at the seams – and the potential for extending agents beyond vendor ecosystems – it's clear that Hightouch is making a strong play as it telegraphs its differentiated value in this area. Now, it's adding the right talent to lead the charge by bringing an AI heavy hitter to its ranks. Announced today, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/akilesh-bapu-24b333258/">Akilesh Bapu,</a> co-founder and former CEO of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.deepscribe.ai/">DeepScribe</a>, has joined Hightouch as Head of AI Product Development. Bapu will lead the company’s AI product strategy, focusing on the development of autonomous, context-aware marketing agents that leverage Hightouch’s Composable CDP foundation.<h3 id="adding-an-ai-luminary-to-the-team">Adding an AI luminary to the team</h3>AI talent acquisition is fast becoming a key strategy for organizations, with leading tech brands like Meta and OpenAI <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/06/ai-talent-war-tech-giants-pay-talent-millions-of-dollars.html">spending hundreds of millions</a> on human capital to drive their strategies. Successful experience and demonstrable outcomes are key fixtures on the resumes of many candidates entering these roles, which makes the playing field much tighter – and incredibly competitive. Bapu is a rare gem in the AI talent pool. His technology credentials certainly put him at the top of the ladder, but they're bolstered by his proven business acumen. During his tenure at DeepScribe, he helped pioneer a medical AI solution that provides ambient clinical documentation by listening to patient-provider conversations in real time. Based on the input, DeepScribe automatically generates accurate medical notes that integrate into electronic health records, helping doctors save time and focus more on patient care.It's clear that governance, compliance, and trust were key considerations for Bapu and his team at DeepScribe. The sensitivity to a highly regulated intersection of AI and healthcare data has equipped him with the added muscle for managing risk relative to data privacy. No small task.As CEO, he also successfully built DeepScribe's growth strategy, leading multiple funding rounds and scaling the business through partnerships with major health systems. His work has established him as one of the foremost executives in applied AI, and he sees ample opportunity for leveraging his experience with Hightouch.A graduate of the esteemed UC Berkeley College of Engineering, Bapu was previously an NLP research scientist at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/19024048/">Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research</a>, where he focused on deep learning. He even has some Apple DNA in his work history. He is also a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fprofile%2Fdeepscribe%2F&amp;esheet=54331279&amp;newsitemid=20251001835418&amp;lan=en-US&amp;anchor=Forbes+30+under+30+honoree&amp;index=1&amp;md5=a5a00a53af80fed5a4be049367454795">Forbes 30 under 30 honoree</a>. <h3 id="powering-context-aware-marketing-agents">Powering context-aware marketing agents</h3>As we know in the CMS category, context is now driving the AI horizon. The same is true for CDP, where marketing presents a uniquely powerful domain for agentic AI. This is due to its closed-loop posture, which supports workflows that are fully autonomous and continuously optimized against enterprise data. Context-aware marketing agents are intelligent systems. They use AI to collect and interpret real-time data about a customer's behaviors, or "context," to deliver highly personalized and relevant marketing actions. Unlike traditional chatbots that use predefined scripts, these agents can adapt their behavior by remembering past interactions, analyzing user intent, and integrating data from various sources. CDPs (at least the best ones) are designed with scale as a cornerstone. With integrations across leading data platforms – including <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.snowflake.com/en/">Snowflake</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/databricks">Databricks</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/google-cloud-platform">Google</a> – Hightouch is positioned to bring its enterprise-grade context to agentic reasoning, and do it at incredible scale. This could provide significant value to brands that are banking on agentic strategies to help drive the future of their personalized marketing by leveraging unfettered access to data. “As foundation models rapidly commoditize, the real breakthroughs will emerge at the application layer,” said Bapu. “Hightouch’s combination of deep enterprise data access and agentic reasoning creates the conditions for AI marketing agents that not only assist, but truly operate autonomously to drive measurable outcomes.”<h3 id="why-it-matters">Why it matters</h3>Hightouch is already setting a high bar in the pure-play CDP category. They are reimaging their place in the space with a compelling vision for AI and how agents can be harnessed across the data landscape. As a composable solution, Hightouch is uniquely positioned with the modularity and flexibility to accelerate innovation as enterprises push into new areas with agentic AI. Now, with a proven talent like Bapu shaping its AI product strategy, the company has assembled a dynamic foundation to challenge the market with its differentiated value.Context-aware marketing agents represent an evolutionary step in AI-powered agentic capabilities. They're a big part of this story, providing a continuous cycle of perceiving, analyzing, and acting that can elevate hyper-personalized marketing strategies in compelling ways. With the increased efficiency and scale, brands can harness these agents to make smarter, faster decisions while tapping autonomous workflows that are continuously optimized against enterprise data. By investing in a visionary roadmap for their applications, Hightouch can pull further ahead – and lay the framework for future capabilities. Hightouch is also being steered by a young, brilliant, and fiery leadership team that's focused on disruption. Bapu is cut from the same cloth, and the combined resources could deliver a powerhouse braintrust for new ideas that are accelerated by an AI-centric posture. And bringing in a talent at Bapu's level is sending a strong signal to the market about their overall confidence.“Akilesh’s track record of building transformative AI products and his conviction around the future of agentic workflows make him an extraordinary addition to the team,” said <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tejasmanohar/">Tejas Manohar,</a> co-founder and CEO of Hightouch. “Together, we’re building the most advanced AI marketing agents in the industry.”Data is at the center of everything. To compete, modern brands need this kind of forward-thinking technology in their composable stacks to power what's next in the agentic race – and Hightouch just leveled up. While the roadmap has arguably been amplified with Bapu's addition, you should still focus your evaluation on core capabilities relative to your goals and consider the pricing model based on your anticipated scale. But Hightouch should be on your short list.  <hr /><h4 style="text-align:center" id="looking-for-guidance-on-hightouch?-talk-to-an-expert.">Looking for guidance on Hightouch? <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cmscritic.com/contact">Talk to an expert.</a></h4><hr /><h3 id="upcoming-events">Upcoming Events</h3> <img style="width:31.61%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/storyblok-joyconf-2025-logo.jpg" /><h4 id="storyblok-joyconf-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://joyconf.storyblok.com/">Storyblok JoyConf 2025</a></h4>October 14-15, 2025 – Amsterdam, Netherlands November 4, 2025 – New York, NY November 6, 2025 – Los Angeles, CAJoin us at JoyConf 2025, where the future of content meets the people shaping it. Built for developers, marketers, and digital innovators, this free conference goes way beyond product updates or yet another strategy playbook. It’s where you’ll get inspired, get real, and get connected – to ideas, to the community, and to what’s possible when you build joyfully. Whether you're building lightning-fast frontends or launching cross-channel campaigns, this is where content becomes connection and collaboration becomes second nature. Come for the talks. Stay for the community. Leave with joy. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://joyconf.storyblok.com/">Save your spot.</a> <img style="width:28.9%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/sitecore-symposium-2025.jpg" /><h4 id="sitecore-symposium-2025"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://symposium.sitecore.com/">Sitecore Symposium 2025</a></h4>November 3-5, 2025 – Orlando, FLAt Sitecore Symposium, you’ll learn how to meet your customers where they are – across channels, moments, and touchpoints that didn’t exist a year ago. You’ll hear how the boldest brands in the world are transforming content into outcomes and creating experiences that are fast, relevant, and human. Join 1,500 marketers, digital leaders, and technologists in Orlando to see what’s possible when personalization scales, AI accelerates creativity, and trust becomes your competitive edge. This is the Third Wave of the Internet. And this is your moment to lead in it. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://symposium.sitecore.com/">Get your tickets today.</a> <img style="width:31.44%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2025/08/cms-kickoff-2026-logo.png" alt="" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-2026"><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">CMS Kickoff 2026</a></h4>January 13-14, 2026 – St. Petersburg, FLMeet industry leaders at our fourth annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global CMS event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff26">so secure your tickets today.</a>

Hightouch Taps AI Luminary Akilesh Bapu to Accelerate Push into Context-Aware Marketing Agents

Lights, Camera, AI Action: Key Takeaways from Wistia’s 2025 ‘State of Video’ Report 

<hr /> Skip the intro and directly access my <a target="_blank" href="https://bit.ly/Responsible-AI-Guidelines-For-Content-Teams">downloadable Responsible AI Principle worksheet</a> for your team now.<h3 id="an-introduction-to-responsible-ai-for-digital-marketing-teams">An Introduction to Responsible AI for Digital Marketing Teams</h3>In today's digital age, artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly become a cornerstone of marketing strategies and tactics, driving innovation and efficiency across various tasks that marketers must complete. However, as AI technology becomes increasingly integrated into digital marketing teams, the need for ethical guidelines and responsible usage is also becoming increasingly crucial.I’m just going to say it: As powerful as AI is, in my opinion, content creation and digital teams are rushing headstrong into using tools like <a target="_blank" href="https://chat.openai.com/">ChatGPT</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://copilot.microsoft.com/">Copilot</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://gemini.google.com/">Gemini</a> without considering how to use them responsibly. I think there is a need to have a prudent approach and set of guidelines in place to ensure these tools are integrated correctly into their content operations. Does your digital marketing team have an AI Policy in use? Mine didn’t. In fact, I’d wager that most teams haven’t even prioritized having such a policy. I believe it’s time to start thinking about implementing one. Below is some context and background that may help. I’ve also listed some of the main factors you should consider when developing guidelines for your team's responsible use of AI.<h3 id="the-rise-of-ai-in-digital-marketing">The Rise of AI in Digital Marketing</h3>AI has revolutionized the marketing landscape, offering tools that can write content, translate from one language to another, automate content delivery, and optimize campaign performance. These advancements have enabled digital marketing teams to achieve high levels of efficiency, leading to more effective writing and improved ROI. CMS platforms and tools such as <a target="_blank" href="http://kontent.ai">Kontent.ai</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.kentico.com">Kentico</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.storyblok.com/">Storyblok</a>, etc., are all rushing as fast as possible to add more value with AI-enabled features in their products. I’ve seen it firsthand in many of them. All of these platforms want to be seen as the market leader in the space through AI innovation.In fact, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.futurepedia.io/ai-tools/marketing">Futurepedia</a>, a tool that tracks new AI tools as they come on the market, has over 211 AI tools listed in the Digital Marketing category.  <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:83.28%"><img src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXftvTU4IabsW3KwL1ga2eWKlnhaDjSgAxG64tQEQ8O_vHarNdLMXPU70heYHuek2Loa9bVU5ln_WmC8Da2JE_QKs8avuqLGXZ6I8l1tmTE_rb0GS-8OhSoqZRQPubq6c1S2cUvye4yoQJMEY3uM996fRQLd?key=CLw_KJ6KxDiqOvRg30VM1w" /></figure> Heck, by the time I publish this article, there will probably be 212 or more listed. The pace of change and innovation is impressive. However, with great power comes great responsibility. The reliance on AI-driven tools necessitates a framework that ensures these technologies are used correctly, both from a vendor perspective and a digital team perspective.How do we place some governance on all this change? The answer is to be prudent in the approach to AI by leveraging Responsible AI as a core theme.<h3 id="what-is-responsible-ai?">What Is Responsible AI?</h3>Responsible AI refers to the development and use of artificial intelligence in ways that prioritize ethical, fair, and safe outcomes. Major tech companies like Google, Meta, IBM, and Microsoft emphasize that organizations should follow a set of key principles when leveraging AI. The principles listed below are the most common ones I see. They combine to be a set of guiding principles when using AI.<h3 id="six-key-principles-when-leveraging-ai">Six Key Principles When Leveraging AI</h3><ol><li>Fairness: AI systems should treat all people fairly.</li><li>Reliability and safety: AI systems should perform reliably and safely.</li><li>Privacy and security: AI systems should be secure and respect privacy.</li><li>Inclusiveness: AI systems should empower everyone and engage people.</li><li>Transparency: AI systems should be understandable.</li><li>Accountability: People should be accountable for AI systems.</li></ol>I actually completely agree with the way that Microsoft and others have laid this out. All of those large tech giants have complex resource sites or large PDFs that spell out even more detail around the idea of Responsible AI. The challenge is that these resources are extensive. As an example, the <a target="_blank" href="https://ai.meta.com/static-resource/responsible-use-guide/">Meta Responsible AI guide</a> is over 25 pages. Motivating myself to read all of that or browse multiple pages on the Microsoft Responsible AI site is hard enough. I can’t see my team or my client’s team going through all of that information. That’s why I really like focusing on the main six principles above.I believe that having a responsible approach to using or producing any AI tool in an organization is critical. It is also something that is needed in digital marketing/content teams as well. That’s why I started down this path. I wanted to put a policy in place at my own agency, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bizstream.com">BizStream</a>. <h3 id="why-an-ai-policy-is-essential">Why an AI Policy is Essential</h3>Adopting AI in digital marketing isn't just about leveraging new technologies for improved outcomes; it's also about acknowledging and mitigating the potential risks associated with AI's autonomy and influence. Issues such as data privacy, bias, and the chances of hallucinations (errors by a generative AI tool) pose significant challenges. Without a comprehensive AI policy, organizations risk breaching ethical standards, violating customer trust, and potentially facing legal consequences.In fact, to me, the clearest example of where generative AI can go wrong is the published information around <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2024/02/18/air-canada-airline-chatbot-ruling/">Air Canada’s chatbot failure</a>. An earlier ruling this year ended in favor of the end customer, and now Air Canada is on the hook for AI that was not used responsibly.An AI policy serves as a guiding beacon for digital marketing teams, ensuring that every AI-driven initiative is aligned with ethical principles and corporate values. It helps establish clear boundaries and standards for AI usage and addresses concerns like fairness, transparency, and accountability.<h3 id="the-role-of-principles-in-ai-deployment">The Role of Principles in AI Deployment</h3>Drawing inspiration from established frameworks like Microsoft’s six principles for responsible AI—fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability—digital marketing teams can develop a robust policy that governs AI use. These principles are not just theoretical ideals; they can be necessities that shape how AI tools are selected, deployed, and managed within a team.As digital marketing continues to evolve with AI advancements, having a well-defined, responsible AI policy should reduce friction with AI usage. It can ensure that while organizations pursue technological innovation, they remain steadfast in their commitment to ethical practices, full transparency, and working within societal norms.<h3 id="my-responsible-ai-principles-worksheet">My Responsible AI Principles Worksheet</h3>Bringing us back to my situation specifically, as 2024 has progressed, I witnessed more and more AI tools being used by my team. On the one hand, this was great because we were seeing the benefits firsthand of faster content creation on our website, email, and social media channels. On the other hand, I was getting a little concerned about two things. First, as more tools were added to our digital marketing stack, my SaaS tool spend was climbing quickly, and second, I questioned if all of these tools being used safely and responsibly.In an effort to ensure my own team at BizStream is adequately trained on the benefits and risks associated with using AI in a marketing context, I created the following tool for us internally. The idea is that I wanted to ensure each of my team members working with these types of tools had a set of guardrails or guiding principles. I used the key Responsible AI principles (Fairness, Reliability, and safety, Privacy, and security, etc. etc.) as the main set of information. From there, I pivoted a table across those principles to include the category or type of activity that we perform in our digital marketing efforts. Then, I added a description to explain further what kind of considerations to take around that type of activity that align to a principle. It started to look like this: <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:88.25%"><img src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcyan4Kp5V4ui62GBclk3PRP2zf896t_SA2ud9i9Vpo_1v8qPrOQWfOp9xqD3WxN5ckXvPxyMRKoZXo45T-gZ4IY7D5nxcx73So7V4Ke7Bcqg63hunm9UIdd7i0AKnJKRkW2_kd8D0TMDctuawkQD6vaJ0c?key=CLw_KJ6KxDiqOvRg30VM1w" /></figure> After the first draft, my marketing specialist asked me some questions about this, so I added some guiding questions in the last column to help kick-start the brainstorming process. The current incarnation ended up looking like the screenshot below: <figure class="image image-style-align-center image_resized" style="width:83.97%"><img src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfbgC_IIHSM1GTgfHUuYOxyKFikNuvB0mTdJu7oMB-maSSu0PxyYEKSKqJKnAsyS94qwbCMs_0wXMkIwpNfpD7wAei-G3vA7zYCH1yfadhC_eCth-Qa2Eiyk3OZI2MxajJ9EdHKKf2iiOIC-44Dc2pjylVL?key=CLw_KJ6KxDiqOvRg30VM1w" /></figure> You can <a target="_blank" href="https://bit.ly/Responsible-AI-Guidelines-For-Content-Teams">download the editable version of my Responsible AI Principles &amp; Guidelines for Content Teams</a> for free. My goal for this tool is to ensure that Responsible AI practices are considered when selecting third-party vendors, tools, platform features, and subscription services. I also aim for it to add governance to both our adoptions and those of our clients.Additionally, as we onboard new marketing team members or interns, I believe they will come up to speed faster with how we operate as a team. We are working to improve this process, but only time will tell.<h3 id="periodic-reviews-of-your-ai-policy-on-a-schedule">Periodic Reviews of your AI policy on a Schedule</h3>One other note. Don’t be fooled into thinking that an AI policy or single document is a ‘set and forget’ thing. The AI and especially generative AI world is constantly changing, as are the laws and regulations around it. You must treat your AI policy as a living, breathing document. Schedule time to review it regularly, considering the changes that are coming in at a rapid pace.<h3 id="feedback-wanted">Feedback Wanted</h3>As with any new idea, I’d love to gather feedback on it and improve it. If you download the worksheet and have thoughts on it, please let me know via <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmckeiver/">LinkedIn</a> or email.<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>Using AI in digital marketing and content creation comes with many benefits and responsibilities. By following clear guidelines and responsible principles, we can use AI ethically and efficiently. I recommend that all digital marketing teams strive to implement a responsible AI policy. Note: The above information has been written to provide general guidance only. It does not equate to legal advice. Varying legal requirements exist in different locations, and laws and regulations governing AI, privacy, and cybersecurity do not exist in a consistent manner.Note: Generative AI was used to edit this document for grammar and spelling. <hr /><h3 id="upcoming-conferences">Upcoming conferences</h3> <img style="width:29.67%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-connect-2024-logo.png" alt="CMS Connect 24 logo" /><h4 id="cms-connect-24---sold-out"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmsconnect24">CMS Connect 24</a> - SOLD OUT</h4>August 6-7, 2024 – Montreal, CanadaWe are delighted to present our first annual summer edition of our prestigious international conference dedicated to the global content management community. Join us this August in Montreal, Canada, for a vendor-neutral conference focused on CMS. Tired of impersonal and overwhelming gatherings? Picture this event as a unique blend of masterclasses, insightful talks, interactive discussions, impactful learning sessions, and authentic networking opportunities. <img style="width:29.58%" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2024/01/cms-kickoff-2025-logo.png" /><h4 id="cms-kickoff-25"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.boye-co.com/conferences/cmskickoff25/tickets">CMS Kickoff 25</a></h4>January 14-15, 2025 – Tampa Bay Area, FloridaJoin us next January in the Tampa Bay area of Florida for the third annual CMS Kickoff – the industry's premier global event. Similar to a traditional kickoff, we reflect on recent trends and share stories from the frontlines. Additionally, we will delve into the current happenings and shed light on the future. Prepare for an unparalleled in-person CMS conference experience that will equip you to move things forward. This is an exclusive event – space is limited, so secure your tickets today.

Responsible AI Principles for Digital Marketing and Content Teams 

bmckeiver

A streamlined implementation process is essential for marketing automation success.
When utilized to its full potential, marketing automation will be a highly valuable asset to your organization; but if you haven’t implemented it properly, you’ll end up seriously disappointed with the outcome.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bigstock-business-people-in-a-meeting-r-12523484539x0-is.jpg" />
Getting things right from Day 1 is the best way to start, so I’ve put together 5 steps to help you to successfully implement your marketing automation and get the results you’re looking for.
<h2>1. Spring Clean your CRM</h2>
Before you even get started with your marketing automation implementation, you need to start cleaning up your CRM. You’ll need to import your contacts from your CRM and the last thing you want is to sync a whole bunch of duplicate accounts.
If you haven’t used marketing automation before – it’s likely that you already have number of duplicate entries on your system. Take the time to sift through these and make your list as clean as possible before you start the implementation process. It may be a tad tedious, but it will take a massive mess off your hands further down the line.
<h2>2. Verify Email Addresses</h2>
You’re going to be sending out more emails than ever before, so it’s important to make sure that someone is actually going to be at the receiving end when you do. After you’ve cleaned up your contacts, you can use an email verification service to weed out any incorrect emails before you start uploading them.
Check out email verification service providers such as <a href="http://www.datavalidation.com/">Data Validation</a>, which integrates with numerous email marketing tools such as <a href="http://mailchimp.com/">Mailchimp</a> and <a href="http://www.aweber.com/">AWeber.</a>
<h2>3. Define What Constitutes A Qualified Lead</h2>
Marketing automation will <a href="http://www.emailmonday.com/marketing-automation-statistics-overview" target="_blank">significantly increase</a> the number of inbound leads you receive, however – it’s also important to identify and segment these leads properly. In order to do this, you need to sit down with your sales and marketing team to define what constitutes a qualified lead and which leads fall into the ‘need a little more nurturing’ category.
This will ensure that your sales team only receive leads that have progressed further along the buying cycle, whilst your marketing team can focus on warming up the leads that aren’t quite as there yet.
<h2>4. Communicate With Your Sales Team</h2>
It’s important to sit down and talk to your sales team about the new marketing automation processes and what they can expect. Remember, these leads fuel their paycheques, so they’re going to have a lot of questions and it’s important to be prepared.
If you ask for their input from the outset, you’ll flag any issues in advance and avoid any unexpected setbacks down the line.
Your reps will probably be concerned about how the new leads will be distributed and assigned, so you’ll need to be able to address that. You’ll also need to ensure that communication processes between your sales and marketing teams are set up properly so that none of your leads get lost in translation.
<h2>5. Start With The Basics</h2>
There might be a ton of exciting new features available to you, but that doesn’t mean you have to use all of them at once. It’s important to ease into the implementation process and take it one step at a time.
Focus on the marketing automation processes that you need in place right now, and take it from there. You can look at adding more features once you’ve become more familiar with the platform. Start with what you’re doing at the moment, automate it, assess it, tweak it, and then move on to the next thing.
If you don’t have the resources available to dedicate to even basic implementation, then it might be a good idea to look at hiring a third party partner to assist with the process.
This is pretty common territory for CRM implementation but there are also many companies offering the same service for marketing automation. Most marketing automation providers, such as <a href="http://www.pardot.com/about-pardot/partners/">Pardot</a>, will provide a list of recommended partners on their site.
<h2>Ready To Go? Great. Keep Going.</h2>
Once you’ve set up your marketing automation processes, it’s essential to stay ahead of the pack by keeping an eye on your analytics data and trends. Keep your marketing automation skills fresh by staying abreast of what’s working, what’s not working, and what’s left to learn. That’s really the most important thing here.
Once you continue to stay on top of things, you’ll continue to see results.
If you have any key tips you’ve learned for successful marketing automation implementation, we’d love to hear them. Why not scroll down to the comments section below and fill us in.

Deploy Your Marketing Automation System In 5 Easy Steps

grainne-logue

CMS Summit 26

Find out at CMS Summit 26, May 12 - 13 in Frankfurt, Germany

What's ahead for CMS in the agentic era?

#ffffff

Marketing isn’t the easiest thing in the world.
Go around and survey a bunch of business owners, and they’ll undoubtedly tell you how critical marketing is to building consumer-brand trust and building a solid relationship with their customers. This is because marketing and sales go together like mac and cheese, and is the foundation that keeps companies strong and able to continue growing.
While business evolves, it becomes nearly impossible to keep up with daily operations and still maintain value-driven, personalized relationships with each and every customer. This is when marketing directors get called in to build performance-driven programs that create the conversions business owners need for their company.
However, having an efficient marketing director means that company’s marketing program is once again too large to comfortably manage. Budget meetings get held. Expenses get cut. Valuable time and money are wasted on menial, repetitive tasks like email blasts and social media updates.
Fortunately, there’s such a thing as marketing automation software, which plays a huge role in helping professionals grow their business.
<h2>About Marketing Automation</h2>
When you pare it down to the basics, marketing automation is an offshoot of customer relationship management that uses software and web-based services as means of implementing, managing, automating, and even optimizing various tasks and processes that would have otherwise taken up valuable time. This includes things like email marketing, website integration, lead generation, customer profiling, form and page building, and A/B testing.
Basically, it does all of the repetitive tasks that take time and money away from the budget for your marketing department, like email and social media marketing. All of those tasks are replaced by marketing automation software and its applications, which are both designed to optimize the performance of your business.
<h2>How Marketing Automation Works</h2>
Marketing automation creates a web of connections between multiple marketing channels, such as content marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing. This makes sure your leads are generated, scored, and nurtured to better allow your team to focus their attention on other aspects of running your business.
With the help of marketing automation software, it becomes a million times easier to send targeted emails and other messages with personalization so you can build consumer-brand trust by ensuring your brand and the services and/or products offered are directly relevant to the needs and interests of your target consumers.
This automation means your marketing department is then better able to focus on the quality of the campaigns being run, rather than the quantity of the campaigns. Additionally, the software collects data on your prospects’ interests, demographics, purchasing behavior, and needs, to better nurture those leads and personalize any future offers being sent.
<h2>The Benefits of Marketing Automation</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/marketing_automation_img_1703x0-is.jpg" />
The list of benefits that come from using marketing automation to optimize your business is a long one, but there are some benefits that really stand out and are the key to growing your business and getting new leads.
<h3>Saves Time and Money</h3>
Through the use of marketing automation software, a single individual can send out a massive email blast of hundreds of messages and do the work of a large sales and/or marketing department – all on their own.
Implement the software and your business will have automated marketing campaigns in a short amount of time. Your business will be able to send out hundreds – or even thousands – of personalized emails every single day, in addition to generating and nurturing leads while spending less time and money on doing so.
<h3>Increases Revenue</h3>
Increased revenue comes with decreased time and expenses, and makes up the biggest benefit marketing automation has to offer. In fact, last year’s <a href="http://www.hatchbuck.com/blog/the-pulse-of-marketing-automation-platforms-in-2016/">report by Adestra</a> revealed a staggering 74% of all survey respondents claimed their marketing automation software’s ability to save them time was the biggest benefit, with customer engagement being a close second for 68% of all respondents.
With all of this time being freed up, 80% of businesses <a href="http://www.hatchbuck.com/blog/the-pulse-of-marketing-automation-platforms-in-2016/">surveyed by VB last year</a> found that using marketing automation has resulted in significant increase in leads. Considering the fact these are the very lifeblood of a business’ sales, this is one benefit that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Even better, the same study found that these leads aren’t just any type of leads either – they are generally quality leads that brought about an increase in conversions for 77% of businesses.
<h3>Consistent Branding is Easier</h3>
There’s no question about it: Consistent branding is essential.
With marketing automation software, it’s a million times easier to create a consistent brand that spans across your multiple marketing channels.
Considering how much money and time you save with this, your marketing is better able to focus their efforts on expanding your audience to better reach your target demographic across emails, social media channels, mobile applications, direct mailers, and more. You can spend more money on <a href="https://99designs.com/web-design">perfecting your web design</a>, landing pages, content marketing, and other aspects of building your brand and growing your business.
By making your business more available to your customers, your visibility is gets the boost it needs to turn those website visitors and prospects into customers.
<h3>Versatile and User-Friendly</h3>
Even with all of its uses and benefits, marketing automation is actually surprisingly easy to use. After all, the software is all about optimization and making it easier to grow your business. Because of that, even the employees that aren’t so technically-gifted will be able to use it with little training.
Most marketing automation software packages come with templates, editors, and helpful guides that walk you through the while process all the way from initial creation and design to final distribution.
It doesn’t require your employees to know any coding, graphic design, or other technical skillsets. They can jump right in and get to work once it’s implemented.
<h2>Lead Generation and Nurturing</h2>
Having to spend time reaching out to each individual lead and nurturing that lead through an entire sales funnel takes time. It takes money.
With marketing automation, you can reach out to a potential lead right away from the very first interaction, even if it’s just a simple list subscription.
Let’s say a website visitor spends time reading through your content and offered products/services, and decides to sign up for your mailing list. Once you’ve got that email added to your list, you can send out one of several types of automated solutions.
They’ll receive a welcome message and that confirmation notice (always a good idea), and then the prospect will be immediately guided through the sales funnel. You can use the automation to offer discounts and other offers that are directly relevant to your customer’s needs, interests, and past purchase behavior. As the customer is guided through the sales funnel, the software collects even more data to fill out their customer profile, enabling you to better target your emails and other marketing campaigns.
<h2>Choosing Marketing Automation Software</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/marketing_automation_img_2.jpg" />
Just like with any other type of major software implementation, it’s essential to go through a full assessment of your business before purchasing and implementing marketing automation software. Even with its numerous benefits, you may decide your business hasn’t yet reached the point for it to need all those extra components for your marketing.
You need to go over the needs of your business, such as your staffing capabilities and revenue goals, how much you can invest in new marketing software, and what your current employee skills and abilities are.
Some things to consider are:
<ul>
<li>The type of marketing automation software that would best fit your needs</li>
<li>Your sales and marketing goals</li>
<li>The size of your staff – Do you have enough staff available to implement a marketing automation solution?</li>
<li>How you will measure the marketing automation software’s success – What benchmarks do you have in place?</li>
<li>Your income and expenses – Do you have the financial resources required for this?</li>
</ul>
After taking these things into consideration, it’s best to take some time to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-prepare-your-business-marketing-automation-alexia-p-bullard">prepare your business for marketing automation</a> before implementing the solution. Just like with anything else in the world, whether it’s business-related or not, marketing automation software isn’t perfect. This is why business owners need to take the time to understand both its benefits and limitations.
While it automates most things, it doesn’t automate everything. You will still need staff available to do hands-on marketing, including sending out messages and interacting with customers. While it optimizes and streamlines a good portion of you business’ workflow, it doesn’t replace a human employee.
A big part of the confusion people have when they purchase marketing automation solutions from a vendor stems from the implementation and utilization being driven by someone who doesn’t think about the fact they need involve the CRM, content, email, and/or SEO teams.
At one point or another, all of these different teams within your marketing department should be expected to handle this technology, so they should be informed of how it works. If they never get to learn about it, explore its different uses, or discuss it with the CMO or the vendors, conflict is bound to come up.
There should also be a discuss of who should be the one in charge of running the marketing platform once it’s introduced and set in place. This person, as well as the rest of the team, should be able to test out the platform and speak to the vendors.
To do this, find a vendor and schedule a demo for your team. Things to consider are:
<ul>
<li>How easy the marketing automation solution is to use. Does it take a lot of time to learn, or is it basic and straightforward?</li>
<li>Your marketing needs, and whether or not the vendor is offering a solution that aligns with these needs and goals</li>
<li>The key features – Will they make a significant difference, or do they simply amount to expensive upsells you could do without?</li>
<li>How difficult or easy it would be to implement the new software within your company. Will it integrate well, or will it be too hard to get everyone on the same page?</li>
<li>The amount of time it will take to implement</li>
<li>Whether or not the vendor offers free trials – You should always test a new business tech before investing in it</li>
</ul>
<h2>Picking a Vendor</h2>
As you can see, marketing automation software can certainly yield a whole host of benefits that grow your business and streamline your marketing efforts.
Unfortunately, the software isn’t exactly “one size fits all.”
There are tons of marketing automation platforms available, and they vary widely depending on price, features, and complexity. This can make it a bit difficult to find one that will best meet your needs.
Once you’ve taken an assessment of your business and prioritized your revenue and marketing goals, it’s time to take the next step in selecting the right marketing automation platform.
<h3>Key Features</h3>
Most of them offer the same basic features across the board, but it’s the key components that set them apart.
<ul>
<li>Are you looking for comprehensive inbound marketing? You’re going to need something that integrates your blogging, social media, and email tools.</li>
<li>Do you want your sales reps to have access to your team’s marketing data? You’re going to want a platform that has its own CRM or at least CRM integration capabilities.</li>
<li>Do you want to be able to create landing pages that convert? Then you’re going to want one that has pre-made landing page templates that make it easy to design a page in the shortest amount of time possible. Those platforms that offer drag-and-drop processes, much like <a href="http://www.sendlane.com">Sendlane</a> offers, are the type you want to look for.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Price Point</h3>
Key features aren’t the only thing marketing automation vendors vary in – price is also a huge factor. Some platforms are bundled packages that are all-inclusive, but others come with a basic package with extra add-ons available for purchase. Pricing also tends to be affected by the number of contacts you have, so you may want to get one that reflects your next benchmark goal rather than your current numbers. This way, you have more time between upgrades.
It all depends on what your industry, budget, and marketing goals are. <a href="https://www.hubspot.com/">HubSpot</a> is more expensive than <a href="https://www.act-on.com/">Act-On</a>, for example, but Act-On doesn’t have a content management platform and essential sophisticated analytics. If you’re focusing on content strategy, HubSpot would be the better choice.
The most reliable marketing automation companies make the purchasing, testing, implementation, and utilization process as easy and efficient as they possibly can. This solution should grow your business, not bring it down with complicated tech components and expensive add-ons that won’t directly benefit you. You want to pick software that is best for your business, rather than one you were talked into buying.
The following is a list of additional vendors that have proven to offer the solutions that best fit their customers, and make everything as easy as possible.
<ul>
<li><a href="http://snaptactix.com/products/">Snaptactix</a></li>
<li><a href="https://sendlane.com/#features">Sendlane</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.salesforce.com/">Salesforce</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.marketo.com/">Marketo</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sas.com/en_us/home.html">SAS</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.oracle.com/marketingcloud/products/marketing-automation/index.html">Oracle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.infusionsoft.com/">InfusionSoft</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.ibm.com/us-en/">IBM</a></li>
</ul>
That about sums up all the basics about marketing automation and picking a platform – well, at least for this article. As you can see, marketing automation truly is the key to giving your business a boost, regardless of industry or size. This should give you a fairly good idea as to what marketing automation software is and what you should be considering when selecting the best marketing automation platform for your needs.
Do you have any comments or additional vendors you would add to this list? Let me know in the comments below, or get in touch with me over at <a href="http://www.alexiapbullard.com">www.alexiapbullard.com</a>

Don't Panic! The Ultimate Guide to Picking a Marketing Automation Tool.

alexia-bullard

Producing premium content is one thing, but maximizing its performance potential is whole other ball game.
After carefully planning out the <a href="/content-strategy-5-simple-simple-steps-to-success/" target="_blank">content marketing strategy</a> for your company, you’ve likely got your content management system (CMS) up and running. While your CMS has been effective for your business thus far, <a href="/5-ways-integrating-cms-and-marketing-automation-software-can-benefit-your-business/">it could yield even greater benefits when it is integrated with the right Marketing Automation System (MAS)</a>.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/choose-best-mas595x0-is.png" /> 
A marketing automation system is a software designed to streamline, automate, and track your marketing efforts. By more efficiently handling once manual tasks such as contact management, performance measurement, and A/B testing, you can take a more performance-driven approach and maximize the return on your marketing efforts.
Of course, not all marketing automation systems are created equal, and not every MAS will be the perfect fit for your business.
This guide will help you find the best one for your needs in just three easy steps.
<h2>Step 1: Identify Your Needs</h2>
Every business expects something different from their marketing efforts, and as a result, there is no true one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why, before you even think about shopping for an MAS, you should first sit down and decide what you want yours to do.
Are you mainly looking for a way to improve your email marketing, or looking for new ways to simplify lead management and get better leads? Do you need something that easily integrates with your CMS to get your content into the right hands?
Are you looking for new and improved ways to track and measure the performance of your marketing efforts? How important is the level of support and training provided?
By answering questions such as those, you’ll get a better idea as to what MAS features are most important to the marketing efforts of your business. It’s important to have a realistic idea of what you need your MAS to do. While it’s easy to look at everything they can do and say, “Yes, I want all of that,” it’s important to realize that you’ll have to pay for it too – so make sure you’ll really get full value from your potential MAS before you actually commit to it.
<h2>Step 2: Figure Out What Your CMS Can Already Do</h2>
Once you know what you want and need to supercharge your marketing efforts, you should see if you can already get it from your content management system. After all, while a good MAS is usually more refined and versatile than a CMS, you might not need that versatility enough to justify paying extra for it.
There are many capabilities your CMS might have built-in, such as certain types of analytics or basic lead management. Other features can be replicated with plugins or extensions. Many of these are either free or low one-time costs, making them a far cheaper option than an MAS.
However, just because they can replicate some of the features of an MAS doesn’t mean that they can replace them. Depending on the marketing needs of your business, you might get much more bang for your buck by integrating the right MAS, as it allows you to do more (and do it more easily) than your CMS.
For example, there are a lot of lead generation plugins that can allow you to build a squeeze page and capture basic information. However, an MAS can boost your conversion rate by giving you more freedom to nurture those leads. Instead of pushing the same message to every visitor, you can score them based on their demographic information and sort the hot leads from the lukewarm ones – and tailor your message accordingly.
Do you need the added versatility and more advanced functionality of an MAS? Does your current CMS already do enough to meet your identified business needs? It’s up to you to decide whether or not you need an MAS, and if you do need one, then you have to figure out how much you’re willing to pay for it.
<h2>Step 3: Look At The Cost</h2>
The amount that you’ll pay for marketing automation system largely depends on the size of your business. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) simply have different needs than an enterprise-level company, and as a result, different MAS’s exist to cater to different niches.
The primary differences between the <a href="/12-free-or-super-cheap-marketing-automation-systems/">more affordable marketing automation systems</a> and the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/8-enterprise-marketing-automation-softwares-to-complement-your-cms/">more-expensive, enterprise-level marketing automation systems</a> can be seen in the features they each offer, and the number of people they’ll let you service.
For example, <a href="http://www.infusionsoft.com/" target="_blank">Infusionsoft</a> is one of the bigger MAS providers, and, as such, they have a range of services. The lowest tier is $199 a month, but that only gives you 2500 contacts, 12,500 emails per month, and access to half of their features. Their highest tier, on the other hand, is $599 a month, but that includes full access to their features and almost ten times the contacts and emails.
This difference in service levels isn’t unusual. Brands like Marketo, Pardot, and Oracle have varying levels of sophisticated automated marketing solutions that offer premium features to their enterprise clients. These solutions often go for thousands of dollars a month. That being said, there are plenty of more affordable marketing automation systems available that offer similar, albeit less sophisticated, functionality for far less money.
<h2>Picking the Right MAS For You</h2>
If you’re looking to maximize your performance potential and get the most out of your marketing efforts, then its time you considered choosing an MAS and integrating it with your existing CMS. While it’s not right for every business, a good MAS can help refine your marketing strategy and increase your bottom line.
It’s worth your while to sit down and analyze the state of your marketing efforts. Use the three aforementioned steps to evaluate whether or not you should sign up for an MAS, and if so, which one is right for your business. Every business will have different answers, but it’s important that you have an answer for yourself.
After all, if you don’t know where your company stands, how will your customers?
Do you have a preferred marketing automation system? Tell us about it in the comments, or talk to us over at the CMS Forums.

How to Choose The Best Marketing Automation System For You (In 3 Easy Steps)

mike-johnston

When it comes to marketing automation systems (MAS), there are <a href="/8-enterprise-marketing-automation-softwares-to-complement-your-cms/" target="_blank">plenty of options floating around for enterprises with big budgets</a>. Fortunately though, you don’t always get what you pay for in the world of software.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/phone-793044_1280616x0-is.jpg" /> 
Breaking the bank for a fantastic MAS isn't a neccessity, because there are plenty of affordable and even totally free options out there — if you know where to look.
Take a look at these dozen options that are budget-friendly, user-friendly and offer features that can rival any marketing platform on the market.
<h2>1. SimplyCast</h2>
A marketing automation system rich with sophistication. Campaigns can be led even by those with minimal tech know-how.
Touted as a one-stop-shop marketing solution, SimplyCast offers personal profiles (and thus personal targeting), lead nurturing, A/B testing, API connection, a drag-and-drop interface, and much more. SimplyCast serves up a free version, while the lowest plan starts from just $499 per month.
<a href="http://www.simplycast.com/">Learn more about SimplyCast</a>.
<h2>2. Mautic </h2>
Prefer your marketing software to be open source? Look no further.
Mautic lets you decide between a free hosted account, or a downloaded version of their software which can be integrated with your existing website. In just three steps and five minutes, social media marketing becomes streamlined, leads are effortlessly tracked, and forms can be efficiently constructed, all with a MAS that’s totally customizable.
<a href="https://www.mautic.org">Learn more about Mautic</a>.
<h2>3. Customer.io</h2>
With customers like Shutterstock, Shopify and The Economist, Customer.io shot to fame by sending “human” messages to customers based on their behaviour on websites and apps.
Emails are sent when they’re most likely to be read, A/B testing is constant and it’s all about increasing the personal touch of a brand. Customer.io has a free plan, whereas paid plans start from just $50 per month.
<a href="http://www.Customer.io">Learn more about Customer.io</a>.
<h2>4. InTouch</h2>
Designed for smaller businesses, InTouch is a far cry from the gossip mag with the same name. It focuses largely on email marketing automation by utilizing web forms to snag leads.
Data mining is honed with automated follow-ups that are flawlessly timed. It’s used by companies such as Silicon Beach Business Angels and LinkedIn trainers. InTouch is available for free, with packages starting from under $20 per month.
<a href="http://www.intouchcrm.com/">Learn more about InTouch</a>.
<h2>5. Sales Autopilot</h2>
It does what it says on the tin. Sales Autopilot offers a free entry kit for small businesses with five modules that include email marketing, marketing on autopilot, e-commerce, multi-channel communication, and sales.
Customers like Rackspace, Amazon Web Services and PayPal have seen the use in its more advanced packages, making Sales Autopilot a solution for those in the big leagues, too.
<a href="http://www.salesautopilot.com/">Learn more about Sales Autopilot</a>.
<h2>6. Spokal</h2>
With a 14 day free trial, and a starter package at just $49 per month, Spokal is also popular with small to medium sized businesses.
This package requires a single user, and offers support for newer sites, startups and mom-and-pop joints. However, the pickings are far from slim. You’ll get options like rank tracking, social media analytics and sales lead notifications along with scores of other services.
<a href="http://www.getspokal.com/">Learn more about Spokal</a>.
<h2>7. Nurture</h2>
Nurture aims not just to identify and engage customers, but also to actually retain them for the long haul. Hence the name.
Surveys, smart segmentation, A/B testing, personalized conversations and “human touch” features are all bundled. Plus, Nurture can be configured to give real-time alerts for different triggers. Prices begin at $95 per month.
<a href="http://www.nurturehq.com/">Learn more about Nurture</a>.
<h2>8. Genoo</h2>
A playful name for a seriously sophisticated MAS.
Genoo has a 30-day free trial with standard plans from $199 per month. Yes, it’s a little costlier than some options, but still squarely in the low-cost category. Features include specialized WordPress integration (for existing WordPress websites), landing pages, email marketing, lead capture forms, as well as lead tracking and scoring.
<a href="http://www.genoo.com/">Learn more about Genoo</a>.
<h2>9. Leadsius </h2>
Another well known player in the world of marketing automation, Leadsius offers an “Always Free” option, with the next step up at $295 per month.
The platform is feature-rich thanks to complete lead management, contact databases, analytics as well as landing page and form building. Certainly a solid option for SMBs looking to get used to a proper, yet free MAS, before scaling up.
<a href="http://www.leadsius.com/">Learn more about Leadsius</a>.
<h2>10. Azuqua</h2>
Dun and Bradstreet, along with Hewlett Packard, are already using Azuqua for their marketing automation needs.
The platform comes with a cloud-native platform that’s fully integrated, and also offers solutions for professionals, enterprises and SaaS/IoT/data users. Prices are customizable yet competitive.
<a href="https://www.azuqua.com">Learn more about Azuqua</a>.
<h2>11. Jumplead </h2>
When you get a lead, you need to jump on it! Jumplead brings together lead tracking, email marketing, landing pages, analytics and more, all under the same roof. The platform boast a number of integration options, too.
Jumplead offers a free package called Explore, while the next step up, Solo, is just $49 per month. H Squared and Texoil are among Jumplead's clientele.
<a href="https://jumplead.com">Learn more about Jumplead</a>
<h2>12. Infusionsoft</h2>
InfusionSoft is a big player in the MAS industry, but their Essentials Package can be used for just $199 per month.
The CRM, sales and marketing suite gives small businesses full contact management and marketing automation suitable for ambitious organizations. More than 30,000 businesses benefit from InfusionSoft, including Mint Social.
<a href="http://www.infusionsoft.com/">Learn more about Infusionsoft</a>.
<h2>Marketing at a Steal</h2>
Who said marketing campaigns need monster budgets? There twelve solutions above prove that it's more about elbow grease than it is wallet size.
What are your marketing, engagement, and customer experience must-haves? Let us know in the comments below.

12 Free or Super Cheap Marketing Automation Systems

If we learned anything while attending Adobe's Digital Marketing Summit this year, it's that Adobe knows how to throw a party better than anyone.
Entering the aptly dubbed “Summit Bash” we were greeted with BMX and Skateboard stunts at an impromptu set of ramps that had been setup in one section of the party.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bash3-450x300.jpg" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bash2.jpg" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
Adding to the ambiance of the party was DJ Mick Boogie putting out some awesome tunes.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bash5-450x300.jpg" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
We had barely entered the party when a character on stilts swung open an enormous set of drapes expanding the already huge hall into one three times the size. Acrobats began twisting up the drapes and began to climb them while performing a series of impressive acrobatics while hanging from them.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/editrolespage_dedxre.png" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
Not only did we have acrobats, we then ended up with a number of beautiful ladies marching about the floor inside balloons, we'll call them “Bubble Girls”  They paraded around the party and popped their bubbles to introduce a band that truly can only be described as “Uniquely amazing”.
The band, named Recycled Percussion, then put on what was the most unique set I've seen, incorporating drumming on recycled materials, ladders, and much more. The music and show these four guys put on was one of the best I've seen.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screenshot_2015-07-08_at_12_53_26_pm_amyh39.png" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
We could have easily watched them all night but there was another band that was about to come on stage and headline… Foster the People took the stage as the surprise headline act at the Bash and kicked up the beats with their hit songs, Pumped up Kicks, Helena Beat and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/wpid-adobe2.jpg" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
It wasn't just about music and entertainment, though… there was an incredible amount of food and drinks all of which were free of course. Adobe spared no cost feeding the 4,000 attendees with some of the best food we've had in a long time.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screenshot_2015-07-08_at_12_53_26_pm-1_obcryc.png" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
Of course, no party post is complete without a picture of yours truly enjoying a drink.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bash8.jpg" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
All said and done, Adobe knows how to entertain and we had an absolute blast. We look forward to attending again next year. Here are some more pictures from the party.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/lightmodule_png_2015-07-07-17-26-51_dzngyj.png" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/demo_png_2015-07-08-14-43-08_rxl6sd.png" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/magnoliacmslogo-1_jbzszi.jpg" alt="Digital Marketing Summit" />
For more info on the summit, visit the <a href="http://summit.adobe.com">Adobe Digital Marketing Summit website</a>.

The Summit Bash at the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit

"Composable" is becoming the operative word across the DXP marketplace. And rightly so: a composable platform has huge benefits, enabling users to build dynamic web and app experiences more efficiently by reusing content and other components that can be personalized at scale. 
Composable systems also allow for more iterative testing across multiple variants, enabling marketers to optimize performance and gather critical insights faster than ever. We've seen a number of platforms embrace this "composable revolution" over the last few years, and it seems to be paying off. 
Now, Acquia – a leading DXP – on Gartner's Magic quadrant – has announced major updates to its <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/digital-experience-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform</a> (DXP) that aim to accelerate the development and optimization of composable digital experiences. According to the company, these innovative new features will weave together the workflows of once-siloed digital marketing and development teams in a single platform, making composable strategies more extensible. 
<h2>Expanding the composable value with Acquia Open DXP</h2>
The Acquia Open DXP is an umbrella brand that comprises both the <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud" target="_blank">Acquia Marketing Cloud</a> and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud" target="_blank">Acquia Drupal Cloud,</a> integrating their combined capabilities – including AgilOne, Mautic, and Cohesion – with its existing core. 
This pairing was designed to bring marketers and developers together in a comprehensive, easy-to-use platform powered by machine learning features in both Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud – making it faster and easier to launch new websites, applications, and marketing campaigns with modular components.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/acquia-dxp.png" alt="Acquia Drupal and Marketing Cloud Diagram" />
Acquia started making its move to composable enterprise back in July by <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-introduces-composable-enterprise-features-in-latest-version-of-dxp/" target="_blank">introducing composable features</a> in its last version of its DXP.
"The movement toward the composable enterprise is growing as organizations look to gain agility with plug-and-play services, and velocity with simpler application development and delivery," said Dries Buytaert, creator of Drupal and co-founder and CTO of Acquia. "Executing on this strategy requires a new technical architecture and way for teams to work. Acquia is connecting and automating organizational workflows, spanning content and data, to speed development of digital experiences at scale." 
<h2>What is a composable enterprise?</h2>
The concept of a "<a href="https://www.akana.com/blog/composable-architecture" target="_blank">composable enterprise</a>" is becoming more popular as digital transformation enters its next wave. And it makes sense: leading up to Covid, digital stacks were already becoming decoupled and less monolithic, all driven by the rise of the <a href="https://www.openapis.org/" target="_blank">open API</a>. Much of this investment in a composable enterprise is driven by the rise in composable commerce and its impact on the application landscape. 
Gartner defines a composable enterprise as:
An organization that delivers business outcomes and adapts to the pace of business change. It does this through the assembly and combination of packaged business capabilities (PBCs). PBCs are application building blocks that have been purchased or developed.
Gartner also predicts that by 2023, organizations that embrace composability will <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3986490/composable-commerce-must-be-adopted-for-the-future-of-ap" target="_blank">outpace the competition by 80%</a> in implementing new product features. This underscores the rapid adoption we're seeing across the market for more composable architectures and frameworks – something the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank">MACH Alliance</a> has been focusing on from an industry perspective. MACH is an acronym for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless, which crystallizes the core tenants of the modern composable enterprise. 
<h2>What else is new in the Aquia DXP Cloud?</h2>
<h4>Drupal Cloud upgrades accelerate digital experience development </h4>
Updates to the Drupal Cloud developer experience streamline and connect workflows to empower fusion teams with no-code/low-code solutions that span DevOps, WebOps, ContentOps, and ExperienceOps. All new products and features are available on <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/introducing-acquia-cloud-next-kubernetes-native-drupal-hosting-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Next</a>, the newest version of Acquia's cloud platform. Key innovations include:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/code-studio" target="_blank">Acquia Code Studio</a>: A new, 100% cloud-based development environment that integrates with GitLab and Acquia Cloud IDE. Developers can now log into Acquia Cloud Platform, spin up an IDE and then click to connect to GitLab (the platform of choice for application development) using frameworks such as <a href="https://reactjs.org/" target="_blank">React</a>, <a href="https://angularjs.org/" target="_blank">Angular</a>, or <a href="https://vuejs.org/" target="_blank">Vue</a>. With Acquia Code Studio, developers have all the tools they need to plan, build, review, test, and deploy any Drupal application—all from a familiar GitLab environment.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://docs.acquia.com/customer-data-platform/actions/" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Actions</a>: A new, collaborative release management system that automates the process of deploying and managing code to the Acquia Cloud environment. Once development teams write code, Acquia Cloud Actions manages the build, test, and deploy phases to get code into production. By eliminating manual processes, Acquia Cloud Actions fuels faster digital innovation at scale.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.acquia.com/why-acquia/acquia-digital-commerce" target="_blank">Acquia Digital Commerce Integrations</a>: Powered by the no-code Acquia Site Studio, pre-built integration components make it easy for anyone to assemble digital commerce experiences leveraging Acquia's DAM and PIM. Support for <a href="https://graphql.org/" target="_blank">GraphQL</a> and Node.js allows developers to easily extend and enhance Acquia's pre-built integrations with any MACH-compliant commerce vendor and cut the time required to deliver experiences to as little as 90 days.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Marketing Cloud enhancements increase efficiencies and insights across hybrid teams </h4>
Acquia is announcing key innovations to its Acquia Marketing Cloud, including several features focused on composable machine learning, analytics, privacy, and multi-tenant distributed marketing to empower teams across CampaignOps and MLOps. 
<a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/customer-data-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Customer Data Platform</a> (CDP) now has several new capabilities that drive citizen data science and analytical insights across the organization. Building on Acquia CDP's world-class data modeling and analytics platform, Acquia now provides more intelligence, ROI insights, and ML-driven efficiencies across more teams and in more ways than any other customer data platform on the market. New features in this release include:
<ul>
<li>Multi-touch attribution: As the first attribution solution built on top of a CDP, this new capability allows marketers to visualize campaign performance through a range of attribution windows and timeframes to understand the true ROI of marketing investments.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>ML Studio: A first-of-its-kind, low-code/no-code machine learning workbench that enables data scientists to build custom ML models on top of unified data, all within Acquia CDP.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>ML Launchpad: As part of Acquia CDP analytics, Launchpad surfaces ML-driven insights into a visual and highly intuitive dashboard for non-technical marketers, so they can see at-a-glance key insights such as audience propensities, recommended actions to take, and more. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Privacy Management: This new tool supports compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and more by allowing faster data erasure.</li>
</ul>
Acquia is also introducing new capabilities in Acquia Campaign Studio and Acquia Personalization, including: 
<ul>
<li>Multi-Tenant distributed marketing automation: This first-of-its-kind capability enables brands using Campaign Studio to scale centralized campaigns across multiple brands, geographies, and teams while adhering to compliance and governance requirements. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Visual email and landing page builder: An extension of WYSIWYG capabilities in <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/campaign-studio" target="_blank">Acquia Campaign Studio</a>, this drag-and-drop interface makes it easier than ever to build emails and landing pages for campaigns.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Enhanced A/B testing: Acquia Personalization now has more powerful A/B testing capabilities, including automated self-optimization, which auto-promotes winning variants without requiring any time or effort from marketing teams – and increased website conversion and revenue. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Growing validation with analysts</h2>
Acquia has been named a Leader on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) for two consecutive years. Additionally, International Data Corporation (IDC) has recognized the usability, extensibility, and enterprise-grade capabilities of the Acquia platform and recently named Acquia a Leader in the inaugural <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/report/idc-marketscape-content-management-systems" target="_blank">IDC MarketScape for Worldwide Content Management Systems for Persuasive Digital Experiences 2021 Vendor Assessment</a>.
<h2>About Acquia</h2>
Acquia empowers the world's most ambitious brands to create digital customer experiences that matter. With open source Drupal at its core, the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) enables marketers, developers, and IT operations teams at thousands of global organizations to rapidly compose and deploy digital products and services that engage customers, enhance conversions and help businesses stand out. Learn more at <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">https://www.acquia.com</a>.

Acquia Upgrades Open DXP Capabilities to Expand Composable Enterprise Features

paris-tuzun

Acquia logo against a composite background of Tetris-like pieces fitting together, reinforcing the concept of composable DXP

The concept of a "<a href="https://www.akana.com/blog/composable-architecture">composable enterprise</a>" is becoming more popular as digital transformation enters its next wave. And it makes sense: leading up to Covid, digital stacks were already becoming decoupled and less monolithic, all driven by the rise of the <a href="https://www.openapis.org/">open API</a>. 
Add a global pandemic, and the hyper-accelerated pace of transformation resulted in more systems "talking" to each other – and integration driving innovation. 
In the simplest terms, composable enterprises are building digital solutions that leverage the <a href="https://www.mulesoft.com/resources/api/what-is-an-api-economy#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20API%20Economy,created%20by%20differing%20software%20platforms.">API economy</a>. This means businesses are assembling their offerings together in a highly modular way – breaking down components into smaller <a href="https://microservices.io/">microservices</a> or packaged business capabilities (PBCs).
I know, I know... more acronyms. But this is a good one because PCBs are becoming a bigger deal. <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3976170/innovation-insight-for-packaged-business-capabilities-an">According to Gartner</a>, they encapsulate the concept of composable commerce and how fixed applications are becoming a thing of the past.
And that leads us to the latest news from <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a>, a leading Drupal-based digital experience platform. They just announced major updates to their Acquia <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/digital-experience-platform" target="_blank">Open Digital Experience Platform</a> (DXP), which is powered by their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud ecosystems. By embracing a new set of component features, Acquia is advancing the composable enterprise by enabling marketers, developers, and IT operators to assemble and deploy digital experiences for every point along the customer journey.
<h2>A tale of two clouds</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/acquia-dxp.png" alt="Acquia Drupal and Marketing Cloud Diagram" />
As part of an <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">ambitious growth plan</a>, Acquia is hanging its DXP hat on a bifurcated strategy with their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud. While the former focuses on building and enhancing digital experiences, the latter provides a sandbox for personalizing and orchestrating campaigns and assets with cross-channel capabilities. 
In an age of composable enterprises, this approach is allowing businesses to focus resources while connecting data. Acquia's new version features enhancements to both of their cloud layers – each with its own composable attributes.
Acquia also announced a new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/newsroom/press-releases/acquia-launches-china-managed-services">China managed services offering</a> with in-region security and support as part of their update package. 
<h2>Drupal Cloud updates focus on scalability</h2>
Acquia's improvements to Drupal Cloud are focused on helping companies build and scale their experiences in a number of key areas. This includes enhancements to the HR and employee experience, container-based hosting, advanced search functionality, and developer support. 
"With the accelerated demand for digital experiences, businesses need to continue to scale at greater capacities and speeds," said, Kevin Cochrane, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing at Acquia. "They need to be confident that their digital infrastructure and teams are able to perform without fail no matter when or where they're needed." 
The updates to Drupal Cloud include:
<ul>
<li>Employee Experience Platform: Acquia's new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/powering-digital-workplace-employee-experience-platform" target="_blank">Employee Experience Platform</a> (EXP) is an HR-centric modern intranet powered by Drupal. It combines employee systems in applications via the API framework of Acquia's Open DXP. Acquia's EXP integrates HR applications with dynamic site-building and hosting capabilities – creating a one-stop-shop for benefits and payroll, information access, discovery, cross-team collaboration, and more.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Acquia Cloud Next: Acquia made significant updates to their <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Platform</a> services to create <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/introducing-acquia-cloud-next-kubernetes-native-drupal-hosting-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud Next</a> – an enterprise-grade, Kubernetes-native Drupal hosting platform backed by Acquia's collaboration with AWS. With Acquia Cloud Next, customers benefit from the improved application and site performance along with nearly limitless storage volume, enhanced security and resiliency, and optimized resource utilization. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Fully Managed Search: Enhanced Apache <a href="https://solr.apache.org/guide/7_0/">Solr 7</a> search capabilities are now integrated into the Acquia Cloud Platform and fully managed by Acquia. Searches are faster across multiple servers and provide better results to keep site visitors engaged with content.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Acquia Cloud IDE and Developer Support: <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-ide" target="_blank">Acquia Cloud IDE</a> improves developer productivity with a new cloud-based, fully integrated workflow between development, staging, and production environments. It provides a full stack of optimized development tools – including PHP, Composer, and Drush – readily installed and configured for a fast and simple onboarding process. As a browser-based source code editor and Drupal development stack based entirely in the cloud, Acquia Cloud IDE will help developers accelerate writing and deploying code without adding maintenance or security issues. Best-in-class support enhancements include a new <a href="https://docs.lando.dev/">Lando</a> plugin and support for both <a href="https://www.php.net/releases/8.0/en.php">PHP 8</a> and the latest version of Drupal.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Marketing Cloud gets new Unified User Interface</h2>
Enhancements to Acquia's Marketing Cloud will provide a simpler, more intuitive way for marketers to understand their business. New features are designed to help users build personalized experiences for customers and scale both operational efficiencies and smarter workflows across their organizations. 
The <a href="https://www.acquia.com/blog/acquia-marketing-cloud-introduces-new-ui-enhancements-unified-marketer-friendly-experience" target="_blank">new Unified User Interface (UI)</a> for Acquia Marketing Cloud makes it easier to leverage the combined capabilities of <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/customer-data-platform" target="_blank">Acquia Customer Data Platform</a> (CDP), <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/personalization" target="_blank">Acquia Personalization</a>, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/campaign-studio" target="_blank">Acquia Campaign Studio</a>, and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/campaign-factory" target="_blank">Acquia Campaign Factory</a>. The main navigation provides a single view over all Marketing Cloud solutions, supporting a streamlined workflow across teams and regions. This will allow marketers to elevate their control and visibility – and run more effective, data-driven campaigns. 
Some of the other updates to Marketing Cloud include: 
<ul>
<li>Golden Template in Campaign Factory: To help marketing teams effectively govern their campaigns across hundreds or even thousands of brands, websites, and business units, Acquia Campaign Factory is introducing a "Golden Template." This feature will enable users to change all downstream child instances across email, segments, complete campaigns, and more – saving time and accelerating updates.</li>
<li>Machine Learning Center ("ML Center" ): Acquia's new Machine Learning Center gives marketers and business leaders a dashboard that unifies all ML-driven intelligence into one view and allows marketers and business users to understand the impact of their campaigns (both online and offline). The new Metrics Launchpad dashboard provides easy-to-understand visualizations and is enabled for all Acquia CDP customers who use machine learning as part of the platform. </li>
</ul>
To learn more about Acquia's Digital Experience Platform, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">click </a><a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">here</a>.
<h2>About Acquia</h2>
<a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank">Acquia</a> is the open digital experience platform that enables organizations to build, host, analyze and communicate with their customers at scale through websites and digital applications. As the trusted open source leader, Acquia uses adaptive intelligence to produce better business outcomes for CX leaders.

Acquia Introduces Composable Enterprise Features in Latest Version of DXP

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

Explore a wide range of informative articles on marketing, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry

News

What's ahead for CMS in the agentic era?

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads