• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, 7 hours ago

The old direct-marketing masters had it right. Direct mail and direct-response advertising were the only two channels that could tell you how you were doing: People either responded, or they didn’t.  

What brings this to mind is Funnel’s 2026 Marketing Intelligence Report. It found that 86% of in-house marketers and 79% of agencies are struggling to measure the impact of each channel on overall performance. 

Whoa — that should be easier, given the advanced data and analytical tools now available. But it can be summed up with this headline: “So much data, so little insight.” 

Of the in-house marketers polled, 72% have trouble turning their mountains of data into insights. And 55% of agency people agree.  

Obviously, agencies are better equipped to deal with modern metrics--60% are able to make “robust recommendations” in performance reports, versus 29% of in-house staffers. 

Most corporate personnel are too worried about what their bosses will think — Gen Z is much less so. But they feel like they must master artificial intelligence, making these predictions about AI’s impact on digital advertising over the next 2-3 years: 

Reduced use of traditional search engines like Google — 64%

Increased use of AI chatbots and conversational interfaces — 56%

Shorter customer journeys due to AI-assisted decision-making — 43% 

More fragmented, unpredictable customer journeys — 41%

More personalized ads and content-based on AI-driven recommendations — 30% 

Increased importance of conversational and long-tail SEO — 28% 

Increased use of voice search — 9%

None of the above — 1%

One sad truth that emerges is that marketers are overly cautious--64% of in-house people and 53% of agency marketers have not launched a campaign that deviated from their usual practices in more than three months.  

say it’s been more than three months since they have launched a campaign that deviated from their typical practices.

Tom Roach, VP Brand Strategy at Jellyfish, says: “Playing it safe is actually the riskiest long-term strategy, as it leads to stagnation. Brands can make bolder moves by adopting a test-and-learn mindset and ring-fencing a small innovation budget. I like the 70/20/10 approach: 10% devoted to trying new things, 20% to optimising what works and 70% to basic foundations.”

Here's another way of looking at it. 

“Marketers don’t need more dashboards; they need better feedback loops,” the study says. “Conversion APIs (CAPIs) help close that gap by turning insights into impact, feeding platforms with trusted data that improves optimization and attribution. These tools let marketers send server-side conversion events directly back to platforms like Meta, Google and TikTok.” 

But the study adds, “While CAPI can work with standard pixel events, the real value comes when those events are enriched with first-party identifiers — email addresses, phone numbers, CRM or transaction data. 

Funnel and Ravn Research surveyed 238 marketers.