Free Research Content for Marketers

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The Future of the MarTech Stack 2025

Marketing professionals need their martech stack to support data-driven strategies, personalized experiences, and seamless integrations across many digital channels.

Marketing Attribution 2024

This year's study examines the impact of AI on attribution strategies, challenges, confidence levels, and more.

Content Marketing & AI 2024

As AI becomes more prevalent, numerous questions arise: How will it affect content quality? What are the best practices for utilizing AI in content creation? And, ultimately, will AI become indispensable to content marketing? This research aims to answer these...

Data-Driven Marketing 2024

You cannot stay ahead of the competition without a successful data-driven marketing strategy.For many years, Ascend2 has provided marketing professionals with research on data-driven marketing trends to help them stay competitive. This year's study examines the impact of AI on...

Multi-Channel Marketing Trends 2024

This year's study examines various digital marketing channels' unique strengths and applications so marketers can develop an integrated marketing strategy supporting their objectives.

The State of Email and Automation in 2024

What is working in email and automation, and what can you learn from other marketing professionals to optimize your programs this year?

The Use of AI to Advance Personalization in 2024

How are marketing professionals using AI to impact the effectiveness of personalization in the coming year?

The State of Marketing Automation

Marketing automation continues to evolve rapidly with advancements in AI, personalization, and workflows. Marketing professionals must stay current on what is working (and not working) to determine their next steps regarding marketing automation to take advantage of what is possible...

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The Process of Evaluating and Changing Marketing Technology

In an ever-evolving landscape of marketing technology available that can potentially improve efficiency and help marketers improve performance, updating or replacing components of a martech stack is something that most marketers will encounter during their career. So, how are marketers...

Leveraging AI in Marketing

With the proliferation of AI understanding comes more knowledge of how it can be applied to marketing strategies. So, how are marketers currently using AI, and how do they plan to invest in its use in the coming year?

Demand Generation: Strategy, Tactics & Trends

Demand generation is the process of creating interest and awareness in a product or service to stimulate and capture potential customers' attention, ultimately driving them to take a desired action, such as making a purchase. But how are marketers approaching...

Customer Engagement and AI

With effective customer engagement, marketers are able to build brand awareness and trust, increasing sales and improving their bottom line. But how are marketers using AI to engage with their customers and prospects?

Future of Martech 2024 Survey Summary Report

Establishing an effective and efficient marketing technology (martech) stack is a critical component of a successful marketing strategy. But with rapid advancements in technology available to marketers, what does the future hold for martech stacks?

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Digital Display Advertising 2023

Marketers have long used digital advertising campaigns to get their brand in front of a wide audience of potential customers, but with rapid advances in technology, marketers now face a new set of challenges when it comes to executing digital...

Email Marketing and AI 2023

Email is one of the oldest digital channels available to marketers today. But new technology is changing the way email is used for marketing. So how are marketing professionals using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in email marketing?

Data-Driven Marketing 2023

Using accurate and relevant data to drive strategic marketing decisions can be a complex process, but one with significant pay-off. So how are marketers executing their data-driven strategies to achieve the greatest return?

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Marketing Attribution Approach 2023

Accurately measuring marketing performance across channels and attributing success to the appropriate efforts can be incredibly complex. So how are marketers executing their marketing attribution strategy?

Multi-Channel Marketing 2023

Marketers are tasked with using the right data, on the right channel, at the right time that connects with their prospective buyers. So how are marketers optimizing their multi-channel strategy to ensure the best allocation of marketing spend?

Digital Marketing Trends 2023

With emerging, groundbreaking technologies and an unpredictable economic climate, there are many factors that contribute to the ever-changing tide of digital marketing. So how are marketers adjusting their digital strategies for maximum growth now and in the year ahead?

The State of Marketing Automation 2023 Trends

When executed correctly, marketing automation can increase efficiencies and improve marketing workflows. But how are marketers using automation now, compared to a year ago, and what are their plans for the year ahead?

Outlook on Marketing Data Quality

Collecting and managing high-quality marketing data can dramatically improve business outcomes for diligent organizations. But how are marketers improving data quality to meet and exceed strategic goals in the year ahead?

Trends in Marketing Personalization

Personalization is a one-to-one marketing strategy that seeks to better understand and connect with customers. It uses real-time data and insights to deliver highly relevant messages and offers. But what trends in personalization will have the most impact in the...

The Future of the Martech Stack in 2023

With marketing becoming more complex and an ever-expanding landscape of marketing technology (martech) solutions, marketers are faced with finding, selecting, implementing, and utilizing the right technology to support their goals. But what does the coming year look like for marketers...

Building Better Customer Experiences

Businesses of all sizes and industries have learned that improving customer experience can improve growth, loyalty, and efficiency. But how are marketers working to build better experiences for their customers?

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Building Original Content for Engagment Report Cover

Content marketing is a powerful part of an overall marketing strategy when the content produced is engaging and effective. But how are marketers creating original content to build engagement with their target audiences?

Using Data-Driven Marketing to Predict Future Performance

Data-driven marketing continues to grow in importance, as marketing professionals rely on data to guide their decisions. But how are companies using data-driven marketing to optimize marketing programs and predict future performance?

Email Marketing: Strategies, Tactics & Trends 2022

Email marketing is both a mature marketing tactic and one of the most effective tools for marketing professionals. Keeping your program current is critical to its continued success. So what are marketers doing to make email marketing effective?

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The State of Multi-Channel Marketing

Today's audiences are everywhere and for marketers to meet their business goals, they need to be in multiple channels. But with multiple channels comes more complexity. So how are marketers managing multiple channels to optimize marketing performance?

Improving Marketing Attribution

Successfully attributing results of marketing efforts to revenue across a multitude of marketing channels, touchpoints, and technology platforms can be a complicated process. So how are marketing teams executing marketing attribution strategies?

The Impact of Agile Marketing

Agile marketing is an approach that prioritizes responding to change over following a set plan. But how are marketing teams executing agile marketing strategies today?

The Outlook on Intent Data

The knowledge surrounding the utilization of intent data is growing as it is adopted by organizations that span many different industries and marketing channels. But how are marketers using what they know about intent data to optimize their strategy in...

The State of Marketing Automation 2022

The processes and people behind the utilization of automation in conjunction with other marketing efforts are just as important as the automation technology itself. So how are marketers finding the right balance to improve performance?

Using Data to Drive Demand

How are marketers using data to drive demand? We asked 383 marketers to weigh in.

The Outlook on Marketing Technology

Marketers are tasked with accommodating the rapidly changing priorities of their organizations and customers through marketing technologies and solutions. But what will this evolving landscape of marketing technology look like in the year ahead?

Personalization in Digital Marketing

Today's customers and consumers expect a highly relevant experience throughout the entire buying journey and beyond. But how are marketers utilizing and optimizing personalization to improve the digital customer experience?

The State of Email Marketing

Email marketing has long withstood the test of time and fleeting trends as a heavy hitter for reaching and engaging with customers. But what do marketers need to know about email marketing in the year ahead?

Data-Driven Marketing

It is widely accepted amongst marketers that making decisions backed by data can help improve marketing performance. But how are marketers updating their datadriven strategies to navigate a changing landscape?

Data Unification & Management

The State of Marketing Automation

The capabilities that marketing automation solutions have today extend deep into every stage of the marketing funnel. But how are marketers utilizing marketing automation today, and how do they plan to in the year ahead?

The Outlook on Performance Marketing

Though performance marketing can cover a wide array of marketing practices, optimizing a mix of SEO, PPC, and paid search has become a critical part of many marketers’ evolving digital strategy. But how are marketers adjusting their performance marketing strategies...

Account-Based Marketing Initiatives

As account-based marketing (ABM) initiatives become more widely used across businesses of different sizes and industries, marketers have had a chance to evolve and optimize their approach. But what are the strategies and tactics behind account-based initiatives today?

The State of Lead Nurturing

It is a marketer’s job to provide prospective customers with targeted information in the form of engaging content to help make their purchase decision as smooth as possible. But this process, known as lead nurturing, is often underemphasized as a...

Customer Experience Design

Customer experience design is a strategy to optimize all touchpoints of a customer journey to bridge the gap between customer expectations and the product or solution that an organization provides. But how are marketers designing effective customer experiences today and...

Measuring Content Marketing Performance

Content marketing spans many facets of an overall marketing strategy, covering a wide range of channels and initiatives. This often makes it a particularly complicated task for marketers to quantify success. But what matters most to marketers when it comes...

Using Intent Data

Marketers use intent data to gain insight into the potential actions a web user might take based on information about their content consumption and digital behavior. But how can marketers gain a competitive advantage by integrating intent data into their...

Email Marketing Optimization

Email marketing has been evolving for decades and still remains one of the most actionable touchpoints along the customer journey today. But how are marketers optimizing their email strategy to keep audiences engaged despite flooded inboxes?

Marketing Technology Implementation

As we continue to rely heavily on technology to improve efficiency, it is critical for marketers to understand, assess, and invest in tools and technologies that align with strategic goals. But how are marketers implementing marketing technology to improve performance?

Revenue Attribution Outlook

As customer journeys evolve into multichannel, multi-message experiences, new trends are emerging to allow marketers to measure and prove the impact of the experiences they are delivering. But what are the strategies and tactics

The State of Performance Marketing

Marketers strive to create a frictionless journey that leads individuals to complete a transaction in the form of a purchase, click, or other desired outcome. As this process evolves, performance marketing presents an opportunity to optimize methods such as paid...

Customer Journey Mapping

Creating a relevant and enjoyable customer experience requires an understanding of how a person interacts with a brand and navigates from discovery to purchase to retention. Journey mapping allows marketers to visualize this experience and better adapt to customer needs....

Account-Based Marketing Approach

Account-based marketing (ABM) continues to gain traction as an initiative that can capitalize on high-value accounts, shorten the sales cycle, and align efforts of sales and marketing teams. But how are marketers gaining a competitive advantage with their ABM strategy?

Building Relationships for Lead Conversion

Considerable shifts in the way businesses operate are leading marketers to re-examine the way they approach lead generation. Building meaningful connections with buyers is now a critical part of generating and nurturing leads that convert. But how are marketers building...

The State of Programmatic Advertising

The landscape of programmatic advertising and how it improves the efficiency of the online ad buying process is rapidly changing due to advancements in technology and economic conditions. But how is the state of programmatic advertising effecting how marketers execute?...

Using Marketing Data to Make Better Decisions

Marketers have a myriad of marketing data available to them. Lack of clarity on the data that matters most can cause confusion and result in inefficient marketing efforts. At the center of a data-driven marketing plan is finding and using...

Building Thought Leadership with Content

Content marketing, when executed strategically, can be a critical part of a marketing program to build brand authority and thought leadership. But how are companies using content to build thought leadership?

Agency Trends

The key to having a marketing agency stand out in this extremely competitive environment is to provide services most needed by marketing professionals. But what are clients looking for in an agency in 2020?

MarTech Stack Optimization

Too often, multiple Marketing Technologies (or the MarTech Stack) become a junkyard of underutilized and disparate tools. The purpose of optimizing this set of tools is to make difficult marketing processes easier and more efficient. But how will you optimize...

Email Marketing Effectiveness

Email marketing effectiveness is eroding. However, open rates and other measures of effective engagement can still be optimized for this established marketing tactic. But how will you increase the effectiveness of email marketing?

2020 Digital Marketing Plans

Marketing dollars have shifted from traditional media to digital channels, like email and social media, because the economies of digital marketing level the playing field for companies of all sizes. But what will an effective digital marketing plan look like...

Account-Based Marketing

Marketers are shifting from a lead-centric to an account-based mentality for acquiring, retaining, and nurturing high-value accounts. But how are companies executing Account- Based Marketing (ABM)?

Customer Experience

Customer Experience is fast becoming a top priority for businesses who recognize that loyalty is now driven by the experience a customer receives during their visit. But what do marketers need to know about Customer Experience?

Lead Generation Quality

Lead generation quality is a factor that allows you to identify how likely your prospects are to become your paying customers. The higher the quality of the leads generated, the more likely they are to become your customers....

Data-Driven Personalization

Delivering a highly personalized experience is the standard most marketers strive for. And when they succeed, the results are impressive. But how are marketers using data-driven personalization to enhance their strategy?

Marketing Automation Integration

Marketing Automation is a powerful tool used to make marketing tasks, processes and campaigns faster and more efficient than ever before. But how are marketers integrating this technology into their overall strategy?

Content Marketing Engagement

The goal of a content marketing strategy is to provide helpful insights that ultimately move a target audience through the decision-making process to a desired action. But what are the strategies and tactics behind creating engaging content that drives profitable...

Visualizing Marketing Data with Dashboards

A marketing data dashboard is a tool used to visualize KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) about the impact of marketing efforts in a way that is immediately understood. But what are the strategies, tactics and trends for visualizing marketing data with...

Marketing Technology Utilization

Marketing Technology (MarTech) is the term used for the software and technology-based tools marketers utilize to plan, execute, and measure marketing campaigns.

Organic Search & Social Media

There is no question that social shares linked to quality content on your website or blog will improve organic search rankings as well as traffic. SEO benefits from social media, and vice versa. But what strategies and tactics will accomplish...

Strategies, Tactics and Trends for Email Marketing

Email marketing has been constantly developing for more than twenty years, and you can’t expect to generate new leads and acquire new subscribers using obsolete strategies and tactics. But what works, and what doesn’t, in email marketing today?

Marketing Resource Effectiveness

Planning and deploying a marketing strategy will benefit from an objective point of view and skills that may not be available in-house. But how will you choose the right resources to optimize results?

Hyper-Personalization Strategies

Hyper-personalization takes personalized marketing a step further by leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time data to deliver more relevant content, product, and service information to each user. But what will hyper-personalization strategies look like in the year ahead?

Marketing Technology Trends

The technology available to marketers is changing rapidly. The technological needs of marketers is also changing, becoming critically important to business success. But what trends will have the most impact on marketing technology (martech) effectiveness?

2019 Digital Marketing Strategies

Prospects and customers are almost always online. And an effective digital marketing strategy provides the plan of action required to engage them. Sounds simple, but what will an effective digital marketing strategy look like in 2019?

Email-Driven Content Marketing

Digital marketers are combining email and content marketing strategies to optimize results. But what does a more effective email-driven content marketing strategy look like?

Generating and Nurturing Leads to Create Demand

Creating demand in a digital world requires a combination of effective strategies to both generate and nurture leads, with the goal of converting them to customers. But how do you combine strategies to create new demand?

Measuring Marketing Attribution

Measuring and attributing the results of marketing efforts to revenue has become a primary goal for many companies. But what strategies and tactics are savvy companies using to measure marketing attribution?

Optimizing Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is “very important” to the overall performance of marketing, according to 94% of the best-in- class marketers participating in a recent Ascend2 survey. But how do you optimize marketing automation to continually increase performance?

Search & Social Advertising Strategy

Integrating the “pull” of paid search with the “push” of social media ads is becoming an increasingly effective method for generating demand. But what does an effective paid search and social advertising strategy look like?

Email Marketing Engagement

Email marketing performance is driven by subscriber engagement. The more engaged a prospect or customer is, the more likely they will help boost a company's revenue. But how do you improve email engagement today?

Marketing Data and Technology Strategy

One of the factors most critical to marketing success is the data used to fuel your systems. The impact of data on marketing technology effectiveness is profound. But what does an effective marketing data and technology strategy look like?

Account-Based Marketing Strategy

Half of marketing influencers consider aligning their initiatives with sales teams a top priority for an ABM strategy in 2018. But what priorities should your ABM strategy include?

2018 Digital Marketing Plans

An effective digital marketing plan contains a series of tactics used to achieve your most important marketing objectives.Sounds simple, but what will an effective digital marketing plan look like in 2018?

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