Consumer behaviour is changing fast, and 2026 is going to accelerate every shift we started to see this year. From frictionless shopping and fading brand loyalty to the rise of wellness tech, smart homes, and micro-communities, the year ahead will change more than what people buy. It will change how they discover products, make decisions, and connect with brands across channels and moments. 

All kinds of turbulence surround marketing leaders’ planning process, from misalignment with C-suite counterparts to tough economic conditions and never-ending negotiations about where your organization should fall on the brand v. demand spectrum. To boot, customers aren’t just harder to reach, they’re redefining what it takes to capture their attention and keep their loyalty.

Sprout Social and LinkedIn developed this guide to explore the top social-first considerations CMOs need to make as they plan for the year ahead—from where to invest and how to best set up your teams for success, to how to prove the business impact of your work.

The golden quarter is crunch time for consumer-facing marketers. With so much spend and limited media space, it’s easy to get muscled out of a target audience’s mindshare. If marketers can’t outspend their competition, however, they can outsmart them by identifying holiday shoppers and messaging them at the times when no one else is thinking about them and in the places no one else is looking.

These shoppers — people who are proactive in gift-giving and plan purchases weeks, even months in advance — are a distinct audience with surprisingly predictable characteristics. By understanding what makes this cohort tick 12 months of the year rather than just during the Christmas rush, brands can play the mindshare long game and make sure they’re top of the list come consideration time.

A practical guide to building smarter budgets, allocating spend, and driving profitable growth in 2026. This guide turns complexity into a clear, repeatable process for 2026, with synergies between your data sources, strategy and operating rhythm.

Build a full-funnel, diversified plan: A balanced multichannel mix creates more resilient growth and helps brands generate demand across the full funnel.

For the eighth consecutive year, NAPCO Research and BHN have partnered together to produce our marketing-leading report on the gift card industry. The good news is that overall, merchants’ scores improved year-over-year, with brands making significant improvements in their digital programs.

Inside this comprehensive benchmark report, we also reveal:

The ranking results of the 100 U.S. merchants’ digital gift card programs, including both purchaser and recipient experiences, based on 126 unique criteria

Holiday 2025 is a pivotal moment for marketers. The challenge? Maximizing ROI and doing more with less to win over cautious shoppers. This is the ultimate guide to help you and your team win the season.

2026 is almost here, and for most marketers, plans are already locked in. AI, hyper-personalization, community-driven campaigns… they’re all on the list. But what if the biggest opportunities aren’t the most obvious ones? Our latest research digs beneath the surface to uncover the trends that could define success next year. The trends hiding in plain sight.

This report connects the dots between fast-changing audiences, shifting habits, and the strategies built to meet them. We shine a light on:

The data’s in: based on insights from 450 marketers, Smartly’s 2026 Digital Advertising Trends Report reveals how AI is powering creative, media, and measurement to deliver real efficiency and impact for next year’s campaigns.

See how leading teams connect channels, cut waste, and use predictive AI to optimize before launch, and how you can apply the same playbook to power smarter, faster campaigns.