In May, when we began analyzing brand and advertiser intent data, and observed significant surges in interest around terms related to "brand safety" and a decrease in intent around "account-based marketing." The data reflected many of the concerns our clients were expressing at the time — about two months into the pandemic.

Cloud technology has become a must-have for marketers to overcome challenges from the pandemic. Ankur Jain, Senior Vice President, Cloud Solutions at Merkle discusses the benefits for marketers migrating data to the cloud.

New and emerging technologies have been revolutionizing our ways of working for a long time now, accelerated by COVID-19. It should come as no surprise then that the Bombora intent data that is the basis for this column shows that the topic “Digital Disruption” has been climbing among brands since early May as disruption to global supply chains continue to impact every industry in every region.

Predicting when the COVID-19 outbreak will subside, and then navigating consumer shopping behavior when it does, is a challenge for all retailers. Indicators suggest that consumers want to resume their retail rituals, with 33 percent of shoppers buying retail goods as much as they did before the coronavirus.

No brand’s 2020 marketing plans included “create pandemic and recovery back-up strategies.” The “Great Disrupter,” aka COVID-19, derailed every well-crafted strategy and innovative idea. And now, with half of the year in the books, the question still hovers: “How are marketers supposed to drive new traffic, sales, and customer engagement in a year when nothing is status quo?”

If the past four months have shown us anything, it’s that the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 on our economy has left brands and advertisers working to reconcile two paradoxical urgencies: now is the time to introduce new technologies to accelerate digital transformation, but now is not the time to make big risky bets.

Customer Experience has many layers of complexity, but one area that seems to be an afterthought is omnichannel decisioning. In this piece, Merkle's James Craig shares how to fit omnichannel decisioning into your Martech stack and the ways to implement it.