#converged-customers

#converged-customers

Regulators are paying more attention to data privacy because their constituents consider it a 'kitchen table' issue, highlighting its importance in everyday life.

The new tracker features a simplified progress bar that shows just four stages of pizza creation. The new design was rolled out to all platforms, and there's also new Lock Screen widgets for iOS that bring the pizza chain's most famous tech feature to the Liquid Glass age.

Do you remember when 2007 was dubbed "The year of mobile"? That was when Apple launched the iPhone and firmly established mobile as the secondary channel for online engagement, after the desktop. The company's approach was so revolutionary that, in today's world, the mobile experience has become the primary experience for brand and customer interaction. More people search for products and services on their phones than on any other platform.

The traditional customer funnel is quickly giving way to a more fragmented, dynamic and self-directed journey. Today's buyers move fluidly across platforms, channels and touchpoints-often gathering information, building trust and forming preferences long before brands realize they're in the picture. As AI, creator influence and real-time intent signals reshape how decisions are made, brands must rethink where trust is built and conversion truly happens.

AI now promises better judgment at scale. Each step has delivered progress. Yet most CX failures haven't stemmed from a lack of tools or technology. They usually result from fragmented incentives, unclear definitions of customer value and inconsistent execution across teams.

As the market grows increasingly saturated with traditional digital content, brands are exploring new ways to stand out by engaging more than just sight and sound. Advances in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), spatial audio and other immersive technologies are opening the door to richer, more memorable brand experiences that feel interactive rather than interruptive. The challenge is knowing how to experiment thoughtfully and how to use these tools to deepen connection without novelty overshadowing their purpose.

Mike Pastore is the Head of Content & Media at Third Door Media, the publisher of the Martech and Search Engine Land websites and the producer of the SMX and MarTech Conferences. In nearly three decades in B2B marketing, Mike has worked as an editor, writer, and marketer. He first wrote about marketing in 1998 for internet.com (later Jupitermedia). He then worked with marketers at some of the best-known brands in B2B tech, creating content for marketing campaigns at both Jupitermedia and QuinStreet.

You aren't short on data; you're surrounded by it. But when that data is trapped in disconnected systems and conflicting dashboards, it feels less like an asset and more like a "data prison." We know the frustration of having plenty of information but limited ability to turn it into trusted action. The upcoming March 4th MarTech Conference session, "Break out of data prison with a strategy to end the silos," addresses this head-on.

The market pressure was intense, and clients kept asking us to integrate with the platforms they were buying. It was tempting to follow the trend. But after digging into the use cases, the economics and the liabilities associated with storing person-level data, the answer was no. It was not the popular recommendation, but it freed our team to invest in the infrastructure that would actually matter for privacy and efficiency.