The feed
Martech news and analysis. Every story says what changed, why it matters and what marketers should do next.
On September 17, 2026 Pinterest introduced Visual Search Ads in beta for eligible advertisers. They appear in search results and Pin closeups and support lower-funnel goals and Performance+.
Why it matters
Visual search is where shoppers look for ideas, so brands gain a place to meet intent in images.
At its first UK upfront on September 24, 2026 Netflix set March 1, 2027 for the ad-supported plan in nine more European, Middle Eastern and African countries and said Pause Ads reach partner platforms in October.
Why it matters
Advertisers get more markets and an easier way to buy a premium streaming ad unit.
eMarketer projects Meta's ad revenue at $243.46 billion against Google's $239.54 billion in 2026, with Meta growing 24.1% to Google's 11.9%. The share gap is 0.4 percentage points.
Why it matters
Budget planners may shift test spend toward Meta's newer surfaces, and AI-driven buying is a main reason.
On September 15, 2026 SmarterSends announced two features for Braze customers: Two-Way SMS routes replies into Braze profiles, and One-Click Retargeting lets local operators re-engage contacts without building audiences.
Why it matters
Central CRM programmes often send one way; local staff need to answer replies within the rules.
On September 10, 2026 Constant Contact announced a Claude connector: describe the business, audience and goal in Claude, review a draft with desktop and mobile previews, and send it to Constant Contact in one click.
Why it matters
It shows email vendors distributing through assistants, so the starting point of a campaign may be a chat, not a template.
On September 22, 2026 Attentive released Product Affinity (generally available), RFM and customer lifetime value (beta), a conversational Reporting Agent (beta) and MCP access for tools such as ChatGPT and Claude.
Why it matters
Product affinity and lifetime value let SMS and email programs target by what people want and are worth.
On September 24, 2026 Iterable announced a Fall release with a native Integrations Hub, Salesforce Sync, RCS and WhatsApp, Monitoring and Analytics agents, and Nova Conversations in private beta in October.
Why it matters
Messaging that remembers earlier interactions is the next step after segment-based journeys, and depends on connected data.
Braze's FORGE conference opened on September 28, 2026 with Operator building Canvas journeys from a description, Content Optimizer available now, and Decisioning Studio Go and Conversational Agents in beta.
Why it matters
If an assistant can assemble a journey, review and QA become the main human job.
Markup AI announced Markup AI for Marketers on September 9, 2026, adding high-volume content review, an AI Voice feature, Word, ChatGPT and Claude workflows, and accuracy and AI search readiness checks.
Why it matters
As AI speeds drafting, the review burden grows, and checks at the point of writing are cheaper than after.
Wrike's September 2026 release notes describe AI agents that create standardized project structures in one step, a Wrike MCP v2, AI usage tracking for account admins, and a Successors column in table and Gantt views.
Why it matters
Marketing teams that run campaign workflows can have agents set up repeatable project structures.
