Key Takeaways:
- As the marketing landscape becomes increasingly fragmented, successful marketing organizations are relying on connected identity to link data across their martech stacks.
- AI continues to show promise for marketers, especially in the realms of measurement and personalization, but requires a solid foundation of data.
- Closed-loop measurement is a key differentiator for commerce media platforms moving into 2025 and beyond.
As the first (and perhaps biggest) stop on the 2025 marketing and technology events circuit, CES needs no introduction.
In January, Las Vegas buzzed with the new technologies, innovations and ideas poised to shape the future of the connected media and marketing ecosystems — and the TransUnion® team was on the ground for it all. Read on to discover our top three takeaways from this year’s show.
Takeaway #1: Martech complexity can be solved by connected identity
You didn’t have to be on the show floor at CES to know increasing complexity in the marketing ecosystem is one of the thorniest challenges facing marketers today.
Recent research from Forrester and TransUnion indicates martech and channel fragmentation is getting in the way of marketing leaders looking to improve their customer insights, accelerate their decision-making and improve customer experiences. According to the research, 66% of marketing leaders said they’re using 16 or more martech platforms today, and 70% said reaching their audiences across multiple touchpoints is more difficult than ever.
While Frankenstacks can pose a significant challenge, asking marketers to prune their networks of integrations and platforms isn’t necessarily the answer — every tool has a purpose. Instead, marketers should be looking for ways to clear the comms between their platforms, reinforcing linkages between them and enabling more effective and efficient communication — something that’s uniquely facilitated by advanced identity solutions.
This is also backed up by Forrester research: Of marketing leaders who use identity resolution to connect data across martech platforms:
- 93% said they’re meeting or exceeding goals to improve the customer experience
- 88% said they’re meeting or exceeding goals to improve customer insights
- 89% said they’re meeting or exceeding goals to improve data-driven decision-making and adaptability
While martech complexity is undoubtedly a barrier to enabling personalization at scale, the numbers say it all— connected identity is the key to finding clarity amidst the chaos.
Takeaway #2: Success with AI requires a renewed focus on fundamentals
At CES 2025, artificial intelligence (AI) continued to dominate much of the martech discussion — and for good reason: With powerful creative capabilities and an ever-expanding array of use cases, AI’s potential to shake up the marketing snow globe has been well documented.
However, the nuts and bolts of onboarding AI haven’t had as much airtime. As enticing as the prospect of AI is, marketers are starting to realize they can’t fully embrace its potential without first getting their data houses in order.
The numbers back this up. According to the recent study from Forrester, marketing leaders reported the inability to effectively onboard AI capabilities for marketing use cases is one of the top three challenges caused by complexity in the martech ecosystem.
This makes one thing clear: Without a solid foundation of data and strong connections across a martech stack, AI tools are ineffective at best and completely out-of-reach at worst.
However, this isn’t the only modern marketing fundamental that much of the conversation surrounding AI leaves out. As marketers increasingly focus their campaign tactics and broader strategies on outcomes, the discourse around AI is shifting away from creative development and more toward measurement and personalization.
But while this is a relatively new space in the AI sandbox, it’s rubbing up against a challenge as old as addressable advertising: negative consumer reaction to hyper personalization. According to a Q3 2024 global consumer survey, 64% of consumers prefer to buy from companies that offer personalized advertising, but at the same time, 53% said they’re highly concerned about the privacy of their personal information — there’s a fine line between surprising and delighting consumers with relevant marketing messages and unsettling them with ads that are overly intrusive.
Whether it's in navigating the complexities of today’s complex marketing ecosystem or grappling with the tradeoffs inherent in personalization, discussions at CES made it apparent AI isn’t a marketing cure-all. Rather, it’s another tool that will require the same time, attention and deep understanding of the fundamentals to employ successfully.
Takeaway #3: Marketers are looking to close the loop on measurement
To say measurement was a hot topic at CES would be an understatement.
With the un-death of the cookie and an uncertain regulatory future, marketers are renewing focus on robust and resilient measurement tools like marketing mix modeling (MMM) — approaches that are significantly less exposed to regulatory change than other testing methodologies.
However, while MMM is valuable, it’s most powerful when taken as part of a larger measurement approach that also brings in other types of measurement, such as multi-touch attribution and incrementality testing. This reflects a new (or perhaps renewed) focus on outcomes across campaign types and goals. Regardless of KPIs, marketers are expressing a desire to track performance across the full funnel, including brand and awareness activities.
But it’s important to note brand and performance investments don’t necessarily have to be separated. The real promise of closed-loop measurement is identifying and attributing the impact impressions in all channels and from all campaigns had on ROI. This is also one of the key benefits of commerce media: Commerce merchants have the benefit of holding data on in-person and online interactions with a retailer under a single data roof, making it much easier to “close the loop.”
However, the reality is marketers aren’t just spending inside commerce media networks. They also want to see the impact of their investments across all touchpoints, which requires connecting data outside of RMNs and walled gardens. This is only possible with good data connected by identity. (Sound familiar?) Effective measurement can’t happen without a solid data foundation. To truly close the loop, marketers are embracing their roles as data stewards now more than ever.
Wrapping up
For as big as it is, CES is just the start of the marketing year. The conversations that began in Vegas — about identity, AI, measurement and more — will continue throughout 2025.
At TransUnion, we’re excited to continue exploring how we can help our clients bring clarity to a chaotic marketing world — get started by diving deeper into our research with Forrester on martech fragmentation.
