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.
In 2025, the marketing landscape is only growing more complex. Nowhere was this more apparent than at CES, the first (and perhaps biggest) stop on the 2025 marketing and technology events circuit.
Las Vegas was abuzz 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 to help you make sense of it all. Read on to discover our top takeaways from this year's show, including how a focus on the fundamentals will be key to success in 2025 and beyond.
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.
Connections will make all the difference in the AI revolution
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.
Connections will make all the difference in the AI revolution
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.
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.
