The 2026 Marketing Trends

2026 is shaping up to be a pressure-test year for marketers. Not because one big thing is changing, but because everything is shifting at once. Streaming continues to rewrite “TV.” AI is reshaping how consumers discover and evaluate brands (often before they ever hit an actual website). Political and advocacy budgets are gearing up for a noisier, more competitive market. And across it all, one expectation keeps rising: marketing has to feel relevant at the local level: market by market, neighborhood by neighborhood. We’ll be exploring these trends in a three-part 2026 Trends series, inspired by conversations with Simpli.fi’s Chief Product & Technology Officer, Michael Schoen. Each post breaks down the major shifts we see accelerating this upcoming year, along with the operational changes marketers will need to keep up.