The top marketing misconceptions of 2025, and how to fix them

This year, marketers were challenged to embrace new channels, use AI with sophistication, and prove how each investment supported their bottom line.

There have been undeniable disruptions, like AI search’s impact on SEO, and many marketers had to experiment while attempting to make safe, calculated moves. Using AI without a roadmap and expecting results was a trap marketers fell into this year, according to Rachel Cascisa, VP of platform adoption at Epsilon.

"When you start trying to shoehorn AI into every facet of your process or business, you end up with more noise than value,” said Cascisa.

We polled industry leaders on some of the top marketing misconceptions of the year, and how marketers can correct them in 2026. Here's what they said.

Helpfulness was confused with hype

Marketers' rush into AI-generated content, both in imagery and copy, “was a fast-moving miss,” said Paul Mandeville, chief product officer at Iridio by RRD.

• 60% of consumers preferred genAI creator content to traditional content in November 2023, which dropped to 26% in July, according to a Billion Dollar Boy survey.

“AI has a big role to play in controlled content creation and syndication, but I think 2026 will be a hard look back at several AI missteps in the creator content space,” he said.

Curation in the programmatic space brought similar hype, said Sara Sinclair, vice president of ad platforms at TVIQ.

“The big, unanswered question is whether these platforms will ultimately help funnel more spend to publishers or simply strengthen another layer of tech intermediaries,” she said. “It’s an inflection point for the ecosystem, and the industry hasn’t fully grappled with its implications.”

2026 implications: Before adopting new technology, marketers should consider strategy and utility.

Channel mechanics clouded creative strategy

On social, content speed is a skill marketers underestimate, said Kat Chan, senior director of brand marketing at Duolingo.

“The overlooked trend is that speed isn’t chaos, it’s a capability,” said Chan. “The brands that realize this is a key strength are the ones winning cultural moments.”

That fixation on channel mechanics has led marketers to misread how formats evolve. This was evident in the rise of video podcasts this year, which marketers “misunderstood as a replacement rather than an extension,” said Sharon Taylor, chief revenue officer of Triton Digital.

“While video attracts new audiences, we must not neglect the highly engaged audio-first listeners who built podcasting,” she said. “We're urging creators to balance both formats, ensuring their content is accessible and inclusive for all audience types.”

Industry leaders say when marketers focus on the format, they can lose sight of the content. Marketers not seeing desired results through influencer partnerships could easily write them off, when they could just approach the creative process differently.

“Brands that treat creators as collaborators, not channels, win,” said founder and RQ CEO Brian Salzman, adding that these partners can “inform everything from creative development to IRL activations.”

2026 implications: Marketers who focus less on channel mechanics and more on creative judgment will stand out on social feeds.

Marketers approached new problems with old solutions

While marketers agree that SEO is waning, experts say they misunderstand generative engine optimization's (GEO) meaning. Instead of being a new iteration of SEO, it’s a completely new exercise.

“GEO is about shaping how AI systems think, not how they rank,” said Francisco Vigo, CEO and cofounder of geoSurge, “and failing to address that is why brands are quietly disappearing in AI-driven journeys.”

Privacy remained in flux. Changes like Google’s cancellation of the Sandbox added confusion, but the pre‑Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) world isn’t coming back, said Maor Sadra, CEO and co-founder of INCRMNTAL.

Measurement, in addition to privacy, is where legacy thinking hurts the most, he said.

“The rise of channels like CTV, podcasts, and influencers has permanently reshaped how attribution and measurement work,” he said. “Marketers need to stop waiting for the old playbook to return and start adapting to a fundamentally changed landscape.”

Marketers are using media mix modeling (MMM) for CTV, but interpreting it like MTA or last‑click, which “leads to friction, not clarity,” said Dan Larkman, CEO and founder of Keynes Digital.

“What’s been misunderstood is that brands need to design their CTV strategy for MMM from the start, not retroactively try to force it into a model built around lower-funnel tactics,” he said.

2026 implications: Marketers should acknowledge training and education gaps when advancing their tech stacks, and know when to abandon legacy models.

This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.