People are drowning in noise. Emails, ads, posts – it’s a constant flood. They tune out. That’s the reality of the attention economy. Messages aren’t just competing; they’re actively being ignored. This whole thing leads to serious message fatigue. Consumers have simply become exhausted by the sheer volume of irrelevant content landing in their inboxes and scrolling across their screens.
At a recent summit, industry leaders talked about this overload. Companies spend a ton protecting their brand and trying to grab attention. They focus on getting more eyeballs. But that’s old thinking. The old model rewards scale over substance, resulting in waste. It’s like shouting louder in a crowded room when the solution is to whisper directly into the right ear.
The real fight? It’s not about how loud one shouts. It’s about being relevant. Brands need smart tech – think agentic AI – to cut through the mess.
Here’s a staggering fact: Customers are quitting subscriptions fast. About 70% have left at least three accounts in the last three months. Yet, those same individuals’ welcome messages made just for them. They actually like personalisation driven by AI. The twist? How does a business personalise for billions? It’s a massive challenge.
The goal is shifting. Forget just volume. The new MarTech stack must focus on context.
Context is everything
Understanding context starts with knowing the customer better. This means digging deeper than just sales history. Today, data collection must be holistic. It’s no longer enough to look at simple demographic figures or past purchases. Businesses need a 360-degree view that captures intent.
Think about:
- Digital breadcrumbs: What clicks where? Which pages were abandoned? This reveals latent interest and current hesitation points.
- Physical actions: What happens in a shop? Did they browse a product on the app just before walking past the physical store? This links digital intent to real-world behaviour.
- Changes over time: How do habits shift? A sudden change in purchase frequency or category interest signals a major life event or new need.
- Influencers: Who else matters in that customer’s life? Is the purchase decision part of a household dynamic, and if so, how does that influence timing and price sensitivity?
Only with these clues can a company smartly group individuals. These groups aren’t static segments; they are fluid cohorts based on immediate, actionable insights. Then, engagement actually works.
Effective engagement means meeting the person at the right moment with the right message. Does this buyer flinch at high prices? Then the message needs to lead with value or a special offer. When is the best time to send that text? Not during the working day if they only open messages in the evening. Where exactly are they in the buying journey? Connect those dots. Suddenly, the path from ‘just looking’ to ‘buying’ gets clearer. This approach tackles a huge headache: making people move further down the sales path, which significantly improves those crucial mid-funnel conversions.
A balance is crucial, too. Knowledge is power, but too much knowledge feels creepy. Where does helpful insight stop and becoming a digital stalker begin? That line needs respect. Brands must build privacy protocols directly into their MarTech stack, ensuring transparency and control for the customer.
Fixing frustration enhances loyalty
It’s not just what you say, it’s how the customer feels. Experiences are now a huge differentiator.
Consider a simple moment: A customer gets to the final payment screen. They punch in a promo code. Oh! — it expired yesterday. Frustration. The system sees that led to the person leaving the cart. Smart tech could instantly see how many others hit that same expired – code wall. Next step? Send those frustrated shoppers a fresh offer right away. That’s not just selling; that’s struggle mitigation. That small fix builds real loyalty. It shows the customer that the brand respects their time and anticipated their problem.
The smart stack structure
To make these experiences happen, the marketing technology itself needs an overhaul. Agentic AI isn’t just an outward tool; it needs to work internally too.
Think of it in layers, from the ground up:
- The Core Guardrail: Internal agents monitor everything. They watch for security risks, bias, privacy violations, and other dangers. This safety net is the most important part of the whole setup. This crucial layer provides oversight and compliance without manual checks.
- The Assistant Layer: These are the tools that follow basic commands. Use prompts to check campaign status, quickly draft new ideas, or find target groups and write the first draft of a message. These functions improve the efficiency of marketing teams.
- The Intelligence Layer (The Agentic Layer): This is where the heavy lifting happens – scale, deep thinking, and efficiency arrive here. This layer is made up of specialised agents that act on their own initiative based on the data they monitor.
Inside this smart stack, different agents work together. Imagine an Insights Agent. It acts like the best planner. Before a big Boxing Day Sale, this agent could check last year’s results, look at new products, and study who is newly interested. Then, it proposes the best overall plan, including budget allocation and channel focus.
The Segmentation Agent becomes the worker. It takes that plan and runs the campaigns – sending the right messages to the right groups at scale. Then, the Content Optimiser acts like the creative director, deciding which ad images, which subject lines, or which creator works best for that segment in real-time, constantly A/B testing variations.
Finally, at the top sits the Orchestration Layer. Here, all these agents talk to each other. For example, the Insights Agent informs the Segmentation Agent, which then informs the Content Optimiser. This layer ensures that the system works as a unified whole, connecting their findings and actions across every channel – from email to app notification to physical in-store display. This connected, self-directing system? That’s the marketing stack of tomorrow.
Rajesh Iyer
Rajesh Iyer is EVP & Portfolio GM – Business & Industry Solutions at HCLSoftware. With over 29 years of experience, Raj has delivered business value to clients in over 25 countries across mature and emerging markets.
