Is the metaverse also growing faster than you thought?  Probably not: CommerceNext finds that 75% of consumers have barely heard of it and just 5% visit on a regular basis.  Even that group uses it almost mostly for gaming (76%) and socializing (39%); just 30% do any shopping.  Most social commerce still takes place on the major social media platforms.

Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.