Direct mail remains a nutritious part of your complete marketing mix. But innovation is rare. So it’s exciting to see printer Quad/Graphics touting a new platform that can run tests “at a fraction of the cost of traditional mailing testing.” Their trick is to have an online survey panel preview mailer elements and then pick the best combination. Clever and effective but I had imagined something more magical.

More bad news: GlobalWebIndex found personalized Web site recommendations ranked a dismal 17th on the list of product discovery sources. Ray of hope: they were ahead of ads in movie theaters. Most cited sources were search engines, TV, and word of mouth.

This IAB study finds that connected TV and paid search are expected to be the fastest-growing ad channels next year, while linear TV and other traditional media continue to shrink.  More intriguing: marketers are focusing more investment on foundational tools like measurement and first party data, and less on specific ad channels.  Download for deep dives into retail media networks and the metaverse.