Adobe's Semrush Gamble, BFCM Enters the Upside Down, & AI-Washed Earnings
Making Sense of Martech · Juan Mendoza + Jacqueline Freedman
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Show Notes
"Adobe didn't just buy an SEO tool – it bought a negotiating position with the AI overlords of discovery." – Juan
Jacqueline and Juan unpack what "more human" marketing actually looks like when AI is mediating everything from search to Black Friday deals. They break down Adobe's acquisition of Semrush, quarterly Martech earnings, the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shift toward mobile-plus-AI shopping, BNPL's surge, and ChatGPT's three-year impact on how people search, think, and buy.
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Timestamps
00:04 – MWF NYC debrief and why this year felt like a turning point for Martech
05:10 – Stranger Things and what "good" co-marketing actually looks like
10:30 – Woo-Woo vs data: how much of marketing is still intuition dressed up in dashboards
16:20 – Adobe buys Semrush: GEO data, media consolidation, and why Adobe blinked on AI search
24:40 – Quarterly Martech earnings: mid-market outpaces the enterprise and AI narratives without ROI
33:30 – BFCM early numbers: mobile-plus-AI shopping, BNPL growth, and fewer margin-killing discounts
36:56 – ChatGPT's third anniversary: national rollbacks and the societal risks of AI
42:15 – Subscriber question: How to drive change inside organizations when tooling and incentives clash?
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