Something has already changed in marketing.
Not as a theory or another AI forecast. In how real businesses are choosing to spend money when growth has to hold up over time.
Budgets are being handled with more discipline. Less chasing what looks new, more pressure on what proves its value. Even as AI changes how people search and discover brands, search itself hasn’t gone away. Approximately 68% of online experiences still begin with a search engine, and organic search remains the primary driver of over half of all website traffic for most businesses. That’s why companies that care about sustainable growth are becoming far more selective about where they invest.
TL;DR
Marketing spend in 2026 is moving away from experiments and short-term wins.
SEO has become owned visibility that compounds and feeds both search and AI discovery. Conversion is a core growth lever, with small improvements often outperforming increases in traffic. Email remains one of the highest-return channels when driven by behaviour and intent. Paid media still works, but only when it supports strong foundations.
The brands that win won’t chase noise. They’ll invest in clarity, efficiency, and systems that hold their value over time.
That shift will define 2026.
For years, marketing plans were shaped by short-term wins. New platforms, new formats, new tools. Many created spikes. Very few delivered staying power. AI has accelerated that cycle, but it has also exposed the reality. Visibility is no longer evenly distributed. Pages that sit in the top three search positions are more than ten times more likely to be referenced in AI-generated answers than content further down the page. Authority and clarity now decide who gets seen.
This is why marketing spend is consolidating, not spreading.
SEO: Owned Visibility That Compounds Over Time
SEO remains a core investment, but it looks different to how it did even a few years ago. It’s no longer about chasing rankings or inflating traffic numbers. It’s about building visibility that a business actually owns. Visibility that appears when people research, compare, and get close to buying, whether that happens through traditional results or AI-led summaries. Businesses that invest properly in SEO see traffic and demand compound year over year, while paid traffic stops the moment the spend pauses.
CRO: Turning Existing Traffic Into Revenue
Alongside this is a sharper focus on conversion. Traffic is more complicated to win and more expensive to buy. That leaves very little room for waste. A 1% lift in conversion rate can have the same revenue impact as a 10–20% increase in traffic, without raising acquisition costs. Yet only 22% of businesses say they are happy with their current conversion rates, which explains why Conversion Rate Optimisation has moved into the core of growth planning. Teams running ongoing CRO programmes report over 200% average ROI, simply by getting more value from the traffic they already have.
Email: The Highest-Return Channel You Still Control
Email continues to hold its place for similar reasons. It’s owned, controlled, and easy to measure. While platforms and algorithms change, email remains a direct line to people who have already shown intent. It consistently delivers £36–£40 for every £1 spent, and 80% of businesses still rate it as their strongest channel for retention. The difference in 2026 is focus. Segmented, behaviour-led email campaigns generate up to 760% more revenue than generic sends, making relevance far more valuable than volume.
Paid Media: Acceleration, Not the Foundation
Paid media still plays a role, but it’s no longer the main engine. Costs have climbed, with average cost-per-click rising 15–25% year on year in competitive sectors. Used on its own, paid media becomes expensive fast. Used on top of strong organic foundations, it performs far better. Brands that combine paid activity with SEO and CRO see around 30% lower cost per acquisition than those relying on paid channels alone.
Taken together, these shifts point to a clear direction.
2026 will not reward noise, novelty, or constant reinvention. It will reward focus. Businesses that invest in systems rather than one-off tactics, systems that build demand, convert efficiently, and improve over time, will outperform those chasing every new platform or tool.
This is where serious marketing is heading.
And this is exactly where we’re focused. It’s also why our investment throughout 2024 and 2025 centred on hiring top talent across digital marketing, giving us everything needed under one roof.
If this way of thinking matches how you want to grow, we should talk. We work with businesses that value clarity over noise and results over short-term wins. Whether you’re reassessing spend or planning for the next phase, a conversation is often the best place to start.
