Vendor reportGWI, 2026

79% of US marketers say consumer insights matter for audience targeting, more than for any other task

Audience & ICP

Share of US advertisers & marketers who say consumer insights are important, by activity

Share of US advertisers & marketers who say consumer insights are important, by activity
Business activity	Share who place value on using consumer insights (%)
Content strategy or editorial planning	73%
Campaign or media planning	76%
Go-to-market strategy	75%
Competitor or market analysis	74%
Brand positioning	71%
Audience targeting	79%

Reader Note:: Figure based on GWI's bespoke survey of 550 advertising and marketing professionals in the US, conducted August-September 2025. The number is the share who said consumer insights are somewhat or very important for audience targeting. The figure measures stated importance, not whether insights were actually used in every decision.
Evidence:: Self-reported behaviour
Vendor interest:: Moderate — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:: Mixed GWI online survey samples: GWI Core surveys over 1 million people annually aged 16-64 or 16+ across 54 markets; GWI USA surveys 80,000 Americans annually aged 16+; GWI Kids surveys 20,000 children aged 8-15 in 18 markets; plus a bespoke survey of 550 US advertising and marketing professionals in August-September 2025 and GWI Zeitgeist monthly surveys in 11 markets.

Good for

A rough sense of size and direction, and deciding what to look at first.

Not for

Exact numbers, or saying that one thing caused another.
This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.

41%

of Gen Z investors are female

US marketers use consumer insights most often for audience targeting, yet only 53% do so

Share of US advertisers & marketers who use consumer insights 51%-100% of the time, by activity
Business activity	Share using consumer insights often/almost always (%)
Content strategy or editorial planning	44%
Campaign or media planning	47%
Go-to-market strategy	47%
Competitor or market analysis	47%
Brand positioning	45%
Audience targeting	53%

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Gemini and ChatGPT lead AI shopping research in the U.S.; 64.0% of AI shoppers use two or more assistants

Share of AI shoppers using each AI assistant in the past 90 days
Assistant used in the past 90 days	Share of AI users (%)
Google Gemini	63.5%
ChatGPT	60%
Amazon's shopping assistant	27.5%
Walmart's shopping assistant	22.5%
Microsoft Copilot	22.4%

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Fewer than half of marketers say they know their customers' shopping habits

Marketers' access to key customer personal datapoints
Customer data point	Share of marketers (%)
Know their customers' shopping habits	44%
Have access to basic demographic information like name, gender, and location	39%
Have access to customer purchase history with their company	31%
Know what products customers are interested in buying	27%
Know their customers' experience preferences and expectations	17%

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89.9%

of AI users on the online-shopper trend base said they verified the assistant’s recommendation before buying

Paid media overtook martech as the largest slice of the marketing budget between 2018 and 2025, rising from 23.2% to 30.6% while martech fell from 29.2% to 22.4%

Resource	Change 2018 to 2025 (percentage points)
Paid media	7.4
Labor	-2.6
Agencies	-2.3
Martech	-6.8

79% of US marketers say consumer insights matter for audience targeting, more than for any other task

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