Vendor reportGWI, 2026

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

Audience & ICP

Share of US advertisers & marketers who use consumer insights 51%-100% of the time, by activity

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%

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 they use consumer insights often, almost always, or always, defined in the chart as 51%-100% of the time, for audience targeting. The figure is self-reported and covers US marketers and advertisers rather than measured decision logs.
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.

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

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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

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

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%

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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

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

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