Nikhil Lai
Principal Analyst
Author Insights
Blog
The Next Wave: DSPs Become Omnichannel Ad Platforms
The conditions that sustained demand-side platforms (DSPs) are no more. Learn what's changed, and how we evaluated vendors in our recent Landscape report.
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Is Agentic Commerce A Thing?
Learn what agentic commerce means and how it impacts commerce experiences for customers today.
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Zero-Click Search Comes For Checkout: Agentic Commerce Automates Retail’s Next Frontier
Agentic commerce is spreading as OpenAI launches Instant Checkout offering shoppers conversational shopping from curiosity to checkout without redirecting consumers to merchants’ sites. Find out what this means and how B2C marketers are responding in this post.
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Rewind And Fast-Forward TV Advertising
One of advertisers’ greatest challenges with TV advertising is “streaming TV’s high CPMs,” according to Forrester’s Q2 2025 CMO Pulse Survey. Find out why TV advertising’s sellers benefit at TV buyers’ expense and how consumers are caught in the middle.
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The Remedy That Wasn’t: Answer Engines Outpace Antitrust Law
To remedy Google’s monopoly in search, Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google merely has to share limited search data with rivals and stop making exclusive deals for Google’s preferential placement on devices. Find out what this means for marketers.
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Adtech’s Inflection Point Signals More Compelling Customer Experiences
Advertising technology is overly complicated — and everyone is fed up. Here's how adtech can right-size and refocus on compelling customer experiences.
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GenAI Reshapes Shopping And Revives SEO
The multibillion-dollar question I’m often asked is: Will a critical mass of consumers shop and check out on Google’s AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity? Consumers’ loyalty to convenience makes a “yes” most likely. Thirty-eight percent of US online adults, according to Forrester’s Retail Topic Insights 1 Survey, 2025, checked how fast products would arrive before […]
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This Year’s Upfronts Advanced TV’s Transformation
An uncertain economic climate and digital transformation left their mark on this year's TV upfronts, where major TV networks aim to secure advertising commitments for the new season.
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Judge Rules That Google Is An Illegal Monopoly — Now What?
The impact of Google's court cases will take years to play out. But they raise the likelihood of the company's overhaul.
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Four Ways To Mitigate The Impact Of Falling Traffic On Retail Websites
Learn four ways to proactively mitigate the impacts of falling traffic on retailer websites.
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The Sudden Silo Breaker: GenAI Converges Search Experiences And Disciplines
Generative AI search experiences are increasingly conversational, assistive, and agentic. As a result, distinctions between search experiences are disappearing. Our latest report helps marketing, digital, and technology leaders and processes adapt to genAI-integrated search.
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SEO Must Solve Its Marketing Problem
SEO remains critically important, despite its challenges. The market for SEO solutions is growing to meet marketers’ evolving needs, including adapting to the rise of generative AI and diversification of search beyond Google. Our new Landscape report delves into the SEO market’s maturity, dynamics, notable vendors, and more.
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Amazon Makes Retail Media Networks’ Eyes Bigger Than Their Stomachs
To unlock retail media’s upside, retailers must become more like publishers. Learn some of the challenges and benefits of retail media networks in this preview of a new report.
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Full-Funnel Advertising Makes Poppi Famous
America’s soda market is very difficult to disrupt. The market is massive — nine of 10 US households buy soda — and dominated by a few iconic incumbents.
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Adtech Competition Heats Up With A Potential Divestment, A New Offering, And An Acquisition
The possibility that Google may need to sell or spin off the world’s most used web browser wasn't the only news in adtech this week. Learn about two other moves that could bode well for the future of adtech competition and consumer privacy.
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This Holiday Season, Gift Consumers Compelling Creative
Advertising spend is big during the holiday season, but the key ingredient of persuasive advertising — compelling creative — is scarce.
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Our Latest Forrester Wave™ On Creative Adtech Calls For Consolidation
Advertisers today need tools spanning the entire creative lifecycle and creative teams need a source of truth that de-risks creative production as well as media planning and buying. Get a preview of our latest Wave which helps advertisers select tools that accelerate the creative process while synergizing creative with media.
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The Funnel Is Old, Unrealistic, And Still Helpful
In 1898, Elias St. Elmo Lewis developed the advertising funnel. He was the Association of National Advertisers’ first president and, along with the funnel, developed the AIDA model, an acronym that models a consumer’s journey from awareness to interest, desire, and then action. More than 125 years after its conception, brand marketers are still planning […]
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The Paid Media Paradox
Digital marketers like digital marketing much more than consumers do. A new report explores in greater depth how consumers’ behaviors contradict marketers’ investments.
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Learning From Limes And Forrester’s Creative AdTech Landscape
Last year, the world’s most-awarded creative was Skittles’ “Apologize the Rainbow” produced in collaboration with DDB Chicago. It profusely apologized for Skittles changing its green candy’s flavor from lime to apple and, to citrus lovers’ delight, announced lime’s return in a pantomime press conference live streamed on Twitch and X. The campaign relied on social […]
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