In early 2025, we published our perspective on the shifts we believed would redefine customer advocacy—from stronger measurement and deeper GTM alignment to the growing role of community and storytelling. With a year of execution behind us, those predictions largely held true, but the pace and depth of change exceeded expectations. Advocacy teams are now being measured on pipeline influence, retention, and expansion, personalization has become table stakes, and community has emerged as a long-term strategic investment rather than a programmatic feature. This retrospective looks at what we got right, where our thinking has evolved, and what advocacy leaders should be preparing for as AI-driven orchestration accelerates into 2026.

Managing customer advocacy recruitment at scale often means juggling spreadsheets, account executives, and repetitive emails. By structuring data for Zapier automation, you can cut hours of manual work while keeping outreach accurate, personalized, and impactful.

In this edition of our Partner Platform Overview series, we discuss how Deeto automates the creation of personalized reviews, matches prospects with suitable references, and tracks engagement to optimize marketing strategies. Discover the future of seamless customer experiences.

Program justification has taken a vocal seat at the table, education across departmental silos and stakeholders has never been more important. Proving the value of what you do is now, perhaps more than ever before, a business imperative. The “so what?” for customer advocacy is a question ringing loudly in everyone’s ears. Luckily, across the industry both the tools in use, and the practitioners using them, can loudly answer this query.