The Year in Marketing: What You Need to Read Before 2026

2025 brought major shifts in how tech companies approach marketing - from AI-driven strategies to the maturation of Web3. Whether you're refining your 2026 budget, exploring new channels, or building sustainable growth strategies, these are the resources that made an impact this year.

1. Fixing Web3 Marketing: From Hype to Sustainable Growth

https://hackernoon.com/the-lost-art-of-web3-marketing?ref=hackernoon.com&embedable=true

A four-part series exploring the biggest challenges Web3 companies face when promoting their products. We unpack the myths, missteps, and missed opportunities shaping this space, while exploring audience types, channels, and strategies for building real, sustainable growth:

1. The Lost Art of Web3 Marketing - Why most projects get community marketing wrong.
2. Fixing Web3 Marketing: Understanding the Real Web3 Audience - Learn about the audience types you might be missing.
3. Fixing Web3 Marketing: What Channels Actually Work in Web3 - Learn about what channels drive results, and how to get your project noticed and attract the right audience to your brand.
4. The Future of Web3 Marketing: Education, Trust, and Sustainability - Learn how to create a sustainable Web3 marketing that’s based on education and trust.

https://hackernoon.com/fixing-web3-marketing-understanding-the-real-web3-audience?ref=hackernoon.com&embedable=true

2. Generate Quality Leads ASAP: HackerNoon's Content-Relevant Niche Ads FTW

This blog discusses how traditional digital ads often miss the mark, leading to low ROI and wasted budgets, and compares industry benchmark practices to HackerNoon's contextual, content-relevant advertising that offers a smarter alternative, delivering 5x more clicks by reaching over 2 million engaged tech readers monthly. Our unobtrusive ad placements - spanning newsletters, audio, banners, and more - ensure your brand connects with the right audience without compromising user experience.

https://hackernoon.com/generate-quality-leads-asap-hackernoons-content-relevant-niche-ads-ftw?embedable=true

3. How to Turn Year-End Reflections into Q1 Content Gold

This guide explores how your team's year-end retrospectives contain content gold that technical audiences actually want to read, showing you how to transform internal learnings into authentic technical content, from post-mortems to pivot stories, and explaining why publishing in late December gives you a competitive advantage when everyone else checks out.

https://hackernoon.com/how-to-turn-year-end-reflections-into-q1-content-gold?embedable=true

4. Turns Out, a Little Competition Goes a Long Way—Especially When it Comes to Content

This post explains how HackerNoon Writing Contests have become one of the largest revenue-generating inventories because they create a win-win for everyone involved - the sponsor, the community, and the publication. By sponsoring your own writing contest on your chosen tag and making the HackerNoon community compete atop your brand name, you get the organic, thought-provoking content that readers expect from HackerNoon while also promoting your company and product.

https://hackernoon.com/turns-out-a-little-competition-goes-a-long-wayespecially-when-it-comes-to-content?embedable=true

5. Brands, Find the Right HackerNoon Services for You

This resource breaks down how finding the right marketing service shouldn't be complicated, walking through HackerNoon's tailored solutions from business blogging and SEO boosts to targeted ads and writing contests, designed to help tech brands reach millions of engaged developers and decision-makers.

https://hackernoon.com/brands-find-the-right-hackernoon-services-for-you?embedable=true

6. 7 Marketing Shifts Redefining Tech Companies in 2026

This article examines how AI is reshaping tech marketing in 2026, exploring how winning teams are blending marketing and product, optimizing for AI search (AEO), turning employees into creators, building network effects into products, prioritizing taste and depth over hacks and reach, and investing in human-first content that compounds over time.

https://hackernoon.com/7-marketing-shifts-redefining-tech-companies-in-2026?embedable=true

7. Marketing Budget Allocation 2026: How to Split Ads vs Content for Maximum ROI

This blog analyzes how most tech brands waste budget treating ads and content as competing priorities, and demonstrates how smart companies integrate them by publishing authoritative content on HackerNoon (DA 87, 4M+ readers), identifying what resonates, then amplifying winners with content-relevant category sponsorships to achieve lower CAC, compounding assets, and one platform managing both.

https://hackernoon.com/marketing-budget-allocation-2026-how-to-split-ads-vs-content-for-maximum-roi?embedable=true

8. This Black Friday & Holiday Season, HackerNoon Has Your Tech Marketing Covered

This Black Friday and holiday season, get 10% off ALL HackerNoon services - including subscriptions. From business blogging and targeted ads to writing contests and press releases, now's the time to execute your year-end marketing strategy and position your tech brand for 2026 success.

https://hackernoon.com/this-black-friday-and-holiday-season-hackernoon-has-your-tech-marketing-covered?embedable=true

Thanks for being part of the Hack Marketing community in 2025. Here's to another year of growth together!