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Validity, a global leader in email deliverability and data quality, is set to make a significant impact at Salesforce Connections 2026, taking place from June 3-4 in Chicago. The company is poised to showcase its comprehensive, end-to-end marketing success solutions, particularly highlighting the powerful synergy following its acquisition of Litmus and the introduction of its new AI-powered platform, Validity Engage. This year’s conference, a pivotal gathering for marketers, digital commerce leaders, and customer experience professionals, emphasizes the transformative role of artificial intelligence and strategic CRM integration in an "always-on" marketing landscape. Validity’s presence underscores a critical industry shift towards practical AI applications and unified platforms that move beyond theoretical discussions to deliver tangible return on investment (ROI).
Salesforce Connections: A Deep Dive into the Future of Marketing
Salesforce Connections stands as the premier annual event for professionals navigating the complexities of digital marketing, commerce, and customer experience. Held in the vibrant city of Chicago, the 2026 iteration is particularly focused on how innovation, especially in artificial intelligence, is reshaping customer engagement strategies. The conference serves as a crucial forum where industry practitioners and decision-makers converge to exchange insights on effective strategies and explore emerging trends. Salesforce itself frames the event around the concept that "Marketing is no longer static. It’s always-on and agentic—and Connections is where vision meets strategy." This ethos reflects a broader industry movement away from siloed operations towards integrated, intelligent systems capable of dynamic, real-time adaptation.
Attendees typically seek guidance on pressing challenges such as integrating AI into existing workflows, overcoming data integration hurdles, and validating pilot programs—practical applications that extend beyond theoretical promises to everyday campaign execution. The event’s value often lies not just in its main stage presentations, which feature thought leaders and groundbreaking announcements, but also in the invaluable "hallway conversations" where peer-to-peer problem-solving and shared experiences offer actionable solutions. These informal exchanges frequently provide more immediate and context-specific utility than formal sessions, allowing marketers to delve into the nuances of implementation and troubleshooting with those facing similar issues. Salesforce Connections traditionally draws thousands of attendees, fostering a rich environment for networking, collaboration, and learning directly from industry pioneers and technology providers. The event has historically been a launchpad for significant product updates and strategic initiatives within the Salesforce ecosystem, making it a critical barometer for the direction of digital marketing and customer experience.
Validity and Litmus: Forging an End-to-End Email Ecosystem
A significant development shaping Validity’s narrative at Connections 2026 is the successful integration of Litmus, acquired by Validity approximately two months prior to the 2025 conference, specifically in early 2025. This strategic acquisition has enabled Validity to consolidate a fragmented email marketing landscape, offering what the company describes as a truly end-to-end email solution for enterprise teams. For years, email marketing professionals have grappled with the challenge of piecing together disparate point solutions for various stages of the email workflow—from list validation and campaign creation to deliverability monitoring and performance analytics. This often led to inefficiencies, compatibility issues, and a lack of holistic insight, impeding marketers’ ability to achieve optimal campaign performance and measure true ROI.
With Litmus under its umbrella, Validity now provides a unified platform that encompasses the entire email lifecycle, addressing key pain points for marketers. This integrated suite includes:
- Data Quality and List Validation: Ensuring emails reach legitimate recipients, a foundational step for successful campaigns that prevents bounces and protects sender reputation.
- Campaign Creation and QA Testing: Leveraging Litmus’s renowned capabilities, marketers can streamline the design process and rigorously test emails across thousands of clients and devices, ensuring flawless rendering and user experience before deployment.
- Deliverability Monitoring: Proactively identifying and resolving issues that could prevent emails from landing in the inbox, such as blocklists or spam trap hits, which is critical for message efficacy.
- Performance Analytics: Offering deep insights into campaign effectiveness, subscriber engagement, and overall ROI, enabling data-driven optimization.
This consolidation represents a substantial leap forward for marketers, promising enhanced operational efficiency, improved campaign performance, and a clearer pathway to maximizing return on investment from email initiatives. Riley Dambaugh, Demand Generation Manager at Validity, expressed enthusiasm for this synergy, stating, "Salesforce Connections is always one of my favorite events! This year I’m especially excited to be showcasing what’s possible now that Litmus and Validity have come together—we have some really exciting new innovations that we can’t wait to talk about. Excited to meet you all face-to-face!" This sentiment highlights the anticipation surrounding the practical benefits of this integrated approach. The combination allows Validity to address the entire lifecycle of an email, from initial data hygiene to post-send analysis, thereby removing many of the traditional friction points that have historically hindered email marketing effectiveness and enabling a more strategic, unified approach to email program management.
Spotlight Session: Maximizing Email ROI with AI
A key highlight of Validity’s participation will be a compelling session led by Danielle Gallant, a prominent voice in the email marketing community. Titled "3 ways to push your email ROI above 45:1 using AI," her 20-minute presentation is scheduled for June 3 at 1:30 PM CT in the Theater. Gallant, known for co-hosting the popular "Email After Hours podcast" and her regular appearances on Validity’s "State of Email Tactics webinar," will delve into the practical applications of artificial intelligence that drive exceptional returns. She also contributed to two highly attended sessions at Litmus Live 2026, further establishing her expertise in the field.
Her session will reveal how advanced AI adopters are achieving ROIs exceeding 45:1, a figure significantly higher than the widely cited industry average of $42 for every $1 spent on email marketing. This substantial uplift underscores the transformative potential of AI when strategically integrated into marketing workflows. Attendees will gain insights into full-funnel techniques that enable these remarkable results, moving beyond generic AI discussions to concrete, actionable strategies. The focus will be on how AI can optimize various stages of the email lifecycle, from content generation and personalization to segmentation and send-time optimization, all contributing to a compounded improvement in campaign performance. This aligns with the broader conference theme of bridging the gap between AI’s theoretical promise and its real-world implementation. Following the session, attendees are encouraged to visit the Validity booth to continue the conversation with the team. Julio Lopez, Sr. Customer Strategist, emphasized the importance of these direct interactions, remarking, "I’m most excited to talk with marketers about how they’re connecting the full email workflow—from data quality and deliverability through to content and performance—and where they’re unlocking the biggest impact. Connections is one of the best places to bring those pieces together and learn from others doing it in a way that goes beyond the hype."
Introducing Validity Engage: AI-Powered Email Intelligence
At Salesforce Connections 2026, Validity is also set to officially introduce Validity Engage, its innovative AI-powered platform engineered to streamline the email workflow and significantly enhance ROI from every send. This new offering directly addresses a pressing challenge faced by modern marketing teams: the expectation to achieve more with static or even shrinking resources. Validity’s own "Q1 2026 Marketer Survey" revealed that despite rising campaign volumes and performance targets, marketing headcounts are largely expected to remain flat throughout 2026. In this environment, AI is not merely an advantage but a crucial lever for operational scalability and efficiency.
Validity Engage is designed to embed AI directly into the marketer’s workflow, ensuring that it is genuinely helpful and actionable rather than a theoretical add-on. The platform leverages Validity’s extensive data network, which includes vast amounts of deliverability and engagement data, to provide AI-driven insights that reduce risk and boost email performance. This includes capabilities such as intelligent content optimization, predictive analytics for deliverability, automated A/B testing, and dynamic segmentation, all aimed at enabling marketers to produce exceptional results in less time. The platform’s core promise is to simplify complex tasks, allowing marketers to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual execution. Chris Shays, Account Executive, highlighted the platform’s potential, stating, "Meeting with both our customers and prospects is something I always look forward to. Gaining an understanding of how they are implementing and utilizing Validity’s suite and how it impacts their day-to-day workflows and business needs is something I always look forward to discussing in depth. I’m very excited to have conversations around Engage to help prospects execute more consistent, high-quality email programs at scale." Jeff Martin, another Account Executive, echoed this sentiment, adding, "I’m really excited to be attending Salesforce Connections this year and meeting customers and prospects in person. It’s always valuable to hear how teams are actually building and optimizing their email programs, and where they’re running into challenges. I’m especially excited to share how we’re helping teams streamline workflows and improve performance across the full email lifecycle, and to start introducing Engage as part of that next evolution." Validity Engage represents a strategic response to the market’s demand for practical, integrated AI solutions that directly contribute to business objectives, moving beyond the "AI for AI’s sake" mentality.
Navigating the Reality of AI in Marketing
A pervasive theme expected to dominate discussions at Connections 2026 is the growing demand among marketers for concrete, real-world applications of AI, moving decisively past the initial hype. The industry has reached a point where the promise of AI needs to translate into tangible, measurable benefits. Marketers are no longer satisfied with abstract concepts; they seek proven strategies and tools that genuinely enhance their daily operations and contribute to business growth.
Validity’s research has identified key barriers to AI adoption, which often include:
- Data Quality Concerns: Poor data hygiene significantly undermines the effectiveness of AI algorithms, leading to unreliable insights and suboptimal campaign performance. Without clean, accurate data, AI models cannot learn effectively or make reliable predictions.
- Integration Challenges: Successfully embedding AI tools within existing marketing technology stacks and workflows can be complex and resource-intensive, requiring specialized skills and careful planning.
- Lack of Clear Outcomes: Many organizations struggle to define specific, measurable goals for AI implementation, making it difficult to assess ROI and demonstrate value.
- Trust and Transparency: Marketers need to understand how AI tools function and trust their outputs, especially when critical decisions related to customer engagement are automated. The "black box" nature of some AI systems can be a deterrent.
- Talent Gap: A shortage of skilled professionals capable of implementing, managing, and optimizing AI solutions further impedes adoption, creating a bottleneck for innovation.
The companies successfully leveraging AI are not necessarily those with the largest budgets, but rather those that have invested in fundamental "boring work": meticulous data cleaning, precise outcome definition, and the construction of human-centric workflows that foster trust and usability. This foundational work ensures that AI tools have reliable inputs and are deployed in a manner that augments human capabilities rather than replacing them haphazardly. This pragmatic approach to AI aligns perfectly with Salesforce’s vision of "Agentforce" and AI-first CRM experiences, where intelligent automation is seamlessly integrated into customer relationship management to create more efficient and personalized interactions. Grace Dixon, Sr. Account Manager at Validity, captured this sentiment, remarking, "At these events, it’s always really refreshing to see marketers in-person and share genuine excitement and ideas. I look forward to hearing about how teams are continuing to approach AI and marketing transformation in the real world, and to leaving with new perspectives that reshape how I deliver value for our amazing customers when I get back!"
Connecting with the Validity Team in Chicago
Validity is dispatching a dedicated and knowledgeable team to Salesforce Connections 2026, eager to engage with attendees, share insights, and foster valuable connections. The team’s presence underscores Validity’s commitment to direct customer interaction and understanding the evolving needs of the marketing community.
Among the key Validity representatives available for discussion are:
- Brady Edwards, Sr. Account Manager: "I am looking forward to engaging with our community of customers and partners at Salesforce Connections. My focus is on understanding how our clients integrate our solutions into their unique workflows to drive meaningful results. I am particularly excited to discuss how the recent integration of Litmus and Validity provides an expanded, end-to-end solution for modern marketing teams."
- Courtney Grab, Director of Customer and Lifecycle Marketing: "Connections brings together the exact people I want to connect with—email and CRM marketers who are genuinely pushing what’s possible in their marketing programs. It’s one of those events where the hallway conversations are just as valuable as the keynotes, and this year Validity is showing up in a big way. See you in Chicago!"
- Jim Tobolski, SVP of Global Account Management: "Every year, Salesforce Connections reminds me of what makes this industry so inspiring. I look forward to the amazing conversations that start with curiosity and turn into a genuine exchange about what’s possible. My number one priority is to connect with as many people as possible. Whether you’re a longtime customer, someone we’ve just started working with, or you’re simply navigating what an AI-first marketing strategy actually looks like in practice—I want to connect."
These team members, alongside Danielle Gallant, Julio Lopez, Chris Shays, Jeff Martin, and Grace Dixon, are prepared to discuss a range of topics, from the intricacies of email deliverability and data quality to the strategic implementation of AI and the transformative capabilities of Validity Engage. Their collective expertise offers a valuable resource for marketers seeking to optimize their strategies and overcome contemporary challenges. Attendees are encouraged to seek out the Validity booth for personalized discussions, product demonstrations, and networking opportunities.
Email’s Enduring Strategic Importance in the AI Era
In an era dominated by discussions of emerging technologies, email marketing continues to assert its position as a cornerstone of successful digital strategy. Far from being a legacy channel, email consistently delivers the highest return on investment (ROI) in marketing, a trend that has held steady year after year, often outperforming other digital channels. In 2026, however, email is simultaneously more complex, more capable, and more central to how high-performing marketing teams operate.
Recent data reinforces email’s vitality. Validity’s "2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report" indicated a notable improvement in global inbox placement rates, reaching 87.2 percent in 2025—a 3.7 percent year-over-year uplift. This improvement highlights ongoing efforts by email service providers and senders to ensure legitimate messages reach their intended audience, combating spam and fostering trust. Yet, the landscape is evolving rapidly with the advent of AI. Artificial intelligence is not only optimizing the sending process but also fundamentally altering how subscribers "reach" and interact with messages. Features like AI-powered message summaries, intelligent sorting, and advanced filtering mechanisms within inboxes mean that email content must be even more compelling, relevant, and trustworthy to capture attention. The challenge for marketers is to leverage AI to enhance message quality and personalization, ensuring their emails cut through the noise generated by increasingly sophisticated inbox management tools and truly engage the recipient.
Salesforce’s own "State of Marketing report" further underscores the strategic imperative of AI, finding that high-performing marketing teams are 2.2 times more likely to integrate AI into their operations compared to underperformers. This data point shifts the conversation at Connections 2026
