Chicago is set to host Salesforce Connections 2026 from June 3-4, an event that promises to redefine the landscape of digital marketing and customer experience. Among the key participants, Validity, a leading provider of email marketing and data quality solutions, is preparing to showcase its comprehensive end-to-end marketing success platform, notably enhanced by the integration of Litmus and the introduction of its new AI-powered offering, Validity Engage. This year’s conference marks a significant moment for Validity, as it demonstrates a unified approach to addressing the complex demands of modern marketers, particularly in the burgeoning era of artificial intelligence.
Salesforce Connections 2026: A Confluence of Marketing Innovation
Salesforce Connections serves as the premier annual gathering for marketing executives, digital commerce leaders, and customer experience professionals. It is a crucial forum where industry practitioners and decision-makers converge to exchange insights on effective strategies and explore emergent trends. The official Connections website underscores the dynamic nature of contemporary marketing, stating, "Marketing is no longer static. It’s always-on and agentic—and Connections is where vision meets strategy." This ethos permeates the conference agenda, which is densely packed with sessions exploring critical topics such as advanced AI applications, sophisticated CRM strategies, and the evolving future of digital marketing. The event’s significance is amplified by its location in Chicago, a hub for innovation and business, providing an ideal backdrop for discussions on the future of customer engagement.
The conference’s value extends beyond scheduled presentations, often manifesting in the spontaneous "hallway conversations" where attendees delve into real-world challenges and collaborative problem-solving. These informal exchanges, addressing questions like "wait, how are you handling this?", frequently yield insights as valuable as the formal keynotes. The overarching theme of navigating the delicate balance between AI’s immense promise and its practical implementation in daily workflows resonates deeply with attendees. Many teams are currently grappling with pilot programs, intricate integration hurdles, and the fundamental question of how AI can be seamlessly embedded into existing processes—not merely in theoretical frameworks, but in the tangible context of shipping a campaign on a busy Tuesday afternoon. Connections provides a vital platform for these discussions, fostering a community where collective intelligence helps demystify the complexities of marketing transformation and accelerates the adoption of cutting-edge technologies.
A Unified Vision: The Validity-Litmus Synergy Takes Center Stage
A pivotal development that distinguishes Validity’s presence at this year’s Connections is the culmination of its integration with Litmus, a renowned email creation and testing platform. The acquisition of Litmus by Validity, which occurred approximately two months prior to Connections 2025 (placing it around April 2025), has been a transformative event. Over the past year, Validity has dedicated significant resources to harmonizing the strengths of both entities, forging what it describes as a truly end-to-end email solution tailored for enterprise-level marketing teams. This strategic consolidation aimed to eliminate the fragmentation that has long plagued email marketing workflows.
Historically, email marketing professionals have often resorted to assembling disparate point solutions, hoping they would function cohesively. This fragmented approach frequently led to inefficiencies, compatibility issues, and a lack of holistic visibility into campaign performance, often requiring significant manual effort to bridge gaps between tools. The merger of Validity and Litmus directly addresses this long-standing industry challenge by creating a cohesive ecosystem. For the first time, Validity now offers an integrated suite of capabilities encompassing crucial aspects of the email lifecycle, all under one roof:
- Data Quality and List Validation: Ensuring the integrity and deliverability of subscriber lists, a foundational element for effective campaigns. This minimizes bounce rates and improves sender reputation.
- Campaign Creation and QA Testing: Streamlining the design and rigorous testing of email content across various platforms and devices, ensuring optimal rendering and user experience before deployment.
- Deliverability Monitoring: Proactively tracking and optimizing inbox placement rates, a critical factor for message visibility and engagement.
- Performance Analytics: Providing deep insights into campaign effectiveness and subscriber engagement, allowing marketers to measure ROI accurately and refine future strategies.
This comprehensive offering positions Validity as a singular provider capable of supporting marketers through every stage of their email programs, from initial data hygiene to post-send analysis. Riley Dambaugh, Demand Generation Manager at Validity, expressed enthusiasm for this new chapter, 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 underscores the tangible benefits and innovations emerging from the integrated platform, promising a new era of efficiency and effectiveness for email marketers.
Driving ROI with AI: Key Insights and the Debut of Validity Engage
A central focus of Validity’s participation will be the practical application of Artificial Intelligence to elevate marketing ROI. Danielle Gallant, a prominent voice in the email marketing community and co-host of the popular "Email After Hours podcast," will lead a highly anticipated session titled "3 ways to push your email ROI above 45:1 using AI." Scheduled for June 3 at 1:30 PM CT in the Theater, this 20-minute presentation will delve into the strategies employed by advanced AI adopters who are 75% more likely to achieve return on investment exceeding 45:1. Attendees will gain a critical understanding of the full-funnel techniques that underpin such remarkable results, exploring how AI can optimize everything from content creation to audience segmentation and send-time optimization. Gallant’s expertise, honed through her regular contributions to Validity’s "State of Email Tactics webinar" and her impactful sessions at "Litmus Live 2026," promises a session rich with actionable insights derived from real-world applications.
Beyond the stage, Validity is set to introduce a significant innovation: Validity Engage. This new AI-powered platform is engineered to streamline the email workflow and maximize ROI from every send. The development of Engage directly responds to a pressing challenge highlighted in Validity’s own "Q1 2026 Marketer Survey," which revealed that marketing headcounts are projected to remain flat in 2026, even as campaign volume and performance expectations continue to escalate. In this environment, where marketers are asked to "do more with less," AI is recognized as a crucial leverage point, but only if it is integrated into workflows in a genuinely helpful and intuitive manner. Validity Engage aims to achieve precisely this, embedding AI capabilities directly into the daily operations of marketing teams to automate repetitive tasks, provide intelligent recommendations, and surface critical insights.
Chris Shays, an Account Executive at Validity, highlighted the importance of these conversations: "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." Echoing this, Jeff Martin, another Account Executive, added, "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." These statements underscore the company’s commitment to delivering practical, AI-driven solutions that address real-world marketing pain points, moving beyond theoretical discussions to tangible implementation.
Navigating AI in the Real World: Beyond the Hype
The overarching sentiment among marketers, and a recurring theme throughout Connections 2026, is a palpable weariness with abstract AI hype. The industry is collectively shifting its focus towards tangible applications and demonstrable results. Marketers are no longer interested in theoretical possibilities; they demand concrete answers to the question: "What actually works?" This pragmatic shift is driving a focus on foundational elements necessary for successful AI integration.
Validity’s research consistently points to several key barriers preventing wider and more effective AI adoption within marketing departments:
- Data Quality Issues: Poor or inconsistent data foundational to AI models can lead to inaccurate insights, biased outputs, and ultimately, ineffective campaigns. Without clean, reliable data, AI’s potential remains largely untapped.
- Integration Challenges: Difficulty in seamlessly integrating new AI tools with existing marketing technology stacks (martech). This often results in siloed systems and a fragmented view of customer interactions.
- Lack of Clear Outcomes: An inability to define specific, measurable goals for AI implementation, leading to unfocused efforts and difficulty in demonstrating ROI. Many organizations struggle with identifying the right use cases for AI.
- Trust and Usability: Skepticism regarding AI-generated content or recommendations, coupled with complex interfaces that hinder adoption by human users. Marketers need to trust the AI’s output and find the tools intuitive to operate.
Conversely, the marketing teams demonstrating genuine success with AI are not necessarily those with the largest budgets. Instead, they are the ones who have diligently undertaken the "boring work" of establishing robust foundations. This includes rigorously cleaning their data, meticulously defining clear outcomes for AI initiatives, and engineering workflows that are both human-centric and trustworthy. This pragmatic approach directly aligns with Salesforce’s broader vision for "Agentforce" and the development of AI-first CRM experiences, which prioritize actionable intelligence and seamless user interaction. Grace Dixon, Sr. Account Manager at Validity, encapsulates this perspective, stating, "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!"
The Enduring Power of Email in an AI-Driven Landscape
Despite the emergence of new communication channels, email consistently maintains its position as the marketing channel with the highest return on investment, year after year. In 2026, email is not merely a legacy channel; it has evolved into a more complex, more capable, and increasingly central component of successful marketing strategies. Its direct, personalized nature makes it an indispensable tool for building customer relationships and driving conversions.
Recent data from Validity’s "2026 Email Deliverability Benchmark Report" illustrates this evolution, showing that global inbox placement rates improved to 87.2 percent in 2025, representing a 3.7 percent year-over-year uplift. This improvement underscores the ongoing efforts by email service providers and marketers to optimize deliverability, ensuring messages reach their intended recipients. Simultaneously, AI is fundamentally reshaping the very concept of "reaching" a subscriber. Advanced AI capabilities are now enabling message summaries, intelligent sorting, and sophisticated filtering within inboxes, demanding that marketers create even more relevant and engaging content to cut through the digital noise and earn subscriber attention.
The strategic imperative to leverage AI is no longer debatable. Research from Salesforce’s own "State of Marketing report" reveals that high-performing marketing teams are 2.2 times more likely to utilize AI than their underperforming counterparts. Therefore, the critical question at Connections 2026 is not whether to invest in AI, but rather how to invest in it correctly and strategically. This involves understanding how AI can enhance, rather than merely automate, the human element of marketing, ensuring that technology serves to amplify creativity and effectiveness while maintaining ethical standards and customer trust.
Validity’s team, a fantastic group of experts, is eager to engage with attendees on these critical topics. Jim Tobolski, SVP of Global Account Management, articulated the company’s commitment to connection: "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." Other team members, including Brady Edwards (Sr. Account Manager) and Courtney Grab (Director of Customer and Lifecycle Marketing), also expressed eagerness to discuss how Validity’s integrated solutions drive meaningful results and how the company is "showing up in a big way" at the event. Julio Lopez, Sr. Customer Strategist, is particularly keen to discuss "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." The collective enthusiasm reflects a strong belief in the transformative potential of their unified offerings.
The confluence of Validity’s unified platform, the launch of Validity Engage, and the industry’s embrace of practical AI applications sets the stage for a highly impactful Salesforce Connections 2026. By focusing on genuine innovation and addressing the real-world needs of marketers, Validity aims to empower teams to achieve unparalleled success in an increasingly complex digital landscape, where intelligent automation and human ingenuity combine to deliver exceptional results.
