2026 is just around the corner. For marketers across Central and Eastern Europe this means it’s a time to reflect on the campaigns of the past year — and how to evolve their strategies to stay competitive.
Mastering skills like creating videos on a budget, promoting a product customers haven’t heard of, and acquiring high-value, long-term customers are key strategies for any company looking to thrive next year.
Our most-read Think with Google articles from the past 12 months offer strategic insights and inspiration on these areas to help brands succeed in 2026.
Producing engaging video campaigns on a budget
Polish family-founded furniture company Mirjan24 set a goal to create a positive brand image in the minds of German consumers.
They launched a YouTube campaign based on the idea of showing how the brand reflects major life changes, such as moving in together, starting a family, and having children.
Since the team at Mirjan24 had no prior video production experience, they decided to handle the entire process internally to keep costs on budget and leverage employee creativity.
In our early drafts, we used background music to accompany visuals. However, we later discovered that a voiceover was crucial to tell our story.
They partnered with Google to improve videos based on YouTube’s ABCD principles. During this process, they learnt about the best ways to capture audience attention, optimal product and logo positioning, and integrating voiceovers.
Catching consumers’ attention… when they haven’t heard of you
Attracting consumers’ attention is always a challenge, but it is particularly difficult for a product that people may not even have heard about yet.
To overcome low brand awareness in the emerging online dog training niche, Woofz implemented a strategic visibility plan using Google Ads and surveys.
This niche is still new, so awareness of training platforms like ours remains limited.
The company first identified common pain points for dog owners, such as excessive barking or housebreaking issues, using Google Trends. They then developed detailed, personalised surveys designed to diagnose the user's specific problem.
By leveraging broad match within Google Ads, Woofz ensured their surveys reached a wide audience searching for related topics like "how to train your dog".
Finding and engaging high-value customers
Webnode, a Czech company that makes website building easy, operates using a 'freemium' model, offering both a free version and a paid premium version.
While many of their clients were using the free tools, the company's goal was to attract more users who will pay for advanced features — like their own domain and better SEO tools — and stay with the service long-term.
We found that users who frequently upload photos, view pricing pages, or contact customer care are more likely to become premium subscribers.
In today's market with price-sensitive customers, Webnode needed a smarter way to find these high-value paying customers. That’s why they developed a predicted lifetime value (pLTV) model using AI. This model analysed what users did on the platform — such as how often they uploaded photos, checked the pricing page, or contacted customer support — to predict how likely they were to upgrade to a premium account. Users who showed these "premium signals" were assigned a higher value.
Webnode then applied this data to their advertising efforts, moving their campaigns to automated bidding strategy target return on ad spend, which focuses on conversion value rather than just clicks.
Discover more important marketing trends and strategies for 2026.
