Welcome to MarTech Cube, Chad. To start, can you please share a bit about your professional journey and what led you to your current role as CMO at AudioEye?
Looking back, every pivot in my career has been about tearing up the old playbook. In marketing, if you’re not reinventing, you’re falling behind.
My career has always been about connecting dots between creativity, growth, and technology. I’ve been fortunate to sit in multiple seats: launching startups like Omniture, scaling Vivint’s digital business to 35% of overall revenue, and leading large-scale programs at Adobe. Every step has shaped how I view marketing—not as a function, but as an engine of growth.
The pivotal moment came when I witnessed firsthand the impact of a digital accessibility lawsuit at a large commerce brand I worked at. That experience reframed my understanding of marketing. It wasn’t just about storytelling or demand generation, but rather about building digital experiences that everyone can access, regardless of ability. At AudioEye, I see accessibility as a growth lever, not a compliance burden. We’re using AI to identify and fix barriers in real time, enabling brands to move faster, convert more customers, and reduce legal risk simultaneously. That’s the future of marketing: building experiences that scale inclusively.
Why do you believe accessibility is still the missing piece in most marketers’ tech stacks, despite growing awareness around inclusion and compliance?
Accessibility usually enters a marketer’s world through a negative event—a lawsuit, a demand letter, or a compliance audit. That creates a mindset where accessibility feels like a cost center instead of a growth driver.
The reality is the opposite. Accessibility improves SEO performance, helps search AI and voice assistants parse your content more effectively, and extends reach to the 25% of the global population living with a disability. That’s a market with trillions in annual spending power. In an era where personalization is king, accessibility is the most scalable form of personalization. The future belongs to marketers who treat accessibility not as “checking a box,” but as a brand differentiator embedded into their stack alongside analytics, automation, and AI.
Marketers spend millions chasing personalization, yet most ignore the one feature that personalizes every single experience: accessibility.
The result is that marketers miss one of their biggest opportunities, which is the fact that accessibility is the most scalable personalization lever available.
Can you walk us through some of the key accessibility regulations that marketers should be aware of, and what the real risks are of non-compliance?
Marketers really need to be aware of the foundational regulations because legal landscape is shifting quickly. In the U.S., the ADA (Title III) applies to digital spaces, even if many businesses are still catching up to that reality. WCAG 2.1 AA has become the de facto standard for compliance. Government and education markets operate under Title II of the ADA, with upcoming enforcement in 2026. States like California add extra layers, such as the Unruh Act, which drive enforcement at the state level. Globally, the EU’s European Accessibility Act (EAA) took effect in June 2025, and it fundamentally changes how software and digital platforms enter European markets.
For marketers, the risk isn’t just lawsuits. It’s losing deals, being dropped from RFPs, or being blocked from entire markets. In the future, I believe procurement teams will treat accessibility checks the way they currently treat security reviews: non-negotiable. If your product doesn’t meet standards, it won’t even get in the room.
There’s often a misconception that accessibility is purely a technical or legal checkbox. How do you recommend marketers reframe accessibility to see it as a growth driver, not just a requirement?
Marketers are experts at segmentation like building personas, tailoring campaigns, and personalizing journeys. Accessibility should be seen in the same way: as a segmentation strategy that unlocks a massive audience you may not be serving today.
The most successful marketing leaders will reframe accessibility from compliance to customer experience and growth. When built in from the start, accessibility improves design, simplifies journeys, and reduces friction. It becomes part of the brand promise: every interaction works, for every customer. In the age of AI-driven marketing, where experiences are constantly optimized and personalized, accessibility will become a natural extension of customer-centricity.
In what ways have you seen accessibility improve core marketing metrics like conversions, website traffic, and lead generation? Could you share any examples or data?
We’ve seen accessibility directly impact growth at AudioEye. Companies that implement accessible design and testing see higher conversion rates, lower bounce rates, and stronger engagement.
Accessibility forces clarity, like simpler navigation, better calls-to-action, and readable design that helps everyone, not just people with disabilities.
We’ve also found that accessibility contributes to better SEO performance and GEO performance, which in turn drives more organic traffic. When your content is structured so that assistive technologies can read it, engines can read it better, too. The result is a larger audience, higher engagement, and more leads without adding more to your marketing budget. Accessibility is one of the easiest ways to maximize the value of your existing traffic.
Looking ahead, accessibility will become measurable in the same way SEO or UX is today. Marketers will track accessibility compliance and impact alongside conversion metrics, and AI will help connect the dots between fixing barriers and improving revenue. Accessibility won’t just influence metrics; it will become one of them.
How does accessibility contribute to creating a more inclusive customer experience—and why should this matter to today’s marketing teams?
Accessibility removes barriers, which in turn builds trust. When people with disabilities encounter a brand that works seamlessly for them, they often become some of the most loyal advocates. Their networks are strong, their voices influential, and their loyalty long-lasting. Loyalty isn’t earned with one great campaign. It’s earned when every click feels effortless.
For marketers, accessibility is a multiplier. It improves customer experience across the board and creates communities of advocacy. In the future, I believe we’ll see brands differentiate themselves not by saying they’re “innovative” or “customer-centric” but by demonstrating they’re accessible. Loyalty will come from experiences that consistently deliver to every customer.
Many marketers fear that implementing accessibility will slow down creativity or complicate design. How can teams balance visual innovation with inclusive design principles?
There’s a common misconception that accessibility and creativity are at odds, but nine times out of ten, inclusive design actually supports design innovation. In fact, accessibility pushes us to design in ways that are clearer, more intuitive, and more human-centered. Many of the design patterns we now take for granted—like responsive design, captions on video, or voice interfaces—were born from accessibility needs. What started as an accommodation often became a mainstream innovation.
Accessibility also future-proofs creative work. With AI-driven experiences, multimodal interfaces, and global audiences, we need designs that work seamlessly across languages, devices, and abilities. Accessibility ensures that creativity isn’t just visually striking, but also adaptable, inclusive, and resilient.
In other words: accessibility doesn’t narrow the canvas; it makes the canvas bigger. It allows marketers and designers to tell stories and build experiences that reach everyone—not just the people who happen to fit a narrow design mold.
What’s one personal strategy you follow as a marketing leader to ensure your campaigns are inclusive and accessible by default?
One personal strategy I lean on is treating accessibility as an integral part of every project’s DNA rather than an add-on or afterthought. When we redesigned AudioEye’s own website, accessibility was embedded in every decision, from the visual redesign to the content strategy. We crafted copy, visuals, and navigation that not only looked great, but also worked flawlessly for someone navigating via keyboard or screen reader.
We apply that same mindset across our teams: whether it’s demand campaigns, content creation, website updates, or product marketing, we start with inclusive principles as the first layer, not the last. That way, every piece of content is inherently more accessible, and we don’t need to bolt on fixes later.
It’s all about making accessibility the default mode of creation. When it’s baked into your culture and process, it ensures your work connects with more people, more deeply, from day one.
What advice would you give to marketing teams that are just beginning their accessibility journey and don’t know where to start?
Start small, but start now. Run a free scan to get your baseline. Use accessible templates, fold accessibility checks into your developer workflow, and lean on automation and AI for continuous monitoring. Every step compounds.
I encourage teams to reframe the conversation internally: instead of “do we need to be compliant?” ask “how many customers are we losing today because of poor accessibility?” That question sparks action. The sooner you start, the sooner accessibility shifts from being a legal requirement to being a growth driver.
Lastly, any final thoughts on the future of accessibility in marketing and how leaders can champion the shift toward inclusive digital experiences?
The future is clear: accessibility will move from optional to operational. Just as SEO became an inseparable part of digital strategy, accessibility will be non-negotiable. The winning message for leadership is simple: revenue and risk. Accessibility improves conversions, boosts SEO, and builds loyalty—while reducing lawsuits and lost deals.
AI will accelerate compliance at scale, but human expertise will remain critical. Machines can detect and fix issues, but humans ensure the experience feels intuitive and empathetic. The brands that thrive will treat accessibility as part of their innovation agenda, not just their compliance checklist.
Bottom line: Accessibility isn’t just the right thing. It’s the next big competitive advantage in marketing. The companies that embrace it now will shape the market of the future.
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Chad Sollis, Chief Marketing Officer at AudioEye
Chad Sollis is a seasoned marketing and product leader with over two decades of experience in driving business growth and innovation across various industries. As the Chief Marketing Officer at AudioEye, the leading digital accessibility platform helping businesses of all sizes build inclusive and compliant websites, Chad spearheads strategic initiatives in brand development, product marketing, growth, revenue operations, and customer engagement. As a data-driven executive, Chad has demonstrated a remarkable ability to scale businesses, having contributed to the growth of companies from $30 million to $3 billion in annual revenue and helping 4 companies execute successful IPOs. With a diverse background that includes leadership roles at market-leading companies such as Adobe, Pluralsight, Vivint, and Traeger, he has generated a wealth of expertise in marketing, digital products, and technology spanning both B2B and B2C sectors. LinkedIn.
