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Modern Freight Marketing

Kaja Kusińska · March 17, 2026 · 2 min read

Kara Smith Brown, Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at LeadCoverage, shares key insights into the current state of marketing in the industry and how intent data is replacing cold-call prospecting.

Winning Freight Sales in 2026

With a background in marketing, Kara began her career at Echo Global Logistics as Director of Marketing and Investor Relations. She later served as Director of Global Marketing at SEKO Worldwide, followed by a year and a half at OHL (now GEODIS) as Marketing and Communications Director.

Today, drawing on her extensive logistics experience, she is the Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at LeadCoverage—a premier supply chain go-to-market consulting firm focused on the freight industry.

The biggest trend in go-to-market and demand generation right now?

According to Kara, it's intent data.

There are four kinds:

Primary- comes from your CRM
Secondary- comes from Google and Bombora
Tertiary- anything AI-related
Broker-specific- sold through Carrier Source

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Kara's tip- If you're investing in intent data in 2026, skip secondary — it's just Google and Bombora.

When asked about the state of marketing in the industry, Kara says it's getting cheaper every day.

"The tools are getting better, and when you layer AI on top of it, it's no longer about the pretty pictures, it's about who's fastest to the pain before the pain.”

Her perspective on the implementation of AI in CRM—its benefits and the most effective ways to leverage it to drive intent data and boost sales—is clear:

"Every LinkedIn post you see by some tech bro who's like 'I built a Claude prompt, and I got rid of my whole marketing team' — I have tried all of it, and almost none of it works."

But there are ones worth investing in. HubSpot, for example, is product-led with its own AI tools built right in.

So who wins in freight over the next decade as AI takes hold?

According to Kara, there are two types of players:

Ultra-niche companies that have drilled down into a very specific operational capability or a very specific customer pain point
Companies that have their data in order

The question is: which player are you?

Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or watch the interview on YouTube.

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