New York, USA, May 05, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Association (ECDMA) has officially published the results of the first-ever ECDMA Global Awards, closing the inaugural 2025 cycle with the announcement of more than one hundred winning entries from across the globe. This carefully designed competition has already gained the attention of the professional community not just for the breadth of international participation, but for its clear structure, deep jury expertise, and the integrity of its judging process.
ECDMA Global Awards Logo
In its first year, the Awards attracted over 350 applications from companies, teams, and professionals representing more than 30 countries and a wide variety of sectors – from fintech to retail, software-as-a-service, creative agencies, logistics platforms, and digital-first consumer brands. Submissions were accepted in a range of categories covering strategic marketing, e-commerce excellence, innovation in business infrastructure, customer experience, content performance, and digital transformation.
From the beginning, the ECDMA Global Awards were conceived as something different – not just another logo or certificate to decorate a portfolio, but a credible and practical system of recognition designed for real professionals. The Association made a clear decision not to outsource or replicate existing award frameworks. Instead, the team developed a proprietary award management system, built internally to support transparent and scalable judging, enable conflict-free jury assignment, and apply tiered score-based distinctions in an equitable and replicable way. That custom platform allowed each submission to be reviewed in detail by multiple independent judges, with all evaluations recorded securely and anonymously within the system.
Behind this process stood a jury of nearly one hundred experts, carefully selected for their active roles in shaping digital business today. Among them were C-level executives, founders, marketing directors, e-commerce consultants, technologists, and educators – many with cross-border experience and deep operational insight. These jury members were not symbolic names placed on a list for prestige. They were involved reviewers, tasked with evaluating multiple entries in their domain of expertise and required to declare all potential conflicts before being assigned any projects.
This rigor mattered. The Global Awards were open to both well-known industry players and emerging innovators. In some categories, boutique agencies competed alongside international conglomerates. In others, early-stage platforms went head-to-head with long-established service providers. The judging model made it possible for each submission to be evaluated on its own merit – measuring not relative size or reputation, but the strength of strategy, the clarity of execution, and the demonstrable impact of results.
Each winner was placed into one of three tiers – Gold, Silver, or Bronze – based not on comparison, but on reaching specific score thresholds. This allowed the Awards to reflect excellence across a wide spectrum of company profiles, resource levels, and markets. From AI-powered CRM transformations in enterprise environments to inventive grassroots influencer campaigns launched on shoestring budgets, the winning entries had one thing in common: they produced measurable outcomes through insight, discipline, and creativity.
Reflecting on the first edition, Eugene Mischenko, Co-Founder and President of ECDMA, emphasized the importance of creating a recognition system rooted in professional reality rather than optics.
“This award was never meant to be a celebration of surface-level activity,” said Mischenko. “We created it for the teams and professionals who are buried in real work. The ones who are fixing inefficient funnels, rewriting codebases, training client success teams, tuning targeting models, rebuilding category pages, and aligning strategies across business units. Their impact is undeniable – but in most cases, invisible. We wanted to change that.
There are so many awards today that exist only to reward visibility. But the industry needs something deeper. A place where people are seen for their judgment, their process, and their persistence. Where the work itself – not just the presentation of the work – is what’s being judged. That’s what this platform was built to deliver, and that’s what we saw reflected in the submissions this year.
We received applications from companies I’d never heard of – working out of regions many ignore – who demonstrated levels of strategic thinking that rival top-tier consultancies. At the same time, we saw market leaders with significant infrastructure take bold new approaches. And the judging process honored both. That’s the standard we set this year, and we’ll keep building on it.”
The geographic and sector diversity of the entries revealed a rich landscape of digital innovation. There were submissions from high-growth startups in Central Asia, from mature e-commerce ecosystems in Eastern Europe, from platform builders in Latin America, and from specialist agencies in the Gulf region. While some of these organizations operate in markets with limited access to global visibility, their inclusion in the ECDMA Awards created a new channel of recognition – one not dependent on geography or marketing budget, but on substance.
The Awards also proved to be a valuable self-assessment tool. Several participants noted that the process of preparing their entry pushed their teams to articulate strategic choices more clearly, measure results more accurately, and reflect more critically on their work. The format encouraged applicants to document not just success, but the reasoning behind their actions – making the Awards feel more like a professional dialogue than a one-way submission.
Feedback from jury members reinforced this. Many reported that they found the process not only fair and well-structured, but intellectually rewarding. Reviewing applications became an opportunity to observe current global practices across industries, from content lifecycle management and loyalty innovation to logistics automation, multi-market product rollouts, and adaptive customer segmentation strategies.
The launch edition of the Awards has already created ripples far beyond its starting point. It has begun to set a new tone for what professional recognition in the digital space can look like – one that is quieter, deeper, and more grounded in the kind of work that defines real progress. The scale of this success was not driven by hype or volume, but by intent. The participants who applied came because they were looking for something meaningful. The jury members who judged took part because they wanted to support a credible process. And the Association itself remained uncompromising in its standards, choosing clarity and substance over ceremony at every step.
Looking forward, ECDMA will build on the momentum of this year’s success with an expanded program for 2026. The next edition of the Global Awards will introduce new categories and regional recognitions, deepen collaboration with international associations, and continue to improve the judging infrastructure based on jury and applicant feedback. Plans are also underway to publish an annual analysis based on award submissions – capturing patterns, strategies, and performance benchmarks from across markets and sectors. This report will become an important knowledge-sharing tool for the community, further reinforcing the role of the Awards not only as a recognition platform but as a professional resource.
The ECDMA Global Awards were built to endure. They are not defined by this year’s numbers, but by the quality of the process and the value it creates over time. In its first year, the Awards attracted talent from around the world, surfaced remarkable projects, and showed that a better way of recognizing digital excellence is not only possible – it’s necessary.
The full list of winners is available now at https://awards.ecdma.org/winners-2025. The stories behind these names represent the future of digital business – not only because of their innovation but also because of their execution, thinking, and discipline.
For media interviews, post-award features, or inquiries about partnerships for the next edition, please contact E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Association
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Eugene Mischenko
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