Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Marketing scholarship has been slow to catch up with a marketing reality that now runs largely on algorithms. Recommendation engines shape what consumers see before they know what they are looking for. Dynamic pricing systems adjust in real time. Personalization engines build behavioral profiles that follow consumers across their entire journey. Existing theory tends to treat these systems either as efficiency tools or as sources of ethical risk, but rarely as the central phenomenon marketing theory needs to explain. This paper develops Reflexive Digital Twin Marketing Theory (RDTMT), which reframes algorithmic marketing as a sociotechnical system that co-evolves with consumers, firms, and regulators through continuous feedback instead of one-directional persuasion. The theory is built empirics-first. A PRISMA-ScR scoping review of 742 records (2000–2025) across Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar narrowed to 42 core studies at the intersection of digital twin applications, marketing analytics, and AI governance. A co-occurrence network analysis using VOSviewer surfaced four convergent clusters (continuous synchronization, adaptive intelligence, reflexive governance, and societal co-evolution), which we use as the empirical basis for three theoretical constructs: Digital Reflexivity, Ethical Feedback Elasticity, and the Value Coherence Index. We then formalize the relationships among these constructs as a Markov Decision Process, translating RDTMT's causal logic into nine reinforcement-learning equations that specify how algorithmic marketing systems can be evaluated not just for predictive accuracy, but for responsiveness to the people they affect. RDTMT's contribution is twofold. Theoretically, it gives marketing scholars a vocabulary for treating algorithmic systems as active participants in shaping consumer identity instead of neutral instruments executing firm strategy. Practically, the constructs translate into a diagnostic toolkit firms can use to audit how reflexive, adaptive, and legitimacy-responsive their marketing systems actually are. This is work we see as most valuable for consumers with limited digital literacy or bargaining power, who bear the highest cost when these systems misrepresent who they are. As a scoping review feeding theory construction, RDTMT's constructs still need empirical validation across industries and firm contexts. We treat that as the natural next stage of this research program rather than a limitation to be explained away.</p>