Attentive CMO, Keri McGhee kicks us off with her thoughts for the year ahead.
As we step into 2025, the landscape of marketing is on the brink of a pretty significant shift. Marketers are facing a tough challenge—breaking through the noise and reaching consumers in an increasingly competitive world.
When considering my top priorities for 2025 as a CMO, I find myself constantly returning to the question of which strategies and technologies will most effectively assist our brands in connecting with their own customers?
AI is stepping up in a big way. It’s transforming marketing by enabling brands to reach shoppers where they are and drive loyalty through seamless, personalized experiences. It’s becoming a predictive powerhouse, turning browsers into buyers faster than ever by leveraging real-time data to guide buying decisions.
We’re also witnessing the growing willingness of customers to share their data. It’s not just about privacy any more—it’s about getting the best, most tailored experiences.
One place you can be sure Attentive is going to place our bet is with the integration of Rich Communication Services (RCS). RCS will change the way customers interact with brands, offering a rich, personalized, and media-rich experience right on their phones.
But I’m just one POV in an incredibly diverse industry. So we reached out to marketing leaders across our ecosystem to understand what their top priorities are. What big bets are they planning for the year, and how are they staying ahead of the curve?
AI and its impact on marketing operations
Jenna Posner, Co-Founder/Vice Chair at Retail AI Council
AI and technology are revolutionizing retail marketing, offering new opportunities to use data more effectively. The ability to put data to work through AI is giving us the chance to reassess and test the current strategies that we've been investing in. However, it's crucial to build trust in AI technologies within retail environments.
When marketers are looking for AI use cases, they should seek solutions that aren't one-dimensional. Point solutions may address specific issues, but they won't provide the broader perspective needed to truly understand and engage consumers. The consumer experience should be the driving force behind the adoption of AI.
We often talk about needing a better SMS solution or a better way to upgrade our websites. As brand marketers, we need to step back and start with the consumer. AI has the potential to tailor future shopping experiences, creating personalized and interactive moments that enhance the overall consumer journey.
David Morin, VP of Customer Strategy at Narvar
2025 will be the year of predictive commerce, where hyper-personalization moves from aspiration to execution. Retailers will harness AI to create real-time, tailored experiences that anticipate customer needs at every touchpoint.
AI and machine learning are the cornerstones of modern marketing, especially in delivering hyper-personalized experiences at scale. It’s enabling real-time predictions that guide marketing decisions, from personalized promotions to adaptive content.
In 2025, the focus will shift to predictive customer journey orchestration. For example, marketers will use AI to predict which touchpoint, email, SMS, app notifications or social, will drive the highest engagement for a specific customer, ensuring every interaction is both timely and relevant.
At Narvar, we’re placing big bets on Iris, our AI-powered platform that unlocks predictive modeling across key customer touchpoints, from delivery to returns. This allows retailers to move from reactive to proactive customer engagement, ensuring that every interaction feels personalized and valuable. By addressing micro-moments, retailers will better build trust, foster loyalty, and ultimately increase CLTV.
Customer-centric initiatives
Jen Gray, SVP, Marketing at Recharge
We have to take advantage of being consumers ourselves. One thing I like to do is pay attention to my own consumer behavior. I’m always on the lookout for tactics that make me subscribe to a product instead of sticking to a one-time purchase. And I’m constantly asking myself: Does this product fit into my routine? What frustrates me about the buying experience? What could make my life easier?
We’re going to see customers become increasingly loyal to brands that allow them to personalize their experiences—so I think brands will continue to lean into this. Whether that’s offering a wide range of subscription cadences or fully customizable bundles, brands will continue to find ways to innovate and provide personalized experiences that make their customers want to stick around tomorrow, and beyond.
I think one way we’ll see this take center stage this year is through AI. AI has obviously made insane strides over the past few years, but I’m betting 2025 is the year we see brands take it to another level and tailor customer experiences to the individual, maximizing retention and customer loyalty along the way.
Lindsay Kolinsky, Director of Marketing at Okendo
Instead of trading off between acquisition or retention-first strategies, brands will start leaning more heavily on their existing customer base to help them in their acquisition efforts.
This means building experiences throughout the customer journey that drive positive brand experiences from the first purchase (such as a product recommendation quiz), continuously engaging those customers to build loyalty (customer feedback surveys and loyalty programs), and then encouraging those customers to spread the positive word about your brand to their own networks (reviews and referrals).
By creating a cycle where retention efforts help power your acquisition strategy, your customers ultimately become your best marketers. These “Superfans” are not only more likely to have higher lifetime value themselves but are also more cost-effective than relying on traditional paid channels for acquiring new customers.
Next-level personalization
Jan Soerensen, GM of North America at Nosto
There's a bigger focus on efficiency and converting existing traffic more effectively. Under that umbrella, we’ll see several strategies take hold.
Brands are increasingly moving towards fully personalized landing pages, where entire pages are tailored to each individual customer based on the signals they leave on the site. This approach goes beyond just personalizing individual blocks, aiming to create a more cohesive and relevant experience for each user.
Merchants will also look to create more tailored search experiences for shoppers. By this, I mean building merchandising rules for specific queries (e.g., linen) and boosting products in the search results based on the shopper’s most preferred style (e.g., casual linen vs. dress-wear linen segments).
We’re going to become more granular in our personalization efforts to truly appreciate shoppers' individual preferences and remove any roadblocks from the path to purchase. For instance, with our AI solution, we not only understand product preferences but also can identify the specific color, size, and material each user is interested in, ensuring the right SKU variant is surfaced. A dynamic product recommendation might display complementary product types that are available in the same swatch color and the user’s typically shopped size, creating a seamless and highly personalized shopping experience.
Omnichannel and immersive experiences
Niall Young O'Brien, CRM Manager at Represent Clothing
In 2025, we anticipate a stronger emphasis on personalized, first-party data-driven marketing and the continued rise of omnichannel experiences. Customers expect consistent engagement across platforms, and CRM plays a pivotal role in unifying these touchpoints. To capitalize, we’re focusing on dynamic segmentation and leveraging platforms like Attentive to deliver tailored SMS campaigns based on purchase behavior, preferences, and loyalty status.
AI will evolve from being a tool for efficiency to one that enhances creativity and innovation in CRM. We see its potential in predictive analytics to refine segmentation, optimize campaign timing, and hyper-personalize communication, all aspects already being utilized through AI.
In 2025, AI-driven tools will likely be used more intuitively for creating bespoke content that resonates on an individual level, like automated product recommendations based on real-time browsing data or past purchases.
Nikki Tooman, CEO and Co-Founder at Sticky Digital
Brands are increasingly moving towards consolidation, switching technology platforms to those that already power their other successful initiatives. We’re going to see even more of that in 2025. The consolidation of email and SMS is just the beginning.
By consolidating your technology stack, you can streamline your operations and gain a more cohesive view of your marketing efforts. This consolidation not only simplifies the technical landscape but also allows for more efficient resource allocation and better alignment of marketing strategies.
As a result, brands can focus more on delivering personalized and impactful customer experiences, rather than managing multiple, disjointed platforms. On the customer side, shoppers receive a much smoother, more personalized experience.