Name: The Post-BFCM Playbook for 2026 Success
Uploaded: 2025-12-11T19:16:23.687Z
Duration: 1 h 16 s
Description: The Post-BFCM Playbook for 2026 Success

Transcript for "The Post-BFCM Playbook for 2026 Success": Hey, Hey, Laura. everyone. Hey, Sam. Thank you so much for joining us for our post BFCM playbook for 2026 success. I'm Laura, and I'm joined by my wonderful cohost, Sam, today. Laura, it's great to take the stage with you again. We're excited to be partnering with Snowflake and Movable Ink today. So let's go through a few things to remember throughout today's webinar. You can use the chat on the right to introduce yourself and share thoughts throughout the session. To get things going, drop something in the chat that you bought during this Black Friday or Cyber Monday that you're excited about. You'll also see a poll tab. Jump into those polls whenever a question pops up on screen because participation enters you for a chance to win our giveaway. We've added helpful links related to today's topics in the docs section, and if you have questions, just drop them into the q and a tab anytime. If we don't get to your questions during the session, we promise we'll follow-up with you afterwards. And finally, the event is being recorded. You'll get the on demand link within twenty four hours. We'll also share a short survey at the end, so keep an eye out for that because we'd love to hear from you on how we did. Laura, did you find anything fun for Black Friday Cyber Monday this year? I did. I did a lot of shopping, and this sounds kind of boring. But every year when Bamba socks go on sale, 25% off over BFCM, I get them for everyone in my family. And I know sock sounds boring, but I get texts the whole year about how they are the best socks ever. So gotta capitalize during those sales. How about you, Sam? I love that. I bought way too much clothes, way too many clothes. And then also a little bit of skin care. One of my favorite brands, Olay, was doing some pretty good sales, so I definitely popped in there and grabbed a few things for the year. I love that. Keep your favorite purchases coming in the chat here so we can see what you guys got this Black Friday, Cyber Monday. If you've been tuning into these webinars over the last few months, you've heard a lot from Sam and me, but today is extra special because we will have a panel of special guests joining us in a bit. We will have Kelsey from Movable Ink and Leslie from Snowflake. They've got some fantastic insights for our panel later on. But first, we will recap trends from Black Friday, Cyber Monday twenty twenty five, Passing it to Sam to go through our agenda. Awesome. So here's how today's session will flow. We'll spend the first fifteen minutes walking through BFCM by the numbers, the data that defined this year. Then we'll transition into a forty minute expert panel with movable ink and snowflake where we'll dig into strategies that you can use throughout 2026. And we've got not one, not two, but three giveaways for you today. Live attendees who participate in our polls will be entered for a chance to win a 2026 planning power pack featuring goodies from some of your favorite brands like Ollie. Winners will be emailed after the webinar, so make sure to participate in those polls. Alright. Let's dive into the data. This Cyber Week was unlike any that we've seen before, and the numbers tell a pretty incredible story. This year marked a turning point. Attentive Brands generated nearly $2,000,000,000 in revenue during Cyber Week. That's billion with a b. But here's what's interesting. That number didn't come from brands just doing more of the same, blasting messages on Black Friday, Cyber Monday. It came from smarter preparation and coordination. Brands sent 5,700,000,000 messages across SMS and email, which is up 46 year over year. They weren't just blasting more messages, they were meeting customers where they actually wanted to engage. SMS continued to be a powerhouse. Our average order values hit $143 this year, which is up 13% year over year, and revenue per click jumped 20%. And this wasn't just a story in The US where we traditionally think about Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Our UK brands saw revenue grow 48% year over year, and in Australia, revenue climbed 44%. The right channel mix drives results in any market. Timing played a major role in how shoppers engaged this year, and Sam is gonna walk through some of those shifts. Thanks, Laura. Timing really was everything this year. What's interesting is how each channel played a different role throughout the week. Email engagement surprisingly peaked early on Monday, November 24. That's when shoppers were browsing, building carts, and getting ready for the big sales to drop. But SMS SMS closed the deals. Cyber Monday had the highest conversion rate of the entire week. Shoppers were motivated to act on that final day, and they didn't wanna miss out. And brands followed where their customers were. Most emails went out in the morning, catching people during their morning inbox checks, while SMS campaigns hit around noon when shoppers were on their phones and ready to browse during lunch. And as always, Thanksgiving was an exception. We saw more evening sends as brands prepped shoppers for the weekend ahead. Finally, Black Friday remained the top performing day overall, driven by early discounting and high intent buyers. We're curious. Did you see similar timing trends on your own customers this year? Let us know in the chat. So here's a core insight from this year. Coordination beat volume. Sending more messages isn't the answer, but coordinating smarter ones is. The brands that excelled built strategies around three things, email deepened browsing and discovery, SMS met shoppers in high intent moments, and AI optimized the experience across both channels. And this approach approach worked. Brands using Atentive's Agentic AI grew two times faster than brands not leveraging AI during Cyber Week twenty twenty five. Agentic AI enabled the right messages to reach the reach the right people at the right time, delivering personalized recommendations that consumers actually loved. We analyze specific combinations to see exactly where the performance gains came from. Let's look at what happened when brands used the full stack. The channel combination effect was undeniable. When brands paired SMS and email, they saw an 18% higher conversion rate and nearly 15% more revenue per click than SMS alone. Email primed interest with richer content and browsing opportunities. SMS met shoppers in their highest intent moments, and together, they worked as a reinforcing loop, not competing channels, but amplifying ones. Now when we layer AI orchestration on top of that, the lift becomes even more dramatic. AI powered journeys drove a 123 increase in conversion rate, and revenue per click jumped 89% compared to brands not using AI. AI helped determine which message should fire when and in what order for every subscriber. And when we look at full stack performance, customers using SMS, email, and AI saw a 23% increase in revenue percent overall. And here's what that looks like in practice. A customer browses a product from an email on Friday. Then on Sunday, right when AI predicts they're most likely to convert, they get a personalized SMS reminder with a deeper time sensitive discount. That intelligent sequencing is what turned browsers into buyers. Laura, I'd love to hear your take on how AI differentiated this year differentiated the FCM this year. Thanks, Sam. AI did play a bigger role this Cyber Week than ever before, and it showed up on both sides of the transaction. On the brand side, retailers used Attentive's full AI suite, so AI Journeys for personalized messages at scale, AI Grow for maximizing list growth, and AI Pro for predictive send times, smarter segmentation, and recognizing more site visitors. But this year, not only did marketers rely on AI, but shoppers did too. Nearly 50% of shoppers told us that they used AI during Cyber Week, whether that was brainstorming gift ideas for that hard to shop for relative or researching which products actually live up to the hype, I know I used it myself to compare features of a few TVs across brands. When brands coordinate across channels using AI to deliver the right message at the right moment, they saw record breaking results. But cross channel orchestration wasn't the only place where AI was key this BFCM. AI really shaped how people bought and how brands sold. That was especially clear with our AI Journeys product. For anyone who hasn't used it before, AI Journeys automatically personalizes every aspect of a triggered SMS message in real time. No two subscribers receive the same message. The timing, the recommendations, the offers, all of it adapts based on each person's behavior and buying intent. During Cyber Week, there's one specific feature of AI Journeys that was the unsung hero, and that is our built in sale messaging capability. So brands could layer in site wide promotions like 20% off everything for Cyber Week directly into these personalized journey messages. And you can schedule multiple sales in advance, so include your Black Friday offer, update it for your Cyber Monday offer, maybe your extended Tuesday offer, and then also equip the tool with any relevant exclusions to ensure every automated message reflected the current OnSay offerings for a cohesive subscriber experience. The results here were incredible. AI journeys to over 13% conversion rate lift, 20% higher revenue per click, and 7% higher average order value for SMS customers compared to those who did not use AI. CB2 said it best, from browse to buy, Attentive's AI journeys redefined our holiday strategy. Dynamic and adaptive personalized messaging helped us stand out and deliver results like never before. That's the power of AI driven personalization at scale. Now I will pass it back to Sam to take a look at a few BFCM wins from some of your favorite attentive brands. Thank you, Laura. I love these examples. I think they are incredible. Little Sleepies used exclusive messages to VIP customers and early access subscribers. The results? A 96% conversion rate lift, 25% higher click through rate, and 5,500,000.0 in revenue. Made in Cookware leveraged the full AI suite and delivered a 198 x ROI with a 70¢ 77% conversion rate lift. They also saw 351% more orders placed from SMS compared to last year when they were using Klaviyo. An altered state optimized journey registration and saw an 85% conversion rate lift, and this number is incredible, a 1,995 increase in total journey revenue. HomeA Australia maximized channel best practices to generate 38 x ROI and 1,500,000.0 in revenue in the first few weeks of the BFCM period. These aren't outliers. These are brands that built the right tech stack and used it strategically. I love seeing all of these exciting wins. For all of you tuning in, feel free to share one of your BFCM wins in the chat so we can celebrate your success together. And while you're sharing in the chat, let's bring this all together with three key takeaways that you should walk away with today. First, coordination beats volume. Brands that paired SMS and email saw 18% higher conversion rates and 15% higher revenue per click than SMS alone. Smart orchestration is more powerful than just sending more messages. Second, AI is the multiplier. Brands using Attentive's agentic AI grew twice as fast and saw stronger engagement across the board. AI is no longer just a nice to have anymore. It's table stakes for competitive performance at scale. Finally, the full stack wins. Full stack orchestration drove 23% higher revenue percent. These channels work better together than they ever could alone. Great summary, Laura. We like our CRM channels how we like our pancakes, full stack. Alright. Cheesy jokes aside. So we just saw some incredible BFCM numbers. Now we're bringing on two of our strategic partners, Snowflake and Movable Ink, to talk about what's next. How do you turn BFCM momentum into 2026 growth? How do you stay visible when platforms keep changing the rules? And how do you use AI strategically, not just because everyone else is? Quick reminder, jump into the polls throughout today's panel for your chance to win our twenty twenty six planning power pack giveaway. Awesome. Let's bring in the panelists. Hey, Kelsey. Hey, Leslie. Yeah. I'm super excited to. welcome you both here today. Why don't we start with a round of intros? Kelsey, can we start with you? Why don't you tell us about your role and what you're focused on heading into 2026? Thank you for having me. I'm Kelsey Oregon. I'm associate director of strategy at Movable Ink. I focus on our retailers having come from a retail background. So I used to work at, if you're aware, Movable coming from Movable Ink, some clients like Whole Foods Market, an Amazon company, and then I also used to work at Abercrombie and Fitch. So I'm hyper aware of some of the ins and outs of channel strategy, kind of the more tech orchestration. So now on the Movable Ink side, I work with our retail clients to understand their goals, some of their hurdles, and understanding how Movable Ink can, unlock some of those goals. And, yeah, I'm really. excited to be here. So thank you all for having me. And, very excited to have Leslie as well, so I'll pass it over to you for an intro. Thanks, Kelsey. Hi. My name is Leslie Lorenz. Excuse me. I, am our head of retail, go to market strategy at Snowflake. I too come from a retail background. So I was, but in the technology side. So I was, a customer of Snowflake's for about five years, most, namely at Lululemon. I built their kinda data organization and pulled them onto Snowflake, and then went to a platform as a service start up into the same thing. So super fan of Snowflake. Obviously, I now have the, amazing opportunity to, do some of that work, but actually do it in a go to market, strategy perspective. I run, our entire retail book of business. So, you know, my my job is to really advise some of our retail organizations what to do with data, what to do with Snowflake, how to actually tackle some of these really key conversations that we're having in the market right now, especially around AI. And I too am really excited to be here and excited for this conversation. So thank you guys for having me. Of course. I forgot to mention both Lululemon and Abercrombie did major dents in my wallet this Black Friday Cyber. Monday, so a did just put. that together. It it's a problem. We've I don't even wanna talk about how much Lululemon I have in my closet. Yes. Love it. Awesome. Well, we'll kick off today talking about orchestration because it's super easy to say, coordinate your channels, but it's harder to actually do it. So the brands winning in 2026 won't just be present across channels. They'll make those channels work together. Your email knows what your SMS is doing. The customer never feels like they're talking to different versions of your brand. And, well, now we're gonna talk about exactly what that actually looks like. So, Kelsey, you set the intersection of creative and data. So when orchestration works well, what does it actually look like from a content perspective, and can you give us some examples? Yeah. Absolutely. So, Movable Ink for anyone who's not intimately familiar, like Sam said, we kind of sit at that intersection of digesting data and then putting that and creating real time personalization in your inbox. So we're kind of creating that content that's very personalized to you, that one to one, creative. So when we look at kind of the best in class retailers that I'm working with, the number one thing, you know, that everyone is doing very well is being very thoughtful and strategic about that data use, which I know Leslie will get into the way that you actually digest that data. But really taking that data and determining not just the content, which we, of course, you know, specialize in, but really that pacing, the suppression of who's receiving what. You know, taking those creative designs and messaging them to work as, like, chapters throughout a customer journey as opposed to just rinsing and repeating. And I know we're gonna talk a lot about that orchestration and the better together story of how all of our channels can work well, kind of as pairings as opposed to, replicating, but really pushing folks forward in their journey to close that loop, of course, in Convergent, which is the always you know, the end goal. And I I really like the idea of that customizing over clutter and taking that data to really validate some of this restraint that we have to, you know, hold ourselves to as opposed to just sending out as many messages as our merchandisers maybe would love us to, and, you know, hyperfocus those for I love that. And, the, speaking of data, what kind of data helps bring orchestration to life? Yeah. I mean, customer. I was gonna, kind of riff on what Kelsey said. You know, at at Snowflake, the conversation that we have kind of being at that center, of, you know, customer data but all but also the rest of the organizational data. Right? We really kinda sit as that kind of base level platform that organizations can use to bring all of that that data together, and make sure that we are, you know, all seeing one version of the truth. We have one customer record we can actually activate from. And, ultimately, like, I don't know, in marketing as well as just in retail. Right? Data sits all over the place. We have, you know, the customer data in one place. We have social in one place. We have, you know, our product catalog. And we have data on all over the all in kinda all over the place in data silos. And so it really starts with unifying that information in one place so it can be acted, like, acted upon in whatever way makes sense across that entire customer journey, every single touch point, making sure that you're, you know, delivering messages that are gonna land with products that you want, with pricing that you want, those types of things. So, you know, I I think as we get to begin to talk about orchestration, it really works best when you have that normalized single customer view, and, you know, that ultimately allows for teams, both marketing as well as otherwise, to really be acting on that in a consistent manner. I love that. Makes me excited too because I know, obviously, we have our, newer attentive Snowflake integration, so there's a really. big opportunity, I think, to harness all that data for for those really bespoke messaging opportunities. And then, Kelsey, on the flip side since, you know, obviously, you're also involved in the creative side of things, what's one thing you see brands get wrong when they're trying to coordinate content across SMS, email, and push? Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, Leslie hit on a few things. We don't need, you know, more data. We need to use the data appropriately, Yes. and, you know, highlight, excuse me, one to one messaging. So I I wanna, like, keep reiterating. If you think about especially now in 2025, coming into 2026, value driven messaging is highly optimal. But what does that mean to different customers? So we have brands like Huel, which is one of our clients who's really highlighting loyalty and really diving into loyalty status, encouraging purchases through loyalty. Whereas Wayfair, they know that their customer has a very highly, you know, value driven mindset, and they want to extend and and their customer is extending their consideration window. So they're browsing. They're browsing, which we saw, I know, across Cyber Monday, especially is some of that, you know, basket building. And then, you know, they really rely on, optimizing some badging. So anything from discount badging to low in stock badging to free shipping badging. So really understanding what that customer needs to push them over the edge. So I know I'm highlighting some wins and not not, you know, some misses, but I think, you know, the the the opportunities are really in that data use as well as the timing and guiding those customers into, you know, more of that awareness consideration within email, and then pushing them into that intent and conversion within, you know, SMS and push messages. We saw, 64% of folks on Cyber Monday were were actually converting through mobile. So we know that they're clicking and on their, you know, browser and on their laptop or, you know, their, iPad, and then they're actually going to their phone and getting that push messages that push message, that SMS, you know, maybe some of those highly convertible emails, and then that's where they're actually, you know you know, ending their their journey and converting. I can say that I did that, with, you know, Gap. I I know I'm leading, you know, leading the witness here. I know that I'm supposed to answer my purchases, but I created a giant basket and then waited until I got those deals from Banana Republic and Gap and had a a massive order. So, it works. Amazing. I'm one of those annoying shoppers that, like, I browse on mobile and I complete my checkout on desktop. So it's like my extra little, like, do I really want this? I have to make sure I really want this. I need to see it in Big on. that. Yeah. Well, Yeah. but this. is, like, getting into this. Right? Like, the the biggest challenge just to riff on that. Like, the biggest challenge is actually how do we coordinate across the channels to understand how people are buying. Right? I'm gonna buy very differently than, say, Sam, than, say, Kelsey, than, say you know, Yep. I always use my mom as an example because my mom will go and, like, actually look at coupons and then go to five 55 different stores to figure out what has the best sales, like, driving 45 miles to get 10¢ less on gas. I don't have time for that. But, also, I'm gonna shop very differently than, say, you know, my my 15 year old niece who's only looking at things and and maybe converting on, you know, whatever social she she she shops she shops at. Excuse me. So, like, I think, Mhmm. you know, the big key here and and I'll kind of anchor this back into the data conversation because, you know, the the you know, that's that's what I do for a living, I suppose. But, you know, for retailers specifically, retailers and brands, right, unifying that that that one that profile to understand, like, I am one version of myself. You you know, unifying that across, you know, maybe second and third party datasets, and without that, you're gonna lack some of that really good rich signal information and understanding, you know, how to kinda execute cross channel. And so, basically, what marketers have been doing is they end up with, like, visibility to segments, but not visibility to me versus Sam versus Kelsey versus versus Laura. And then you lose, you know, propensity. You lose being able to execute across the the customer journey. And, really, with each channel playing a different role, especially with across different demographics and especially with the introduction of AI. You know, how to drive not only conversion, but conversation and brand awareness is really what's key here. And so, you know, using that data to understand how to activate, where to activate, and how to then get predictive around, like, churn and access to action and and customer lifetime value. And, you know, really, we're talking about some of those journey metrics that we've been that we've been talking about forever. But now without tying all of that together across one single view, it's gonna be a mess. And if it's a mess, you're you're, you know, you're not succeeding as as a retail organization. And so I think, you know, it becomes the biggest challenge is the fragmented data and making sure that there's visibility so that you can begin to get productive. You can begin to execute in, like, kind of in a test and learn sort of way. Right? Understanding how I'm going to shop, you know, versus and especially with the introduction of research and AI, like, it's becoming way more complex as like, way faster than we can all catch up. So I wanna. double down on one thing there. I I will say we, folks that did it very well when you're thinking about that data is collecting new data, of course, throughout the year. I think there was a question or a comment in the chat, a a few minutes ago around, do you see folks using AI. only during peak or does this happen throughout the year? And, I mean, the number one thing that we start priming in, you know, q two, if not, you know, if we haven't already, is telling our clients start collecting first party data through our poll. Even if. that's hidden polling by category and who they're shopping for and who they plan to gift, or any of those, you know, those questions, it's never too early to start collecting that data. So, just kind of reiterating that this mindset in this time period that we just came out of, the mindset changes a little bit and the shopping behavior changes. I'm not only shopping for myself. I'm also thinking about other people for, you know, the first time in the year when it comes to my gifting and shopping. Absolutely. I think the impulse buy is what we can use AI for for ourselves. But if we collect data early on who people are shopping for and thinking about, that's where it really comes into play for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I think both of you really hinted at something important, which, you know, personalization and orchestration, whether it's a low inventory message, a cart abandoned message, all of that always performs well. And it's not necessarily a workflow challenge, but it's an identity challenge. It can only perform well if we know who you are. We know that you are browsing on your work laptop during lunch and then are able to send you that text or that email to remind you to make that purchase later. We saw this play out over BSCM. Brands that are able to connect SMS and email saw 18% higher conversion rates, and these are the brands who knew that their shoppers in their email list, in their SMS list, in their push list are all the same person, not disconnected profiles. And that's where we're able to really maximize performance is when we have that whole picture of the subscriber. The footwear brand, Aquatalia, is a great example here too. They drove 369% increase in revenue across SMS and email this Black Friday, Cyber Monday because they consolidated and were able to tie those profiles together. So we were able to, you know, send thoughtful emails and SMS knowing the full picture of their engagement across channels. Attentive's latest consumer poll survey also showed that December and January are pivotal for driving that second purchase, which is one of the biggest indicators of long term loyalty. You grew your list a ton over Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Maybe you're leveraging Attentive's tools like Spin2Win or AI Grow, but we really want to make sure that we're driving that second purchase and maintaining that lifetime value. A huge part of this is that zero party ID that connects phone, email, cookie data, app users, all of that together to be able to truly thoughtfully orchestrate across them. I know my customers that leverage the Snowflake integration. It makes it a lot easier to kind of have that central source of truth. They're using the same dynamic attributes across channels. Their audiences are aligned, and they're able to really, really orchestrate and make sure that they are looking at the full subscriber experience rather than each channel in a silo. We see about a 20% lift in recognized subscribers, which powers coordinated journeys across SMS, email, and push. And in 2026, that unified identity is what truly elevates that orchestration. Awesome. Alright. Let's get the audience involved. We're gonna pop in our first poll. So as a reminder, head over to that poll tab so you can cast your vote to question number one. So we wanna hear from you. What is your biggest orchestration challenge right now? So go ahead and vote. Tell us what's getting in your way today, and we'll give everyone a few seconds to weigh in. Oh, I was gonna say, is he gonna run away with it with measurement and attribution? Oh, it's like a split vote. I think our winner, Leslie, might have been what you spoke towards, which is your data, lives in. too many places. It's so true. It's so true. It's something I think of too. We, like, navigate conversations with other brands every day too just to make sure that, like, we're maximizing the ability to to hit customers where they wanna be reached, at the times they wanna be reached, and what they wanna be reached about. Well and, Awesome. I mean, honestly, like, I know we're about to move on, but, like, there's, you know, it's like Kelsey said. Like, we don't have a problem with having the data. We have a lot of it. It's more how do you structure it and actually make it consumable so that we can use it in an intelligent way. Right? So, data nerd over here. But I love it. That's why we brought you here. Data is the backbone. Yep. It's the foundation. for all of this messaging. I also think. there's a beauty in that, you know, we're no longer in taking me back to, you know, my beginning of Abercrombie days, we're no longer being tasked as marketers to take that data and create, you know, this monster of segmentation and and personalization on our own. That's the beauty of AI and the tools and the orchestration that we're talking about. You know, we're kind of doing the dirty work for you. There's no human power capability to orchestrate all of this, you know, just. as a marketer. So, it should feel less daunting, I guess, in modern day 2025 than it maybe used to. Totally. I saw a lot of marketers over the last few years try to, you know, make a journey that had 45 branches for every product category and personalized manually. And, you know, that can only get you so far. So I feel like we're at a point now where using data as the foundation to personalize at scale is, like, sort of the next frontier. Okay. We're gonna move into our visibility and deliverability section as we look ahead to 2026. So we know orchestration only works if you can identify subscribers and your messages actually reach customers, and that's getting harder to do. Platform changes like iOS 26 are reshaping how customers receive messages on mobile, inbox providers and email are continuing to evolve their algorithm for priority inbox placement, and deliverability is really becoming the new engagement frontier. So, Kelsey, on the creative side, does message visibility change how you think about content strategy? And specifically, when brands want to keep messages out of the spam folder, what content adjustments can they make? Yeah. I'll give a quick recap on what we're looking at for iOS 26, when you think about the content impact specifically. So, subject lines are impacted, so it's more critical that we have those AI summaries and digestive views. So when we think. about keeping things out of the spam folder, having those hyperpersulate, obviously, subject line first, making sure that they're relevant. They have you know, data can be within your subject line too. It doesn't only have to be content as we know. So making sure that, you know, data is coming into that subject line as well. Thinking about design, focusing on the above the fold is going to be even more important than it's ever been, and, you know, kind of that content that summarizes, what you might miss lower down in the scroll in that in that making sure that key info is up there. And then from a privacy standpoint, mail privacy protection is still affecting open rates. So we've had a lot of our clients asking about open rates and what they should expect, seeing some inflation there. How are we comping year over year? So kind of level setting on the expectations there. And then deliverability, ensuring proper email authentication. So, just keeping that in mind. So to give more of now that I gave a little bit of a TLDR on, expectations and impact, we really wanna make sure that the hero is top of mind as I just talked about. I'll dive in a little bit to that design aspect when I talked about above the fold. So we need to pay attention to the body and give consumers a reason to click or see more. So thinking about that hero, thinking about the CTA, the top of the email is gonna be hyper important. So I know in my experience working with clients and in my, you know, past life, you know, managing priorities of messaging, the the clients that are doing it really well for us, I'll name one being Bath and Body Works, which is one of my clients. They do a really great job of using what we call waterfall data. So compiling all of that data that we know exists in, you know, any given pocket of their, you know, ether ether, but, taking that and prioritizing it based on that customer. So that could be anything from, it's a top banner that lives at the top of their email, first thing you see, and that could be anything from their loyalty data. That could be their abandoned cart data, which would take precedent over that loyalty data at any given time because, of course, we wanna push them to conversion. But making sure that that logic is, included in any of their targeting and making sure that that message is hyper focused on where they're sitting in their journey. And, of course, end goal being closest to conversion. So kind of prioritizing that data in unique ways. Totally. Kelsey, if I were to if I were to maybe add a little bit of, Yeah. Please. data data color to this as well. Right? One of the things that I I pick on, and it is a, it's easy for me to do so. But when I go speak to brands and retailers, one of the first things I do is I'll go click around the website and I'll figure out, like, do they have a problem with out of stock? If if somebody is, like, sending me an email and, you know, they're like, it's back in stock and I click on it and then it's out of stock, that is such a bad customer experience. I'm never gonna wanna shop there, or I'm gonna be like, whatever. I'm just gonna wait or it's not gonna drive me towards conversion. Right? So the the thing that oftentimes I know we're we're talking to marketers and we're talking about marketing, but the thing that's oftentimes, it's not just the creative. It's also making sure that, like, the merch plan and the inventory and what you're actually trying to drive from a product perspective in that messaging is aligned. Because if if those two are out of sync, and this is just like one I wanna cover off on something else, but if those two are out of sync, that becomes a massive challenge in terms of just ensuring good customer experience, loyalty, conversion, all of those things. And so this goes back to that, like, all of your data in one place, and it's not just your customer data. It's your marketing. It's your catalog. It's your supply. It's your inventory. That's a really key, set of partnerships that need to happen. Whether that happens with the marketing team or in the technology team, there needs to be alignment there. And I think the other thing to that is, is timing. Right? So if you are not you know, what we talk a little bit about the the integration with Snowflake. Part of that integration is allowing for really timely information to pass from point a to point b and back to point a. Right? So let's say we're having a Black Friday sale. By the way, I saw this a lot. I see this a lot. We're having a sale. Something is out of stock. If that's not automatically updated or if we're sending them a retarget on a on an item that then is out of stock again, bad customer experience. And so understanding how to get access to that data in a timely way, so that you can actually refresh or retarget two things that are are going to drive some amount of purchase or conversion, etcetera, etcetera. Those are really key things to remember as we as we begin to talk about, you know, visibility and actually, like, it's not just deliverability. It's, it's resonance. Right? So it it's it's not just, like, what's in the message, but also, like, are we actually tying that to things that are gonna drive a certain amount of engagement, conversion, conversation, whatever it is the intention is meant to drive? I love that piece. And I think kind of tying the two together, thinking about the Bath and Body Works example, I know that I shop Bath and Body Works only for eucalyptus mint. Like, that is the only thing. I buy candles. I buy body wash. I buy lotion. So my, you know, dynamic movable link hero image in my email would be eucalyptus mint. And if I click through that and it's not in stock, then I'm I'm not happy. So it's really, like, making sure that data is tying back. You can personalize, but, like, are you thinking about the full sort of picture of getting that product to that customer and making. sure things updated in real time. Leslie, one other point here, we hear diversify your channels a lot. But in terms of execution, what does that actually mean? I you know, you you kinda gave me this question, and I've been ruminating on it because I don't really know how to answer it other than I think it's not just a forced diversification of channels. Right? So there is okay. We have tons of channel expansion. Mart you know, I I I call it marketructure. Like, market texture can't keep up. It's a very gray space. It grows really fast. Who knows actually, like, what the right tools are for the right thing becomes a really big challenge. And so I think there needs to be, I think it's more a focus on the right channels. That doesn't mean you don't, it doesn't mean that you don't test. Right? For different demographics, you go through kind of a a test and learn type moment about, like, hey. For this product, is a mailer still relevant? Which by the way, some people still sell mailers. You know, is, you know, is, is it only gonna convert? Is it is it more of a social media type of moment? Is it more of an email type moment? Is it more of a SMS? Like, there's different I think depending on your demographic, depending on where somebody is at in the customer journey, what their past purchase purchases have have been, understanding again, having that connected moment where you're gonna understand that I'm I'm probably not buying off of social media, but I know other people that do. I'm probably gonna go to my computer. That doesn't mean I don't do research. Right? Like, Sam, I don't do research on social media or I don't see something and click. And so being able to understand the right channels that are going to convert for the right people is really what's important. It's not just let's make more. Let's, like, try to keep up for with the diversification. It's right sizing, channel moments where it's appropriate, if that makes sense. I love that. I also think you should trademark market texture that is. like? I'm wanna get I wanna get a T shirt that says It's a thing. It's a thing. but, yeah, add adding on to that too, I know in, like, Laura and my world, for example, we work very heavily in the SMS space. So, like, iOS 26, for example. When this rolled out, I remember having major heart palpitations, especially once we realized that, like, 55% of shoppers have that filtering turned on to where messages might go to unknown sender except when, you know, it's clearly a known sender that they they wanna hear from. Because when messages get into that filter inbox, there's, like, a 30 to 40% drop in engagement. Thankfully, I once we found out that we had a couple solutions in place for this, it, like, definitely assuaged a lot of my fears, which was great. So, you know, we've always, as a company, invested in sending messages that customers want to receive, which is why a lot of these, you know, platforms are making changes to control for at the end of the day. Like on SMS specifically, we have obviously the two tap side of things to where someone signing up via mobile, they get deep linked into that pre filled text message. And at that point, that signals to Apple, this is a sender I want to hear from. So that message will always stay in the main inbox with full notifications. And looking at at, like, the client impact, the the two tap drives over 25% more sign ups compared to competitors. And with iOS 26 adoption rising, starting that relationship as a known sender becomes more and more important each passing day. And then on the email front, we track engagement at the sub mailbox level to help customer segment based on a lot of those engagement metrics that matter for getting priority inbox placement with every provider. So, you know, I think from our purview, 2026 is about meeting customers where they are and when brands plan for these evolving behaviors and build visibility into that core approach, Alright. it opens that door to more consistent and meaningful engagement that lets you to really maximize that data you have. Laura, I'm kicking it over to you for, I think, our second poll, which is exciting. Fabulous. Okay. Hop on over to your poll tab, and we're going to continue with the theme of visibility. So what is your top priority for protecting message visibility in 2026? Take a look at the options here. Pop into that poll tab. Cast your votes. Okay. We see them coming in already. Keep them coming. If any. of my brands not on this call, they better be hitting that iOS iOS twenty six one. yes. Send those contact cards. Yes. Leverage the cap where you can. Okay. We're not seeing a lot of confidence, but we'll make sure that we're equipping you guys with some resources in the chat to to learn about iOS 26 and about potential ways that you can mitigate impact there. Awesome. Alright. For our next topic, we're gonna be talking about how to think about AI next year. So it's a topic on everybody's mind. Everybody's talking about it, but few are actually quantifying the impact of AI. So we really wanna hear about how brands should be thinking about AI next year and spotlight any standout examples. So, Kelsey, you're in creative optimization, an area where AI should shine. And what's so we wanna know what's an AI use case you've seen actually deliver measurable results for brands. Yeah. You know, when we think about AI optimization, there are five things that we really look at when we're working with our our clients, that's improving. And some of these might seem obvious, but, we just wanna reiterate that all five are just as important as, you know, any other one. But improving customer experience, driving that customer retention, reducing the promotional dependency, awakening disengaged customers while also deepening, the engagement with our our engaged audiences, and then also improving traffic and, of course, sales. So with the ultimate goal of conversion revenue per send being in mind, some best practices that we talk to our clients about are merchandising and that migration from that merchandising calendar that I'm sure we all know in migrating to this idea of not just using the machine in the model, but thinking about how the marketer can, you know, balance with with the machine. You know, AI cannot entirely replace the years of experience that we all hold in the intimate understanding of our customer and our branding. So, you know, a great example, I work with one eight hundred Flowers, and they do a great job of understanding when they know they are going to be sending the best product, the best deal, the best peak, you know, content that they possibly can. And we don't need to rely on the model entirely at that time because we know that our marketer knows the customer best, and that's what they're seeking. So they know when to kind of hold out and and just put their best foot forward versus telling some of those branding stories, elongating that customer experience, deepening some of those, you know, more memorable experiences like birthdays or, you know, anniversary celebrations and kind of being top of mind for when those things, you know, spike. And then also just trusting the model. So it's not always easy as we know as marketers knowing what all of the data holds and understanding the depth of data and not wanting to control every ounce of every message, and kind of allowing, you know, both from a creative our creative partners that we work with or our merchandising partners, our analytics partners, kind of allowing all of those partnerships internally to feed together and and, you know, feed the model with the right amount of data, content, etcetera, but not necessarily trying to manipulate it too much. And then just, you know, sending consistently and allowing that that AI to, kind of develop and and, you know, learn. So that's what, you know, one eight hundred flowers being a great example just because I I work with them so closely. But, you know, a lot of our clients are just seeing success and some of that discomfort from the get go of what I AI can can mean to them and change their business, but then ultimately seeing double digit lifts when they're looking at their conversion rates and looking at, you know, revenue percent. That's awesome. I love that. And it's a good segue too because I think you touched on some things around, you know, you feed AI all of this data. It really kind of helps to enhance the experience. But there obviously still is a human element where AI enhances that, but it doesn't actually replace, you know, certain experiences that a person might have. So, Leslie, with that in mind, how do you separate AI hype from what is actually possible? You know, I would have had a very different answer probably nine months ago. I think a lot of what was happening nine months ago was a little bit of hype with fear. But I will say this, we like, I am seeing a I am seeing businesses, experience significant value, as they kind of shift into the the AI space, getting more focused on Adjunct AI use cases across, you know, various different departments, not just in marketing. Having said that having said that, you know, I get a lot of organizations come to me and say, we need to do AI. It's it's on our it's on our bucket list when you do AI. And, oftentimes, it actually results back into, is your data ready for it? And so, you know, your your model will only be as good as your data is. And so data readiness becomes a massive part of the conversation, always, a 100% of the time. For all intents and purposes, if you're a you know, if your data isn't clean, if your data is not defined, if your data is not clear, your your model won't perform. It's it just that's just a reality. And so I think there is a certain amount of this that does become a is your data ready conversation before it becomes a is your AI going to be awesome conversation. Having said that, my as somebody who comes from from, you know, the business. side, as somebody who comes from having a very strategic mindset, don't chase AI for AI's sake. Right? Don't just chase AI because AI is AI and you need to do it. I think, what the metric that I the last metric I saw, which was a couple months ago, is that, like, there's more than 80% of AI projects that fail right now. They fail to reach production. They fail to see the light of day. And my opinion, my not so humble opinion is, you know, part of that is because we haven't defined the business problem. We haven't defined what success criteria looks like, and we're not looking at ROI. And in absence of those things, we're just, again, doing AI for AI's sake. And, again, like, I come from an AI company right now, so, like, this is maybe a hot take. But, I think, you know, we really need to think about, and begin to have conversations around, you know, what is actually being enabled and the ROI that's actually coming from that, in a material way so we can then feed that back into the the the engine. Right? I think, you know, I'm seeing a lot of really cool stuff happen beyond just, hey. We're doing internal training or, hey. We have, you know, some sort of workforce enablement. You know, we I I see some really cool work being done. I I'm thinking about, a beauty brand who's really who's actually launched, you know, an AI feature set or an AI model on Snowflake Intelligence, driving, color personalization, online color personalization, which is actually a really key you know, it's a really neat application. But a lot of you know, from an enterprise AI perspective, this is really where we focus at Snowflake. Right? You know, having a very secure and private moment where, you know, in terms of what, you know, your data is gonna tell you, the data does not hallucinate. We're actually making sure that, like, the data is you know, we're getting rid of some of that fear, Kelsey, that you were talking about. I think really where I'm seeing the most power, kinda gives Kelsey a nod to what you were saying, which is it's it's more of a next best action moment. Like, I'm gonna ask the the model a question that says, based on these sales, what campaigns should I launch? And the model will tell you. And then, you know, kind of taking a step, you know, and it'll say, hey. These are the campaigns. Here's the potential, you know, open rates or here's the success, you know, success criteria side. And I think the other part of that is to make sure that you're not then losing your gut in terms of the check. Right? Okay. It's gonna tell you what the next best action is. But if your gut is then saying, wait a minute. That doesn't feel right. Maybe you should listen to it. Right? So there's the human in the loop where you're actually, making sure that, like, you're building trust with your model and, and it you know, if if all things are created equal, making sure that if you're you know, you you you create your question, you get your answer, you check your gut, you do the thing. Was it actually successful based on what it said? Right? So that's the part that is going to ultimately drive back to success criteria. So I just, I'll stop waxing poetic. I could probably talk about this for hours. Okay. I, you know, I do think that there's there's a lot of really cool work being done. I think the the miss is oftentimes taking a like, a very strategic approach to how we're actually building, and what we're doing so that we're not just, you know, again, doing AI for doing AI's sake. Totally. I love one of the points you made, Leslie, of, like, having a defined goal for how you are using AI. Like, there needs to be a problem that we are solving in order to use it efficiently. So, you know, are we trying to save marketers time versus are we trying to increase our brand's conversion rates are two. very different things, but two applications of AI. So, you know, maybe a brand's using things like sun time optimization, audience optimization. All of that helps the marketer and is maybe taking time off their belt. But then there's the other side of it, which is business performance and making sure that we're using it in a way to actually increase conversion, and that's sort of where, like, Attentive's generative AI comes in of sending a unique message to every shopper based on what they're looking for. And I think the goals and the success metrics, that's where it comes into a lot of brands hesitation is, is the message AI rights going to be on brand? And my question to that often is, is your goal here to be on brand, or is it to get that shopper to convert? And I saw it in the chat. AI loves to tell you what you want to hear, but the whole point of our generative AI is to optimize to get you to buy. So, you know, it's kind of an interesting conversation of, like, you know, ideally, we're marrying everything together. We're making things easier for the marketer, we're staying on brand, and we're optimizing for the subscriber, but we do still need to have a goal sort of that we're measuring against rather than just, hey. We should be using more AI at work now. And I think as willing also be willing to fail. Like, right. guys, we're we don't know what we're doing. I mean, we kinda do. But, like, in the greater skin of things, right, some of this is actually just uncharted territory that we need to figure out, and the only way we're gonna do that is to test Totally. and learn. And so there does have to be a willingness to not do it right and be okay with it. And then, you know, Absolutely. hot tip. No. I think that's the right take, especially going into 2026 because, you know, maybe we don't wanna test the waters over during q four, during our highest sale season. But now that we're getting a little bit of a shopping slump in early January, that's the time to start testing, figuring things out while the stakes aren't, you know, at their peak. So definitely something to start thinking about. And as you mentioned, 80% of AI, you know, tests end up failing or never the products never see the light of day. So I think as we look to next year, the opportunity is really about using AI to deliver more personal and personalized marketing experiences, and we now have these new innovations that will reimagine what this looks like. So you might test something in January that ultimately you don't use, but then a new product's available in February. And, you know, being able to kind of quickly pivot and see what works for your brand, I think, will be especially important going into 2026. Yeah. I love that. Good segue to our next poll. It's the audience's turn. We wanna hear from you guys. So we'll bring up poll three number poll number three now. What is your biggest challenge keeping up with AI? Go ahead and vote. Be honest. There's no wrong answer. We love hearing where you're feeling confident, where the friction is. Oh, I'm think I think we got a consensus on this one for sure. I did not actually read the full questions before before we had this notation. Well, I, know. wait. I was like everyone's everyone's hearing your answer. You're giving the the cheat, sheet, Leslie. however. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. And then I think we have one more. Laura, do you wanna take us through that one? Yes. Our final poll of the day, and make sure that you guys are participating in this one because this is your last chance to enter to win a giveaway prize. So make sure you're heading on over to that polls tab. I know we've covered a ton today, orchestration, visibility, AI. So let's bring it all home. Go ahead and cast your vote. What's the one thing you're prioritizing in q one to set up 2026 success? Man, I feel like this is, like, all the above. Yeah. I like seeing integrated data and tools at the top, though. Just our conversation today, I know our chief product officer, Nockel, always says you have to build the data foundation, and that's a lot of what we talked through today. Awesome. That one was kinda split. It's hard to say. Okay. We are going to move into our final questions. So while those final votes are coming in, feel free to throw anything in the chat that we didn't have as an option as well. I'd love to close and get one final takeaway from each of you, Kelsey and Leslie. So what's the one thing you want people to remember as they head on into their q one planning. And, Leslie, I'll have you start us off. I I mean, I think I've already said it, but I'm gonna marry a couple things I said today, which is, like, data readiness and data definition and having one source of the truth is really key to building the ability to kind of run. Right? So crawl before you run type of moment. We had a conversation earlier today about or somebody had mentioned something about, like, when do you actually start capturing customer data? You start yesterday, the day before. You start ten years ago. There's no place to start. It's not like you do this just for Black Friday. Like, you should be doing this now because, ultimately, the behavior that happens in the next month will be what you actually base, you know, some of your some of your kind of data strategies on towards the end of next year, towards the end of the fall for you know? So, like, if you're not there, get there. If you're there and you wanna enhance, like, cool. Now is the time to actually think about AI and think about, you know, how to actually start testing and learning some of those things. But I say this, like, lovingly. Like, it really is a garbage in garbage out moment. So if you're putting garbage into your model, you're gonna get garbage out, and you're not gonna be able to trust your model, and then that's a whole trust problem. So, like, get your data right, get it into a model that can actually be understood, understand, like, what you mean when you say the word sales, what you mean when you say the word, you know, fill in the blank, and then begin to build programs off of it. So that's my takeaway from a data perspective. I love that. Especially garbage in, garbage out. I think, you know, it sounds harsh, but it's exactly what we're working with. So. I like that answer. And then, Kelsey, what's one thing you want people to remember as they head into their q one planning? Yeah. I'll be super quick, but, I mean, a lot of what Leslie said, I would love to reiterate. I, earlier this year, joined a webinar with, Scott Galloway, if anyone's familiar, but he had. some great AI points on exactly what Leslie said as this race to, like, throw your hat in on the AI, you know, race internally. And, you know, c suite is telling you we need to launch AI, whatever that looks like, and not doing the really unsexy work of making sure that your data is ready, that there is correct orchestration across your marketing stack, ensuring that, you know, everything is talking in the way that you want it to talk and getting that buy in from leadership of, hey. This is the goal of this launch or, like, this product or this, you know, orchestration and and making sure that everyone is aligned on that and not having constantly moving goals. Because once you launch and you're feeding in the data, it's only as as good as, you know, the way that you're optimizing towards that one, you know, pie in the sky goal. So, reiterating a lot of what Leslie said, but, yeah, excited for 2026. That's amazing. I will be, plagiarized about those answers when I'm doing client planning calls early next year, so thank you. I would say, you know, all of this was such these are all such fabulous takeaways, so huge, huge thank you to you both for being here today. I would say if some if the the threat that's clear that's running through everything that we all talked through today is that 2026 will be defined by operating with intent. So using clean date clean, unified data to understand customers, letting each channel play the role it's best at, and then using AI to guide smarter decisions and those more personalized experiences. And I think, Kelsey, you even touched on this earlier. I I like this point a lot. It's it's we're gonna be moving into a less manual approach and more of, like, one where you can kind of play an experiment. And, you know, again, I think, Leslie, you might have said this is don't be afraid to maybe fail on some of those. But all in all, it's an exciting time for marketers, and we can't see can't wait to see how everyone is going to bring these learnings into 2026. So with that, Leslie, Kelsey, thank you guys both again so much for joining us. Thank, you. we get to do this again sometime. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for having us. Thanks, team. Awesome. Now wrapping things up because I know we are right at time. A big thank you to all of you in the audience for being here and making this such an engaged session. Keep an eye out on your inbox for the recording, resources, and, of course, the giveaway winner announcements. Quick heads up before we wrap. Our January webinar is officially open for registration. We'll dive into the latest product innovations, explore real world case studies, and share how you can get early beta access. So scan that QR code and come see us in January. If you're planning for a big 2026, clearly you are. You don't wanna miss it. And before you head out, we'd also love your feedback. You'll see a short survey on the right. Let us know how we did. Thank you again for joining us, and we can't wait to see you all in January. Awesome. Thanks, everyone. See you guys next