We’re all being told to “embrace AI or be left behind,” but what if the biggest risk isn’t ignoring AI, but implementing it poorly and alienating the very customers we’re trying to attract?
Agility requires not just the speed to adopt new technologies like AI, but the wisdom to discern where they create genuine value versus where they simply add complexity. It’s about constantly testing, learning, and refining your approach to serve the customer, not just the algorithm.
Today, we are here at eTail Palm Springs hearing about all the latest in e-commerce and retail, and we’re going to talk about moving past the hype cycle of AI and getting down to the practical realities of how it’s actually changing consumer behavior, and what that means for marketing leaders trying to make smart investments. We’ll get into the nuance of what to automate versus what to keep human, and how to use these powerful tools to build customer relationships, not just transactional efficiency.
To help me discuss this, I’d like to welcome Keri McGhee, CMO at Attentive.
About Keri McGhee
Keri McGhee is the Chief Marketing Officer at Attentive, the AI-powered SMS and email marketing platform helping leading brands deliver 1:1 personalized, real-time messaging experiences at scale.
As CMO, Keri leads strategic global marketing to elevate the Attentive brand and drive growth across every stage of the customer journey. She oversees product marketing, revenue marketing, brand and content strategy, events, and partner marketing, ensuring Attentive’s story connects deeply with marketers around the world. With a focus on creativity, innovation, and measurable
impact, Keri champions marketing that blends data-driven insights with storytelling to inspire and empower brands to build more personal, lasting customer relationships.
Keri McGhee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keri-mcghee/
Resources
Attentive: https://www.attentive.com
Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code AGILE at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: https://aglbrnd.co/r/c43e68ce5cfb321e
The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703
Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74
Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3
Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom
Don’t miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba
Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com
The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
Transcript
[00:00:49] Greg Kihlstrom: We’re all being told to embrace AI or be left behind, but what if the biggest risk isn’t ignoring AI but implementing it poorly and alienating the very customers we’re trying to attract? Agility requires not just the speed to adopt new technologies like AI, but the wisdom to discern where they create genuine value versus where they simply add complexity. It’s about constantly testing, learning, and refining your approach to serve the customer, not just the algorithm. Today we’re here at Etel Palm Springs, hearing about all the latest in e-commerce and retail, and we’re going to talk about moving past the hype cycle of AI, and getting down to the practical realities of how it’s actually changing consumer behavior and what that means for marketing leaders trying to make smart investments. We’re going to get into the nuance of what to automate versus what to keep human, and how to use these powerful tools to build customer relationships, not just transactional efficiency. Tell me to discuss this topic. I’d like to welcome Kerry McGee, CMO at Attentive. Kerry, welcome to the show.
[00:01:46] Kerry McGee: Thank you for having me. We’re excited to be here. Excited for the conference.
[00:01:49] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, absolutely. I know we’re early days in the conference still, but yeah, really, really looking forward to always like being here. Uh, before we dive in though, why don’t you give a little background on yourself and your role at Attentive?
[00:01:59] Kerry McGee: Sure. I lead the marketing org, which includes all of the functions that I think people expect across PMM to our growth and our revenue, which has a huge customer marketing focus. now in this world it’s more important than ever. our creative teams, our brand team, and our events and our partner marketing team, and our ops team. So, typical function that you would see set up at a B2B SaaS. I’ve been in marketing for more years than I think I’m willing to admit. Definitely fell into it. It wasn’t like this like passion project straight out of school, but it’s an area that I’ve just always been obsessed with, like if you know the customer and you can figure out what makes them tick and what they care about, then you have a pretty good shot of, of changing perception and getting them to believe in your product. So that’s kind of how I got into marketing.
[00:02:40] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, love it. Well, yeah, let’s, uh, let’s dive in here and want to start with the, from the strategic lens here and, you know, marketing leaders are, they’re always evaluating the customer journey, but, you know, what’s the strategic framework they should use to decide where to use AI? You know, technically can be used anywhere, but, you know, where should you even start, you know, where should you use AI versus which areas need some human in the loop still?
[00:03:08] Kerry McGee: Yeah, I think for us right now, we’re definitely hearing from tons of customers, tons of marketers that they don’t know where to go, especially with the introduction of agents or agentic AI, like it just keeps getting more complex and it feels riskier, right? so I think the place that I guide marketers to start is data matters more than it ever has. We used to be able to get by like packing together spreadsheets and things, but when you want to automate, you’ve got to have really good data. You have to know where it’s coming from, if it’s layered on, one of your, your cloud data platforms or if you have it in-house, or it’s in one of your, your, like your email, platform. You just need to have good data and you have to have a source of truth because that’s what AI actions and decisions on. So, unified data, I think is really, really important. and I think the other thing that people are really starting to think about is AI at this point is so much more than just an efficiency game, right? You have to really be focused on it can be a complete game changer to your programs as a marketer, if you’re using it to actually think about it as like a long-term revenue growth engine, not just how do I do more of what I do more efficiently? Like that’s, that’s not where people I think are winning. And then having the
[00:04:16] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah. So, from your vantage point, a lot of AI use cases are presented as revolutionary. They most of them are, I’ve, you know, if we walk an exhibit hall, there’s going to be a, I would be, I’d be curious how many booths do not have AI on them here, right?
[00:04:33] Kerry McGee: You count. We should go after this and just be like how many? Cause I’m going to guess 95% have it somewhere.
[00:04:39] Greg Kihlstrom: Right, exactly. So like with, with all of that, you know, now we’re also seeing consumers adopting. I mean, I was, I was very surprised at just how much consumers adopted it this last holiday season. You know, what’s an area that you see brands, despite all this talk, maybe over investing in that’s more hype than actual impact on customers?
[00:05:01] Kerry McGee: Yeah, I think to your point, I don’t know if you just saw the research, but Forrester just came out with some research that said one in five consumers are willing to let AI do the shopping and buying for them, which shocked me. I thought people, I want to do the browsing, but that’s about as far as I want AI to go when people are ready. I think for brands, where you have to focus is what we just talked about, which is it’s, it has to be more than efficiency, it has to be more than you bossing around a chatbot, right? It has to be a a chat GPT or an agent that you’ve built. It has to be able to do something that you can’t do. And so I think about it from a like marketers and brands need to think about themselves more as I would say like an architect versus an operator. And then find areas like personalization is really hard. we’ve been talking about it for years. You can’t do it if you don’t have the data and if you don’t like AI and automation can do it for you 24/7. That’s a great area to lean into is how do you deliver the customer experience, the brand experience through automation that you weren’t able to do before? So thinking about it in a bigger way than just that efficiency piece. [00:06:00] Greg Kihlstrom: And of course, we’ve been talking about personalization for years and years, I mean, even before, you know, AI, you know, Hi, Greg. Right, exactly. Yeah, like, you know, starting with, I mean what I call like substitution. It’s like, Hi, First Name, to your point, to, but, you know, Gen AI and, and, you know, kind of big data built the foundation and then Gen AI, I truly believe is going to unlock it in a, in a meaningful way, but,
[00:06:28] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. And yet, you know, it can sometimes feel intrusive to, to some. Can you maybe give an example of how’s a brand using, you know, creating highly personalized experiences that feel not only genuine but strengthen the relationship, not just again, hey, we know this stuff about you, so we’re going to insert it here, here and here.
[00:06:48] Kerry McGee: Yeah, for sure. We have a lot of brands that are using AI in a really meaningful way from that consumer experience, right? Like from what a brand can show up in the brand voice that they love and treat them like they know them. We know consumers, they’ll give you all your data if you just treat them like you know them. And so a brand that I love that I think this past holiday season kind of blew it out of the water last holiday season because they wound up on Oprah’s Favorite Things, but this holiday season, just like with a great product line and really tailored, customized, personalized marketing is Cozy Earth. they’re a luxury like home and apparel brand, and they keep expanding. But I, I subscribed to them as well. They treat me, they they have all my browsing history. They have all my data. They treat me, they like as a unique ID. They treat me as an individual. And it doesn’t feel creepy. They will find me on the channel that I’m on most. So, I’ll occasionally get an email that promotes like a new color band of a blanket that I love. But then they target me very specifically in a very like not not trying hard, not too casual. like it’s perfect for their brand voice. And it 100% works, right? Like they get me the product that I’ve been searching for, thinking about. They let me know it’s in stock, that it’s available, that that here’s how I could pay for it, here’s how I could get it. They like make it really easy. And so if you take away the friction and you treat me like you know me, but not in like you’re trying to be my weird best friend way, I think people are ready for that and they like it. And and their revenue, like with, you know, products like attentive AI journeys, like crazy insane numbers, like hundreds of percentage points change. Like more than I even want to say it’s way over a couple hundred. and that shows that people want that experience as long as you deliver it. They’re willing to buy and keep coming back to your brand. So I, I think it matters more than ever.
[00:08:26] Greg Kihlstrom: Well, and I think reducing that friction, you know, sometimes it’s not always the splashiest thing. It’s, oh wow, you know, I actually need this thing, or while I never would have known to look for this, but it’s amazing. Like reducing that friction is can be amazing in, in and of itself.
[00:08:45] Kerry McGee: Or maybe it’s never available in your size that you want, and it’s suddenly back in stock. But if you don’t get that personalization that they know that’s what you want in that size, in that color, whatever it might be, that item, then you miss it again. And so I, that’s what I love about what how our brands are using it is just like continuing to personalize the experience in a way that feels authentic to how I shop on the platform, whether it’s email or SMS or push. Like they find me on the channel that I’m on that I’m at.
[00:09:14] Greg Kihlstrom: And so as someone who, you know, I, I do plenty of consulting with, with some large brands that they’re wanting to do this, they’re doing it, and yet technology and data are definitely key parts of this, but there’s also the people and the process part. Like you’ve got to change some things internally to really enable this. And, you know, I also believe customers should never have to learn your org chart to navigate your, your website or or whatever. What do you see marketing leaders doing to kind of change, you know, they call it breaking down silos and, you know, all the all those clichés, but they’re real too. So, what, what do you see marketing leaders do to better enable this kind of personalization?
[00:09:55] Kerry McGee: I think the number one thing is they have to expand. Marketing can’t own all of it, right? When you talk about like the data dependency and the privacy and all the stuff that goes on the back end, they are more reliant than ever, I think on their IT teams. If you have to build an integration on top of a snowflake to link it to an attentive or whoever you’re using, they have to understand how to tell the right story about the end value to the company. So they’re spending way more time collaborating within those silos or and breaking those down. I think the other is they have to look across the marketing org, right? Like we know performance marketing, like it’s more expensive than ever to acquire a customer. And so they have to work together to figure out what’s the most efficient way to like grow their list and convert customers. And so they’re having to work more cross-functionally within marketing. And I, and I think the last thing is they as marketers have to reinvent how they work because I think marketers, me, me included, like we want to have really tight reins. We want to be the driver behind everything that goes out to a customer that experiences our brand. And they’ve got to test their way into building that trust that the automation can do that for them. And so that’s the other just like kind of individual team silo, I think that you have to like break down within yourself.
[01:03:02] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. And then from, from measuring success, certainly, you know, the the old KPIs are not going away. I mean, things only get added, right? They don’t get removed for better or worse. You know, beyond things like open rates, click-through rates, what are marketing leaders using to measure success of AI?
[01:04:14] Kerry McGee: Yeah, I mean, I think the big one is list growth, right? Cause that is a something that you can automate on if you can deliver the right experience to somebody to get them one to discover your brand, right? How do you make sure you’re targeting people that are truly out there wanting to discover your brand? So discovery, getting your list growth up because retention is still a thing, but I feel like so many brands are continuing to chase that first-time customer purchase interaction. And so list growth and acquisition I think are where AI is coming into play cause you can get highly targeted to a consumer, right? Like I, I get it all the time as well and as long as you provide that really good experience. So definitely the acquisition side. The other KPIs I think is looking at your attribute revenue to AI in a way, like what revenue lift did you get through your automated journeys and campaigns versus the ones that you individually or manually orchestrated, expanding segmentation. Like there’s a bunch of areas that I think AI is starting to drive, but really it’s that revenue lift, it’s the overall like conversion costs, so the the ROI overall number versus like a bunch of marketing like vanity metrics. I think is the thing that you’re going to start seeing is like that big ultimate revenue number.
[01:06:58] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. What about some of the other unlocks? Maybe not even a a metric or a KPI, but AI is able to pull insights about customers that, you know, to for a human to do it, you need to know the right question to ask sometimes. What’s the opportunity here? You know, how should leaders encourage their teams to look for your kind of this unexpected learning, you know, that’s almost a paradox, but, you know what I mean?
[01:07:44] Kerry McGee: Yeah, I, I think it’s learning, but I also think it’s trust and testing, right? Cause I think so many people they don’t trust it. Like they’re worried we know the risk of getting it wrong is so high, right? You lose that customer and it’s so hard to get them back. So leaning into really rigorous testing and understanding what you’re testing for, because that I think will lead you to the questions that you want to ask. so once you start to trust like, is the data in the right place? Is this segmentation right? Like can it create a journey literally working on my behalf and decisioning on my behalf 24/7, start small, test it against the tried and true processes, build confidence and then continue to scale. I think that’s the number one thing that people are just like going all in. And the systems and the data and AI doesn’t always know better and you have to really triage it for your brand Yeah. to get it right. And so step into it slowly and then scale really fast once you feel like you have it right.
[01:09:44] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Well and and I mean that that’s the part where, you know, human in the loop is the, you know.
[01:09:50] Kerry McGee: So important. Yeah. I mean, otherwise you get we, we probably both get these, but a text or an email where literally you get the wrong product or they give you a product that’s out of stock. You’re like, hey, we have this product. And it’s a pair of like men’s pants tall and I’m looking for like a women’s regular. Like they just it doesn’t somewhere the data is broken and that’s where you have to test because now I’m going to assume they get the rest of it wrong and I’m not going to re-engage with that brand.
[01:10:14] Greg Kihlstrom: So, you know, lots of talk about what’s coming down the down the road here at Etel as well. But, you know, as AI takes over some of the, you know, the tactical things, even some of the analytical workloads. How do you see the role of the senior marketing leader evolving over the next few years?
[01:10:33] Kerry McGee: I think it’s definitely going to move from being in the day-to-day operating of your team to more of that architect, right? Like leveling out. And I think they’re going to have to remain really, really flexible and agile because in the world of very highly specialized marketing teams where you’re just going after like performance-based and then you have your retention teams. I think we’re going to see those teams come together a little bit more because you’re going to have to figure out what you’re trying what behavior you’re driving from the consumer and what’s working. And day-to-day or season-to-season, month-to-month with how much things are changing, you’re going to have to be able to have leverage to move stuff around. And right now it’s just still so siloed. So I think more of the architect, less of the in-doing and spending their time on like more of the human strategic things than the daily output stuff that they’re they’re doing now.
[01:12:21] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that sounds kind of exciting too, right?
[01:12:25] Kerry McGee: I’m excited. I’m even in my role, right? Like I’m excited about all the things I could never do that I can now on my own because at this lovely you become a little bit of a generalist. You’re not in it every day on one specific function. And so it allows you to kind of up and down and be agile, like wherever the team or the trends or where AI is changing so much. You can focus on those things. So I think it’s across marketing.
[01:13:49] Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, love it. Well, Kerry, thanks so much for joining. Couple last questions, as we wrap up here, you know, I know we’re, you know, technically day oneish of Etel, but what are you looking forward to most here?
[01:13:59] Kerry McGee: for me, it’s always the networking. It’s the people that either at our customers, or just at brands that we love, or some of our partners. To me, it’s those one-to-one relationships. This is the thing AI cannot replace. It’s why events like this are going to continue to happen, but I want to hear what people’s take is on the agent side because we’re hearing a lot of people like what do I do? I don’t even understand how it’s different than what I’m doing today with all this other AI. So I’ll be diving into some of those sessions and see what people are saying. [01:14:25] Greg Kihlstrom: Love it, love it. And last question for you, what do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
[01:14:31] Kerry McGee: I have a block a week that I kind of put aside to either meet with other marketers in my space, right? So on my side the B2B kind of SaaS, like, how are the buying groups changing? What are you doing? What’s working? What are you doing for ABM? So I stay really connected to people who have like roles and like industries. And then I try and spend a dedicated amount of time trying to learn like new technology because I can’t tell my teams to be like AI first or put more focus on it if I’m not also spending some of my time in like figuring out Claude and how would I use it? And what workflows would I change? Like I I have to. And so I just dedicated time every week. I do it the first part of my day, cuz the rest of your day gets off-rail sometimes pretty quickly. and I do it once a week. So sometimes it’s a Saturday morning. Unfortunately, that’s just what it is. but I make time for it.
