Stop Counting Your AI Agents. Customers Don’t Care.

Stephanie: For today's buyers, that next purchase is never more than a tap away. A moment of curiosity at lunch, a nudge at midnight, an impulse on the train ride home. Attentive helps brands show up in all of those moments with the right message on the right channel at exactly the right time. And when every message feels that relevant, it doesn't just feel better, it performs better. That's what marketing made Personal feels like. That's Attentive. To learn more, visit attentive.com Right now

Carrie McGee: it's agent Agentic, right? Like, everybody's like, we're the agent platform. And they go, um, for now, until the next thing. Nearly two thirds of people say they are open to using AI to help with holiday shopping. And that revolution is going to change the way that we're shopping, really focusing

Stephanie: on bringing agentic AI for consumer problems. Today we have Carrie McGee, the chief marketing officer at Attentive. From Expedia to Zillow, Carrie has spent her career helping companies turn digital touchpoints into real customer relationships with without losing sight of the human connection.

Carrie McGee: My son is graduating high school this year. I get the dress. It's missing the belt. I had a real person reach out to me literally on text and a voicemail saying, so sorry that happened. We've already refunded that dress and we've sent you a new one. That personalization. I will buy a million more things for them. And even if it's trained on AI, which is getting better and better, it felt personal. Those brands are seeing nearly 100% change in revenue when they can unlock that personalization completely. Hands off the wheel. They literally trust the AI to decide who to send the message to, when to send the message, on what channel, in what style, what format, what brand, voice, with what product. That's pretty insane. It doesn't matter if we say we have 24 agents that can take care of these 24 workflows. At the end of the day, what a brand should care about is, oh, I, uh, want to do that again.

Stephanie: Terry, welcome back. Thank you for having me.

Carrie McGee: I'm excited to be back. Stephanie.

Stephanie: So it's been, I think, a year. I looked it up, and he said, over a year. Yeah, over a year. Okay. But I looked at your episode when we did that. I'm like, similar. You're still saying some similar things. So I want to know if you had a word or a sentence of, like, what's happened over the last year since I saw you last, what would that be?

Carrie McGee: Yeah, uh, I mean, I think what's happened is we've gone from like mostly skepticism in AI and personalization into real belief and results. Right. Like, we're driving real outcomes. And I think outcomes would be the word that I would want to focus on because I think that's definitely where we have been the last year, is focused solely on that and how AI, uh, drives the best outcomes for our customers.

Stephanie: Yes. Okay. I love that. Especially because my question might poke a little bit. My first question I have for you. So, McKinsey, I saw that they had a stat that 90% of CMOs are experimenting with AI and I think only 10% of them are getting actual value across, like end to end workflows, which, um, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. When thinking like, we're going to outcomes now and then when I saw this stat, I'm like, ooh, perfect entryway.

Carrie McGee: Yeah, no, it does. It actually kind of messes with my whole hypothesis, I guess. Um, but I do think it's about. When we think about workflows within most marketing organizations, I think that's where we're seeing that definitely brands are pushing the limits that they can with how their data and infrastructure is set up.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: That's a pretty limiting factor when we think about outcomes. And internally in marketing teams, we're just really starting to, I think, chip away at full workflow impact. People have been solving over the last year for maybe like a process and automating a part of marketing, whether it's in the CRM side or it's in the performance side or the acquisition side. So I think that's what that stat to me really leans into. When I look at it, where we are, I think is much further than that, where we're way beyond 10%. When we think of outcomes for brands using AI, uh, like real customers who have their data in a place that they can activate and access it are seeing incredible results. And it's much more than 10% of their workflows that are automated. It's the entire customer journey that they can now automate, really, from acquisition to first conversion, to purchase to repeat purchase. And so when I think of that much being automated and then the abandoned cart and then bringing them back in for that next purchase, that's way more than. I mean, I think we're. I don't have a stat I'd be interested, but I think we're over 50% of the customer journey being automated for brands who are actually leveraging AI.

Stephanie: Yeah. Okay, so then you said a key thing of having data that is you know all around the customer in a way that can be utilized, which I have heard this from a couple different. I mean not just CMOs but C level leaders who are like one department would start doing a bunch of AI, uh, automation and creating agents and then that the way they built it could not connect into other parts of the org or other teams. And they all kind of had their own mini silos, which I think was probably how we had to get here in the beginning of like just go hard and experiment and try. But now you've got the ones who kind of did it in a more holistic way where they zoomed out and they're like, okay, what do we actually want this to look like? And that doesn't just mean automate for automate's sake. It means like, let's look at the whole customer journey and see how do we make all this flow together. So it sounds like that's your customers and what you're seeing, and many of our customers not.

Carrie McGee: All right. Like, I mean a lot of the traditional huge retail brick and mortar and online stores have that challenge of orchestrating across the in store experience and then the online digital experience. And I think orchestration across channels continues to be a challenge. Right. And I think when we think of that true personalization, you were just saying working in silos, you can't personalize sms, but then treat everybody the same on email, it's still one customer getting all the same, you know, messages. And so I think that's where we've made a lot of progress is that orchestration and activation piece. And not everybody's doing it. We only have about 30% of our customers actually fully using like the most capable AI platforms and tools that we have. A lot over 90% are using pieces of it, like at least individual pieces of it, whether it's essentials, all the way to our AI journeys, which is like completely hands off the wheel. So I think everybody's at a different maturity, but people are adopting faster and they're starting to like really fully lean into the AI side of personalization.

Stephanie: Yeah, that's exciting. So before we get in deeper, for anyone who doesn't know Attentive, can you give a high level? Like, what is Attentive? What do you all do? What do you offer?

Carrie McGee: Yeah, so Attentive is an uh, omnichannel marketing platform and we don't say AI anymore because I think that that's just built in. Right. If you don't have it, you're not competitive. But basically like we're Able to help brands orchestrate across all of their own channels. So sms email push rcs, which is like the new evolution of SMS with Google and making sure that you can deliver and unlock that true one to one personalized experience through amazing identity across our platform as well as like a unified profile for your, for your user. So basically it's like one platform to deliver across all those own channels the best customer experience that you can to unlock the revenue with one to one personalization.

Stephanie: Okay, got it. So then with all these channels, what are you seeing now? I mean when I think of that many channels going out at once and then also personalizing messages and looking at all the data, you probably have a lot of data looking at all your customers of what's working and what's not. Like what do you, what are you seeing with the different channels?

Carrie McGee: Yeah, I think the biggest unlocks right now or changes that we're seeing is platforms are finally getting to like true, like channel affinity. So if I prefer truly just to browse, shop and do all my repeat purchase on sms then we can help brands like send fewer messages. I think that's what every consumer wants. You don't want more messages which is what most platforms or Martech was built for.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: Like just keep sending more emails and more messages and eventually they'll, they'll fatigue and say yes. Um, I think where we're at now is like when you think about the channels, what do I want? Like me personally as the consumer on the other end, what do I prefer? Do I prefer to get the codes and the specials over email across time and then apply those when you hit me with a back in stock, my size shoe, my size pant, whatever it might be, the beauty product that sells out immediately, maybe that, I mean if you have channel affinity you can tell and so then you only have to send a couple messages versus 10 messages. Right. So we're helping really the consumer experience so they get less spam and they get that true personalization which we know through our data. If you can deliver that personalization and treat consumers like you know them, over 91% of them will actually say yes.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: Like I give you the data, treat me like you know me, send it to me on the channel that matters. The right product, the right product at the right time on the right channel. And the brand voice I'm used to like that's really where attentive comes in and helps brands get very clear on basically getting to that one to one relationship with the consumer.

Stephanie: I love to hear stories or if you can share any customer names just to, uh, really show, like, this is working, and if you have any data, just really highlight, you know, what's happening behind the scenes.

Carrie McGee: Yeah. One that's like, for, I think an early adopter that's seen really incredible results. Well, a couple would be Crate and Barrel. We all know Crate and Barrel from the home store. And then Fry. That's. Those are two customers that come to mind that, like, we're early adopters of AI and we're really willing to say, I trust my data enough to test a percentage of my audience against my normal segmentation, custom personal copywriting. Like, I trust my data enough to say, will AI send a better message on the channel that converts better at the time that the actual consumer. Like, we as marketers, the way we used to do mostly like campaign and journey building is like, we had to do all of our own segmentation and we had to, like, use data to guess what was the right product to send to who and why at what time. And we can't be on 24. 7 anymore. It's just not possible. But, but consumers are. And so those two brands have really figured out how do they leverage their data. Test small sets, right? You can start with like 10% of the segment that you want to target and say, okay, that 10% against the journeys that I'm building, which one's going to deliver better results? And then you can QA it to say, like, okay, did the message that went out to one person versus a batch of ten actually perform better on, like, the couch in the length, in the color that the customer wanted versus, like, I'm kind of using data to guess and I probably can't send it to you in real time. And so the brands that are actually saying, I'm, I'm ready, I have the data, Let me see what happens. It's not perfect out of the gate. That's why you test and figure out, like, where do you have gaps in either identity of who the user is or. Or gaps in your data. But, like, those brands are seeing literally near triple digit, like nearly 100% change in revenue and lift in revenue when they can unlock that personalization completely. Hands off the wheel. Like, they literally trust the AI to decide who to send the message to, when to send the message, on what channel, in what style, what format, what brand, voice, with what product. That's pretty insane. They've, uh, been seeing those results for, like, almost a year.

Stephanie: Uh, wow. Okay, so if I pieced out each one of those, because I'M thinking a brand is like, well, I haven't even sent out a personalized product idea yet. So there's me. And then thinking about, okay, now I'm thinking about the different channels and platforms and all of this. Like which ones are, you know, driving it, you think?

Carrie McGee: I mean, so if you're, if you're a brand that's not using anything today, what would you recommend to get started? Is that kind of the, like, which

Stephanie: ones are the most effective? Yeah, I'm thinking, yeah, like if you, if you know me and you're now recommending the right product, that's maybe like a 10% lift, that's a great job. And then if you're getting to me on the platform I care about or you know, like you're, it's all sms. That's all I want to do. I don't look at my email. That is a hundred percent lift because that's all I want to be on. Like, which one is one of them a bigger driver than the other one? Or are they all equally important?

Carrie McGee: Yeah, I mean the biggest, uh, the biggest one that we see as the unlock is the send time. So Identity AI and send time. Identity AI is able to capture you based across any platform that we can, any discovery method as far as like, who are you? Because people are on different devices at different times, they're hopping on desktop phone, different IP addresses. And so like who are you? Like, that's one, right? Because if you lose 60% of who your, your actual audience is somewhere in the discovery path of getting them to search and getting them to get the right, the right product at the right time. Like it doesn't matter if you've already narrowed down the funnel to a certain percentage. So Identity AI, I think is the biggest piece is like how do you make sure you grow your audience and you capture the data so you could use it. So that's where people have the most success because they can actually just deliver more of the right messages to more people versus narrow. And then the other is our send time. And our send time is one that we continue to see like on its own. If that's the place that people start first and they go head to head with what they normally would do from their segmentation on what to send when versus just turning it on. Because in AI, ah, Pro, it's literally you can just turn that on. Um, that's where we're seeing lifts that are like pretty incremental, like up, up to like 30, 40% just through getting send time right, depending on the type of customer and the type of product.

Stephanie: Uh, yeah, okay, I can definitely see that being important. If I'm like, okay, Stephanie's a mom, she's not gonna look at her phone during the day when she's working and then she's gonna be making dinner. So if you really wanna get to her, get to her probably after her kids bedtime. Cause we know her kids are smaller and they go to or something.

Carrie McGee: Or you have like a graveyard nurse who's like taking breaks like in the middle of the night. But that's when they do that browsing and shopping. Like when you can literally get to that one to one personalization. I think that changes everything.

Stephanie: Yeah. Is there anyone who has come in and they think they're doing best practices or they're like, yes, this is what everyone does. This is what my board says I should be doing. That you're like that. Like probably everyone still right now thinks that's best practices and it's not. Yeah.

Carrie McGee: Ah. I mean it just depends on the size of the company and I think what they sell. But some people's best practice is they rely on what's worked right. So they assume that they can hold the same type of growth or the same type of revenue lift with the same practice, like over time. And what happens is your audiences change, they fatigue, they mature. And so I think what we see most is people will come in and they'll be like, oh, I don't have a deliverability problem. I, I know my list goes to everybody it needs to go to. I'm like, okay, well have you checked like, have you actually looked to see like what your deliverability rates are across your different email segments and your different journeys and your different campaigns? And they're like, oh, I don't have a deliverability problem. Right. Just based on like how many, um, um, undeliverables they get. They're like, it's a, it's a normal percentage but you start looking at it at the more individual level. And like most brands coming into email at Attentive have a massive deliverability problem. And like our deliverability and the way we've built our AI on mobile versus I, I will say I have five email addresses. I check four of them pretty consistently. Most people have one phone number. So if you can use the phone number and the email to like get that really clear subscriber id, your deliverability improves dramatically.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: And so that's something we see more than anything is like when you use the tools and AI to assess what you actually are delivering. Like if you can start delivering to 80% of your audience instead of 50, you have a massive lift in revenue. So I think those are the kinds of things that we look at.

Stephanie: Yeah, amazing. I saw that iOS 26 released their update and it kind of shook a lot of people up, especially brands who are used to probably delivering text in a certain way. And I'd love to know how you, of course you all think about that. But then also telling brands like, how do you prep for someone just coming in and changing the rules right away where now your text aren't going to make it maybe to my, you know, they're all going to go to a spam folder because of one simple tweak that, you know, Apple did.

Carrie McGee: Yeah, I mean iOS26 was more than one simple tweak. Um, you know, it unleashed like a lot of dramatic privacy, um, settings which basically introduced on the iPhone all messages going into your inbox and then you kind of having to look at it to decide if it was spam, that if you turn on your unknown sender feature, it'll take all unknown messages and just put them in and sender so they don't actually end up in your inbox. So that's a pretty dramatic shift for pretty much all marketing platforms and brands where you now have a huge percentage of all the messages that customers are paying to, you know, they're paying the carriers and us to send and they're not even getting to the inbox. And so for us we have a uh, proprietary patented to. It's called two tap. It's how we opt people in. And Apple recognizes that as a person saying, yes, please send me messages. We're the only platform that has that. So we our uh, first thing when we talk to brands right Now@Guyios26 is like if you're still using your own opt in, you're missing a huge opportunity because we know like over, I think it's over 75% we can look up that stat if we need to. But over 75 or 76% actually have it turned on now.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: An adoption sense like uh, BFC in last year of iOS 26 has ramped over 80% of devices. So a massive amount of your messages are not even being seen. And so we always like to educate brands on like you have two Tap advantage with us. Nobody else has it. Figure out a way to turn it on for your brand because that will automatically get you way more visibility which turns into conversion and it turns to ROI outcomes. Um, but yeah, iOS 26 is a big one when it comes to privacy.

Stephanie: Yeah. I mean, I even think about the phone calls that come through and I'm like, no company. Even if you should, let's say you're, I don't know, my bank and you're trying to get a hold of me because a wire's going out, you probably won't get through because of just the now, like, identify yourself and let's see if you make it past this AI bot that's asking who you are and. Yeah, yeah.

Carrie McGee: So there's a lot that, uh, it's. It's amazing that it, like, I love it personally.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: Because now I just check unknown sender like once a week to see if I missed anything interesting. But if there was an item back in stock, like I have an addiction to a certain skincare program in line and they sell out all the time. I've had to make sure that they're approved to show up in my inbox because I was missing like back in stock notifications. And then I'd go into like, buy my moisturizer, my eye cream, and it was already sold out. So I, um, think it's up to brands to really figure out how they make sure they get those messages to consumers in a way that matters. I think the one thing we talked about earlier is like, consumers don't want more messages. Right. They want the right messages. And I think that's where we are right now when it comes to the evolution of our tech.

Stephanie: So it seems like you were ahead for the Apple piece. Like, what else are you all prepping for? And yeah, where do you see the world headed when it comes to, you know, probably making things a little more difficult for brands, probably better for consumers for the most part is like, getting less. So, like, what else do you see coming down?

Carrie McGee: I mean, the big one everybody's talking right now is just how we think about LLMs being part of discovery and search and shopify continuing to move forward and picking work. Uh, like Steve Madden has an LLM discovery where you can actually, like, link directly to the product when you search ChatGPT or Cloud or whatever you use. And so it's bypassing the brand visibility in the traditional way. Right. And so I think that's what a lot of brands are trying to figure out is where do you invest to make sure you have that relationship and can own that relationship with the consumer. And so you do depend more on those own channels and how you grow those lists and keep that data is more important than ever. But discoverability I think the other thing that we're really seeing that's top of mind is the entire process is condensing from people used to discover meaning. Like they'd look at a product, they'd look at a couple brands, they'd research, then they'd think about it and then they'd get to the point where they're like, oh, okay, I'm going to spend the $60 on that item. And then they would purchase. That is now literally like so condensed. It's, it's seconds or minutes where they feel like they have enough information through social media validation, proof, whatever it is that the funnel is just condensing. We no longer have the, the luxury of time. You have to have real time. You have to be able to activate in seconds and in real time in order to convert those customers. And so I think that's the other thing brands are really trying to figure out. How do they not get left behind in figuring that out?

Stephanie: Uh, Geo, ao, whatever they want to phrase. Yeah, all the names. It's interesting because I've had some folks come here and they're like, that doesn't even matter. It's just a new version of SEO and if you weren't doing SEO well, you're not going to do go well. Like you have to have good stuff that's already out there and how you were found. What do you think? Because I also see the companies who are optimizing just for the LLMs and they're watching their rankings and they're doing things behind the scenes on their website. And so there's like two very different camps of how people are looking at this.

Carrie McGee: Uh, it really depends on the maturity of your brand and like how quickly you're able to drive adoption of like new product. Right. So I think if you're, if you have a really strong following and you're able to continue to grow your audience, you're able to like bring them direct to your messages, your website. You're probably okay just like making sure you have a practice that is SEO and aeo, right? Making sure that it's different content. So that first camp I disagree with a little bit because like what we're learning in all the models and all of the platforms out there, like Profound and Semrush and like all of these platforms are out there doing this. It's a different, it's recency, right? Like only content really within the like last 90 days, like ranks better. It's the type of content, it's third party validation. So a brand can't just like overwhelm every channel with their own content. You actually need that third party validation. So it's different than SEO as far as, like, how the strategies tie together. But I do think you need both. And traffic still, like, even for us, our percentage of traffic that comes from LLMs right now is growing at an enormous rate, but it is still quite small compared to our traditional direct and SEO traffic. So I think you need both. I don't think there's. The camp that will win will be like somewhere in the middle of having a specific strategy and investing in that content, just like you would for SEO. But it's different. It's pr, it's third party, it's reviews, it's a lot more video and validation. And then you need to have a strategy on making sure that you're looking at sentiment. Like what? So, okay, you're ranking, but how you're ranking is it's pulling in content that's not favorable. And so you have to make sure, like, it's not only like habit, but you now LLMs make decisions for consumers. And so you need to make sure that you have a lens into how it's perceiving you versus just having the content. I think that's the biggest change I've

Stephanie: seen for today's buyers. That next purchase is never more than a tap away. A moment of curiosity at lunch, a nudge at midnight, an impulse on the train ride home. Attentive helps brands show up in all of those moments with the right message on the right channel at exactly the right time. And when every message feels that relevant, it doesn't just feel better, it performs better. That's what marketing made personal feels like. That's attentive. To learn more, visit attentive. Com. So for another stat that I saw, I'm like, ooh, this one's a good one too. I think this one might have been From Shoptalk that 80% of consumers say, say they distrust AI, but 70% say they're heavily influenced by it. And I'm like, man, that's hard to be a marketing leader in that world of contradiction of, uh, I don't trust it. But also that's how I make my decisions now.

Carrie McGee: I mean, over 70% of consumers used it for this last holiday shopping. Like, that was the survey thousands. I think there's 3,000 people in the survey and they're like 70% said, oh, I 100% used AI to help do my shopping. So it's funny when they say it's just such A contradictory stat. But I think where it comes from is they only trust it so far. Um, so they trust it in saying, help me find like the perfect gift for my upcoming high school graduate who likes X, Y and Z is like this age. Like I love it for that kind of stuff.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: Like these are the brands they love. These are the things that I see them buying, like, help me find the perfect gift they might not have. It's great for like that low risk discovery. Where I think they're hesitant is like to hand over their credit card through like a chat GPT. I think that's where you see the skepticism is there. They only trust it so far.

Stephanie: Okay, we, uh, just need more questions then I need to know because, yeah, that makes more sense. I'm like, yeah, of course we shouldn't put that in there. I don't think it doesn't feel safe.

Carrie McGee: I we, because a lot of those surveys ask them like, would you be comfortable having your entire shopping experience happen within a ChatGPT or Gemini or one of the tools? And I think most people say like, not quite yet. And I think that's why we saw OpenAI on. A lot of these companies pull back from prioritizing, um, that shopping experience. There's just, there's a bunch of like compliance also and complexity that goes into all of that as well.

Stephanie: Yep. So when thinking about the human trust element, I know that you've been a big proponent of keeping a human in the experience and making sure that that is felt throughout the touch points. Tell me more about how you all think about that and then how you encourage, you know, the, your clients to also keep the human first. And like, at what point is it important and at what point are you actually telling people, like, no, that's not the important point. It's over here. That's the important point.

Carrie McGee: Yeah, I mean, AI still is a black box. I mean, if we really start to unpack how the algorithms work and how all the data works together, I think there's a lack of visibility, which means you need the human aspect involved. And I think a lot of brands are hesitant to actually fully adopt because they fear that they'll lose control over how their brand shows up for consumers. For us, like, we're prioritizing product development and tools that allow them that visibility. Like we have a new product that we've started talking about that we'll launch next week, which is like our Brand Voice 2.0, which means you actually get visibility into how the AI is going to show up to your Consumer and messages. So you can tweak it, put inputs into it and like, actually know what's going to come out and like, what's going into. Why the message is shaped that way can help kind of like reshape it. So it's like more, more ownership and more. More access to be able to guide how your branches up versus, like, okay, here's my data. Cross your fingers and test it a little bit. So, like, we're investing in things like that because I do think it's the transparency piece. And then the human element for us is I'm a consumer. I mean, I buy things all the time, right? And I am finding more and more I'm much more likely to buy from a brand who's going to respond to a shipping problem, a complaint, a, hey, I ordered this blue dress and you sent me a red dress. Like, can I get a new one? I think Tuckernock, who's a customer, does it really, really well. They make sure that you have like that personal concierge should something go wrong so you feel taken care of. And I actually, I've been trying to get more information. I think they use like a concierge on backend that is mostly A and A automated. But the way that they've built their brand voice is like, I feel like there's a person on the other side of that exchange who's helping me guide what happens to the point of they messed up on an order, right? And so they use SMS to get me in. Like, okay, this. My son is graduating high school this year. I'm like, okay, I want this kind of dress to wear to graduation. Like, it's in stock in your size. It's been sold out forever. Like, m. Great. I'm so excited. I get the dress. It's missing the belt. It's a matching belt. I can't throw another belt on. I literally text them back. They sent me a text saying, hope everything went okay. It looks like your item, um, arrived. I had a real person reach out to me literally on text and voicemail saying, so sorry that happened. We've already refunded that dress and we've sent you a new one like that personalization. I will buy a million more things for them. But there was like, there was a human involved in either making sure the. The message was right and it was at the tone and it was responding to the need I had. And even if it's trained on AI, which is getting better and better, it felt personal. And I think people are valuing that more and More.

Stephanie: Yeah, no, I see it too, and with myself. And it's kind of funny that we're like going back to the, like the old days where I'm like, I better have a human that actually calls me and I want to know. It's a human voice and. Yeah, but I mean I see that not only with customer, you know, interactions and customer support, but also like in person things like the demand for people getting together and just being around other humans. I mean, like, ah, doesn't this feel good? Like it's. Yeah, it's a good theme coming back. I'm here for it. I like it.

Carrie McGee: No, it's definitely a trend even among our customers. Like, um, Bart from Dad Gang, who's one of the founders there. We have a great relationship with him. But one of the things that we've invested in through his and others urging was they also want to. As brands, they want to learn from each other. They want a better community that's not just a company trying to upsell them constantly. So for us we facilitate, it's called the Commerce Council, but we facilitate this conversation for them to learn from each other and they have conversations and all these chats that are completely unrelated to us. Just like helping each other at similar stage businesses solve for similar customer problems. Like that sense of community, I think is back stronger than ever.

Stephanie: Yeah. So what about when it comes to like a CMO community, are you getting together with other CMOs? And I'd say like, after like a glass of wine or two, what's being discussed?

Carrie McGee: If so, Um, I mean, I think the number one thing I, I was fortunate. I just got to go to women in retail, which was in Miami, which is a bunch of very senior female leaders in retail and e comm, mostly BP, CMOs. And I think the thing that comes up is just the fatigue of pace.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: Like the, the pace is just trying to stay resilient to how fast things are changing. Like you think you have something figured out you've solved for. Like we're working to solve for like uh, our compete mechanism to make sure it's all AI enabled. It's like, okay, we're going to get that solved, but then there's going to be something else literally before we finish that that's going to be as urgent or new or something that we need to look at. So I think the number one thing that I hear is just people are like, it's, it's a little, it's, it's energizing because we're on this era of so many things that are possible that we never thought were. But people are tired, they're like, okay, is this, Are we going to hit a bubble, like a real bubble where it slows down and we like take a pause? I don't think it's in the near term. Right. We all talk about that, but it is this balancing the energy and the excitement. But people are working harder and more than ever in this space because as a CMO or as a leader, you have access to do things that used to be maybe buried within roles or functions. And now I can do research on a competitor, I can build some sample early messaging or like, hey, have we thought about this in a way that it feels very collaborative with the rest of the team and that I have as much information as everyone else does. And I think, I don't know, I felt a while ago we were a little far removed, but now at the leadership level we're in it. But keeping up with that pace is going to be, um, building some endurance, I think is the key that everybody walks away with.

Stephanie: Yeah, how are you getting your hands dirty? Because I feel like this is something that maybe a couple years ago did not really matter if you were. I mean I don't think it did. But now like if you're not in there knowing what cloud code can do of being like, ah, got it. Okay. Like I think you, it's hard to even manage if you don't know how quick things can move and maybe how to think about how to orchestrate all the pieces together among a team. So like what things are you doing?

Carrie McGee: Yeah, I think it's that, but it's also making sure like early, early days I just assumed how easy things were and was like, oh, just go use, you know, there's skills in cloud to go do that. Like, why can't you just do that? But it's so dependent on how your systems are set up. Like even today we were going through this like agent that we've built for our go to market, our sales and CS teams to where instead of like going into our slack asking for like, hey, I have a deal that has these two competitors in it and I need our differentiators. And like we would just build like battle cards and things for them to go through. And we've built this agent where we're putting everything from customer insight into calls into all of our assets. And it's like, so here's how, I mean I'm in a daily standup where we go through and we break it down, we test it we add in, we were telling it, like, use these sources that you have access to these sources to build the response when people ask these questions. We didn't say that these are the only sources you should use. And these are the source of truth.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: So we actually had to go in this morning and change and test it. We realized like, oh, we had to limit its thinking because it was giving, it was going out to, you know, all of the different LLMs, searching for the latest information. Like, no, that's very subjective. You can only use these resources. So like I went in and updated the agent, the Slack agent, to actually do that, right? To see, like, okay, that changed. Like, let's go search for something super, like really, really crazy. And Vanessa, who's on my team, who's helping with it, she's like, okay, we figured it out. It was just going everywhere. Like, you have to be in it. You have to understand how to do it and what that it's not click of a button. It is easy, it's faster. Like within a few days we've gone from concepting to testing to now field testing tomorrow and it'll be live by Friday. Like, the speed is crazy. But you have to be in it. For me, it's personally, I'm using it just for like time management. Like, okay, here's the meetings I have this week. Here are all of my granola notes from all my meetings this week. Where should I focus my time? Like, what are the couple things I have to focus my time on? And that used to be me kind of piecemealing it together at the end of the day. Now I have like this assistant that helps me do that. Um, so there's lots of different ways that people are using it.

Stephanie: Yeah, I love the personal use cases because I feel like that also helps you see in business what you can do. I built this whole, I called it mother os, a whole operating system for my family life, kids work. Put it all in there to help me understand, like how do I add my own like self care time in here? How do I like see when things are conflicting? How do I delegate things to my husband? Can I just push him to him and like sink into his calendar? And I have this.

Carrie McGee: Let me know when you figure that out.

Stephanie: Yeah, it's almost ready. A couple of my friends are like, can we have that too? But I'm like, that's. I think what, uh, probably women need is actually just delegate to our husbands more and just need a push button. That was my, uh, concept.

Carrie McGee: Yeah. Now my husband Constantly. He's like, I'll happily do whatever you ask. I'm like, well, sometimes I don't even have the capacity to think of what to ask. But now. Exactly. Claude can.

Stephanie: So Claude can, yeah, be like, I think your day is too crazy today, Carrie. I think you should push these three things. End dinner and this. And here's a recipe to give to him. Perfect.

Carrie McGee: It is. Yeah. Life has changed dramatically for all of us.

Stephanie: Yeah. So I was looking at your blog and I think you were referencing, uh, something around Victoria's Secrets. I think it was the CEO, Hillary, or is that the cmo? Which one is she? Hillary?

Carrie McGee: Cmo.

Stephanie: Yeah, cmo.

Carrie McGee: It was a little while ago.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. M. So she had an interesting quote around. CAC should not be the single KPI. It's super dangerous if you are only looking at that. Which had me think, okay, what KPIs should we be looking at now? In a world that's changing this quickly, like, which ones are you looking at? And are you, you know, telling your customers they should be looking out for their customers?

Carrie McGee: You know, the number one that we get for customers. I'll start there. The number one ask we get from customers right now from, like their CEOs and their CFOs and even, you know, some of our. Our. Our customers are CFOs and CMOs, depending on the company. The number one thing we get right, because all this AI add on is not free. It's not like, oh, pay us the normal licensee or the normal fees and then we'll throw all this in. Like, that's not how it works. Right. These are incremental costs. And so the number one, like metric or KPI they're getting is, okay, great. What's the incrementality our business will get from adopting these tools? That's the. That is the number one question we're getting from customers right now. And so we're building a lot of reporting that's more standard and not custom. So you can basically see, like, depending on what you have turned on, what is it driving incremental to already, like you said, already sending the message without the AI. Like, how much more lift, how much more conversion, how much faster does your list grow to audiences that do convert? Like, that's where we're getting the biggest customer questions. Those are the metrics that matter right now. Honestly, we hear of others, but that's the number one. Internally, I think, like, what we're looking at is really more around, um, uh, like net revenue retention for customers. Like we, we're just going to like the metrics that matter now versus all of the, we still look at the signal and the leading indicator stuff around like cost of acquisition early and does it convert and at what stage does it convert? But really it's that like net rep, like of uh, the customers we sell into, how many of them continue to stay. Right. So like, and that, that's ties into your nps, your ndr. Like all of the metrics that matter I think right now in marketing are in that retention and satisfaction and NPS for customers acquisition. Yes, but that one matters more in a highly competitive space.

Stephanie: Yeah, I was thinking when it comes to retention, I mean there's so many new tools that are popping up that have all the claims and then they just throw like AI in front of it and you're like, oh, okay. Like there's so much out there. And then you've got people also thinking, I can quickly just recreate that tool. Um, you're in a space that has more remote. But let's say like go high level. Like I just, I recreated go high level for our company. I'm like, all right, we're good now. Like we have it doing it. And so how do you like focus on retaining clients in a world where they're getting so much information, some misinformation of like, what you know, what's good, what's not and what to try.

Carrie McGee: Yeah, I mean it just in the world of personalization, it also you have to sell and discover that way because every brand, like maybe they just got, you know, consolidated under a huge private equity umbrella. Like they all have different. So their challenge is cost. Right. They just have to reduce cost at all, at all levels. Um, and some others are just like in hyper growth mode. They're not in that space. So you have to know like what matters to the customer with where they are. And then I think you can help educate them, uh, on like what matters most to the programs that they have today. Consolidation is like a massive movement. It has been for going on two years and it used to be, I mean we were in this era for like 5ish years, in like the early 2000 and 20s, 2019, where it's like best in breed you wanted. It didn't matter how many you had in your stack, as long as the stack worked together and you had the best ones that delivered the best results and the best customer experience. That was the direction. And now it's like, okay, like as long as it can do most of the really important things and get you the reporting you need. Most people are saying, I need to consolidate so I have the best visibility and I have one place for my, you know, my data cloud, like a snowflake or data bricks to sit under or on top of. Like, people are consolidating. And I think that's been the, the biggest thing is know what matters to your business and then pick the platforms that best suit your ability, that are. They're agile like, that are truly innovating. They're not just saying they have these things coming. There are a lot of people in a lot of different. Like you said, they're all attacking AI somewhere, but they haven't done the work. Like, we've, we've had engineers dedicated to AI and LLMs for over three years. Right. Like, we launched our first AI product over two years ago that was truly AI. And so I think that's like, ask the questions, like, do you have real customers? How much data do you have? How far along are people in adoption? Can I talk to a customer who's implemented this? I mean, I think those are all the things that we're trying to help people to, like, protect Armo. Like, there's value in experience and our ability to be fast on how we build on top of that.

Stephanie: I also think when you tack AI onto the names now, it makes me wonder if you actually know AI. That's my thought that comes up. Uh, I hope everyone has it.

Carrie McGee: I wish you can tell that to my board sometimes.

Stephanie: Yeah, I mean, I get it. Like every company, your valuation will go up right away. I know, I see what's happening. But I'm also. I think you've said this, and I thought this when, uh, blockchain came out. And I forget who said the best, uh, way to use blockchain is when you don't ever know it's even happening. It's just like doing things behind you. And I'm like. And I think you said the same thing for AI is like the best tech and I'm going to botch this. But, like, it's already there and you don't even feel it because it's so good. And yeah, those are the companies I trust a bit more where I'm like, it's all behind there. I just can't feel it because it's so personal and it's doing everything I need.

Carrie McGee: Yeah, I know, but it's, it's back to that outcomes thing, right? Like, all you care about, like, does it solve the problem or drive the results or outcomes that you're going for. And so, like, calling it something or calling it out. Like, right now, it's agent. Agentic, right? Like, everybody's like, we're the agent platform. I'm like, for now until the next thing. But, like, ultimately, what are we doing? And for us, we've really leaned into. Our mantra is, like, marketing made personal. And it goes to, like, it's not just the people. Like, we have an incredible team of people that we attach to accounts and, like, help them have seamless integrations and make sure that in their. In their most trying moments or when they're understaffed and they need to, like, you know, multiply their team, they can count on us. But it's also like, that's what we do. It doesn't matter if we say we have 24 agents that can take care of these 24 workflows. At the end of the day, what a brand should care about is I can drive more incremental revenue because all of this is happening 24. 7 behind the scenes. That gives my customers such an amazing experience and helps me deliver my products to them in a way that they're like, oh, I want to do that again. Um, and I think that's. That's really what personalization is about, is unlocking that. I truly believe that.

Stephanie: Yeah, I love it. So you've seen a lot, you know, a lot. You've been in this space for a while. When something like genuinely confusing happens in your marketing space, who do you call? Like, who do you go to? And it can't be your team or an agency. Like, who else? I want to know who you're relying on.

Carrie McGee: Yeah. So I have mentors and I have people that are part of my network and have been for a long time. The old CMO at Attentive, who's now the, uh, CMO at Datadog, has just been in. In tech for a long time. She was at Salesforce, she was at Twilio. And I feel like she's like, just got such a practical kind of like, don't freak out. Like, this is to be expected. Like, this will change. This will come back. This is temporary. So I, I go to Sarah a lot when I. I need help or lean on something. And then I have just a couple people that I've, like, met in my network through. There's a couple different, like Exit 5. Dave Gearhart has a great community of different CMOs and leaders, and that group has been really fantastic to lean on. We, A group of us met at a conference and have stayed in touch and have kind of the same level of growth in size of companies. So when something happens or like, you know, there's like a competitive woe that comes up, I'm like, I don't. I've never had to deal with this before. Like, how. How would you message this? Like, what's the right way? When something like this happens, it's just great to be able to bounce off. Like, even if they haven't been through it, it's just a couple different ways of thinking. Or one of them was asking me, they're like, oh my gosh, you seem to have a really good established program on how you measure ROI for events. And I can't figure it out. It's like just using those people as sounding boards. I go there before I go to ChatGPT. Uh, and I think that that will remain for me.

Stephanie: I like that. That's a good quote. Which M Communities. I mean, you mentioned Dave's community. I think you mentioned the women in retail earlier on. What other communities are you finding to be super beneficial?

Carrie McGee: I mean, I'm in a couple, but those ones are the most beneficial as far as women in retail. Talking to our customers, our brands, hearing from them, what they care about and like figuring out where. Where they're thinking. Like, what are they thinking about 3, 6, 9, 12 months from now?

Stephanie: And then the.

Carrie McGee: The exit 5 one has just been a really great, great one because there's just a great community and there's in person and there's online, um, and then there's a couple other ones. There's like a CMO coffee talk, but that's all B2B SaaS type CMOs in more early versus late stage. And then I've also been a part of Pavilion, which is like, great for skill building and like going. They have a lot of like, resources and courses and things. But also like, I just, I just signed up for this Harvard career, uh, what do they call it? It's a expanded career curriculum and it's really affordable and they have like an AI for CMOS class. So like, and it's all online, so that one's coming up. So I think continuing education, you continue to meet people, but those are kind of the places I go. LinkedIn, obviously. But there's so much on LinkedIn right now that I kind of have a few in my algorithm that come up frequently because they're the ones I comment or respond to.

Stephanie: Yeah, it's hard on LinkedIn. Whenever I'm on there, I'm like, it just feels like so many people are not doing human things on there. It's just so much AI content, AI comments, AI, ah, everything. And I'm like, man, how do we make LinkedIn like cool again? Because right now it's too much. Just AI all over the place. Everyone got the same strategy and did it.

Carrie McGee: Everybody used the same AI to build the strategy. And I think that is true, I think in everything. I think that's one of the thing that scares me a little bit about AI is like, oh, do we all start sounding the same? Right? Do we lose the ability to like, think creatively, critically, differently because we're so dependent on these tools and models? Um, how do they become thought partners but not fully our thoughts? Like, it's, it's a balance, you know, as a mom of adolescent boys and a manager and a leader of teams, it's something I'm always super cautious of and I don't have it figured out. So if somebody does, I'd love to learn.

Stephanie: Yeah, I, I thought something similar of like, how do I kind of turn my brain off in this kind of thinking? Because it's like you are who you surround yourself with and if you surround yourself with LLMs, you start to become it. And I'm like, there, there's probably going to be some process in the future that helps strip that away for a bit, get you back into your like, intuitive creative thinking. So then you can come back and be a little more discerning with what it's giving you. I don't know what that is yet, but I, I do just. Yeah, I think that's needed.

Carrie McGee: And the art of just like, keeping up the ability to write, I think that is the thing where it's just so easy to like, train. Ah, um, LLM on like how to sound like you and how to be like casual, candid, forward, but like direct, with some emotional. And like, okay, great, it's dialed in. But what if I just write it myself? How will it sound? And it's an, it's a good exercise to go through because I, I realize like, um, you lose the muscle. Like, you lose. It takes you longer because you haven't had to do it as much. And I think it's important.

Stephanie: Yeah, and important to remember your own wisdom. Like these LLMs don't have your wisdom, your lived experience, your embodied being, a CMO or whatever you were. Like, only you have that. So you really can't do that because it's just using a couple of your variables that you put in there yourself

Carrie McGee: that you remember it's true. It is. It's the hard thing to default when time is. So it's. Time is precious.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: You have very little of it right now and so much to do, but it's a good reminder.

Stephanie: Okay, so with everything we've talked about so far, we have gone into many different areas. I'd love Carrie to hear from you. What should brands be thinking about? Especially going into what I think is going to be a massive Black Friday Cyber Monday. It's going to be a huge event. Like, what should brands be thinking about as they gear up towards that?

Carrie McGee: Yeah, it's crazy to think that we're almost like we're nearing the end of Q2 or we're mid Q2, which the year's just gone so fast, I think, where brands need to be spending time as they look at this coming year. And, like, we've seen some, you know, slowing in consumer spend and people are being much more intentional about how they spend. So we'll see how that goes into the year. So to me, that just says it's more important than ever that brands are thinking about their data, their infrastructure, their tools and platforms. Like, by early Q3, you have to kind of know what you're going to be going to market. If you're changing providers or if you're changing or adding a bunch of tooling. You need to be doing that in July, um, to set you to set yourself up for having that testing window. So get your data in place. If it's not so you can actually start leveraging AI and then make sure that you're working with partners who can deliver. I think the other thing that we've really heard from, uh, customers in the last few weeks as well is really during that Black Friday Cyber Monday time, like that whole month is you can't have partners that have downtime.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: So you've got to choose partners that, like, are mature enough and have intentionally invested that the platform is going to be dependable. Like, this is your brand's biggest moment. Massive revenue time for all of our brands. So that's really important. And then for the AI side, like last year, brands that were like, AI ready and were using AI tools, we were able to look at the data and, like, they literally drove 2x more revenue than brands who said, like, we haven't really started adopting or using it in our journeys in our campaigns. That's just going to double again this year. Right. So you have to prepare and be ready and get your people, your systems and your tools in place and make sure you're partnering with the right people.

Stephanie: Yeah. I love it. Yeah. And that reliability piece, I mean, it is something that I think you don't think, think about when you're moving fast. I mean, I even look at some of the tools that I've built on that I'm like, now that one's down for half a day. Like, I didn't even think about that. I just thought, like, you do a good job doing what you do, but not. Okay. They also have gone down multiple times and I've never looked at the history of what's happened with them since inception.

Carrie McGee: Yeah. If you're DSW shoes.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: Like, that group is looking at revenue and numbers every hour. Like, if you're looking at hourly numbers, then you're gonna. It's gonna hurt if your provider goes down for eight of those hours one day.

Stephanie: Yep. Yep. Okay, so I want to shift us over to the lightning round, which you have done before, so you know exactly what we're about to do. I'm going to send a question your way.

Carrie McGee: Still coffee? Uh, one. So it's still early here in the Pacific Northwest.

Stephanie: I believe in you. This whole time you've just been fire. So I trust in Carrie. Okay, first question. What is a trend that you are genuinely betting on right now that has nothing to do with AI genuinely betting

Carrie McGee: both personally and professionally on the sense of community and human connection? We work remote. We work like we're just more separated than ever physically. And so I think anything we can do for that in person or even more intentional time online, that's personal. Where people feel seen 100% betting and doubling down on that.

Stephanie: Yep. I agree. Yes. What skill do you think is really important for kids to learn right now to prep them for the future of work? This is just for me. I just need to know.

Carrie McGee: You're asking the mom of, uh, an 18 and 21 year old boy, you're farther along.

Stephanie: I'm like, you know everything, let me know.

Carrie McGee: Uh, uh, it is problem solving and resilience. Not giving up the first time you fail. Like, I, I see it in my kids over and over again. They're like, ah, I can't figure it out. I'm like, well, how many times did you try? He's like, well, I tried to get the lock unlocked. We have this gate or our boat area. And I'm like, how many? He's like, well, I tried it once, but. Well, did you try moving it? Did you try it? Did you try moving the key? Did you try two or three different ways? It's like, no. Why? I tried. I'm like, okay. You know that resilience, to try again and not accept that you can't do something where it's like, I tried, you know, I did my best. I'm like, no, that's. That's not it.

Stephanie: So I think that's.

Carrie McGee: It is like learning to problem solve in a way that they have confidence that they're capable. I see it translate as they get into the professional world. And so I think truly, like, problem solving skills.

Stephanie: Yeah. That's just a good life lesson in general for any age. I think we'll just. Everyone should try that. Try, try hard.

Carrie McGee: Just. Just like keep. We'll try again.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: And like, once you fail three or four times, then let's talk about why. So that resilience and problem solving.

Stephanie: Yeah. I have a quote that my husband loves when I bring it out because he was telling me, like one day he's like, steph, I tried my best. And I was like, try someone else's best. How about their best?

Carrie McGee: What would like, I don't know if I could get away with that, but I like it. I do like it.

Stephanie: Yeah, Just slide it under there, See if it works. You'll either be divorced or better. I don't know.

Carrie McGee: No, it is, it's just, it's an interesting. Like, I think we as parents want to, like, alleviate friction and make our kids lives as easy as possible.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Carrie McGee: But that's not what creates like, the most resilient, focused kids who can like, think for themselves. So.

Stephanie: I agree. What is a marketing belief or a framework that you used to swear by that now you've backed away from completely.

Carrie McGee: Honestly, like the three or so that I use, like, over and over again, I haven't backed off at all. Um, I do think the one that I'm backing off on mostly is if it's not in the data, then don't believe. Right. And that to me is like, the last few years we've like, if it like to get a CEO to believe something in marketing, you had to have all the data. It's like, we need time and data. And I think that's the change is like, when it comes to brand, like, there's no brand versus demand. Like, great brands drive demand. Like, the. The ability to get somebody's attention will help you drive that.

Stephanie: Right.

Carrie McGee: But that can take time and you might have to try a few things and they won't have direct roi. Right. It's not, it's not the golden years of like, okay, if you just spend more on meta and you will get more leads and they'll likely keep the same quality, like that's not where we are. So I think that's the only one that maybe have data, uh, have the details but be willing to make decisions to move forward even if you can't have it all. Because you've got to be able to test and try some of the brand belief systems out there that are just not as easy to prove out.

Stephanie: Yeah, I don't know if you can answer this one quickly, but what are the three frameworks that you've not backed away from this entire time? That's uh, cool too.

Carrie McGee: Okay, so no fill do it was ingrained into me in a really early stage of my career is like anytime you plan for an audience, whether that's a broad audience you're marketing to or I grew up in the experiential production event space for like 60,000 purse, you know, arena shows for corporations. It's like, what do you want them to know? How do you want them to feel about what that is and what do you want them to go do? Answer those three things and stay true to them in your planning and you're likely not going to miss when it comes to getting it right. The what's in it for them. Kind of a similar model, but like somebody will come to me and they'll be like, this is my plan, this is what I'm doing. I'm like, okay, that's for our field. Who has asked like, what are what's in it for them? Not what do you get? What makes your life easier, but what is in it for them? I think that we have a model just as like proven over and over again and you can externalize that and then just the three why. It's like somebody's like, this is what we should deal with.

Stephanie: Why?

Carrie McGee: Because it's going to drive like better adoption and open it. Okay, but why does that matter? Right? Like get to the why I think is the other one.

Stephanie: Oh, I love these. Okay, I'm taking all of these. They're really good. What is a book that you think every just business leader should be reading or have read?

Carrie McGee: Oh, gosh. I mean, Atomic Habits always comes up as one that I've read at least twice now. Of course, really basic things. Um, to. I maybe even said this last time we talked because I think I just read it last time we talked. But that's one that just keeps coming up to me and I. It just it. I think when you can create good habits on checking yourself and keeping yourself accountable and making time to be accountable and pushing yourself and taking risks and building that in. That's when you see progress. There's no short term progress, really. You can't really change behavior as a leader, as a marketer in a very. Like, you can learn a new skill quickly, but to change a behavior like that takes investment and you have to be intentional. And so I think that's just like, even my kids, like, that's another one that I make sure. And then the other one is mindset. Like, I just think there's a lot around teaching people on. You get to choose how you approach whether you have like an optimistic positive or like a negative detractor mindset. And I think that that's. I think my son was in sixth grade when I got him read that. So I like, I believe that you have to learn those behaviors and habits and they're like human. Human habits, not like marketing magic.

Stephanie: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay, well, Carrie, that was the best place to end. Uh, thank you for coming on Marketing Trends again. You're one of my favorite repeat guests. And until next time, when you're on again, where should people find you? Tell people how to find your work. I mean, you can, you can find

Carrie McGee: me on LinkedIn for Carrie McGee or intensive dot com. Um, those are the best places to follow and find us.

Stephanie: Amazing. Thank you.