Customer Data

In this episode of Total Retail Tech Insights, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Eugene Yukin, vice president of products at MessageGears, the data activation and engagement platform that helps enterprises harness their data by streamlining the tech stack. Listen in as Yukin discusses his career experience in retail and product (1:10), the MessageGears platform (2:30), and…

Many convenience store operators walk into a strategy session with a promo calendar and call it a loyalty plan. A coffee BOGO this week. Two-for-one taquitos the next. A "we miss you" blast to anyone who hasn't scanned in a while. I've seen it a hundred times. That's not loyalty. That's a coupon schedule with…

Retailers don’t have an artificial intelligence problem. They have a decision-making problem. After years of investing heavily in AI, many retailers expected it to transform customer engagement overnight through smarter personalization, faster decisions, and measurable growth. Instead, many organizations are still dealing with disconnected customer data and delayed action. That gap is becoming increasingly expensive.…

Here's the paradox no one in retail is talking about enough: retailers are pouring billions into artificial intelligence that runs on first-party data at the exact moment consumers are reconsidering whether to share it. By the end of 2026, AI-driven search, personalization and discovery will increasingly shape how consumers find products, assess brands, and make…

Retail media has quickly become one of the most important growth engines in commerce. Retailers are increasingly monetizing their digital properties, from search results and product pages to apps and email, by enabling brands to promote their products directly within the shopping journey. Yet despite its rapid growth, many retailers still hesitate to fully embrace…

Retail media networks (RMNs) have emerged as a powerful channel to reach audiences, particularly for brands lacking direct touchpoints with prospective customers. Their proximity to checkout, closed-loop measurement, and shopper data make RMNs highly effective at converting demand and delivering bottom-funnel impact. However, RMN campaigns are often planned, executed and measured in isolation, creating a…

Today’s marketers are integrating generative artificial intelligence solutions across workflows, automating key components of campaign creation and orchestration. And they're seeing results in record time. However, the next era of AI-enabled marketing strategies will not be centered on automation. Tomorrow’s marketing leaders will be focused on building agentic AI solutions that can handle complex workflows…

“We centralized our data. Where are the insights?” I hear this from marketing leaders every week. They thought bringing all of their data  together would make their decision-making easier. Instead, they got a clean dashboard. The data’s there, but it’s not telling them what to do next. So, they start shopping for answers elsewhere. Maybe…

Privacy regulation in the U.S. has moved out of policy and into production. As new state laws emerge in Indiana, Kentucky, and Rhode Island, businesses are navigating a growing patchwork of rules that now shape how digital commerce actually runs. For years, privacy compliance lived with legal and security teams. Today, it shows up in…

When considering fundamental shifts in how shoppers define value in today’s retail environment, at the center is continuity. It's the expectation that a shopper’s relationship with a brand doesn’t reset when they move between channels, but instead flows seamlessly across them. For retailers, this is where the challenge becomes operational. While digital channels have evolved…