Shoptalk Spring 2025 gave retail leaders a crystal-clear view of what’s next: AI, personalization, brand storytelling, and reimagined customer experiences.

At Shoptalk 2025, the retail industry gathered to explore the future of commerce, with a strong focus on AI, personalization, and enhanced customer experiences. Key insights from the event, shared by leading brands and industry experts, underscore the importance of adapting to new technologies and strategies to stay competitive. 

The overarching theme was transformation. It was a look into how retailers like Gap, Kendra Scott, and Wayfair are powering personalized experiences with data, AI, and soon, RCS Business Messaging—a richer, more interactive format set to change how brands communicate with their customers​.

It’s not just technology like AI and RCS that’s going through a transformation. Traditional marketing tactics are evolving, too. From advertising on TV to rethinking how to use word-of-mouth marketing in a modern setting, the theme for 2025 is all about innovation but not reinventing the wheel. 

Here are the biggest takeaways from the retailer conference so you can stay ahead of the curve. 

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1. The funnel is dead—long live the customer journey

In the CMO Rapid Fire panel, marketing leaders from brands like Pacsun and Randa Apparel tore down the traditional funnel and its linear progression. It’s an outdated model that doesn’t accurately reflect current marketing strategies and consumer behaviors. Marketing is a complex web of connections, and one panelist even noted that marketing is everywhere all at once. Consumers move dynamically and unpredictably. A funnel may be useful for allocating budget, but it no longer accurately represents how, where, and why consumers interact with brands.

They championed new models built on predictive analytics, micro-influencers, conversational AI, and customer lifetime value. Return on ad spend (ROAS) alone is out—but nuanced metrics and incremental ROAS are in.

Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary, highlighted the importance of measuring ROAS and customer acquisition costs (CAC). Even when we’re not in a time of financial turbulence with talks of escalating tariffs, some companies have advertised themselves into oblivion by not watching CAC and ROAS. 

Once you’ve acquired the customer, it’s crucial to segment them correctly to keep them as a customer. One way we’re helping our customers find the right metrics to keep new and long-term subscribers engaged is with our segment reporting solution. Get the insights you need to understand your customer segments and apply your learnings to targeted ads to possibly lower CAC and ROAS even further. 

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2. Promotions are getting smarter and more social

Across several sessions, including a session on Personalizing Discounts as well as a panel Attentive co-hosted with Bazaarvoice, a common theme around personalization was emerging. Representatives from Kendra Scott emphasized how brands are using AI tools to create personalized recommendations. 

Consumers are craving messages that feel like they were crafted just for them, and with AI that’s possible. AI can identify each subscriber and use their customer data profile to create a true 1:1 message based on their current shopping behavior.

AI might power the message, but consumers still want a human feel. That’s where user-generated content (UGC) can have a significant impact. It puts the person back in personalization. At one session, Michael Kors discussed how they use UGC across channels, including SMS and email, to add a human voice to their recommendations. 

One way to get more UGC is using the Attentive-Bazaarvoice integration. It allows you to collect reviews and ratings via SMS, which can then be used in messages as social proof. This integration has helped marketers collect reviews at a 3X higher review submission rate than email.  

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3. Legacy brands like Gap are innovating fast

At the Re-Imagining Gap keynote, Attentive customer Gap’s CEO showcased how they’re using customer data, supply chain agility, and simplified pricing strategies to stay relevant. Eight straight quarters of market share growth says it’s working.

Some key takeaways from this session included the shift from focusing solely on price to balancing price and product, making communication clearer and more enticing, and using digital tools and customer data to create a compelling consumer experience—both online and offline. 

Like Gap, we’ve been focusing on creating compelling customer experiences through mobile marketing. With innovations in our identity solution, Attentive Signal, you can identify and segment subscribers based on real-time behavior. The next game-changer will be with the rollout of RCS. These messages  can feature video demos, product carousels, and in-message checkout.

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4. Innovation is the differentiator  

Shark Ninja’s CEO wowed the Retail Media Evolution crowd with stories of rapid innovation and consumer-centric product testing. They visited thousands of customers’ homes over a year to directly observe how people were using their products. These observations led to ideas of how to differentiate their products, such as creating the Self-Cleaning Brush Roll after watching customers manually remove hair from the roll, and helped iterate products 100 times over before mass production started. 

Shark Ninja shares that it’s their customers who bring the products to life and showcase that by using UGC in their marketing. This creates a consistent loop of feedback and innovation for the brand and brings customers along for the evolution of the brand. 

Their virality, powered by real user love on social media, has helped them dominate 14+ categories.

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Final word: The future is rich, conversational, and personal

At Shoptalk 2025, brands weren’t asking if personalization mattered—they were asking how fast they could scale it. With the launch of RCS Business Messaging, Attentive is redefining what’s possible in personalized marketing.

RCS is enabling brands to engage with consumers in richer, more interactive, and deeply personalized ways. Brands that embrace this now will gain a significant competitive edge.

- Amit Jhawar, CEO at Attentive

Ready to create conversations that convert? Schedule a demo to see our SMS, MMS, and RCS messages in action.