The Hightouch Blog - For marketers

Why 2026 Lifecycle is an entirely different game

Why top brands are paying ~$225k and ditching campaign managers for system engineers.

The one audience you actually shouldn't re-engage

What Calm learned from one lifecycle experiment that you can implement in your own program.

Learn from our favorite 2025 campaigns like “Spotify Wrapped”

Get inspired by brands that shared usage with their customers this year to deepen loyalty and engagement.

The 7-part system behind Amazon’s Black Friday machine

The 7-part framework that Amazon uses to turn Black Friday into a 12-day optimization loop for 200M+ Prime members.

How smart retailers protect holiday profit: Maximizing retail media margins

Retail Media Networks are a valuable new profit center, but inefficient processes and traditional onboarding platforms introduce costly delays and fees. Discover how a composable, warehouse-native CDP model simplifies the workflow and unlocks a faster, higher-margin retail media operation.

How smart retailers protect holiday profit: Reducing waste in paid media

See how retailers decrease wasted impressions, expand audience reach, and boost ROAS by resolving fragmented customer identity and activating cleaner data signals with a Composable CDP approach.

How smart retailers protect holiday profit: Plugging costly LTV leaks

Learn how retailers plug lifetime value leaks caused by slow data, fragmented identity, and disconnected channels, and how a Composable CDP turns customer signals into high-impact loyalty, cross-sell, and winback campaigns.

Data Warehouses 101 for Marketers

Too many tools can hide the real issue holding marketing back. Discover how a data warehouse creates a true single source of truth.

What marketers miss about Spotify Wrapped

Every year, countless brands fall into the “Spotify Wrapped trap” and try to recreate the magic of Wrapped, missing the core reason why this campaign is such a success in the first place.

Are traditional CDPs marketing's most disappointing tool?

Learn about the limits that keep CDPs from delivering on their promise of a real customer 360, and how a composable approach changes what’s possible.

The AI prompt every lifecycle marketer should know

Insert any company name and instantly reverse engineer their CRM strategy.

How to build a lifecycle testing framework that actually drives revenue and results

How to run lifecycle tests that compound over time, protect your P&L, and create a culture of real learning.

What nearly a decade at Litmus taught me about email deliverability

What actually impacts deliverability? What do you do if you burn a domain? What’s a healthy unsubscribe rate? The most up-to-date advice on all things email deliverability.

5 patterns killing your CRM program (and how to fix them)

I’ve worked with 30+ CRM teams on retention and growth, and the same five mistakes show up across every one I’ve worked with.

Target vs. Best Buy: comparing 2 of the largest CRM programs

I bought the exact same item from Target and Best Buy to break down their CRM program.

Introducing Hightouch’s Batch integration

Create, test, and automate your CRM strategy with Hightouch and Batch

What is a winback campaign? Fix the timing, targeting, and discount trap

Winback campaigns are deceptively simple. And easy to get wrong. This breakdown examines common pitfalls related to timing, targeting, and over-discounting.

The 5 timeless lifecycle marketing truths that work across any industry

The timeless strategies that have worked across Home Depot, IGN, and Grammarly — and still work in 2025.

What if the best marketing decision is no message at all?

Introducing Smart Suppression for AI Decisioning: Predict which messages will drive results, and send only those that matter

Inside the CRM program Powering Academy Sports + Outdoors

I collected 8+ months of emails from one of the largest sports retailers in the country to break down their lifecycle program.

What actually matters in lifecycle marketing in 2025?

A 5-part framework for building a high-performing lifecycle program that drives retention, loyalty, and LTV.

Stop overthinking your lifecycle program: 4 simple optimizations you can make today

The most overlooked areas that lifecycle teams often ignore, which actually move the needle.

The #1 mistake lifecycle teams make: the reactive sending trap

Here’s why most lifecycle programs plateau — and the framework I used to grow LTV at Peloton, Casper, and Thirty Madison that avoids it.

How Starbucks powers personalization for 34.5M loyalty members

Uncover the CRM and lifecycle system that Starbucks uses to power email personalization for millions of loyalty members.

What 30 years of running lifecycle programs taught us about building programs that actually work

Everything we wish someone told us about building, scaling, and owning lifecycle programs across industries, enterprises, and mid-market companies.

The CDP that works for streaming entertainment: Why Composability is the best answer to VPPA laws

VPPA has made life difficult for streaming companies. The Composable CDP provides a new way to enable compliant personalization.

An analysis of True Classic's abandon cart journey (2025)

I intentionally abandoned cart at checkout to enroll myself in True Classic's win-back program to analyze their strategy.

Email is broken, but fixable

Email's current state has lost some of its luster, but cloud warehouses and AI may help it return to its former glory.

What is a Recommendation System? The Invisible Force Behind Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify

AI recommendation systems turn static suggestions into dynamic, 1:1 experiences. By learning from each customer’s behavior and context, they help marketers deliver the right product to the right person, boosting engagement and revenue at scale.

What Are AI Experiments? And Why Traditional A/B Testing Isn’t Enough Anymore

AI experiments unlock faster learning and deeper personalization. Instead of testing one idea at a time, they optimize every customer interaction automatically, at scale.

Is this the best we can do when it comes to personalization?

How well is your organization using customer data to personalize experiences?

The Customer Engagement Book: An Interview with Alec Haase

Alec Haase, our GM of AI Decisioning at Hightouch, is a contributor to The Customer Engagement Book: Adapt or Die, which just launched today. Here’s an interview with Alec and our partners at MoEngage

What is real-time personalization? The reason your messages miss when they matter most

Are your “personalized” experiences still stuck in the past? If your brand waits hours to respond to a customer’s action, you’re already too late. Real-time personalization powered by tools like Hightouch lets you react instantly with the right message while your customer is still engaged and ready to act.

How to set up the Criteo Conversions API?

Unlock better campaign performance and more accurate measurement by sending cookieless conversion events to the Criteo Conversions API.

What is an AI Customer Journey? The Answer to Stagnant Flows and Personalization Fatigue

Static journeys can’t keep up with dynamic customers. AI-powered customer journeys use customer behavior and intent to automatically adapt every decision at scale. It’s personalization that learns and improves with every interaction.

The strategy behind Netflix’s winback machine

I collected 30 win back emails from Netflix and broke down their email strategy. Here’s what we learned that you can apply to your own lifecycle program.

What is Next Best Action? How Leading Lifecycle Teams are Increasing LTV

Personalize every journey with next best actions that drive growth and retention.

How to set up the Reddit Conversions API?

Connect offline and online outcomes to Reddit Ads reliably. The Conversions API helps future-proof your measurement while improving spend efficiency.

Predict the future with Hightouch Journey Simulations

Use historical data to preview how customers will progress through your journeys