eTail Boston 2025: AI, personalization, and the future of retail

[00:00:25] Kailin Noivo: Welcome to another episode of The Ecommerce Toolbox Expert's Perspective. Joining us today, we have Lena, who is the Head of Marketing at eTail. This is Lena's second time on the show. So welcome again, Lena.

[00:00:37] Lena Moriarty: Thank you for having me. So happy to be back.

[00:00:40] Kailin Noivo: Awesome. We really wanted to focus on post-eTail Boston 2025. Really, it's been, I guess, a long and a short six months since Palm Springs. So let's maybe pick it up where we left off around AI, personalization, some social commerce, loyalty, and all the buzzwords that we want to throw in today. So, Lena, why don't we just kick it off with maybe folks who don't know who you are or haven't listened to the opening episode? Maybe share a bit about your career journey and how you ended up in your current role.

[00:01:08] Lena Moriarty: Amazing. Thank you so much for having me. Just to give a little background, I'm Lena Moriarty. I'm the Head of Marketing for eTail. eTail is the number one conference community really made to power your growth where we unite retailers, brands, and technology innovators across the globe. We're global. So we have our annual events in Boston, which just ran, which we had Noibu come to, and then we have our flagship event in eTail Palm Springs coming up in February. So, yeah, if you couldn't make it, it was an amazing experience all about AI, personalization, diving into all the good stuff, which we'll go over today.

[00:01:42] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. I mean, being with eTail, obviously, it gives you a unique vantage point. You're designing a lot of the agendas, the interim experiences. Like, what are some of the moments that really stuck out to you from the latest show that you guys did?

[00:01:56] Lena Moriarty: Yeah. So something that is always so interesting being in this unique position because eTail is a brand itself. It's a brand that brings together retailers and brands. So with that, we always really have our pulse on what's happening in marketing, what's the latest. And with that, the pendulum kind of swings, if you will, where it goes AI and then, everyone leaning into it, and then personalization and then back to AI. And then it's always just flipping the switch on full funnel. Is the funnel dead? And with that, I think that seeing the behind the scenes of how people operate and how that pendulum really gets to be swinging is what's so interesting. Because you hear from a lot of the C-level people as well as the people doing the work, which I think that is so important with eTail, is we do love to bring together and really talk to and connect with a lot of people doing the actual work, which I think that what we've seen in Boston compared to past years is where we are at in AI. I know that everyone's probably tired of hearing about AI and from a generalist point of view. But now that we're actually having some unique case studies and takeaways and figuring out what works and what doesn't based on efficiencies, I feel like that was really the next big hot topic that was really present at eTail Boston that we really carved out the agenda to spotlight on. So got a lot of amazing AI speakers. We had the VP of AI from Rhapsody Media. We had Poonam Goyal from Bloomberg Intelligence that was telling us all about the state of retail. So it was a really, really fun agenda to create.

[00:03:26] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. And kind of comparing it back to Palm Springs, you mentioned that you wanted to make AI actionable. How has that shifted, and how did you kind of feel that in the conversations at Boston?

[00:03:40] Lena Moriarty: Yeah. So we just spoke a couple months ago, six months, and it's so funny how much things change over the course of a couple of months. So I feel like for Palm Springs, a big theme was let's experiment with GenAI. GenAI was the talk of the town. GenAI this, GenAI that. And that's actually switched a little bit to Agentic AI, and now we see that coming in much more. But it's really making the switch to this is how we're trying it, like, kind of how we're dabbling in AI, to now here is what we are doing that is driving ROI for our business, which that's a huge switch in just a couple of months to have actual use cases and takeaways that you could say, we're using this technology and it saved us 25% on X, Y, and Z. And, also, here's what's not working for us. We tried this AI, and, honestly, it wasn't worth the return, and it might not be best for us right now. And I think that having that place to dive into those nitty-gritties of what's working and what's not is really valuable and just can't get more valuable than that.

[00:04:40] Kailin Noivo: Do you hear some of the concrete examples from retailers in terms of, like, what types of AI was working versus what was a bust?

[00:04:47] Lena Moriarty: Yeah. So I think that with that, we have Agentic commerce. We had amazing demo from quite a few people, but one that specifically stood out to me was Brian Gallata from Omakase AI and Zeals. And they're debuting just really customizable Agentic AI that can save you time and workload. And I think that with that manpower saving is what's really kind of standing out amongst some of the other use cases for sure. And that was just one. That's just a drop in the bucket. I'm always running around during the show, so that's just a drop in the bucket of what's really working.

[00:05:23] Kailin Noivo: Any new themes kind of pop up that feel as urgent as Agentic was, or is it just really more of an iteration to the earlier in the year AI craze?

[00:05:32] Lena Moriarty: I think that a couple of other key themes popped up. One for me that I thought was more ever present than I've seen in the past couple of years was just cross-departmental functionalities and making sure your cross-departmental communication is on point. Because I think that with all of the incoming technologies coming in, you're needing more buy-in from your finance department. You're needing your customer service department to fully understand the implications of what bringing in this technology means. And I think that having more communication and also clear operational efficiencies when it comes to that communication is a make it or break it. So I thought there was more emphasis on that than I actually have seen in the past, which was very interesting. And I think that there also was conversation of where is the point of hyper-personalization when it comes to using AI and the technologies that we're given? And is the customer always going to be trusting us when we're hyper-personalizing? And funny enough, the answer seems to be leaning towards yes, that customers are more likely to give more data for a better personalized experience, which I found very interesting because I think that we're easing up on that. We're seeing customers ease up on that. We're seeing a little bit more flexibility with giving data in the shift where they want a better experience.

[00:06:49] Kailin Noivo: Talk to me a bit about what engineered networking is and how you folks did some of that at the latest events.

[00:06:57] Lena Moriarty: So we have amazing networking at eTail. And I think that what I like to say is that we really take a lot of the work out of the networking. I think that there is a little bit of fear when people hear networking. So when we say engineered networking, we're really creating those seamless networking environments and experiences for you to put yourself out there and not just in kind of that awkward, like, hey, Kailin. It's nice to meet you. This is what Noibu does, but more on the lens of, hey, what have you been hearing that is working for you in terms of personalization? Because I am really seeing X, Y, and Z. And creating those kind of open networking environments that go beyond the typical icebreaker, where the icebreaker is necessary. It's part of the process. We all have to do them, but then going a level deeper with those engineered networking opportunities. And that's where we have those great first-timers experiences. We did the store tours, which was really fun for Boston. So we actually took select groups of retailers out to go see the technology available in stores and, like, just the surprise and delight elements that are available in, Fluevog Shoes and Dick's Sporting Goods and seeing just the pillars of what makes an amazing in-store experience. And I think connecting people in different unique ways with surprise and delight allows for just, like, unfiltered networking environment where it's not so buttoned up. You don't have to be worried about being on all the time.

[00:08:24] Kailin Noivo: I like that. It definitely resonates the feeling like you have to be on all the time. How do you gauge whether that's working or not? Like, how do you guys collect feedback from the customers on that?

[00:08:35] Lena Moriarty: Yeah. Of course. So something that's I really love personally about my job and about eTail is, it's about marketing. I'm the Head of Marketing for an event that brings together a bunch of the best of the best in marketing. So with that, we're all about the voice of the customer. So just honestly having feedback. What is working? Are you enjoying this experience? Are you finding benefit out of it? Constantly gathering and getting a finger on the pulse of, is this beneficial to you, the customer, and seeing that you ultimately got ROI out of that. So it's a lot of surveying, and it's a lot of constantly having a feedback loop of what's working and what's not. And then also just measuring how many connections were really made afterwards and getting a more of a sense of who is still connected six months from now. Are you measuring ROI? Are you seeing deals come in, meetings being made?

[00:09:31] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. And based on some of that feedback that you're hearing and just in your running into a lot of digital leaders, where do you think most people are underinvesting right now, and what's the kind of risk that they're introducing to their business over the next twelve to eighteen months by doing that?

[00:09:45] Lena Moriarty: Yes. So I think that there is no one-size-fits-all puzzle piece. But, ultimately, I think that where leaders are underinvesting is with trying and figuring out what tools are best. I think that a lot of times you see people putting all their eggs in one basket when it comes to approaching different efficiency or operational AI use cases or different technologies to figure out what works best for them. But if you're doing one thing at a time, you're kind of stalling yourself from the learning process. So that's where we do see a little bit of a bottleneck with some of the bigger companies being able to test just have a larger testing capability than some of the smaller ones. And with that, price definitely becomes a big factor. And making sure that you're investing properly in the technologies that will bring ultimately the best ROI.

[00:10:36] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. And as we look to wrap up, if you have to make one bet on a theme for next year, what do you think it'll be?

[00:10:44] Lena Moriarty: I think that we're swinging back to top of funnel. I believe that I think that we have always the funnel is dead. We're focusing on bottom of funnel. We're doing full funnel marketing. There's no specific but I think that awareness is back, and I think that we're seeing that with the way our marketing dollars are being attributed to. And I think that we're going to see more investment and more focus on the awareness section in Palm Springs than we did possibly in previous years. With Boston, all eyes are on the holidays. So it's all about making that Q4 matter. How can we make the most out of our Q4 budget? How can we really stack the odds in our favor? And then when we go back to Q1, we're back on the drawing board. We're back on that awareness train. And I think that we're going to see a lot of different discussions, especially as we see the effect of tariffs start to take place in spring 2026, which is when they're anticipated to start seeing the squeeze. So I think that finding out cheaper alternatives to putting yourself out there, which ultimately lies in awareness.

[00:11:43] Kailin Noivo: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for your time, Lena. Really appreciate it.

[00:11:46] Lena Moriarty: Always a pleasure. Thank you so much.

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