Key Takeaways
- AI-powered decisioning built on Databricks and Hightouch drove a 22% lift in incremental salon bookings by testing thousands of combinations of subject lines, offers, timing and creative to find what resonated with each pet parent, according to Bradley Breuer, SVP of Marketing at PetSmart.
- PetSmart’s marketing team sets the objectives, guardrails and creative, while AI evaluates customer signals in real time and picks the next best action, freeing marketers to focus on strategy and analysis.
- First-party data from more than 80 million Treats Rewards members gives PetSmart the foundation to combine known customer behavior with predictive models and personalize at scale.
PetSmart may have recently taken a dig at all of the AI hype directed at customers in its latest marketing campaign, but the company is absolutely using AI in its marketing efforts, according to Bradley Breuer, SVP of Marketing.
“From a marketing perspective, we’re most interested in how AI can create a better experience for pet parents,” Breuer told Retail TouchPoints. “While there are plenty of productivity applications internally, one of the biggest opportunities is using AI to make every customer interaction more relevant, timely and helpful.”
Take PetSmart’s in-store grooming salons, which are a key part of how the company builds loyalty and engagement with its customers. To grow its salon visitors, Breuer’s team turned to AI-powered decisioning. They used the technology to identify pet parents most likely to be interested in grooming services and determine which messages, offers and timing would be most effective in encouraging them to book an appointment. The result was a 22% increase in incremental salon bookings.
For Breuer, AI is all about enhancing decision-making. He wants the technology to act as a tool for marketers, allowing them to analyze more customer signals, optimize campaigns more effectively and spend more time focused on strategy and creativity.
Breuer spoke with Retail TouchPoints about PetSmart’s approach to AI-powered decisioning, where the technology is delivering measurable business value and why he believes the strongest marketing outcomes still depend on human expertise.
How is your function currently using AI in a meaningful way?
PetSmart SVP of Marketing Bradley Breuer: One example is our Treats Rewards program and our customer email journey. With more than 80 million Treats Rewards members, we have a strong first-party data foundation that helps us better understand customer behavior and measure outcomes with confidence. We’ve seen meaningful business impact by applying AI to areas like decisioning and journey orchestration, where it can process thousands of signals in real time to deliver more personalized experiences and offers to our Treats Rewards members. Those are the use cases that excite me most because they create value for both pet parents and the business.
Where is AI having the biggest impact on the customer experience right now?
Bradley Breuer: From a pet parent’s perspective, AI helps us be more relevant. Instead of receiving generic communications, they’re more likely to receive information, offers and recommendations that reflect exactly where they are in their pet’s journey.
Personalization has been a key part of paid media for years, where we’ve optimized messaging in real time based on customer behavior and intent signals. What’s exciting now is seeing that same level of personalization extend across our owned channels, including email, push notifications and SMS.
Through Treats Rewards, we have a deep understanding of our pet parents, from their purchase history to the pets they care for and the life stages they’re navigating. AI helps us combine those known insights with predictive models to anticipate what they may need next, whether that’s replenishing food, discovering a complementary product or considering a service.
Rather than sending the same message to millions of customers, AI enables us to deliver communications that are more relevant to each pet parent’s individual journey. Ultimately, that’s a better experience for our customers and a more effective way for us to build long-term relationships.
What is one AI use case in your area that is delivering real value?
Bradley Breuer:Â AI-powered decisioning for our CRM marketing has been a game changer. For years, our teams made thoughtful, data-driven decisions around the right offer, email content and timing for every campaign. But those decisions were still largely calendar-based and limited by the number of variables a person can realistically evaluate at once.
Today, AI allows us to move beyond that approach. Our team defines the objectives, establishes the guardrails and provides the creative, while AI continuously evaluates customer signals and determines the next best experience for each individual pet parent. This allows our team to focus more on strategy, creative thinking and analysis to understand why certain approaches perform better. It’s enabling a level of personalization and optimization that simply isn’t possible manually. The combination of human expertise and AI-driven decisioning is making us more effective marketers and helping us deliver more relevant experiences for our customers.
Bradley Breuer, SVP of Marketing, PetSmart. Photo: Olga – stock.adobe.com, PetSmart.
What tools are you using most right now?
Bradley Breuer:Â Historically, our CRM team made countless decisions around the best offer, the right content and the optimal time to reach pet parents, drawing on performance data, testing and experience to inform every campaign.
Today, we’ve augmented that process with AI-powered decisioning built on Databricks and Hightouch. Databricks provides the first-party customer data foundation, while Hightouch enables us to activate that intelligence across our CRM programs. Together, they allow us to continuously evaluate customer signals and recommend the next best action for individual pet parents.
The result is more relevant, personalized communications that have delivered measurable lift across the customer experiences we’re optimizing, while allowing our marketers to focus more of their time on strategy, creativity and testing.
What is one initiative that exceeded expectations or didn’t work as planned?
Bradley Breuer:Â PetSmart operates grooming salons in nearly 1,700 stores, and we know salon customers are among our most loyal and engaged pet parents. Helping more customers establish a regular grooming routine benefits both pet wellness and our business.
We gave our AI decisioning engine a clear objective: identify dog parents who were good candidates for grooming and determine the most effective way to encourage them to book an appointment. Within the guardrails we established, including approved offers, creative and brand guidelines, the AI continuously tested thousands of combinations of subject lines, calls to action, content, timing and more to identify what resonated most with each customer.
The results exceeded our expectations, driving a 22% lift in incremental salon bookings. At the scale we operate, that’s a meaningful outcome and a great example of how AI can enhance marketing performance by delivering more relevant experiences to pet parents.
