AI, Search & The Future of Retail Marketing | Beyond’s VP Rick Egan at eTail West
In this episode, Rick Egan, VP of Performance Marketing at Beyond (Bed Bath & Beyond & Overstock), explores how AI and first-party data are impacting digital marketing strategies. Learn about the role of behavioral AI in customer acquisition, the impact of predictive analytics on promotions, and the future of AI-powered search and personalization.
🔹 [0:14] Live from eTail West: Introducing Rick Egan & Beyond’s marketing strategy
🔹 [1:25] Rick’s early days in e-commerce & the evolution of digital marketing
🔹 [2:44] The challenge of acquiring new customers cost-effectively
🔹 [4:13] The role of first-party data in optimizing marketing campaigns
🔹 [5:49] AI-powered customer segmentation & predictive behavioral modeling
🔹 [6:45] Why NOT couponing is an overlooked retail growth strategy
🔹 [8:07] How AI is reshaping search—generative & language-based models
🔹 [9:46] Visual search: why it hasn’t taken off & its potential future
🔹 [11:26] Rick’s predictions: The biggest changes coming to digital marketing in 2025
Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on the next wave of AI-powered marketing, and subscribe for more insights from retail’s top leaders. And special thanks to our NetElixir for making our coverage of eTail West possible!
#etailwest #ecommerce #onlineshopping #retailtrends
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Transcript
Hello everyone, this is Omnitalk Retail.
Speaker A:I'm Anne Mazinga coming to you live from the Etail West Conference in Palm Springs.
Speaker A:Before we get started here with my final guest of today, I want to give a big shout out to Net Elixir who is helping us bring you all of the coverage, all the interviews from the conference for the rest of the week.
Speaker A:So stop by and see them at booth 501 if you're at the show or head to netelixir.com all right, next joining me I have Rick Egan, who is the VP of performance marketing at Beyond.
Speaker A:Rick, welcome.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:I gotta hear a little bit about your background.
Speaker A:How long have you been at Beyond?
Speaker A:What did you do before that?
Speaker A:Like introduce yourself to the audience if you will.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:Thanks for that.
Speaker B:I've been at beyond for three years.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:So we are, we're kind of a family of brands company with, with a couple key brands being Bed Bath and Beyond and Overstock.com, two old legacy brands that we're trying to do some really fun new things with.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker A:And how long have you been there total, you said?
Speaker B:I've been there for three years.
Speaker A:Three years, okay.
Speaker B: g really since like the early: Speaker A:How did you get into it?
Speaker A:What was like your first foray into E commerce?
Speaker B: A was actually in: Speaker B:I was in business school at the time and a friend or a friend of mine that I was going to school with, she and I wanted to try to do something with the dot com boom, which was at that time.
Speaker B:And so we ended up developing a website for kind of new and expectant parents to be able to find daycare listings.
Speaker B:Because I had a small child at the time and that was a problem that seemed to be needed to be solved.
Speaker B:So we did that and that was great.
Speaker B:And we had a lot of fun at first and then we figured out we actually had to make money doing this, that you didn't just get the downside.
Speaker A:Downside.
Speaker B:So then I ended up building a e commerce store.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Built my own shopping engine and kind of all that.
Speaker B:We were a drop ship retailer.
Speaker B:So that was, that was the beginning.
Speaker B:So that was before search marketing or anything like that.
Speaker B:So our marketing was how do we place higher in the Yahoo Directory?
Speaker A:In the Yahoo Directory.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker B:That's how far I go back.
Speaker B:The gray hairs are not.
Speaker A:Oh my God, that's amazing.
Speaker A:That's amazing.
Speaker A:Well, what all now do you oversee in your role at beyond and kind of how has that evolved over the last three years?
Speaker B:Well, so my role is to really focus on acquisition, how we, how we really acquire new customers.
Speaker B:And you know, and the pressure is always how can we acquire more and cheaper?
Speaker B:And so, you know, that's really always my focus is how we can get the most out of the dollars that we spend.
Speaker B:And you know, and I think that I always try to think about it that you know, it's both the acquisition side off site, but once you get on site, your job doesn't end just because you delivered the visit.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:So you have to look for other solutions that you can to continue to, you know, get better efficiencies.
Speaker A:Are there particular things that you're interested in?
Speaker A:I mean, especially being here at E tail, there's a lot of solutions out there.
Speaker A: g or looking more into now in: Speaker B:I mean, I think the, you know, the, I think the thing that I've been kind of looking at and this really, not just this year, but the last couple years is how you can really better use first party data.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:So, you know, with, with the kind of the rise of the black box, you know, AI algorithms with Google and Meta and everybody else seems to be having their own one that pop up, you know, it's great to throw the acronym AI in there and say it's better, but it also kind of ends up being a black box.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, so I really look at, you know, and that's one, I've had a couple good conversations here with a few different potential partners to work with.
Speaker B:But it's really, how can you best use first party data and use it at scale?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You know, with we have a CRM of, you know, 150 million records, so we don't necessarily need to think about third party data which, you know, which is kind of going away.
Speaker B:We can really think about first party data, how we can best use that.
Speaker B:How can we better know who somebody is and who is, who is like our best customer and bring those people in.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And how do you continue to keep them coming back, making those same purchases and going to you first when it comes to search for those types of things too, I imagine.
Speaker A:Well, let's talk about your session.
Speaker A:What were you talking about on stage today?
Speaker B:Well, it's Bed Bath and Beyond, so we were talking about coupons.
Speaker A:Oh boy.
Speaker A:I know I saw somebody in the expo hall they're like luring us all with a 20% off coupons of old.
Speaker A:It was like, I love that.
Speaker A:All right, okay, so what were you, what was the focus of the conversation?
Speaker B:So it was one partner that we have that we work with, a company called Session AI and they offer kind of a behavioral, you know, or it's really called real time offers.
Speaker B:So a real time coupon offer.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Where you can really look at the session and what the customer journey is and then model that out and then determine, okay, if you do, you know, kind of do certain behaviors, your likelihood of converting is, you know, is really good.
Speaker B:So therefore maybe don't give them a coupon.
Speaker A:Oh, take some savings.
Speaker B:And then other people, they can go, well, I'm not so sure about this conversion.
Speaker B:Maybe give that person a coupon and then they convert at a higher rate.
Speaker B:So both of those things, because both really, you know, are important metrics to both, you know, kind of improve conversion.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Improve sales, gain some efficiencies, but also to improve your bottom line and margins.
Speaker A:I love the idea of not couponing.
Speaker A:I feel like we don't talk about that enough.
Speaker A:It seems like it's like, how do you find the right trigger points to give these people deals and offers?
Speaker A:But you're totally right.
Speaker A:I mean, there's some advantage in understanding what their propensity might be online.
Speaker B:You have to look at that.
Speaker B:And I think we all, if we're doing our, if we're true leaders and we're doing our part, then we're looking at.
Speaker B:And not we're looking at, we're doing the harder work and finding intelligent solutions and not just going, not just following to, hey, if we just increase the coupon 5%, we'll make more sales tomorrow.
Speaker A:Right, Exactly.
Speaker A:So race to the bottom.
Speaker A:I mean, you just, you lose, I think brand equity sometimes in that sense.
Speaker A:Or the, you lose a customer who's willing to pay full price, you know, that point in time.
Speaker A:So is that what you would describe as behavioral AI, Rick?
Speaker A:I saw that in the description.
Speaker B:So yeah, I mean, cause what.
Speaker A:Or is it deeper than that?
Speaker B:It's really.
Speaker B:So it's, you know, succession AI is basically scoring based on a click based model scoring a customer behavior.
Speaker B:And then, so when you're, when you see those behaviors repeated, then you can kind of model out and say, okay, with a certain level of confidence, if you do these things, you're more likely to make a purchase or less likely to make a purchase.
Speaker B:So we're able to apply a scoring model that from A predictive standpoint is highly accurate.
Speaker A:Well, I want to close out with maybe some predictions from you.
Speaker A:As you kind of look into the coming year, what do you think is going to become more prevalent in the world of acquiring new customers online, Getting customers maybe to visit a location or to visit a store in person?
Speaker A:You're kind of starting to explore that with the beyond brand, working with outside licensees and that kind of thing.
Speaker A:How do you think that's going to evolve and what things are going to be top of your list of priorities as you head into this year?
Speaker B:Well, I think, you know what will continue.
Speaker B:I think what will continue to be the most important thing is the customer experience.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And if you have a good product and you deliver a good experience, then you'll delight the customer and they will reward you.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, in just the competitive world that we, that we are in today, some people can take easy pass and just lower your prices and add bigger discounts and do things like that.
Speaker B:But I think it's the harder work of, you know, how can we deliver, you know, the right product at the right time for the, for the customer?
Speaker A:That's the most important.
Speaker A:And I might be leading the witness a little bit here, but what do you think about search and how search is changing kind of what customers expectations are as we see some retailers starting to explore like gen AI based or language based search, how do you think that will impact.
Speaker A:Do you think that we're still far away from that or do you think that's, that's going to come sooner than.
Speaker B:It'll come sooner than people.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's going to happen tomorrow, but I do think it will happen in the next few, few years.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:You know, and you're already starting to see that, that, you know, with like the traditional site search experience.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That people are augmenting that with voice search and you know, in different types of, you know, more AI led types of search patterns.
Speaker B:And then while people are not necessarily going, you know, on a transactional rate, going to things like Perplexity and chatgpt.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, as that comfort level grows with people doing those things, they will naturally start navigating to that more and more.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker B:And then, you know, it's just as the snowball builds, it hits a point where then it really becomes very big.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:What about visual based search?
Speaker A:Are you guys looking at that or do you consider like, do you think we're still off like as far as that's concerned and people using Lens or another.
Speaker B:I don't know about channel search.
Speaker B:I mean, things like Lens I think are interesting, but like those.
Speaker B:I'm gonna snap a photo and, you know, do a search.
Speaker B:Just hasn't really.
Speaker B:The technology has been around for a while and really taken off.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Amazon's had it for however long.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I still think with those things, maybe there's a time that, you know, it suddenly takes off, but a lot of it, you know, maybe it was built way too soon, but maybe it was just.
Speaker B:That wasn't what people wanted.
Speaker A:All right, well, I appreciate you putting your Nostradamus hat on for us.
Speaker A:Rick Egan here from beyond, giving us all of his experience, from daycare site finders in the early days of Ecom all the way to his current role now.
Speaker A:Thank you so much, Rick, for spending time with us.
Speaker A:And thanks again to Net Elixir for all of our coverage being made possible here at Etail.
Speaker A:And until tomorrow, be careful out there.
