Every year, the Expie Awards spotlight marketers who aren’t just keeping up, they’re redefining what meaningful customer engagement looks like. From standout lifecycle strategies to smart uses of AI, these teams are transforming how brands connect with real people in real time.
The winners of the 2025 Iterable Expie Awards stood out for their boldness, precision, and creativity. Whether launching complex cross-channel campaigns or architecting next-level data strategies, they proved what’s possible when you combine a clear vision with the right tools and a whole lot of heart.
Here are the winners of each category:
Best AI-Powered Customer Experience: Joybird
This award honors the team that leverages cutting-edge AI to deliver exceptional, personalized customer experiences, powered by Iterable’s AI Suite. From Predictive Goals to Frequency Optimization, these marketers are using AI not as a buzzword, but as a competitive edge—delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right moment.
Finalists: Fabletics, Morning Brew Inc.
Joybird, a subsidiary of La-Z-Boy Incorporated and a modern, customizable furniture brand, earned this year’s Best AI-Powered Customer Experience award for its thoughtful and strategic use of Iterable’s AI Suite.
By benchmarking AI-driven decisions against manual processes, the team quickly pinpointed where automation would have the most significant impact and is looking to scale those improvements across their programs. The test results demonstrate an incremental lift in CTOR, conversions, and revenue per delivery, showing clear, measurable gains from AI-led optimization.
“My team tested Iterable’s AI tools during our tentpole sales campaigns and achieved significant lifts in engagement and revenue versus the control. Testing Send Time Optimization, Brand Affinity, and Next Best Action gave us statistically significant results within the test that helped us better engage loyal customers and re-engage inactive users.”
~ Laura Wusthoff, Director of Performance Media at Joybird
Most Inspiring Switch to Iterable: ATG Entertainment
This award celebrates the bold teams that embraced change, took on the challenge of migration, and are already seeing big wins. You didn’t just make the switch to Iterable, you transformed your marketing strategy, and it’s time to show off the results.
Finalists: ALG Vacations, REI Co-op
ATG Entertainment, a global leader in live entertainment with 71 venues across the UK, US, and continental Europe, earned this year’s Most Inspiring Switch to Iterable award for its resolute modernization of its CRM foundation during a period of rapid growth. The team migrated from a decade-old platform to Iterable while launching a new mobile app and onboarding five Broadway venues, quickly adopting AI-driven capabilities and expanding personalization across email, push, and WhatsApp.
Switching to Iterable delivered strong performance gains: UK click-through rates doubled on dynamic emails tailored to customers, US engagement rose 50%, and a single dynamic newsletter test generated $36,000 in incremental revenue.
“Iterable has enabled us to deliver smarter, more engaging customer experiences by connecting our data and marketing efforts across channels. We’re now able to personalize communications around each guest’s interests and purchase behavior—helping us inspire audiences, drive ticket sales, and build stronger relationships with live entertainment fans worldwide.”
~ Mara Cohen, CRM Manager at ATG Entertainment
Best Cross-Channel Orchestration: Prosper Marketplace
This honor awards the teams that are creating seamless, orchestrated experiences across channels like SMS, Embedded Messaging, WhatsApp, In-App, and more. In a world where fragmented messaging is the norm, these brands stand out by delivering unified journeys that boost engagement and impact.
Finalists: Findmypast, Rue Gilt Groupe
Prosper Marketplace, a fintech pioneer providing access to affordable financial solutions to consumers across the credit spectrum, earned this year’s Best Cross-Channel Orchestration award for successfully unifying its customer communications into a single, coordinated program that delivers stronger performance across every channel. With Iterable, Prosper unified email, push, embedded messaging, and in-app or web notifications in a single system, giving their marketing team complete control to launch and optimize campaigns quickly.
“Prosper’s success with Iterable showcases the transformative power of unified, cross-channel messaging. We increased agility, reduced time-to-market, and delivered more relevant experiences—driving a 15% lift in conversion rate for repeat borrowers and a 5% increase in personal loan originations.”
~ Nikhil Khurana, Director of Acquisition Marketing and Capabilities at Prosper Marketplace
Best Data Activation: Nextdoor
This award recognizes the behind-the-scenes work that powers great marketing: the data and operations teams using Iterable to build the foundation for smarter, faster, and more personalized engagement. From unifying customer profiles with real-time behavioral and demographic data to delivering dynamic content at scale with Catalog, these teams turn raw data into meaningful, measurable moments.
Nextdoor, the essential neighborhood network serving more than 100 million neighbors, earned this year’s Best Data Activation award for building a compliant, scalable data foundation that powers real-time, personalized engagement with Iterable. With Marketing Technology Lead, Shweta, and Data Operations Lead, Parth, guiding the work as part of the broader Business Technology team’s strategy, Nextdoor unified real-time data signals from the product, Salesforce, and Databricks flowing into a single source in Iterable. This architecture now supports global customer journeys with faster, more flexible activation. With Iterable’s hybrid data model and automation, the team can launch campaigns, manage consent, and optimize experiences without engineering support.
This data strategy drove strong results, including 50 million marketing emails per month at 99 percent deliverability, higher resurrection rates and predictive CTRs, up to 75 percent faster setup time, and ongoing SMB growth.
“By pairing Iterable’s AI capabilities with our data ecosystem, we’re making every customer interaction smarter, faster, and more human,”
~ Shweta Puri, Marketing Technology and AI Operations Manager at Nextdoor
Marketing Moment of the Year: Melbourne Football Club
This award honors a marketing moment that truly stood out—sparking connection, challenging the status quo, and delivering creativity with impact. Whether it was a bold pivot, an emotionally resonant experience, or an unexpected twist, this moment proved what’s possible when marketing moves in real-time.
Finalists: Brigit, Secret Escapes
Melbourne Football Club (MFC), one of Australia’s most historic sporting organizations, earned this year’s Marketing Moment of the Year award for delivering one of its most impactful fan moments of the season through timely, personalized engagement powered by Iterable. After adopting Iterable in 2023, MFC gained deeper visibility into supporter behavior and the ability to deliver cross-channel content in real time.
These capabilities proved essential during a key point in the season, when a highly targeted, moment-based campaign converted fan excitement into action. The effort drove 530 new memberships, the club’s highest-converting campaign of the year, and delivered 40 percent efficiency gains from smarter data ingestion.
“While our previous tech stack required manual processes with no ability to personalise, Iterable has addressed these challenges with its advanced segmentation, reporting tools and journey building capabilities. We’ve also used Iterable’s dynamic content integration with Moveable Ink to deliver highly personalised fan communications that resulted in some of our highest-converting campaigns of the season.”
~ Alana Clarianes, Digital Marketing Analyst at MFC
Marketing MVP of the Year: Shweta Puri, Nextdoor
This award honors an individual marketer who’s a true Iterable expert. They make a big impact on their team by driving innovation, taking smart risks, and executing standout campaigns that elevate their brand. This person collaborates across teams, leads with creativity and impact, and is the go-to pro for building automated, high-performing experiences that inspire customer loyalty.
Finalists: Erik Bledsoe (STIHL), Hannah Sampson (Lovehoney)
Shweta Puri, Marketing Technology & AI Operations Manager at Nextdoor, has been named Marketing MVP of the Year for transforming the company’s lifecycle marketing through technical excellence and innovative leadership. As Nextdoor’s trusted Iterable expert, Shweta has turned complex martech systems into automated, personalized customer experiences that drive meaningful business results. Shweta led Nextdoor’s shift toward intelligence-driven lifecycle marketing by integrating Iterable with Segment and SendGrid, enabling predictive personalization at scale. Her work set new performance benchmarks—achieving a 99.72% delivery rate, reducing spam complaints by 50%, and maintaining the organization’s lowest block rate (0.24%)—all while reducing manual effort and strengthening retention and engagement. Praised for her “martech mastery,” speed, and ability to solve complex challenges with a marketer’s mindset, Shweta continues to elevate how Nextdoor approaches lifecycle marketing and inspire teams to innovate with impact.
Visionary Leader of the Year: Adrian Rohr, FableticsÂ
This award honors a visionary leader who is redefining how their organization connects with customers. They’re not just responding to change—they’re empowering their teams to drive it. By championing cross-functional collaboration, fostering a culture of learning, and enabling AI-powered innovation, this leader is setting a new standard for what it means to engage customers with relevance, agility, and impact.
Adrian Rohr, Vice President of Marketing CRM at Fabletics, has been recognized as Visionary Leader of the Year for redefining what AI-powered customer engagement can achieve. Under his leadership, Fabletics shifted to a true AI-first operating model—using predictive intelligence, automated decisioning, and real-time signals to deliver personalized experiences to more than 2.5 million members. This transformation built deeper relationships and increased the impact of lifecycle and promotional programs. As the driving force behind Fabletics’ transition to Iterable’s unified real-time engagement platform, Adrian and his team achieved the strongest CRM outcomes in company history and established a new standard for intelligent, member-centered growth. His work is widely recognized as a model for modern lifecycle marketing and a proof point for how data, creativity, and technology can scale meaningful customer impact. Adrian’s leadership continues to inspire teams and industry peers to think boldly, innovate with speed, and raise the bar for what intelligent customer engagement can be.
CMO of the Year: Lindsey Irvine, Square
This award honors a Chief Marketing Officer who exemplifies modern marketing leadership, balancing bold creativity with data-driven precision. This visionary CMO is redefining what it means to connect with customers in today’s dynamic landscape: championing innovation, inspiring teams, and driving measurable impact across the business. From leading transformative brand moments to building cultures that embrace experimentation and empathy, this leader doesn’t just set strategy—they set the standard.
Lindsey Irvine, Chief Marketing Officer at Square, was named CMO of the Year for her leadership and her commitment to holding marketing to a higher bar—creatively, operationally, and commercially. At Square, Lindsey has led the company’s bold brand refresh and the “See You in the Neighborhood” campaign—initiatives that brought the brand closer to the real sellers, communities, and everyday moments that define it. She brings a clear, disciplined approach to marketing, uniting strong creative direction with a deep understanding of what drives the business forward. Lindsey reflects the best of modern marketing leadership—focused, innovative, and a catalyst for higher performance across her teams and her cross-functional partners.Â
Agency Partner of the Year: Apply Digital
Apply Digital was recognized as Agency Partner of the Year for their implementation expertise, creative excellence, and ability to help brands deliver more personalized, real-time customer engagement.
Technology Partner of the Year: Movable Ink
Movable Ink was recognized as Technology Partner of the Year for empowering the ultimate “better together” story, uniting its leading personalization engine with the Iterable platform to help customers turn fragmented data into seamless, visually rich, and hyper-personalized experiences at scale.”
Rising Star Partner: MissionOne Media (BarkleyOKRP)
MissionOne Media, the CRM and media arm of BarkleyOKRP, was recognized as Rising Star Partner of the Year for the team’s rapid impact, innovative engagement strategies, and meaningful contributions to growing the global Iterable community.
That’s a Wrap on 2025 Expies
The 2025 Iterable Expie Awards remind us that great marketing is more than just creative ideas or clever tactics. It’s about using technology, data, and empathy to build real connections. These individuals and teams proved what’s possible when strategy meets imagination.Â
We’re excited to see where they go next, and even more excited to give them the VIP treatment at Activate Summit 2026, Iterable’s flagship marketing conference taking place April 21–23 in Los Angeles, California. Our winners will join the world’s top marketers to continue to raise the bar for modern, moments-based marketing excellence.
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If you think your team has what it takes to win an Expie in 2026, keep your eyes peeled for the chance to nominate your peers next year. And, if you have your eye on the “Most Inspiring Switch to Iterable” prize (or just want to see what Iterable can do) check out our choose-your-own-adventure Platform Tour page.
