“Owned channels are the calm water in a stormy market,” says Andy Philpott, Chief Merchant Strategy Officer at Reward Gateway | Edenred UK. “This year has been a reminder of that.”
As we’ve explored before, newsletters especially are one of the most powerful owned channels in a marketer’s toolbelt.
They’re as direct and trusted as a warm handshake. Even better, they’re measurable. They’re bountiful with data.
For example, Philpott explains, they learned that Mondays and Fridays are prime time for engagement, while weekends are best for travel and leisure.
It’s data that can be harvested for advanced, smarter campaigns, which learn, adapt, and make decisions in real time. All driven by AI.
This is something that Reward Gateway | Edenred has been working on. “The goal is not to send more email,” says Philpott. “It’s to make every send count.”
From a static list to a live audience
First of all, Philpott suggests, affiliates need to reconsider personalisation.
“Segments got us a long way, but their logic is static,” he says. “The next step is to treat the audience as a live entity.”
That means treating each person as an individual, not just a working cog in a larger group. The correct deal needs to be surfaced to each person at the correct moment.
This could be a 20% discount, or a basket reminder, or perhaps nothing at all.
And this can be fueled by a system with AI agents.
Reward Gateway | Edenred’s new BrazeAI Decisioning Studio is one such system. It makes millions of small, precise decisions a day. Everything can then be guided by individual behaviour, for optimal, accurate results.
Polish your newsletter into a smarter storefront
Second, the newsletter itself needs to evolve.
“The structure that readers know and trust should remain,” says Philpott. “But the content inside should become more dynamic.”
He provides an example: “Imagine a newsletter where modules reshuffle based on what readers are clicking. Where creative refreshes automatically, and changes in price or availability update instantly.”
Generative AI tools now help draft copy and images in minutes, allowing editorial teams to assemble smarter newsletters faster.
The newsletters become a proper retail media product, with defined placements, forecastable reach, and rules that balance exposure while protecting the reader experience. “Partners get the performance they need, and readers get the relevance they expect,” Philpott adds.
Measurement becomes a daily conversation
The thought of a daily deep dive into measurement is enough to send even the most hardened CTO sprinting from the office.
But that’s where AI assistants are changing the whole game.
For example, Reward Gateway | Edenred’s BrazeAI Operator allows the team to pull useful data in seconds with natural language.
"What lifted clicks this week?" or "Which audience is starting to fatigue?"
“This is how a program stays fresh,” says Philpott. “Small changes, made often, guided by what people actually do.”
Getting this right is a delicate process. Philpott describes data like freshly baked bread; leave it for too long, and the staler it gets.
“You have to wire in the right, real-time signals (session, browse, purchase) to decide what to send,” he continues. “Culture also carries the numbers. The team needs to be able to ship, watch, test, and try again, without friction.”
Over the last year, the agency Fuse has been a key extension of the team, helping align data, build content modules, and speed up execution.
“As technology and data sophistication accelerate, partnerships have become a critical lever for performance as a publisher,” says Philpott. “Having an external ‘sparring partner’ - someone who brings fresh perspective, challenges assumptions, and introduces new capabilities - can dramatically accelerate innovation. Our collaboration with Fuse Growth Studio has been exactly that: an essential extension of the team, helping us move faster, test smarter, and unlock new ways to deliver value for clients.”
What affiliates can learn
Reward Gateway | Edenred’s experience shows that the next stage of newsletters isn’t about more volume, it’s about precision.
AI-powered decisioning, dynamic content, and daily measurement turn a proven channel into a growth engine that can respond to real behaviour in real time.
In a noisy market, showing up at the right moment with the right message, and knowing when to stay quiet, is how newsletters deliver consistent results and long-term growth.
