Interview with Carrie Bova, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Five Below
Janet Jaswal (Global VP of Marketing, Blueshift):
Welcome, everyone! I'm thrilled to be joined today by Carrie Bova, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Five Below—a valued Blueshift customer. Welcome, Carrie!
Carrie Bova (Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Five Below):
Hi, thank you! Happy to be here.
Janet:
To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about Five Below and your role?
Carrie:
Sure! Five Below is a national retailer focused on offering the coolest, trendiest products for teens, kids, and adults—all priced at $5 or less. As the Senior Digital Marketing Manager, my role is to drive both online and in-store purchases by reaching customers with personalized, compelling messages that highlight our latest assortments, which refresh seasonally.
Challenges Before Blueshift
Janet:
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced with email marketing and customer engagement before adopting Blueshift?
Carrie:
Before Blueshift, our email marketing was limited to a batch-and-blast strategy. Every subscriber received the same message, with no personalization or dynamic content. We created every email from scratch—there were no templates, and the process was extremely manual. It was all from the brand’s perspective, not the customer’s, and that made it difficult to drive relevance and engagement.
Using Customer Data Effectively
Janet:
How are you collecting and using data today? Can you share an example of how better data insights have improved your marketing?
Carrie:
We use a combination of data sources—past purchase behavior (both online and in-store), persona segments (like “teen” or “millennial mom”), web browsing behavior, and category affinities within Blueshift. This data fuels our segmentation strategy, allowing us to send tailored mass emails and automated messages with relevant product recommendations. For instance, two customers might receive completely different emails based on their behavior and profile. It’s made a huge difference.
Cross-Channel Marketing in Action
Janet:
Five Below engages customers both online and in-store. How does your cross-channel strategy come to life?
Carrie:
While we aim to drive traffic to our site, we also focus on increasing foot traffic to stores. Our website offers ship-to-home, in-store pickup, or simply browsing local inventory. From a marketing standpoint, we focus on creating urgency through seasonal product drops and letting the customer choose their purchase method. Blueshift helps us deliver the right message at the right time—across email, web, and push.
Impact of Recommendations and Predictive AI
Janet:
You mentioned using Blueshift’s recommendation engine and predictive scoring. What impact has that had?
Carrie:
It’s been a game-changer. We include product recommendations in nearly every email—mass messages, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, and post-purchase flows. One of our biggest wins was the PDP-specific abandoned browse series, which sends three emails over three days. Each message shows the browsed item plus a unique set of related product recommendations, based on subcategory or price. This series alone is our best-performing automation in terms of both clicks and revenue.
Janet:
Have you tested the performance impact of recommendations?
Carrie:
Yes. We A/B tested basic image-based emails against ones with product recs (12 items per email). We saw a 22% lift in sales. While clicks didn’t increase dramatically, purchases did—which was our main KPI.
Empowering a Small Team
Janet:
Blueshift is known for empowering marketers to build campaigns without heavy tech dependency. Has that been your experience?
Carrie:
Absolutely. I was able to launch the abandoned cart, browse, and post-purchase series almost entirely on my own. I worked with our creative team for some design elements, but the platform made it easy to test, personalize subject lines, and incorporate dynamic variables. As a two-person digital team, that flexibility is incredibly valuable.
Favorite Features and Biggest Wins
Janet:
Which features have been most valuable to your team?
Carrie:
The recommendation engine is by far my favorite. I’ve built dozens of personalized blocks based on category, behavior, or interest. Our emails now look more dynamic and professional, and leadership has noticed the uplift in quality and performance. Product recommendations now drive the most clicks in our campaigns.
Defining Success at Five Below
Janet:
What does success look like since adopting Blueshift? Any standout campaigns?
Carrie:
Our welcome series has been another huge win. With the Blueshift conversion suite, we now use a high-performing signup pop-up across the site, which immediately triggers a welcome flow. The first email includes personalized product recs based on category interests. From there, customers seamlessly enter the browse or cart abandonment series. It's helped increase engagement right from the start.
Connecting Online and Offline
Janet:
Have you been able to connect in-store and online behavior?
Carrie:
Yes—if a customer provides their email during an in-store purchase, we can tie that transaction back to their profile. Our post-purchase series then kicks in, recommending relevant products to bring them back to shop again. It’s not 100% coverage, but the impact is noticeable.
Adding Channels with Ease
Janet:
You’ve also added push notifications. How has that impacted your strategy?
Carrie:
We started using push about a year and a half ago. It was simple to add as another “leg” to our existing journeys—no rebuilds required. For instance, our browse abandonment flow now sends a push if the customer is opted in. We're still early in our push strategy, but the ease of setup was a big win.
Abandoned Cart Email Performance
Janet:
You mentioned abandoned cart emails—how do those perform?
Carrie:
Our open rate is around 41%, even without engagement filters. The click-through rate is 5.3%, and 21% of those unique clicks convert to purchases. That’s significantly above our mass email benchmarks and proves how effective these personalized messages are.
The Role of AI in Marketing
Janet:
Let’s talk AI. How has it helped your team, and how do you see it shaping retail marketing?
Carrie:
For us, AI is like an extra team member. I use it for subject line ideas, copy suggestions, and even inserting dynamic variables into templates. Blueshift’s built-in AI tools also help me generate code for recommendation blocks quickly. It saves time and helps us move faster as a small team. AI will continue to play a big role in simplifying and scaling personalized marketing.
Driving Repeat Engagement
Janet:
How do you keep customers coming back?
Carrie:
We looked at our average purchase frequency and built a post-purchase series to encourage repeat buys. These emails include personalized recs and are timed for optimal re-engagement. It’s now one of our top-performing automated campaigns.
Confidence Through Automation and Personalization
Janet:
Has Blueshift helped you feel more confident in your strategies?
Carrie:
Yes. Knowing that every email contains relevant, dynamic content gives me peace of mind. Even our welcome emails feel personal, based on user personas. Before Blueshift, our emails had more of a static “flyer” feel. Now they reflect smart, one-to-one marketing—and that makes a big difference in how customers engage.
Final Thoughts
Janet:
What would you say to other companies considering Blueshift?
Carrie:
Blueshift is a powerful, user-friendly platform that empowers small teams to do big things. I’ve been able to manage everything from A/B testing to dynamic content without relying on tech teams or long timelines. It’s truly a marketer-friendly tool that helps us work smarter and faster—while delivering better results.
Janet:
Thank you, Carrie. It’s been a fantastic conversation!
Carrie:
Thank you! I’ve enjoyed sharing our journey.
