The Magic Behind Hibbett's Marketing

Hibbett faced a challenge every retailer knows too well: staying relevant in a crowded inbox. Despite a loyal customer base and strong community presence, their marketing calendar was cluttered and overly manual.

The team sent two to three emails a day, using outdated segmentation based on past purchases. Messages went to the “best guesses,” not the right people. It looked productive on paper, but it wasn’t personal.

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“We were really struggling to figure out how to stay relevant in the inbox. There are hundreds of retailers, some in our space, some not in our space, but they're sending emails every day, multiple times a day to customers. We were getting lost in the inbox.”

— Kayla Brown, Director, Customer Lifecycle, Hibbett

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With limited bandwidth and a lean team, Hibbett needed a faster way to deliver relevance at scale, without burning out the marketers behind it.

To evolve from assumptions to accuracy, Hibbett turned to Movable Ink’s Da Vinci AI and Studio. Together, they built a customer-centric calendar that adjusts in real time based on what each person actually wants to see.

Instead of marketers choosing segments, Da Vinci now determines which story each customer receives. Studio powers the supporting product grids—automatically surfacing top apparel, sneakers, and new arrivals. They work in sync: Da Vinci decides what story to tell, and Studio brings it to life with real-time product feeds and dynamic design.

Da Vinci and Studio deliver the perfect balance: intelligence and efficiency. The result is a living, breathing content strategy where every message feels relevant, every product is timely, and every creative decision is informed by data.

What started as 50-70 creative options has grown to more than 100+ unique modules in Hibbett’s email library.

Each send now combines:

• AI-selected hero stories tuned to customer preferences

• Automated product grids that pull live inventory from multiple categories

• A “new arrivals” module that automatically updates with the latest sneaker drops

This dynamic setup allows Hibbett to send over 5,000 unique versions of an email every day—something no manual workflow could ever support.

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“Gone are the stale segments. Gone are the marketer preferences where we're making assumptions. And we're truly living in a personalized world now where every customer is getting what they want. Even if they don't know that they want it, they're getting it.”

— Kayla Brown, Director, Customer Lifecycle, Hibbett

The results weren’t just about higher metrics, they changed the way Hibbett works.

The email team reclaimed 7 hours a week, freeing them to focus on testing, strategy, and growth. One team member even earned a promotion, evolving from execution to leadership.

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“One thing we're all scared of with AI is that it's going to take jobs away. Well, what I've seen is that it doesn't—it’s not taking it away. It's revamping what the job is. 

The fact that my email marketing specialist was saving seven hours a week in email creation was huge. That's almost an entire day of work. So now she's able to focus more on strategy, which means I was able to actually promote her and reorg my team.”

— Kayla Brown, Director, Customer Lifecycle, Hibbett

AI insights also unlocked a new level of collaboration across departments.

The creative team now uses Da Vinci’s data to guide photoshoots—deciding whether on-model or off-model imagery performs better—and the customer lifecycle marketing team works closely with internal teams to adjust priorities based on live customer demand.

• Let AI lead. Trade static segmentation for AI decisioning that evolves with your audience.
  

• Protect your people’s time. Automation frees teams to do more meaningful work.
  

• Share insights widely. Marketing, creative, and merchandising all benefit from customer data.

• Prioritize connection. The goal isn't more sends, it's more significance.