Issue Nº 02 · February 2026
We've been rethinking how we show up in your inbox. No corporate speak. No fluff. Just useful stuff to help you win this month — and the next.
Every email opened, item carted, brand browsed, channel preferred — Cordial captures it as a living, connected record of who your customer really is. Not a profile. A Context Graph.
It's what makes a "promo email" recognize the boots you left in your cart. It's how AI Brand Affinity predicts what you'll want next. It's the ground truth Cordial Agents reason against before they hit send. Everything in this issue is built on it.
TUMI wanted to lift engagement in their standard promo program. Their customers were browsing — they just needed a way to keep those interests top-of-mind without leaning harder on automated triggers.
So they dropped Abandon Blocks into their high-traffic promos: dynamic blocks that surface the exact items each contact recently viewed or carted. No new automation. Just relevance.
Customers browsing without buying. Standard triggers weren't enough to bridge the gap.
Tap the Context Graph from inside promo sends — surfacing browse and cart relationships in real time.
~1,000+ contacts. Small list, massive returns. Relevance > scale.
See how your audience evolves from prospects to loyal customers in one view. Track engagement across email, SMS, and push — and spot contacts slipping away before they're gone.
◆ Reads from the Context Graph →Predicts which brands each customer will engage with next, using the relationships already in their Context Graph: what they buy together, switch between, and discover. Available for catalogs with 10+ brands.
◆ Powered by the Context Graph →Auto-respect recommended send times across all US states and time zones. Plus: warnings when SMS or RCS messages split into multiple parts.
New Clicks (adjusted) metric strips bots out of your performance data for accurate human CTR. Ask your CSM to flip it on.
◆ Cleaner Context Graph signalsIn-app messages display in order with less delay. Subscription updates work more reliably across iOS and Android SDKs.
Get a heads-up when marking promotional messages high priority — since those can delay critical sends like password resets.
Our API docs have been uplifted and now ship with dark mode.
A new in-product chatbot trained on Cordial's platform and docs. Find it in the bottom-right corner at support.cordial.com. It's like having a Cordial expert on demand — without opening a ticket.
Sculpt code, how do I change the number of products shown?RCS over SMS?One-third of shoppers use AI agents like ChatGPT for discovery. By year-end, that hits 50%. Agent engine optimization (AEO) is now as critical as SEO was in the early internet days.
Retailers are deploying AI for clienteling, loyalty, inventory, and training on mobile — capturing intent data that's been lost in physical stores for years. New signals to feed your Context Graph.
ChatGPT and others are introducing ads into responses. Retail Media Networks now face competition from platforms monetizing AI the same way Google monetized search.
Overlapping legacy systems are creating bloated costs and fragmented workflows. Expect migration to unified AI platforms that personalize at send time across any channel.
TJ Maxx and Nordstrom Rack are building discount marketplaces online — requiring new capabilities for capturing emails, managing profiles, and activating personalized marketing.
In 2026, the moat isn't the model. It's the Context Graph the model gets to reason against.
The problem with most AI tools? They stop at suggestions. You still have to build the emails, validate the logic, check the data, and coordinate everything manually. We just changed that.
Builds complete, production-ready emails with personalization, audience logic, and orchestration. Every send is validated against the Context Graph for real customer profiles before it goes out.
Monitors campaigns as they run, surfaces issues early, and recommends actions while you can still make a difference. Real-time, not retrospective.
Grab a coffee, skip the sales pitch, and have a real conversation about what's working in customer engagement. Details coming soon.
Three days of retail and CRM strategy with the industry's top operators. We'll be on-site to talk through how leading brands are putting the Context Graph and agentic marketing into production.
An intimate evening for retail leaders pushing the category forward. Cordial is proud to be part of this gathering — expect candid conversations and a setting unlike anything else on the calendar.
Right after Seekers and Disruptors. Find the Cordial team on the show floor to see Cordial Agents reasoning over a live Context Graph — and trade notes on what's actually moving the needle in 2026.