In an industry consumed by AI, automation and efficiency, Ulta Beauty’s chief marketing officer Kelly Mahoney is doubling down on the investment in human connection, she said during a fireside chat at Brand Innovators Beach during Cannes Lions 2026.
Ulta Beauty is pairing loyalty data and performance marketing with authentic in-store experiences – a strategy that has helped the retailer build one of the industry’s most powerful customer ecosystems in the business.
Mahoney’s approach comes from an unconventional career path. Unlike many CMOs who rose through creative or brand marketing, Mahoney spent a decade in finance before moving into loyalty and performance marketing, first at BP and later at Ulta Beauty.
“I was going to school to be a finance person,” Mahoney said. “Finance became such an important foundation. It’s still the advice I give young people today: spend a couple of years in finance because you’ll carry those skills through your entire career.”
That analytical background has shaped how she approaches marketing—not as a collection of campaigns, but as a growth engine built on measurable customer relationships.
When Mahoney joined the retailer in 2015 her mission was to help scale the company’s rewards program. Under her tenure, the company’s Ulta Beauty Rewards program has grown from 17 million members to 47 million today. Those members now account for 95% of all company sales, giving Ulta one of the richest first-party data assets in retail.
For Mahoney, however, loyalty has never been simply about collecting points.
It’s really about “understanding who the customer is, learning what they’re are motivated by and then building experiences that help convince people they should come to my brand,” she said.
That data fuels increasingly personalized marketing across channels, allowing Ulta to tailor recommendations, promotions and messaging while continually measuring what drives incremental growth.
“We understand the data about our customers, we put together personalized campaigns, and then we track and measure,” Mahoney said. “That’s been the secret to a lot of our success.”
Despite Ulta’s sophisticated digital capabilities, Mahoney argues that the retailer’s greatest differentiator remains its physical stores – and the 60,000 associates who bring the loyalty program to life.
Early on, Ulta made the decision to enroll store associates in the same rewards program as customers, allowing employees to earn and redeem points themselves.
“If you can speak authentically about how great our program is, you can sell it. You’re not even having to sell it,” Mahoney said.
Associates weave loyalty into conversations with shoppers, recommending products, highlighting rewards opportunities and using their own experiences with the program to build credibility.
“That’s where the magic happens,” she said.
Beauty presents a unique challenge for marketers. Consumers increasingly expect personalized recommendations, yet the category thrives on experimentation and self-expression.
Mahoney says personalization should expand choice—not narrow it.
Ulta carries more than 600 brands spanning prestige, mass, skincare, fragrance, haircare and wellness. To help shoppers navigate that assortment, the retailer invested roughly six years ago in an internally developed recommendation engine it calls its Beauty Graph.
“We’ve sort of been doing AI for years,” Mahoney said. “Now we’re just calling it something.”
Rather than steering shoppers toward a shrinking set of products, the recommendation engine introduces customers to brands and categories they might not otherwise discover.
“Our guests really love it,” she said. “It doesn’t actually limit choice. It broadens it.”
One of Mahoney’s biggest priorities is understanding Gen Alpha, a generation she believes many marketers still misunderstand.
Ulta recently commissioned research with NielsenIQ examining younger beauty consumers, revealing that 78% discover beauty online while 77% still seek real-world validation before purchasing.
For Mahoney, that duality reinforces why physical retail remains essential.
“They don’t just experience this category digitally,” she said. “They really value that human experience.”
