Lowe’s Promotes CMO to Lead Digital Commerce Strategy
Lowe’s promoted Chief Marketing Officer Jen Wilson to executive vice president earlier this month, expanding her portfolio to include digital commerce. The retailer added oversight of the website and third-party Marketplace to her existing responsibilities, which already covered marketing, retail media, loyalty, and personalization.
Online sales drive growth amid retail challenges
Online sales remain a bright spot for Lowe’s as the company faces a difficult economic climate. Comparable sales increased 0.2% in the second quarter of 2026, while online sales jumped 15.7% during the same period.
Unifying the customer journey
Wilson has spent more than 20 years at Lowe’s and was appointed as chief marketer in June 2024. She now serves on the company’s executive leadership team.
Wilson told Marketing Dive that delivering a consistent experience is critical for both the company and its customers. “When we unify the view of the customer, we’re unifying the same shared audiences and how we want to create a personalized experience for those audiences,” she said.
Many retailers, including Lowe’s, have historically personalized campaigns by channel rather than holistically. Wilson described the current state of personalization as fragmented across CRM, paid social, and other parts of the customer journey.
She explained that true transformation requires “omnichannel, end-to-end personalization.” Wilson believes that taking ownership of the end-to-end experience helps break down silos within an organization. By focusing on customer data, marketers can identify broken promises in the customer journey and work with other teams to close them.
Modernizing marketing responsibilities
Lowe’s launched a creator network last year, and Wilson has also led the development of a loyalty program and a retail media network. These initiatives reflect modern CMO remits that go beyond traditional advertising.
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The executive believes that the customer experience has changed. “It’s not ‘I watched a TV ad and then I saw a print ad and then I drove to the store,'” she said. “Those days are gone, and it’s all a big mashup now.”
Wilson noted that the notion of the traditional funnel is changing. She stated that traditional advertising is still very important to harmonize a 360-degree advertising campaign, but there’s so much more to the new age or new era of marketing.
Experience with profit and loss statements throughout her Lowe’s career has been key for adapting to these modern marketing realities.
Expanding the Marketplace strategy
As Lowe’s cuts its full-year outlook due to a poor housing market and raised interest rates, Wilson is looking for new growth opportunities in her expanded portfolio. The Marketplace continues to expand its assortment into categories like above-ground pools.
Wilson noted that expanding assortment yields benefits in unexpected ways. “Wearing a marketer hat, when you expand your assortment, you expand your SEO value, and your visibility goes up with natural search,” Wilson said. “Then you have the efficiency of being able to reduce some of your paid search spend, because now you’re more visible.”
Marketplace is also helping Lowe’s identify new customer segments. The platform has attracted high-end customers who are purchasing expensive items like premium faucets and chandeliers that are not sold in stores.
Wilson described the opportunities as limitless. “You start to recognize opportunities in real time based off of where natural demand is coming in,” she said. “The opportunities are just limitless, and I couldn’t be more thrilled for what’s ahead.”
