BrazeAI: AI-assisted customer engagement

Although I fairly new to using it, I'm excited to better streamline my work and feel confident in the canvas flow created. Im often unsure if I've used the best metrics and if I've made an efficient audience. This will take alot of the guess work out of it. Nothing really. Since my knowledge is limited I do find all the wording overwhelming. But I appreciate the breakdowns so I can learn and follow. This has helped me reduce manual testing and decision-making by automatically optimising

The OfferFit team and the world-class support they provide are the best parts of using OfferFit. They truly got to know and understand how we operate our business, creating a foundation that has allowed us to grow together. Our company is not always easy to work with due to our size, but OfferFit provided the right resources from the beginning of the integration through to today, helping us establish a data pipeline with the right information to target our customers and improve NPV. In addition to continually improving and adding new insights, OfferFit makes things very easy for us, including calling out any concerns immediately and following up on issues until everything is resolved. Having worked with OfferFit for a few years now, I have long admired their company culture. It is hard to think of any downsides to OfferFit. They are so timely with insights and providing updates, they are often bringing issues to us before we have even noticed something of concern. OfferFit really helps us target our customers going well beyond the A/B method we had available to us before. The number of different offers in our bank and the ability to parse to the most micro detail the success or failure of a particular offer including the value provided is hugely insightly. Pre-OfferFit, we could only test a few campaigns at a time and didn't have the bandwidth to dig into what did or did not really work.

Engagement - The high level of engagement from the OfferFit team has been outstanding. Rolling up their sleeves and working side by side with management to build out and optimize use cases. Insights - The learnings from using OfferFit have been valuable to better understand customer preferences for different types of offers and communication medium. Value generation - The AI engine can be smartly set up to optimize value from customer offer acceptance, balancing profitability of individual offer with offer success rate, maximizing overall profitability. There are some usecases that are more challenging for AI models in general, where the feedback takes several months, slowing down the learning cycles of the model. Personalized offer selection for proactive retention efforts, and personalized price increases related to value proposition. In both scenarios OfferFit is able to deliver incremental value as the engine is optimizing down to the individual and providing automation.

Onboarding und generell die Funktionalität und UX sind große Stärken. Es gibt eigentlich jedes gewünschte Feature und laufend neue Updates. Besondere Features sind für mich der Marketing Automation (Canvas) Builder, der sehr übersichtlich und umfängliche Möglichkeiten bietet verschieden Marketing Channels zu kombinieren. Ein kleines aber tolles Feature ist dort auch die Clean Up Funktion. Der Email Builder ist ebenfalls simpel und trotzdem funktional. Es lassen sich einfach neue Mobilansichten definieren, testen mit Inbox View oder anpassen von Größenverhältnissen. Transparenz bei der Abrechnung. Datapoints waren komplett neu und generell ist das Tool schon etwas zu teuer. Was Funktionalität angeht fällt mir aber nichts großes auf. Die Automatisierung unserer Journeys mit anderen Kontaktpunkten außerhalb von Email war für uns immer ein Problem da unterschiedliche Channels nicht nativ eingebunden waren. Jetzt können wir in einem Tool definieren, welcher User zu welchem Zeitpunkt mit welchen Nachricht und über welchen Channel sie kontaktiert werden sollen.

What I like the most about Braze is its seamless cross-channel capabilities, which allow for personalized and timely communication with customers across various platforms. While the platform offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities, navigating and interpreting the data can sometimes be challenging, requiring a steep learning curve One significant challenge Braze helps address is effectively reaching customers across multiple channels, including email, push notifications, and in-app messaging, ensuring consistent and personalized interactions regardless of the platform they prefer.

Braze setzt auf eine event-basierte Architektur, die es uns ermöglicht, Nutzerinteraktionen effizient und in Echtzeit zu verfolgen sowie darauf zu reagieren. Die Einbindung in unseren Standard-Technologie-Stack verlief reibungslos, was die Implementierung und den täglichen Einsatz von Braze wesentlich vereinfacht hat. Das Produkt Katalog Feature kann (derzeit) keine Produkt Kataloge via URL selbstständig importieren. So können wir nicht bspw. unseren Google Shopping Feed nutzen. Braze ermöglicht es uns maßgeschneiderte und relevante Experiences für unsere Kunden zu designen. So verbinden wir mit Braze verschiedene Touchpoints zu einer konsequenten Experience und reichern bestehende E-Commerce Features mit weiteren Optionen/Kommunikationskanälen an.

What is our primary use case? At Fox, we send a lot of communication to our customers, who are also our subscribers. We have Fox One where we offer subscription-based services. We send emails, in-app messages, and push notifications about any particular show or particular sports. We also send communications regarding upcoming sport events or upcoming shows on Fox Nation and anything content-related. Additionally, we have different use cases for transactional emails. There are plenty of campaigns I have executed. I will take an example of a recent event that took place for the World Cup. We conducted many campaigns for the World Cup, including push notifications, emails, and highlights of the game. We have sent many in-app messages whenever the game was starting, such as 10 minutes or 15 minutes before the game. We deployed many push notifications using Campaigns and Canvas. What is most valuable? All campaigns I executed were done very well. Braze was instrumental in configuring and delivering communications in time with very few incidents. My experience has been great. Braze offers great features including inbuilt in-apps that do not require installation or additional packages. You can use cross channels including webhooks, Content Cards, push notifications, and in-app messages, which are great features that Braze provides. In terms of Braze features, I find it easy to coordinate campaigns across channels. I see room for more improvements regarding those features. Braze has had a positive impact on my organization that is significant. I really appreciate the platform's flexibility. Our biggest advantage is managing multiple channels from one place, whether it is email, push, in-app messages, content cards, or webhooks. I also appreciate Canvas, which allows us to build more complex, multiple-step customer journeys and trigger communication based on customer behavior. The segmentation and personalization capabilities are very useful as we can target customers based on their subscription engagement or content preferences. I find valuable the ability to test different messages and channels through A/B testing and optimize based on performance. Overall, the combination of cross-channel orchestration, real-time triggers, personalization, and experimentation makes Braze very powerful for our marketing use cases and positively fits our organization. What needs improvement? Overall, my experience with Braze has been very positive. If I had to mention areas for improvement, I would say the number of campaigns, canvas segments, and channel growth can become challenging to manage and organize. I would also like to see more flexibility around reporting and analytics, especially being able to easily combine cross-channel data and customize reports without relying on additional data from outside of Braze or data platform teams. Braze has been improving its reporting capabilities, and new reporting and dashboard features are definitely moving in the right direction. Additionally, making complex journeys easier to troubleshoot and maintain would be beneficial. When large canvases have multiple branches and conditions, having strong visibility into why a customer took a particular path would ease things for engineering and marketing teams. There is also a limitation regarding making the platform easier to manage at an enterprise scale, especially with a growing number of campaigns since Braze does not have features such as folders for organization. Regarding improvements, Braze's technical support is excellent, but I see areas where the experience could be smoother. On integration, Braze has a strong set of pre-built integrations and APIs; however, for some complex enterprise systems, integration can require engineering effort. More out-of-the-box connectors and simpler configurations would definitely help. From a UI perspective, while the platform is powerful, navigating and troubleshooting can take time with a large number of campaigns and complex canvases. Apart from that, I find the support extremely helpful overall, so I would not say there are major gaps, just opportunities for making this already strong platform easier to manage at scale. One area I would like to see improvement in is the visibility and troubleshooting experience. When running large-scale campaigns across multiple channels, more detailed end-to-end visibility on user interactions would be helpful, such as tracking when a particular user enters or exits a canvas or whether an issue occurs. I would also like to see ongoing improvements in reporting, particularly making it easier to connect campaign performance to our broader business metrics without extra engineering work. As Braze adds more AI capabilities, I see an opportunity to leverage AI not just for content creation but also for troubleshooting, identifying campaign issues, and explaining performance trends. This would save a significant amount of time for both the marketing and engineering teams. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Braze for four years. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Braze is stable, and I have not experienced any downtime or reliability issues. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Braze handles growth and increased workloads well in terms of scalability. How are customer service and support? The customer support from Braze is responsive and very supportive. They provide 24/7 customer support, offering immediate answers. Each business also has their own account executive who is responsive and helpful when assistance is necessary. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? We previously used Salesforce Marketing Cloud, but the pricing became a pain as the licensing costs significantly increased, which prompted our decision to transition to Braze. How was the initial setup? We did a trial-and-error process exclusively with Braze, and that was the only platform we tested. What about the implementation team? Braze fits into our existing marketing stack through API, SDK, and webhooks integration with our backend and data systems. We utilize customer and subscription data from our existing system to build audience segments and trigger personalized communication in Braze. Braze also supports bidirectional data movements, so engagement data can be sent back to other systems for reporting and analysis. What was our ROI? Unfortunately, I cannot provide that information due to our internal policies, but I can definitely say that Braze will yield a good return on investment. It certainly saves a lot of time and requires fewer engineers to manage things, as Braze has all the capabilities. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I was not involved in the pricing, setup cost, or licensing. Which other solutions did I evaluate? We did a trial-and-error process exclusively with Braze, and that was the only platform we tested. What other advice do I have? I would rate the customer support as an 8 out of 10. Braze's personalization and segmentation features are great. We use segments for audience segmentation, and Braze provides controls around personalization. At Fox, we have various types of subscribers with different content interests, so we do not want to send the same communication to everyone. We can segment users based on subscription engagement, content preference, and previous interactions, then personalize communication according to their attributes or behaviors. Braze supports dynamic segmentation using real-time events and user attributes, making targeting much more relevant. Segmentation and personalization are very helpful as they allow us to make communication even more relevant while providing the marketing team with substantial flexibility without requiring engineering effort for every audience change. We handle training and onboarding for new users on Braze by providing extensive documentation. Any new member on the team goes through knowledge transfer and Braze platform training. We only bring on team members who have experience using Braze. With every new release, Braze offers training on the updated features. I advise others looking into using Braze to consider it as a better option compared to other marketing tools, especially regarding pricing and cross-functional effectiveness. I would strongly suggest exploring it before making any purchase decisions. I think Braze is great, and I definitely recommend that people do their homework before making any purchase decisions. However, with the experience we have had, especially considering the complexity of projects we have handled, Braze has been incredibly helpful and has supported us in the ways we needed. I have rated this review an 8.5 out of 10. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Private Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Other

What is our primary use case? My main use case for Braze is as a CRM strategist and previously a CRM campaign manager, where we had a team, so it was basically just quality assuring everything, occasionally using Canvas, building out SMS journeys, and handling audiences. I built an onboarding journey using Braze that required multiple Canvas because there was a mix of email, SMS, as well as app messages that needed to be triggered at certain times and based on certain customer actions that we were able to record. What is most valuable? The best features Braze offers include being very intuitive, allowing everything to be brought in-house, which enabled us to get off a couple of different tools by having email, SMS, and app messages in one. There is great connectivity to other applications such as Twilio and Snowflake, which we had as our CDP. I really appreciated Canvas because it made app messaging really easy, whether it was an inbox message within our app, a pop-up, or a push notification. Canvas made everything easier, allowing us to integrate everything. We previously used Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which was really difficult when using app messages and making sure we could tie it all into a customer journey, so having that with Braze was excellent. Braze has positively impacted our organization by allowing us to save money. I believe we saved around $800,000 by switching from Salesforce Marketing Cloud to Braze. We were also able to see our customer journeys in an easier way, and it was easier for our producers to set up things. Liquid logic has been easier than AMPscript. What needs improvement? I did not find anything significant that needed to be improved about Braze, but perhaps making it easier to have linear journeys instead of building just three or four would be beneficial. Anything is better than Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Reporting in Braze was quite satisfactory. I wish there was a little better heat mapping when reporting on emails, just a better understanding of where people are clicking. Other than that, reporting in Braze was adequate. For how long have I used the solution? I have been working in this field for around eight years now. How are customer service and support? The transition was fairly easy, as setting everything up in Braze felt like a more modern tool than Salesforce Marketing Cloud. IP warming was straightforward, and the Braze customer account manager really helped us and walked us through everything. Braze has excellent documentation, which also helped. What other advice do I have? Regarding Braze's AI capabilities, I have not tested this feature too extensively, and I have not seen any concerning issues. Regarding Braze's AI capabilities, I am somewhat skeptical, but I have seen some positives in using it, such as being able to use AI to determine when people are clicking or opening emails at the best time and using that as a send time indicator, thus having that level of personalization. The advice I would give to others looking into using Braze is to definitely ask about all the features because there are many, and definitely use the account managers that you receive. I would rate Braze an eight out of ten overall. Which deployment model are you using for this solution? Private Cloud If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Other

What is our primary use case? My main use case for Braze is sending all of our push notifications, emails, and content cards. I also use Braze for reporting, optimizing, and building our emails using their custom drag and drop email editor, which doesn't require any HTML experience. Regarding how I use Braze, I really appreciate their Canvas feature. You can use a bunch of different channels to achieve one goal, and it all is very easy to use and buildable as a marketer without the need of a developer. How has it helped my organization? Braze has positively impacted my organization with the ability to send all of these communications across multiple games. This autonomy has impacted productivity and team workload by allowing us to move quickly. What is most valuable? The best features Braze offers include Canvas, which is probably the best one. I also really appreciate their drag and drop editor, given we're a small team and I need to be able to build independently. Regarding features including reporting and analytics, I mainly use the campaign report. Once the campaign or the piece of content has gone out, there's a page where you can see analytics right there without really needing to do anything. Braze has positively impacted my organization with the ability to send all of these communications across multiple games. What needs improvement? Braze can be improved, but honestly, I feel it's a pretty perfect tool. I have done discovery calls with a bunch of different CRM platforms and found Braze to be the most complete and the one that feels the most intuitive to use as a nontechnical person. I think it's an expensive tool, so from a business standpoint, a lot of people might not be able to justify the cost given how expensive it is. For how long have I used the solution? I have been using Braze since twenty sixteen across four different companies. What do I think about the stability of the solution? Braze is stable. What do I think about the scalability of the solution? Braze's scalability is impressive. If you are a small company, you can use Braze. If you are a large company, you can use Braze. They have different tiers in terms of customer support. How are customer service and support? I would rate the customer support on a scale of one to ten as phenomenal. I feel it's one of the best parts of Braze. They are very knowledgeable. I have always had very good customer support representatives. Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch? I have not previously used a different solution; I have always used Braze. I was hired at this company to be the expert on Braze, and across the four companies that I worked in my career, we have always used Braze. What was our ROI? I have seen a return on investment, but it's hard to say an exact return. There are definitely fewer employees needed. What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Braze is that pricing is expensive. You get a dedicated onboarding team, and they assist you with everything that you might need. Which other solutions did I evaluate? My organization evaluated other options before choosing Braze and did discovery calls for Leanplum, Sailthru, Iterable, and I think Customer.io. What other advice do I have? I'd rate it a 9 (docking a point because of the high price). The advice I would give to others looking into using Braze is that I love Braze, and I'm a huge supporter of using it. I think it has made my life as a marketer a lot easier. I would rate this review a nine out of ten. If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use? Amazon Web Services (AWS)