Braze, Inc.

Braze has been in use for over seven months, and the implementation phase is still ongoing, with proactive tool usage having recently commenced.

The main use case for Braze involves transferring previous ESP data to Braze, which is related to email sending and newsletter sending, along with automated communications. In the future, push and in-app communications will also be developed.

The most distinctive aspect of the main use case for Braze is the development of a translation system within Braze. Automated translation sheets have been created to help upload content for all languages and create campaigns much faster than the default solutions from Braze would allow.

The best features Braze offers are the modern and intuitive UI, which stands out because extensive learning resources are available on the web, and the full-view of the customer is also quite valuable.

The UI is modern and intuitive for the team because many non-technical people are involved, so having something that is very intuitive and well-explained helps them develop campaigns autonomously. The customer view helps identify which customers received which communications, enabling troubleshooting and verification of their opt-ins along with all relevant information regarding them.

While the biggest impact of Braze will come in later phases since implementation is still ongoing, it does help enhance the speed of go-to-market for all communications, allowing more to be sent per week. However, there has not been a significant change so far since the other channels have not been fully explored, which represents the largest potential benefit from Braze.

Regarding the speed of go-to-market, before using Braze, it took at least one full week to create the template and manage it within responses, and it was much more technical, requiring someone with HTML knowledge. With Braze, it is now really more drag and drop, and marketing managers have the autonomy to create all these campaigns, reducing the time needed from a full week to just two to three days, which makes the work much easier.

The drag-and-drop function was expected to be more understandable and easier to implement, but it turns out to be quite technical, making it difficult for marketing managers to develop components by themselves. The limitations regarding HTML are also somewhat disappointing, and earlier knowledge of this would have allowed for building another solution or continuing with a previous platform that was easier to drag and drop and had more options for creating components.

Improvement to Braze would include adding more components that enhance the drag-and-drop feature, making it more modern and providing more options for emails to appear better and less rigid, as currently it heavily relies on HTML for any customization.

Transitioning from a relational ESP with tables that allowed matching and merging values was simpler compared to Braze, as Braze requires the use of catalogs, and the setup is less straightforward when it comes to segmentation. A more relational approach to creating campaigns and segmentations would make the process easier.

Work in this field has spanned around eight years.

There have been no reliability issues or downtimes encountered with Braze so far.

Multi-channel marketing using Braze has not been fully explored as of now, but the goal is to develop multi-channel campaigns that merge all available channels.

The customer support has been slower than expected. Assistance was requested for some features that are not functioning correctly, such as the click map for email, and discussions are still ongoing regarding how to proceed. Customer support would be rated at a seven since the response times have been quite slow.

Oracle Responsys was used previously, but the switch occurred because the contract was ending soon, and Oracle Responsys lacked good support for their marketing and ESP solutions. Additionally, the platform felt outdated and overly technical.

Braze's onboarding and training resources were quite nice and straightforward. Two certifications were received during the onboarding process—one in deliverability and the other for practitionership—and consultancy support was also provided for understanding some features.

Braze integrates with the existing tech stack primarily through API requests on a case-by-case basis.

User segmentation and personalization in Braze are managed using a CDP along with the standard features from Braze and Liquid.

At least 20 hours per week have been saved on campaign creation and deployment. Currently, there is a lack of any concrete ROI since the same functions as with the previous ESP are still being performed, although using Braze is significantly easier.

Before choosing Braze, other options were evaluated such as Marigold, MoEngage, and Microsoft's solutions.

For others looking into using Braze, it is advisable to ensure that all intended use cases align with what Braze can offer and how those capabilities match, because tools are often marketed as all-encompassing, yet many features may require additional development or are not as straightforward as initially claimed.

Braze is deployed through a private cloud setup. Currently, Braze's AI capabilities are only utilized for inquiries directly related to the tool since the data security program is very stringent, preventing the sharing of user data. Braze has met all required certifications upon purchase, and it is managing data privacy and compliance quite well. Braze has given good results thus far in terms of its AI capabilities.

The review rating for this experience with Braze is eight.

My main use case for Braze was to make near-real-time events and Canvas, so in OLX, we could communicate with the users approximately 15 minutes after they realized the events, whereas when we used Salesforce, we could only communicate with users after one day of the event.

A quick specific example of an event where I used Braze to communicate with users in near-real-time is cart abandonment, specifically with goods products and cars and real estate.

We used events such as reply, ad views, and the keywords that users used in the search bar that we could not use before, so we used many new events using Braze.

The best features Braze offers in my experience include Canvas, where we can create flows, the AI system Braze has, and the dashboards.

We use Canvas to create flows and communicate with the user in an intelligent and clever way, so we could use many channels to communicate with the user at the best time and try to reach the user with the best channel. The AI system is good for creating new copies and templates, where we just write a prompt and the AI gives many ideas, so we do not need to develop by ourselves or call a copywriter.

Regarding the features, I could also mention that we could write a prompt to the AI to develop Canvas by itself, so we could just explain how we need Canvas to work and Braze sets everything for us.

At OLX, Braze helped our team reach our goals, and I have seen improvements in engagement rates such as CTR and open rates on emails and push notifications, along with an improvement in conversion rates using Canvas and communications in near-real-time.

I think Braze can be improved by delivering new AI tools, and it could also provide options where we could see how the contract is progressing each month without needing to ask the sales person.

One improvement I think Braze could implement is to provide more user analysis, such as using RFM, and provide new strategic reachability to the channel, so we could define how many push notifications and emails we want the user to receive each day, week, or hour.

I have used Braze for around one year.

4

I advise others looking into using Braze to test it out, to call a sales person, and to try to use the Braze learning path, as it should be useful to them in studying Braze and identifying opportunities for their company. I give this review a rating of 8.