October 2018 | Ready, Set, Go! Your data agility just improved.

At Braze (formerly Appboy), we’re focused on building the best customer engagement platform out there, supporting brilliant messaging experiences across devices, channels, and platforms. What does that mean for you? That we’re constantly innovating and improving our product so that you never miss out on an opportunity to connect with your customers.

LTR 2018: Introducing Braze Alloys

This month we have a lot of new functionality that will increase your overall data agility. At the 2018 LTR conference, we announced a major shift in how we interact with other technologies: Braze Alloys. We wanted to make it easy for our customers to realize their vision of a comprehensive and interconnected technology ecosystem.

Braze Alloys is designed to surface an expanding list of 45 technologies that, when paired with Braze, can bring your customer engagement up a level. You can check out our catalogue and easily find these technology partners organized across six key technology categories:

• Data & Infrastructure Agility: This highlights our multi-cloud hosting options across Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, and (introducing) Google Cloud Storage, as well as data management solutions like Segment and mParticle. Additionally, you can explore ETL solutions like Nexla and wrapper SDKs like Xamarin and React Native.
• Insights: These solutions help surface tools that make business intelligence, analytics, and data visualization a breeze. It features partners like Amplitude and Mixpanel.
• Channel Extensions: These partners help you customize specific channel experiences, from running A/B testing in mobile applications with Apptimize to localizing messaging with Transifex, or enhancing email orchestration with 250OK and Mail Bakery.
• Additional Channels: These partners help you personalize channels like direct mail with Lob and SMS with Telesign or Twilio.
• Data Augmentation: These partners can augment your first-party data with additional intelligence like location with AccuWeather and Foursquare and power recommendations like with Certona and LiftIgniter.
• Advertising Technologies: These partners can help with your acquisition and advertising strategies by providing attribution solutions like Appsflyer, deep linking with Branch, or retargeting like Remerge.

However, that isn’t it. We also announced some upcoming initiatives:

• Google Cloud partnership: Braze customers will be able to stream data directly into Google Cloud using Currents and seamlessly use Big Query to analyze Braze data.
• Roku native SDK: Building on our existing support for Apple’s tvOS, Braze will be expanding our OTT support to allow customers to incorporate Roku into the ecosystem of web, mobile, and email that Braze already provides, supporting second-screen messaging and re-engagement campaigns.
• WhatsApp messaging support via Twilio: Braze customers will be able to leverage our existing Braze Alloys partnership with Twilio to support customer engagement via WhatsApp Business Messaging, opening up a new audience of more than a billion monthly active users.

But wait, there’s more

Today, we’re adding to the releases from earlier in the month with usability upgrades that will make orchestrating brilliant customer experiences easier for you and your team.

• Custom Attribute Triggers: You can now send a campaign or Braze Canvas step when a custom attribute changes.
• Composer Panel Controls: Words have power! We’re making effective use of them in the UI to help users understand icons and find the settings they need. (Bonus, we also expanded the subject line element for emails. A customer pointed out this minor UI tweak and we were able give the line WAY more breathing room.)

Calculate Exact Stats on the fly: Whether your campaign is running or hasn’t been saved, you can now quickly “Calculate Exact Stats.” Campaigns that have not been saved yet will then appear as a draft for you.

Who needs control?: When using Intelligent Selection, we required a control group. However, we found that in many cases for our customers, this wasn’t necessary. We now offer you the ability to check a box to add that control group.

Anything else?

Keep checking back here to stay up to date on releases, updates, and announcements now, and throughout the rest of the year. Or subscribe to Braze Perspectives to get expert guidance delivered straight to your inbox.