Braze is constantly evolving, pushing the limits to make their platform both more powerful and easier to use. Thanks to the annual Forge event, this is the time of year when Braze announces some truly exciting new features and updates driven by your needs and feedback. Here’s a rundown of the recent updates that help you “Build Better Data” all while elevating your marketing game through “Being Better Marketers.”
Build Better Data
Expanded CDI Integration
Braze already has native integrations with Snowflake, Redshift, Big Query, and Databricks. A limited “Early Access” (EA) release now includes an integration with MS Azure. You may still be able to get in on the Beta if you check with your Braze CSM! Upcoming integrations with AWS S3 and Google Cloud Storage will allow secure data transfers from data lakes to Braze. You can look forward to that “General Access” (GA) release later this year.
Developers beware, and Marketers cheer! You can create highly targeted segments from your data warehouse without requiring development resources using a new CDI Segment creation feature. Seamlessly create audience segments from your own data warehouse via the zero-copy data access right from your Braze dashboard with potential to reduce reliance on a CDP and an increase in targeting efficiency. Currently available for Snowflake, this feature will soon support other data warehouses.
Shopify V2 Enhancements
For the retailers and ecommerce gurus out there, you’ll be excited to hear that Braze continues to invest in this integration to help customers do more with Shopify in Braze. They’ve heard your feedback and the latest version enables:
Improved identity resolution and data flexibility
Support for Shopify headless sites – separating front end from back end allowing flexibility in content delivery
Support for Shopify promo codes
New events to support campaigns and alerts including, “back in stock” and “price drops”
Catalog enhancements include data transformation, analytics, and a query builder
Be Better Marketers
Automated Identity Resolution
This one has been a long time coming – let’s merge some data! Not only will you improve the quality and cleanliness of user data, but you’ll also do it easily and in a more efficient manner than ever possible. You can set your own rules to detect duplicate user profiles, like email address, and Braze will automatically consolidate those profiles and profile data to create a more accurate representation of your user base – now in GA.
Custom Templates
Now in GA, this is a feature release at Braze Forge 2024. Create your own templates from existing Canvases you’ve already run or from scratch to use in the future. This Canvas library is an efficient way to consolidate high value use cases and ensure that your organization has access to the most current content and layouts available. Braze is also working to expand their options in the standard Canvas library to help inspire new ideas and foundations for users to build upon. If you’d like to learn more, check out the new eLearning course to take a deeper dive.
Expansion to LINE
Another new feature released at Forge, and proof Braze is truly a global platform, they have added LINE to the list of available messaging channels. LINE is THE most popular messaging platform in Japan, but is also popular in Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia.
AI Liquid Assistant
While we were at Forge, this new feature was all anyone could talk about – buzzing about with “when’s it available” and “how does it work”? Well, it’s here and makes personalizing your messages easier than ever. Long gone are the days of memorizing code, just simply enter a prompt into the Liquid Assistant and it will magically generate the code for you. It’s also a great buddy to have when you’re stuck on creating copy or content for a message or promotion. This feature is now available as GA and a new eLearning course has been added to help you level up your personalization game.
We’re excited that Braze continues to listen to their users and takes meaningful steps to help you, and your teams, not only increase marketing effectiveness, but also operational efficiency through improved processes and functionality.
Want to stay ahead with Braze’s latest features? Contact us at brazehelp@covalentmarketing.com to explore how these tools can elevate your marketing.