Sagar Limbu, Author at CACI

Using CDP to design a successful business operating model

Posted on: 3 October 2023

In our last post, we shared some tips for a successful CDP implementation. In this post, we focus on one of the most critical factors for CDP success: designing a new business operating model. If you’d like to read all the blogs right away, you can register here to access the complete series.

We often find that organisations try to solve their marketing challenges by only changing their data and tech capabilities. However, people and process changes alongside this are just as important.

With the introduction of a CDP, businesses gain access to different capabilities that enable greater automation and efficiencies. The challenge lies in how to best adopt the use of these new capabilities, especially when an organisation currently consists of multiple teams, each responsible for different channels, life stages, products or customer segments.

A new operating model is needed to redesign and reorganise these teams, ensuring that processes are designed with the new capabilities in mind. This ensures that the organisation fully benefits from its capabilities.

Without a well-designed operating model, businesses may fail to harness the full potential that a CDP has to offer. In this blog, we will discuss the best practices for designing a new business operating model to get success from a CDP implementation.

Step 1: Conduct a business-wide assessment of the existing operating model

A business-wide assessment covering a review of the existing operating model is a good place to start. This will help identify gaps and inefficiencies that need to be addressed before implementing a CDP. These gaps may be related to skills as well as the actual number of resources required by various functions.

Step 2: Establish design principles

Next, establish CDP operating model design principles that will guide the development of the target model. This will ensure that the CDP capabilities are utilised efficiently and effectively. When designing the target operating model, consideration needs to be given to the re-allocation of resources and the impact on individuals whose jobs will likely change. Ideally, the new operating model will enable them to work more effectively and efficiently. However, any change needs careful consideration and planning ahead of roll out.

Step 3: Get the necessary buy-in from stakeholders

A step-by-step approach will ensure success. It is important to get buy-in from leadership to ensure that everyone is aligned and invested in the project. This will help to ensure that communication, process and people collaboration are effectively managed. A steering committee is necessary and plays a vital role in the design of the operating model and the management of delivery. Within that, having CDP advocates who will champion the new operating model will help drive adoption across the organisation.

Overarching best practices to consider

When designing the target operating model, it is important to balance rigour with flexibility. A CDP implementation should account for the impacts on different parts of the business in different ways, from reducing the burden on data engineers to empowering marketers to deliver real-time use cases. This requires a collaborative effort between teams and a willingness to adapt to new ways of working.

Ultimately, designing a new business operating model is critical to the success of a CDP implementation. By taking a step-by-step approach, establishing CDP advocates and balancing rigour with flexibility, businesses can maximise the value of their CDP investment and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. The key consideration of change a CDP brings such as communication, process, people collaboration, and the need for leadership buy-in make it clear that CDP success is not just about data and marketing technology.

How can CACI help?

As subject matter experts at CACI, we can tell you that a well-implemented CDP can be a game-changer for businesses of all sizes and we have hands on experience with many brands including ASOS, Kingfisher, L&G, PlayStation, Telegraph, EasyJet and DFS. If you’re interested in learning more about CDPs and how they can help your business, please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our experts.

This post is the part of a blog series on all things CDP, so make sure to check out our previous blogs to get a complete picture of CDP implementation best practices. If you would like to download the whole blog series, you can simply register here to download a copy of the whitepaper.

If you’re interested in learning more about CDPs and how they can help your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us and reach out to one of our experts.

Continue reading:

Blog 1 – How a CDP can transform your customer experience architecture

Blog 2 – CDP vs. SCV: why choosing between the two is a big mistake

Blog 3 – CDP and CEP: A perfect pair for a seamless customer experience

Blog 4 – How to avoid pitfalls & drive results in CDP implementation

How the Cost of Living will further squeeze the least affluent

Posted on:

In our latest Cost of Living Podcast, we examine how expectations around missing payments are doubled among the least affluent demographic category in the coming months, with concerns around paying utility bills affecting nearly one in five households within the Low-Income Living category.

How we drew these conclusions using our Cost of Living survey

CACI’s recurrent Cost of Living survey has revealed particular concern among this group, who cite their likelihood to miss payments on rent, council tax and utility bills as impacts of the rising cost of living. Where 11% of the UK population fear missing payments on utility bills in the coming months, that figure rises to 18% among those households with the lowest incomes. Unlike other demographic groups, this figure outranks their expectations of going overdrawn or using credit cards to fund or defer payments.

Every three months, we ask a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults a series of themed questions around the Cost of Living, their challenges, plans, behaviours and expectations. CACI has been conducting this research since the height of the Covid pandemic, establishing a series of trackers that monitor feelings towards the Cost of Living, the impacts this is having and how their activities are changing. At CACI, we utilise the power of our demographic segmentation, Acorn, to inform brands about how these changes will influence the way consumers are behaving.

Cost of Living Podcast – Part One: How consumers are reacting & adapting to living costs

Part one of our special two-part podcast focuses on the latest changes in sentiment around living costs, the rising use of foodbanks and how Gen Z have been able to avoid cost-cutting measures on the scale as the older generations. Our hosts, Paul Langston and Hannah Smith, react to the findings, including how housing situations may develop as tenants in particular become priced out of their current rentals.

Cost of Living Podcast – Part Two: Impact of living costs on mental health, travel & brand orientation

Part two moves on to consider the knock-on impacts of the continued strain on mental health, changes to the way that we are taking holidays and how consumers are turning to brands to lead on Net Zero goals.

If you’d like to find out more or subscribe to our monthly podcast and receive all of our Cost of Living analysis as it’s published, you can sign-up here.

How Braze’s Canvas components personalise marketing journeys

Posted on: 27 September 2023

In the last part of our ongoing blog series exploring the Braze platform, we shared our key takeaways from this year’s Braze City x City London event. Today, I’ll dive into Braze’s various Canvas components and how you can leverage them to personalise your marketing journey.

What are Braze’s Canvas components?

By using a Canvas in Braze, you can unlock new user journeys that will improve processes and increase the effectiveness of reaching your audience. Here I break down a few of the Canvas components that enable a truly personalised marketing journey.

Action path

An Action path in a Canvas helps you to sort users based on their actions. By using an Action path, you can customise user paths based on custom events and engagement events and hold users for a given duration to prioritise their next path based on their actions during the evaluation window.

Within the Action setting module, you can choose how long you want to keep users in the Action step by choosing the evaluation window. This is set to one day by default, but can be customised to seconds, minutes, hours, days and even weeks.

Audience path

Audience paths help narrow down and target users by sending users down different paths based on specific criteria such as age groups, country and even user preferences. An Audience path allows you to intuitively filter and segment users with a strategic priority-based user-grouping.

Imagine a sorting funnel with ranking criteria: users are evaluated for each criterion in a priority order and sent down the path of the highest-ranking criteria they qualify for. An Audience path allows for up to eight audience groups, and for each group, you can assign specific filters or segments. The true power of an Audience path comes from its ability to assign priority, enabling you to target users that fall into specific filters and segments while still targeting users that might not fit those specific criteria all in one single Canvas component.

Decision Split

A Decision Split is a ‘yes or no’ feature that creates two mutually exclusive paths for users based on either an action or a user’s attributes, enabling a personalised, real-time experience for users. Within a Decision Split, you must use a segment or filter to create a ‘yes or no’ query to evaluate users.

An example of a Decision Split could be whether a customer is push enabled – ‘yes’ or ‘no’. In the case of a yes, the user would go down the push message path, and in the case of a no, users would go down an email path.

Delay components

Delay components help achieve the desired delay in communications, ensuring the user receives a message at a specific time and date (e.g. three-day delay) or holds users for a designated time. When using a delay step, it’s important to consider that the delay step’s limit is 30 days, and that a delay component can only be connected to one next step.

Experiment paths

Experiment paths allow you to test multiple Canvas paths against each other and a control group at any step level. It enables the random assigning of users down different paths, ensuring you can test which path is most effective.

As an example, if you want to test results between different time delays before a message after a user completes an action, you can do so while also setting a condition that after a specific experiment evaluation window, the winning path will be used, and the other paths ignored.

Our partnership with Braze

As a trusted Braze partner, our multidisciplined team can help you get the most out of Braze and customise your marketing journey to resonate with your customers. If you’re looking to adopt Braze or are already a Braze user, contact us to find out how you can start enhancing your marketing journey by harnessing Braze’s Canvas components.

Continue reading:

Blog 1 – Exploring Braze: optimising your CRM by leveraging key features

Blog 2 – How to elevate your brand through the power of Braze’s Sage AI suite

Blog 3 – Leveraging Braze’s Winning Paths to augment Canvas performance

Blog 4 – CACI’s Braze City x City 2023 takeaways

CACI’s Braze City x City 2023 takeaways

Posted on: 20 September 2023

WOW! What an amazing event Braze City X City was!

This year’s London event gathered numerous companies who are avid Braze users to share their future strategies, gauge customer engagement trends and learn how to harness the power of AI.

The morning was dedicated to thought leadership and was an amazing opportunity to chat with likeminded members of the CRM community, as well as hear from Braze’s CEO Bill Magnusson. We spent the afternoon hearing from some inspirational speakers who shared their experiences with areas like Sage AI and networking with friends and colleagues in the industry.

Key highlights of Braze City x City 2023

As Platinum sponsors, we were delighted to spend the day having brilliant conversations with multiple brands about their MarTech stack and digital maturity and run them through our Braze maturity assessment (which was a big hit!). Some of our personal highlights were seeing our colleagues Sam Obafemi, Account Director and Elena Hughes, Managing Consultant, sharing their amazing work helping MAC Cosmetics to create cut-through on Black Friday and achieve new customer experience highs, as well as hearing from Amy Clark, Head of CRM at ASOS, on the impact that this platform has had on their brand – an implementation we are proud to have supported the ASOS team with.

Challenges & themes addressed at Braze City x City 2023

While companies consistently expressed their positive sentiments about the platform, a prominent theme of the day was around the challenges in harnessing customer data. Specifically, determining how to ensure data is integrated to Braze in an optimal way to deliver campaigns and automated use cases while maintaining efficient data point consumption. This is a fundamentally critical point, as the true potential of the Braze platform can only be unlocked when your data is configured correctly.

Braze themselves have recognised this and have developed a number of features to help brands tap into their existing data, including:

Cloud Data Ingestion: This feature enables Braze to read data directly from Snowflake, Databricks, Google BigQuery and Amazon Redshift.
SQL Segment Extensions: Brands can create more advanced/complex segments through a new SQL Editor interface.
Data Transformations: Braze enables direct integration with other platforms that can call webhooks through building the necessary data transformations logic directly in Braze. This ensures that incoming webhook data can be directly mapped into the required data structures within Braze.
Catalogs Enhancements: With enhancements such as Shopify integration and plans for future integration with Cloud Data Ingestion, enabling brands to automatically keep data in sync with their data warehouse. [Jon Hyman, Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer of Braze, hinted at additional announcements around Catalogs features to be announced at Braze’s upcoming Forge event. We expect this will prove a significant step forward in helping clients integrate more complex data sources]

Our partnership with Braze

We’ve supported many brands on their journey with Braze, with a particular focus on ensuring optimised data integration and setup. Along with our experience in implementing the aforementioned Braze features, we’ve designed and built bespoke solutions to support clients needing additional tooling to aggregate, clean and transform data for integration with Braze.

To find out how CACI can help you get the most out of the Braze platform or understand the changes and enhancements you can make to your existing data infrastructure to ensure its seamless integration with Braze, please reach out to us.

Continue reading:

Blog 1 – Exploring Braze: optimising your CRM by leveraging key features

Blog 2 – How to elevate your brand through the power of Braze’s Sage AI suite

Blog 3 – Leveraging Braze’s Winning Paths to augment Canvas performance

Blog 5 – How Braze’s Canvas components personalise marketing journeys

How to avoid pitfalls & drive results in CDP implementation

Posted on: 19 September 2023

In our previous post, we discussed how Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) are paired with Customer Experience Platforms (CEPs) to form a powerful duo in the modern marketing technology architecture. In this post, we will dive deeper into how to approach implementing a CDP as a core part of your marketing technology architecture. If you’d like to read all the blogs right away, you can register here to access the complete series.

Approaching CDP implementation through use cases

Adopting a use case-driven approach to CDP implementation is one of the key enablers as it helps you determine what data you require in your CDP. Most organisations have amassed huge amounts of customer data, and approaching the CDP implementation using use cases helps make sense of what data is most pertinent for marketing. It also enables you to be selective about what data you integrate into the CDP, which is important as integrating all available data can be a complex and resource-intensive process.

Prioritise use cases based on value and ease of implementation

Once you have defined the use cases based on customer problems that can be solved through improved customer experiences, prioritise them based on their value and ease of implementation. Rather than an exhaustive effort to try and integrate all data in one go, this approach allows you to start seeing value from the platform by getting your priority use cases live within a short timeframe. This enables you to define and prioritise subsequent use cases, which you can then implement in a phased manner.

Another key benefit of this approach is that it enables you to identify any challenges and refine your approach before tackling more complex use cases. This reduces the risk of overloading the platform with unnecessary data and use cases, which can lead to poor performance and complexity.

Test and optimise for effective CDP implementation

It is also important to adopt a test and optimise approach. This means testing each use case and optimising it based on the results. This will help you to continuously improve the customer experience and deliver more value to your customers.

How can CACI help?

Implementing a CDP as a core part of your marketing technology architecture requires a use case-driven approach. This approach enables you to determine what data you require in your CDP and prioritise use cases based on their value and ease of implementation. It also allows you to start seeing value from the platform within a short timeframe and refine your approach before tackling more complex use cases. By adopting a test and optimise approach, you can continuously improve the customer experience and deliver more value to your business and customers.

In our next post, we’ll explain how crucial a new operating model is for the success of a CDP. If you wish to download the full blog series now, click here.

If you’re interested in learning more about CDPs and how they can help your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us and reach out to one of our experts.

Continue reading:

Blog 1 – How a CDP can transform your customer experience architecture

Blog 2 – CDP vs. SCV: why choosing between the two is a big mistake

Blog 3 – CDP and CEP: A perfect pair for a seamless customer experience

Blog 5 – Using CDP to design a successful business operating model

Leveraging Braze’s Winning Paths to augment Canvas performance

Posted on: 15 September 2023

In our last article, we explored how brands can utilise Braze’s Sage AI suite to enhance their audience engagement. Now, we’ll be diving into one of Braze’s newest Experiment Path features, Winning Paths, to find out how it can help nurture audiences and enable marketers to make impactful decisions at any point along the multi-touch journey.

How does Braze’s Experiment Path work?

In the ever-evolving world of digital optimisation, the ability to leverage data-driven insights is a deal-breaker. Braze’s Experiment Path node enables testing delivery time, messaging cadence, channel combinations and much more against earlier defined conversion events by randomly assigning users to different paths (or an optional control group).

This functionality was designed to streamline testing efforts and automatically send the most engaged users through subsequent steps. While it’s especially beneficial when setting up recurring or triggered canvases, it can also be used when setting up a single-entry flow.

If the initial test results are not statistically significant and the Winning Path wasn’t determined, Braze will direct users towards the best-performing path to ensure the most relevant experience. Alternatively, marketers can choose to distribute volume and allow customers to continue further down by following percentage splits specified at the beginning of the experiment.

For single-entry canvases, Braze will automatically apply a Delay Group that will separate randomly assigned users, while the rest will follow down the experiment paths. When the test is complete, the Delay Group will be connected to the Winning Path and continue through the canvas.

How is Winning Paths implemented?

To implement Winning Paths, follow the steps below:

Add in the Experiment Path to your flow by using the drag and drop canvas builder. By default, there are two paths with 50% of eligible audiences split between each path.
Next, simply tailor distribution for up to four variants and activate Winning Path in Settings by toggling on the feature.
Lastly, define the conversion event that will determine the results and set the timeframe to define how long the experiment will run before the top performing flow is selected.

The experiment window begins when the first user enters the step, and the start can be triggered earlier than expected by users in early time zones if they’re using local time delivery. When setting up the experiment, considering time differences is imperative, as is considering the impact of setting shorter timeframes. If local delivery time is enabled, we recommend setting an experiment window of at least 24-48 hours to give all customers an equal opportunity to interact and eventually convert.

Why Winning Paths will make a difference for your brand

Winning Paths is a fantastic way to enrich your brand’s testing strategy, connect with your customers and help you better understand microtrends among audiences flowing through lifecycle or BAU journeys. This functionality will ultimately allow marketers to run multiple tests in parallel and define successful ways to build meaningful connections.

Our partnership with Braze

As a trusted Braze partner, our multidisciplined team can help you maximise your Braze experience value and help you connect with your customers like never before. If you’re looking to adopt Braze or are already a Braze user, get in touch with us to find out how you can implement Winning Paths to bolster your testing and customer engagement strategies.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Braze or if you’re a Braze user looking to maximise value, please reach out to us.

Continue reading:

Blog 1 – Exploring Braze: optimising your CRM by leveraging key features

Blog 2 – How to elevate your brand through the power of Braze’s Sage AI suite

Blog 4 – CACI’s Braze City x City 2023 takeaways

Blog 5 – How Braze’s Canvas components personalise marketing journeys

CDP and CEP: A perfect pair for a seamless customer experience

Posted on: 7 September 2023

In our previous post, we explained the differences between a Single Customer View (SCV) and a Customer Data Platform (CDP). Now we’ll consider how the CDP integrates with another component of the modern marketing stack, the Customer Engagement Platform (CEP). If you’d like to read all the blogs right away, you can register here to access the complete series.

What makes CDP and CEP the perfect pair in a MarTech stack?

In recent years, there has been an emergence of modern CEPs that have transformed the way companies engage with their customers. Legacy campaign management technologies enabled companies to harness their rich customer data and orchestrate outbound comms to traditional channels such as Email, SMS and Direct Mail. However, these technologies tend to be driven by batch data and had limited capabilities in digital channels.

Modern CEPs, on the other hand, are inherently real-time, allow integration of digital data (either natively or via a CDP), and offer a wealth of new ways to engage with customers in mobile apps or on websites. While these capabilities are hugely valuable to marketers, their value when combined with a CDP is further enhanced. Why? Well, the CDP helps marketers make the most of their data and provides the CEP with a richer set of attributes to drive ever-more-personalised and engaging experiences.

When a CDP is combined with a Customer Experience Platform (CEP), it creates a powerful duo that can provide even greater value to businesses. A CEP enables companies to orchestrate and deliver personalised customer experiences across multiple channels, while a CDP provides the necessary data to make those experiences relevant and impactful.

Key considerations for integrating CDP & CEP technologies

It’s important to keep in mind some key considerations when integrating these two technologies. Designing and following data usage principles between the CDP and CEP will ensure optimal value is created from these two marketing technologies.

Assessing minimum data requirements

While the CEP will want to inherit all the aggregations/derivations from a CDP as well as some customer event data – sending too much data to a CEP can hinder its effectiveness. Therefore, it’s important to carefully consider the minimum data CEP needs to accept to deliver marketing use cases.

Avoiding data overload

When taking a use case-driven approach to data requests, one will ensure that the CEP will not be flooded with data; personalised experiences will be incrementally delivered and monitored to stay relevant to each customer’s needs and preferences.

How can CACI help?

The synergy between a CDP and a CEP is undeniable. By leveraging the power of personalisation and taking a strategic approach to data integration and requests, businesses can create seamless and impactful customer experiences that drive loyalty and revenue.

As subject matter experts at CACI, we can tell you that a well-implemented CDP and CEP can be a game-changer for businesses of all sizes and we have hands on experience with many brands including ASOS, Kingfisher, L&G, PlayStation, Telegraph, EasyJet and DFS.

In our next post, we’ll explain the best approach to take when implementing a CDP. Or click here to download the full blog series now.

If you’re interested in learning more about CDPs and CEPs and how they can help your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us and reach out to one of our experts.

Continue reading:

Blog 1 – How a CDP can transform your customer experience architecture

Blog 2 – CDP vs. SCV: why choosing between the two is a big mistake

Blog 4 – How to avoid pitfalls & drive results in CDP implementation

Blog 5 – Using CDP to design a successful business operating model

How to elevate your brand through the power of Braze’s Sage AI suite

Posted on: 6 September 2023

We’re excited to kick off this blog series by delving into the remarkable Sage AI suite within Braze, a game-changing toolkit that has transformed how brands engage with their audience.

One aspect that consistently captures attention and sparks curiosity is the components that make up the Sage AI suite. The potential of generative AI, the insights available through the Predictive suite and the brilliance of the Intelligent suite have already sparked incredible innovation within the realm of Braze. Personally, I find immense joy in highlighting these remarkable features, which truly stand out in their capabilities. So, what comprises the many layers of Sage AI and how does each component work?

In this blog, we’ll explore the intricacies that each Sage AI component has to offer as we journey through its captivating landscape and find out how Generative AI, the Predictive suite and the Intelligent suite are reshaping brand strategies to create new avenues for engagement.

Intelligent Suite

Within the realm of Braze’s cutting-edge capabilities, the Intelligent Suite takes centre stage. Comprised of three pivotal components that redefine how marketers connect with their audience, it encompasses:

Intelligent Selection:

As the epitome of efficiency and optimisation, this game-changing feature empowers marketers to conduct multivariate tests seamlessly. Picture this: the highest-performing variant automatically receives the remaining audience, streamlining the process and safeguarding customers from unproductive experiences.

Intelligent Timing:

In the world of marketing, timing is everything. Imagine the impact that delivering your message at the exact moment when your audience is most receptive would have on outcomes. With Intelligent Timing, Braze marketers can reach customers precisely when engagement potential is at its peak.

Intelligent Channel:

Crafting personalised interactions is an art, and the Intelligent Channel component adds a stroke of genius to it. By analysing customer behaviour and preferences, Braze enables marketers to select the best channel for communication, maximising open rates and engagement.

Predictive Suite

In the ever-evolving world of marketing, predictive analytics take centre stage through the dynamic Prediction Suite. This suite helps Braze users predict customer behaviour and optimise strategies for impactful engagement. Let’s dive into two of its remarkable facets:

Predictive Churn:

Empowering brands with proactive insights, Predictive Churn enables Braze users to customise filters that detect potential churn. By training algorithms to assign churn likelihood scores to individual customers, brands can craft tailored communications aimed at mitigating churn risk. This personalised approach transforms challenges into opportunities for customer retention.

Predictive Events:

Unlocking users’ future behaviours is a holy grail for business growth. Enter Predictive Events, a remarkable machine learning model that unveils the likelihood of user actions, particularly purchases. As marketing teams decipher forthcoming behaviours, they can shape campaigns, vouchers and incentives for maximum ROI. This predictive prowess transforms marketing strategies from generic campaigns to customer-centric interactions, ensuring journeys resonate profoundly.

Generative AI

In the realm of innovative marketing, AI emerges as a dynamic partner, enhancing creativity and efficiency. Let’s explore three ground breaking AI-driven tools that are reshaping how brands can create, communicate and engage with users:

AI Copywriting Assistant:

A transformative approach to crafting compelling messages, the AI copywriting assistant seamlessly integrates with OpenAI’s GPT-powered copy generation tool. By simply inputting a brief product name or description, this AI marvel generates human-like marketing copy that resonates. This feature comes ready-to-use in most message composers within the Braze dashboard, revolutionising your messaging strategy.

AI Image Generator:

An OpenAI system that produces stunning images and artwork based on natural language descriptions on demand, DALL·E 2 unleashes visual creativity through AI magic Four unique variations of prompts are generated with each input request, enabling brands to generate images up to ten times daily and foster a new level of visual storytelling.

AI Content QA:

Content QA with AI, driven by ChatGPT and OpenAI, acts as a vigilant editor that ensures your messages meet impeccable standards and that your content’s quality reaches its highest potential through AI intelligence. Content QA meticulously identifies and flags elements such as spelling errors, grammar glitches, inappropriate tone and offensive language. Accessible from the Test tab during message composition, this tool reshapes content perfection within campaigns and Canvases.

Why your brand needs Sage AI

The Sage AI Suite within Braze unveils a realm of innovation that redefines brand engagement. Generative AI transforms messaging with human-like precision through the AI Copywriting Assistant and Image Generator. Meanwhile, the Prediction Suite empowers brands to anticipate customer behaviour, from averting churn with Predictive Churn to enhancing campaigns through Predictive Events. The Intelligent Suite elevates engagement by optimising selection, timing and channel choice.

This suite isn’t just technology; it’s a bridge to profound connections, resonant storytelling and empowered strategies that will shape the future of engagement. By embracing the transformative potential of Sage AI, your brand can confidently step into a new era of brand-customer relationships.

Our partnership with Braze

As a trusted Braze partner, our multidisciplined team can help you maximise your Braze experience value and help you customer engagement outcomes reach new heights. If you’re looking to adopt Braze or are already a Braze user, get in touch with us to find out how you can harness Sage AI’s new components to bolster your engagement strategy.

If you’re interested in learning more about Braze or you’re a Braze user looking to maximise value, be sure to get in touch with us to speak to one of our team.

Continue reading:

Blog 1 – Exploring Braze: optimising your CRM by leveraging key features

Blog 3 – Leveraging Braze’s Winning Paths to augment Canvas performance

Blog 4 – CACI’s Braze City x City 2023 takeaways

Blog 5 – How Braze’s Canvas components personalise marketing journeys

Exploring Braze: optimising your CRM by leveraging key features

Posted on: 1 September 2023

Braze is one of the fastest growing CRM tools on the market. It enables brands to be truly app-first and deliver enhanced and personalised real-time customer experiences without complex and bulky ETL or batch processes which often involve painful and delayed overnight data loads.

Leveraging effective marketing technology is now critical for a business’ long-term success. It allows businesses to stay ahead of the competition by understanding and adapting to everchanging consumer behaviours and tailoring experiences that best reflect their needs.

Braze is a leading platform in the CRM space, having recently been scored as ‘leader’ within The Forrester Wave™: Cross-Channel Marketing Hubs in Q1 of 2023. Its innovative approach to connecting with customers has been a gamechanger. With a particular focus on digital messaging, it has established itself as an accessible, customisable and specialised tool on a global scale.

In this blog series, my multidisciplined team will lift the lid on Braze and uncover the key features we see within the platform that are certain to deliver growth and take your use of Braze to new heights.

Our partnership with Braze

As a trusted Braze partner, we help brands get the most from the platform by supporting in all areas, from platform integration and audit to campaign management and optimisation. Our Campaign Operations team is well versed in the platform, with each member who interacts with Braze being certified in the platform. We invest in our partnership with Braze by further upskilling our team to a high standard, with multiple team members holding more than three different certifications ranging from the marketer exam to the digital strategist, enabling us to support brands in getting the most out of this amazing platform.

Our experiences and certifications have enabled our development of a set of Braze Accelerators specifically designed for CRM teams striving to achieve better results in a shorter timeframe. They have also contributed to our team being awarded Agency Partner of the Year in 2022 for our work with Domino’s in assessing their campaigns, enhancing their understanding of their customers’ behaviours and identifying personalisation opportunities that bolstered their testing capabilities and paved the way for more effective outcomes.

If you’re interested in learning more about Braze, and how CACI can help you in driving the most value from your Braze investment, be sure to get in touch with us.

Continue reading:

Blog 2 – How to elevate your brand through the power of Braze’s Sage AI suite

Blog 3 – Leveraging Braze’s Winning Paths to augment Canvas performance

Blog 4 – CACI’s Braze City x City 2023 takeaways

Blog 5 – How Braze’s Canvas components personalise marketing journeys

CDP vs. SCV: why choosing between the two is a big mistake

Posted on: 23 August 2023

In our previous post, we explained the role of the Customer Data Platform (CDP) in modern marketing architecture. Now, we turn our attention to another critical component of the marketing stack – the Single Customer View (SCV). If you’d like to read all the blogs right away, you can register here to access the complete series.

What is the difference between a CDP and a SCV?

While the CDP and SCV are often confused with each other, they serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics. In this post, we will explore the benefits of having an SCV in the foundation layer and how it differs from the CDP.

Having a Single Customer View (SCV) in the foundation layer provides several benefits for businesses. Firstly, it enables businesses to build a comprehensive understanding of their customers by providing a unified and persistent view of customer data across all touchpoints. Secondly, it allows businesses to implement governance for enterprise-wide data management, ensuring data quality and consistency. Thirdly, it supplies a reliable source of customer data for analytics, reporting and decision-making. Finally, it lays the foundation for personalised experiences by providing a complete picture of the customer that can be used by marketers to deliver targeted and relevant experiences.

The SCV is where your customer data is mastered and where your business logic and definitions are applied. The output is a clean set of validated data that is presented in a useful way for your business and is ready for use in your engagement and activation layers. The SCV is where your business can address some common and critical issues with data, such as:

Validating and cleansing your data
Standardising of output and definitions
Consistent application of common business definitions and logic
Curation and presentation of data based on business application, making the data easy to use

On the other hand, the CDP is a more marketer-centric tool that empowers marketers with the ability to activate omni-channel personalised customer experiences. It is designed to make it easier for marketers to access and use customer data without relying on data engineers or IT teams. The CDP enables companies to use customer data to deliver targeted and personalised experiences across all channels.

While both the SCV and CDP are valuable tools, they are not interchangeable but instead play complementary roles.

Failing to have both an SCV and a CDP can lead to significant risks and negative impacts. For example, without an SCV, companies may struggle to make sense of their customer data, leading to missed opportunities for personalisation and engagement. Without a CDP, companies may struggle to activate that data and deliver personalised experiences, leading to lower customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Ultimately, businesses that want to improve their customer experience should have both an SCV and a CDP. While the SCV provides a foundation layer of customer data, the CDP empowers marketers to activate that data and create personalised experiences.

How can CACI help?

In the next post, we’ll consider how the CDP pairs with another key component of the modern marketing stack, the Customer Engagement Platform (CEP). Or if you’d like to download the full blog series in advance, click here to download.

Want to speak more about CDP and it can help you elevate your customer and marketing strategy? You can contact us here to speak to one of our experts.

Continue reading:

Blog 1 – How a CDP can transform your customer experience architecture

Blog 3 – CDP+CEP: A perfect pair for a seamless customer experience

Blog 4 – How to avoid pitfalls & drive results in CDP implementation

Blog 5 – Using CDP to design a successful business operating model