Customer Strategy Archives - Page 2 of 6

How Estée Lauder harness the “beauty of data” to transform their customer experience

Posted on: 5 March 2024

At our annual Innovate & Accelerate conference, Daniel Lindsay, CRM, Data, Insights and Analytics Director at Estée Lauder, shared the business’ optimal pairing of data and magic behind beauty to enable their enterprise data transformation, taking the retailer from insight to instinct in order to personalise consumer experiences. This winning combination has contributed to the success of their brand value proposition, narrative and positioning through campaigns that struck a chord with consumers.

But how did Estée Lauder decide when the right time for data transformation was? What tools and strategies did they lean on to achieve this, and what were the results?

Why it was time for a big data transformation

Three years ago, Estée Lauder faced various evolutionary periods of marketing, from digital to connected media in terms of consumer interaction followed by the tailored messaging capabilities that came with leaning into data-led media and marketing , particularly first-party consumer data. The business was keen to ensure all their consumers were involved in their journey of change.

According to Daniel: “Our job as a leading beauty company in the UK is to evoke trust from the customer.” Consumers purchase from brands that they trust with their most personal spaces, so ensuring customers are at the root of the brand and understood as granularly as data personalisation allows for is vital. Estée Lauder quickly realised that connecting data to the personalised user experience would give them the competitive edge that they needed to remain an industry leader.

Challenges experienced when working on data transformation & how they were mitigated

Three years down the line of their data transformation, Estée Lauder has faced its fair share of challenges:

Heavily investing in consumer data. The business quickly realised their initial consumer data investments were conducted on outdated infrastructure, which complicated their ability to locate their target customer and get a unified view of them.
Effectively delivering analytics or insights that would drive fast action and improve accessibility. They had also outgrown their campaign management system, sparking a new consideration of ensuring whatever was brought into the business would connect consumers across the channels.
Upskilling and bolstering their in-house capability. This would enable enhanced futureproofing and strategic planning while also upkeeping resources.

Implementing CDP & campaign management tools

To tackle these challenges, Estée Lauder worked with CACI on implementing a customer data platform (CDP) workstream and an innovative campaign management tool, Braze. They also created a new access point for consumer data for quicker decision-making and initiated a change management piece to better plan for the future, with CACI’s support on refining in-house skills.

Working with CACI enhanced the business’ understanding of how their consumers shop across their portfolio of brands. The resulting data was released into Braze, and has more recently been added into Google, Meta and TikTok to take their understanding of consumer data to a new level.

The business’ value realisation through Braze was being able to engage with consumers and make their CRM channels the fastest growing traffic channel across all their direct to consumer (D2C) channels so far. They were also able to increase their key loyalty metrics by 16% in repeat and retention rates across all brands. This was demonstrated through one brand, Aveda, that despite a complex route to market journey, proved that having the right infrastructure in place enabled the business to successfully understand and track consumer points through email or SMS, which has been transformational for the business.

Data transformation in real-time: MAC Cosmetics case studies

Creating Black Friday success for MAC Cosmetics

Elena Hughes, Customer Strategist at CACI, elaborated on CACI’s support with the design and implementation of Braze in Estée Lauder, and its impact on the business’ strategic communications plan ahead of their peak period, Black Friday. This was a commercially critical time in the business’ calendar with a predicted high revenue generation, meaning that the business’ strategy had to be airtight.

To execute this, Estée Lauder assessed the data with CACI to understand how customers behave during peak promotional periods. This resulted in the emergence of four key customer groups:

Gifters
Price-driven audience
Loyal
Lapsed (one-off)

The strategy needed to take a segmented approach to tailor the messaging to these specific audiences, which enabled newfound opportunities for creative enhancements as well. As a result, the business noticed a 23% increase in trading performance post-implementation of the strategy, proving the campaign’s effectiveness despite an obvious time crunch and key information presented for access in the most suitable way of actionable insight.

Activating a triggered lifecycle programme at MAC Cosmetics

Replenishment, automated trigger and cross-sale messaging were critical components of the business’ triggered lifecycle programme. Their Black Friday campaign success came from distilling a multitude of strategy-shaping data points.

Learning lessons towards achieving data transformation

Despite maintaining relatively stable sales around Black Friday, CACI’s Cost of Living and purchasing data proved to be crucial to Estée Lauder’s success. While the business noticed that some of the more luxury products like serums declined in sales, the resulting data showed that the “lipstick effect” prevailed and that customers still want to feel good about themselves no matter the economic circumstances, demonstrated in the purchasing of what consumers consider to be essential products.

The business is now equipped with the necessary data to enter peak shopping periods and continue developing efficiencies and creative assets that resonate with customers.

How CACI can help

If you or your business are looking to accelerate customer data or technology changes by connecting and activating your insight, please get in touch to discuss what strategies and solutions that our team of experts can help you deliver.

Uncovering consumers’ leisure priorities in the festive period

Posted on: 13 December 2023

The latest findings from our Cost of Living consumer survey are in, and we’re taking a look at the insights through the lens of the leisure industry.

With over 2,000 respondents surveyed in November, we asked consumers about their thoughts and priorities in the lead up to Christmas to help brands understand how their customers may be behaving. For companies in the leisure space, being able to predict the movements, intentions and spending patterns of customers is key at this time of year, especially in the current economic climate.

So, what did we find?

Nearly half of consumers still want to socialise and spend despite the impact of the Cost of Living

With 46% of respondents agreeing that the increased Cost of Living will not impact their intended Christmas social plans (up from 40% in 2022), leisure brands can expect to benefit from people wanting to attend and spend on events out of the home this year.

While this is reflected in general financial fears dropping since the late summer, there seems to be a generational divide with Gen X, Millennials and Boomers feeling more confident. Gen Z, on the other hand, reached a new peak of concern at over 50%.

Their concerns relate to their personal finances as opposed to family finances or the national/global economy, which could affect brands reliant on young adults to boost their seasonal profits.

Energy fears remain high as the cold moves in, leading to potential cost-cutting in other areas for some groups

With energy costs becoming more of a focus as temperatures drop, some demographic groups are having to cut down on other costs to keep warm this winter – with one in three among the Low Income Living Acorn category expecting to have to do so.

The impact decreases as we climb the affluence scale but remains fairly significant, with over 20% of the Established Affluence category also considering cost cutting for this reason.

Spending on food and drink at home remains a priority, but the importance of entertainment and leisure at Christmas is growing

With a significant 79% of people considering spending on food and drink at home to be important this festive period, there is further optimism for the leisure industry as our latest survey has also detected a shift back towards entertainment and leisure as a source of importance.

While consumers report that most other areas of spending are reducing in importance, entertainment and leisure is trending in the other direction, with 59% of consumers surveyed classifying entertainment and leisure as either somewhat or very important to them this year, which is up from 53% in 2022. This is supported by 47% of respondents identifying that socialising outside of their homes this year is important, which is a slight increase from 2022.

Overall, the social planning picture is a lot less negative than last year

When we consider the contrast between pre-pandemic and Cost of Living crisis behaviours versus consumer attitudes now, it’s fair to say that people continue to exert caution in the lead up to Christmas. Nonetheless, we’re seeing less negativity year-on-year, which shows that there’s opportunity for leisure brands in the coming weeks.

Brands may still want to consider how different demographic groups are going to drive success this Christmas, as levels of concern and caution seem to be directly related to affluence. The findings show that the Established Affluence category appear to place the most importance on maintaining their food and beverage spending and socialising this year.

When taking age into account, we found that a surprisingly large pocket of younger respondents actually prefer New Year’s Eve to Christmas Day as a celebration. So, this could be something to consider when rolling out engagement strategies post-Christmas.

Apply these insights to your consumers and stay in the loop as you strategise

We work with a range of market-leading brands in the leisure industry, helping them to identify, understand and locate their customer base to drive value for their businesses and inform successful estate optimisation and growth. If any of our demographic or location-focused data is of interest to you, or if you’d like to dive deeper into our survey results, please get in touch to discuss this with us.

Travel spend behaviours that will redefine your customer strategies

Posted on: 3 November 2023

In our previous blog, we explored some of the most common challenges that have arisen in the travel sector in 2023 and how you can leverage digital marketing and personalisation to tackle them.

In an era where the Cost of Living is placing pressure on consumers’ budgets, the significance of precise, targeted marketing and aligned messaging cannot be overstated. Moving towards the end of the year and the holiday-booking surge that happens in January, marketers will need to be aware of timely shifts in behaviour and expectations to capitalise on customer intent at the right times.

Through our recent Cost of Living consumer survey, we have identified important shifts in travel spending habits that will influence the January booking window, and have pinpointed the demographic groups experiencing the most significant adjustments:

Travellers are more frugal than they were, but still want the best experience they can afford
Travellers will spend more time than usual researching to try and find the best the value options
Travellers may be more sceptical about convenient booking options and package deals still offering the best available value
Solo travellers, travellers without children and families are all being hit differently, and will therefore have different needs and expectations when it comes to researching and booking.

Despite these shifts, there are still plenty of opportunities for travel businesses to keep customers interested in going away. Below we have detailed some of the tactics that can help:

Consumers’ travel spending will continue—with exceptions

Many travellers may have set expectations in their minds around what a ‘good trip’ looks like, such as having to be a certain distance away or for a minimum number of days. Our findings concluded that despite the ongoing Cost of Living crisis, holidays remain a priority for consumers of all ages, and they are determined to find ways to make them happen.

In fact, 57% of consumers surveyed have or will be making changes to their holiday habits to save money and get more for their money.

Respondents expect to cut their expenditure on their next holiday, with 45% saying they will either find a cheaper destination, travel option, accommodation, do fewer activities or simply reduce their trip length. Which means that they will most likely spend more time researching their holidays and trips. Equally, this may affect the package holiday market as consumers compose their own holidays by booking their own flights, hotels and transfers.

The most affluent Acorn demographic groups expect to cut their holiday expenditure in this way more than other groups, as do millennials and Gen Z respondents. 22% of respondents are also taking fewer breaks compared to previous years.

To continue to encourage travellers to go away, travel businesses will need to shift the focus from larger packages and holidays and instead start spotlighting the benefits of closer destinations and shorter trips or weekend getaways. Their focus language will need to be around ‘doing more with less’ to ensure travellers continue to see the value in getting away no matter the length of holiday. Travel businesses can promote this throughout the year as well, as shorter breaks are far more flexible and can happen at any time.

Gen Z are spending the least on travel this year

Younger holidaymakers—particularly Gen Z— appear to want to spend as little as possible to keep travelling this year.

When it comes to cheaper destinations and accommodation, more than 1 in 5 respondents of younger age groups have opted for these. Younger men surveyed are particularly determined to continue to take breaks as they have before. Just 14% of Gen Z men expect to take fewer breaks compared with previous years, yet that rate more than doubles among Gen Z women, 29% of whom reported that expectation.

To combat this, travel businesses that speak directly to traveller concerns around value will build their trust in the options they’re being presented with. For travellers that are wary of costs and will expect to be researching for longer periods of time to seek the best value, curated options and direct, value-based messaging will help to make their concerns feel acknowledged and will offer a faster and more convenient option for them to browse.

Family holidays are being cut…

Respondents that have children appear to be affected to a greater extent than those without. The appeal of cheaper destinations rises from 14% among those without children to 24% among those with under 18s in their household. Bearing this in mind, more price-sensitive families can be a stronger focus for value-based messaging and cheaper travel options from travel businesses.

…while solo travellers are on the rise

The results show that independently living, single travellers are taking the most advantage of getting away on holiday this year. In fact, rates of those cutting back on holiday expenditure are nearly 1/3 lower among those who live alone. This includes reducing spend in other areas to make room for travel and shortening the length of trips compared to previous years. To maintain interest across all pricing options, travel businesses should target more expensive and premium options towards solo and non-children couples.

How can CACI help?

As a trusted partner to major brands within the travel industry, our team is highly experienced in supporting strategic targeting by leveraging the necessary data and technology to understand customers and their behaviours as innately as possible and being able to design marketing strategies to target these groups.

CACI partners with global brands to harness and enhance customer data, enabling them to identify and prioritise the most valuable customers. Insights are then activated through strategic CRM initiatives and acquisition strategies, ensuring targeting is precise and relevant. This approach is pivotal for brands seeking to align their products with consumer needs and foster long-lasting brand loyalty, repeat bookings and maximising share of wallet.

To find out how we can support your business strategies or operations by enhancing your customer understanding, or to find out more about the products and services we offer, please get in touch.

Read blog 1 from our travel series: Travel sector hurdles and the promise of digital marketing and personalisation

Travel sector hurdles and the promise of digital marketing and personalisation

Posted on: 9 October 2023

The travel sector has faced turbulence over the past few years. From the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, to the cost of living crisis and ever-changing travel norms, the sector finds itself navigating a host of challenges.

A holiday purchase is often one of the largest purchases that a family will make in a year, with an average UK family spending roughly £4,000 per annum. With ever-inflating costs and even higher customer expectations, providing an exceptional customer experience is critical to your long-term success.

In this blog series for the travel sector, we will be exploring how you can harness the power of data and modern marketing technology capabilities to overcome and even exploit these challenges.

What are the most common issues in the travel sector in 2023?

Changed travel behaviour

The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis have left their mark on the travel sector. Travellers are more cautious, often opting for cheaper domestic or localised trips over international adventures. Health and safety have become paramount, leading to a new set of expectations from travel providers.

In fact, 25–34-year-olds were reluctant to make holiday plans this year, instead waiting to see how the cost of living crisis evolved.

Moreover, ¼ of those aged 55+ made no plans to travel this year.

With different demographic groups approaching their holiday planning in different ways, applying the right segmentation techniques to target those who are most likely to travel is crucial.

Environmental concerns

There’s also a growing call for sustainable travel. Tourists and travellers are more eco-conscious than ever, wanting to reduce their carbon footprint and seeking eco-friendly options. The consideration of travelling sustainably is especially a factor for 18–24-year-olds, where 22% say this is important to them.

Over-tourism

Popular destinations from Venice to Bali faced issues of over-tourism, where local ecosystems and infrastructures have become overwhelmed.

Complex travel policies

With countries having their own quarantine measures, vaccine mandates and travel advisories, there’s an increasing complexity in international travel logistics.

Trust deficit

After numerous flight cancellations (UK flight cancellations are up 39% in 2023!), changing regulations, strike disruptions and refund issues during peak pandemic times, travellers are more sceptical about committing to bookings.

How can digital marketing & personalisation save the travel sector?

Digital marketing and personalisation have emerged as two tools that can address several of these issues:

Tailored travel options

Through advanced AI and lifestyle and behavioural data analytics, travel companies can now provide tailored packages and ancillaries for individuals. If a user has shown interest in eco-friendly destinations or prefers secluded spots, personalisation and decisioning tools can offer suggestions accordingly. This not only enhances user experience, but can also divert traffic from over-crowded tourist spots.

Building trust through transparency

Customer Experience Platforms (CEPs) like Adobe Journey Optimiser and Braze can provide customers with real-time updates on disruption, travel policies, health and safety measures and reviews. An informed traveller is a happier traveller. That happiness will lead to greater trust, and an increased likelihood of future bookings.

Educative marketing: Digital and content-rich campaigns focused on educating tourists about the importance of sustainable travel can be instrumental. From tips on how to be a responsible traveller to highlighting the less-explored destinations, digital content can shape travel behaviours. It’s worth noting that according to our recent Cost of Living consumer survey, 17% of people believe that they will do most of their travel via sustainable methods by 2030.
Feedback mechanisms: Personalised feedback options and rapid data ingestion help companies understand the unique needs of each traveller, leading to improved offerings around ancillaries, personalised and targeted to the right customers via mobile channels, making holiday purchases easier.
Loyalty programmes & retargeting: CDPs and data-driven marketing allows travel companies to launch personalised loyalty programmes. With retargeting strategies, companies can re-engage potential customers, offering them custom deals based on their search and booking history.

Despite the many challenges faced by the travel sector in 2023, the digital and data tech revolution offers an array of solutions. By adopting well-planned digital marketing and data-driven personalisation, the sector can not only provide enhanced customer experiences, but also address broader issues such as over-tourism and environmental concerns. It’s a transformative era, and travel companies at the forefront of these digital innovations are poised to chart a smoother course ahead.

How can CACI help?

CACI is already a trusted partner to major brands within the travel industry, developing strategic customer journeys to increase frequency of bookings and ancillaries’ revenue through the effective use of data, technology and targeted marketing.

If you would like to discuss your needs in any of these areas, or to find out more about the products and services we offer, please get in touch.

Read blog 2 from our travel series: Travel spend behaviours that will redefine your customer strategies

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 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