Grove Collaborative drives sustainable growth with Braze through a targeted browse abandon campaign

Grove Collaborative makes it easy for US households to live healthily and sustainably, with socially responsible online shopping that spans home, wellness, beauty, and more.

As a B Corp and Public Benefit Corporation, the brand helps consumers shop with a purpose, realizing great value without compromising their own mission. Every order is carbon neutral, supports plastic waste cleanup initiatives, and lets shoppers see and track the positive impact of their choices.

Grove uses customer engagement strategies to inspire conscious choices at scale. The more meaningful the connection with customers, the easier it is to help them build sustainable habits—and, in turn, grow the kind of brand loyalty and customer lifetime value to which Grove aspires.

Goodbye cumbersome old system; hello Braze

Grove felt limited by their previous “cumbersome” platform, which hindered their ability to have a first-class lifecycle program. They were missing basic campaigns like “browse abandon” as the platform couldn’t provide real-time personalization. After it crashed on Thanksgiving Eve, Grove Collaborative knew it was time to switch to a more reliable and strategically aligned solution.

They wanted not only a flexible platform—one that integrated with their Shopify storefront and Amazon Web Services (AWS) data warehouse, but also a reliable platform to send messages at scale, and help them realize their ambitious personalization goals.

Braze fit the bill, offering:

• The front- and back-end integrations Grove required to tailor messaging
• The intuitive orchestration and experimentation tools they needed to work faster and more strategically
• The real-time data functionality to trigger more contextual engagement

While Grove Collaborative helps customers shop in a way that supports a healthier home and planet, Braze helps Grove create sustainable business—reducing reliance on new customer acquisition by standing up a marketing program (like browse abandon) powered by real-time data and personalized to a customer’s behavior. In turn, this helps improve relationships and retention as well as the efficiency and impact of engagement activities.

“Braze offered the flexibility, innovation, and data depth we needed to build smarter, behavior-based customer journeys. The switch gave us more control, reliability, and creative freedom to engage customers in real time.”

—Margaret Oros, Head of Marketing Technology, Grove Collaborative

Turning browsers into buyers for sustainable success

Grove Collaborative knew that when shoppers browse but don’t make a purchase, it adds up to lost conversions and revenue. After implementing Braze with its native Shopify integration, the team focused on a “Browse Abandon” campaign to re-engage both new and returning shoppers.

The strategy was to send personalized reminders, using real-time product data and behavioral triggers, to invite customers to complete their purchase of an item they had viewed or select an alternative from a curated selection of similar items. The goal was to maintain customer attention and increase the likelihood of conversion—and ensure that the resources Grove invests into customer acquisition don’t go to waste.

“Braze has proven to be an innovative, reliable partner that truly listens to its customers. Their team consistently helps us solve complex data challenges—often coming up with creative solutions or adding ideas to their roadmap. Between the intuitive platform, powerful data capabilities, and ongoing innovation in AI, Braze has been instrumental in helping us deliver smarter, more personalized customer experiences.”

—Margaret Oros, Head of Marketing Technology, Grove Collaborative

The campaign: step-by-step

To create this campaign, Grove used the Braze x Shopify integration to trigger personalized emails when a customer’s browsing session doesn’t result in a purchase.

To do this, they:

1. Set up a custom event in Shopify (‘browse abandoned’).
2. Used the Braze SDK to bring that data into Braze in real-time.
3. Defined the segment who should receive a ‘browse abandoned’ email—those who have opted into marketing emails and haven’t received an email in the last 24 hours.
4. Orchestrated an email journey within Braze Canvas to be sent when Braze received the custom event data.
5. Created dynamic personalization using the customer name and personalized product suggestions, using Braze Catalogs, the Shopify integration, and recommendations powered by Constructor.io.
6. Used branching logic to experiment with different timeframes for sending the messages, to assess whether timing impacted conversion.

Achieving this required cross-team effort. Grove’s engineering team ensured event data flowed correctly, while the retention team built dynamic templates using Braze Catalogs powered by Shopify. This ensured that the email contained personalized product suggestions based on each user’s last viewed item, driving relevance and engagement. In parallel, timing experiments reduced the risk of message fatigue and disengagement—in line with Grove’s value proposition of happier, healthier customers. Even better, the team achieved this within a month of integrating Shopify and Braze.

The result: Increased checkouts and validated strategy

The “Browse Abandon” campaign delivered strong early results:

• 10% checkout rate
• 41% add to cart rate
• 3% click-through rate

The 3% click-through rate is one of the highest Grove Collaborative has achieved in their triggered email program, on par with industry benchmarks of 2-3%.

These early results validated the team’s personalization strategy and showcased the value of the real-time results from the Braze x Shopify integration.

The campaign directly supports Grove’s goal to drive meaningful conversion by surfacing relevant products to previously engaged prospects and customers. It also represents a major milestone in their broader personalization strategy—bringing smarter, real-time engagement to life.

“We’re excited about what’s ahead on the roadmap. As we continue to expand our use of the Braze Shopify integration, we’re looking forward to finding even more creative ways to personalize messages, connect with customers, and inspire sustainable choices.”

—Margaret Oros, Head of Marketing Technology, Grove Collaborative

Key takeaways

1. Email isn’t dead: Despite the plethora of communication channels available to brands, email continues to convert. Whether you use email as a standalone channel or within a cross-channel strategy, Grove’s campaign success proves email still has returns.

2. Behavior trumps “batch-and-blast”: Using real-time behavioral triggers, paired with personalized product recommendations, increased click-through rates and drove high engagement and conversions compared to less timely, less tailored messaging.

3. Integration drives innovation: Grove’s strategy and success were made possible by the Braze x Shopify integration and SDK, drawing in live data from AWS. Customer journeys flow when the right technology works seamlessly together.

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