Smarter decisions, deeper connections: Braze named to Databricks' Data Intelligence for Marketing program

Rising customer expectations and fast-evolving technologies are reshaping what the user experience looks like, day by day and interaction by interaction, and marketers need access to the right information and insights to keep up. That means if data isn’t at the center of your customer engagement efforts, you have a major issue.

But while the amount of information out there keeps growing, many brands continue to struggle to effectively manage, understand, and act on their data. Overcoming this challenge can be the difference between building strong, sustainable relationships with your customers—or watching your audience slowly fade away. That’s why Braze is pleased to announce that we’re a key launch partner of Databricks' Data Intelligence for Marketing, which is designed to make it easier for marketers to use data to connect more thoughtfully and deeply with their customers.

Understanding how Braze fits into Databricks' Data Intelligence for Marketing program

Databricks, a leading data and AI platform and Braze Alloys technology partner, launched Data Intelligence for Marketing to make it easier for brands to scope, build, and maintain a best-in-class technology stack. With data intelligence, brands can take control of the data at their disposal, build deeper customer relationships, and drive stronger business results.

By supplementing the Databricks’ Data Intelligence Platform with seamless, out-of-the-box integrations with leading marketing technology platforms like Braze, marketers have the ability to more effectively unify their marketing data and deliver more relevant campaigns at scale.

The value of Braze and Databricks

At Braze, we’ve architected our customer engagement platform on a foundation of streaming, in-the-moment data from the very beginning. In addition, the Braze Data Platform allows marketers to easily and effectively move data in and out of our platform swiftly and scalably. In particular, the Braze Data Platform has three major tools that enable brands to unify, activate, and distribute their data to support customer engagement and our seamless integration with Databricks:

• Braze Cloud Data Ingestion (CDI): This feature makes it possible to seamlessly take advantage of data contained in Databricks within Braze, allowing marketers to leverage that information to trigger campaigns, target pre-built segments, and take effective action on customer engagement insights.
• CDI Segments: This zero-copy data feature allows brands to directly query Databricks to create new audience segments to support their customer engagement efforts—and do it without copying any of the underlying data to Braze.
• Braze Currents: The Braze Data Platform’s high-volume, ongoing data export tool allows brands to consistently flow engagement data and customer insights out of Braze and into Databricks, supporting deeper analysis and creating a customer engagement feedback loop that can improve future campaigns.

Here are three key outcomes that these tools—and other Braze elements—can support when used in concert with Databricks:

1. Real-time, cross-channel personalization

Today’s customers engage with brands across a wide range of different devices, platforms, and touchpoints, and marketers need to keep up to stay competitive. There’s no one channel that can reach and engage everyone, making it important for brands to embrace a cross-channel approach to customer engagement. At the same time, reaching users on the right channels isn’t enough; brands need to ensure that the messages they send aren’t generic or irrelevant.

Thankfully, Braze is natively cross-channel and channel agnostic, allowing marketers to engage their users wherever they are—from traditional channels like email and SMS to emerging ones like RCS and Content Cards—in seamless, effective ways. Plus, the Braze and Databricks integration empowers marketers to easily deliver experiences that are more relevant to their customers’ wants and needs. Databricks can serve as a one-stop shop for all your customer-related data, creating a true unified view of the customer. Its integration with Braze makes it possible to leverage this view to trigger and personalize messaging to each individual user based on the topics, products, or experiences that resonate with them most.

2. Smart campaign optimization

Great customer engagement is never a one-and-done thing. Consumer preferences and behaviors don’t stand still, so your marketing campaigns shouldn’t either. In order to stay current and keep providing the kinds of experiences that users expect, brands need to embrace a culture of experimentation and optimization, allowing for thoughtful adjustments in response to shifting consumer habits.

By leveraging Braze Currents, marketers can easily stream engagement data from owned channels like email, SMS, push, and more right into Databricks, making it possible to join that information with data on paid channels and other key elements of their marketing strategy, supporting the holistic measurement of every touchpoint across the user journey—even when those interactions take place outside of Braze. That, in turn, lets your team identify places where a higher-cost channel might be swapped out for a lower cost one, or where unnecessary outreach may have been sent, making it possible to adjust your strategy and potentially cut costs and reduce the noise associated with customer engagement efforts. In addition, insights from this engagement data can also make it easier to determine which acquisition strategies yield long-term engaged players, refine look-a-like audiences for more precise targeting of similar high-value cohorts, and improve the accuracy of predictive LTV models to personalize offers and messaging. That supports smarter, more cost-effective marketing that reflects the needs and wants of the people receiving it.

3. Effective data privacy and governance

Data is arguably the most powerful resource that marketers have, unlocking personalization, effective targeting, optimization, and more. But brands shouldn’t take the data in their possession lightly—consumers expect their information to be kept private and to only be used for the purposes that they’ve been told to expect. Companies that don’t take their data governance efforts seriously or rely on outdated systems and connections can run the risk of betraying their customers’ trust and taking unnecessary risks that could potentially harm their marketing programs.

To reduce those risks, the zero-copy CDI Segments features enable customers to build and activate segments within Braze by directly querying the data in their Databricks tables—all without copying any of that information into Braze. This limits data duplication and supports better data management, which can reduce data privacy and security risks, while also enhancing companies’ ability to keep the information in their hands safe and secure, even as it is being used to power better customer experiences.

Final thoughts

Forward-looking marketers know that they need the right tools to serve their customers effectively. The integration between Braze and Databricks can help make that possible by serving as the foundation of a powerful, best-in-class marketing technology stack that puts data at the center of the customer experience.

Interested in learning more about what brands can achieve when using Braze and Databricks in concert? Check out our piece “1:1 AI-Powered Holiday Gifting Campaigns: How Amperity, Braze, and Databricks Make It Possible.”

Forward-Looking Statements

This blog post contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding the performance of and expected benefits from Braze and its products and partnerships. These forward-looking statements are based on the current assumptions, expectations and beliefs of Braze, and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Further information on potential factors that could affect Braze results are included in the Braze Annual Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2025, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on June 6, 2025, and the other public filings of Braze with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this blog post represent the views of Braze only as of the date of this blog post, and Braze assumes no obligation, and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.