Get Deeper Insights into Cross-Device User Behavior with Braze tvOS Support [Product Announcement]

Smart marketing today is built on customer data. Understanding who your users are and how they engage with your brand is the first step toward building the kind of sustainable, mutually-beneficial customer/brand relationships that lead to long-term success. But that kind of understanding doesn’t just happen—marketers need tools and tactics to help them gather the right user information and use it effectively.

To help marketers better understand how customers are engaging with their brand across devices, we’re pleased to announce support for tvOS within Braze’s lifecycle engagement platform. Television is an emerging channel for digital marketers; right now, you can find a connected television in over 70% of homes in the US with broadband Internet. With Braze’s new tvOS SDK, brands will be able to gain insights into user engagement on this important emerging platform and act on those insights in concert with customer data from their mobile and web presence, supporting a deeper understanding of each customer, and more effective message targeting, timing, and personalization.

Here’s what you need to know:

What is tvOS support

Installing the Braze SDK in your app or website makes it easy to automatically track and act on customer behavior, support nuanced audience segmentation, or individually customized messaging, and trigger outreach from user actions. Braze’s new tvOS SDK builds on this functionality by allowing brands with Apple TV apps to seamlessly collect data on user behavior and engagement on that device, providing a more comprehensive (and accurate) view of their audience.

Why tvOS support matters for marketers

As new technologies emerge and make their way into the mainstream of daily life, getting a complete view of each customer’s engagement with your brand requires a wider view.

After all, it’s great to know when a customer closes your app without buying the items they’ve added to their shopping cart—that kind of information makes it possible to target them with an automated, personalized cart abandonment campaign, driving higher revenue by nudging customers to return and finish their purchase. But if that customer actually completed the purchase on your website, failing to have a global view of their engagement could lead you to send them an unnecessary, potentially off-putting message that could hurt your efforts to build a long-term relationship.

With more than 5,000 Apple TV apps currently available, it’s time for marketers to start thinking about how to engage users on this growing platform — and how to hold onto them. Right now, only 4.1% of new users return to Apple TV apps on Day 30 after first use, a rate that’s more than 30% lower than for mobile apps. For brands with Apple TV apps (or who are considering creating them), Braze’s tvOS support makes it possible to include their users’ Apple TV behavior in their larger customer retention and monetization efforts, and leverage the data they collect to keep their Apple TV audience engaged more effectively.

What tvOS support makes possible

With Braze’s tvOS support, marketers can use News Feed Card content to deliver personalized, targeted content to viewers

With Braze tvOS support, marketers can gain a view of their audience that’s broader and more accurate. Additionally, they can use direct messaging to better engage, retain, and monetize those users.

The Braze tvOS SDK makes it possible for brands to use in-app messaging and our News Feed Card system to reach Apple TV viewers with personalized content streams, providing a better, more relevant user experience. And because the Braze platform can support a unified view of customers across mobile, the web, and Apple TV, marketers can trigger second-screen mobile and web push notifications and emails based off of Apple TV user actions, making it possible to nudge lapsing viewers to re-engage and encourage stronger engagement across your digital experiences.

While additional TV messaging capabilities are expected on Apple TV in the coming years, it’s already possible to use Braze tvOS support to carry out a variety of messaging use cases, including:

• Personalizing Apple TV News Feed Cards and in-app messages to highlight relevant new releases and content recommendations based on each viewer’s previous engagement.
• Adjusting what Apple TV News Feed content is shared and how frequently it’s swapped out based on the frequency of each viewer’s engagement within the app.
• Using mobile app or web push notifications to drive users back to your Apple TV experience when there’s relevant content.

Final thoughts

Emerging technologies just keep emerging. Not every tech will be right for your brand and your marketing strategy. But ensuring that you have the tools you need to understand and reach your customers on every device and platform they use to engage with your brand is essential to your company’s long-term success.

Interested in digging deeper into Braze tvOS support? Take a look at our tvOS SDK documentation.