Forge 2024: Going All In For Thoughtful, Data-Driven Customer Engagement

Marketing, by its very nature, is an iterative thing. Even today's best, most impactful marketing campaign may not hold up tomorrow, and brands that embrace an ongoing, optimization-focused approach to customer engagement are more likely to see strong results over the long haul. However, achieving that vision—and sustaining marketing gains in a constantly shifting environment—is one of the major challenges that brands face.

To help marketers, product, and data teams explore what's possible today with the right data, technology, and teamwork, Braze brought together 120+ speakers, including thought leaders, senior executives, innovative marketers, and customer engagement subject matter experts, at our annual Forge conference, held September 23–25 at Las Vegas' Virgin Hotel. Across more than 50 sessions, innovators at brands like Activision Blizzard, McDonald's, Wynn Resorts, the Estee Lauder Companies, CVS, Hilton, Venmo, Panera Bread, Etsy, SoFi, and many more shared how they're using technology to meet today's marketing challenges—and how they're preparing their brands for tomorrow's marketing opportunities.

With an event this big, there are always too many interesting conversations and striking presentations to cover them all, so let’s take a minute for a quick run-through of the conference’s major announcements and insights, and the key sessions that brought them to life.

There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Better Marketer

Marketing thought leaders have been preaching the gospel of relevant, human-first marketing engagement for years. However, for most brands, a variety of obstacles—everything from bandwidth limitations and technology gaps to poor data practices and organizational silos—have meant that their reach has always exceeded their grasp. But in his opening keynote address, Braze Cofounder and CEO Bill Magnuson argued that there's never been a better time to be a better marketer than right now. That's because the growth of AI and other emerging customer engagement technologies have given marketers more effective ways to understand and engage their customers and build strong sustainable relationships that really speak to and serve every individual.

Reflecting that progress, Braze Cofounder and CTO Jon Hyman and Braze Chief Business Officer Astha Malik walked attendees through a range of announcements showcasing the full scope of Braze product and ecosystem advancements. They covered everything from expanded data management capabilities and new messaging channels to upgraded AI and customer orchestration journey orchestration features. Some of the biggest updates included the launch of the Braze platform’s new 14-day free trial, as well as significant announcements related to:

• Data: Building on this year's launch of the Braze Data Platform, Jon announced an expansion of the Platform's Cloud Data Ingestion (CDI) feature that will make it possible for Braze to ingest CSV, JSON, or Parquet files held in cloud storage platforms, as well as GA support for CDI Segments for Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks, and BigQuery, bringing expanded zero-copy data access to the Braze solution. Astha also highlighted significant updates to Braze reporting capabilities, as well as a new identity resolution tool that is expected to hit early access by the end of the year. (Learn more about our data announcements and when features will be available here.)
• Channels: Jon and Astha announced a significant expansion in the Braze solution's messaging channel options with the introduction of native support for both LINE (currently in Beta with availability planned for Fall), Japan’s leading messaging app, and rich communication services (RCS), allowing brands to more easily reach users in key markets with rich, responsive, branded messages. LINE is currently in Beta with availability planned for Fall, while we expect text-only RCS with verified sending and rich analytics to be in Beta later this year, with more interactive functionality and content types anticipated to roll out in 2025. In addition, they highlighted upcoming Braze support for WhatsApp Commerce (expected for later this year into 2025), supporting seamless, in situ purchases, and WhatsApp dynamic image support, as well as an updated version of our trailblazing Content Card channel, complete with a new drag-and-drop editor. (Learn more about our messaging channel announcements and when features will be available here).
• AI/Orchestration: AI is reshaping modern marketing—and Braze announced an array of new AI and orchestration features designed to amplify marketers' ability to use artificial intelligence to support exceptional brand experiences. In addition to Canvas Templates, now in general availability, the introduction of the Braze platform's Liquid Assistant, which translates plain-text commands into rich, tailored experiences, and Message Template Assistant, which builds new message templates based on written inputs, Jon introduced a major AI-driven update to Braze: Project Catalyst, which lets marketers use AI to easily test thousands of variants of every message and experience, support true, nuanced personalization and optimization at scale. (Learn more about our AI and orchestration announcements and when features will be available here.)

How Leading Brands Are Meeting the Moment and Embracing Human-Centered Engagement

To get a full picture of what's possible today with data-driven customer engagement, you don't have to look any further than this year's Torchie Award-winning brands, who are leveraging Braze and its full range of features and messaging channels to surprise and delight, drive concrete business value, and deepen customer relationships into sustainable loyalty. From ABC News' use of election-themed in-app messages to generate opt-in alerts personalized to users’ preferred interests and candidates to Papa Johns UK's reinvention of its customer engagement program using Braze and targeted education and trainings, resulting in a 260% rise in revenue YoY, these brands exemplify what's possible with customer engagement today.

Building on the conference's focus on data, speakers highlighted the importance of data agility, testing, and optimization to effective marketing strategies, but argued that these elements were table stakes when it came to building a successful customer engagement program. "Testing is key to our success, as our program is data-driven—and data doesn’t lie," Sina Zand, Head of CRM Strategy & Lifecycle Marketing at Xbox/Blizzard. "But we believe in testing for impact rather than for the sake of testing," noting that when brands focus on the quantity of the tests they run, rather than the quality of the tests and the significance of those tests' findings, they often fail to see the benefits that data and testing can bring.

In her fireside chat with Braze VP of Global Demand Generation Ural Cebeci, marketing thought leader Sara Perle, who serves as Head of Engagement at PayPal (Venmo), argued that, to reach their full potential, brands "need to maintain and grow what I’ve been calling ‘a culture of possibility,'" where ideation and planning start "with the question of what COULD we do, what SHOULD we do, resources aside." Sara argued that by focusing first on outcomes and letting employees dream big, marketing leaders can identify opportunities for major step-changes in their customer engagement programs while also helping their teams to get out of self-limiting, reactive patterns that hurt their ability to reach their goals.

Looking forward to what comes next for marketers, Paolo Sabatinelli, CPO at Immobiliare.it and Allegra Krishnan, Chief Loyalty Officer at McDonald's, spoke to Braze VP of Product Marketing Kelsey Nelson about today's shifting marketing landscape and the role that AI has to play as customer engagement continues to evolve. Allegra highlighted the importance of making sure that you're placing the customer at the center of your AI efforts, and ensuring that your usage of the powerful tool enhances their overall experience. Paolo encouraged marketers to leverage AI capabilities in an integrated way that takes into account their existing systems and platforms—and to reassess their marketing tech stack if the tools they're using today aren't built for an AI-focused future.

Final thoughts

This year’s Forge conference is over, but the lessons learned here won’t soon be forgotten. To dig deeper into some of the key topics and areas of discussion from this year’s conference check out:

• Forge Digital 2024 Video Hub
• A look at this year’s Torchie Award Winners
• Meet the Moment: How to Drive Relevance at Scale with Data, AI, and Cross-Channel Messaging

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 anticipated release dates, potential performance of and expected benefits from Braze’s products and features. 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 Braze’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2024, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 6, 2024, 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 blog post and Braze assumes no obligation, and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.