We're heading to Forge in Vegas. Plus: why AI won't fix a broken campaign process, and the Braze updates worth knowing this month. ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏      Welcome to the August edition of Cutting Edge: the monthly newsletter for marketers who use Braze! Summer's winding down. It’s back-to-school season and somewhere in the back of your head, there's that familiar feeling. A new year starting, a fresh slate, the sense that it's time to learn something. That feeling doesn't go away just because you're not in school anymore. It just shows up somewhere different. Like in a Slack thread, a conference session, or a new hobby you discovered. Braze is one of those platforms where there's always something new to pick up. A feature you haven't dug into yet. A setup you've been meaning to test. A new release for a capability your team has been waiting for. The platform moves fast. And the teams getting the most out of it aren't the ones who figured it out once and moved on. They're the ones staying curious. This month, we're bringing the classroom energy. Braze tips you can apply this week. New product updates worth knowing. A reminder that AI won’t fix a broken campaign process. And resources to help you keep building. Consider this your August curriculum. 🍎✏️📓 What we're talking about this month: 💻 The importance of solid campaign operations 📌 Braze tips & tricks 🛠️ The most relevant updates from Braze’s recent releases 🪡 Resources you can use to hone your craft STITCH IN TIME AI won’t fix broken campaign operations. Nearly every tool in the marketer’s arsenal now offers some sort of AI agent. CRM and martech platforms. Creative tools. Analytics solutions. Project management systems. Even the tools we use for documentation and collaboration. These agents can build audiences, generate content, write HTML, optimize journeys, analyze results and increasingly, take action. That sounds game-changing. And it can be. But giving AI access to a broken campaign process doesn’t improve anything. It automates the ambiguity. If briefs are incomplete, decision rights are unclear, data is unreliable and QA depends on tribal knowledge, AI won’t magically solve the problem. It may just help the problem move faster. The opportunity isn’t simply to add agents to the way campaigns operate today. It’s to redesign campaign operations for a world where humans and agents work together: Which decisions can AI make independently? Where is human judgment still essential? What data and context does each agent need? Who is accountable when something goes wrong? How do we measure value beyond hours saved? The brands that win won’t be the ones with the most AI tools. They’ll be the ones with the clearest operating model: standardized workflows, governed data, intentional decision rights and measurable outcomes. AI may change who or what does the work, but we still have to design how the work gets done. - Kirsten Schlau Client Partner and left-handed Sagittarius PIN IT Braze tips & tricks 📌 Intelligent Timing + Intelligent Channel: Better Together You know Intelligent Timing. You know Intelligent Channel. But are you running them together? When layered, Braze isn't just asking "when should I send this?" — it's simultaneously asking "where is this person most likely to act?" For conversion-focused comms — cart abandonment, win-back offers, limited-time promos — this combination turns ignored messages into action. Just be sure you avoid applying to Welcome or Onboarding to ensure Braze has enough data to function on. Real-world proof: A retailer saw an 11.6% increase in activity when both were activated — not one or the other, both. The setup is two toggles: Enable Intelligent Timing under delivery settings, then apply an Intelligent Channel filter in your Message Step. Try it on your next conversion campaign. - Lizzi Delaney Client Partner by day and custom cupcake and cake-pop baker by night PATCHWORK Decoding Braze product updates 🛠️ Media Library Upgrade You can now swap out a file for an existing asset in the media library, while maintaining the same URL and asset ID. Why it matters: Allows easy switching in any campaign, Canvas, Content Block, or template referencing that asset so it doesn't need to be re-uploaded or re-linked everywhere the change is needed. Tactical example: A retailer has their "Free Shipping" banner image referenced in 15 active email templates. When the creative team updates the artwork for Q4, they replace the file once in the media library. All 15 templates immediately reflect the new creative with zero manual relinking. Messaging Diagnostics Dashboard A new high-level dashboard that provides insight to message sending outcomes and abort outcomes. Allows you to spot trends and diagnose why messages may not have sent as expected across campaigns or Canvases. Analytics are available for all channels, and the dashboard pulls up to the last seven days of data. Why it matters: Debugging send failures today usually involves piecing together information from Campaign Analytics, Currents, and support tickets. This dashboard centralizes that diagnostic view, reducing investigation time significantly. Tactical example: Your triggered campaign shows lower-than-expected sends. Instead of manually cross-referencing send logs, open the Diagnostics dashboard to quickly see if the drop is driven by quiet hours throttling, frequency capping, or audience filter mismatch, and then act directly on the root cause. HTML Editor for Banners Banners can now be built using a full HTML editor, giving teams complete control over markup and styling, in addition to the existing drag-and-drop composer. Why it matters: Banners have been limited by the drag-and-drop editor's design constraints. Teams with existing HTML template systems or complex layout requirements can now bring their own code, enabling pixel-perfect, brand-consistent persistent messaging. Tactical example: A financial services client has a strictly governed design system with custom CSS components. Their creative team pastes their existing HTML/CSS loyalty status widget directly into the Banner HTML editor to display a user's current points balance and tier badge which solidifies brand consistency in all assets designed in Braze. - Gabi Weimerskirch Senior Solution Architect and yoga and pilates instructor UPCOMING EVENTS Braze Forge 2026 We're heading to Forge 2026 in Las Vegas, and we'd love to see you there. Stop by the Stitch lounge in Alloys Alley to talk through what's working in CRM right now with our team. We've also got three sessions on the agenda with clients like Exact Sciences and Purina, covering everything from driving more conversions with 2-way SMS to building an operating model that lets your team move faster. If you're attending Forge this year, come find us. The chairs are comfortable, the stickers are limited edition, and the conversations are always worth having. Meet us at Forge > HONE YOUR CRAFT Our top resources this month 🪡 The 4-Question Diagnosis to Run Before You Evaluate a CDP. Before evaluating a CDP, diagnose what's actually broken. Most teams reach for a new platform without figuring out the root problem first. Run through our four question diagnosis to see if a CDP is really the solution to your problem. Read more > The last mile: why great first-party data still doesn't make great marketing. Most companies already have great customer data. Marketing just can't act on it. The problem isn't the tools, it's the gap between where data lives and where campaigns run. With Databricks 0CustomerLake and native Braze connectivity narrowing the gap from both ends, the brands doing this work now are already pulling ahead. Read more > 10 Things to Ask Yourself Before Building a Gamified Experience. Gamification works, but only when it's built with a clear purpose behind it. We wrote a 10-question checklist to pressure-test any gamified experience before you start building. The through-line is intentionality. The teams that get the most out of gamification are the ones who do the strategic groundwork first, not the ones who lead with the mechanic. Read more > 📚 What we're reading/watching Crafting authenticity in the age of AI - Braze 228: The Dispatch tower (The Dungeon of martech architecture, part 4) - Humans of Martech LOOSE ENDS This month's VIP (very important pet) 🐾 Catch up on past editions of Cutting Edge > Stitch, 830 Massachusetts Ave Floor 3, Suite 9, Indianapolis, IN 46204, USA Unsubscribe Manage Preferences