What we're talking about this month — true consolidation, the new segment builder experience, the best new Braze features, and more! ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏    ͏      Welcome to the August edition of Cutting Edge: the monthly newsletter for marketers who use Braze! This month, we’re tackling a familiar headache: consolidation. Marketers crave simplicity. One platform, one workflow, one place to build and measure customer experiences. But too often, “consolidation” ends up looking less like a renovation and more like a weekend DIY project (duct tape and all): a patchwork of tools, disconnected data, and workflows held together by quick fixes. The result? Fragmented experiences for your customers and missed opportunities for you. What we're talking about this month: 🤔 The consolidation conundrum 📌 Braze tips & tricks 🛠️ The most relevant updates from Braze’s recent release 🪡 Resources you can use to hone your craft 🍝 And even pasta! STITCH IN TIME The consolidation conundrum 🤔 Consolidation. Streamlined workflows. Simplicity. Despite their best intentions, many brands still operate with a duct tape and bandaid mentality — patching together disconnected tools and workflows (yes, this is especially bad when an 'all-in-one suite' is involved) — even when they have “consolidated” to a powerful, flexible platform like Braze. This patchwork approach prioritizes quick fixes over thoughtful design, resulting in fragmented customer experiences, inconsistent messaging, and missed opportunities for meaningful connection. Instead of leveraging Braze’s full flexibility to design seamless, customer-first experiences, brands often layer new tools onto old workflows. The result? Data silos, mistimed messages, duplicated outreach, and missed revenue. Here’s where brands typically get stuck — and how to break free with Braze: Splitting promotional and transactional messaging: When promo and transactional messages run on separate systems, timing and relevance suffer. Using Braze for both connects these flows, providing the context needed for well-coordinated messaging—while critical operational sends can stay secure on legacy platforms. Disconnected triggered and batch campaigns: Trigger actions and batch sends that don’t talk lead to message collisions and confusion. Braze’s real-time event-driven platform unifies triggers and batch promotions into one smart, responsive experience. Managing SMS outside Braze: Using separate SMS providers means inconsistent audience targeting and duplicate messaging. Bringing SMS into Braze lets you optimize reach and channel use, with careful attention to opt-in compliance. Consolidating to Braze isn’t about swapping tech — it’s a chance to rethink your entire marketing engine with the customer at the center. Drop the bandaids and duct tape. Embrace Braze’s flexibility to build connected, personalized journeys that drive real growth. - Nick Burggraf Solution Lead & In-Flight WiFi Optimist (It never works, does it?) PIN IT Braze tips & tricks 📌 “You’re using the old segment builder experience. Switch to the new experience for additional features.” Look familiar? If you've been zooming past this message promising “additional features” in favor of what you know, this is your gentle nudge to make the switch. Plus, Braze is cutting the cord on 1.0…so there’s no time like the present to take the plunge into 2.0. Here's why it's worth your while: Braze segment builder 2.0 makes building complex audience groups way smarter and simpler. Instead of being stuck with just one layer of ANDs and ORs, you can now nest those conditions — allowing for precise, multi-condition filtering. You can mix and match behavioral, demographic, and subscription filters, use AND/OR logic between those groups, AND name your filter groups to make your logic easier to read and manage. No more wrestling with rows of AND/OR conditions or resorting to scripting. Segment builder 2.0 helps you keep your targeting precise, even as your audience criteria get more complex. The result? More accurate campaigns with less manual hassle. Upgrading gets you deeper control without the complexity. Try it today and get ahead of the curve. - Ray El Khoury Senior Solution Architect & Owner of the World's Best Dressed Cat PATCHWORK Decoding Braze product updates 🛠️ Here's what caught our team's eye this month. API Usage Alerts - Finally! This had to be one of the more requested features in Braze. Think of this as your customizable early warning system for the Braze API. You set it up how you want and it keeps a close eye on the volume of requests being made, so you can easily spot any unexpected spikes or drops in activity that might signal a problem. Why it matters: This feature gives you a heads-up in real time. By setting up these alerts you can jump on potential issues before they mess with your marketing campaigns or impact the customer experience. No more requests to investigate why data wasn’t being sent to Braze or API-triggered campaigns weren’t being sent due to some upstream hiccup. Bot Filtering for Emails - This simple setting helps you get a much clearer picture of your overall email performance. Apple and Google reset expectations for open and click reporting and now you’re able to go one level deeper within Braze. It automatically filters out clicks that come from automated bots instead of real people, which can often make your engagement numbers look better than they actually are. Why it matters: By getting rid of the fake clicks you ensure your email metrics are based on legit human interactions. This gives you more reliable data for your analytics and helps you make smarter decisions with Braze Intelligence features. CSV Import for Custom Events - This is a super easy, no-code way to upload user data from a spreadsheet directly into Braze. It's perfect for tracking unique user actions like a customer booking a trip, completing a survey, or adding a product to their cart without needing help from engineering or dev resources. Why it matters: This feature lets marketers quickly and independently enrich user profiles in bulk. You can add custom event data yourself, without having to log a request with your data or engineering team to schedule an ad-hoc upload via Cloud Data Ingestion or an API. With that extra data, you can build more personalized campaigns and create a better experience for your customers. - Jake Davis Solution Lead & Aspiring Stay-at-Home Dog Dad FORGE 2025 All in on al dente 🍝 On Sunday, September 28th, we’re co-hosting Sunday Supper, an exclusive evening with our friends at Talon.One that will bring together senior marketing and growth professionals for an evening of meaningful connections, candid conversations, and shared insights. Over a delicious meal (c’mon, look at that menu 👀), you’ll have the chance to exchange ideas, discuss emerging trends, and explore new approaches to accelerating customer engagement and growth. Space is limited — reserve your spot to kick off Forge 2025 in style. HONE YOUR CRAFT Our top resources this month 🪡 Here are some things to add to your toolkit: Clarification corner. If “figuring out AI” is on your 2025 to-do list and you’re realizing it’s already August, our CTO, Stephen Rosenfeld, is here to help. In this blog, he clarifies the key differences between AI and automation, showcases where they each shine, and highlights where they’re better together. An offer you can’t refuse. Our resident OfferFit SME, Ray El Khoury, put together 2 great resources for brands interested in the AI-decisioning platform. Learn how to integrate and build your first self-serve campaign in this Braze x OfferFit Thread the Needle video, or study up on what you need to have in place before implementation. 📚 What we're reading/watching ‘They did it, so we should too’ isn’t an email strategy - Kath Pay, Martech.org The Next Martech Battleground is AI-Powered Decisioning - Florian Delval, Foreign Key   LOOSE ENDS This month's VIP (very important pet) 🐾 Stitch, 830 Massachusetts Ave Floor 3, Suite 9, Indianapolis, IN 46204, USA Unsubscribe Manage preferences