There is a growing movement in the marketing technology (MarTech) landscape that is evolving toward more open and interoperable design principles. This shift embraces composable technology stacks featuring Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless capabilities (MACH).
When it comes to integrating Braze, microservices can be one of the more challenging components to implement. However, to help you get over that hump, this post will walk you through what microservices are, why they matter, and two key methods—APIs and webhooks—to integrate them into your Braze customer engagement platform.
What Are Microservices and Why Use Them?
Microservices are small, independent, and reusable software components that perform specific tasks. They are often used to communicate with other systems to source data, trigger actions, and maintain a streamlined technology footprint— because unfortunately we’ve all seen how tech debt can be a killer!
Some examples of microservices in action are:
Engaging with companion MarTech systems such as content management, CRM, and financial tools (e.g., dynamic image selection, checking credit scores, processing payments).
Generating next-best-product recommendations based on customer behavior and inventory levels.
Interacting with social media users in real-time dialogue.
Ultimately, microservices enable marketers to deploy campaigns quickly, enhance agility, and create more engaging brand experiences. Many marketers consider microservices an indispensable part of their MarTech stack due to their scalability, flexibility, and ability to accelerate time-to-market. In a way, they act as a cheat code for savvy marketers, helping them deliver more relevant and timely messaging with ease.
Method 1: API-Driven Communication with Braze
If you’re new to microservices, integrating them with Braze may seem overwhelming. To overcome that fear and anxiety, we’ll outline the key steps to setting up your Braze marketing engagement platform with microservices.
Pro Tip: Microservices operate as independent units that communicate through APIs. When integrating Braze within a microservices architecture, ensuring efficient API-driven communication is key to delivering personalized customer experiences.
Use an API Gateway
An API Gateway serves as the central hub for communication between Braze and your microservices. It enhances security, request management, and monitoring.
Route requests to Braze’s REST APIs (/users/track, /campaigns/trigger/send).
Limit request rates to stay within Braze’s API thresholds.
Log and monitor all interactions for tracking and troubleshooting.
Define Clear Data Flows
Each microservice plays a distinct role, handling different aspects of the customer experience (e.g., authentication, transactions, notifications). Defining explicit API goals helps standardize how microservices interact with Braze.
User Service: Updates customer data via /users/track.
Transaction Service: Sends purchase data to /purchases.
Engagement Service: Triggers campaigns using /campaigns/trigger.
Secure Your API Communication
Use API keys and secure storage solutions such as environment variables or secret management tools.
Implement OAuth for internal microservice security, if required.
Encrypt sensitive user data before transmitting it to Braze to comply with privacy regulations.
Method 2: Using Braze Webhooks in an Event-Driven Setup
Microservices architectures benefit greatly from event-driven communication, where services react to events asynchronously rather than relying on direct API calls. Braze webhooks provide a powerful way to implement this workflow.
Real-Time Event Handling
Braze can send webhooks to your microservices based on predefined triggers (e.g., user actions, campaign interactions, purchase events). These webhooks enable real-time processing without constant polling.
Examples:
Order Confirmation: A purchase triggers a webhook that updates the order status.
Churn Prevention: An inactive user triggers a re-engagement campaign.
Personalized Offers: A user action triggers a targeted promotion send.
Managing Webhooks in a Microservices System
Since multiple services may consume webhook events, here are some best practices to consider:
Message Queue (Kafka, RabbitMQ, AWS SNS/SQS): Ensures reliable event distribution.
Webhook Receiver Service: Acts as a middleman to route events to appropriate microservices.
Retries & Failures: Implement logic to retry failed webhook deliveries.
How it works:
Securing Webhooks
Validate Signatures: Prevent fake requests.
Limit Requests: Avoid overwhelming your system.
Log Everything: Track deliveries and failures for troubleshooting.
Bringing It All Together
Connecting Braze to your microservices doesn't have to be a headache. By leveraging API gateways, structured data flows, and event-driven webhooks, you can create a seamless, scalable solution.
Key takeaways:
Use an API Gateway for secure, efficient communication with Braze.
Clearly define microservice roles when interacting with Braze.
Implement webhooks for real-time event handling.
Secure all integrations with authentication and monitoring.
This is a pretty sophisticated topic, and we’ve only scratched the surface. There’s much more to explore in optimizing Braze for your microservices architecture. If you’d like to dive deeper, feel free to reach out to us.
Interested in more? You might also enjoy our guide on Connecting Braze to Facebook.