Each month Braze releases product updates that add features and functionality to the platform. Some of these new features require engaging with your Customer Success Manager to enable, while others appear automatically once they become “Generally Available,” meaning everyone has access.
If you’ve been using Braze for a while, you should check to see if you are missing any features that may need to be enabled to maximize the benefits of Braze and stay ahead of the competition. Here are some of newest tools and capabilities we think you should be sure to check out!
1. Link Aliasing
As a marketer an important strategy to implement is retargeting users that have clicked on a specific high-value link (e.g., CTA) within a specific campaign or across any campaign. The Link Aliasing feature in Braze allows you to create recognizable “marketing friendly” link names to use for segmentation, action-based triggered campaigns, and link analytics.
For example, if Currents is being used to send email event data to an analytics partner (e.g., Amplitude or Mixpanel), information provided by Braze on a click is generic (link1, link2) and non-descriptive. When aliasing is used, the click event will use the assigned Link Alias rather than the generic, which makes your engagement analytics much more useful.
Using Link Aliasing is simple, just click on Link Management editing message content, and there you can update the link alias and enable link tracking:
Then, segmenting with Link Aliasing is a breeze too. Simply navigate to the Retargeting email filters while constructing segments, and you'll find options such as "Clicked Alias..." campaign and canvas level filters, along with filters for segmenting across any Campaign or Canvas.
Not sure if Link Aliasing is enabled in your workspace? If you don't see the Link Management tab while creating or editing campaign messages, it's likely not enabled. Reach out to your Braze Customer Success Manager to activate Link Aliasing feature to encourage some more customer clicking.
2. Email Insights – Mailbox Providers
With all the updates from Google and Yahoo! around email deliverability, having visibility into how your campaigns are performing at the ISP level is critical. The Email Insights dashboard (Analytics > Analytics Dashboards > Email Performance) now provides Mailbox Provider analytics for Clicks and Opens. This is an effortless way to quickly see how your engagement metrics have changed over time. For example, the date range filter can help you compare metrics from before and after Google and Yahoo’s policy changes early in February 2024.
If you notice a performance shift with your ISP and need assistance using Braze segmentation to filter by ISP, refer to our earlier piece on ISP segmentation. For additional insights into deliverability at Google and Microsoft, check out the Deliverability Center Dashboard in the next section.
3. Deliverability Center Dashboard - Integration with Google and Microsoft
For a more detailed view into your marketing reputation at Google and Microsoft, the updated Deliverability Center in Braze (Analytics > Analytics Dashboards > Email Performance) makes it possible to integrate your Braze workspace with Google Postmaster and Microsoft Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) deliverability reputation portals. Integrating these 3rd party dashboards into Braze gives you all the deliverability and reputation information you need in one place, AKA your Braze dashboard, rather than viewing reports in separate systems.
Google Postmaster tools provides a day-to-day view into your Braze IP and marketing domain reputation, spam complaints, and delivery errors reported by Google. This is currently the only way to monitor your spam rates at Google as that information is not shared with Braze and is not included in your Spam email performance metrics.
Microsoft SNDS tools offer similar functionalities for Hotmail, Outlook, and other Microsoft email services. It provides detailed reports on email traffic, delivery statistics and errors, spam filter result, complaint rates, and Spam trap hits. While Braze is able to include Microsoft spam rates in performance metrics, the SNDS portal provides insight into any spam traps, which is Microsoft “insider” information!
For details on how to set up these integrations and detailed definitions of the metrics provided by Google and Microsoft check out the Deliverability Center documentation in the Braze user guide.
4. BCC Option on Campaigns and Canvas (Now Widely Available)
You now have the option to include a BCC address when composing an email. This will discreetly send a duplicate of the message to your BCC inbox, mirroring what your recipient receives. This feature enables you to maintain records of communications sent to users, meeting compliance standards or addressing customer support matters.
To enable email BCC, go to Settings > Email Preferences > Sending Configuration. Here you can add your BCC email addresses and enable requirements across all email campaigns.
Keep following Brazed and Confused for more expert insights and stay updated on all the latest features, enhancements, and other valuable Braze-related content.