Salesforce Acquires Braze For Enhanced Customer Engagement
Salesforce's acquisition of Braze marks a strategic shift in customer data value, from possession to real-time response. The deal adds mobile and app-centric execution to Salesforce's capabilities, but may also create overlap and complexity for customers.
Original reporting · martech.org
Original: “Braze gives Salesforce more speed — and more overlap”
Read “Braze gives Salesforce more speed — and more overlap” at MarTech →
How this was written. 1to1 wrote this article with a language model from MarTech’s reporting (model: @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast); it describes that reporting rather than adding to it. The original, linked above, is the full story.
Key points from MarTech’s report
- Salesforce's acquisition of Braze marks a shift in customer data value from possession to real-time response.
- The deal adds mobile and app-centric execution capabilities to Salesforce, but creates overlap with existing products.
- Gartner expects 80% of new enterprise CDP deployments to be embedded or composable by 2030.
- Salesforce customers face complexity in determining which product to use for customer engagement.
- Braze customers may benefit from tighter connections to Data 360 and broader enterprise integrations.
Salesforce's acquisition of Braze, according to MarTech, signals a change in the way customer data is valued and used. The value now lies in responding to customer intent in real-time, rather than just possessing and mastering the data. This shift is driven by the need for faster and more agile customer engagement.
Braze brings real-time, mobile, and app-centric execution capabilities to Salesforce, which already has multiple ways to orchestrate journeys and activate customer data. This addition may give Salesforce a competitive edge in the market, but it also creates overlap with existing products, such as Marketing Cloud Engagement and Data 360.
The acquisition also marks a move away from composable Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) and towards embedded CDPs, which integrate customer data directly into the company's data warehouse or lakehouse. Gartner expects 80% of new enterprise CDP deployments to be embedded or composable by 2030, making this a significant trend in the industry.
For Salesforce customers, the addition of Braze creates a challenge in determining which product to use for customer engagement. With multiple activation capabilities now available, customers need to decide where journey logic lives, which platform handles decisioning, and which one sends messages. This complexity may lead to unplanned replatforming for some customers, with Gartner expecting Salesforce to announce the retirement of one of its marketing execution engines by 2029.
Braze customers, on the other hand, may benefit from tighter connections to Data 360, broader enterprise integrations, and easier activation through Braze's real-time channels. The acquisition also provides an opportunity for AI agents to trigger campaigns and execute tasks without manual intervention, making marketing operations more efficient.
However, the deal also raises concerns about pricing and vendor lock-in. Braze and Salesforce have different pricing models, and customers may face financial risks if Salesforce moves Braze towards consumption pricing. Gartner recommends that customers consider extending their current contract terms and developing a Marketing FinOps discipline to manage consumption-priced systems.
Ultimately, the acquisition of Braze by Salesforce highlights the importance of open and composable architectures in customer engagement. While both companies talk about open architectures, customers need to ensure that they have the flexibility to activate data through different agents and destinations without being locked into a single vendor.
Questions and answers
What does the acquisition of Braze by Salesforce mean for customer data value?
The acquisition marks a shift in customer data value from possession to real-time response, with a focus on responding to customer intent at the moment it becomes clear.
How will the acquisition affect Salesforce customers?
Salesforce customers may face complexity in determining which product to use for customer engagement, and may need to replatform their marketing operations.
What are the potential benefits for Braze customers?
Braze customers may benefit from tighter connections to Data 360, broader enterprise integrations, and easier activation through Braze's real-time channels.
