ZALORA Supercharges the eCommerce Experience Using Braze Content Cards

ZALORA’s previous strategy focused on scheduled message sends and while that approach was successful, they saw an opportunity to better optimize their efforts. They wanted to be able to serve up personalized messages within the app and extend the lifespan of messages that add more value to the customer experience.

Additionally, paying down behind-the-scenes tech debt was top of mind for ZALORA. Before partnering with Braze, the marketing team relied on a separate data team to provide reporting and analytics to enable a campaign, thus slowing down their ability to execute at scale. The choice to migrate to Braze followed a hunt for a partner that could provide them with more reliability and flexibility as their team worked to improve and scale.

At ZALORA, creating a retail experience online that keeps customers returning for more required a finely tuned customer engagement strategy behind the scenes. Ultimately, they chose Braze due to its inherent connectivity, and how the Braze platform’s architecture supports the kinds of customer journey-building that would take their engagement to the next level. Switching also allowed the team to run their analytics and reporting directly from the Braze dashboard instead of continuing their dependence on the data team.

Now, ZALORA serves up personalized content with apparel and accessories relevant to each visitor based on their viewing history. These recommendations are delivered across different channels to ensure customers can always find what they’re looking for and keep a finger on the pulse of what’s next in fashion.

From Creation to Launch in One Week: Behind the Scenes of ZALORA’s Winning Content Card Strategy

Customer-centricity lives at the heart of the ZALORA app experience. To win the loyalty of their customers, they knew creating a best-in-class journey that could be constantly optimized on was essential. Ultimately, that means delivering a cohesive messaging experience that works effectively across all channels. When leveraged together, a suite of these channels can give users the sense of being in dialogue with the brand.

The in-app inbox was one area the team identified early on as due for an upgrade. While messages can be a powerful way to drive impact, they can be counterproductive if they’re perceived as too intrusive or overwhelming. For instance, sending too many push notifications to nudge a customer about a promotion might lead the user to turn off notifications. The team wondered if less urgent messages, when delivered non-intrusively in ZALORA’s app, might create an opportunity for users to discover helpful information more closely targeted to their actions and experience. They turned to Braze to bring their working theory to life.

Their Approach

1. The CRM team worked to conceptualize how the ZALORA app inbox could become a more personalized space, a place where information relevant to each customer could be stored.

2. With a working theory that increasing re-engagement with their app would lead customers to find more useful features, they knew the inbox was low-hanging fruit and ripe for optimization.

3. They identified their target audience as currently active customers. These users had already downloaded the app, so the goal was to reduce potential churn and maximize retention.

4. Next, they needed a way to determine how they would measure the impact of their campaign and chose to proceed with two metrics: App inbox visits and message clicks.

5. To upgrade ZALORA’s in-app inbox, they used Braze Content Cards, an ideal messaging channel for showcasing dynamic and persistent content without interfering with the overall user experience.

6. Next, it was time to get organized. They used Braze Canvas Flow, an intuitive customer journey orchestration tool, to set up multiple customer journeys based on the following:

• Lifecycle Relevance. These campaigns are relevant to a customer’s stage in the customer lifecycle and can include things like customer vouchers or information about their cashback system.

• Promotional Campaigns. These campaigns provide access to exclusive deals and content. Even for customers who have turned on notifications, having these messages in the app inbox makes it easier to revisit them later when it’s more convenient.

• Functional Notifications. These campaigns focus on relevant transactional updates, like order confirmations, shipping updates, or messages around returns or refunds.

11. Next, the team crafted a cross-channel campaign using Content Cards and push notifications for their app inbox.

12. Once a user completes a purchase, a Content Card is sent to their in-app inbox to notify them of important updates, like when an order has shipped, or a refund is processed.

13. The team then set out to design Content Cards highlighting different voucher codes. These were great persistent messages to offer the user, as they might have gotten lost in the shuffle when sent as a push notification.

14. Last but not least, they created filters within the in-app inbox to simplify the discovery process for customers looking to revisit past messages. This would also enable them to reach more users who did not have push notifications allowed. They created categories like “For You” and “Promos” to make it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.

Delivering the Right Message in the Right Context, Every Time

Remember batch-and-blast messages? Yeah, we shudder to think about them too. Messaging is no longer one-size-fits-all for every channel in your toolbelt. Some messages resonate more in a push notification; others in a Content Card. The good news is, with the right tools at your disposal, it’s possible to deliver personally relevant messages on the right channels just like ZALORA—and to do so with minimal time-to-execution for your team.

As a result of putting their customer experience first using Braze Content Cards, ZALORA experienced a 20-30% increase in weekly in-app inbox views, 15-30% engagement rates with inbox messages, and a 30-200% increase in new user voucher usage (who among us can resist a good deal?). ZALORA has also seen a Content Card click rate of 39%. In their ongoing commitment to bringing the best of today’s fashion and lifestyle choices to people everywhere, engaging their customers on the channels they’re most receptive to has proven to be an effective way to draw customers in for the long haul.

Key Takeaways

1. Messages work best in context. Consider what kind of engagement you’re trying to drive with a given message to find the right channel to pair it with. For instance, you might get more juice for the squeeze by putting persistent messages on the channels where they’re most likely to perform the best.

2. Engagement is all about cohesion. No matter what channel your customer is hearing from you, they perceive every interaction with your brand as part of one experience. While one team might be focused on email while another is focused on in-app activity, be sure that your teams are talking to one another to ensure messages across your entire customer journey feel like they’re all part of one unified brand experience.

3. The right solution is built to grow with your business. In today’s market, we know to expect the unexpected, so it’s worth seeking out tools that offer the flexibility and reliability you need to support your brand’s changing needs. Maybe you only need two or three channels today, but opting for a solution that accommodates you as you grow into more personalized customer journeys will set you up to extend your reach in the future.