Segment

Segment is a customer data platform that helps you collect, clean, and activate your customer data.

The Braze and Segment integration allows you to track your users and route data to various user analytics providers. Segment allows you to:

• Sync Segment Engage to Braze for use in Braze campaign and Canvas segmentation.
• Import data across the two platforms. We offer a side-by-side SDK integration for your Android, iOS, and web applications and a server-to-server integration for syncing your data to Braze’s REST APIs
• Connect data to Segment through Currents.

Prerequisites

Integration

To integrate Braze and Segment, you must set Braze as a destination in accordance with your chosen integration type (connection mode). If you’re a new-to-Braze customer, you can relay historical data to Braze using Segment replays. Next, you must set up mappings and test your integration to ensure smooth data flow between Braze and Segment.

Step 1: Create a Braze destination

After successfully setting up your sources, you’ll need to configure Braze as a destination for each source (iOS, Android, web, etc.). You’ll have many options to customize the data flow between Braze and Segment using the connection settings.

Step 2: Choose destination framework and connection type

In Segment, navigate to Destinations > Braze > Configure Braze > Select your Source > Setup.

You can integrate Segment’s web source (Analytics.js) and native client-side libraries with Braze using either a side-by-side (device-mode) integration or a server-to-server (cloud-mode) integration.

Your choice of connection mode will be determined by the type of Source the destination is configured for.

Side-by-side SDK integration

Also called device-mode, this integration maps Segment’s SDK and methods to the Braze SDK, allowing access to all the features our SDK provides, such as push, in-app messaging, and other methods native to Braze.

When using a device-mode connection, similar to integrating the Braze SDK natively, the Braze SDK will assign a device_id and a backend identifier, braze_id, to every user. This allows Braze to capture anonymous activity from the device by matching those identifiers instead of userId.

• android
• ios
• web or javascript
• react native

Server-to-server integration

Also called cloud-mode, this integration forwards data from Segment to Braze’s REST APIs. Use Segment’s new Braze Cloud Mode (Actions) framework to set up a cloud-mode destination for any of your sources.

Unlike the side-by-side integration, the server-to-server integration does not support Braze’s UI features, such as in-app messaging, Content Cards, or automatic push token registration. There also exists automatically captured data (such as anonymous users and device-level fields) that are not available through cloud-mode.

If you wish to use this data and these features, consider using the side-by-side (device-mode) SDK integration.

The source code for the Braze Cloud Mode (Actions) destination is maintained by Segment.

Step 3: Settings

Define the settings for your destination. Not at all settings will apply to all destination types.

• mobile device-mode
• web device-mode
• cloud-mode

Step 4: Map methods

Braze supports the Page, Identify, and Track Segment methods. The types of identifiers used within these methods will depend on whether the data is being sent through a server-to-server (cloud-mode) or side-by-side (device-mode) integration. In the Braze Web Mode Actions and Cloud Mode Actions destinations, you can also choose to set up a mapping for a Segment alias call.

The Cloud Mode Actions destination offers a create alias action that can be used to create an alias-only user or add an alias to an existing external_id profile. The Identify User Action can be used alongside the Create Alias Action to merge an alias-only user with an external_id after one becomes available for the user.

It is also possible to engineer a workaround and use braze_id to send anonymous user data in cloud-mode. This requires manually including the user’s braze_id in all your Segment API calls. You can learn more about how to set up this workaround in Segment’s documentation.

• identify
• track
• page

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analytics.identify(
  userId: "{your-user}",
  traits: [
    "braze_subscription_group": [
      [
        "subscription_group_id": "{your-group-id}",
        "subscription_group_state": "subscribed"
      ],
      [
        "subscription_group_id", "{your-group-id}",
        "subscription_group_state": "unsubscribed"
      ]
    ]
  ]
)

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analytics.identify(
  "{your-user}",
  buildJsonObject {
    put("braze_subscription_group", buildJsonArray {
        add(
          buildJsonObject {
            put("subscription_group_id", "{your-group-id}")
            put("subscription_group_state", "subscribed")
          }
        )
        add(
          buildJsonObject {
            put("subscription_group_id", "{your-group-id}")
            put("subscription_group_state", "unsubscribed")
          }
        )
      }
    )
  }
)

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analytics.identify(
  "{your-user}",
  {
    braze_subscription_groups: [
      {
        subscription_group_id: "{your-group-id}",
        subscription_group_state: "subscribed"
      },
      {
        subscription_group_id: "{your-group-id}",
        subscription_group_state: "unsubscribed"
      }
    ]
  }
)

Step 5: Test your integration

When using the side-by-side (device-mode) integration, your overview metrics (lifetime sessions, MAU, DAU, stickiness, daily sessions, and daily sessions per MAU) can be used to ensure that Braze is receiving data from Segment.

You can view your data in the custom events or revenue pages, or by creating a segment. The dashboard’s Custom Events page lets you view custom event counts over time. Note that you will not be able to use formulas that include MAU and DAU statistics when using a server-to-server (cloud mode) integration.

If you’re sending purchase data to Braze (see order completed in the Track tab of Step 3), the revenue page allows you to view data on revenue or purchases over specific periods or your app’s total revenue.

Creating a segment allows you to filter your users based on the custom event and attribute data.

User deletion and suppression

If you need to delete or suppress users, note that Segment’s user delete feature is mapped to the Braze /users/delete endpoint. Note that verification of these deletions could take up to 30 days.

You must ensure that you select a common user identifier between Braze and Segment (as in external_id). After you’ve initiated a deletion request with Segment, you can view the status within the deletion requests tab in your Segment dashboard.

Segment replays

Segment provides a service to clients to “replay” all historical data to a new technology partner. New Braze customers who want to import all relevant historical data can do so through Segment. Talk to your Segment rep if this is something you are interested in.

Segment will connect to our /users/track endpoint to import user data into Braze on your behalf.

Best practices