How SimpliSafe Streamlines Personalization and Reclaims Resources

Since its founding in 2006 by Harvard Business School students, SimpliSafe has established itself as a frontrunner in the home security industry. Born out of a necessity to provide reliable security solutions for renters, SimpliSafe has evolved into an award-winning brand serving over four million homes across the US and UK. Its product line of industry-leading cameras, smart locks, and wireless alarm systems are all designed with the company’s ethos of making every home secure in mind.

To educate their audience on the importance of whole home protection and to build trust in their brand, the SimpliSafe team relies on a cross-channel marketing approach powered by a robust tech stack. Targeted emails, direct mail, SMS, and in-app messaging all power their customer engagement strategy. While this approach has been successful for SimpliSafe, it has also highlighted inefficiencies within their data processes, leading the team to need a tool that can ingest data from multiple platforms and transform it into a holistic view of their audience members.

Getting User Data from Multiple Platforms in One Place—Seamlessly

In addition to using Braze for lead and customer marketing channels, SimpliSafe’s tech stack includes several tools that don’t talk to each other. This setup allowed the SimpliSafe team to execute and monitor work across a wide range of channels. However, despite having insight into their marketing, the team found they had no single source of truth for reviewing all user data, leading to siloed views of their users for teams around the company. The lack of a holistic customer view prevented the team from creating the best experience for users that would drive retention and lifetime value. As a short-term solution, data was moved manually from multiple platforms into Braze by dedicating marketing team resources or requesting help from a development team, adding significant time to the process. And in the end, the insights were only temporary since the information was static and quickly irrelevant.

The team needed a way to seamlessly combine user data collected across their tech stack so they could turn it into a personalized experience throughout the SimpliSafe customer journey. That’s where Braze Data Transformation came in.

Key requirements SimpliSafe had to create a centralized view of customer data included:

1. Standard APIs and integrations for flexible data ingestion
2. Out of the box interoperability with complementary tools
3. Ability for the Marketing Team to set up data pipelines without heavy engineering lift

Thanks to easy-to-implement webhooks working behind the scenes within Data Transformation, the SimpliSafe team has been able to simplify their process for moving user data to one place. Where before the team required manual API calls or a third-party tool, they can now circumvent resource-consuming processes and quickly move data like survey responses, information gathered from phone calls, and direct mail responses automatically into Braze. They add custom events with event properties and custom attributes directly to user profiles, giving teams a centralized place to quickly review and use data for campaign personalization and support efforts.

Since implementing Data Transformation, SimpliSafe has gained more customer insights from its data and significantly improved its processes. The most immediate benefit has been the time saved. The company estimates it saves a week or more of development time per platform when implementing new data flows on an ongoing basis, and that’s not even accounting for the time required to prioritize requests with the SimpliSafe engineering team. Data Transformation also allows them to continue to iterate and try new things—if relying on developers, they would’ve been stuck with the first set of requirements they gave them.

SimpliSafe not only saves time in building complete user profiles with Data Transformation but also gives more agency to the marketing team to execute on their strategy, like launching new channels. According to the team, since they can access valuable data without the assistance of engineers, launching an entirely new channel for reaching prospects took only a few weeks rather than becoming a lengthy process of prioritization and resource allocation.

Additionally, the SimpliSafe team credits Data Transformation with boosting their ability to look ahead and prepare for what comes next for the business. With better segmentation and personalization across channels that are more accessible than ever, the team can plan, launch, and test marketing efforts with more insight than ever before.

SimpliSafe Results

With Braze Data Transformation, SimpliSafe was able to connect four different systems to better activate their data. They were also able to save four weeks of time—one week per connection.

"With Braze Data Transformation, we’re able to quickly and easily launch new channels, upgrade our engagement campaigns, and act on customer insights. It’s saved us a bunch of time and resources all while improving the effectiveness of our efforts."

Kate Chamberlain

CRM and Promotions, SimpliSafe

Key Takeaways

Success starts with complete data. Consistently hitting your marketing goals depends on having a full view of your audience. Without it, teams are relying on guesswork. Ensure you’re making the right decisions that keep your business moving forward with a holistic view of your customers.

Optimize the obstacles. Don’t let process inefficiencies be the difference between wowing your audience and falling flat. Find ways to automate or streamline important tasks so they never get dropped.

Futureproof your tech stack. Running a successful brand, team, or campaign requires always having one eye on the horizon. Set yourself up for success with tools that give you the insights and resources to get ahead of what comes next.

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