I was director of deliverability for ExactTarget, later called Salesforce Marketing Cloud, for fifteen years. I still help a number of companies and consultants with issues related to SFMC-deliverability today. And, a number of other clients I help utilize the email marketing automation platform Braze. So, for me, it’s a bit of a “worlds collide” moment as today, Braze and Salesforce have announced that Salesforce is acquiring Braze.
It's too soon to say how this will impact the email ecosystem and the world of deliverability. Time will tell.
Here's what we know so far. Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Braze for approximately $5.66 billion. The transaction is expected to close in Salesforce's fiscal year 2028, assuming it passes Braze shareholder approval and regulatory review.
Braze serves approximately 2,770 customers today, many of them very well known. (The press release mentions Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Outfitters, and Venmo.) Following the close, Salesforce says Braze's real-time engagement and AI decisioning capabilities are expected to complement its current offerings. Within Customer 360, Braze is expected to strengthen Marketing Cloud's cross-channel personalization.
For those of us in the worlds of deliverability and/or email marketing, the obvious question is what this means for the two platforms' email sending infrastructure, reputation management practices, and the teams that run them. And the platforms themselves. All questions for another day. Nothing has closed yet, and the integration story has yet to unfold in front of us.
I'll be watching this one closely, as I suspect many of you will be.
