Blueshift CDP Adds Advanced Features

I reviewed Blueshift in June 2015, when the product had been in-market for just a few months and had a handful of large clients. Since then they’ve added many new features and grown to about 50 customers. So let’s do a quick update.

Basically, the system is still what it was: a Customer Data Platform that includes predictive modeling, content creation, and multi-step campaigns. Customer data can be acquired through the vendor’s own Javascript tags, mobile SDK (new since 2015), API connectors, or file imports. Blueshift also has collection connectors for Segment, Ensighten, mParticle, and Tealium. Product data can load through file imports, a standard API, or a direct connector to DemandWare.

As before, Blueshift can ingest, store and index pretty much any data with no advance modeling, using JSON, MongoDB, Postgres, and Kafka. Users do have to tell source systems what information to send and map inputs to standard entities such as customer name, product ID, or interaction type. There is some new advanced automation, such as tying related events to a transaction ID. The system’s ability to load and expose imported data in near-real-time remains impressive.

Blueshift will stitch together customer identities using multiple identifiers and can convert anonymous to known profiles without losing any history. Profiles are automatically enhanced with product affinities and scores for purchase intent, engagement, and retention.

The system had automated predictive modeling when I first reviewed it, but has now added machine- learning-based product recommendations. In fact, it recommendations are exceptionally sophisticated. Features include a wide range of rule- and model-based recommendation methods, an option for users to create custom recommendation types, and multi-product recommendation blocks that mix recommendations based on different rules. For example, the system can first pick a primary recommendation and then recommend products related to it. To check that the system is working as expected, users can preview recommendations for specified segments or individuals.

The segment builder in Blueshift doesn’t seem to have changed much since my last review: users select data categories, elements, and values used to include or exclude segment members. The system still shows the counts for how many segment members are addressable via email, display ads, push, and SMS.

On the other hand, the campaign builder has expanded significantly. The previous form-based campaign builder has been replaced by a visual interface that allows branching sequences of events and different treatments within each event.  These treatments include thumbnails of campaign creative and can be in different channels. That's special because many vendors still limit campaigns to a single channel. Campaigns can be triggered by events, run on fixed schedules, or executed once.

Each treatment within an event has its own selection conditions, which can incorporate any data type: previous behaviors, model scores, preferred communications channels, and so on. Customers are tested against the treatment conditions in sequence and assigned to the first treatment they match. Content builders let users create templates for email, display ads, push messages, and SMS messages. This is another relatively rare feature. Templates can include personalized offers based on predictive models or recommendations. The system can run split tests of content or recommendation methods. Attribution reports can now include custom goals, which lets users measure different campaigns against different objectives.

Blueshift still relies on external services to deliver the messages it creates. It has integrations with SendGrid, Sparkpost, and Cheetahmail for email and Twilio and Gupshup for SMS. Other channels can be fed through list extracts or custom API connectors.

Blueshift still offers its product in three different versions: email-only, cross-channel and predictive. Pricing has increased since 2015, and now starts at $2,000 per month for the email edition version, $4,000 per month for the cross-channel edition and $10,000 per month for the predictive edition. Actual fees depend on the number of active customers, with the lowest tier starting at 500,000 active users per month. The company now has several enterprise-scale clients including LendingTree, Udacity, and Paypal.