Salesforce Acquires Braze For $5.7 Billion
Salesforce's acquisition of Braze may concentrate marketers' workflow, raising concerns about data access and portability. The deal values Braze at $5.66 billion and is pending regulatory approval.
Original reporting · digiday.com
Original: “Salesforce’s $5.7 billion Braze deal puts marketers at an ecosystem crossroads”
Read “Salesforce’s $5.7 billion Braze deal puts marketers at an ecosystem crossroads” at Digiday →
How this was written. Adtomix wrote this article with a language model from Digiday’s reporting (model: @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast); it describes that reporting rather than adding to it. The original, linked above, is the full story.
Key points from Digiday’s report
- Salesforce's acquisition of Braze values the company at $5.66 billion and is pending regulatory and shareholder approval.
- The deal is expected to create a more connected system, where customer data informs marketing decisions and engagement results feed back into the wider business.
- Marketers are concerned about the concentration of their workflow within one vendor's ecosystem and the potential impact on data access and portability.
- Salesforce says it supports an open, composable approach, but marketers will need to see how this commitment translates into practice.
- The acquisition raises questions about governance and accountability, particularly as AI tools become more prevalent in marketing.
Salesforce's planned acquisition of Braze, announced on October 20, has been interpreted as a strategically sound move for the company, according to Digiday. The deal values Braze at approximately $5.66 billion and is pending regulatory and shareholder approval.
The acquisition is expected to complement Salesforce's Marketing Cloud, Data 360, Customer 360, and Agentforce with Braze's real-time customer engagement and AI decisioning capabilities. This would create a more connected system, where customer data informs marketing decisions and engagement results feed back into the wider business.
However, the deal also raises concerns about the concentration of marketers' workflow within one vendor's ecosystem. Attendees at Braze's customer conference Forge expressed concerns about migrating platforms, normalizing data, and preserving email deliverability, Digiday reported.
Salesforce says it supports an open, composable approach, but marketers will need to see how this commitment translates into practical data access, interoperability, and portability after the deal is closed. The integration of Braze's platform with Salesforce's existing tools may make it harder for marketers to leave or connect to other systems.
Braze cofounder and CEO Bill Magnuson urged marketers to adopt a 'builder's spirit' and use developments in AI to shrink the distance between creative ideation and campaign execution. However, he also cautioned that using the same tools to optimize toward the same signals could make brands' output look alike.
The acquisition also raises questions about governance and accountability, particularly as AI tools become more prevalent in marketing. Braze cofounder and CTO Jon Hyman emphasized the importance of maintaining boundaries and ensuring that marketers have visibility into what systems are doing and can review their work.
For marketers, the acquisition makes platform choice a question of both capability and control. A combined Salesforce-Braze stack could offer useful customer context and faster campaign execution, but buyers should also scrutinize how easily they can export data and assets, connect outside tools, and change providers if their needs shift.
Questions and answers
What is the value of the Braze acquisition?
The deal values Braze at approximately $5.66 billion.
What are the potential benefits of the acquisition for marketers?
A combined Salesforce-Braze stack could offer useful customer context and faster campaign execution.
What are the concerns about the acquisition?
Marketers are concerned about the concentration of their workflow within one vendor's ecosystem and the potential impact on data access and portability.
