• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, May 17, 2022

The initial approach was a little shocking. The email subject line read: “Why Predictive Personalization Will (And Should) Replace A/B testing.”

Hold on a minute. Was Breinify really saying that A/B testing, the time-honored tool used by email and direct mail senders alike (the latter probably going back 100 years), should be tossed aside?  

Not quite. Testing can still be utilized for copy and messaging. But Breiinfy is focused on “conversions, and the behavioral aspects,” and on understanding each customer, says Diane Keng, CEO. Keng adds, “You have to understand the rules.”

In the past, A/B testing was used, for example, to test copywriting. But that’s as far as it went. More complicated rules-based personalization required that marketers set up personalized experiences manually. 

Breinify is not an email service provider. ”We bring the data-science component to the table,” Keng says. This takes the form of a lightweight personalization platform and templates that sit on top of such email tools as Mailchimp. 

CPG brands and retailers can use the AI-driven platform to decide on what they are going to send without having to build emails by hand, reducing the weeks it took to create a newsletter to less than a day, Keng says. 

The result is increased sales. For instance, “emails with personalized product recommendations, promotions, and coupons have directly resulted in $12.2 million of incremental revenue for BevMo,” the alcohol retailer, Keng adds.   

Then there is Duraflame, which saw a 105% increase in CRM registrations for loyalty and recipe pages.  

"Breinify helps us collect data and identify important consumer insights to set us up for success with personalization,” says Daniel Moznett, director of marketing, Duraflame.

What kind of personalization does Breinify support? One key variable is frequency. Recipes are quicker and more frequent, Keng says. Groceries can be emailed weekly, and alcohol maybe once a month. But it also depends on the customer’s behavior.

“Make sure you’re not over-mailing your best customers, not sending every single email for every single day,” Keng says. 

That’s no small task: Most of Breinify’s clients send from 2 million to 12 million emails per day. “We work with large enterprises,” Keng says. “For them, email is the most static channel. 

Breinify, which personalizes websites, email and any direct-to-consumer owned channels, now has 30 employees. Keng, a seasoned marketer despite being named by Forbes as one the top 30 under 30 in 2020, co-founded the San Francisco-based firm with Philipp Meisen h in 2015.