How Daily Harvest is using Twilio Segment to stay data-driven and capital-efficient

The big win

Daily Harvest was struggling with fragmented customer data using Google Analytics for website tracking, and storing data from its production database in a data lake. To double-down on personalization, Daily Harvest needed to break down these data silos and create a single source of truth that could be leveraged across teams.

Daily Harvest implemented Twilio Segment to serve as the connective tissue in its technology stack. Twilio Segment helps Daily Harvest access the data they need to make decisions from what ingredients were included in recipes, to campaign messaging, and product recommendations. With this process streamlined, Daily Harvest could more precisely target email communications based on customer interest, to put the right items in front of the right people.

Daily Harvest delivers clean, delicious, and convenient food to your doorstep. With customizable plans, customers can choose between pre-portioned smoothies, flatbreads, bowls, soups, lattes, snacks, and plant-based ice creams – all made with organic, thoughtfully sourced ingredients that are frozen within 24 hours of harvest to lock in flavor and nutrients.  

Founded in 2015 by Rachel Drori, Daily Harvest quickly gained traction with its mission to take care of food, so food can take care of all of us. Today, Daily Harvest is one of the fastest-growing consumer brands and was named one of Fast Company’s “World’s Most Innovative Companies.”

Breaking down these data silos and create a single source of truth

The appeal of Daily Harvest is how seamlessly it fits into people’s routines. It’s more than just offering “ready-in-minutes” meals – it’s about their 100% customer-centric approach. By cutting out the middle men, they speak directly to customers and understand what they want to eat. With their agile supply chain, they’ve built an industry-leading innovation cycle that means their food goes from concept to reality quickly, so customers get the food they want, when they want it. From the beginning, Daily Harvest has been using customer data and feedback to guide every decision, from recipe development, to the user experience, and marketing communications.

We have active conversations with our customers to understand who we’re talking to, how we should communicate with them, what their preferences are, and then continuously learn from their behavior across all our touchpoints. – James Riso, VP of Insights and Analytics, Daily Harvest

Like many newly formed companies, in the early days, Daily Harvest was using Google Analytics for website tracking, and storing data from its production database in a data lake. But this data wasn’t consolidated, which meant it offered only a fragmented view of the customer. To double-down on personalization, Daily Harvest needed to break down these data silos and create a single source of truth that could be leveraged across teams. 

Building a customer data platform to drive more personalization

At the time, Daily Harvest was building its data and engineering teams. Rather than write code to extract data from sources, or create their own events infrastructure, the team wanted to focus on improving the customer experience and data projects unique to the brand.

Twilio Segment offered a faster time to value. It could be implemented in a fraction of the time it would take to build, and could centralize data with just a few clicks. Just as easily, this data could be sent to any designated tool or service, which hadn’t been an option in the other platforms their team evaluated.

The data and engineering teams at Daily Harvest built a robust, proprietary data platform that spanned every customer touchpoint and allows them to co-create clean food with their customers at scale. Twilio Segment is the connective tissue that helps Daily Harvest move this information so they can effectively use it.

Twilio Segment also provided an efficient way to query email data – like open and click-through rates – so that it was readily accessible, and framed in the larger context of the customer journey. With this process streamlined, Daily Harvest could more precisely target email communications based on customer interest, to put the right items in front of the right people. 

It felt like we were shining a light on events that had always been happening, but that we hadn’t been able to see clearly before. We were taking ownership of that data. – James Riso, VP of Insights and Analytics, Daily Harvest. 

Powering the traits to differentiate

With Twilio Segment, Daily Harvest could focus on collaborating directly with their community and creating personalized customer experiences from the start – instead of hiring extra engineers to write connections. As the brand has grown, they’ve been able to co-create and personalize at scale. 

Daily Harvest is using Twilio Segment to stay data-driven and capital-efficient – allowing the company to move quickly and keep a laser-like focus on building individual customer relationships. Or, as James Riso put it, “Twilio Segment is powering the traits that we use to differentiate.”