SmarttBot connects customer data and customizes its product with Twilio Segment

Founded in 2011, SmarttBot is a technology company based in Brazil that automates stock exchange investing for individual traders. The company’s mission is to empower the day trader with state-of-the-art technology so they can make smart investments on the Brazilian stock exchange. Given how complicated the trading landscape is, SmarttBot is committed to democratizing access to trading with easy-to-use features and advanced trading algorithms.

As the company began growing rapidly, the data and analytics team realized it didn't have a good grasp of the customer journey and struggled to access usable data for analytics. On top of that, the marketing and customer teams wanted to create opportunities to generate more revenue. SmarttBot needed a better understanding of its customers and a connected stack in order to grow more effectively.  

SmarttBot turned to Twilio Segment to deploy a customer data platform to connect data, enable a better understanding of user behavior, and create new growth opportunities for the company. SmarttBot also leveraged Twilio Segment Functions to build custom workflows and product capabilities, all while maximizing resources and driving new revenue.

SmarttBot lacked visibility into customer behavior  

SmarttBot wanted to capture meaningful data across the customer lifecycle to get a better understanding of customer journeys, but data was fragmented across a variety of different tools. As a result, maintaining clean data and making it accessible to various business teams was a manual process that took hours of extra time. To keep up with a growing customer base and a rapidly evolving product, SmarttBot implemented Twilio Segment to connect its stack and unify data across each team’s toolsets. This gave teams across the company a more complete understanding of the customer journey, while enabling the Data and Analytics team to focus on running powerful new models and analyses.

Implementing a best-in-class stack with minimal resources 

The team used Twilio Segment Connections to build and connect a best-in-class stack through a single API. The new stack unlocked the ability to implement innovative growth initiatives and optimize revenue channels. SmarttBot is now able to collect and connect data from its preferred tools, and send valuable data to tools like Amplitude for product intelligence, to Facebook Ads to optimize advertising, and to Zendesk to empower the support team with even more customer data. 

Gustavo Barros also explains the resource benefits implementing Twilio Segment has unlocked: “Twilio Segment made it possible to create a best-in-class stack with a lean team! Twilio Segment also makes it very easy to test and switch new tools. This would not be possible without Twilio Segment Connections.”

Customizing workflows and features with Twilio Segment Functions

With greater visibility into customer behavior, the team set out to launch new growth initiatives. SmarttBot turned to Functions to build custom workflows, product features, and advanced marketing campaigns on top of its app. SmarttBot can now activate its customer data and build custom capabilities by connecting any data source, destination, or internal service to Twilio Segment using a serverless, low-code function builder.  

Creating a custom referral marketing program with Functions:

The first campaign the team launched with Functions was a “Member Get Member Championship'' referral program to generate customer engagement and attract new customers. Unfortunately, the team couldn’t execute the referral program within their existing internal application, so the team turned to Functions to develop the functionality needed in less time and with less senior developer resources than building it from scratch in-house. SmarttBot used Functions to build the workflow below:

Functions empowered SmarttBot’s technical team with the code to send and receive data from Twilio Segment to build the exact workflows they needed. When a user subscribed to the program, they received a discount code to send to friends, and also received a code to access more Backtests, a very popular and valuable SmarttBot product.

The referral program drove engagement from 700 customers and successfully drove 70 new users to the platform. What’s more, the team viewed this campaign as a successful proof of concept to leverage Functions for future customization.

Creating Black Friday product bundles with Functions:

Following the success of the referral program, SmarttBot created a Black Friday campaign to increase purchase value leveraging Functions. Instead of just the single subscription offering typically available to prospects, the business teams wanted to test out offering bundled products with even more benefits over Black Friday. At the time, SmarttBot’s application could not support selling bundled products, so the team turned to Functions to provide the flexibility and control to build the customized features required to make product bundles available. The user purchase workflow begins with Twilio Segment receiving a track call which triggers Twilio Segment Functions. Then with just 10 admin API calls the bundle is purchased. The Black Friday campaign successfully resulted in a significant overall revenue lift and required far fewer resources than building the functionality in-house from scratch.  

Optimizing resources and growing revenue with Twilio Segment 

With Twilio Segment, SmarttBot now has a customer data platform that seamlessly connects data, enables a better understanding of user behavior, and creates new growth opportunities for the company. With Functions, SmarttBot is able to build custom capabilities to meet their exact needs, all while maximizing resources and driving new revenue.

Resources optimized: 

• A single SmarttBot team member was able to build a best-in-class stack and connect customer data, saving time and money

• Functions unlocked product customization using fewer resources and time than building the necessary functionality in-house

Data democratized: 

• Accessing and using necessary data is no longer a manual, time-intensive process, but entirely self-serve for business teams

Revenue and new growth channels unlocked:

• Captured 20% of 2020 annual revenue in 1 week with product bundling capabilities

• Drove engagement with 700 customers and attracted 70 new members with custom referral program workflow

• Optimized resources so teams could focus on innovation

What’s next? SmarttBot plans to leverage Twilio Segment and Functions for even more product customization and develop more use cases to drive adoption of Twilio Segment within the marketing and product teams.