Hot on the heels of one beta release, here comes another! Today, we proudly announce a beta release of a new message type: mobile push notifications for both iOS and Android, with all of Customer.io’s personalization powers.

Beta means we need your help as development continues; this is just the start of our journey of making Customer.io just as great for push as we are for email. We want you to be able to communicate thoughtfully with your customers, no matter the medium. For example…

• Combine messages: Send a follow-up email if a push notification doesn’t drive a conversion
• Act on event data: when a user enters a specific area, send a push to tell them about areas of interest nearby!
  
• Be platform-aware: Let users know via push when you release features specific to their platform!
  

And that’s just scratching the surface. Read on to learn more, including how to get started!

For a long time, we’ve been hearing your request for a drag-and-drop message-builder – and today we’re proud to announce a beta release of exactly that. Now, without any required HTML/CSS knowledge, you can easily build drag-and-drop emails that work consistently across email clients— with all the power of customer data that you’ve come to expect from Customer.io.

“Beta” means we need your help as we continue to develop it; this is part of a much greater goal, that of making all types of messaging experiences easier and more intuitive to build in Customer.io.

Read on to find out what’s changed, how to use the new editor, and how to give us feedback!

We’ve got a few big things cooking for you! In the meantime, here are some of the things we improved for you this past month.

GDPR

We’re committed to being ready for GDPR compliance before May 25, 2018. Here’s what we’re doing to prepare.

Improvements

• It’s easy to move between workflow actions now. Just click outside of them! (Previously the only way to collapse an expanded workflow item was to click “close”, which made moving around in the workflow frustrating.)

• Exporting people with “all attributes” got a bit faster, especially for accounts with a lot of attributes.

Here’s what was new and improved in February!

Feature Improvements

Choose which attributes to export to CSV

From the People page in Customer.io, you can now choose which attributes you’d like to include when exporting user data to CSV.

You’ll see a new dropdown where you can choose from three options to export:

• All attributes
• Displayed attributes (what you have currently displayed in the People table)
• Choose attributes

As before, you can still add filters to specify segments and/or attribute conditions to refine which users will be exported. Head here to learn more details.

ICYMI: New Features

First, a quick overview of the larger updates to Customer.io in January:

• We introduced a brand new triggered campaign type: API Triggered Broadcasts! Automatically send one message to many people in response to an API call — great for recurring messages that have a similar structure but where you’d want to fill in different, up-to-the-moment data.

• Have you set up time windows on your conversion goals yet?

Improvements

• Segment-building just got easier with our new “between” conditions. Now you can segment for an attribute that is a timestamp between or is between two values. Instead of having to create two separate conditions and sometimes having to do confusing time travel calculations, now you can define a simple rule in one go.
  
  The new is a timestamp between condition also gives you more control over specifying the date and time. Use is a timestamp between to create a segment of people who signed up in a specific month, for example. Or use the is between to create a segment of customers who gave you an NPS score between 7 and 10.

We first launched our Twilio action back in 2016, and since then, we have made several improvements and additions— short code support among them. But we also got questions about Alphanumeric Sender ID - sending SMS messages with your company or brand name as the sender, rather than a phone number. This kind of send, though one-way, allows for maximum brand visibility and a strong first impression. And now, we support it in Customer.io!

Read on to learn more about what’s changed, and how you can start sending Twilio SMS using your own Alphanumeric Sender IDs.

Say your app connects volunteers with local charities in need. You want to send a message to your volunteers every time a new charity in their locale puts in a request for volunteers. With API triggered broadcasts, you can send new requests for volunteers, as they come in, to everyone in a specific area and send those messages over any medium like email, SMS, or push.

When sending news or automated updates to groups of people, there’s no reason that these broadcasts can’t be just as relevant as the rest of your Customer.io messaging.

Introducing API Triggered Broadcasts from Customer.io! With this new campaign type, you can automatically send one message to many people quickly in response to an API call— but still use up-to-the-moment data to personalize it. This way, you set up your campaign and messaging once. Then all you need to do is set up your API call and you’re good to go.

Read on to learn more about this new campaign and how it works. We’ve also got a video for you!

For all your Customer.io campaigns, you want to be certain that your messaging is driving the right customer behaviours, and setting conversion goals is a critical part of that. People are marked as “converted” for each campaign or newsletter when they enter or leave a segment you define.

But, folks asked, what about timing? When you’re gauging your messages' success, you want to know not just that people entered or left your target segment, but that they did so within a specific amount of time. We’ve listened and now, you can do that!

New & Improved

API credential management: you can now generate and rotate your own site ID and API keys.

Layout Usage: On each Email Layout’s page, you’ll now be able to see exactly which campaigns and emails it’s used in. This should be helpful when you’re making changes and want to know what’s affected!

CTRL/CMD+F: This shortcut now works in the Layout editor. Small but mighty! We’re looking into adding even more shortcuts — got any favourites?

Beta volunteers?: We also started a beta test (as advertised in a recent newsletter of ours) for a new campaign type: triggering campaigns via our API! Interested in participating? Let us know!

In Customer.io, your site ID and API key are used to authenticate with our API and send data to your workspace(s). They let your product share information with Customer.io!

Prior to today, you only had one set of these credentials per workspace, and managing or rotating them yourself wasn’t really possible— you had to reach out to our support folks. Now, though, you can rotate your API credentials, create and use multiple sets, and manage it all from your account settings.