How Brevo Builds Customer Loyalty With Conversational CRM

CRM is about to feel less like a database and more like a conversation. We sit down with Brevo to unpack how a fast-growing customer engagement platform thinks about the next era of CRM, where large language models change the “entry point” for customer data and where the old battle over slick UI starts to disappear.

We walk through Brevo’s evolution from an agency to an email automation tool (many will remember the Sendinblue days) and then into a broader customer engagement and CRM platform built for B2C brands. The big idea is the engagement layer: the system that turns customer data into action across channels, agents, and third-party tools. As LLMs become cheaper and more interchangeable, the winners won’t be the tools with the flashiest interface, they’ll be the platforms that orchestrate workflows, permissions, integrations, and real outcomes.

Then we get practical about ROI. Customer engagement software should be measurable because it exists to move KPIs tied to revenue: subscriber growth, net new customers, repeat purchase, and bigger baskets. We also break down how to evaluate AI inside CRM without hype by looking at efficiency, automation, and output per marketer so you can grow without constantly adding headcount. To round it out, we talk martech consolidation, what M&A looks like as valuations reset, and a smart loyalty and advocacy approach that turns happy customers into demand generators.

Subscribe for more conversations on AI in CRM, customer engagement, marketing automation, and martech strategy and if this sparked a new idea, share it and leave a review. What part of your customer lifecycle would you automate first?

Transcript

Meet Brevo And The Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey everybody, super excited for this chat today with a new kid on the Unicorn block at Brevo, uh building technology to reshape customer engagement and CRM chatting. How are you? Doing well. Thanks, Evan. Great to have you here. Before we dive in, how do you describe your team, your mission these days?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Sure. Yeah. So we're a customer engagement platform. We're helping um mostly B2C businesses to engage with their customer base. So they're using us for as a essentially a CRM to manage the life cycle of the customers, to finding new customers, to building repeat customers and loyal customers. And they can kind of manage all those sorts of interactions with Brevo.

From Agency To CRM Platform

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Fantastic. And the company's new-ish to North America, but very strong European French roots. Tell us about the origin story and uh how you got to where you are.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, we're headquartered out out of Europe. Uh, we've been in the US for a little while now, but still, I think, kind of a relatively newer player on the block, albeit growing very, very quickly these days. Uh Rebo actually got started originally as an agency, a marketing agency. And the intention was to um help companies send their emails, be more effective at sending their emails. And um, we actually got started out of um out of France, but we had a lot of our team out of India. So we're a pretty heavy indie India-based business with a lot of our development and technology there. And we shifted from an agency over into an emailing automation tool. And uh that transition happened as customers were really focused on kind of email engagement, and we made that shift into more of a software tool. And then from email email engagement, we used to be called send in blue, actually. Uh if anyone recognizes that brand name, but that was the uh the original thinking, and then we transitioned more into this kind of full customer platform uh really just a few years ago, and that's that's been our focal point.

AI And The Engagement Layer

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Um yeah. Fantastic. Of course, CRM has been around forever, it seems, but AI is changing or reinventing everything when it comes to customer engagement. What's your point of view here on the future of CRM?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, so um the the SaaSpocalypse that's hit the public markets over the past month or so obviously has put everyone uh to a point of questioning all software, CRM or or otherwise. And um I'll put a lot of thought on this concept, this topic, because it it is so top of mind with the changes and evolution that are happening around CRM and around AI. And I think the the basis of it is I believe CRM is still highly valuable, uh, as does Mark Benioff, of course, from Salesforce. And um the thing that I believe, and it'll actually it's similar to I think some of the comments I've heard from him, but is this idea of engagement layer is critical. So what a CRM does is it helps you, of course, create an entry point for information storing, and then that's your data set, and then that data set you can use, do different things with. In the future state, that entry point is very um conversational as we use LLMs more and more. I think that's the entry point for any sort of information tracking. As we look a year, two years out, I can envision a lot of software evolving to be much more conversational and how you engage and enter information. So differentiation of software, CRM, or otherwise, through a fancy UI is gonna go away. And that's not gonna really exist anymore. But what is gonna exist, and where the software companies, CRM specifically, that are gonna thrive, are gonna be the ones that own that engagement layer. So can can help manage the data, leveraging LLMs. LLMs, by the way, are becoming a commodity already. There's you know slight differentiation between one or another, but not huge differentiation. And LLMs and LLM labs, AI labs are recognizing this and trying to evolve into, I think, more of that engagement layer as well. But true software providers and CRM, the successful CRMs, are going to own that engagement layer and allow companies to use their data most effectively by engaging it in different ways through different agents and different third-party tools. So that's where I see CRM evolving into is really truly that kind of engagement layer tool that then leverages uh conversational interface on the front end and then connect through agents and otherwise on the back end.

Proving ROI Beyond The Hype

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Fantastic. And I use a number of agents personally in my little business that are just tremendously valuable to me now. I don't know how I live without them. Uh, but they're literally doing work as I speak. But of course, as we scale into a large enterprise, the dynamics are a little different. Um, how are you demonstrating ROI from AI or agents inside the CRM today versus just uh the hype that we're seeing out there?

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, so um there's I think there's two, I'm gonna break that question maybe down into two components. There's uh how do we um uh generate value through AI, I might call it. And then generally, how do we demonstrate that that ROI as well? So the nice thing about I think CRM and uh just customer engagement platforms is the ROI, I'll start there, the ROI should be very measurable. You should be very, it should be very easy. Not all of them provide this, but I think it should be very easy to understand the impact because the reason you buy a CRM or similar type tool, customer engagement tool, is you want to improve a metric. And usually that metric aligns very closely or ties directly into revenue. You want to increase your subscriber base, you want to increase your customer base, you want to uh see more repeat customers. You know, all these things are very measurable metrics, and that's the ROI. And when we sit down with our customers and work with our customers, that's exactly what we're looking for is what are those KPIs, those core metrics that you're you're looking to drive? Because you don't want to change your CRM just for the fun of it. It's never fun to make a make a change on CRM. I've done it a few times, it's it's not easy. But when you can see that measurable impact, and that measurable impact can be looked at over multiple years because it usually should grow year after year when done right, of course. So that's the first step is are we driving the right ROI? What are those KPIs? And again, they're they're very often tied into uh revenue. On a related note, the KPIs that we often see customers looking for are gonna be uh net new customers. One of the things we we often talk with our customer base about, and I think one of the things that any good CRM provider uh should really focus in on is yes, net new is nice, you want to expand that reach, but also those loyal customers. Those loyal customers are the ones that you want to get them to come back and repeat purchase and repeat and buy more, increase that basket size. And when you can do that, it's much easier to convert those loyal customers because they've already bought something from you. So you want to get a repeat customer is better than the net new. It's easier usually to maintain. But but people often forget about um the ways you can go about improving that repeat customer base. So I think that's of course, revenue is the core one, but how do you get there? Repeat customers are just as value, and I would argue, easier to develop than um than the net new. The the second piece to you the question is really how do we drive that ROI through AI? You know, how do we um you know generate that value? How should, I shouldn't just say we, but how should a CRM generate value through through AI? So the measure, of course, is going to be tying back to revenue growth. But as we think about revenue, we want to do that in an efficient way. And that's the essence of what AI should be driving. How do you create more efficiency? How do you create more output, let's say, from each individual? How do we how do we build a more efficient engine, more efficient team? And that's what AI is intended to do. So, how do we automate tasks? And so it's a little bit harder to kind of measure that as you can measure revenue or or repeat customers. But again, we can look at that through the lens of um of leveraging the tools that we have to increase individual output, increase individual productivity. So as you don't need to increase the size of your team to generate more revenue. That's the the basis of AI. So we can leverage our AI tools. We can look at things like bots and agents that we have and leveraging the way we we use LLMs within Brevo to increase the overall output per employee, per marketing employee, usually.

Martech Crowding And Consolidation

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Fantastic. Um, when I look at one of those market maps for Martech, you see thousands of names, uh very diverse spectrum, tech giants like HubSpot and Salesforce on the list uh as well. How do you think about positioning yourself to serve customers with all of these uh uh uh companies, competitors in many cases? Do you see a lot of uh mergers and and uh consolidation happening in the industry? Uh how do you how do you think about carving out your niche, not so niche in this place?

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Yeah, definitely. Um uh Scott Brinker, who runs Chief Martech, often produces that that very report that I think you're referencing, Evan. It's a great report. It's it has this image of uh thousands and thousands of of software providers, Martech software providers on it. And every year that the Chief Martech group produces that report, it grows. And you can see that each image is smaller and smaller because they're trying to fit it all on one page. Um, and the the reality is, yes, there's always going to be a lot of young tech companies in in this space, in the Martech space, uh in the CRM space. Uh, I do think consolidation will accelerate here with AI. I think it's um easier and easier to build software. It's probably about 10 times as easy today as it was in right now. Um, you know, I actually built a software tool over the weekend in 15 minutes. I I struggled with the images, so that took me another two hours, but the actual building of the tool took 15 minutes. You know, I used uh blood code and I popped it out. It's pretty easy. And I'm not a good technology person, you know, in the sense of a developer. Um, but it's it's simple. So I think the idea of building software, yes, we'll see a lot of companies trying to build software, but to be successful, as I mentioned earlier, uh you really need to go deep. And yes, we can build little bots and agents that sit uh uh on top of tools, but I don't think those sort of products can be successful in the long run anymore. I think it's just very hard to do. I think um agencies, frankly, can help with a lot of this. They can spin up small products that companies need very quickly now. So rather than buying a tool, leverage an agency to build a little widget here, a little widget there. The CRM uh and customer platforms that will ultimately survive and thrive are once again those ones that really understand and own that orchestration layer. And you have to be fairly sophisticated to do that. So the smaller companies I think are gonna blend and merge together, either be acquired by the bigger companies. Um, possibly they might just go out of business if uh the product that they're building isn't all that sophisticated or complex. Um, but I do think we will see an acceleration on again the merging of these businesses over the coming 12, 24 months. And I think what we might end up even seeing is that Chief Martech image that I'm envisioning, uh actually the images might start getting larger on it because there'll be less of them on tape than what we've seen over the past years.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Indeed. And you've navigated MA uh over your career. Uh, how do you think about acquisitions and growth that you've raised over 500 million? That's a bold move, tough to top that. Uh can you give us a peek into the future?

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So um obviously valuations are adjusting quickly uh based on public markets, SaaS evaluations, SaaS valuations. Um, but that doesn't mean that um we're not gonna see a uh or that we will see a reduction in any sort of MA. As I mentioned, first of all, I think there's a great opportunity when valuations you know reset for companies to look for those opportunities and jump on them. Um so I think there's a little bit of a reset that often needs to happen. If the public markets reset, private markets have a slight delay. It's not as uh as uh as transactional as public markets. So there's a slight delay in resets on the valuations there. But I think as those valuations do reset, I wouldn't be surprised to see a bit of an increase in MA activity, um, specifically like corporate MA. I think private equity funds are going to probably slow down a little bit in software acquisition because they're trying to kind of rethink how they structure their debt and how they think about the valuations of the businesses that they're acquiring. But I do think from a corporate MA perspective, uh there's there's some nice opportunity that sits out there as valuations reset, because there's some great businesses, small businesses that may not be able to raise the funding that they had before, but they can be a nice compliment add-on to companies like Brevo, companies like HubSpot or Salesforce, even or so on. So um I do think MA is is gonna be active. I'm gonna call it lively, but but active, but more so from a corporate perspective than a private equity perspective. Um, fundraising will be tricky because, again, people have two, three months ago in mind when their their valuations were much higher, probably in the software space. And if they want to go out and try to do a capital raise right now, uh the reality is it's gonna be much lower than it was back in Q4 of last year, the values. And that's the nature of the private markets. Again, things come and go as within the public market. So again, we'll probably see a slight slowdown on um on funding uh for the near term, but I don't think that'll that'll uh that'll dry out by any means.

Loyalty Wallets And Customer Advocacy

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Brilliant. In the meantime, of course, it's all about serving customers and winning customers. Can you share any any stories, anecdotes, insights into how your customers are using your product, maybe in new or unexpected ways? And uh where are you getting most traction, verticals or otherwise?

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah, sure. So um uh I'll talk a little about loyalty actually, just going back to what we were talking about because it's top of mind for a moment here. Um, we we have a handful of our customers, and it's actually building off an acquisition that we did not too long ago, where we have a loyalty product, we have a wallet product and a loyalty product. And and the wallet product helps you to uh engage with your customers when they come into your storefront. So it's very retail oriented. And the loyalty product is a little bit more online or um e-oriented, I would say. Um, but the thing that um that I don't think anyone else is doing very well, and it's something that we're leaning into heavily now, you know, through this the small acquisition that we've done, is this idea of creating advocacy amongst your customer base. So, yes, you want to have loyal customers that come back and repeat, and you want to remind them and give them some offers and some discounts to you know repurchase something. But I think the thing that's been overlooked a little bit is um your good customers are actually also your best sales reps. And this is just the same as for consumers as it is for B2B. So if you have a happy customer, leverage that customer, give them uh a benefit as well. So if they're willing to talk about you in social media, talk about you in any way, they might have not have a big social following, but even a small social following, encourage them to do so because people will follow the voices of uh those who they trust. And if you can encourage them to be advocates, then you can generate demand and interest uh while also keeping a happy customer around and giving them discounts and incentives. So, what I what I specifically mean by that is we have a uh tool that allows you to go out and generate advocacy and say, I am a happy customer of, let's say, Brevo, and I'm gonna start posting about it. And in those posts, if I end up drumming up lead flow, I get some of that benefit. I get a little, you know, kind of kickback, a benefit from that lead flow that I create for Brevo from that new customer purchase that happens. And that's great. You know, I'm not a influencer by any means, but it's kind of nice to have a little bit of that benefit in doing so because I'm something I'm probably already doing if I'm an advocate for the business. So I think that's just such a simple idea is turn your happy customers, your loyal customers, into advocates as well. Uh, and it can benefit everyone.

Where To Meet The Team

SPEAKER_00 15:50

What a great idea. Um, I mean, I have probably 650,000 social media followers across different platforms, and no company, no vendor, supplier has ever asked me to do anything. Uh so I what an opportunity that's untapped out there for sure. Um, we're in the event season, a lot of travel meetings going on. What what's up with your your team? Where can folks meet you? Where what are you excited about over the next few months?

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yeah, so um we're doing a bunch of events across uh across Europe next week. We're in Monaco um at a great event.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

I volunteer to uh to head out there, cover the event.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Very nice. Yeah, well, come on down. Uh there are worse places in Monaco.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Actually, I'll be in the bars full of us, but maybe I'll just shoot over. Yeah, MBC.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah, that's a nice event as well. Uh so yeah, we've in Monaco and then and then um uh later on in March, uh Shop Talk out in Las Vegas is another great event, another really interesting um kind of cutting edge technology event for uh consumer brands. Uh so that's uh I'll be at that one. I'm not able to get to the Monaco one personally, but I know my team's gonna be there, but I'll be at Shop Talk in Las Vegas. Uh so nice to get a little warm weather in this time of the year as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Perfect. Well, there are worse destinations in Monaco. So good luck with that. And thanks for joining, sharing a bit of insight and an update. Appreciate it. Definitely, my pleasure. Thanks for having me on. And thanks everyone for listening, watching, sharing, and check out our TV show, techimpact.tv on Bloomberg Television and Fox Business. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Chatting. Thanks a lot. Take care.