After many years of cooperation with Samba.ai, Filip Černý still remembers the process of choosing a new solution for marketing automation and emailing. The benefits of Samba.ai were instant. Compared to competition, Samba’s AI-based platform brought seamless user experience, advanced functionalities, and better campaign results.

For how long have you been using Samba.ai in Kytary.cz?
‍We started using Samba.ai more than four years ago.

‍

What other tools did you use before Samba.ai for your email marketing?
‍Before Samba.ai, we developed our own solution for email marketing, but it was too challenging to keep the tool up to date with our needs. That is why we switched to technology providers rather than internal development. We then chose a robust vendor, which happened to be quite expensive for what it had been delivering, So we decided to find another solution. And then we got Samba.ai recommended by fellow marketing colleagues.

What solution had you been looking for exactly?
‍Sending automated emails was the major request, but we also wanted the solutions to segment audiences, plan campaign triggers, or enable advanced targeting. There were several tech providers with suitable solutions, Samba.ai belonged to the most advanced ones in terms of technology and supporting team.

What was the main reason why you eventually decided for Samba.ai?
‍In the local market, there was no more advanced solution for marketing automation than Samba.ai. Other better-known alternatives were mostly just limited email senders at the time, while Samba.ai could e.g. use artificial intelligence for audience recommendations. Samba.ai also allowed the creation and editing of dynamic templates directly in the browser without the need for a graphic designer or developer, which made it very easy to adjust or implement new creatives.

How did you compare those tools against each other?
‍Once we learned all the alternatives, we wanted to double-check the relevancy of the solution against the original vendor. Thus, we directly tested Samba.ai against it for two months. Samba killed it. The other vendor was not even close regarding functionalities, user experience, or campaign results.

What were your expectations regarding Samba.ai?
‍Effectiveness, scalability, time and budget savings, automation. Compared to the original vendor, Samba.ai is a better, cheaper solution. It is like comparing MS Dos to Windows.

What was the biggest challenge during the implementation?
‍Complicated pricing policy in both B2C and B2B. It was a real challenge to unify prices for personalized email campaigns, when there were five levels of partnership. We were very well aware of the problem, but it was not until Samba pushed us to solve the issue by changing the internal process.

What innovation did Samba.ai bring to the team?
‍In terms of innovation, Samba.ai brought deep knowledge of customer journey orchestration. My team started thinking more strategically about when and where customers receive marketing messages, especially concerning retention activities.

Are there any other changes related to Samba.ai in how the team works now?
‍Samba.ai freed our hands for more creative and strategic work. The team does not need to spend much time on technical aspects of the job. And that is how marketing automation should work.

If you must choose one key result of Samba.ai implementation, what would that be?
‍It would be the fact that a two-member team is able to effectively handle 13 retail markets and two wholesale markets via a single tool. Samba.ai helps us to keep up with our KPIs across all markets.

How would you describe the overall cooperation with Samba.ai?
‍Great. Samba is at the forefront of our vendors and far ahead of its direct competitors in terms of speed and quality of customer support. I personally appreciate the strategic consulting Samba.ai provides to my team. Last year at the peak of the pandemic, we received a well prepared info package with a list of quick wins to overcome the covid-19 challenge. We actually used many of them and they are still generating nice results.

Is there any aspect of the cooperation you would like to highlight?
‍You should be proud of your user interface. The app is so intuitive that even I as a non-user can login to it and still be able to find anything I need in a few clicks.

Would you recommend Samba.ai?
‍Yes, I would. And I actually did many times. I consider Samba.ai one of the best solutions in the market with an unprecedented price-to-performance ratio.

Filip Černý is an experienced professional with focus on retail and online marketing. He started his advertising career as a graphic designer in various agencies including Ogilvy. Since 2007, he has been responsible for marketing in music equipment reseller Kytary.cz, which now operates in 13 European countries.