Best Practices for Managing Multi-Channel Campaign Workflows

Hi Funnelsflex​,

This is a very broad question and things I've written here might not work for every use case or can be a little cliché, but I wanted to share what's been working for us.

I spent some time putting this together so hopefully it helps the Bonfire community.

We send out approximately 3 million promotional communications every day across email, SMS, push, content cards, and WhatsApp channels.

First thing when we deal with these many comms and different channels, I always worry about overlapping sends and message fatigue.

Tags and Frequency Capping are absolute lifesavers. Your tagging structure should be top-notch because it's the foundation for both exclusions and frequency capping. Here's how I approach it:

1. Campaign Tagging Structure (What are Tags?)
   
   

Create a hierarchical tagging system that maps to your business logic:

Channel tags: email_promo, push_transactional, sms_alert Priority tags: critical, high_value, standard, low_priority Category tags: cart_abandonment, product_launch, seasonal_sale, loyalty_reward Journey tags: onboarding_d3, winback_week2, nurture_segment_a

This structure lets you build segment filters like "users who received messages from any canvas tagged with seasonal_sale in the last 7 days" or exclude users who've hit their cap on email_promo messages. The key is consistency across teams. Document your taxonomy and enforce it.

   2. Frequency Capping Strategy (What is Frequency Capping?)

Set up multiple layers of frequency caps in Braze:

Global caps: Max messages per channel per day/week (e.g., no more than 2 marketing emails per day, 1 SMS per day) 

Tag-based caps: Limit messages by campaign type (e.g., max 3 promotional messages across all channels per week)

Priority overrides: Let transactional and critical messages bypass caps using the priority tagging

Use Braze's Frequency Capping feature under Global Message Settings, but also leverage Canvas entry rules and segment filters to create custom suppression logic. For complex scenarios, I maintain a custom attribute like last_promo_send_date that gets updated via webhooks or Canvas updates, giving you granular control.

   3. Cross-Channel Orchestration (What is a Canvas?)

For campaigns that span multiple channels, use Canvas Flow as your single source of truth:

Build journeys where channel selection happens dynamically based on user preferences, engagement history, and channel performance Use Experiment Paths to A/B test channel timing and combinations Implement decision splits/ action paths based on engagement: "If user didn't open email within 4 hours, send push; if no push engagement within 2 hours, send SMS"

This keeps your logic centralised rather than scattered across dozens of standalone campaigns. You can also use Canvas-level frequency capping to ensure users don't get bombarded even if they qualify for multiple journeys.

   4. QA and Testing Workflows

Create a structured testing process:

Designated test segments: Build segments for QA using internal email addresses or test user IDs. Tag these campaigns with test_mode so they don't pollute your analytics and pass relevant message extras to be excluded from reporting

Preview and test sends: Use Braze's preview feature religiously. Send proofs to internal groups where stakeholders can quickly review (Test Email)

Canvas checkpoints: Before launching, manually verify entry conditions, audience size, frequency cap settings, and exit criteria. I keep a QA checklist in Notion that covers every Canvas component

Test Canvas feature: Use Braze's Test Canvas functionality to simulate the actual user flow throughout the journey. This helps you understand exactly how users will move through decision splits, delay steps, and message triggers before you launch to your full audience (Preview User Paths)

Seed lists: Maintain seed lists across all channels to catch deliverability issues early (What are Seeds?)

For multi-channel Canvases, clone them to a test workspace first, reduce the audience to your test segment, and run through the entire flow before pushing to production. (copy across workspaces)

   5. Reporting and Analytics Without the Chaos

Keep dashboards focused and role-specific:

Executive dashboard: High-level metrics like total sends, engagement rate by channel, revenue attribution, frequency distribution Channel-specific dashboards: Deep dives into email open rates, push opt-in trends, SMS delivery rates, etc. Campaign performance dashboard: Track individual campaigns/Canvases with key tags visible, conversion funnels, and cohort analysis

To achieve the above, we pass certain message extras for specific communication types. For example, we include extras like post_purchase, daily_email, pre_purchase, or adhoc_campaign in every message. When your Currents data flows into data warehouses like AWS, GCS, or Snowflake, it becomes much easier for data analysts to power this data into dashboards without having to manually map campaign IDs or parse campaign names. It's a game changer for creating clean, automated reporting. (What are Message Extras?)

   6. Suppression Logic and Preference Management

Respect user preferences at a granular level:

Let users opt out of promotional messages but still receive transactional ones Use custom attributes or subscription groups to track channel preferences: prefers_email, prefers_sms, opted_out_promos Build global suppression segments that aggregate all these rules: "Users who have opted out of promos OR received 3+ messages this week OR are in cooldown period"

Apply these suppression segments at both the campaign and Canvas level. For high-volume senders, this prevents compliance issues and improves user experience.

   7. Continuous Optimisation

Schedule regular audits:

Monthly tag review: Are teams using tags consistently? Are there deprecated tags cluttering your workspace? Frequency cap analysis: Pull reports on how often users are hitting caps. If 30% of your audience is capped out, you're probably over-messaging Channel performance review: Identify underperforming channels and adjust your strategy. Maybe push has terrible engagement but SMS converts. Shift budget accordingly

Set up engagement decay monitoring using Braze segments like "Users who haven't engaged with any message in 30 days." Suppress these users proactively to preserve deliverability and sender reputation.

Finally, the magic isn't in any single feature. It's in how you combine Braze's building blocks (tags, frequency caps, Canvas, segments) into a cohesive system. Invest time upfront in your taxonomy and governance, and the rest becomes significantly easier to manage.