Two new tools give local operators a way to talk back and forth with customers, and a one-click way to keep their local lists engaged, joining Email, SMS, Push, and In-App already live on Braze.

ATLANTA, Sept. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SmarterSends, the distributed marketing platform built for franchise, field, and local marketing teams, today announced two new capabilities for Braze customers: Two-Way SMS and simplified One-Click Retargeting for local operators. Both ship ahead of FORGE 2026, Braze’s annual customer engagement conference, where SmarterSends will be on-site September 28-30 at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.

Together, the two features round out the SmarterSends platform on Braze to five channels: Email, SMS, Push, In-App, and now Two-Way SMS, all sent through Braze’s engine and inside the same corporate guardrails, approvals, and reporting that already govern local execution. For brands running Braze’s AI-native journeys across hundreds of locations, it closes two gaps outbound orchestration alone never solved: what happens after the customer replies, and how a local team keeps its own list warm without corporate stepping in.

Two-Way SMS: the reply becomes the relationship

Before now, a text back to a local branch, franchise, or advisor lived on someone’s phone, disconnected from the platform that sent the original message. With Two-Way SMS, that reply flows into the same Braze customer profile in real time. A “yes, I’m interested” becomes a lead for the nearest store associate. A scheduling question routes straight to the advisor who owns the relationship. It’s clienteling, the kind of ongoing, 1:1 attention retail and wealth management brands have always wanted from their local teams, built on top of the data infrastructure they already have.

One-Click Retargeting: keeping local lists warm without the busywork

The second launch tackles a problem every local operator knows: building a fresh campaign to re-engage your own contacts takes time most franchisees, advisors, and store teams don’t have, so lists go quiet between big corporate sends. One-Click Retargeting gives local operators a simplified way to re-engage the contacts they already have, whether that’s re-sending to people who didn’t open, following up with contacts who replied but didn’t convert, or waking up a list that’s gone cold, without building a new audience from scratch or waiting on corporate.

What’s new for Braze customers:

• Two-way SMS conversations connected directly to Braze customer profiles
• Local-level reply routing, so the right store, branch, or advisor sees the message
• Clienteling and follow-up triggers layered on top of Braze’s AI-powered journeys
• One-click retargeting so local operators can re-engage their own contacts without building a new audience
• A simplified interface built for local operators, not full-time marketers
• The same brand guardrails, approvals, and reporting that already govern Email, SMS, Push, and In-App

“These two launches solve opposite ends of the same problem,” said Sam Lewis, Co-Founder of SmarterSends. “Two-Way SMS handles the moment a customer reaches out, so a local rep can actually act on that reply instead of losing it in a phone. One-Click Retargeting handles the moment nobody reaches out, so a franchisee or advisor can keep their own list warm without building a campaign or waiting on corporate. Put them together and local teams finally have a real voice inside the platform HQ already trusts, on both sides of the conversation.”

Braze has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs three years running, with more than 2,600 paying customers spanning brands like IBM, Goldman Sachs, Wendy’s, JetBlue, and Sephora. SmarterSends plugs directly into an existing Braze instance, giving franchisees, financial advisors, regional bank branches, and store associates a governed way to personalize and send within the guardrails corporate already has in place, plus native Two-Way SMS, one-click retargeting, and inbound reply routing that Braze does not offer out of the box. The integration takes about 15 minutes to stand up, at no cost to the brand.

SmarterSends will be on the ground at FORGE 2026 from September 28-30, with the team available for live demos of Two-Way SMS and One-Click Retargeting on Braze, and conversations about what a fifth channel and a simpler local re-engagement workflow mean for distributed marketing programs. Brands attending FORGE who want to grab time with the team can reach out directly or book a walkthrough at https://calendly.com/d/cypm-dyn-wmb/smartersends-web-demo.

About SmarterSends

SmarterSends is a distributed marketing platform built for brands with local teams: franchisees, financial advisors, regional bank branches, and field or store-level marketers. Through Braze, SmarterSends gives local teams governed access to Email, SMS, Push, In-App messaging, and Two-Way SMS, all inside the brand and compliance guardrails corporate sets. SmarterSends is SOC 2 Type II certified. Learn more at smartersends.com.

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SOURCE SmarterSends, LLC