| Winner | Trade Me |
| Marketing initiative | Rebuilding growth: from fragmented campaigns to a unified lifecycle engine |
| Marketing partner | Braze |
| Finalists | 2degrees, Mitre 10, Natural Hazards Commission Toka Tū Ake, NZ Post |
| Judges’ comments | “A powerful demonstration of how a shift from campaign-led activities to customer-led activities can drive significant results for the business. With a strong martech solution at the heart of the strategy, and assisted by internal operating processes, this showcased how martech can address the needs of complex businesses and brands.” |
Message less, but better
Trade Me’s new martech ecosystem prioritises customer health – delivering relevant, timely interactions at scale.
Trade Me’s growth engine was fragmented and underperforming. Customer engagement was siloed across its verticals, martech investment wasn’t delivering and experiences lacked consistency across its five million members.
It was time for change, so Trade Me shifted its focus from campaign delivery to customer health, aiming to increase engagement and reduce the unsubscribe rate.
The move was driven by the knowledge that customers behave differently across lifecycle stages and that a one-size-fits-all approach wouldn’t work.
Meanwhile, over-communication lessens perceived value. So Trade Me knew it had to prioritise less frequent but more relevant messaging. Timely and targeted recommendations were far more likely to engage and convert customers.
But delivery was hampered by teams working in silos, unclear ownership and a lack of shared accountability.
Rebuilding the system
This led Trade Me to create a unified lifecycle engine powered by behavioural data. The connected martech ecosystem uses data to enable real-time audience creation and activation. Sophisticated data models were embedded to ensure every interaction with members is driven by customer behaviour and intent, allowing the system to determine who to engage, with what and when.
Customer engagement tool Braze was transformed from a tactical email platform into a centralised behavioural orchestration engine, delivering personalised journeys across email, push and in-app to members.
The new engine has created a continuous loop where data informs decisions, journeys are orchestrated in real time, audiences are activated across channels and performance data refines future actions.
“Rather than implementing new tools, we rebuilt the system that drives growth – connecting data, technology and teams into a single lifecycle engine,” says Trade Me.
A new foundation
The impact was huge, both externally and internally.
The new engine delivered strong year-on-year growth across all of Trade Me’s verticals, drove an uplift in engagement metrics and improved customer health by stabilising unsubscribe rates. It also re-engaged 14,000 inactive members in Marketplace while also expanding Trade Me’s active audience reach.
Internally, to deliver the programme, Trade Me built up the data capability within its team. Path to production models reduced deployment time from between eight and 10 weeks to two or three, while AI workflows increased efficiency and speed to execution.
Establishing accountability across marketing, product, data and engineering teams helped to unblock the delivery and embedded the martech ecosystem as a shared tool for growth across the organisation.
The new foundation positions Trade Me to continue scaling personalised, data-led engagement in a way that is both commercially effective and sustainable for customers.
This story comes from NZ Marketing magazine issue 88, Sept-Nov 2026. Why not subscribe? Get four issues a year for just $50 (including delivery) if you autorenew.
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