In order to reach and attract as many potential members and offer them a tailored selection of content matching their interests, in 2022 WaterBear Network, in collaboration with Elision, chose SAP Marketing Cloud for their email marketing campaigns.
After a few months of usage over 2023, a stronger integration between SAP and the WaterBear platform became a necessity for better targeted and personalized marketing campaigns that could speak directly to each individual, igniting them to make a difference. To achieve this, they set out to craft a more integrated and personal experience connecting with the SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement Platform.
Digital landscape
Multimedia

SAP Emarsys

SAP Marketing Cloud

Amazon
Axonista

Firebase app

Google Ads
Challenge
Closing the gap between content and user engagement
WaterBear Network struggled with a disconnect between its inspirational content and a tailored marketing experience that could elevate the right content to the right user at the right time. With limited segmentation capabilities, email marketing was generic and regularly distributed to the full database, regardless of relevancy or users’ on-platform behavior.
In order to provide users with relevant content and help them take decisive action, WaterBear & Elision felt the need to implement a new marketing platform that facilitates personalized marketing campaigns that are highly targeted to customers.

Christina Hink, Product Manager - WaterBear Network
Solution
Migrating from SAP Marketing Cloud to SAP Emarsys
In response to the challenges at hand, WaterBear, in collaboration with Elision, undertook a significant transformation in 2022. WaterBear first initiated its independent endeavor to revamp its own custom platform.
To amplify their marketing endeavors and elevate subscriber engagement, WaterBear turned to their trusted partner, Elision, and the SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement Platform. This platform played a pivotal role in the successful transition from SAP Marketing Cloud, aligning seamlessly with the innovative features of the revamped WaterBear platform.
SAP Emarsys benefits
- User-friendly: SAP Emarsys proved intuitive and user-friendly, requiring minimal training for WaterBear's teams.
- Advanced personalization: A plethora of personalization options, enriched with data and insights, allowed for highly targeted (email) campaigns.
- Real-time analytics: The platform offers detailed, real-time campaign progress tracking via an intuitive dashboard. That way it is easy to improve our marketing campaigns to get those results we want
- Future capabilities of Emarsys are infinite: we learn from our customers and with Emarsys we can feed those learnings back into the product.

Raymond van de Steeg, Account Manager - Elision
Shared milestones
- Integration with Amazon ESP
- Direct integration with custom Axonisat platform for user creation and permission flows
- Quick implementation starting mid-January
- First email campaign within the first month
- Integration with external relational database to make further personalization possible
- Improvements on email templates
October 2020
Soft launch SAP Marketing Cloud
Configuration & sent of first e-mail campaign
December 2020
Hard launch with all (third-party) integrations
January 2022
New integration
Additional integration with Google BigQuery to segment and act on user interactions.
2022
Investigation of marketing solutions
Ensuring seamless integration, SAP Emarsys offers WaterBear's teams an intuitive platform, requiring minimal training. With advanced personalization options enriched by data and insights, the teams can execute highly targeted email campaigns. Real-time analytics empower them to refine and optimize marketing strategies effortlessly.
January 2023
Start of the implementation of SAP Emarsys
April 2023
Go-live SAP Emarsys
Full go-live with personalized email campaign on the 1st of April
2023
Continuous optimizations
About WaterBear Network
WaterBear is a free streaming platform and publisher that brings inspiration and action together. WaterBear is the home of award-winning and sustainably certified films that you can stream at any time, and on any device for free. WaterBear encourages its community to switch from mindless scrolling and engage with entertaining films that cover a breadth of topics in the environmental and humanitarian space. Working alongside hundreds of planet partners, both brands & NGOs to produce original content that entertains people into action by making it effortlessly easy.
WaterBear's commitment to engagement led them to partner with Elision and implement SAP Emarsys, enabling them to provide a more personalized and impactful experience for their users.
