If you’ve been around Backstroke long enough, you know our favorite kind of update is the kind that makes your marketing safer, your messaging smarter and your processes faster. That’s why we just gave Backstroke a brain upgrade and a security system worthy of Fort Knox.

Our latest release offers much to get excited about. We have:

• Tightened platform security from the inside out

• Added fresh tools for audience targeting 

• Introduced new predictive modeling that helps your next campaign see into the future

Let’s dive in.

Secure Email Tools That Marketers Don’t Have to Think About (And Hackers Will Hate)

Adding AI tools to your tech stack should never feel like a security risk. Our latest update adds several layers of protection that you can count on.

Security Update #1: Session Duration Changes

Starting this week, session durations are reduced to 8 hours. That’s short enough to stay secure, yet long enough to stay productive.

Enterprise teams can set even shorter custom durations, to meet their internal regulations and needs. If you’re managing sensitive campaign data, this change is one more way Backstroke ensures you’re using secure marketing automation tools by default.

Security Update #2: Encrypted Klaviyo API Key Management

All Klaviyo integration keys are now encrypted and stored in AWS Secrets Manager and key management happens via the Integrations page, ensuring no one can view sensitive credentials without proper permissions. If you’re running the Backstroke app locally, our team will walk you through manually migrating your keys.

This is part of our ongoing effort to make Backstroke the most secure email marketing platform in the ecommerce and retail space.

Security Update #3: Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

You can now turn on multi-factor authentication for your account. Soon, this will become the default login method across Backstroke, adding an extra layer of safety without any added friction.

Security Update #4: Change Password Anytime

Need to update your password? You can do it directly inside Backstroke, where our new password complexity requirements make sure every password is strong enough to guard your data and integrations.

Email Audience Targeting Just Got a Whole Lot Smarter

With security locked in, we’ve made going after the right audience easier too. Our latest update introduces several enhancements to Backstroke’s audience builder, making campaign setup more accurate and predictive than ever.

Campaign Targeting Optimization #1: Exclusion Lists

When you generate a campaign, you can exclude Klaviyo segments directly within Backstroke. This feature gives you total, in-depth control over audience segmentation, exactly where you build your campaigns.

Campaign Targeting Optimization #2: Propensity Modeling & Predictive Power for Every Campaign

Let’s get nerdy for a sec. Backstroke’s new propensity modeling engine uses predictive algorithms trained on millions of retail marketing interactions to estimate how likely a customer is to take a specific action — like opening an email, clicking through or making a purchase.

It’s predictive email marketing AI, built right into your workflow. With these upgrades, you can:

• Prioritize audiences based on your campaign goals (Who is most likely to click? Who is most likely to convert? Etc.).
  
  

• Adjust timing and content based on engagement probability.
  
  

• Improve email revenue with proven data, not guesswork.

This is the next evolution of data-driven campaign targeting and it’s already live inside your dashboard.

Campaign Targeting Optimization #3: Group Counts for Confidence

We’ve also added group counts, showing approximate audience sizes next to every cluster or segment you create. This means that you’ll always know how many customers your campaign is set to reach without ever leaving Backstroke.

Why Do Email Security Upgrades & Predictive Segmentation Updates Matter?

E-commerce marketers don’t have time to finagle with software settings. All of your time should be spent building campaigns that truly drive business. This recent release makes that easier than ever by reducing risk, pin-pointing targeting precision and helping you get the most out of your AI-powered email platform.

These improvements also position Backstroke to roll out even more advanced features in the coming months, including:

• Our upgraded “L5” agentic email engine
  
  

• Single campaign email variation (generate predictive emails for multiple clusters at one time)
  
  

• Additional audience sync and clustering capabilities

In short, this is just the beginning, but you can start strengthening your email program right now by:

• Turning on MFA under your account settings.
  
  

• Checking your Integrations page and confirm your Klaviyo key migration.
  
  

• Experimenting with exclusion lists and propensity modeling in your next campaign.
  
  

• Watching your Group Counts to validate audience size before launching.

These updates reinforce Backstroke’s position as a leader in secure marketing automation, predictive email marketing and audience segmentation tools. Whether you’re optimizing your Klaviyo integration, testing new propensity modeling algorithms or learning which segments to include and exclude in Klaviyo, Backstroke continues to evolve to make ecommerce marketing more powerful and safer than ever.