In this session, we describe the challenges that companies face with high volume messaging-based engagement and the solutions AWS provides. Learn from current customers about how AWS can be used to message millions of users in seconds, while being cost effective and maintaining high deliverability rates. The intended audience is developers who are supporting their company’s growth or marketing activities using AWS services.

1. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Effectively Engage Millions
of Users in Seconds
Melvin Ram
Senior Staff Software Engineer
Zendesk
M O B 3 2 1
Daniel Firsht
Senior Software Engineer
Amazon Pinpoint

2. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Agenda
Two Parts
Part 1 – AWS Capabilities (15-mins)
1. Introduction to AWS messaging and targeting services
2. Understanding what consumers want and expect
3. Channel deep dive
Part 2 – In Practice with Zendesk (20-mins)
1. Zendesk’s journey with AWS and SES
2. How we send emails using Amazon SES
3. How we configure the necessary resources
4. How we collect and process feedback provided by SES
Q&A (25-mins)

3. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
How can I improve
deliverability and
engagement, at
scale, while being
mindful of cost and
operational
overhead?

4. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

5. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
AWS services to meet any user engagement workloads
Chatbots & contact
center
Amazon Lex
Amazon
Connect
Amazon Polly
AWS IoT
Alexa Skills
Voice & IoTEvents &
predictions
AWS Lambda
Amazon Machine
Learning
Amazon
DynamoDB
Amazon S3
Data lakes &
profile storage
Amazon
Redshift
Amazon
Comprehend
Amazon SNS
Amazon SES
Messaging &
sentiments
AWS Mobile Hub
Build & connect
applications
Amazon Cognito
Amazon
API Gateway
Amazon Pinpoint
Segment, & analyze
users
Amazon
Kinesis
Amazon EMR
Lambda
functions

6. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
What are we solving for?
… personalized, relevant, and
timely notifications
… get notifications over the
appropriate channel (email,
push, SMS, others)
… customized notifications,
receive the information they
want
Younger generations:
- Prefer mobile, chat, and voice
- Limited live engagements
Emerging markets:
- Mobile-first, skipping web portals
- Smartphone adoption rising quickly
All consumers:
- Want more personalized products and
services
- Expect purchasing to be easy
- Demand services via the channel of their
choice
Macro Trends

7. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Feed the continuous feedback loop; understand your user behaviors, act on it, iterate, and improve
User engages
with company
(downloads app)
Message user and capture
campaign metrics
Identify signals (i.e. did
they engage?)
Factor in time,
location, context
CUSTOMER
INSIGHTS
PERSONALIZED
ENGAGEMENTS
Segment users
automatically and easily
based on profile
Profile user with
custom attributes
Optimize content
for user (improve)
Re-message
user
What does successful engagement look like?

8. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Push SMS Email Voice*
Advantages • Affordable ($1/M)
• Mobile and Web
Capable
• Near immediate
• Scale
• Nearly 100% open rate
• Near immediate
• Reliable
• Bi-directional*
• No mobile app required
• Cost effective
• Reliable
• Longer form
content
• Ubiquitous
• Universal
• Affordable
• Reliable
Disadvantages • Short form content only
• One-way
• Only reach ~65%
• Short form content only
• Expensive, comparatively
• Customer sensitivity to
overuse
• Inundation
• More expensive
than alternatives
• Not immediate
• Smaller audience
(fail-over)
• Customer
sensitivity
Best for • Alerts
• Engagement
• Up-sell/cross-sell
• Updates
• Time sensitive
• One time passwords
• Critical payloads (payload
reset)
• Appointment reminders
• Longer, quality
content
• Transactional in
nature (archivable)
• Assurance of receipt
• Wider demographic
(non-mobile users)
• Time sensitive
notifications
One tip to
remember
• Distinct call-to-action
for every push
• Sensitivity to end user
experience
• Content worthy of
an email
• Length of message
What channel is best for my workload?
*featureonlyavailableononlyonAmazonPinpoint

9. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Push SMS Email Voice*
Advantages • Affordable ($1/M)
• Mobile and Web
Capable
• Near immediate
• Scale
• Nearly 100% open rate
• Near immediate
• Reliable
• Bi-directional*
• No mobile app required
• Cost effective
• Reliable
• Longer form
content
• Ubiquitous
• Universal
• Affordable
• Reliable
Disadvantages • Short form content only
• One-way
• Only reach ~65%
• Short form content only
• Expensive, comparatively
• Customer sensitivity to
overuse
• Inundation
• More expensive
than alternatives
• Not immediate
• Smaller audience
(fail-over)
• Customer
sensitivity
Best for • Alerts
• Engagement
• Up-sell/cross-sell
• Updates
• Time sensitive
• One time passwords
• Critical payloads (payload
reset)
• Appointment reminders
• Longer, quality
content
• Transactional in
nature (archivable)
• Assurance of receipt
• Wider demographic
(non-mobile users)
• Time sensitive
notifications
One tip to
remember
• Distinct call-to-action
for every push
• Sensitivity to end user
experience
• Content worthy of
an email
• Length of message
What channel is best for my workload?
*featureonlyavailableononlyonAmazonPinpoint

10. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Push SMS Email Voice*
Advantages • Affordable ($1/M)
• Mobile and Web
Capable
• Near immediate
• Scale
• Nearly 100% open rate
• Near immediate
• Reliable
• Bi-directional*
• No mobile app required
• Cost effective
• Reliable
• Longer form
content
• Ubiquitous
• Universal
• Affordable
• Reliable
Disadvantages • Short form content only
• One-way
• Only reach ~65%
• Short form content only
• Expensive, comparatively
• Customer sensitivity to
overuse
• Inundation
• More expensive
than alternatives
• Not immediate
• Smaller audience
(fail-over)
• Customer
sensitivity
Best for • Alerts
• Engagement
• Up-sell/cross-sell
• Updates
• Time sensitive
• One time passwords
• Critical payloads (payload
reset)
• Appointment reminders
• Longer, quality
content
• Transactional in
nature (archivable)
• Assurance of receipt
• Wider demographic
(non-mobile users)
• Time sensitive
notifications
One tip to
remember
• Distinct call-to-action
for every push
• Sensitivity to end user
experience
• Content worthy of
an email
• Length of message
What channel is best for my workload?
*featureonlyavailableononlyonAmazonPinpoint

11. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Push SMS Email Voice*
Advantages • Affordable ($1/M)
• Mobile and Web
Capable
• Near immediate
• Scale
• Nearly 100% open rate
• Near immediate
• Reliable
• Bi-directional*
• No mobile app required
• Cost effective
• Reliable
• Longer form
content
• Ubiquitous
• Universal
• Affordable
• Reliable
Disadvantages • Short form content only
• One-way
• Only reach ~65%
• Short form content only
• Expensive, comparatively
• Customer sensitivity to
overuse
• Inundation
• More expensive
than alternatives
• Not immediate
• Smaller audience
(fail-over)
• Customer
sensitivity
Best for • Alerts
• Engagement
• Up-sell/cross-sell
• Updates
• Time sensitive
• One time passwords
• Critical payloads (payload
reset)
• Appointment reminders
• Longer, quality
content
• Transactional in
nature (archivable)
• Assurance of receipt
• Wider demographic
(non-mobile users)
• Time sensitive
notifications
One tip to
remember
• Distinct call-to-action
for every push
• Sensitivity to end user
experience
• Content worthy of
an email
• Length of message
What channel is best for my workload?
*featureonlyavailableononlyonAmazonPinpoint

12. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Chatbots & contact
center
Amazon Lex
Amazon
Connect
Amazon Polly
AWS IoT
Alexa Skills
Voice & IoTEvents &
predictions
AWS Lambda
Amazon Machine
Learning
Amazon
DynamoDB
Amazon S3
Data lakes &
profile storage
Amazon
Redshift
Amazon
Comprehend
AWS Mobile Hub
Build & connect
applications
Amazon CognitoAmazon
Kinesis
Amazon EMR
Lambda
functions
Amazon
API Gateway
Messaging &
sentiments
Amazon SNS
Amazon SES
Segment, & analyze
users
How to get started?
Amazon Pinpoint

13. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

14. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Melvin Ram
Senior Staff Engineer

15. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
WHAT IS ZENDESK?
A platform for serving customers
throughout their journey.

17. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
We send & receive
hundreds of millions
of emails each month.

18. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Slow downs in receiving or sending emails
are RED ALERT events at Zendesk.

19. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
In 2016…

20. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Email

21. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

22. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
In 2017…

23. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

24. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Amazon SES
Resilient architecture
Customer experience
Manage abuse

25. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Configuration
Feedback processing
Sending emails
Let’s explore how we incorporated
Amazon SES with our systems:

26. Sending emails

27. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

28. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

29. Configuration

30. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

31. Feedback collection

32. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

33. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

34. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
SPF
Customers setup a CNAME or include mail.zendesk.com
in their SPF record and it contains all our dedicated IPs
DKIM
Customers setup CNAME to our DKIM public keys
and we CNAME to Amazon SES

35. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Want to see the architecture of the entire
system and how it all fits together?
www.linkedin.com/in/melvin

36. Thank you!
© 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Melvin Ram
mram@zendesk.com
Daniel Firsht
firsht@amazon.com

37. © 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.