Case Study — Compassion Australia

The most intricately segmented journey in the suite: child birthday notifications.

Timely reminders of a sponsored child's birthday — dynamically composed to adapt to relationship, number of children, gift history and country. In 2025 it drove ~$110K in digital-attributed revenue.

ClientCompassion Australia
SectorInternational Development
PlatformSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Solution FocusDynamic Journeys & Segmentation

A birthday reminder that knows whose birthday it is.

A sponsored child's birthday is one of the most emotionally resonant moments in the supporter relationship — and one of the easiest to get wrong at scale. Broad Reform designed and runs the Child Birthday Notifications journey inside Compassion Australia's Salesforce Marketing Cloud ecosystem: an automated reminder that reshapes itself around each supporter's exact situation, so a single send lands as if it were written by hand.

It is the most heavily segmented journey in the suite. Behind one email sits a layer of dynamic content and decision logic that adapts to the relationship, the number of children sponsored, the supporter's gift history and the child's country — composing a version that is genuinely theirs. In 2025 the journey generated ~$110K in digital-attributed revenue from birthday gifting alone.

Impact in numbers

A small moment, meaningful returns

~$110K
Digital-attributed revenue · 2025
4
Live variables shaping every send — relationship, children, gift history, country
1
Automated journey composing thousands of individually-tailored versions
It starts in the subject line

Personalised before it's even opened

The subject line is composed from the supporter's data — the child's name, how many children they sponsor, and whether a gift is already attached. A few real examples (names tokenised):

Single child[Child]'s birthday is coming up soon!
Multiple children[Child], [Child] and [Child]'s birthdays are coming up soon!
Gift attachedYour birthday gift for [Child] is coming up this month.
The segmentation

Four variables, one email that fits

Every birthday send is assembled in real time from four dimensions of the supporter's record — each changing what the email says, shows and asks for.

Relationship

Copy and tone flex to how the supporter relates to the child and how long they've given, so a long-standing sponsor and a newer one each get a message that fits their history.

Number of children

Supporters with one child get a focused, single-name reminder; those sponsoring several get a correctly-composed multi-child subject and body, with the right names woven through.

Gift history

The journey checks whether a birthday gift is already attached and adapts the ask — nudging first-time gifters and acknowledging supporters who have already given.

Country

The child's country shapes imagery and context, and — where a country is sensitive — inserts tailored guidance that keeps the child safe and protects the local work.

Conditional content

Turning 18. When a sponsored child is turning 18, the email inserts a dedicated section explaining what happens at that milestone — preparing the supporter for the next stage of the child's journey.

Only the children who need it. When one email covers several children with upcoming birthdays, the gift invitation names only those still missing a gift — so a supporter with four birthdays but two gifts already attached is asked about just the remaining two, by name.

Dynamic content in action

One journey, tailored to every supporter

Three real variants from the journey (names tokenised) — the same birthday reminder, composed differently depending on the supporter's relationship and gift history.

Email loop
Sponsor only

A focused reminder for financial sponsors

For a supporter who sponsors but isn't the correspondent, the email keeps it simple and warm — a timely heads-up about the birthday with a clear, low-friction way to send a gift.

What changes: the relationship framing and the gift call-to-action
Email loop
Correspondent only

For the supporter who writes

For a supporter who corresponds with the child but isn't the financial sponsor, the email centres on the letter-writing relationship and the connection they share — with a gentle way to help mark the birthday.

What changes: the relationship framing and the way the birthday ask is made
Email loop
Sponsor + correspondent · no gift yet

A gentle nudge to make the day

For a supporter who both sponsors and writes to their child but hasn't yet attached a birthday gift, the email invites them to add one in time — turning an upcoming birthday into a moment they can be part of.

What changes: the birthday-gift invitation and the child's details
Email loop
Sponsor + correspondent · gift attached

When a gift is already on the way

For a supporter who both sponsors and writes to their child, and has already attached a birthday gift, the email leans into the relationship and celebrates the moment — acknowledging the gift rather than asking again.

What changes: gift acknowledgement, correspondent framing, and the child's name and country

Plus an SMS. Supporters who already have a birthday gift on the way also receive a matching SMS reminder — reinforcing the moment on a second channel. It's the only segment that gets the text.

Birthday gift SMS reminder for gift-attached supporters
SMS · gift-attached supporters only
Orchestrated behind the scenes

The engine behind the personalisation

Before a single reminder sends, a Marketing Cloud automation aggregates and shapes the CRM data — the supporter, their children, upcoming birthdays, gift history and countries — into a clean, journey-ready audience. That audience feeds an automated journey that fires on the right cadence ahead of each birthday, with dynamic content and decision splits assembling the individual version at send time. It's the same closed-loop discipline that powers the wider suite — applied to the most variable moment of all.

Child Birthday Notifications journey canvas in Salesforce Marketing Cloud
The Birthday Notifications journey — entry, decision splits and timing
Marketing Cloud automation aggregating the birthday audience
The automation that shapes CRM data into a clean, journey-ready birthday audience

One send, thousands of personal moments

Want journeys that feel personal?

By combining clean CRM data with dynamic content and automated journeys, Broad Reform helps Compassion Australia turn a single birthday reminder into thousands of individually-tailored moments — deepening the supporter relationship and, in 2025, driving ~$110K in digital-attributed birthday revenue.

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Part of the suite

One of a connected set of journeys

The Birthday Notifications journey is one of a connected suite of Salesforce Marketing Cloud journeys we design and run across the Compassion supporter lifecycle — see the wider personalisation-at-scale case study, including the Child Sponsorship Welcome and multi-channel Arrears Recovery journeys.