How SAP Scaled Personalization and Transformed Email Marketing Operations

Overview

SAP, a global leader in enterprise software, set out to overhaul its email marketing engine. Facing bottlenecks in production, disconnected personalization workflows, and legacy tooling, the team needed to pivot from manual processes to scalable, intelligent operations. Partnering with Knak, SAP rebuilt its email foundation to enable dynamic personalization at scale, reduce time-to-market, and future-proof its marketing organization.

With Knak’s no-code email creation platform and deep integration into SAP’s Marketo ecosystem, SAP cut production SLAs by up to 60%, consolidated 220+ programs down to 38, and enabled true audience-first execution.

Challenge

SAP’s legacy email operations weren’t built for today’s scale or personalization demands:

• Non-standard Marketo setup: 220 programs—including a mix of engagement and default—limited scalability and led to operational complexity .
• Multiple disconnected builders: Fragmented creation tools meant personalization in Marketo had to be added manually, introducing risk and slowing execution.
• Cumbersome collaboration: Reviews happened over email and project management platforms—leading to slow approvals, version control issues, and wasted effort.
• Personalization bottlenecks: Data and segmentation were siloed, making it difficult to deliver dynamic, relevant experiences across languages, regions, and industries.

SAP needed a unified solution that could meet enterprise complexity—without sacrificing speed, brand control, or scale.

Solution

SAP partnered with Knak, a centralized platform for campaign creation—optimized for personalization, scale, and collaboration.

• Advanced dynamic content: Knak enabled multi-variant and multi-element personalization directly integrated with Marketo segments—bringing region, industry, and preference-based experiences to life.
• No-code, governed creation: SAP deployed two Knak brands with 12 templates and 37 reusable modules, enabling walk-up usage with built-in brand controls and DAM integration .
• Integrated collaboration: With Knak’s in-tool collaboration, review cycles moved over 60% faster by eliminating disconnected workflows and enabling annotated, role-based approvals.
• Process transformation: The team consolidated from 220 to 38 Marketo programs, standardizing builds and unlocking scalable nurture frameworks.

This wasn’t just a tool swap. It was a strategic redesign of how SAP builds, personalizes, and scales email marketing.

Key Innovations

1. Personalization at Scale

SAP moved from generic email experiences to highly personalized, dynamic content that adapts by audience, industry, and region—all created with no manual velocity scripting, managed directly within Knak and synced to Marketo segments.

2. Standardization + Automation

Migrating to a modular, templatized structure allowed SAP to automate previously manual tasks, improve consistency, and support rapid changes across programs.

3. Collaboration-First Creation

Stakeholders can now comment, review, and approve content directly in Knak—with no HTML skills or risk of edits. This turned week-long approval cycles into minutes.

4. Streamlined Tech Stack Integration

Knak integrated with five platforms, including SAP’s internal tools, AEM, Wrike, and Marketo—enabling true end-to-end workflows without copy/pastes or rework.

Results

Conclusion

SAP’s email transformation shows what’s possible when marketing teams shift from complexity to clarity—from tactical execution to strategic orchestration. With Knak, SAP unlocked dynamic personalization at scale, drastically improved operational efficiency, and empowered marketers to focus on what truly matters: delivering relevant, resonant experiences to customers across the globe.