In summary: BIXI, a non-profit bike-sharing organization operating in 20 cities, uses Cyberimpact to manage its seasonal sales, automate communications based on actual user behavior, serve a bilingual audience, and remain compliant with Law 25—all without repetitive manual work.
About BIXI
BIXI is a non-profit organization responsible for managing a bike-sharing service that extends across the Island of Montreal, the North Shore, the South Shore, and Sherbrooke. As of 2026, the BIXI network comprises more than 13,000 bicycles, including 3,500 electric bicycles, distributed among more than 1,100 stations located in 20 cities. Montreal has the largest fleet of electric bicycles in Canada and one of the largest in North America.
Since its inception, BIXI has experienced rapid growth. The organization has used Cyberimpact for its email marketing for nine years, enabling it to serve its users in both languages and satisfy the compliance requirements applicable to a public service organization.
The challenge: an organization governed by seasonal cycles, with a bilingual audience distributed across multiple cities
Like many organizations offering seasonal memberships, BIXI experiences a significant concentration of sales at the beginning of each season. Communications are sent to three distinct groups: seasonal members whose memberships will soon be billed, monthly members who continued riding throughout the winter, and individuals without an active membership. Each group requires a different message, delivered at the appropriate time.
They send separate emails at the beginning of each season in both official languages. With a bilingual team and platform like Cyberimpact, they can manage both markets from a single location rather than maintaining two separate processes.
As a Quebec-based non-profit organization and public service, compliance is not optional for BIXI. The organization must comply with both Law 25, Quebec’s personal information protection legislation, and CASL (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation).
BIXI is a non-profit organization operating as a public service. For Ariane, compliance with the law is consequently non-negotiable:
“BIXI is a non-profit organization and a public service. It is imperative that we comply with all applicable laws.” — Ariane Brosseau, Content and Communications Advisor at BIXI.
The Starting Point: From Mass Mailing to a Strategic Tool
Ariane did not begin with automation or dynamic content. Her initial newsletters were sent to the entire contact list without personalization. Prior to implementing automation, the team manually resent emails to filtered groups, excluding individuals who had already opened a mailing, and then created a new group for the subsequent step.
Once BIXI's API was connected to Cyberimpact, custom variables made it possible to begin targeting subscribers separately from occasional users. From that point onward, the platform became a genuine segmentation tool rather than serving only as a means of mass distribution. Email thus evolved from a simple communication channel into an essential component of BIXI's strategy.
How BIXI Uses Cyberimpact Today
BIXI employs a sales sequence aligned with the cadence of the season, rather than relying on a single recurring communication. At the beginning of each season, BIXI sends three segmented emails, one for each audience: customers renewing their subscription, customers transitioning from a monthly to a seasonal subscription, and customers without an active subscription. It then uses various automated processes to convert those who have not yet responded.
Automations based on actual user behavior
BIXI uses custom variables—including the most recently used bicycle, the most recent arrival station, subscription status, and the date of the most recent trip—to trigger automated emails.
Several examples include:
- When a user returns a bicycle near the Olympic Stadium, a partnership with the Olympic Park automatically triggers an email suggesting nearby activities.
- When a subscriber cancels their subscription, an automated survey follows up regarding their experience with BIXI, thereby enabling the organization to identify potential service improvements.
- As part of the Art in Motion project, BIXI commissioned local artists to paint 16 bicycles this year. Each bicycle has a traceable ID; therefore, when someone borrows one, Cyberimpact automatically sends them an interview with the artist and an invitation to enter a contest associated with this initiative.
“I prefer to think in terms of criteria. For example, do people meet this particular criteria or not? Thereafter, actions are carried out without requiring further consideration on my part. This saves us time and also ensures that everything is initiated at precisely the intended moment, within the prescribed time frame.” — Ariane Brosseau, Content and Communications Advisor at BIXI
Newsletters and urgent communications.
BIXI sends approximately two newsletters per month to its opt-in contacts, providing updates on memberships, cities, and partners. When necessary, the same channel serves as BIXI’s emergency communication line. During an STM strike, for example, BIXI expands its network and redeploys its teams across stations to empty and refill them more rapidly. Email enables the team to ensure that every user receives the information directly.
The language managed directly at the account level
When an individual creates a BIXI account, they select their preferred language of communication. This preference is synchronized via the API, and each message is automatically delivered in either French or English, without requiring manual list management.
Maintain compliance without additional manual effort
Ariane identifies two specific ways in which Cyberimpact simplifies day-to-day compliance management:
- Once an individual unsubscribes, there is no means of manually adding them again, thereby eliminating the risk of inadvertently contacting someone who has withdrawn their consent.
- Custom variables enable it to identify users who have not made any trips for more than two years and proactively remove them, rather than waiting for a compliance issue to arise.
“There is no risk that individuals who have indicated that they no longer wish to receive emails will receive further emails through Cyberimpact.” — Ariane Brosseau, Content and Communications Advisor at BIXI
She also emphasizes that Cyberimpact's help articles enable her to use the platform independently.
Dynamic Blocks: The Most Significant Improvement, According to Ariane
When asked which improvement has had the greatest impact on her work, Ariane identifies dynamic blocks without hesitation. More recently, dynamic blocks have altered the manner in which she constructs her newsletters on a daily basis: rather than maintaining several nearly identical versions of a newsletter merely to change two lines of text, a single mailing now adapts to each segment.
“Previously, I had to create highly specific groups and complete newsletters merely to change two lines. We now make extensive use of dynamic blocks, which is decidedly agreeable.” — Ariane Brosseau, Content and Communications Advisor at BIXI
Statistics that inform content strategy
The BIXI team compares year-over-year sales performance by segment and monitors the open rates of editorial newsletters relative to targeted and transactional communications. The clearest finding is that contextual emails triggered by a trip, such as the Olympic Park example, achieve a substantially higher open rate than general newsletters. This finding prompted BIXI to direct its content strategy more decisively toward personalized, contextual messages rather than uniform newsletters distributed to all recipients.
For day-to-day monitoring, BIXI exports data from Cyberimpact and analyzes it in Excel, while a colleague manages GA4 and sales attribution separately. The welcome sequence, a series of emails sent after a customer’s first ride, is revised twice annually: in April and in December for BIXI’s winter service. The team evaluates its performance at the conclusion of each cycle rather than making adjustments while it is in progress.
BIXI also continues to refine its segmentation in collaboration with its internal teams, in order to tailor its communications to increasingly specific user groups.
An attentive and readily accessible team
Ariane values being able to rely on a readily accessible team that speaks both French and English. She also notes that having a local partner is of considerable importance to BIXI, as is straightforward pricing; these are among the reasons the organization selected Cyberimpact and has continued to use it over time.
“I have always had the impression that my feedback was taken into consideration and that, in response, you work to improve Cyberimpact.” — Ariane Brosseau, Content and Communications Advisor at BIXI
How would BIXI describe Cyberimpact?
“It is a platform that evolves over time, and the customer service is excellent. Cyberimpact is highly receptive to suggestions and genuinely committed to improving the platform.” — Ariane Brosseau, Content and Communications Advisor at BIXI