As you probably already know, email marketing is key when it comes to eCommerce. We’ve talked about it, a lot. It’s a tool that 77,6% of US companies use to keep in touch with their clients, which makes it the most popular technology for customer engagement (source: dotdigital).
So, if you haven’t already, the time has come for you to pick an email marketing platform. Good news, you’ve got options! And we’re here to help you choose. Let’s about the two main competitors: Klaviyo vs Mailchimp.
Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Let’s dive in
MAILCHIMP
Mailchimp was founded in 2001 and therefore has a bit of advantage regarding brand awareness and client base: it holds 60% of the email marketing market share. When it comes to popularity (for now at least) Mailchimp gets the prize. Apart from that, here are some great features that Mailchimp offers:
Tags and segmentation
MailChimp gathers all of your client’s data and it lets you create tags for your contacts and lists so you can organize your contacts and data as you wish. Mailchimp also segments your contacts based on data like location, signup source, purchase history, and more. This will allow you to reach similar contacts according to certain criteria and personalize more your emails to get more results.
Automation
MailChimp’s wide variety of automations will help you grow your client’s engagement through different email types based on data: welcome emails, date-based automation (to reach out to clients on special dates like holidays), behavior-based automations, abandoned cart emails, product recommendations, etc.
Reporting
MailChimp recollects information about all marketing campaigns in one place. It can calculate how much revenue a campaign has driven, which comes in handy when calculating the efficiency of your marketing efforts. You can also access analytics and engagement reports that will help you get to know your audience a little better. This includes metrics like open rate, unsubscribe rates, clicks and you can even compare these numbers to your competitors.
Now, let’s talk about MailChimp’s pros, considering Klaviyo also has a lot of similar features. When it comes to popularity, as we already mentioned, MailChimp has some advantage: it has over 250 integrations, which means it can be more easily integrated with 250+ eCommerce platforms, while Klaviyo only has 100+. However, MailChimp does not integrate with Shopify, one of the most popular eCommerce platforms out there. If you’re using Shopify, you might want to consider another email marketing tool! The other big difference is the price: MailChimp is cheaper, so more companies can access it, which is great. But let’s talk about why Klaviyo might be worth the extra cost.
KLAVIYO
Klaviyo was founded in 2012 and has grown amazingly in the last few years, becoming the favorite of many email marketers. What are its perks? Let’s see.
Tough MailChimp and Klaviyo have a lot in common, and the same basic features we already mentioned before when talking about MailChimp, we can say Klaviyo goes a little further.
Reporting and integrations
Although we mentioned Klaviyo has fewer integrations available, you can still create direct integrations with other platforms AND it does count with a Shopify integration. Klaviyo will allow you to gather information from any eCommerce platform, helping you to understand your contacts’ behavior and actions. Klaviyo also provides predictive analytics to create more personalized experiences for your clients!
Data Science and Segmentation
Klaviyo’s data science is top-notch and will allow you to calculate customer lifetime value, see average time between orders, predict contact information, even predict a customer’s next purchase date, and more.
This kind of data will be very useful for your marketing team to build a more precise strategy and generate better engagement, but it will also help you segment your contact list based on various criteria, like gender, age, location, behavior, previous purchases, and more. Plus, these segmentation lists will update automatically. Amazing, right?
Automations
Klaviyo’s automations will allow you to plan your customer experience goals, and reach them. Through Klaviyo’s A/B testing capabilities you will be able to test different content, lines, titles, and times to study what your customers are prone to consume and increase engagement effectively.
Now, considering most of these features are pretty much present on both platforms, let’s talk about what makes Klaviyo stand out:
No Hidden Costs: Once you invest in Klaviyo, everything is included. Some things that Klaviyo includes, but MailChimp doesn’t: back in stock automation, multi-variate testing, unique coupon codes, advanced pop-ups, etc.
Shopify integration: Klaviyo’s one-click integration with Shopify allows you to share information from one platform to the other and create super-targeted, relevant email and social media marketing. In fact, it has been shown that Shopify stores make $85 for every dollar they spend on Klaviyo!
Reach Customers On Any Channel: Klaviyo goes beyond email. It helps eCommerce stores reach and engage with customers on a variety of channels: email, web, in-app, social media, and even SMS.
Excellent client support: One of our personal favorites when it comes to Klaviyo, is its great customer support. If you’re on a paid plan, you have complete access to its experienced team who will guide you through any issues or doubts.
If you want more information on Klaviyo, watch our video on 7 reasons why Klaviyo might be the right platform for your business! (LINK)
Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: what’s the truth, then?
So, have you made up your mind yet? We don’t wanna be obvious, but we have tried Klaviyo on many of our clients, and we can simply say, it works. And in our opinion, it’s worth its price!
If you’re using NetSuite, we got good news! Our experts have designed a smooth Klaviyo-NetSuite integration that will make the most of both platforms combined, and we have other NetSuite integration for Shopify, SuiteCommerce, and BigCommerce merchants too!
We can assure email marketing will bring results. Schedule a call with our NetSuite email marketing experts today and we can help you build a killer strategy for your business!
