Chapter 1
Introduction
Let’s Set Some Ground Rules
The insights and analysis presented here are solely the perspectives of Groove Commerce, independent of the views or statements of either Klaviyo or Attentive. We aim to keep this guide as current as possible, adjusting and enhancing our content with the latest information as it becomes available. If you come across new data or alterations in either platform, please inform us so we can ensure this resource remains relevant and accurate.
In this guide, each chapter is dedicated to a specific facet of each platform’s email and SMS marketing capabilities. After each chapter, we will assign a score to Klaviyo and Attentive, outlining the reasons for their wins or losses in that chapter. The culmination of this assessment will see each platform receiving a final score, reflecting their overall standing in this comparative study.
However, it's imperative to remember that these scores are subjective. They serve as a guide and reference point. Your unique business needs and use cases are the ultimate yardstick. We encourage you to use your judgment to determine which platform aligns best with your goals and requirements.
Chapter 2
Platform Overviews
Comparing Klaviyo vs Attentive
Meet Klaviyo
Klaviyo is an all-in-one email and SMS marketing platform with a laser focus on eCommerce. This platform prides itself on its ability to create detailed segments based on customer behaviors. These segments can then be combined with Klaviyo’s tools for publishing scheduled campaigns as well as automated “flows”. This combined feature set allows merchants to solve the age-old problem of sending the right messages (personalized), to the right people (segmented), in the right channel (email/SMS/push), at the right time (automation).
Established in Boston, Massachusetts, Klaviyo has worked diligently to create a name for itself in email and SMS marketing since its inception in 2012. Boasting a decade-long legacy, this platform has stood the test of time and continues to innovate.
Klaviyo made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2023, letting the world know they are here to stay. The company's success is reflected in its impressive customer base, with over 130,000 total eCommerce sites relying on its services. Furthermore, its speedy success in SMS marketing is evident with a client base of 13,000 and counting after launching in November of 2022.
300+ platform integrations ensure that eCommerce businesses can seamlessly incorporate Klaviyo into their existing technology stack. With a dedicated workforce of over 1,500 employees, their team is committed to delivering a unified eCommerce email and SMS marketing solution.
Klaviyo's global footprint covers over 100 countries while their SMS offering operates in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
Say Hello To Attentive
Attentive launched in 2016 as an answer to marketing specialists’ wish to automate SMS marketing in the same way that Klaviyo did for email for the previous 4 years. As one of the first platforms with such an offering, they found success fast. Marketers loved the ability to conversationally text with their customers after grabbing their attention (no pun intended), as well as attach images, sounds, and other multimedia through MMS. Many other marketing platforms, Including Klaviyo, have since launched their own SMS offerings - mirroring Attentive’s feature set.
Nestled in the vibrant city of Hoboken, New Jersey, Attentive emerged as a fresh face on the marketing scene. With over seven years under its belt at the time of writing, the platform has consistently showcased its drive to contend with the marketing giants — first staking their flag in SMS marketing.
Attentive remains privately funded, backed by the capital of 22 private investors. This funding model does offer benefits, such as the ability to raise quick capital to implement new features when the marketplace demands them.
With approximately 8,000 customers placing their trust in the platform, Attentive has proved its expertise in SMS marketing. While its core strength lies in SMS marketing, Attentive has begun offering an email component in an attempt to match other comprehensive multichannel marketing platforms.
Attentive's integration capabilities, totaling over 100, are fewer than Klaviyo’s. However, their integrations have been carefully selected to cover major eCommerce, CMS, and marketing tools. A dedicated team of approximately 1,300 employees works behind the scenes to make sure backend services are always working as they should.
Attentive has established its presence in key markets including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Chapter 3
Ease of Use
Choosing an easy-to-use option
Taking A Look At Klaviyo’s Interface:
Ease of Navigation
Klaviyo's user interface seems to have been built around the principle of making tasks straightforward for the end-user.
Designed with the intent of streamlining processes, Klaviyo ensures that users can harness the full potential of its platform without getting bogged down. The left-hand side navigation menu is thoughtfully designed to feature essential items such as home, campaigns, flows, signup forms, audience, content, analytics, and conversions. Meanwhile, the top menu bar remains dedicated to functionalities like search, account plans, and support. The platform facilitates a complete multi-channel experience, encompassing email, SMS, popups, and more. Its intuitive design is both simple and effective.
Though optimized for a desktop view, it retains functionality on tablets, with the caveat that there's no mobile app offering.
Learnability
Klaviyo embraces the idea of self-service, ensuring that even small businesses and newcomers can navigate the platform without headaches (or worse — additional implementation costs).
The platform stands out with its comprehensive onboarding experience, complete with guided tours, webinars, tutorials, and a constantly updated knowledge base. While the learning curve associated with any marketing platform is present; Klaviyo, from our vantage point, tends to be on the gentler side.
Efficiency of Use
What do we mean by efficiency? In the context of marketing platforms, we are talking about how much is accomplished per click.
From our experience with Klaviyo, efficiency is built into the platform’s DNA. Its user-centric interface translates to a hassle-free experience, which means that retailers who make the switch often feel the value of the platform quickly.
The platform's customer-first approach simplifies the setup process. Pre-configured flows (automation), forms, reports, as well as email and SMS templates eliminate the need to start from scratch. However, we recommend you do so for more complex use cases. Klaviyo also shines in collaborative settings, offering multi-user functionalities with many permission levels.
Just make sure you don’t give the new intern top-level access; that's on you.
Customizability
While users can customize assets within the platform, the interface itself remains fairly static. However, this isn't without reason. Klaviyo's occasional redesigns, informed by user interaction data, ensure that essential elements are positioned optimally.
The default layout provides an experience where everything is exactly where you would expect - without overwhelming users. There are opportunities for customization in Klaviyo’s reporting dashboards, but we will cover that later on.
Visual Appeal
Klaviyo's September 2022 makeover transformed its visual landscape. The platform transitioned from a vibrant, somewhat chaotic aesthetic to a more muted, streamlined look. From our (seemingly always busy) point of view, the platform now exudes a calming aura - which we can appreciate. While visual preferences vary, we find Klaviyo's current design rather appealing.
Performance
Our team noticed that Klaviyo's recent interface revamp has enhanced its responsiveness, although only slightly. Reducing the number of components to load means the platform operates swiftly, never giving users enough time to get off-track (we're looking at you, TikTok).
Not only is the platform itself extremely snappy, but many of Klaviyo’s integrations are real-time as well. This means that within seconds of a transaction on your eCommerce store, that information is ready for use inside of your Klaviyo account.
However, integrating Klaviyo with your online store involves adding code snippets to your website, potentially impacting page load speeds and, by extension, conversion rates. This challenge isn't unique to Klaviyo; it's a common thread among eCommerce apps and integrations.
Yet, from our experience, Klaviyo’s code snippet never impacts the end-user experience on the storefront.
Attention To Attentive’s UI, Please
Ease of Navigation
Attentive's interface was created with convenience at its core. Team members, no matter their technical background, will find it remarkably intuitive. There is a significant “but” here, which you’ll find out just a little further down this page if you aren’t aware already.
The platform is optimized for desktop viewing, which when used, ensures the best visual experience. When used on tablets, its functionality remains intact, albeit with adjustments in layout depending on screen orientation. The left-hand navigation menu, although reminiscent of Klaviyo, feels slightly denser, leading to a perception of a more cluttered space. This could be attributed to the choice of design elements or the arrangement of menu items, either way - it’s all personal preference.
A notable absence is a dedicated mobile application, which could have further set Attentive apart from its competitors, namely Klaviyo.
Learnability
That “but” we mentioned above? It's that Attentive is a fully managed service platform.
This distinction means that users will require assistance even for basic setup tasks, contrasting with self-serve platforms where initial setup is entirely user-driven. The rub here is that the managed services assistance is required to be included as part of the price in every merchant’s contract — there's no way out of it.
Where applicable, Attentive offers on-screen guidance, including tooltips and step-by-step tours, aiming to help users do what they can on their own. For those who have prior experience with marketing tools, the transition to Attentive should be relatively smooth.
Efficiency of Use
One of Attentive's strengths lies in its structured layout. Menus and navigational elements follow a logical progression, ensuring that users can easily locate desired features and settings. This coherent design, which mirrors Klaviyo's in many ways, points towards an industry trend prioritizing intuitive navigation.
Attentive's platform also promotes collaborative efforts. Its multi-user capabilities are tailored to accommodate complete marketing teams. But beware — with all this power comes great responsibility since Attentive does not allow you to set permission levels.
Check out this tidbit straight from the Attentive Knowledge Base:
“All users who sign in to your team account can add or remove existing users, reset passwords, and edit accounts.”
This could be a recipe for disaster - or you trust your team members enough not to mess up. Either way, permission levels would be a nice feature to have.
Customizability
While Attentive offers a plethora of features, its user interface customization options are limited.
Similarly to Klaviyo, the platform adopts a non-modular design approach, meaning users have almost zero flexibility in personalizing the interface. However, this decision ensures consistency in the user experience across the board.
It removes potential complexities that could arise from excessive customization, thereby promoting a uniform and streamlined user journey; something we (and their customer support team) surely appreciate.
Visual Appeal
First impressions matter, and while Attentive's interface might initially come across as slightly dense, users quickly acclimate to its design language. A "lighter" aesthetic, especially when compared to Klaviyo, gives Attentive a unique visual identity. Its choice of a yellow-focused color palette exudes a sense of fun and professionalism.
Visual appeal, being inherently subjective, varies from user to user. However, it's essential to emphasize that while aesthetics play a role in user satisfaction, functionality should remain the primary focus when evaluating platforms.
Performance
Attentive doesn't compromise on performance.
Even with its broad feature set, the platform is engineered for responsiveness, which makes for swift transitions and minimal loading times. Our team has never heard of any reported performance issues, indicating a well-optimized backend infrastructure. As with most platforms, occasional maintenance may lead to short downtimes, but these are infrequent enough not to matter.
In comparison to Klaviyo, Attentive’s integration speeds are significantly slower. While Attentive doesn’t provide exact integration data transfer timelines, our experience shows that while data isn’t transferred in real-time, it has always fully synchronized within 30 minutes. Not a dealbreaker for us, but it is good to know for those in a fast-paced marketing environment.
Integrating with eCommerce sites, achieved through code snippets, might introduce slight delays in page loads. However, this is a standard occurrence across marketing platforms and is usually imperceptible to end-users.
Ease Of Use Conclusions
Chapter 4
Contact Management & Segmentation
Organizing and Optimizing Your Lists
Klaviyo’s Approach To Contacts
Audience & Contact Management
At its heart, Klaviyo offers fully-fledged CRM (contact record management)-like functionality. The platform boasts a built-in database that promises unlimited speed, scale, and flexibility. Klaviyo places no restrictions on data ingestion or storage, ensuring businesses can handle vast amounts of data seamlessly — although there are costs associated as you store more contacts.
While Klaviyo can stand on its own, businesses should integrate their existing CRM systems like HubSpot or Salesforce to maintain data integrity and avoid data discrepancies. For small businesses without a CRM in place, the batch import/export feature works exactly as expected. But remember, you are legally required to have the consent of each of your contacts to send them marketing communications.
Klaviyo recently launched an add-on product, their Customer Data Platform (CDP), specially tailored for burgeoning midmarket and enterprise brands. Its advanced segmentation abilities are fresh in the industry, but ensure businesses can target their audience with pinpoint accuracy. We’ve covered this offering in about as much depth as possible, along with a video. Check it all out from this link if you’d like to learn more.
Segmentation Capabilities
Klaviyo's ability to segment customers based on a multitude of criteria is why so many love the platform - detailed targeting. Klaviyo empowers marketers to create custom audience lists, tailoring their outreach to specific subsets of their customer base. This granularity extends to demographic segmentation, allowing for targeted campaigns based on age, location, gender, and other demographic factors.
The platform allows marketers to segment based on eCommerce data such as Lifetime Value (LTV) or their most recent purchase, as well as predictive data like when their next purchase will be. Moreover, the platform offers customizable profile attributes, ensuring that businesses can tailor their segmentation efforts to their unique needs.
By combining unlimited data sources to form a single segment, this feature set ensures that businesses can target their most valuable customers effectively - hitting the right person, at the right time, with the right message.
That said, sophisticated capabilities are of little use if they're not accessible. Klaviyo shines in its user-friendly interface, making advanced segmentation accessible to even those without a technical background.
The platform employs simple “Or/And” filters based on contact properties, ensuring that creating any desired list is a breeze. Now with Klaviyo’s “Define with AI” you can create segments using natural language. Essentially, if you can dream it, and the correct data is populated within Klaviyo, you can achieve it.
Attentive’s Approach To Contacts
Audience and Contact Management
Attentive's capability to tailor content delivery according to user behaviors and unique preferences is one of its strong suits. This personalization is further enriched by the Audience Filtering feature, which categorizes contacts based on any three criteria at a time, be it behaviors, personal preferences, or even demographic data.
The platform's CRM Integration is designed to work seamlessly, ensuring existing customer data from other platforms is synchronized without a hitch. However, there's room for improvement. Some users have found that certain types of customer data, particularly cookies, don't transfer seamlessly, which can lead to fragmented customer insights. Furthermore, a lack of true real-time data transfer can occasionally lead to inconsistencies in data that is used in marketing campaigns.
A manual import/export tool is there for those who need it and it works exactly as expected — perfectly.
Segmentation Capabilities
Attentive’s segmentation engine is designed around the central tenet of understanding customer interactions. The platform allows marketers to categorize customers based on a range of interactions, from browsing history to purchase behaviors. This behavior-based segmentation is further enriched by the ability to segment based on engagement with previous campaigns.
Demographic data, such as age, location, and gender can be leveraged, providing avenues for even more targeted outreach.
Where Attentive aims to shine is in its user experience. The platform can recommend auto-generated personalized content for different segments, ensuring messages always hit the mark. Moreover, the segmentation lists can seamlessly integrate with other supported marketing channels, crafting a unified, multi-channel marketing strategy.
However, it's noteworthy that the platform doesn’t offer additional features when compared to Klaviyo, such as non-real-time data, a basic subscriber profile, and the restriction of having only three segmentation “conditions” simultaneously.
Customer Segmentation Conclusions
Chapter 5
Email & SMS Marketing Capabilities
Comparing Platform Core Functionality
Klaviyo’s Email & SMS Marketing Capabilities
Composition Features
Simply put — Klaviyo’s composition tools are world-class. If you can imagine it, it can be done.
Drag and drop templates, along with Klaviyo’s rich text editor enable users to design visually appealing content without requiring any technical expertise. However, if you have the technical expertise, you can use it by diving into the HTML of your email campaigns.
One newer standout feature is Klaviyo's AI Content Generation, which encompasses tools like the SMS assistant, Subject line assistant, and personalized product feeds. These AI-driven features enhance content personalization and relevance, leading to better engagement rates. Don’t let these features make you lazy, you can’t rely on them all the time.
Additionally, Klaviyo provides a comprehensive suite of pre-built assets ensuring businesses have all the resources and inspiration they need at their fingertips. If you’ve built several emails using a template and decide it’s time to update, Klaviyo’s global template updating feature allows you to deploy mass template updates across multiple emails and flows in an instant.
Sending & Receiving
Klaviyo's Sending and Receiving features are hard to beat, and now even offer businesses push notification capabilities. With Klaviyo, businesses can schedule their communications, ensuring they reach their audience at the right time.
Klaviyo has invested more resources into achieving high deliverability rates than any other platform we are aware of. This not only benefits their business from a feature-set perspective, but means that your communications will be hitting the inboxes of your customers while maintaining a healthy sending reputation.
Additionally, Klaviyo has introduced “Smart Sending” which ensures that your customers do not receive too many communications in a pre-defined window of time. The data you collect from this tool can then be used to optimize your campaigns and flows for high-performing days and times.
A notable feature is Klaviyo's support for SMS Conversations, allowing businesses to engage with their audience in real-time, directly from the platform. It is worth noting that the use of chatbots as a specialist routing tool, similar to call center automated lines, is not supported. That’s something we would like to see in the future.
SMS and MMS Capabilities
Klaviyo goes beyond just text messages, It also offers MMS sending capabilities (images, audio, files). These messages can be crafted using prebuilt flows and templates, ensuring a smooth and efficient process.
Whether it's through a toll-free number, short code, vanity code, or a branded sender ID, businesses can choose the method that aligns best with their brand image and audience preferences. However, it's worth noting that using certain options, like shortcodes, may come with additional charges.
Moreover, the platform is fully compliant with SMS regulations, ensuring that all communications are above board.
Optimized Contact Capture Tools
Engagement begins with capturing attention, and Klaviyo offers tools like pre-built form templates to do just that.
The platform also supports multi-step forms (email + SMS collection) and facilitates A/B testing of these forms to determine the most effective version. The drag-and-drop responsive editor further simplifies the process, making it easy even for those without technical expertise.
Introducing the Flow Builder
Central to Klaviyo's automation prowess is the Flow Builder. This tool empowers marketers to swiftly craft intricate, multi-step automations that incorporate branching logic. Its intuitive interface allows for rapid testing and iteration, ensuring that marketing campaigns evolve and optimize over time.
Unarguably, Klaviyo's automation-building capabilities rank among the best in the industry. The platform offers a plethora of properties, branches, and actions, so extensive that it's beyond the scope of this writing to list them all. However, this expansive suite ensures that marketers have all the tools they need to craft bespoke, impactful automations that resonate with their target audience.
Calendar View
In Q4 of 2023, Klaviyo launched what they refer to as “Calendar View”. This feature allows marketing specialists to build their (or their clients’) content calendars within the platform. Seeing how initiatives overlap and interact with each other allows multiple stakeholders to review and approve marketing communications without the need for additional planning documents or spreadsheets.
Push Notifications
Another innovative feature by the Klaviyo development team is the ability to use Klaviyo’s API to power your own mobile app’s push notifications, granted that your users have them enabled. This means that you can build push notifications into existing Flows to reach users by a third, highly effective means.
But don’t get greedy, many users are quick to disable app notifications when they become a nuisance. Use push notifications sparingly and only for important communications - such as asking for a review 14 days after their purchase. This takes us to our next standout feature.
Reviews
For Shopify and Shopify Plus users, merchants can make use of Klaviyo’s reviews functionality. This feature acts much like any other review platform, except for the simple fact that review requests can be implemented into existing Flows with a user-specific link that makes the review process as smooth as possible. Review questions can be customized on a site-wide or product-specific basis, so there’s a lot to take advantage of here.
Dynamic Coupon Codes
Klaviyo also offers Dynamic Coupon Codes, allowing businesses to generate user-specific codes based on predefined variables. For example, you want to build a flow to provide a $30 store credit to customers who have purchased $200 worth of products in the last 90 days. You could create a coupon code for $30 off and set up a Flow that is triggered when a customer purchases $200 of merchandise over 3 months.
That would work, except that you would have no way to stop your customers from sharing the code online - essentially ruining your relevant analytics data.
With Dynamic Coupon Codes, each coupon code is only redeemable once and is only redeemable by the person it was sent to. This is a pretty slick feature if you ask us.
Email Clipping Tool
Different email inbox services have different rulesets around how large an email can be, either in megabytes or in length. With Klaviyo’s email clipping tool, merchants can see how their emails will appear on different email clients without needing to manually send test emails and view them on each platform.
A small feature, but a big time saver.
Saved Sections
Have you ever created a new email and wish you could copy over just a few modules from a previous email? Saved Sections is Klaviyo’s answer to exactly that. Just open up the email you want to copy the blocks from, add them to saved sections, and hop back to your new email to insert them. It’s that easy.
Attentive's Email & SMS Marketing Capabilities
Composition Features
Attentive prides itself on being a trailblazer in the SMS & MMS marketing domain.
Their early adoption gave them a head start, allowing them to fine-tune and optimize their offerings based on real-world feedback. Once users complete the initial setup, they are empowered to craft SMS messages on their own. Attentive's A/B testing and personalization features allow businesses to fine-tune their messaging strategy, ensuring maximum engagement.
As mentioned previously, due to the managed service model used by Attentive, some items need to be set up by Attentive Chat initially. While the majority of functionality that Klaviyo has regarding creation can be achieved, it cannot all be done by a singular marketing specialist.
Attentive's venture into the email marketing sphere is relatively recent, with its email beta launching in July 2022. While this new endeavor showcases their ambition, it also highlights potential challenges. Most importantly, the complete feature set offered by Klaviyo cannot be matched. We trust that the Attentive team is working hard to get these features live as soon as they can.
Although Attentive has expanded its offerings to include email functionalities, it's evident that SMS remains its forte. The platform offers a degree of personalization in its email features, but when benchmarked against platforms like Klaviyo, its limitations become apparent.
Sending & Receiving
Scheduled communications are a cornerstone of effective marketing, and Attentive shines here. The platform provides tools for crafting targeted text messages, driving engagement, and catalyzing conversions.
Automated triggers can be set up, ensuring that messages are dispatched based on specific events or milestones, leading to timely and relevant communication. Conversational marketing is another arena where Attentive has made its mark, with the Conversational feature being an innovation that other platforms, like Klaviyo, have since copied.
Attentive ensures full compliance, giving businesses the peace of mind to focus on crafting impactful messages as is required by government regulations.
Attentive’s Automation
One of the prominent constraints of Attentive lies in its reduced integrations and email functionalities. While the platform can support intricate automations, it doesn't quite match up to the extensive arsenal that Klaviyo brings to the table in terms of integrative capabilities.
Businesses must have a clear understanding of their specific use cases when considering these platforms. By identifying your precise requirements and evaluating how each platform can cater to those needs, you'll be better equipped to make an informed decision on which platform offers the best value for your operations.
Email & SMS Conclusions
Chapter 6
Integration Capabilities
Connecting Your Platform With Other Technologies
Klaviyo’s integration with third-party tools and platforms
Klaviyo's integration capabilities are expansive, with over 300+ native integrations available.
The platform's developer-friendly API further allows for custom-built integrations, ensuring businesses can seamlessly integrate Klaviyo with their existing tech stack.
Comprehensive eCommerce Platform Integrations
Klaviyo’s integrations are precisely tailored for businesses operating in the eCommerce industry.
By partnering with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Shopify, BigCommerce, and other eCommerce industry leaders, Klaviyo offers brands the ability to plug the advanced marketing features mentioned in the previous chapter offered by Klaviyo into their existing stores.
CRM Integrations
The strength of a segmentation tool lies in its ability to pull data from multiple other sources.
Klaviyo excels here, offering robust integration capabilities with most major CRM platforms including Salesforce, Netsuite, HubSpot, and many more. This means that businesses can effortlessly sync their lists, ensuring that their segmentation efforts are always informed by the latest data.
There’s not much else to expand upon here - Klaviyo’s CRM integrations just work.
Data Retention and Accessibility
Klaviyo is distinct in its capability to backfill historical data from its integrations, although the length of that backfill can vary.
Unlike some platforms that set limits on data retention or API usage, Klaviyo ensures that businesses can access and analyze their data from any point in the accessible timeframe. This feature is particularly beneficial for long-term trend analysis and understanding customer journey evolution.
Developer-Friendly Integration Approach
Klaviyo's Developer Experience stands out with its adaptability. Developers can utilize webhooks along with flows to customize data synchronization, ensuring that marketing messages are dispatched through the most effective channels.
The strength of Klaviyo’s integration capabilities is further amplified by its open API structure. This openness has encouraged numerous partners to develop native integrations with Klaviyo, expanding the platform's functionality and providing businesses with more tools to achieve their marketing objectives.
Efficient and User-Friendly Data Management
Klaviyo prioritizes a user experience devoid of unnecessary complexities. By avoiding issues like orphaned tables and by integrating cutting-edge NoSQL data models with Django tagging, Klaviyo ensures that businesses can manage their data efficiently and with minimal hassle.
Attentive’s Integration with Third-Party Tools and Platforms
No platform operates in isolation, and Attentive recognizes this. It offers seamless integrations with leading platforms, ensuring that marketers have a unified view of their operations.
While its portfolio boasts approximately 50 integrations, it also provides the flexibility to integrate with anything else you can imagine. The public API is available for all to use, even if it's been underutilized compared to some competitors. You can’t fault Attentive for that.
While Attentive may offer fewer integrations compared to some of its competitors, the 50 integrations it provides are meticulously chosen to cater to the most significant needs of modern businesses. This curated approach ensures a comprehensive coverage of essential marketing, sales, and operational tools.
eCommerce Platform Synchronization
One of the primary strengths of Attentive is its seamless integration with market-leading eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce. This integration ensures real-time data flow, enabling businesses to react instantly to customer behaviors and market trends.
CRM Integrations
As far as customer relationship management software is concerned, Attentive provides compatibility with a range of CRM platforms and other marketing tools including HubSpot and Salesforce.
While functional, the integrations are not always 100% updated in real-time. Aside from that, everything works as it should.
Email Marketing Coordination
Attentive recognizes the power of a multi-channel approach, and knows some businesses prefer other email marketing tools. Its compatibility with major email marketing services such as Mailchimp and SendGrid allows businesses to create harmonized campaigns where SMS and email marketing feed off each other's strengths.
Custom Integrations with Webhooks and APIs
For businesses with unique requirements, Attentive provides extensive API documentation. This allows for tailored integrations with proprietary systems or other niche third-party tools, ensuring flexibility and adaptability.
Recognizing the growing trend towards no-code solutions, Attentive's compatibility with Zapier ensures that even businesses without extensive tech resources can establish automated workflows and connect with a plethora of services.
Integration Conclusions
Chapter 7
Analytics and Reporting
Reviewing Performance
Klaviyo’s Analytics & Reporting
Analytics & Reporting
Klaviyo offers a full suite of KPI (key performance indicator) reporting tools, giving businesses insights into their marketing strategies' effectiveness. Klaviyo's reporting is particularly robust, offering metrics like predicted next purchase date, total future spending, and probability of churn.
As inbox filters have continued to increase in effectiveness and complexity, the Klaviyo team has built an entire section dedicated to deliverability. This section gives actionable insights that you can implement to increase your deliverability across different email clients - many of which can be applied with a single click.
Benchmarking and Competitive Advantage through Robust Data Science
One of Klaviyo's standout attributes is its extensive reporting dashboards and features. These powerful tools empower brands to compare their performance metrics against those of their industry peers. The insights from these comparisons can provide a clear roadmap of avenues that are ripe for optimization.
To bolster this, Klaviyo's data science suite stands tall, supported by a team of over 140 dedicated data scientists and machine learning engineers.
The Power of Comprehensive Multi-Channel Attribution and Reporting
Understanding the complicated path of a customer's journey is necessary for optimization. Klaviyo's expertise shines here with its multi-channel attribution features, enabling brands to meticulously trace every customer interaction, regardless of touchpoints. This means you can view individual channel metrics such as only SMS, or combine channels to view their total effectiveness within a flow - something Attentive just isn’t capable of.
Complementing this, Klaviyo offers businesses a suite of detailed reporting tools. These are meticulously designed to transform vast, often overwhelming datasets into intuitive, actionable insights, driving data-informed decisions.
Customization, Clarity, and Depth in Analytics
Klaviyo champions flexibility with its customizable dashboards. This adaptability ensures that teams and individual decision-makers alike can mold their dashboards to meet their specific KPIs.
Beyond this, Klaviyo's reporting interface is a masterclass in design balance. It offers simple clarity, presenting users with essential data without the clutter. Yet, for those who crave depth and want to dive into the intricacies of their data, Klaviyo meets them there.
Historical Data Analysis
Understanding past behavior is key to predicting future actions. Klaviyo recognizes this and provides its users with a deep dive into customer data.
Marketers have access to a comprehensive subscriber timeline, allowing them to track a customer's journey with the brand, even before the brand was using Klaviyo. You’re not starting from scratch when you first load up the platform — a rarity in today’s often siloed environment.
Attentive’s Analytics & Reporting
In today's data-driven marketing landscape, finding actionable insights is like striking gold. Attentive equips marketers with tools to refine their campaigns on an iterative basis through A/B performance tests.
Its singular robust and intuitive dashboard integrates essential eCommerce metrics so that marketers are always equipped with the data they need most. However, when data streams in from multiple channels, drawing precise conclusions can be challenging, and this is an area where users might encounter some complexity. Namely, double counting of conversions (sales) is a common occurrence that can take some trial and error to smooth out.
It is also worth mentioning that Attentive marks all purchases that were made by an SMS customer within 30 days of a text message as an SMS-driven conversion. To us, this gives an inaccurate (overinflated) representation of the ROI that merchants are seeing from Attentive.
Real-Time Insights and Engagement Metrics
Attentive's real-time analytics dashboard provides an immediate top-down view of campaign performance. This singular dashboard not only gives insights into customer engagement, ROI, and message effectiveness but also tracks essential engagement metrics like open rates, reply rates, and opt-out rates. By having both real-time and engagement data at their fingertips, businesses can fine-tune their campaigns on the fly.
The one downside is the inability to customize or create multiple dashboards. While this isn’t optimal, we have found that the default dashboard offers all of the metrics most marketers will find important.
Customizable Alerts for Proactive Monitoring
To ensure you stay informed, Attentive offers a customizable alert system. Whether witnessing a surge in engagement or nearing a campaign milestone, real-time notifications ensure businesses are always on top of significant developments.
Historical Data Analysis
Unfortunately, we are unaware of the capability to “backfill” historical data from eCommerce platforms, meaning that you are only able to work with customer data that is collected after Attentive was installed.
It is kind of a bummer, but not the end of the world.
Analytics & Reporting Conclusions
Chapter 8
Pricing
Comparing Platform Spend
Klaviyo’s Pricing Model
All-Inclusive Monthly Rates
Klaviyo's pricing structure is crafted with simplicity and transparency in mind. For merchants managing between 3,000-3,500 contacts, the combined email and SMS package is priced at $95 per month, while opting for email services alone comes at a slightly reduced rate of $80 per month.
This competitive pricing ensures that businesses receive a robust feature set without straining their budgets.
Flexibility in Payment Options
One of Klaviyo's standout features is the flexibility it offers in terms of payment. Businesses can opt for a month-to-month payment plan, allowing for operational agility.
For businesses seeking an extended engagement, Klaviyo does offer long-term contracts, providing both stability and potential cost benefits. Furthermore, businesses new to the platform can take advantage of a 60-day free trial, granting them ample time to explore and assess Klaviyo's myriad features without any financial commitment.
Attentive’s Pricing Model
Base Subscription and SMS Fees
Attentive offers a foundational pricing of $300 per month. Beyond this, clients are billed an additional $0.01 for every SMS sent. However, it's crucial to be aware that these costs don't account for carrier fees which can add to the overall expense.
While Attentive's pricing can appear competitive, it's essential to note that at high volumes, costs can escalate.
Contractual Nuances
While Attentive does provide a month-to-month payment option, their arrangements typically involve long-term contracts. It's also worth noting that longer-term commitments often come with discounts, making them an attractive option for businesses seeking a more extended engagement. These contracts often come with a range of additional fees, like carrier charges, platform fees, and costs associated with MMS and other additional services.
Free Trial for Exploration
For businesses still on the fence, Attentive offers a free trial period. This window allows potential clients to acquaint themselves with the platform, gauge its capabilities, and determine if it aligns with their marketing objectives.
Pricing Conclusion
Chapter 9
Reliability & Customer Support
Troubleshooting and Resolving Issues
Support Services Offered by Klaviyo
Dedicated Customer Success Managers (CSM)
Klaviyo stands out in its commitment to offering personalized support to its premium users. Any account boasting a Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) over $1,500 can look forward to the dedicated assistance of a CSM. This is especially beneficial for brands seeking proactive, strategic guidance across various marketing channels.
Self-Service Knowledge Base
Recognizing the value of autonomy, Klaviyo has curated an extensive online knowledge base. This resource hub features a plethora of articles, guides, and frequently asked questions covering a wide range of platform functionalities. Whether you're a new user looking to grasp the basics or a seasoned marketer seeking advanced insights, Klaviyo's knowledge base has got you covered.
While typically easy to “translate”, we have found that some of Klaviyo’s support documentation uses outdated screenshots. The desired action is normally only an extra click away, but it is worth noting that we have run into this scenario before.
Intuitive In-App Support
To ensure a smooth user experience, Klaviyo has integrated support features directly within the platform. Users can benefit from helpful tooltips and guided tours, making the navigation of Klaviyo's functionalities a breeze. These in-app aids significantly reduce the learning curve, allowing users to make the most of their Klaviyo experience.
Educational Webinars and Tutorials
In a bid to keep users updated and informed, Klaviyo periodically hosts webinars and releases tutorial videos. These sessions delve into a range of topics, from new feature releases and industry trends to marketing best practices. By tuning in, users can stay ahead of the curve and optimize their marketing strategies.
Robust Disaster Recovery Strategy
Understanding the importance of data security and uninterrupted service, Klaviyo employs a multi-vendor strategy. This approach ensures seamless disaster recovery, safeguarding users against potential data losses and service disruptions.
A Network of Agency Partners
Klaviyo boasts a formidable network of over 1,000 agency partners. These partners are equipped to offer specialized assistance, from platform implementation and campaign management to advanced marketing strategies. With this vast network, users can easily find an agency that aligns with their brand's unique needs and objectives.
Reliability
When it comes to reliability, Klaviyo's track record speaks for itself. The platform successfully dispatched over 2 billion emails on a single Black Friday.
Support Services Offered By Attentive
Around-the-Clock Assistance
To ensure a seamless transition for new clients, Attentive provides a thorough onboarding experience. This includes dedicated training sessions, allowing team members to familiarize themselves with the platform's intricacies, ensuring they're set up for success from the outset.
Understanding the unpredictable nature of issues, Attentive has established a 24/7 customer support system. Regardless of the time zone or hour, users can reach out through various channels, including phone, email, and live chat. This ensures real-time solutions and swift problem resolution.
For clients on higher-tier plans, Attentive offers the added benefit of a dedicated account manager. This tailored service means brands receive expert advice on refining their strategies, understanding platform nuances, and implementing best practices.
Empowering Users with a Comprehensive Knowledge Base
The journey to self-reliance is made easier with Attentive's extensive online knowledge base. Users can delve into a wide array of articles, guides, and FAQs, enabling them to troubleshoot issues and understand the platform's features at their own pace.
To keep its user base informed and at the forefront of industry trends, Attentive periodically conducts webinars and releases tutorial videos. Users can gain insights into new feature releases, industry shifts, and effective marketing strategies by participating.
Intuitive In-App Assistance
In line with its user-centric approach, Attentive offers in-app support features. Tooltips and guided tours are readily available, ensuring users have the necessary aids to navigate the platform with ease and confidence.
Experience Gaps
Attentive's recent foray into email marketing means they lack the experience of dealing with intricate mailbox providers like Gmail or Microsoft. This inexperience has in the recent past made it challenging for them to diagnose and manage deliverability issues.
On the other hand, these issues are uncommon and often can be resolved within a day or two - they are nothing to write the platform off over.
Single-Threaded Email Approach
Attentive operates predominantly as a single-threaded email provider. This method ensures uninterrupted communication, but users should be cognizant of the potential risks involved. The lack of a comprehensive disaster recovery strategy could lead to challenges during unexpected incidents or service disruptions.
Customer Support Conclusion
Chapter 10
Summary and Final Verdict
Our Overall Thoughts on Klaviyo vs Attentive
Klaviyo Wins
The All-in-One Platform Advantage
Klaviyo's integrative approach provides users with a variety of features, from multi-channel flows and granular segmentation to advanced personalization across various eCommerce platforms. This unified approach addresses and eliminates common challenges like cookie transfers, delayed data syncing, limited segmentation, and intricate reporting, which are prevalent when using disparate platforms.
Advanced Data Science and Self-Service
Klaviyo's self-service platform is enriched with state-of-the-art data science features. The inclusion of AI generation, predictive analysis, and peer benchmarking empowers brands to harness the power of data and derive actionable insights.
Cost Efficiency
Klaviyo's model ensures that brands spend efficiently, especially when email campaigns are yielding results. In contrast, there's potential inefficiency with Attentive, where SMS campaigns might overlap with email efforts, leading to unnecessary expenditures.
Accurate Attribution for Informed Decision Making
Klaviyo adopts a conservative revenue attribution model, only crediting revenue to a text message clicked within a 24-hour window. On the other hand, Attentive's attribution might sometimes exaggerate outcomes by potentially double-counting sales. With Klaviyo, brands can confidently measure the ROI of both email and SMS campaigns, side by side.
Unparalleled Customer Support
While Attentive offers dedicated Customer Success Managers (CSMs) for each product, Klaviyo's customer support teams excel in managing a multichannel marketing platform. This streamlined approach ensures that brands have fewer points of contact, enabling them to achieve more. Klaviyo's commitment to being "full service" ensures a cohesive and comprehensive support experience.
Comprehensive Data Storage
Klaviyo's capability to store extensive customer data paves the way for highly personalized and targeted messaging. In contrast, Attentive's data storage is primarily limited to SMS and email interactions, providing only a fragment of the full personalization spectrum.
Klaviyo's Final Score: 8.8/10
Attentive Wins:
Attentive's SMS Prowess
Attentive, boasting deep-rooted experience in the SMS industry, brings specialized features like the "Attentive Concierge" for inbound message support, a feature absent in Klaviyo. Their innovative "Two-Way Journeys" facilitate multiple keywords within automations, while announcements like "Text-to-Buy" hint at future potential, even if constrained by current regulations.
The White Glove Challenge
Attentive's "White Glove Service" follows a "do it for me" philosophy. While it might resonate with some, it poses operational challenges. The platform's less-than-intuitive design necessitates regular interactions with Attentive's chat support for seemingly basic tasks, such as creating sign-up forms or initiating A/B tests. This not only slows down marketing endeavors but also restricts brands to Attentive's managed services, curbing flexibility.
Pricing Dynamics
Attentive frequently entices brands with hefty discounts, especially when linked to extended contracts. Though these might seem economical compared to Klaviyo at first glance, brands must tread cautiously. Hidden charges, like fluctuating carrier fees or list management expenses, might lurk beneath the surface, becoming apparent only post-contractual commitment.
ROI Evaluation
Attentive's ROI projections can be beguiling. Their reports, often showcasing impressive metrics, owe much to their 30-day sales attribution window. Brands must adopt a discerning lens, ensuring a like-for-like comparison when juxtaposing ROI between Attentive and Klaviyo. Ultimately, the genuine merit of a tool is determined not merely by its individual features but its alignment with, and enhancement of, a brand's comprehensive marketing vision.
