With the latest news release of Shopify’s newest addition to their marketing toolkit, Shopify Email, many of us are stuck wondering how it’s going to compare to our current autoresponders.
Since Shopify Email is still in its beta phase, we don’t have too much information on the robustness of the platform.
But we do have enough to compare it to the autoresponder built for eCommerce stores, Klaviyo.
In the following paragraphs, I’m going to be comparing the two software on:
- Price structure
- Features
- Analytics
Pricing Structure
Klaviyo’s pricing structure scales with your business.
Their bottom tier starts at $20, which allows you to have up to 300 contacts and send out unlimited emails.
As your list grows, so does your monthly expenses.
Which doesn’t pose as much of a threat until you get to the tier we currently fall into which is $600 for up to 36,000 contacts O_o
Although Shopify hasn’t released its pricing structure, they claim to be more affordable than the current options for autoresponders, which means it will save all of us a pretty penny.
Features
Segmentation
Klaviyo has built out segment recommendations when you first start your account.
They don’t automatically pull addresses through unless you approve of it, but they do make it extremely easy to import contacts.
With Klaviyo, segmentation is unbounded; you can segment users based on behavior, properties, engagement with previous campaigns, and even with customer audiences from Facebook.
Shopify will automatically integrate users into segments for you based on specific properties such as:
- New customers
- Repeat customers
- VIP customers
- Local customers
It’s unclear if there are plans to integrate with social media, but we don’t doubt it since they have Google and Facebook ad accounts integrated into their Shopify Marketing platform.
Web Tracking
Klaviyo installs a piece of code onto your site so that way they can track visitors and send personalized campaigns to those who have or haven’t taken specific actions.
Since Shopify has direct access to your site and all the users that come through, they too will be able to provide information on customers based on actions they take on your website.
Personalization
Klaviyo allows you to set up your emails using dynamic drag-and-drop blocks for order details, cart contents, product recommendations, and custom feeds.
You can even hide dynamic data blocks based on recipient characteristics.
Shopify also has a dynamic building block to build out emails with.
They pull in your products, collections, and sales.
As of yet, we are unsure if you can customize these blocks based on recipient characteristics.
Content Creation
You can submit your brand colors and font into Klaviyo so they can automatically apply them to their built-in workflows and templates.
Also, you’re able to create your templates within their library.
Shopify will automatically pull through your logo, products, and store colors into a template that matches your store’s theme for brand consistency.
Additional Features Available With Klaviyo
Lead Generation
Klaviyo has customizable sign-up forms and pop-ups to get future contacts pulled straight into their platform.
Workflows
Klaviyo has preloaded workflows such as:
- Welcome Series
- Post-purchase Follow Up
- Abandoned Cart Series
That allows to you nurture and re-engage with your customers
They also have their Smart Send Time feature, which is a custom-developed optimization technique that will send emails based on your recipient’s behaviors.
Analytics
Klaviyo reports basic analytics based on campaign metrics, flow metrics, and performance metrics.
They plan to introduce analytics on the customer level and SKU level.
Shopify will provide a little more in-depth analytics since they have a full view of everything that happens on your site.
Their analytics will cover the basic range from email opens to click-through rates, but also include items added to cart from email recipients and items purchased by email recipients.
Overall Consensus…
Although Shopify Email doesn’t seem to offer as many robust features as Klaviyo, it does seem to be more friendly for the brand new store owner.
As we learn more about Shopify Email, we’ll be sure to give you updates.
Until then, you can familiarize yourself with the new software here.