Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: 5 Reasons Klaviyo is Better

We’re spilling tea on email marketing to help you save time and money on the best email marketing tool for Shopify.

When it comes to email marketing, online store owners can benefit greatly from using a platform that is dedicated to making their ecommerce business a success, and this is where Klaviyo can help in many ways.

Perhaps, if you are looking for a new system, or thinking about switching from a platform like Mailchimp or Hubspot, there are many benefits to using Klaviyo. 

It is estimated that many email subscribers are more likely to share their content on social media than leads who come from other channels. That is why email marketing for ecomm is crucial, not only for this year, but in the years  ahead.

 

What is email marketing?

two girls looking at their phone

Email marketing is a type of direct marketing that uses personalized, mass emails to educate and convince a lead to take a specific action, such as making a purchase.  The message is sent to email subscribers who have signed to your email list and have given permission to receive email communications from you. 

Email marketing is used not only to drive sales, but also to inform and build a community around your product. It is still ranked as the most effective marketing channel besides SEO, affiliate marketing, and social media.

Modern email marketing has moved away from one-size-fits-all mass mailings. It focuses on segmentation, consent, and personalization.

 

Do you need email marketing for your ecomm store?

The answer is a big YES. There are countless benefits to your business when you focus on an email marketing strategy. Email marketing can help you spread brand awareness, educate your community and build relationships with your consumers – all of which should be your ultimate goals. 

 

Why is email marketing important for your DTC business?

There are many reasons why email marketing is important for DTC businesses. Despite the rise of social media popularity, and even unsolicited spam email (which I can say, is not good for your business), email is still the most effective way to nurture leads and boost the loyalty of your customer. 

Here’s why:

  • It allows you to stay in contact with your audience and keep your customers informed, while providing updates about your product. 
  • It can reach out to customers in real-time. Today, people usually open their email using their mobile devices. This is highly significant, especially when you are creating a marketing strategy. As more and more people use their mobile phones to access their emails, the probability of producing conversion rates is higher with email marketing.
  • Emails allow targeted messaging or lead marketing. Potential customers are usually at different stages of the buying cycle. Some are still in the consideration stage, while others may be at the research or comparing stage and the rest are in the ready-to-buy stage. With these different types of buyers, you can determine what kind of content  to create for your customer.
  • Helps in increasing brand awareness. Having a customer’s email address means that they show a level of interest in your business. Email marketing gives you the capability to increase that interest level from your customers because your brand is always on their mind. 
 
 

What is the best email platform to use for DTC email marketing?

With a quick Google search, you’ll find a ton of email marketing platforms to use that integrate with Shopify. From Flodesk to Mailchimp and everything in between – it can be hard to know the right platform to start with. While many beginner or start-up e-commerce businesses choose Mailchimp, we at Bloom exclusively partner & use Klaviyo for all our email marketing clients.

 

What does Klaviyo do?

Klaviyo is a powerful marketing platform that helps eCommerce businesses to deliver a more personalized experience for their customers. It is often used alongside platforms like Shopify to help business owners build a holistic marketing environment. 

It also helps businesses to send bulk SMS campaigns and personalize every message with its powerful automation feature. Managing is simple and automated and it enables you to build multi-channel experiences for your customers while you manage them all in one platform.

What does Mailchimp do? 

Mailchimp is also another email marketing platform. It is an all-in-one tool where you can also manage your mailing lists, create custom email templates, and develop and automate your marketing campaigns, just like Klaviyo. 

 

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp

There are many email marketing tools available in the market currently. So, it can be confusing when deciding which will be the best for your ecommerce business. 

Klaviyo and Mailchimp are two of the leading email marketing platforms available. While both of them provide almost the same functionality and benefits, they are far from being the same.

 

Cost 

Remember how we said that most start-up or small e-commerce businesses end up choosing Mailchimp? A lot of that comes down to perceived costs of each platform.

Budget is one of the biggest things that most ecomm businesses or stores take into consideration when choosing an email marketing platform. 

  • Klaviyo Cost

    • Klaviyo’s pricing is simpler. Paid plans start at $20/month for up to 500 contacts with unlimited emails. The pricing structure is purely based on how many subscribers you have and all features are included at every level.

  • Mailchimp Cost

    • The pricing of Mailchimp depends on four different variables: number of monthly sends, number of monthly contacts, number of features, and number of seats. The more premium the plan, the more features you can get. Prices per month start from free to $1,000+. It offers four plans: free, premium, standard, and essentials. 

Although Mailchimp’s freemium model can be attractive at first, once you set up your account, you will realize all the limitations of the platform. In fact, as of writing this, you can only house one pop up on your site without having to pay for a premium add-on using Mailchimp.

Klaviyo’s cost out of the gate can seem large, but it’s all-inclusive. There is nothing off limits no matter what account you are on. From multiple sign up forms, to more advanced targeted – it’s no question there is a much higher value and long-term savings with Klaviyo’s pricing model. 

Functionality

When it comes to functionality, both of these platforms have their unique features and functions. The differences lie in the number of integrations they offer, user demographics, analytics, customer support, and the like.

  • Email Automations

    • Building your customer’s journey of receiving the perfect message at the right time is important for your business. Klaviyo and Mailchimp offer email marketing automation tools that can ensure such experience. With Mailchimp, email marketers will receive a series of pre-built automation. It’s very user-friendly with easy features like drag and drop and offers basic email automation.
    • On the other hand, Klaviyo has a more robust platform, where you can set up automated trigger emails based on behaviors, like a promotion engagement. You can create an unlimited number of automated flows from 10 up to 50 for just a single store. This platform leverages the customer lifetime value by using A/B testing to help understand the customer in types of content, smart sending, and subject lines. 

  • A/B Testing

    • Both Klaviyo and Mailchimp offer testing to take out the guesswork when creating an email. Both platforms provide ease of use when testing between 2-3 subject lines, sender’s name and how many times you can send it.
    • However, Klaviyo includes more options. If you want to test around 7 unique versions of an email, you can do it for free. On Mailchimp, you’ll be able to do it, but you need to be subscribed to a Premium or Pro Plan.

  • Email design or email editor

    • Both Klaviyo and Mailchimp have email editors with suggested templates to get you started, so there’s no need for you to start from scratch. However, Klaviyo’s email editor offers more flexibility, but can be known to be a bit difficult for beginners. Mailchimp on the other hand is great for beginners because they can easily design without being too precise about their email campaign.
 
Although Klaviyo can be a bit overwhelming for beginners, the learning curve is not as steep as it may seem. More-so, Klaviyo has extensive trainings in their help center and there is no shortage of experts in the field who would be willing to lend a hand if needed.

  • Integration with Shopify and other platforms

    • Both platforms of Klaviyo and Mailchimp can integrate from ecommerce to social and website integrations. Since Mailchimp has been around for quite some time, it has over 240 integrations in its platform, while Klaviyo only has 110 integrations. 
    • Klaviyo has a tighter integration with Shopify which helps drive more sales in a more targeted and relevant way through email marketing. Klaviyo’s deeper integration allows you to send more emails to more people for actions like abandoning the cart, abandoning the site, post-purchase nurturing & more. 
    • If you already have Shopify ready, you can connect your store in Klaviyo easier and faster. It can seamlessly collect and store your customer’s data, then leverage that data to drive more sales and create stronger relationships with them.
    • Did you know that Mailchimp and Shopify had a breakup in 2019? It was largely due to Shopify wanting to launch their own internal email marketing system (huge flop, by the way). This breakup had a messy fall out. Mailchimp started to integrate less comprehensively with Shopify. They have since “made up,” but we find it much easier to work with Klaviyo when it comes to deeply integrating with e-commerce stores. 

  • Reporting

    • When it comes to reporting, both email marketing platforms cover revenue tracking per campaign, how many unsubscribed customers, open and click rates, and comparison from the past campaigns. 
    • Klaviyo boasts giving cold, hard facts where it doesn’t have to do with an Excel spreadsheet. The reporting is ROI-based, which means that you can see the sales from email marketing based on actual transactions. It has a dashboard view with the basic metrics like total store revenue, the breakup of revenue from flows and campaigns, and the revenue from Klaviyo itself.
    • Mailchimp has almost everything as well, which has openers, Google analytics integration, as well as geo-tracking, click mapping, and social media. 

  • Segmentation and personalization

    • This feature is what separates it from the rest because the use of personalization to know your customer is essential in making sure that you give them the right message. Klaviyo allows you to segment special events and behavior activity for each profile through automatic updates. Mailchimp provides pre-built segments on campaign activity, history of purchases and reaches out to customers with the same character profile. 
    • However, advanced segmentation is not included in the basic plan of Mailchimp but Klaviyo uses unique behavior per customer’s events. For example, you can tailor a custom audience for Facebook or look for customers who spent more than $1,000 over the last 6 months.

 

Ok, you’ve decided on Klaviyo – now what?

Great! E-comm stores don’t need to look any further for e-mail marketing needs than Klaviyo. It’s by far the best platform to grow your direct communication marketing for DTC, B2C, and ecommerce businesses. More importantly, it is also the best to use for Shopify. Once you have invested in Klaviyo, you will be able to receive extensive onboarding, learn marketing tactics and techniques and develop your expertise in growing your business using email marketing.

There’s more to it than your business because you can be a part of the Klaviyo community where you will be able to learn, connect with other people, and have more opportunities in the future.

 

Ready for to take your email marketing to the next level?

Marketing tools are only as good as the marketers who use them. If you are ready to work with a Klaviyo Partner to skyrocket your ROI from email or SMS marketing, contact us today!

 

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