Considering Klaviyo for Email Marketing? Read This First
In case you’ve missed it, the past few weeks we’ve been highlighting popular (and sometimes not-so-popular) email and SMS marketing tools.
So, for today’s final breakdown, we’re highlighting a tool that, on the surface, looks like a strong contender. But does it stack up to our (very high) standards?
Let’s take a closer look at all things Klaviyo, and whether we think it’s worth the investment for your business.
What is Klaviyo?
Straight from its website, Klaviyo is ‘email marketing that simply does it all.’ With multi-channel capabilities – like emails and SMS text messages – Klaviyo is a pretty attractive contender for email marketing. On the surface, it’s great for newbies because it doesn’t require a single line of coding, which is something we can always get behind.
Pros of using Klaviyo for email marketing
If simple is the way you want to go, then Klaviyo’s simple email builder will be a promising feature for you. And if you don’t want to be limited to Klaviyo’s template choices, you don’t have to be! It allows users to upload their own templates, which means branding can stay on-point at all times. Here are some other pros of using Klaviyo as your email and SMS marketing tool:
- A/B testing for one-off emails and workflow tools
- SMS integration offers segmentized and personalized messaging for your recipients
- Several pre-built integrations
- Easily build, test, and automate sequences
- Learn more about your audiences through high-level reporting like predictive analytics that suggest ideal send times, potential lifetime value, and customer churn risk
Cons of Klaviyo
You know the drill: Just as we highlight the pros of Klaviyo, we need to point out some of the cons. After all, you need to know what the potential downfalls of any tool are before you spend any time, money, and energy on them.
Even though Klaviyo has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder, it doesn’t offer many that many customizations. And remember when we said that you can create and customize your own templates? While we love that feature, we feel like it’s actually a fairly rigid process inside Klaviyo. Plus, if design isn’t your forte, building your own templates could end up costing you more time and energy in the long run.
For those who are brand new or new-ish to email marketing, be prepared for a bit of a learning curve with Klaviyo. While some features are easy to use, the onboarding process can be fairly complicated while you’re trying to figure things out. And if you need any help along the way, it might be tricky to find some. That’s because for us, Klaviyo’s customer support is somewhat lacking.
The final Klaviyo verdict: Nay
Bottom line: Klaviyo doesn’t really impress us all that much. It’s not the worst we’ve seen or used, but it’s definitely not the best. We also feel like the work it would take to switch to Klaviyo is enough to simply ‘pass’ on this one for an SMS or email marketing tool.
If you’re still curious to try it out, go for it! Klaviyo has a free option for up to 250 contacts, so if you want to start small and build your email experience, it might be a good place to start. The only way to know is to try it first-hand!
And if you’re curious about exploring other email and SMS marketing tools, we’ve already done the work for you! From the most popular email platforms to the most underrated (in our opinion), we’ve outlined what you need to know so you can make the right investment for your biz!