If you’ve been involved in email marketing for any length of time, there’s a good chance you’ve used Mailchimp at some point. It’s been one of the most popular email marketing platforms for years, particularly among smaller businesses, thanks to its relatively straightforward interface and the ability to get started without spending a fortune. However, there’s another platform that’s becoming increasingly popular among ecommerce retailers, and that’s Klaviyo. Although both services allow you to send marketing emails to your customers, they take rather different approaches to how those emails are created, targeted and automated.
I’ve worked with Mailchimp on quite a few websites over the years, and while it’s perfectly capable of handling most basic email marketing requirements, I’ve increasingly been looking at Klaviyo as an alternative for ecommerce businesses. The main attraction isn’t necessarily that it’s easier to use or that its emails look any better, but rather how closely it integrates with platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce, allowing businesses to make much better use of the information they already have about their customers.
What’s the Difference Between Mailchimp and Klaviyo?
At first glance, there isn’t an enormous amount separating the two platforms. Both allow you to create email campaigns, manage mailing lists, segment customers and set up automated messages triggered by particular activities. Mailchimp has also developed considerably beyond its original email marketing functionality, introducing customer journey automation, ecommerce integrations and various other features designed to compete with more sophisticated marketing platforms.
However, while Mailchimp started life primarily as an email marketing service and gradually expanded into ecommerce, Klaviyo was built with online retailers in mind. Its main selling point is the ability to collect and use information about customers’ purchasing behaviour, allowing businesses to create highly targeted marketing campaigns based on what people have actually been doing on their websites. For example, rather than simply sending the same promotional email to everybody on your mailing list, you could target customers who purchased a particular product six months ago, haven’t ordered anything since and have recently been browsing related products.
Mailchimp can handle some of this functionality too, particularly through its more advanced plans, but Klaviyo’s approach to ecommerce data and segmentation is particularly appealing if you’re running a busy online shop.
Making Better Use of Customer Data
One of the biggest advantages of Klaviyo is its integration with ecommerce platforms, particularly Shopify. Once connected, Klaviyo can synchronise customer information, purchase history and other shopping activity, making that information available for segmentation and automated marketing.
This opens up some interesting possibilities. Let’s say you’re selling printer cartridges, and you know that a particular customer generally places an order every couple of months. Rather than sending them a generic newsletter advertising your entire product range, you could automatically send a reminder when they’re approaching the point where they might need to order again. Alternatively, you could identify customers who regularly spend more than £100 per order and offer them a discount or early access to new products.
Klaviyo also offers predictive analytics features, including estimates of customer lifetime value and when somebody might place their next order. Obviously, these predictions aren’t going to be perfect, and they’ll be considerably more useful for businesses with a reasonable amount of historical sales data. Nevertheless, the ability to identify patterns in customer behaviour and use them to generate additional sales is particularly interesting.
What About Abandoned Baskets?
Abandoned basket emails are another area where Klaviyo can be particularly useful. If somebody adds products to their basket but leaves without completing their purchase, you can potentially send them an automated reminder encouraging them to return and finish their order, provided you have the necessary customer information and permission to contact them.
This isn’t something exclusive to Klaviyo, of course. Shopify, Mailchimp and various other platforms also offer abandoned basket functionality, but Klaviyo provides considerable flexibility when it comes to deciding who receives these messages and what they contain. For example, you might want to treat somebody abandoning a £500 basket differently from somebody abandoning a £15 purchase, or avoid offering discounts to customers who regularly complete purchases without needing an incentive.
It’s also possible to create automated sequences for welcoming new subscribers, encouraging repeat purchases and contacting customers who haven’t ordered anything for a while. While setting these up takes a little effort initially, they can potentially generate additional revenue without requiring somebody to manually create and send every campaign.
Is Klaviyo More Expensive?
Unfortunately, there’s a fairly important consideration when comparing the two platforms, and that’s the cost. Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer free plans for smaller mailing lists, with paid subscriptions generally increasing as your number of contacts grows. However, Klaviyo can become relatively expensive as your customer database expands, particularly if you’re comparing it against one of Mailchimp’s cheaper plans.
It’s also important to check exactly which features you’re getting for your money, because simply comparing the monthly subscription prices doesn’t necessarily tell you very much. If you’re only sending one newsletter a month to a few hundred subscribers, you probably won’t benefit from most of Klaviyo’s more sophisticated functionality, in which case there’s little reason to pay extra for it.
On the other hand, if you’re running an ecommerce business generating thousands of pounds in sales every month, a well-configured automated email campaign might easily justify the additional subscription cost. As with most marketing software, the important question isn’t necessarily how much it costs, but whether the additional functionality generates enough revenue to make it worthwhile.
How Difficult Is It to Move?
Fortunately, moving from Mailchimp to Klaviyo isn’t particularly complicated, although there’s a little more involved than simply uploading a spreadsheet containing your customers’ email addresses. Klaviyo provides an integration that can import information from Mailchimp, including subscriber details and certain engagement data, which makes the initial migration relatively straightforward.
However, you’ll still need to recreate your email templates, configure your automated campaigns and make sure your ecommerce integration is working correctly. It’s also important to preserve your existing unsubscribe information and marketing preferences, rather than accidentally contacting people who have previously opted out. I’d recommend checking your email authentication settings as well, particularly SPF and DKIM, and monitoring deliverability carefully when you start sending through the new platform.
Personally, I wouldn’t cancel Mailchimp until I’d confirmed that everything was working properly in Klaviyo, particularly if you have existing automated campaigns generating regular sales.
Should You Make the Switch?
Ultimately, I think Klaviyo is worth serious consideration for ecommerce businesses that want to make better use of their customer data, particularly those already using Shopify. Its segmentation and automation functionality can be extremely powerful, and there’s considerable potential to generate additional revenue from customers you’ve already acquired.
However, that doesn’t mean everybody should immediately abandon Mailchimp. If your existing email campaigns are performing well and you have relatively straightforward requirements, switching platforms might simply create additional work without delivering any meaningful benefits.
My advice would be to start by identifying what you actually want to achieve with your email marketing, rather than choosing a platform simply because it has more features. If Klaviyo allows you to do something valuable that you’re currently struggling to achieve with Mailchimp, it might well be worth making the move.
If all you’re doing is sending the occasional newsletter, though, I’d probably save yourself the trouble.