There is no shortage of email marketing tools for small businesses, but it’s no secret that Mailchimp has long reigned supreme. For years, Mailchimp was widely considered to be the go-to marketing automation platform for Shopify stores. But that changed in March of 2019, when Shopify and Mailchimp announced a less-than-amicable split, ostensibly due to privacy policy disagreements.
This left a lot of Shopify store owners wondering what to do. Figure out a workaround? Migrate to a new email marketing platform like Klaviyo?
The Mailchimp exodus has been a new learning curve. Clients who were used to Mailchimp needed to migrate over their email to something new that works with automations, like Klaviyo.
– Kevin Tash, CEO at Tack Media
Well, that depends. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Let’s take a look at what Mailchimp and Klaviyo each have to offer, along with some other alternative products.
Mailchimp vs. Klaviyo Feature Showdown
First, it’s important to note that “email marketing platform” is a bit of a misnomer for these tools. Yes, they do offer email marketing — but they don’t stop there. To give you a complete understanding of both platforms, let’s compare some of the key features they offer, including but not limited to email marketing.
This information comes directly from Mailchimp and Klaviyo’s websites, as well as in-depth feature comparisons from GetApp and Capterra.
| Mailchimp | Klaviyo | |
| Standard pricing for 5,000 contacts | $75/mo | $100/mo |
| Standard pricing for 50,000 contacts | $299/mo | $700/mo |
| Shopify integration | – | ✓ |
| Mobile responsive email templates | ✓ | ✓ |
| List segmentation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email A/B testing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automated email flows | ✓ | ✓ |
| Drag-and-drop email editor | ✓ | ✓ |
| Website popups for list building | ✓ | ✓ |
| Email engagement analytics | ✓ | ✓ |
| ROI reporting | ✓ | ✓ |
| Social media advertising | ✓ | ✓ |
| Google retargeting ads | ✓ | – |
| Contact activity history | ✓ | ✓ |
Mailchimp Pros and Cons
Pros:
Easy to use
Relatively inexpensive
Integrates with more ad channels
Cons:
No native Shopify integration
Less advanced workflow automations
Less granular audience segmentation
Klaviyo Pros and Cons
Pros:
Advanced ROI reporting
More powerful A/B testing
More features available out-of-the-box
Cons:
More expensive than Mailchimp
Advanced features mean there’s a learning curve
Less robust engagement metrics
Workarounds for Shopify + Mailchimp Users
If you do choose to use Mailchimp for email marketing, you have two options. Either you can use a third-party tool to integrate Mailchimp and Shopify, or you can manually upload your Shopify data to Mailchimp.
For most small businesses, a third-party integration is the way to go. Mailchimp recommends ShopSync, Zapier, and Automate.io. ShopSync is by far the most robust, and it’s free to use.
The split between Mailchimp and Shopify makes things a little bit more difficult, but not impossible. While they no longer have a direct integration with one another, you can work around this with tools like Zapier.
For my own Shopify store, I mainly send cart abandonment and new product sales emails, so everything I want to manage is possible with the Zapier integrations. If your store uses more complex tracking, however, things can get difficult, and in some cases, it may just make sense to use a different email marketing service.
– Nicholas Rubright, Digital Marketing Specialist at ZIK Analytics
If you decide to go the manual route, keep in mind that you’ll sacrifice some key Mailchimp features, like product recommendations and reports.
Other Email Marketing & Automation Platforms for Ecommerce
Mailchimp and Klaviyo may be the biggest players in the game, but they aren’t the only options. Here are some other popular email marketing and marketing automation platforms that have native integrations with Shopify.
- Constant Contact: Offers a standard package with basic email features, as well as an advanced package that includes popups, event marketing, more advanced email features, and more
- Drip: Billed as an ECRM — an ecommerce customer relationship management platform. That’s a fancy way of saying they help you understand and manage your interactions with customers.
As a result of the Shopify and Mailchimp split, we decided to reevaluate our options for an ESP. After exploring a number of solutions, I decided to move to Drip. While Drip isn’t quite as well-known as some other services, it has a lot of workflows built in that will make it easier for us to set up a suite of triggered emails.
– Antonella Pisani, Owner of FACT Goods
- Sendinblue: Offers email marketing along with some unique features, like SMS marketing and live chat to connect with customers in real time
- Omnisend: Offers an omnichannel approach — email marketing, text messaging, web push notifications, and Facebook Messenger in one tool
- SmartrMail: Makes it easy to set up best practice commerce email automations, as well as manual newsletters, popups and some advanced features like a Facebook Custom Audiences integration.
And the list goes on. The software review site Capterra is a great resource for finding and comparing different email marketing platforms. I recommend starting with their list of the top 7 Mailchimp alternatives for small business email marketing.
Whether you choose to use Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or another tool to promote your Shopify store, you need a strong email marketing strategy in place.
One of the simplest ways to get started is with an email newsletter that combines your products and interesting content to bring subscribers back to your site. And believe it or not, it doesn’t have to take up a lot of time.
Feature image provided by Christian Stahl
