Are you tired of feeling limited by your current email marketing platform? Do you wish you could have more advanced features to scale your marketing efforts and stay ahead of the competition? If so, then you’re in the right place.
As we all know, email marketing is a critical part of any digital marketing strategy, and Klaviyo has been a popular choice for businesses of all sizes. However, as your business grows and your marketing needs become more complex, Klaviyo may not be able to keep up.
But fear not! That’s where Salesforce Marketing Cloud comes in – a robust marketing platform that offers advanced features for scalability, integration, customization, customer support, security, compliance, analytics, and reporting.
In this blog, I’ll be sharing the reasons why upgrading to Salesforce Marketing Cloud from Klaviyo is the right move for your business. So, buckle up, and let’s explore how Salesforce Marketing Cloud can help you unleash the full potential of your marketing efforts!
About Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a centralized and cloud-based email and SMS marketing system that allows e-commerce businesses to create and manage targeted email and SMS marketing campaigns. The platform is designed to help businesses of all sizes to engage with their customers and drive sales through personalized and relevant marketing messages.
Klaviyo is a popular choice for small organizations starting their businesses, as it offers all the email and SMS features they need to get started, and it can integrate with a wide range of e-commerce platforms, including Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, and big commerce.
About Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a cloud-based digital marketing platform that allows businesses of all sizes and across every industry to create, execute, manage, and optimize targeted and personalized marketing campaigns across multiple channels and touchpoints, such as email, mobile, social media, web, and advertising channels.
Simply put, Marketing Cloud is like a personal assistant for your marketing team. Just as a personal assistant can help you manage your schedule, book appointments, and handle administrative tasks, Marketing Cloud can help your marketing team manage campaigns, track performance, and streamline workflows. Additionally, Marketing Cloud enables you to automate repetitive tasks, and set up triggers and alerts, allowing you to focus on the creative and strategic aspects of your marketing efforts.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Klaviyo – Why Make the Move?
One of the most popular questions marketers make in Google about email marketing is, ‘why use Klaviyo? Or Which one is better? Marketing Cloud vs Klaviyo’. And here we have the answer for you. Although Klaviyo offers excellent features for small businesses and is a powerful platform, it does have some challenges that can make it difficult for companies to use it as they grow. From cost, support, and complexity to scalability, integration options, and compliance, there are many factors to consider for moving to Marketing Cloud. Let’s take a closer look at these factors.
Scalability
While Klaviyo offers a wide range of features and capabilities, it has some scalability limitations, especially for large businesses or those with high email volumes. For example:
1) Klaviyo has a daily send email limitation that will depend on how many active profiles counts you have and the plan you’ve purchased. This can limit the number of emails that can be sent out in a given period and can be a challenge for businesses with large email lists or those that need to send high volumes of emails regularly.
2) Klaviyo has a limit on the number of contacts that can be stored in each list, which can hinder the management of large email lists.
3) Additionally, this ESP might have some limitations in advance customizations and integrations with custom-built or less popular third-party apps that can hinder business growth as organizations find that they need more features to help them achieve their long-term growth goals.
This means companies looking to scale and expecting future growth in their organization will have to look for a different email marketing solution that has everything they need to take their business to the next level and help them achieve their long-term goals.
On the other hand, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is designed to be highly scalable and grow with your business.
* It offers a wide range of features and capabilities that allow it to handle large volumes of data and high email volumes.
* Marketing Cloud offers advanced segmentation and personalization features, which can help businesses create highly targeted and personalized campaigns tailored to individual customer preferences and behaviors.
* As your business grows, you can add new features and functionality to the Marketing Cloud platform to meet your changing needs. For example, WhatsApp integration with Salesforce Marketing Cloud
* It is suited for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises.
Furthermore, with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, many enterprises have been able to:
* Improve the effectiveness of their email campaigns.
* Scale their marketing efforts across multiple regions and languages.
* Scale their social media marketing efforts across multiple platforms to reach a wider audience while maintaining a high level of engagement and personalization.
* Grow their mobile messaging efforts to reach more customers on their mobile devices and improve engagement and conversion rates.
Overall, Marketing Cloud’s scalability makes it a good choice for larger businesses with complex marketing needs. This means that the Marketing Cloud can grow with your business, whereas Klaviyo may not be able to meet your needs as you grow.
Advanced Features:
Although Klaviyo offers many valuable and advanced features for email marketing and e-commerce, it does not provide the same level of advanced functionality as Salesforce Marketing Cloud in areas like social media management, advertising, predictive intelligence, and data management.
Let’s take a closer look at these features and Salesforce Marketing Cloud modules, and let’s see how they can help businesses:
1) Marketing Cloud allows users to configure custom sending domains, which can help improve email deliverability and avoid the spam filter. Klaviyo has some built-in deliverability tools, but you’ll still need to monitor your email metrics and continually optimize your campaigns to ensure deliverability.
2) Marketing Cloud includes a range of tools for segmentation, personalization, and A/B testing, which can help businesses to create highly targeted and effective campaigns.
3) The platform has a visual drag-and-drop tool called Journey Builder that allows users to create personalized customer journeys across multiple channels, including email, SMS, push notifications (Marketing Cloud mobile push), social media, and more.
4) Its social media management tool, Social Studio, allows users to manage their social media accounts, publish and schedule content, track and analyze social media metrics, and engage with customers across multiple social media platforms.
5) It offers the advertising management tool, Advertising Studio, which allows users to create and manage targeted advertising campaigns across multiple channels, including social media, display ads, and mobile.
6) Marketing Cloud includes Predictive intelligence, a machine learning tool that analyzes customer data and behavior to predict future actions and interests to help marketers personalize their communications and offers based on individual customer preferences and behavior.
7) Marketing Cloud includes a Data Management Platform that helps users collect, unify, and activate customer data across multiple channels, including online and offline sources.
In short, Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a range of tools and advanced capabilities that allows businesses to create highly personalized and targeted campaigns and can help reach and engage with clients across multiple channels, such as email, SMS, and social media.
Integration
As we mentioned before, Klaviyo can integrate with many popular e-commerce platforms; however, the platform may not integrate seamlessly with all third-party tools or systems that you use, or there may be limitations or challenges when integrating with custom-built or less popular systems. This can create data synchronization issues or require additional manual work.
Marketing Cloud is part of the Salesforce ecosystem, which means that it integrates seamlessly with other Salesforce products. This can be a huge advantage if you already use Salesforce for your sales, service, or other business functions. It also means that all customer data can be seamlessly managed and analyzed in one place, providing a more holistic view of customer behavior and engagement.
So, some advantages Salesforce Marketing Cloud has over Klaviyo on integration are:
1) Its integration with other Salesforce products, such as Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. This integration allows businesses to create a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints, from initial lead generation to post-sale support.
2) It allows businesses to access customer data, track leads, and automate marketing campaigns on customer behavior.
3) Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a wide range of integrations with popular e-commerce platforms and other third-party applications, which can help businesses streamline their marketing workflows and improve efficiency.
4) Marketing Cloud offers social media integrations with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms, allowing businesses to manage their social media presence and engagement.
5) It integrates with advertising platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Instagram Ads, allowing businesses to create and manage targeted advertising campaigns across multiple channels.
6) The platform integrates with content management systems like WordPress, which allows businesses to create and publish content across multiple channels.
7) Marketing Cloud integrates with e-commerce platforms like Shopify and Magento, which enables businesses to track customer behavior, personalize marketing campaigns, and automate e-commerce operations.
In comparison, Klaviyo’s integration capabilities are somewhat more limited as it focuses primarily on e-commerce integrations and integrations with email service providers. While Klaviyo does offer integrations with several e-commerce platforms, including Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce, it does not provide the same range of integrations as Salesforce Marketing Cloud in areas like social media, advertising, and content management, and it may not be as effective for businesses with more complex integration needs across multiple platforms and channels.
Customization
Although Klaviyo includes many advanced features, it may not be as customizable or powerful as some of its competitors. And depending on the specific needs of a business, Klaviyo might have some limitations in customization, for example:
* Klaviyo’s email templates are limited in their design flexibility. While Klaviyo does offer some customization options, businesses might need to work within the constraints of the platform’s templates. This limitation can make it difficult for companies to create custom designs that match their brand and marketing needs.
* Data customization limitation. While the platform does offer data segmentation and personalization capabilities, it can create some restrictions for businesses with complex data structures or data management needs, and they would have to outsource tools or platforms to manage their data.
* Klaviyo has some limitations in the amount of data that can be sent or received through the platform. This issue can impact businesses’ ability to customize their data integrations or automate their marketing campaigns.
* Limited A/B testing capabilities. Even though Klaviyo does offer some A/B testing capabilities, businesses with more complex testing needs may face some limitations and would have to use external tools to run their tests.
So, while Klaviyo does offer valuable email marketing and e-commerce features and a wide range of pre-built email templates and customization options that can be effective for many businesses, the truth is that some companies with more complex business requirements may find that they need more advanced customization features that are not available within the platform and may have to look for external tools or platforms to supplement Klaviyo’s capabilities.
However, Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a wide range of customization features to help businesses create hyper-personalized and engaging marketing experiences. The platform’s advanced personalization and automation features, such as the Journey Builder and Interaction Studio, can help companies to create more targeted and effective marketing campaigns and improve customer engagement. Additionally, the platform offers more customization features, such as:
* Customizable templates: Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides a range of customizable email templates, which can help businesses create professional-looking emails quickly and easily.
* Content customization: Marketing Cloud offers tools like dynamic content, personalization, and content blocks to help businesses to customize their marketing campaigns’ content, tailoring their messaging and content to specific customer segments.
* Design customization: The platform offers extensive design features, including drag-and-drop builders, HTML editors, and templates, allowing businesses to create custom designs to match their brand and marketing needs without the constraints of pre-built templates.
* Data customization: Marketing Cloud enables businesses to manage and customize their customer data with segmentation, targeting, and personalization, which allows them to create more targeted and personalized campaigns based on customer behavior and preferences.
* A/B Testing: Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers robust A/B testing capabilities, allowing businesses to test and optimize their marketing campaigns for improved engagement and conversion rates. This includes testing email subject lines, content, and offers.
Furthermore, there are many ways organizations across various industries can use Salesforce Marketing Cloud to customize their marketing efforts to better suit their needs and bring many benefits to their businesses. For example:
* They can use personalized email campaigns to create a very engaging and unique customer experience.
* They can segment customers’ data and use dynamic content to create email campaigns to target customers based on their behavior and preferences, increasing engagement and conversions.
* They can create personalized SMS campaigns to target customers based on their location and behavior to improve engagement and customer satisfaction.
* They can create personalized loyalty programs to reward customers for their engagement and spending habits, increasing customer loyalty and retention.
* They can create personalized mobile apps to provide customers with customized content, offers, and experiences based on their behavior and preferences, increasing customer loyalty and revenue.
By using Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s customization capabilities, businesses can increase engagement, conversions, and customer satisfaction. Marketing Cloud provides a range of tools for content, design, data, integration, and A/B testing, that helps businesses to create more engaging and personalized marketing experiences that drive results.
Customer Support
Customer support has been a point of criticism by some of Klaviyo’s users. While Klaviyo offers customer support through email, phone, and chat, some businesses can find that the level of support provided is not sufficient for their needs, as Klaviyo’s support is available only during business hours in the Eastern Time Zone, which is challenging for users in other time zones.
Additionally, some users have reported slow response times with Klaviyo’s customer support, particularly during peak periods, and difficulty finding answers to their questions in Klaviyo’s documentation, which can be limited in some areas. This can be frustrating if you run into technical issues or have questions about how to use the platform and can make it difficult for some users to get the support they need to use Klaviyo effectively.
In comparison, Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a comprehensive set of customer support features to help users get the assistance they need when using the platform and has a vast community that can help with any issues or questions that arise during the transition to Marketing Cloud. Additionally, the platform offers:
* 24/7 support to users, so they can get help whenever needed. The Marketing Cloud representatives are available to help at any time of the day, and to make it better, the service is available both via phone and chat.
* Multiple support channels like phone, email, and live chat. And a range of online resources, which includes a comprehensive knowledge-based and user community.
* Access to dedicated account managers (for users on higher-tier plans) who can provide personalized support and guidance on using the platform effectively.
* A range of expert services that include consulting, training, and customization services to help users optimize their use of the platform and achieve their marketing goals.
* Robust documentation that covers all aspects of the platform, making it easy for users to find answers to their questions.
In short, Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s comprehensive customer support features are designed to provide users with the assistance they need to use the platform effectively. This can be a huge advantage if you need help with complex marketing campaigns or if you run into technical issues. With 24/7 support, multiple channels, dedicated account managers, and expert services, users can feel confident that they will be able to get the help they need when using the platform.
Ease of Use
Klaviyo offers a lot of advanced features, which can be overwhelming for users who are not experienced in email marketing or automation. The platform has a steep learning curve, and it may take some time to become proficient in using it. Additionally, Klaviyo’s training resources are limited, particularly for new users who may need more comprehensive guidance on using the platform or need to read a lot of documentation before they can understand basic features.
Here are some of Klaviyo’s challenges faced by clients regarding ease of use:
* Due to its complexity, Klaviyo can have a steep learning curve, particularly for users who are not familiar with marketing automation tools.
* While Klaviyo’s customization capabilities are extensive, some users may find it challenging to create custom workflows and automations without technical expertise.
* Klaviyo’s user interface is designed to be intuitive; however, some users may find it overwhelming due to the sheer amount of information and options presented.
* Klaviyo offers an excellent onboarding process; however, some users have expressed concerns about the post-onboarding support. Because there’s a learning curve, faster support would be helpful.
Overall, Klaviyo’s complexity and steep learning curve can make the platform challenging for some clients to use effectively.
Marketing Cloud, on the other hand, has several advantages over Klaviyo regarding ease of use. For example:
* Intuitive user interface: Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s user interface is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, with straightforward navigation and a modern, streamlined design.
* Customizable dashboards: Users can customize their dashboards to display the information and metrics that matter most to them, making it easier to track performance and make data-driven decisions.
* Comprehensive documentation: The platform’s documentation is extensive and covers all aspects of the platform, including step-by-step guides and video tutorials.
* User training: Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers comprehensive training resources, including live and recorded webinars, user groups, and a certification program, to help users become proficient in using the platform.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s focus on user experience and ease of use makes it a strong choice for businesses that value user-friendly tools and comprehensive support resources.
Cost
Klaviyo and Salesforce Marketing Cloud have different pricing models and cost structures. Many businesses, especially small companies, prefer Klaviyo open rates, as the platform operates on a monthly subscription model based on the number of contacts in a user’s database, in comparison to Marketing Cloud, which operates on a usage-based pricing model and with a cost structure that can be more complex than Klaviyo’s.
However, Klaviyo can be expensive for businesses with a large customer base or high email volumes. Because the pricing is based on the number of contacts in the customer’s database, the cost can quickly increase if they have a large audience. This can make Klaviyo less cost-effective for businesses with more extensive contact lists, especially compared to other email marketing platforms with more affordable pricing models.
Additionally, many customers have expressed dissatisfaction with Klaviyo’s pricing system because it is focused on maintaining your contacts list, which makes it challenging for businesses to predict and manage costs effectively, especially if they experience sudden growth in their contact list or need to send a high volume of emails in a short period of time. This can make it difficult for small and medium-sized businesses with limited resources to budget and plan for their email marketing expenses.
For larger enterprises with complex marketing needs, Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s scalability and advanced features may be worth the additional cost. While the platform can be more expensive than other email marketing solutions like Klaviyo, many businesses find that the additional cost is justified by the increased functionality and flexibility that Marketing Cloud provides.
The ability to consolidate multiple platforms into one can save your customer money in the long run, as it eliminates the need for multiple subscriptions and reduces the need for multiple teams to manage different platforms. Furthermore, Marketing Cloud is designed to scale with businesses as they grow, with the ability to handle large volumes of data and complex marketing workflows. The platform is also highly flexible, with customizable workflows, integrations, and APIs enabling businesses to tailor the platform to their needs.
In summary, while other email marketing solutions like Klaviyo may be more cost-effective for smaller businesses or those with simpler marketing needs, Marketing Cloud can provide a more robust and powerful platform for larger enterprises or businesses with complex marketing requirements or with long-term growth goals.
Security and Compliance
Security and compliance are critical considerations in marketing, particularly in industries like healthcare, finance, and retail, where customer data is sensitive and regulations are strict. Businesses must take measures to protect their customer data and stay compliant with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA. Failure to do so can result in financial penalties, reputational damage, and legal liability.
Marketing Cloud is built on the Salesforce platform, which means that the platform is designed to help businesses comply with data privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. The way this happens is as follows: Marketing Cloud GDPR helps businesses comply with GDPR by providing tools to manage data subject requests, data retention policies, data protection impact assessments, and privacy notices.
It also allows businesses to obtain explicit consent from individuals for processing their personal data and to provide individuals with the right to access, rectify, or delete their data. This can be a big advantage if you operate in a highly regulated industry or if you have customers in multiple jurisdictions.
In addition, besides having your customer data secured, it can also be easily accessible and shareable across teams. But rest assured that only authorized parties can access the data thanks to Marketing Cloud’s advanced encryption technology that protects customer data both at rest and in transit.
More importantly, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is HIPAA compliant and has achieved a range of other compliance certifications, including SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, demonstrating the platform’s commitment to security and compliance. The platform also provides tools for managing customer consent, which helps businesses to obtain and document customer consent for marketing communication and to honor opt-out requests. Finally, the platform allows businesses to retain customer data only as long as necessary to comply with regulations.
All these features allow Salesforce Marketing Cloud to help businesses to protect their customer data, stay compliant with regulations, and reduce the risk of financial penalties and legal liability while bringing the peace of mind businesses need by knowing their marketing efforts are being conducted in a secure and compliant manner.
Advanced Analytics and Reporting
Klaviyo offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities, but there are some limitations to its capabilities compared to Salesforce Marketing Cloud. For example, Klaviyo’s visualization options are limited compared to Marketing Cloud, which offers advanced visualization tools like Einstein Analytics. Also, Klaviyo’s reporting primarily focuses on email marketing, whereas Marketing Cloud offers more comprehensive reporting across channels such as SMS, social media, and advertising.
Moreover, Marketing Cloud offers a range of analytics and reporting tools, such as the Advertising Studio and Real-time Dashboards, that can provide deeper insights into customer behavior and engagement. Marketing Cloud also includes advanced predictive analytics through Einstein, which can help businesses to make data-driven decisions faster.
Overall, while Klaviyo offers robust analytics and reporting capabilities, with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, businesses can create custom dashboards and visualizations to gain insights into their marketing data, they can predict customer behavior, personalized marketing efforts to improve engagement and ROI, and they can gain insights into which channels are driving the most engagement and conversions and adjust their marketing efforts accordingly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while Klaviyo may be a good starting point for email marketing, it may not be the best choice for businesses looking to scale their marketing efforts and stay ahead of the competition. However, Marketing Cloud is better suited for larger companies or those with more complex marketing needs.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers a wide range of advanced features to help businesses achieve their marketing goals and take their marketing efforts to the next level. From scalability and integration to customization, customer support, security, compliance, analytics, and reporting, the Marketing Cloud provides businesses with a comprehensive solution for all their marketing needs.
If you’re considering making the move from Klaviyo to the Marketing Cloud, it’s important to work with an experienced partner who can guide you through the transition process and help you make the most of the platform’s features.
As a Salesforce solution company, Cloudsquare has extensive expertise in Salesforce Marketing Cloud and can help you seamlessly migrate from Klaviyo to the Marketing Cloud. With our help, you can take advantage of all the benefits of the Marketing Cloud and transform your marketing efforts into a powerful engine for growth. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you make the move to Salesforce Marketing Cloud.