The top 10 SMS integrations to un-silo text marketing and build better omnichannel experiences
A marketer’s ability to see the full picture makes or breaks brands, especially in tougher markets.
Data inaccuracies, silo-ed marketing technologies, and a lack of a single customer view––or source of truth for customer data––leads marketers to making poor decisions about what is working, what isn’t, and where to invest.
In no channel does this happen more than SMS marketing.
SMS is a newer channel, after all, and many retail marketing teams have yet to integrate it into their full tech stack. Instead, brands often use single-point solutions that require data across SMS, email, and website to be stitched together to create a holistic messaging experience for the customer.
That’s not the case now for more than 10,000 small and mid-sized businesses that have said enough is enough. Those brands now use Klaviyo SMS in coordination with Klaviyo’s email marketing technology, form builder, and CDP.
In this tech stack model, where customer communications and engagement are housed in a single source of truth, brands then lean on point-and-click integrations to further personalize both email and SMS automations.
This helps brands save marketing team time and drive more revenue by:
- Using advanced segmentation to send more targeted SMS campaigns, like creating a segment of your VIP customers and letting them know you’re doing an exclusive product drop before the general public gets access,
- Centralizing customers’ responses to messages and offering top-tier support, so when customers text you with a question about sizing, your agents have all the context they need to respond quickly,
- Streamlining workflows by connecting to the important tools you’re already using, like helping customers reactivate canceled subscriptions or apply a discount to their next order via text.
There is no need to stitch data in this model, nor switch from solution provider to solution provider.
Instead, you can monitor all of your communications in a single place, automate and scale automations with assured compliance to TCPA regulations, see data from across the integrations roll into your single source of truth, and continue to build out your all-important single customer view.
Below, you’ll find the top 10 ways to use integrations with Klaviyo SMS. These are some of the most popular and most used ecommerce integrations in the industry––allowing your team to use the best-in-class tools you’re used to, without worrying about data inaccuracies, lack of integrations, or procurement issues along the way.
Table of contents:
- Personalization SMS integrations
- Help desk and support SMS integrations
- Affiliate marketing SMS integrations
- Influencer marketing SMS integrations
- Survey and quiz SMS integrations
- Loyalty and referral marketing SMS integrations
- Reviews collection and UGC SMS integrations
- Subscription SMS integrations
- Shipping and logistics SMS integrations
- Return management SMS integrations
SMS integrations for personalization
You work hard to attract customers, and you have to work even harder to retain them.
Consumers gravitate toward brands that feel like they listen to them, understand them, and pay attention to their specific wants and needs.
In fact, 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations.
91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations.
That’s where personalization––and segmentation!––comes in. Personalization is a key way for brands to contextualize the experiences they deliver, according to each individual person’s profile, both in email marketing and especially in SMS marketing.
Connecting Klaviyo to a platform like Zembula gives your team the power to create truly unique, deeply personalized SMS experiences across every campaign––from product announcements to abandoned cart alerts and loyalty updates.
“Zembula empowers brands to create hyper-personalized content with their data,” says Robert Haydock, CEO and Co-founder at Zembula. “Partnering with Klaviyo SMS lets brands do something truly unique: Send deeply personalized texts with images and gifs that are made just for them.”
Here are a few ways you can use Klaviyo SMS and Zembula together:
- Encourage browsers to come back and buy by texting a personalized image of the exact product they left behind.
- Drive repeat purchases with dynamic SMS imagery that includes special offers, which are tailored to each individual shopper
- Keep customers informed about their loyalty program status with personalized images and gifs.
Help desk and support SMS integrations
Customer expectations are higher than ever before. So high, that even one negative experience can lead to losing that customer for life.
Shoppers who have had a negative experience are more likely to talk about it, leave a negative review, and share that experience with their network.
“Satisfied” customers generate 14x more revenue for businesses than a “somewhat dissatisfied” customer.
Retaining happy customers matters, and these people buy more, too. “Satisfied” customers generate 14x more revenue for businesses than a “somewhat dissatisfied” customer.
Integrating Klaviyo with your help desk platform––like Gorgias or Zendesk––help you to improve customer satisfaction by providing top-tier support across channels.
You can use Gorgias or Zendesk events with Klaviyo SMS to manage all customer communications in one place and power highly targeted campaigns, such as:
- Promoting new products or a flash sale to customers who had positive support experiences to drive incremental revenue
- Excluding customers with open support tickets from promotional text campaigns
- Texting discounts to win back customers who reported poor support experiences
“With all the Gorgias integrations, my team doesn’t need to jump between tools,” says Amanda Schermerhorn, director of operations, Darn Good Yarn. “This has helped us dramatically improve customer satisfaction.”
“My team doesn’t need to jump between tools. This has helped us dramatically improve customer satisfaction.”
Amanda Schermerhorn, director of operations, Darn Good Yarn
In addition, inbound messages in Klaviyo automatically create tickets in Gorgias or Zendesk, mitigating any back-and-forth between systems for your support agents.
This lets you resolve issues much faster and keep a complete record of customer interactions in both your helpdesk and within Klaviyo profiles.
Other help desk integrations, like Gladly, let you build dynamic customer segments based on support events. This can also help you exclude shoppers from a new product announcement campaign who have an unresolved issue with your support team.
Affiliate marketing SMS integrations
Affiliate marketing can be one of the best ways to scale your business. More than 40% of brands cite affiliate marketing as their most successful customer acquisition channel, and 54% of brands rank it in their top 3 channels.
In order to manage a successful affiliate program and maintain its success in the long term, companies need to partner with as many top affiliates as possible. But, these top affiliates are usually bombarded with endless offers from different companies.
54% of brands rank affiliate marketing in their top 3 acquisition channels.
To stand out, it helps to personalize messaging while making it easy for affiliates to run campaigns. That’s where an affiliate marketing solution like Refersion comes in.
Using Refersion with Klaviyo SMS workflows lets you streamline targeted communications that nurture relationships with affiliates and empower them to be successful.
Here are some examples on how you can use Klaviyo SMS for affiliate marketing:
- Tailor welcome flows for new affiliates when they join your program and introduce them to your brand
- Text important onboarding information, like best practices for how to talk about a new product line, so that affiliates get the context they need to be successful
- Send exclusive commission incentives to make affiliates feel like true insiders
For Blenders Eyewear, their affiliate program is how they built valuable relationships at scale.
Blenders took the same model that helped their founder sell his first pairs of Blenders and opened it up to customers and brand enthusiasts, creating a “boots on the ground” community of influential ambassadors called the Street Team.
Armed with Blenders’ love, active social media accounts and exclusive eyewear perks, members of the Street Team generate a continually growing percentage of Blenders annual revenue.
“Klaviyo enables us to connect with our Street Team, get them onboarded, educate them and help them stay motivated along the way,” says Marygrace LeGros, street team manager, Blenders Eyewear. “They get first access to everything that’s going to be coming out soon, like new products and promotions. They’re in the know before our regular customers are, which makes them feel like insiders––which they are––and gets them excited to promote.”
Influencer marketing SMS integrations
Today’s consumers are savvy and often conduct a lot of research before making a purchase. Much of that research comes in the form of social proof, in which consumers see influencers––both celebrities and micro-influencers––posting about products they like, why they like them, and discount codes available.
Influencer marketing has been on the rise for at least the last five years, and much of that is because 92% of consumers trust recommendations from other people, including influencers, over branded content like blogs or paid ads.
Using a platform like Gatsby for influencer marketing and community management helps you easily create and manage SMS campaigns that foster trust with some of the most important advocates of your brand.
Here are some examples:
- Create customer segments based on Instagram or TikTok follower count, and make it easier to scale your social community, track user-generated content, and measure the impact of your ambassadors and influencers
- Deliver special rewards and referral codes based on customers’ follower count
- Create a time-sensitive influencer campaign for a product drop to drive more buzz
- Text influencers reminders to publish content, or send an automated thank you and reward when they mention your brand on Instagram or TikTok
“Gatsby’s integration into Klaviyo empowers merchants to scale their influencer marketing using personalized email and SMS messages” says Brett Bernstein, founder & CEO, Gatsby.
“Because influencers typically publish content from their phone, our Klaviyo SMS integration is extra special, sending influencers a well-timed thank you message to their same mobile device right after they publish. This is a powerful strategy to build top of funnel interest, getting all your influential customers that are most passionate about your brand spreading awareness.”
Another great option for building and managing your influencer marketing campaigns is Upfluence. When you integrate Upfluence with Klaviyo, you can identify your most influential customers, start a conversation, and nurture these relationships with SMS.
Survey and quiz SMS integrations
How can you really get to know shoppers who are visiting your website, and use that data to drive revenue? One great way is to use a short survey or quiz to ask consumers about their likes, dislikes, and preferences. This is how you collect zero-party data.
With each question, you can narrow down products to match shoppers with the best recommendations for them. According to an Accenture survey, 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that send personalized offers and recommendations.
Surveys and quizzes allow you to gather very specific information to inform personalized messaging with people’s likes and preferences.
91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that send personalized offers and recommendations.
You can use a quiz solution like Octane AI alongside Klaviyo to both capture subscribers and learn more about them. This lets you enrich your existing customer profiles, plus you can:
- Build new audiences for marketing and social targeting based on quiz or survey data, like a segment of shoppers whose favorite color is purple
- Send more targeted flows based on quiz or survey data, like using people’s favorite ice cream flavor to build a welcome flow that’s hyper-personalized
- Create more personalized cart abandonment flows, informed by data collected directly from the consumers
“One of the best parts about Octane AI’s Shop Quiz is the ability to tag our customers within Klaviyo to create different segments that we can in turn build new automated drip campaigns and personalize our messaging towards,” says Jacob Sappington, marketing lead, Doe Lashes.
Jebbit is another solid choice for using quizzes to capture more qualified leads, enhance customer profiles, and use preference data to personalize your SMS marketing. And, if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution for forms, surveys, and quizzes, Typeform is a great bet to use with Klaviyo SMS.
What do you need from a tool for this to work SMS marketing? Simply for the quiz to be mobile-responsive. Many brands even make these quizzes for mobile-first audiences, since they promote these on TikTok and other mobile-first channels.
Loyalty and referral marketing SMS integrations
Offering incentives is essential to cultivate long-lasting––and more profitable––relationships with your customers.
Repeat customers are 50% more likely to try a new product and spend 31% more per purchase than new customers. Loyalty programs are crucial for keeping your existing customers close to your brand. Plus, they make shoppers excited to buy!
Repeat customers are 50% more likely to try a new product and spend 31% more per purchase than new customers.
Using a platform like LoyaltyLion or Stamped.io and Klaviyo together allows you to create segmented audiences to power hyper-personalized text campaigns that will delight and reward your most loyal customers.
Here are some examples of how you can use a loyalty or referral solution alongside Klaviyo SMS:
- Creating personalized customer segments based on loyalty measures, like points or VIP tiers, to send these customers exclusive product offers
- Updating customers on their loyalty points via text and letting them know how close they are to the next rewards tier
- Asking top-tier customers to refer their favorite product of yours to their friends
“LoyaltyLion and Klaviyo make an incredible duo for your marketing stack. From SMS and emails to your help desk, integrating your loyalty program at every stage of the customer journey motivates customers to have an engaged and long-term relationship with your brand,” says Beth Wells, senior partner marketing executive, LoyaltyLion. “Our integration with Klaviyo SMS in particular creates powerful personalization at scale. Send the right loyalty texts at the right time to encourage repeat purchases and increase your CLTV.”
If you’re looking for another referral platform to integrate with Klaviyo SMS, Friendbuy is a great bet.
Drive awareness for your referral program via SMS by sending texts that thank advocates for sharing on your behalf, or remind them to continue sharing by including their unique referral link. You can also message referred friends with a coupon code, giving them a special incentive to buy.
Reviews collection and UGC SMS integrations
Authentic customer-generated content can be extremely powerful for driving revenue. Reviews give potential customers better insight into your products or services to help them make informed decisions.
Simply put, reviews help shoppers buy with confidence––people that read honest reviews are 4x more likely to convert into paying customers and have an average 28% higher basket value.
People that read honest reviews are 4x more likely to convert into paying customers and have an average 28% higher basket value.
Connecting Klaviyo to a platform like Okendo or Judge.me helps you gather more authentic reviews that will build trust with consumers. You can do this through targeted text campaigns, like:
- Asking customers to review your product or service once it’s delivered (bonus points if you incentivize them with a little treat, like 10 rewards points)
- Sending a refer-a-friend invitation to customers who’ve given you a 5-star review, so they can spread the word about your brand
- Reconnecting with shoppers who’ve left a negative review to try and win them back
“Using data from Okendo to create segments in Klaviyo that we target with messaging tailored to individual customers enabled us to increase revenue-per-recipient by a massive 423%,” says Marta Skrabacz, digital marketing & ecommerce manager, WAG.
REVIEWS.io is another great reviews platform that you can use alongside Klaviyo SMS. You can create unique audiences based on Instagram content, trigger texts for customers to review your product or service, and share your loyalty and rewards programs.
Subscription SMS integrations
Meeting customers where they are, in a channel they use the most, can be essential to reducing churn for subscription businesses.
Sometimes customers just want to skip this month’s shipment. Not knowing how to do so can lead to hasty subscription cancellations. Making it easy to skip or reschedule a delivery via text when subscribers try to cancel helps improve retention.
These simple tactics can even increase customer lifetime value by 30%.
You can take simple subscription notifications to the next level by integrating Klaviyo with a solution like Recharge. You’re able to create SMS marketing flows or campaigns in Klaviyo to grow your business, like:
- Creating personalized flows powered by subscription metrics, such as people who started a subscription, canceled a subscription, or have an expired subscription
- Texting Quick Action links that let customers easily perform a variety of actions, like reactivating their canceled subscription or to apply a discount to their next order
- Building customer segments for your top subscription customers, so you can send them special deals and offers
“The new updates around Klaviyo and Recharge unlock extremely powerful tools for our marketing campaigns,” says Yaseen Shurbaji, co-founder, Prismfly. “These enhancements will have a huge impact on our clients leveraging Recharge and Klaviyo to provide highlight targeted campaigns and allow us to better support our clients in mitigating subscriber churn, supercharging AOV with product add-ons, and increasing LTV with abandoned cart and canceled subscriber win-back campaigns.”
If you’re interested in additional options, here are a few of our other subscription integration partners:
Shipping and logistics SMS integrations
Loyal, returning customers are the backbone of your business. Order confirmation texts can help foster a long-term relationship with your customers because they’ll appreciate instant communication.
Similar to email marketing, these types of SMS messages are tractional, rather than promotional. And for many customers, even those who might not always like SMS marketing, these texts are helpful so they know where their order is, when it is delivered, and can easily give feedback.
If you want to move beyond simple transactional SMS notifications for shipping that might come with your ecommerce platform––and be able to customize these messages––you can connect a platform like ShipBob or Aftership to Klaviyo.
This lets you use shipping data to power personalized, automated text flows, like:
- Giving customers real-time delivery expectations by texting order info, tracking numbers, and even delivery delays or in-transit incidents
- Triggering a product review flow to prompt customers to leave feedback once a shipment is marked as delivered
- Reaching out to first-time or VIP customers whose orders have been delayed with a personalized text
“For our ecommerce tech stack, we use ShipBob, Klaviyo, Shopify Plus, Recharge, and Gorgias,” says Michael Peters, VP of ecommerce operations, TB12. “What I love is how they all work together to manage communications and the customer experience in a streamlined way.”
“For our ecommerce tech stack, we use ShipBob, Klaviyo, Shopify Plus, Recharge, and Gorgias.”
Michael Peters, VP of ecommerce operations, TB12
Here are some of our other top shipping integration partners:
If you’re looking for a full post-purchase platform to use alongside a shipping provider of your choice, Narvar is a great option for streamlining communications across shipping, order tracking, and returns/exchanges.
With Klaviyo and Narvar together, you’re able to keep customers up to date on the status of their order with shipping updates via text; trigger SMS for product review requests, upsell messages, and loyalty program invites; plus encourage customers to exchange products for a different size instead of returning them.
Return management SMS integrations
Delivering a great experience at every part of the customer lifecycle is crucial––and this includes the return process.
Refunds are expensive, but the real cost is the end of the relationship––and losing out on the value of a potentially longtime customer. Using a solution like Loop to create a better return experience lets you retain revenue on 40% of returns by turning them into exchanges.
Create a better return experience and you could retain revenue on 40% of returns by turning them into exchanges.
“Exchanges are 100% the most important thing we look to achieve with returns,” says Omari Whyte, director of operations, Nisolo. “It creates a memorable customer experience and ensures people are able to find products they love.”
Integrating Klaviyo with a return platform lets you update customer profiles with return behavior. You can also:
- Send personalized return updates or reminders via text, like a message reminding customers about a return that is about to expire
- Follow up immediately after receiving an unsatisfactory review, and follow up with options to exchange their product for a different one
- Recommend products when a customer issues store credit or send a discount for their next purchase when they issue a refund
- Suggest chatting with a virtual stylist if sizing was the reason for their return, or text fit guides to make product recommendations
Returnly is another solid choice for using Klaviyo SMS to enhance returns. Offer first-time returners a bonus incentive for their next purchase, or help returners find their next product by sending them fit guides.
Next steps
Don’t treat SMS marketing as a one-off. Text messages and emails, along with your ads, organic content and more, should all be used as part of a larger omnichannel experience for your customer.
Personalization is what really makes these experiences come together, and personalization doesn’t require endless amounts of work.
Don’t treat SMS marketing as a one-off. Personalization is what really makes the experience come together, and it doesn’t require endless amounts of work.
1:1 personalization is unrealistic for marketing teams, but 1:many personalization via segments and dynamic content blocks can create a personalized experience for a customer in a scalable way for the marketing team.
To make that work, you need a single source of truth for your customer data, a single customer view, and accurate data piping to ensure your customers end up in the right segments with the right dynamic content presented.
You need a single source of truth for your customer data and accurate data piping to ensure your customers end up in the right segments with the right dynamic content presented.
One small mix up here can create an inaccurate and even jarring experience for a customer. This is especially true via text––a channel that is already more intimate than email.
Use the pre-built integrations above or any of the 240+ integrations Klaviyo has already built. These integrations are built to work across your entire funnel, so that you and your team can focus on building the best experiences possible––and leave the tech to our engineers.
Explore our complete list of integrations in our Partner Directory, or explore our APIs for more customized builds.
