What Are Email & SMS Tools
Email & SMS tools are essential components in the technology stack of modern eCommerce and D2C brands. These platforms enable brands to communicate directly with customers through owned marketing channels, building relationships and driving revenue without relying on paid advertising. They help brands improve customer retention, personalize messaging at scale, and create seamless customer experiences across the entire lifecycle.
By combining robust automation capabilities with rich customer data, Email & SMS tools allow brands to make informed decisions about their retention marketing strategy, segment audiences intelligently, and deliver the right message at the right time. When integrated properly, they play a pivotal role in driving repeat purchases, maximizing customer lifetime value, and creating predictable revenue streams.
These tools often integrate with other systems such as eCommerce platforms, analytics software, customer support tools, and subscription management systems, creating a unified ecosystem that enhances performance across every department. This interconnectivity ensures that customer data flows seamlessly between systems, enabling more personalized experiences and strategic decision-making based on actual purchasing behavior and engagement patterns.
Key Benefits of Email & SMS Tools
Email & SMS tools provide several important benefits for eCommerce and D2C brands, including:
- Improved Customer Retention: Build lasting relationships through personalized communication that keeps customers engaged between purchases and encourages repeat orders.
- Revenue Growth Through Owned Channels: Generate predictable revenue without ad spend by leveraging customer data to create targeted campaigns and automated flows that convert.
- Enhanced Personalization: Leverage behavioral data, purchase history, and customer preferences to deliver highly relevant messages that resonate with individual shoppers.
- Automated Customer Journeys: Set up sophisticated automation flows for welcome series, abandoned cart recovery, post-purchase engagement, and win-back campaigns that run on autopilot.
- Centralized Customer Data: Act as a CRM hub that houses rich customer information, enabling better segmentation and more strategic marketing decisions.
- Measurable Performance: Track open rates, click-through rates, conversion metrics, and revenue attribution to continuously optimize campaigns and prove marketing ROI.
Different Types of Email & SMS Tools
Depending on a brand's needs, Email & SMS tools can be divided into several categories:
- Comprehensive Marketing Platforms: All-in-one solutions like Klaviyo that combine email, SMS, and customer data in a single platform with advanced segmentation, predictive analytics, and eCommerce-specific features.
- SMS-Focused Solutions: Specialized tools like Postscript that prioritize SMS marketing with features for subscriber growth, two-way conversations, and compliance management for text message campaigns.
- Popup & Lead Capture Tools: Platforms like Alia and Privy that focus on growing email and SMS lists through engaging popups, interactive experiences, and on-site conversion optimization.
- Deliverability & Infrastructure Tools: Solutions like InboxAlly that ensure messages reach the inbox rather than spam folders, protecting sender reputation and maximizing engagement rates.
- AI-Powered Optimization Tools: Platforms like Mailability that use artificial intelligence to score customer intent, optimize campaign timing, and maximize revenue from existing subscribers.
- Compliance & Consent Management: Tools like Dataships that dynamically adapt opt-in forms based on visitor location to maximize subscription rates while maintaining regulatory compliance.
Each type offers distinct advantages and use cases, helping brands choose the solution that aligns best with their business model, technical requirements, and growth goals.
Key Features of Email & SMS Tools
Leading Email & SMS tools share a set of core features designed to maximize their impact on eCommerce operations:
- Advanced Segmentation: Create detailed customer segments based on purchase history, browsing behavior, engagement levels, predicted lifetime value, and custom attributes to ensure every message reaches the most relevant audience.
- Automation Flows: Build sophisticated triggered campaigns for abandoned carts, welcome series, browse abandonment, post-purchase follow-ups, win-back sequences, and replenishment reminders that nurture customers automatically.
- Behavioral Triggers: Send messages based on real-time customer actions such as product views, cart additions, or email engagement, creating timely and contextually relevant communications.
- A/B Testing Capabilities: Test subject lines, send times, content variations, and calls-to-action to continuously improve campaign performance and identify winning strategies. Learn more about what to do when your A/B split test fails to optimize your testing strategy.
- Predictive Analytics: Leverage machine learning to forecast customer behavior, identify high-value segments, predict churn risk, and optimize send timing for maximum engagement.
- Two-Way SMS Conversations: Enable real-time text message conversations with customers for support, order updates, and personalized engagement that builds stronger relationships.
- Revenue Attribution: Track exactly how much revenue each campaign, flow, and channel generates, providing clear ROI metrics and informing budget allocation decisions.
- Template Libraries: Access pre-built email and SMS templates designed for eCommerce use cases, accelerating campaign creation while maintaining brand consistency. Consider what to say in your order confirmation emails to maximize engagement.
These features enable eCommerce teams to operate more intelligently, respond faster to customer behavior, and continuously improve the effectiveness of their retention marketing efforts.
Key Things Email & SMS Tools Do
These tools empower D2C and eCommerce brands to achieve tangible, measurable results. Common use cases include:
- Recover Abandoned Revenue: Automatically remind customers about items left in their cart through perfectly timed email and SMS sequences, recovering sales that would otherwise be lost and significantly boosting conversion rates.
- Build Customer Lifetime Value: Create post-purchase flows that educate customers about products, cross-sell complementary items, gather reviews, and encourage repeat purchases to maximize the value of each customer relationship. Using post-purchase surveys to capture first-party data can enhance these efforts significantly.
- Scale Retention Marketing: Move beyond one-off campaigns to create a systematic retention engine with automated flows, intelligent segmentation, and data-driven personalization that grows revenue without increasing ad spend.
- Grow Owned Audiences: Capture email addresses and phone numbers through popups, customer education experiences, and checkout optimization, building valuable first-party data assets that reduce reliance on paid channels. Understanding how to test new acquisition channels with minimal risk can complement your owned channel strategy.
- Optimize Campaign Performance: Use intent scoring, AI-powered send time optimization, and cost management features to maximize email and SMS revenue while controlling platform costs and maintaining high deliverability.
- Maintain Compliance: Ensure all email and SMS communications meet regulatory requirements across different regions, managing consent properly and adapting forms based on visitor location to maximize opt-ins legally.
Who Uses Email & SMS Tools at a D2C Brand
Several roles typically rely on Email & SMS tools within an eCommerce organization:
- Retention Marketing Managers: Own the email and SMS strategy, build campaigns and flows, analyze performance metrics, and continuously optimize to drive repeat purchase revenue.
- Email Marketing Specialists: Create campaign content, design templates, conduct A/B tests, and manage the day-to-day execution of email programs.
- CRM Managers: Leverage customer data within these platforms to create sophisticated segmentation strategies, build lifecycle marketing programs, and improve customer engagement.
- Growth Marketing Teams: Use these tools as part of a broader growth strategy, coordinating email and SMS efforts with other channels to maximize customer lifetime value.
- Ecommerce Managers: Monitor how retention channels contribute to overall revenue, integrate email and SMS with the broader customer experience, and ensure proper data flow between systems.
- Founders or CEOs: Review retention metrics, understand the contribution of owned channels to revenue, and make strategic decisions about investing in list growth and automation sophistication. When launching a D2C brand in 2025, establishing a strong email and SMS foundation early is critical for long-term success.
What Are the Best Email & SMS Tools
While specific options depend on your platform and needs, here are some widely recognized tools in this category:
- Klaviyo: The industry-leading platform for eCommerce email and SMS marketing, known for powerful segmentation based on purchasing behavior, predictive analytics, and deep Shopify integration. Used by over 1,400 D2C brands for its ability to turn customer data into revenue-driving campaigns.
- Postscript: A specialized SMS marketing platform trusted by over 7,000 Shopify stores, offering compliant subscriber collection, two-way conversations, and targeted text campaigns designed specifically for eCommerce brands.
- Alia: An innovative popup tool that rewards shoppers with discounts for learning about a brand's story and products, creating engaging customer education experiences that build stronger connections while growing lists.
- Privy: A comprehensive marketing automation platform that combines email, SMS, and on-site conversion tools to help brands grow contact lists and automate key marketing workflows.
- Mailability: An AI-powered intent scoring solution that works as a layer on top of Klaviyo, using artificial intelligence to boost email and SMS revenue by identifying engaged shoppers and optimizing campaign segmentation automatically.
- InboxAlly: A deliverability-focused platform that protects sender reputation and ensures messages land in the inbox rather than spam folders, maximizing the return on email marketing investments.
- Campaigner: A full-featured email and SMS solution offering extensive automation options, competitive pricing, and an intuitive interface with a wide selection of templates for brands of all sizes.
Each of these tools helps brands strengthen their retention marketing performance and create more efficient, customer-centered communication strategies that drive predictable revenue through owned channels.
