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Attentive Shopify App Review: Can This SMS Marketing Tool Boost Your Sales?

November 30, 2023
Written and researched by experts at AvadaLearn more about our methodology

By Sam Nguyen

CEO Avada Commerce

This article comprehensively reviews the Attentive Shopify App based on the criteria:  highlighting features, pros and cons, pricing, and more.

Key Takeaways

  • The Attentive Shopify app offers Shopify merchants a comprehensive SMS and MMS marketing tool that significantly boosts customer engagement through personalized, two-way conversations. 
  • With features like prewritten templates and innovative two-tap technology for growing subscriber lists, Attentive provides a robust platform for enhancing customer interaction and potentially increasing sales.
  • The app is particularly beneficial for online retailers who prioritize direct and personalized customer communication. It’s especially effective for businesses in fashion, beauty, tech gadgets, consumer goods, and lifestyle products, where engaging customers with timely updates about new products and special offers can significantly boost sales.

Attentive: SMS + MMS Marketing App Overview

Attentive is a powerful SMS and MMS marketing app for Shopify users. It supports two-way, personalized chats to improve customer interaction. The app offers prewritten templates, making sending messages about sales, new products, order updates, and customer support easy. It also includes a Text-to-Buy feature using Shop Pay for convenience.

Attentive: SMS + MMS Marketing App Overview

Shopify’s integration with Attentive is smooth, allowing users to access it directly from the Shopify admin. The app offers a complete solution for evolving SMS strategies as businesses grow, including playbooks, professional advice, and support from a top-notch team. It features unique two-tap technology to grow SMS and email lists quickly. Attentive enables personalized communication throughout the customer journey, ensuring effective interactions at all stages. It also allows for detailed campaign analysis, advanced segmentation, and ensures compliance with industry standards. 

Overall, Attentive is an essential tool for Shopify merchants, providing an easy-to-use interface, expert guidance, and various features to enhance SMS marketing and sales results.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Excels in leveraging the potential of SMS and MMS marketing.
  • The platform enables personalized, two-way conversations with customers.
  • Seamless Integration with Shopify
  • Playbooks and expert advice assist businesses in refining their SMS marketing strategies.
  • Patented two-tap technology accelerates the growth of SMS and email subscriber lists, streamlining the process of expanding the customer base.
  • Various features for campaign management, including prewritten templates, analysis tools, and triggered messages.

Cons:

  • Some users report challenges with data retention, leading to frustration and data management concerns.
  • Glitches in the design interface
  • Basic analytics and reporting features are basic, and some essential reports need to be requested, potentially limiting real-time visibility into campaign performance.
  • Merchants with lower website traffic may face challenges collaborating with Attentive.
  • Attentive’s pricing is higher in comparison to other platforms like Klaviyo.
  • Difficulties in reaching customer service.

Who Is The Attentive Shopify App Best For?

The Attentive Shopify App is versatile and can cater to businesses prioritizing building direct and meaningful customer relationships through SMS and MMS marketing. It is particularly beneficial for:

  • Online retailers looking to enhance customer engagement and boost sales through targeted SMS and MMS marketing campaigns.
  • Fashion and apparel, tech and gadgets brands who want to promote new product releases, limited-time offers, and exclusive deals directly to their audience’s mobile devices.
  • Brands offering consumer goods and lifestyle products that want to create interactive and personalized experiences and keep customers informed about the latest trends and promotions.
  • Subscription services
  • Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)
  • Businesses in the health and wellness industry
  • Companies hosting events

The Attentive SMS + MMS Marketing Shopify App: Detailed Review

Pricing

The Attentive Shopify App provides a free installation and a minimum 30-day trial. After the trial period, users can opt for month-to-month or long-term agreements. While the app is free, additional charges may apply based on usage and specific features. All charges are billed in USD; external charges may be separate from the Shopify invoice. 

Features

The Attentive Shopify App serves as a game-changer for businesses aiming to revolutionize their marketing strategies, particularly in industries that thrive on direct customer engagement. 

  • Two-Way Journeys: Send personalized two-way messages across the customer lifecycle

The Two-Way Journeys feature of the Attentive Shopify App stands out as a pivotal tool for businesses that enhance direct customer engagement. This feature enables sending personalized, two-way messages throughout various stages of the customer lifecycle. It allows for a more interactive and tailored communication approach, fostering deeper connections with customers. By engaging customers in meaningful conversations at different points – from initial interest to post-purchase follow-ups – this feature ensures that communication is not just a one-way promotional push but a dynamic, responsive dialogue. This approach can significantly enhance customer experience, increasing loyalty and potentially higher conversion rates.

Two-Way Journeys
  • Seamless integration with Shopify

The app lets merchants access and use its functions within Shopify’s familiar admin interface, making it easy to manage and initiate SMS campaigns. This integration is particularly beneficial for e-commerce stores looking to integrate SMS marketing efficiently into their current operations without any hassle.

  • Playbook: Its CS team helps merchants set, track, and deliver program KPIs

The Playbook feature in the Attentive Shopify App comes with dedicated Customer Support (CS) assistance, offering a significant advantage for merchants. This team helps set up, track, and deliver Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each merchant’s program. The Playbook provides a strategic framework and personalized guidance, ensuring that merchants not only define clear goals for their SMS marketing campaigns but also effectively measure and achieve them. With this support, businesses can optimize their strategies based on real-time data and insights, leading to more successful outcomes and a stronger return on their marketing investments.

  • Grow SMS list faster with patented two-tap technology and high-performance

This innovative technology streamlines the opt-in process, making it incredibly efficient for customers to subscribe to SMS updates. With just two taps, users can easily sign up, significantly reducing the usual barriers to subscription and enhancing the performance of SMS list growth. This feature is particularly effective for businesses looking to quickly and effortlessly increase their reach and engage a broader audience through SMS marketing. By simplifying the subscription process, the two-tap technology ensures higher opt-in rates and paves the way for more effective and high-performing SMS marketing campaigns.

  • Comprehensive campaign management

This feature allows merchants to take complete control of their campaign lifecycle, from planning and creation to execution and analysis. It provides tools for segmenting audiences, scheduling messages, and customizing content to target specific customer groups effectively. Additionally, it offers real-time monitoring and analytics to track campaign performance, enabling merchants to make data-driven decisions and adjustments for improved results. This end-to-end management capability ensures a streamlined, efficient approach to SMS marketing, maximizing impact and driving better engagement with customers.

Comprehensive campaign management
  • Compliance: In-house TCPA experts & templates ensure your program is compliant

With in-house experts on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), Attentive provides merchants with an added layer of security and peace of mind. These experts, along with ready-to-use compliant templates, ensure that all SMS marketing programs align with TCPA regulations. This protects businesses from potential legal pitfalls and upholds high standards of customer communication ethics. By taking care of compliance, Attentive allows merchants to focus on crafting effective marketing strategies without worrying about violating regulatory standards.

  • Identity: Power segmentation and personalization with rich identity data points

This functionality enables businesses to deeply understand their customer base and segment audiences based on a variety of criteria, such as shopping behavior, preferences, and engagement history. By accessing and utilizing these detailed data points, merchants can create highly personalized and targeted SMS marketing campaigns. This level of customization ensures that messages resonate more effectively with each segment of the audience, leading to improved engagement, customer satisfaction, and potentially higher conversion rates. Essentially, this feature transforms generic marketing efforts into tailored communications that speak directly to the individual needs and interests of customers.

Ratings and Customer Reviews

The app maintains an overall rating of 3.7, with a total of 21 reviews.

Ratings and Customer Reviews

Users love

  • Impact on SMS Marketing with two-way conversations and personalized customer interactions.
  • The app’s value for business in the fashion and beauty industries.
  • Seamless Shopify integration
  • The app’s features help to grow subscriber lists, especially during promotions, increasing the reach of marketing campaigns.

User concerns:

  • Data being altered during onboarding.
  • Interface Glitches that impact user experience and ease of use.
  • Essential reports often require manual requests, limiting the ease of data analysis.

Attentive Shopify App Integration: Step-by-step Guide

Integrating the Attentive Shopify App is particularly advantageous for building a winning SMS marketing strategy. It facilitates faster growth of SMS subscriber lists and allows businesses to send personalized messages throughout the customer lifecycle. Shopify Plus merchants specifically utilize Attentive to rapidly expand subscriber lists, engage customers effectively, and drive revenue.

Attentive provides the best customer service from its dedicated strategy team. This team helps businesses develop their mobile strategy by providing expert advice and guidance at every stage.

How to integrate Attentive Shopify App 

  • Step 1: Install Attentive from the Shopify App Store:

Visit the Shopify App Store and search for the “Attentive” app.

Click on the app, then select “Add app” to begin the installation process.

  • Step 2: Authorize Access:

After adding the app, you’ll be prompted to authorize access to your Shopify store. Click “Install app” to proceed.

  • Step 3: Create an Attentive Account:

If you don’t have an Attentive account, you’ll need to create one. Provide the necessary information to set up your account.

  • Step 4: Connect Shopify Store:

Once your Attentive account is set up, you’ll be prompted to connect to your Shopify store. Click on the “Connect Shopify” button.

  • Step 5: Grant Permissions:

You’ll need to grant permissions to Attentive to access certain aspects of your Shopify store. Confirm these permissions to allow seamless integration.

  • Step 6: Configure Settings:

Follow the on-screen instructions to configure the app settings according to your preferences. This may include setting up your messaging preferences, campaigns, and other relevant details.

  • Step 7: Test the Integration:

After configuration, it’s a good practice to test the integration to ensure that Attentive is properly connected to your Shopify store. Send a test message or campaign to verify functionality.

  • Step 8: Explore Features:

Take the time to explore the features provided by Attentive. Familiarize yourself with campaign templates, subscriber list management, and other tools to enhance your SMS marketing strategy.

  • Step 9: Optimize and Customize:

Customize your campaigns and messaging to align with your brand’s tone and marketing goals. Optimize settings based on your business needs for a tailored experience.

  • Step 10: Monitor Performance:

Regularly monitor the performance of your SMS marketing campaigns through the Attentive dashboard. Keep track of subscriber growth, engagement rates, and overall campaign success.

Attentive Shopify App Alternatives

Emotive: SMS Marketing

If you’re exploring alternatives to Attentive for SMS marketing on Shopify, Emotive stands out as a robust option. With a commendable rating of 4.3, Emotive offers an extensive selection of over 600 pre-built SMS templates. This app is designed to streamline the creation of promotions tailored to specific customer segments, along with setting up two-way conversational campaign flows. 

Emotive: SMS Marketing

Notably, Emotive is known for its compatibility with various integrations, including ReCharge, Zendesk, Slack, Zapier, Gorgias, and Klaviyo. Emotive positions itself as a platform emphasizing conversational SMS marketing, asserting itself as the highest ROI channel for e-commerce. It provides dedicated strategy support and even offers a 5x ROI guarantee, making it an attractive choice for businesses looking for a personalized approach to SMS marketing.

SMSBump: SMS Marketing & Email

Another noteworthy alternative is SMSBump: SMS Marketing & Email, boasting an impressive rating of 4.9. Unlike Attentive, SMSBump combines SMS and email campaigns to enhance communication strategies. This app excels in subscriber collection, allowing businesses to build and scale their subscriber base efficiently. 

SMSBump: SMS Marketing & Email

With features like a campaign creator and SMS/email flows, SMSBump provides tools for creating engaging and revenue-driving messages. Its compatibility with popular platforms like Shopify POS, ReCharge, Klaviyo, and more adds to its versatility. SMSBump adopts a flexible pay-as-you-grow pricing model, offering plans from FREE to POWERHOUSE at $199/month.

Klaviyo: Email Marketing & SMS

For a comprehensive solution encompassing both email and SMS marketing, Klaviyo: Email Marketing & SMS is a strong contender. With a rating of 3.9, Klaviyo provides intelligent marketing automation fueled by unified event and shopping data. It enables merchants to centralize data from over 300 integrations, making it instantly usable in targeted, personalized, and automated marketing across various channels, including email and SMS. 

Klaviyo: Email Marketing & SMS

Klaviyo’s features include robust customer profiles, a segment builder, and built-in templates for email and SMS automation. It integrates seamlessly with platforms like Shopify Flow, Facebook Advertising, Recharge, and more. Klaviyo caters to businesses seeking a comprehensive solution for intelligent marketing automation.

Bottom Line

In summary, the Attentive Shopify App proves to be a robust tool for boosting sales through strategic SMS marketing. With its emphasis on personalized conversations and innovative features, such as patented two-tap technology, Attentive simplifies customer engagement. Seamless integration with Shopify, expert guidance, and positive reviews highlight its effectiveness. Try it for free now!

FAQs

Attentive is an SMS and MMS marketing app that helps e-commerce brands increase revenue by engaging with their customers through two-way, personalized conversations.
Attentive provides pre-written campaign templates to save time and expert advice to refine your SMS strategy as you scale. It also helps you grow your text and email subscriber lists with patented two-tap technology. You can send personalized two-way messages across the customer lifecycle, such as limited-time offers, new products, order updates, customer support, Text-to-Buy via Shop Pay, and more.
Attentive recommends focusing on growing your SMS marketing list, drafting an engaging welcome message, and integrating SMS with the rest of your tech stack. You can also refer to Attentive’s official documentation for more information.
The app is free to install, but additional charges may apply.
SMS marketing involves sending text messages to customers, while MMS marketing involves sending multimedia messages that can include images, videos, and GIFs.

Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.