Airship vs. Customer.io

Well-Suited for: 1. Mobile App Notifications: Ideal for targeted push notifications in apps. 2. Customer Segmentation: Effective for personalized marketing campaigns based on user data. 3. Event-Triggered Automation: Great for automated messaging based on user actions. 4. A/B Testing: Useful for optimizing campaign messages and strategies. Less Appropriate for: 1. Non-Mobile Channels: Less effective if the primary focus is on non-mobile communications like email or direct mail. 2. Basic Email Marketing: Other platforms might be better suited for simple, broad email campaigns without complex segmentation or personalization needs.

Incentivized

This tool is well-suited for companies looking to run email marketing campaigns or send out newsletters regularly to their users/customers. The workflow setup is especially useful for companies who want to send specific emails based on user behavior - i.e. they've not logged in recently, have bought a specific product, haven't opened any emails, etc. This could also be useful for freelancers like me since you can create different workspaces within Customer.io. I have configured it this way to handle email marketing for a few of my clients, and the software keeps everything organized and separate. This might not be the best tool for small businesses, considering the price. It may be better to start out with a cheaper email marketing tool, and then if/when necessary, scale-up with a tool like Customer.io.

• The marketing push notifications are very effective, and it gives us free hand to define different business criteria to target user groups
• The user experience or the message content could differ from Android and iOS, and this is a huge benefit for us
• As an Architect, troubleshooting an issue is very detailed and the time it takes to troubleshoot an issue is considerably less from our previous product

Incentivized

• Managing users, attributes and events. You are easily able to modify any user, based on their ID, and add or remove attributes, assign events to them. That makes it very easy to segment later and to assign them to several campaigns based on behavior. Just a warning: this integration isn't so easy (at least it wasn't for us).
• Creating workflows of campaigns is very easy. You can quickly create behavioral campaigns based on attributes, segments and add elements to the workflow. You can send an email, then wait, then send another, then exit the campaign if they converted, etc. The workflow is easy to configure and very powerful for automation.
• We don't use many email templates (we make them in MJML) but it's very easy to add senders, to change templates and in general to test designs.
• Deliverability works very well, at least for us. It sends emails pretty fast and without issues.
• Exporting is very quick and easy. Importing wasn't a feature until recently, but it works well too.
• Seeing activity it's also useful. In general, logs are awesome (be it of a customer, of activity on the site, email sends, etc.).
• We don't use environments, but it might be very useful for a bigger company.

Incentivized

• The automated A/B testing winner selection and application should be added
• The flexibility of message shape, specifically incorporating transparency so messages do not need to be a rectangular shape
• Faster and more reliable servers around the globe
• Making more detailed use cases and tutorials to be followed can simplify things for users

Incentivized

• I may be missing it in the UI, but a place to see the list of emails who qualify for a certain email.
• One easy to view chart of all our automated/lifecycle emails to see what a given user would see over their customer journey. (This is really just a feature request/idea - the product itself is really awesome.)

Incentivized

The interface takes a bit getting used to in order to know how to take advantage of everything. Some of the analytics that are available are particularly hard to find, so it's important to pay attention when customer support reviews everything, but everything I'd want and need in terms of Push and In-App messaging is all there.

It is really difficult to leverage all the neat features without a developer. I actually think the base software could be really great for a small business if the price is right, but there are so many things you *can* do but have to know how to do them or have access to your website and the ability to code.

Incentivized

I have not had to interact much with customer support as I have been able to find the vast majority of the answers I'm looking for within their documentation, which I very much appreciate because it saves me a lot of time. Customer support has been responsive and helpful for the most part during the couple of interactions I've had.

We've tested a bunch of different CRM tools over the years and Airship has been a winner for its functionality, features, cost, and ability to integrate with other softwares that we use. It has been great for SMS and mobile in particular. It could certainly be a one stop shop for CRM.

Incentivized

Customer.io was really the first pure, full-featured drip email program on the market and as far as I know, it's still the simplest and best overall for that specific function. SendGrid has also added drip campaign features, but I would seriously evaluate Customer.io against any other drip email provider because they really have all the key elements you need to make it work.

Incentivized

• The ROI has increased more than approx. 50% (exact details to be confirmed) based on cross-channel orchestration
• Using push notifications alone, we have seen a huge increase in app engagement which was a challenge before to nudge users to get back to the App after initial download

Incentivized

• Positive impact on the sales side. I'm not sure about the specific ROI (you have to include the designer and the time it takes to set up) but you certainly get back the investment in a few months, once you are able to scale your email marketing.
• Customer experience is way better by having more segmented, contextual and accurate messages sent to them.
• Integration is costly and it will take several days or weeks to be fully achieved. Expect to invest some money on this.

Incentivized