Customer.io vs. Giftbit

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.

It's been great to incentivize appointments. I can also see that it would be a good tool to send gifts to existing customers.

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

• Sending mass brand-templated gift cards
• Choosing which type of gift card you want (e.g. Starbucks, Amazon)
• Showing metrics for gift cards

Incentivized

• Customer.io needs to be more known! I don't know why they don't come up as a direct competitor to Iterable and Braze.
• Their new Design Studio drag + drop tool could be improved with further customization.
• Reports aren't the strongest - I use Amplitude to do all my Customer.io reporting.

Incentivized

• I didn't love having to buy credits in advance, but since Giftbit recommended how many we'd need to buy, it wasn't terrible.

Incentivized

Customer.io has drag-and-drop functionality for their campaigns that is very fun and intuitive to use. The audience build functionality strikes the right balance between usability and meticulousness. They also have an array of actions -- time delays, time windows, waitUntils -- that allow you to customize the timing of messages.

Incentivized

When a redemption via the API connected to my community platform provider failed, the support was extremely limited. It was fast but limited. Most common conversations with Giftbit support ended in "unfortunately we cannot help you or your recipient with that issue." I'm not sure if Giftbit deserves 100% of the blame for API issues with Fuel Cycle community platform but the end result is that a user will redeem their points for a reward and would never get it. Once these issues are reported to me, I couldn't help them from the dashboard either as I was unable to review their claim codes, etc. and make it right, resulting in lost $.

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

I haven't used any products like Giftbit. Since I have enjoyed my experience with Giftbit, I haven't looked into any other platforms that offer the same things.

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

• We now have an easy way to do these fulfillments
• It's easy to set up an account
• It alleviates privacy issues on our end

Incentivized