Item: Iterable
Rating: 9
Author: Brian Schmidt

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Iterable serves as our omni-channel digital engagement platform, providing our capabilities for running email, sms, mobile push and in-app messaging to customers across our multi-brands across the globe. It serves to send transactional comms as well as lifecycle and batched marketing to our large customer file. Our customer service teams also use it to communicate show changes in a more manual transactional comm type as well.

Pros and Cons

Journey Building
Customer Segmentation with Large Data Volumes
Frequent Campaign Email Programs

At times rigid data infrastructure (elastic)
Beta features can be buggy
Mobile features under developed compared to some mobile first competitors

Return on Investment

Customer retention
Increased LTV
Decreased unsubscribe and disengagement rates

Campaign Performance

Iterable handles event data at scale extremely well and has a robust API system for sending in data to allow for near real time messaging. Without a tool of this nature, we wouldn't be able to run certain portions of our business, like rush and lottery for tickets on Broadway which is an essential business unit for us. Iterable's platform is the one that does this for us.

Customer Experience

Iterable is great at handling data sets but more so, the workflow tools allow for really dynamic usage of that data to create a wide variety of campaigns to help improve customer experience, retention and ultimately LTV. Leveraging single fields in some cases in the event or on a customer profile to totally change a message or pick the right time to deploy are essential.

Alternatives Considered

Braze, Leanplum, Klaviyo, Swrve, Cheetah Digital Customer Engagement Suite, Attentive Mobile, Blueshift and Cordial

Iterable is generally better than many providers at handling large data sets and making them usable. Their workflow builder is one of the best, if not the best, I've seen and used. They also beat some other providers by having the number of channels they support and their ability to facilitate some they don't get through their workflows and APIs (like programmatic direct mail.)

Key Insights

Do you think Iterable delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Iterable's feature set?

Yes

Did Iterable live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Iterable go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Iterable again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

I'm a pretty big fan of Iterable, but I'll never say there is a perfect tool for every use case. Iterable is really great for people who have large email programs. Layering in a need for some mobile messaging, it's a great fit. Iterable is also very good at customer journey building or drip flows or canvas building depending on what tool you're used to - their workflow tool has arguably some of the strongest, if not the strongest functionality in the industry. If you have even basic events flowing, you can immediately uplevel your customer lifecycle program with Iterable's capabilities. If you're only an iPhone App and you don't really have an email program, this probably isn't the right tool for you. Similarly if you just upload an email list as your data management, go with something cheaper/simpler.

Best in Class Workflow Tools

Overall Satisfaction with Iterable