WhatsApp vs SMS vs Email

Which channel should you choose?

Email has competition - or does it?
As SMS and WhatsApp step into the ring, what does each channel offer, and how do you decide which to use?

How Do WhatsApp, SMS, and Email Stack Up?

Email is a known quantity for the experienced marketer, but SMS and WhatsApp may feel a little more unfamiliar as marketing channels. However, more and more brands are realising the opportunities these channels offer and are making full use of them and to great effect.

Channel
Pricing
Functionality
Compliance
Best For
Email
Based on volume.
Cost-effective at scale
Dynamic content
Segmentation
Flexible design
Explicit consent and easy opt-out required
Newsletters
Product education
Onboarding flows
SMS
Cost per message &
based on character
count.
Dynamic fields, limited
content
Explicit consent
and easy opt-
out required
Time-sensitive promos,
alerts, abandoned cart
messages
Whats
App
Per message pricing varying by country & message tuype
Rich media, carousels, real-time interaction
Strict Meta rules, explicit opt-in, template approval
Conversationsal marketing, global audiences, support and follow-up


Which Channel Is Right For Your Brand?

As can be seen from the table above, each channel has its own uses. So, which one should you use and when should you use it?

Email

Arguably the most familiar channel, email delivers the most functionality in terms of flexibility of style, content, personalisation, and segmentation. Email is ideal for long-form storytelling, giving you the space and creative freedom to fully showcase your products and your message.  

✅ Huge reach, low cost. Price does not vary depending on country or how many people click through.
✅ Flexibility in design. Dynamic content blocks and images allows you to showcase your products in a vibrant and engaging manner,
✅ Automation and scalability. With email, you can build workflows based on customer actions, and tailor messages based on behaviours.

❌ Lower opens rates. With the amount of email hitting everyone's inbox, it's easy for customers to miss messages.
❌ Privacy rules. More email service providers are employing email filters, making it increasingly challenging for marketers to hit the spot.

When to use email

📝 Newsletters
👋 Welcome series
🛒 Abandon cart reminders
🛍️ Post-purchase follow-ups
🕰️ Lapsed customer winback
💥 Product launches
💡 Education and product tips

SMS

SMS is ideal for those short, punchy messages you use to grab your customer's attention fast. It delivers higher engagement rates than email. It's a platform to use with caution so as not to erode its efficacy.  

✅ High click rates - familiarity means people habitually check them. It's the oldest 'app' on a phone!
✅ Speed - people tend to look at their text messages within three minutes of receiving them.
✅ Impact - limited character count means messages have to be distilled to their essence.

❗️Strict opt-in compliance with easy opt-out. And all of it has to be trackable.
❗️Frequency should be measured - often enough to keep them engaged, without being too intrusive.
❗️It can be tough to fit a meaningful message into 160 characters.

When to use SMS

Because of it's immediacy and quick response time, SMS lends itself to time-sensitive messaging that prompts a fast reaction.

💥 Flash sale announcements
➡️ Back in stock alerts
🚚 Shipping/delivery updates
⏳ End of sale reminders
📆 Event or appointment reminders
💎 VIP offers

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is the world's most popular messaging app, with more than 3 billion people per day using it. As a result, marketers have been increasingly turning to it as a way of communicating with their customers. Messages will be competing with individual messaging, family group chats, and friend's event groups, but the upside is that means engagement with the platform is high. Great news for marketers!

✅ Popularity - your customer is there!
✅ Real-time, two way conversations
✅ Supports a variety of formats enabling more dynamic customer experience:

➡️ Quick replies & immediate conversations with customers
➡️ Add clickable call-to-actions to drive instant action
➡️ Add full product catalogues browsable from inside WhatsApp
➡️ Branded templates so the messages are instantly recognisable
➡️ Automated conversations for FAQs, purchase decisions, etc.

❗️Requires explicit opt-in from every subscriber
❗️Greater planning and set-up time to implement: pre-approved message templates are required for any campaign that isn't part of a 24-hour reply window.
❗️Whilst enormously popular, it's still new as a tool to some markets which may affect your ability to scale it.

When to use WhatsApp

🤲 Customer support
🏆 Product recommendations
🚚 Order status updates/shipping details
💥 Flash sales
💎 VIP offers
💡Product tips
🫶Thank you for purchasing message - a nice touch that feels very personal, especially on this platform.

Which Channel Wins?

The short answer, is that there's no one channel that wins. In the ideal world, all three would be used at various stages of the customer journey to deliver a seamless, engaging customer experience and maximise the returns for each campaign. For personalisation & cost-efficiency email wins. For engagement, SMS and WhatsApp own the show!

TRY KLAVIYO FOR FREE TODAY!

Klaviyo offers a free tier that includes email support for the first 60 days! You can create an account, import and sync your data, customise templates and emails, and use many of Klaviyo’s features for free. Send to a maximum of 500 emails to up to 250 active profiles plus you also get 150 SMS credits in your free plan. Join 169,000+ brands in 80+ countries growing with Klaviyo

Start sending emails and seeing how integrating all your data allows you to personalise even more.
(Not available for over 250 active profiles)

- 500 monthly email sends
- 150 monthly SMS/MMS credits
- Built-in reporting dashboards
- Email support (first 60 days)
- Klaviyo Help Center
- Mobile push marketing channel
- Academy courses

What our clients have said...

Shaun from Email-Postman is a steady force for the marketing team at BBC Maestro and has a real passion for email marketing. Always willing to help us turn around a campaign (sometimes with very short notice), he’s been a real asset to the company. Thanks Shaun!

Juliette Grossman

CS & Marketing Executive at BBC Maestro

Shaun at Email-Postman has been a brilliant support for the team in the last 9 months, helping us to create and develop campaigns and automations on Klaviyo. He is incredibly passionate about email marketing and always has such a positive outlook. Any email / CRM team will be lucky to have him!

Rebecca Newton

Head of Retention. YuMOVE

Swizzels needed a Mailchimp marketing expert, and Shaun at Email-Postman was recommended to me. It’s been very easy to work with him, he spoke without jargon, explained to us clearly what we should do, and once agreed he then went and did it – all in a short time frame and without issue.

Jonathan Dee

Purchasing Director at Swizzels Matlow Ltd

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Using a scatter-gun approach to emails? With segmentation, you can categorise subscribers based on pre-set criteria so you can target them with messages or offers specific to them.

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Are you using hard data to measure success? Measuring key factors such as open rates, bounce rates, and those important conversion rates is essential for your next campaign!

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