best customer engagement platforms
best customer engagement platforms

10 best customer engagement platforms for D2C and B2C ecommerce businesses in 2026

Sirazum Monir Osmani

Most ecommerce growth problems don’t come from a lack of traffic. Rather, they come from moments that slip through the cracks, such as shoppers who browse and leave, first-time buyers who never return, or high-intent visitors who disappear before checkout. That’s where customer engagement platforms come in. This guide covers ten of the strongest platforms for ecommerce, organized by what each one does best, so you can match your biggest bottleneck these tool were built to solve it.

What is a customer engagement platform?

A customer engagement platform (CEP) is software that helps businesses interact with customers across multiple channels from a single interface. It pulls together data about who your customers are, what they've done on your site, and how they've responded to past outreach. Then it uses that data to trigger messages, automate follow-ups, or personalize what a customer sees next. The channels typically include email, SMS, push notifications, WhatsApp, in-app messaging, and sometimes voice.

What separates a CEP from a standalone email tool or a basic CRM is scope. A CEP is designed to manage the full lifecycle of customer interaction, from the first website visit through repeat purchase and beyond.

What are the types of customer engagement platforms for ecommerce?

A platform that focuses on marketing automation might also offer basic helpdesk features, and a conversational tool might include campaign capabilities. So, some overlap is normal. The categories below describe where each type is strongest.

  1. Omnichannel marketing automation platforms

These platforms coordinate messages across email, SMS, push notifications, WhatsApp, and sometimes voice. Their core job is to reach the right customer on the right channel at the right time. Some rely on marketer-built workflows; others use AI to make those decisions autonomously.

  1. On-site personalization and search platforms

These focus on what happens while a customer is still browsing. They personalize search results, product recommendations, category page rankings, and homepage content based on individual behavior. Their impact is felt during the browsing and consideration phase rather than after someone leaves.

  1. Customer support and helpdesk platforms

Built for post-purchase (and sometimes mid-purchase) service, these platforms manage support tickets, live chat, and knowledge bases. They help resolve order issues, answer product questions, and keep customer satisfaction scores high. Their engagement is reactive rather than proactive.

  1. Mobile-first engagement platforms

Designed for brands with significant app traffic, these platforms specialize in push notifications, in-app messaging, and mobile-specific engagement patterns. They're built around SDKs and app-level data rather than website cookies.

  1. Conversational engagement platforms

Chat-first tools that use live agents, chatbots, or a combination of both to engage customers through conversation. They handle everything from lead qualification to checkout support to onboarding walkthroughs, usually through a widget embedded on the site or within an app.

How did we choose the best customer engagement platforms

There is no single “best” customer engagement platform for every ecommerce business. Different brands have different bottlenecks. Some struggle with abandoned carts. Others need better mobile engagement, stronger analytics, or more reliable customer support. That’s why every platform on this list is included for one specific strength. Each one stands out for solving a particular ecommerce problem better than most alternatives.

Instead of ranking them from 1 to 10, we categorized them based on what they are truly best at. Our selection criteria include:

  • Distinct ecommerce pain points: such as 1:1 hyper-personalization, abandoned cart recovery, on-site search, predictive cross-selling, or complex journey orchestration, etc.

  • Team suitability: some tools are built for marketers who want control over workflows. Others are better suited for developers who need API flexibility and large-scale experimentation.

  • Core experience focus: we considered whether the platform’s strength lies in website engagement, mobile app engagement, cross-channel campaigns, or backend messaging infrastructure.

  • Customer interaction model: some platforms specialize in proactive conversational engagement, while others focus on structured helpdesk and enterprise support management.

  • Versatility of data: we evaluated how platforms handle customer behavior insights, analytics dashboards, predictive modeling, and omnichannel journey complexity.

Top 10 customer engagement platforms in different categories for ecommerce: features, pros, and cons

Platform

Best for

Ideal use case

Markopolo AI

1:1 hyper-personalization and abandoned cart recovery

Ecommerce businesses that want AI-driven, individualized engagement across email, SMS, WhatsApp, push, and voice to recover significantly more lost revenue without building manual workflows

Klaviyo

Workflow-driven segmentation

Ecommerce brands with dedicated marketing operators who want hands-on control over flow design, segmentation rules, and campaign execution

Bloomreach

On-site personalization and search recommendations

Mid-to-large ecommerce businesses with extensive product catalogs that need to improve search relevance, product discovery, and on-site conversion

Braze

Mobile-first cross-channel campaigns

App-heavy D2C brands with high monthly active users that need real-time push notifications, in-app messaging, and mobile retention strategies

Intercom

Proactive AI chat and in-app conversational journeys

Subscription or membership-based ecommerce brands that need to reduce checkout friction and automate support through conversational AI

Zendesk

Omnichannel helpdesk and enterprise support management

Mid-to-large ecommerce operations where post-purchase service quality (returns, order issues, shipping inquiries) directly impacts retention

CleverTap

Analytics-first engagement and behavioral dashboards

Data-driven teams that want to understand customer funnels and retention patterns before building campaigns, rather than the other way around

Insider

Complex journey orchestration across 12+ channels

Enterprise brands operating across multiple regions, languages, and channels that need to coordinate complex campaign sequences at scale

MoEngage

Predictive cross-selling and critical alerts

Ecommerce brands that need both marketing automation and reliable transactional messaging (OTPs, delivery alerts) in one platform, especially in mobile-heavy markets

Iterable

Developer-friendly customization and high-volume A/B testing

Brands with in-house engineering teams that want API-level control over data flows, experimentation, and campaign logic for product-led growth

Markopolo AI - best for 1:1 hyper-personalization and abandoned cart recovery

Markopolo AI is an AI-native customer engagement platform built specifically for D2C ecommerce brands. Legacy platforms make marketers set up rigid workflows for broad audience segments, but Markopolo gives every single visitor their own AI agent.

Each agent observes the visitor's full behavioral pattern through MarkTag (Markopolo's behavioral intelligence layer or CDP). The platform builds a unique understanding of that person's intent, and then orchestrates personalized customer engagement strategies across email, SMS, WhatsApp, push notifications, and AI voice calls.

Markopolo AI goes beyond standard event tracking. It captures micro-interactions like hesitation patterns, comparison behavior, scroll depth, and reading patterns, then transforms them into numerical behavioral profiles. This means the system can distinguish between a price-sensitive researcher who needs a comparison guide and an impulse buyer who responds to stock scarcity, even if both abandoned the same product at the same price point.

The platform covers the full ecommerce conversion funnel: visit recovery, browse abandonment, cart recovery, post-purchase retention, and loyalty. Because each journey is generated by AI in real time rather than pre-built by a human, the system can create millions of unique engagement sequences simultaneously.

Key features

  • Behavioral intelligence engine (MarkTag) that creates 384-dimensional customer profiles from browsing behavior

  • Autonomous AI agents that generate unique recovery and retention strategies per visitor

  • Full omnichannel orchestration: email, SMS, WhatsApp, push notifications, and AI voice calls

  • Lifetime attribution model that tracks the complete customer journey across sessions and channels

  • Predictive intent scoring that identifies abandonment risk before it happens

  • AI-generated content with knowledge base integration for brand-consistent messaging

  • Available for Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, WordPress, and native ecosystems

Pros

  • Strong focus on recovering abandoned carts, checkouts, and lost revenue

  • No manual workflow building required; the AI handles strategy, timing, and channel selection

  • Voice AI capability adds a channel that most competitors lack entirely

  • Compound learning effect: the system gets smarter with each interaction, improving results over time

  • Unified, context aware, and real-time engagement 

Cons

  • Better alternatives exist for app-first D2C brands

  • Free plan comes with campaign limitations 

Who should use this: Ecommerce brands that want to move beyond segment-based marketing and recover significantly more lost revenue through individualized, AI-driven engagement across every channel.

Klaviyo - best for Workflow-driven segmentation

Klaviyo interface

Klaviyo is one of the most widely adopted email and SMS marketing platforms in ecommerce. Its strength lies in giving marketers granular control over flows (automated sequences), segmentation, and campaign design. The platform is built around a model where humans design the journeys, set the rules, and define the segments. Klaviyo then executes reliably at scale.

Segmentation is positioned as a core product capability. Marketers can slice audiences by purchase behavior, browsing activity, email engagement, predicted lifetime value, churn risk, and custom properties synced from ecommerce platforms. Flows can branch based on these segments, creating different paths for different customer groups within a single automation.

In Klaviyo, product data, order history, and customer profiles sync in near-real-time. This makes it straightforward to trigger messages based on ecommerce events like cart abandonment, order confirmation, and back-in-stock alerts.

Key features

  • Advanced segmentation using event data, predicted analytics (CLV, churn probability, next order date), and custom properties

  • Visual flow builder for designing multi-step automated sequences across email and SMS

  • Built-in A/B testing for subject lines, content, send times, and flow branches

  • RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) analysis for automated customer lifecycle segmentation

  • K:AI Marketing Agent and K:AI Customer Agent for AI-assisted content generation and support

Pros

  • Extremely strong Shopify integration with real-time data sync

  • Large template library and active user community

  • Robust reporting and revenue attribution per flow and campaign

  • Well-suited for teams that want full manual control over marketing logic

Cons

  • Pricing scales with active profiles, which can get expensive as lists grow, even if many contacts are dormant

  • Personalization is filter-based rather than individually dynamic; every customer in a segment gets the same flow

  • Requires significant marketer time to build, test, and maintain workflows

  • Limited channel coverage: strong on email and SMS, but WhatsApp and voice are not core strengths

Who should use this: Ecommerce teams with dedicated marketing operators who want hands-on control over segmentation, flow design, and campaign execution.

Bloomreach - best for on-site personalization and search recommendations

Bloomreach interface

Image source: Bloomreach

Bloomreach focuses on what happens while customers are still on your site. Its core product combines a customer data platform, AI-powered search, product recommendations, and merchandising tools into a single experience layer. If your catalog is large and product discovery is a conversion bottleneck, Bloomreach addresses that mid-funnel gap.

The platform's search engine uses NLP (natural language processing) to understand shopper intent, not just keyword matches. Category page rankings adjust based on individual browsing behavior, and homepage content personalizes in real time. Bloomreach also supports campaign orchestration through email, SMS, and other channels, but its primary differentiation is improving the on-site browsing and buying experience.

Key features

  • AI-powered site search with semantic understanding and personalized ranking

  • Product recommendations that adapt based on individual browsing patterns

  • Merchandising tools for category page optimization and A/B testing

  • Customer data platform for unified profiles across touchpoints

  • Content personalization engine for homepage, landing pages, and product pages

  • Multichannel campaign support including email and SMS

Pros

  • Strong at improving conversion rates during the browsing phase, especially for large catalogs

  • Search personalization is a distinct capability that most marketing automation tools lack

  • Combines CDP, commerce experience, and content management in one platform

  • Good fit for brands with complex product inventories where discovery is a real challenge

Cons

  • On-site experience is the core strength; outbound campaign capabilities are less differentiated

  • Enterprise-level pricing that may not suit smaller D2C brands

  • Implementation complexity is higher than simpler marketing automation tools

  • Less focused on post-purchase engagement and retention

Who should use this: Mid-to-large ecommerce businesses with extensive product catalogs that need to improve product discovery, search relevance, and on-site conversion rates.

Braze - best for mobile-first cross-channel campaigns

Braze interface

GIF source: Braze

Braze was designed for brands where mobile app engagement is a primary revenue driver. Its SDK captures app-level behavioral data, and its messaging infrastructure is optimized for push notifications, in-app messages, and mobile content cards. The platform also supports email, SMS, and web messaging, but mobile is where it's strongest.

Braze’s core capability is real-time event triggering. When a user takes an action inside an app, Braze can respond within seconds with a relevant push notification, in-app overlay, or content card. The Canvas tool (Braze's journey builder) allows for cross-channel orchestration with branching logic, time delays, and audience filters.

Key features

  • Mobile SDK for capturing in-app behavioral events and triggering real-time messaging

  • Push notifications, in-app messages, and content cards optimized for mobile engagement

  • Canvas journey builder for cross-channel orchestration (mobile, email, SMS, web)

  • Real-time event-triggered messaging with sub-second latency

  • Currents data streaming for exporting engagement data to warehouses and analytics tools

  • Audience segmentation based on app usage patterns and lifecycle stage

Pros

  • Best-in-class mobile engagement infrastructure, particularly for push and in-app messaging

  • Real-time triggering means messages arrive while context is still fresh

  • Strong fit for brands with high monthly active users (MAU) in their app

  • Well-documented API and developer resources for custom implementations

Cons

  • Mobile-first design means brands without significant app traffic won't use the platform to its full potential

  • Pricing is enterprise-oriented and can be steep for smaller brands

  • Less ecommerce-native than platforms like Klaviyo; requires more integration work for product catalogs

  • Campaign setup has a learning curve, especially for teams without engineering support

Who should use this: Ecommerce and D2C brands with a strong mobile app presence that need to drive retention, reactivation, and in-app engagement through real-time, cross-channel messaging.

Intercom - best for proactive AI chat and in-app conversation

Intercom interface

Image source: Intercom

Intercom approaches engagement through conversation rather than campaigns. Its chat widget, AI chatbot (Fin), and in-app messaging system are designed to engage customers at the moment they have a question, encounter friction, or show signs of hesitation during checkout or onboarding.

Fin, Intercom's AI agent, handles a significant volume of support queries autonomously by pulling answers from your help center and knowledge base. For queries it can't resolve, it routes conversations to human agents with full context. Beyond reactive support, Intercom supports proactive engagement through triggered popups, tours, and targeted messages based on user behavior.

Key features

  • AI chatbot (Fin) for automated customer support and lead qualification

  • In-app messaging and product tours for onboarding and feature adoption

  • Proactive popups and targeted messages triggered by behavioral events

  • Shared inbox for team-based conversation management

  • Knowledge base builder for self-service support content

  • Custom bots for lead routing and qualification

Pros

  • Reduces checkout friction by answering questions in real time

  • Fin AI agent can resolve a high percentage of support queries without human intervention

  • Effective for conversational onboarding in SaaS-adjacent ecommerce (subscriptions, memberships)

  • Clean interface that's relatively quick to set up

Cons

  • Not built as a campaign automation platform; outbound marketing capabilities are limited

  • Pricing per seat plus resolution can get expensive as support volume grows

  • Stronger for SaaS and subscription models than for traditional product-based ecommerce

  • Chat-first model means it covers only one engagement channel deeply

Who should use this: Ecommerce brands (especially subscription or membership-based) that need to reduce checkout friction, automate support, and engage customers through proactive, conversational experiences on-site and in-app.

Zendesk - best for omnichannel helpdesk and enterprise support management

Zendesk interface

GIF source: Zendesk

Zendesk is a support-first platform, not a marketing tool. It manages customer service interactions across email, chat, phone, social media, and messaging apps through a unified ticketing system. For ecommerce brands where post-purchase service is a major part of the customer experience (returns, exchanges, order tracking, warranty claims), Zendesk provides the structure and scalability to handle high volumes professionally.

The platform's strength is in structured case management. Support agents see full ticket histories, customer profiles enriched with ecommerce data, and automated routing rules that assign tickets based on urgency, topic, or agent expertise. SLA tracking, CSAT surveys, and detailed reporting on resolution times give operations teams the data they need to maintain service standards.

Key features

  • Omnichannel ticketing across email, live chat, phone, social, and messaging

  • Structured case management with SLAs, priorities, and automated routing

  • Integration with ecommerce platforms for order-level customer context

  • CSAT and NPS surveys embedded in support workflows

  • Knowledge base and community forum tools for customer self-service

  • Reporting dashboards for service metrics (resolution time, first response time, satisfaction scores)

Pros

  • Enterprise-grade reliability for high-volume support operations

  • Mature ecosystem with hundreds of integrations and marketplace apps

  • Strong for post-purchase service: order issues, returns, shipping inquiries

  • Detailed service analytics help teams identify and fix recurring problems

Cons

  • Not designed for proactive marketing engagement, campaign automation, or revenue recovery

  • Pricing is per agent, which scales linearly with team size

  • Can feel over-engineered for smaller ecommerce teams with simple support needs

  • Integration with marketing tools requires third-party connectors or custom development

Who should use this: Mid-to-large ecommerce businesses where post-purchase support quality directly impacts retention and repeat purchase rates, and where structured, scalable service operations are a priority.

CleverTap - best for analytics-first engagement and behavioral dashboards

CleverTap interface

Image source: CleverTap

CleverTap puts customer engagement analytics at the center of the workflow. Before you build a campaign, the platform gives you cohort analysis, funnel visualization, and user flow tracking. It also gives you retention curves to understand where customers are dropping off and why. Campaigns are then built on top of those insights, which makes CleverTap a strong fit for data-driven teams that want to understand behavior before acting on it.

The platform supports push notifications, email, SMS, in-app messages, and WhatsApp. Segmentation is powered by event-level data, meaning you can build audiences based on sequences of specific actions (viewed product X, then added product Y, but did not purchase within 48 hours). Real-time dashboards show campaign performance alongside product analytics, so the feedback loop between insight and action is tight.

Key features

  • Real-time analytics dashboards with cohort analysis, funnels, and retention curves

  • Event-level segmentation for granular audience building

  • Multichannel campaign execution: push, email, SMS, in-app, WhatsApp

  • RFM analysis and lifecycle stage tracking

  • Uninstall tracking and churn prediction for mobile apps

  • A/B and multivariate testing with statistical significance reporting

Pros
  • Combines product analytics and marketing automation in one platform, reducing the need for separate analytics tools

  • Cohort and funnel analysis helps teams prioritize the right campaigns

  • Strong retention and lifecycle reporting that informs strategy, not just measures it

  • Good mobile engagement capabilities alongside web

Cons

  • Analytics depth can make the platform feel complex for smaller teams without a dedicated analyst

  • Campaign builder is functional but less polished than dedicated marketing automation tools

  • Stronger adoption in mobile-heavy markets (South Asia, Southeast Asia) than in North America and Europe

  • On-site personalization and search are not part of the product

Who should use this: Data-driven ecommerce teams that prioritize behavioral analysis and want campaigns informed by deep insights into customer funnels, retention, and lifecycle patterns.

Insider One - best for complex journey orchestration across 12+ channels

Insider interface

Image source: Insider One

Insider One is built for enterprise brands that want to excel at omnichannel customer engagement. Its journey orchestration engine (Architect) visualizes and automates sequences across email, SMS, push, WhatsApp, web overlays, app messages, and more. If your engagement strategy involves coordinating dozens of campaigns across multiple geographies with different timing, language, and channel preferences, Insider provides the infrastructure.

The platform maintains unified customer profiles that aggregate data from web, app, CRM, and third-party sources. Predictive segments surface audiences based on likelihood to purchase, churn risk, and discount affinity. Template management and localization features support brands running campaigns in multiple languages and markets from a single instance.

Key features

  • Architect journey builder supporting 12+ communication channels

  • Unified customer profiles aggregating web, app, CRM, and offline data

  • Predictive segmentation based on purchase likelihood, churn risk, and channel preference

  • Web push, app push, email, SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, and on-site overlays

  • Template management with localization support for multi-market campaigns

  • AI-generated subject lines, send time optimization, and channel selection

Pros

  • Broadest channel coverage of any platform on this list

  • Well-suited for enterprise brands operating across multiple regions and languages

  • Journey visualization makes complex multi-channel sequences easier to manage

  • Strong unified profile capabilities for brands with fragmented data sources

Cons

  • Enterprise pricing and implementation timelines that don't suit smaller brands

  • Orchestration is structured and rule-based rather than autonomous; journeys still require human design

  • Complexity can lead to underutilization if the team doesn't have resources to build and maintain journeys

  • On-site personalization features exist but are secondary to the campaign orchestration engine

Who should use this: Enterprise ecommerce brands with multi-regional operations that need to coordinate complex, multi-channel customer journeys at scale.

MoEngage - best for predictive cross-selling and critical alerts

MoEngage interface

Image source: MoEngage

MoEngage combines marketing automation with a strong transactional messaging infrastructure. On the marketing side, its AI recommends next-best products based on purchase history and browsing behavior, making it effective for cross-sell and upsell campaigns that expand basket size and increase repeat purchase frequency. On the operational side, MoEngage handles transactional messages like OTP delivery, order confirmations, shipping alerts, and delivery notifications through its "Critical Alerts" infrastructure.

Push Amplification is another standout feature. On Android devices, where standard push notification delivery rates can be unreliable, MoEngage's proprietary delivery layer significantly improves visibility. This matters for ecommerce brands that rely on push notifications for time-sensitive alerts like flash sales, restock notifications, or delivery updates.

Key features

  • AI-driven next-best-product recommendations for cross-sell and upsell automation

  • Critical Alerts infrastructure for transactional messaging (OTPs, order updates, delivery alerts)

  • Push Amplification for improved notification delivery on Android devices

  • Multichannel campaigns across push, email, SMS, in-app, and WhatsApp

  • Predictive segmentation based on purchase patterns and behavioral data

  • Backend messaging APIs for operational communication at scale

Pros

  • Rare combination of marketing automation and reliable transactional messaging in one platform

  • Push Amplification solves a real deliverability problem for mobile-heavy brands

  • Cross-sell and upsell AI helps increase average order value without requiring manual campaign design

  • Competitive pricing for the feature set, especially for brands in growth markets

Cons

  • On-site personalization and search are not core capabilities

  • Analytics are solid but less deep than dedicated analytics-first platforms like CleverTap

  • North American and European market presence is smaller than competitors like Braze or Klaviyo

  • Voice channel is not part of the product

Who should use this: Ecommerce brands that need both marketing automation and reliable transactional messaging infrastructure, especially those focused on increasing cross-sell revenue and operating in markets where push notification delivery is a challenge.

Iterable - best for Developer-friendly customization and high-volume A/B testing

Iterable interface

Image source: Iterable

Iterable is an API-first platform built for technical teams. While other CEPs prioritize the marketer's drag-and-drop experience, Iterable prioritizes flexibility for engineers and growth teams who want to customize data ingestion, build complex experiments, and control campaign logic at the infrastructure level.

The experimentation capabilities stand out. Iterable supports large-scale A/B and multivariate testing not just on subject lines and content, but on entire journeys, including discount logic, send timing, channel selection, and recommendation algorithms. For product-led growth teams that treat marketing as an engineering problem, Iterable provides the hooks and APIs to test at a granularity that most platforms don't support.

Key features

  • API-first architecture with flexible data ingestion and webhooks

  • Advanced A/B and multivariate experimentation across campaigns and journeys

  • Workflow Studio for visual journey building with programmable logic

  • Multichannel messaging: email, SMS, push, in-app, web push, and direct mail

  • Catalog and event feed for real-time product and behavioral data integration

  • Custom send-time optimization and frequency capping

Pros

  • Strongest experimentation framework of any platform on this list

  • API-first design gives engineering teams the control they need over data flows and campaign logic

  • Flexible data model accommodates custom ecommerce stacks that don't fit standard integrations

  • Good documentation and developer resources for custom implementation

Cons

  • Requires in-house engineering resources to get the most out of the platform

  • Less plug-and-play than platforms designed for non-technical marketers

  • Not as ecommerce-native out of the box; catalog and product data integrations need configuration

  • AI and autonomous capabilities are less developed than platforms like Markopolo AI

Who should use this: Ecommerce brands with in-house engineering teams that want full control over data infrastructure, experimentation, and campaign logic, particularly those running product-led growth strategies.

How does CEPs help ecommerce businesses?

  1. Recovers lost revenue and reduce cart abandonment

Cart abandonment is the largest single source of lost ecommerce revenue. Timely, relevant follow-up messages through the right channel can recover a meaningful percentage of those lost sales. The difference between a 10% recovery rate and a 35% recovery rate comes down to how well the follow-up matches the individual's reason for leaving.

  1. Manages marketing campaigns more effectively

A centralized engagement platform replaces the need to juggle separate tools for email, SMS, push, and WhatsApp. Campaign setup, audience selection, content creation, and performance tracking happen in one place, which reduces errors and saves time for lean marketing teams.

  1. Provides real-time customer support and helpdesk

Shoppers who run into friction during checkout or have a question about a product want answers immediately. Engagement platforms with built-in chat, AI chatbots, or ticketing systems catch those moments before they become abandoned sessions.

  1. Replace physical experience with personalization at scale

Online stores can't offer the in-store experience of a knowledgeable sales associate. But personalization fills part of that gap. Product recommendations based on browsing behavior, dynamic content that adapts to individual preferences, and contextual messaging that accounts for where someone is in their buying process all simulate the attention of a good salesperson.

  1. Gathers actionable insights about consumer behavior and purchase patterns

Every click, scroll, and cart addition generates data. A good engagement platform turns that raw activity into patterns you can act on: which products get researched but not purchased, what time of day your customers are most responsive, which channels they prefer, and where in the funnel they tend to drop off.

  1. Increases retention and reduce churn

Acquiring a new customer costs five to seven times more than retaining an existing one. Engagement platforms automate the post-purchase relationship: order follow-ups, replenishment reminders, loyalty rewards, and win-back sequences for customers who haven't purchased in a while.

  1. Creates a sense of community and loyalty

Consistent, relevant communication builds familiarity. When customers feel recognized rather than spammed, they develop affinity for the brand. Some platforms support this through loyalty program integrations, referral mechanics, or community features that keep customers connected between purchases.

3 types of pricing models explained for customer engagement platforms

  1. Subscription-based

Fixed monthly fees ($50-$10,000+) provide budget predictability with tiered plans based on features.

  1. Usage-based

Charges per email sent, SMS message, or API call. Aligns with activity but can spike unexpectedly during high-volume campaigns.

  1. Contact-based

Pricing scales with database size regardless of sends. Works well for steady growth but becomes expensive as lists expand.

How to pick the right CEP for your ecommerce business

Find out the core problem your business wants to solve by engaging with customers. Ask yourselves questions like, why 

  • If cart abandonment is your biggest revenue leak, prioritize platforms with strong recovery capabilities and omnichannel reach. 

  • If product discovery is the bottleneck, look at on-site personalization. 

  • For support teams that are drowning in tickets, a helpdesk platform might deliver more ROI than another marketing tool.

Besides these, you should also consider your team's technical capacity. Because:

  • Platforms like Iterable and Braze assume you have engineering resources. 

  • Klaviyo assumes you have dedicated marketing operators and you want complete control of the flows. 

  • Markopolo AI assumes you want the AI to handle hyper-personalization strategy and revenue recovery. 

None of these assumptions is wrong, but they need to match your reality.

Think about where your customers are. 

  • If your audience is app-heavy, a mobile-first platform makes sense. 

  • For teams looking for WhatsApp and voice channels, check whether the platform actually supports them natively or just lists them as integrations. 

Channel coverage on paper and channel excellence in practice are different things.

Finally, consider the trajectory. A platform that works for your current scale might not work at ten times the volume. Equally, a platform built for enterprise complexity might be overkill if you're a growing D2C brand with a two-person marketing team. Match the platform to where you are now and where you realistically expect to be in eighteen months.

Why choose Markopolo AI for customer engagement

Most customer engagement platforms ask marketers to do the strategic thinking: build the segments, design the flows, choose the channels, write the copy, set the timing, and then monitor whether it all works. That model produces decent results, but it has a ceiling. When every customer in a segment gets the same sequence, the best you can achieve is the average response for that group.

Markopolo AI removes that ceiling by replacing segment-based logic with individual-level intelligence. Its behavioral engine (MarkTag) doesn't just record what customers do; it interprets why they do it. It identifies whether someone is comparison shopping, price-sensitive, looking for social proof, or ready to buy right now. Then it generates a unique engagement strategy for that specific person across whatever channel they're most likely to respond to: email, SMS, WhatsApp, push, or even an AI voice call.

The result is recovery rates that consistently outperform traditional tools by two to three times. And because the AI learns from every interaction, the system compounds in effectiveness over time. Month one is good. Month six is significantly better. Month twelve is operating at a level of customer understanding that no human-built workflow can match at scale.

For ecommerce brands tired of plateauing at 10-15% cart recovery rates, tired of building and maintaining dozens of manual flows, and ready for engagement that actually treats each customer as an individual, Markopolo AI is built for exactly that problem.

LOTS TO SHOW YOU

Recover 30% lost revenue, automatically

Recover 30% lost revenue, automatically

Recover 30% lost revenue, automatically

Let us show you how true AI-powered marketing looks in action. You’ll know in minutes if it’s a fit.

LOTS TO SHOW YOU

Recover 30% lost revenue, automatically

Let us show you how true AI-powered marketing looks in action. You’ll know in minutes if it’s a fit.