How to use email, SMS, and push together

You will learn

Learn how to use SMS, email, and push notifications together, including what makes each channel unique, what to send first, and more. 

Differences in each channel

Email 

Email has been around the longest, and interested website visitors are often willing to give out an email to a company. It also doesn’t have any channel-specific technical requirements, so it’s simple to start collecting subscribers and sending.

SMS

SMS is a relatively new messaging channel, but it is growing rapidly. Its popularity varies country by country, but SMS is becoming more common and accepted, with more people being willing to give out their phone number to businesses year over year. 

Push notifications

One unique thing about push notifications is that subscribers tend to see them as helpful and not purely sales-focused. They are often reminders for how the subscriber can get the most of your app, whether that’s to achieve a personal goal or find the best deals. However, this perception can change if the subscriber gets overloaded, or if the notifications are not relevant.

When to use email vs. SMS vs. push 

The table below compares the best types of messages to send via email, SMS, and mobile push. 

Collecting subscribers

When it comes to growing your list, it’s important to consider how to use all of your channels together. This not only includes your owned channels like email, SMS, and push, but also social media. 

For email and SMS, you can use forms or subscribe pages in a variety of ways. For instance, they can be directly on your site, but you can also link to them via QR codes, social media posts, email banners, and more.

As for push, the only way to get consent is in your app. However, you can encourage people to download your app using the same approaches as email and SMS. For instance, rather than a QR code linking to a sign-up form, it could take users to your app listing.

Targeting your subscribers

Regardless of the channel, you want your messages to feel personalized. You can make the same segments for each channel and then adjust the criteria:

• All subscribers
• Subscribed to 1 channel (email, SMS, or push notifications)
• VIPs
• Gender
• Age
• Location 
• Preference, interest, or hobby
• Engaged/unengaged from 1 channel

When re-creating the segments, note that they shouldn’t be identical between the channels. 

• The timeframes for SMS and push notification segments should be shorter than for email. 
• Push can include custom metrics (e.g., active on app), depending on your setup. 
• The main engagement metric varies based on the channel:
  • Email uses open or click rate.
  • SMS uses click rate.
  • Push notification uses open rate.

Messaging all 3 channels together

If you’re using all 3 channels, you don’t want multiple messages going out at once. Imagine how strange it would be to get an email, text, and push notification at the same time from the same company. 

Choose a channel to prioritize sending to. Follow up via other channels a few hours later, making sure to exclude anyone who received the earlier message.

Say you’re having a winter sale on your app and website that starts at 12 p.m. The table below shows an example of how you can target different groups via your owned channels. 

Additional resources

• Learn about mobile push marketing
  • Academy: adding push to your omnichannel strategy.
  • Help Center:  push notification best practices
• Get advice for building your SMS program:
  • Blog post: SMS marketing strategies for all levels [+12 Pro tips]
  • Help Center: your strategic guide to Klaviyo SMS success