Drip – The Best E-commerce CRM for Email & SMS Marketing Automation
Drip is a specialized e-commerce CRM platform engineered for marketers who need more than basic email blasts. It empowers you to create deeply personalized, automated customer journeys across email and SMS, turning subscribers into loyal buyers. By unifying customer data, segmentation, and multi-channel automation, Drip helps e-commerce brands increase lifetime value, recover abandoned carts, and build lasting relationships at scale.
What is Drip?
Drip is a sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform built specifically for the needs of e-commerce marketers. Unlike generic email service providers, Drip focuses on creating one-to-one personalized experiences by leveraging rich customer data like purchase history, browsing behavior, and engagement levels. Its core purpose is to automate complex, revenue-driving communication sequences across email and SMS, making it an essential tool for brands looking to scale their marketing efforts while maintaining a personal touch.
Key Features of Drip
Visual Workflow Builder
Design intricate, multi-step automation workflows with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. Easily create sequences for welcome series, post-purchase follow-ups, win-back campaigns, and browse abandonment, all based on real-time customer triggers and behaviors.
E-commerce Native Segmentation
Go beyond basic demographics. Automatically segment your audience based on precise e-commerce data points like lifetime value, product categories purchased, recency of purchase, and cart value. This enables hyper-targeted messaging that resonates.
Multi-Channel Campaigns (Email & SMS)
Orchestrate cohesive customer journeys that span both email and SMS. Use SMS for urgent cart recovery or shipping updates, and email for richer content and promotional storytelling, all managed from a single platform.
Revenue Attribution & Reporting
Track the direct revenue impact of every campaign and workflow. Drip's robust analytics show you which automations are driving sales, your ROI, and customer lifetime value, providing clear insights for optimization.
Who Should Use Drip?
Drip is ideal for growing e-commerce businesses, direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, and marketing teams that have moved beyond the basics of email marketing. It's perfect for brands that value customer lifetime value over one-time sales and need a system to automate personalized communication. If you sell products online and want to implement sophisticated segmentation, behavioral triggers, and cross-channel automation, Drip is a powerful solution.
Drip Pricing and Free Tier
Drip operates on a tiered, contact-based pricing model and does not offer a traditional forever-free plan. However, they provide a 14-day free trial with full access to all features, allowing you to test the platform with your own data and workflows. Paid plans start once the trial ends, scaling based on the number of contacts in your audience. This model ensures you have access to the complete suite of automation and CRM tools needed for serious e-commerce growth.
Common Use Cases
- Automated post-purchase email sequences to increase customer retention and encourage repeat buys
- Creating segmented SMS campaigns for high-intent customers who abandoned their shopping cart
Key Benefits
- Increase average order value and customer lifetime value through personalized product recommendations and timed offers
- Save dozens of hours per month by automating complex customer journeys instead of managing manual campaigns
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Powerful, e-commerce-specific segmentation and automation capabilities unmatched by generic ESPs
- Unified platform for managing both email and SMS marketing workflows seamlessly
- Clear revenue attribution shows exact ROI of marketing efforts
Cons
- Pricing is contact-based and can become significant for large email lists
- The learning curve is steeper than basic email tools, requiring time to master advanced workflows
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Drip free to use?
Drip does not have a permanent free plan. It offers a full-featured 14-day free trial for new users. After the trial, you must select a paid plan based on the number of contacts in your audience to continue using the service.
Is Drip good for e-commerce email marketing?
Yes, Drip is specifically built for e-commerce email and SMS marketing. Its deep integration with e-commerce platforms, purchase-based segmentation, and revenue-focused automation workflows make it one of the top-tier solutions for online stores looking to drive sales through personalized communication.
Can Drip send SMS messages?
Absolutely. Drip is a multi-channel platform that supports both email marketing and SMS marketing. You can create automated workflows and campaigns that send messages via SMS, often used for time-sensitive alerts like cart abandonment or shipping notifications, alongside your email strategy.
Conclusion
For e-commerce marketers focused on building automated, personalized, and revenue-driving customer relationships, Drip stands out as a premier CRM platform. Its strength lies in blending powerful segmentation with a visual automation builder for both email and SMS. If your goal is to move beyond simple newsletters and implement sophisticated, behavior-triggered campaigns that directly increase customer lifetime value, Drip provides the tools and insights necessary to excel. It's a strategic investment for brands ready to scale their marketing automation.