Top 8 Customer Engagement Tools for Stronger Relationships

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Choosing between customer engagement tools is rarely straightforward. You open a few websites, glance at the feature grids, and they all start to blur together. Every platform claims to be smarter, faster, and easier. But if you’ve ever tried more than one, you know that’s not always true.

Some feel heavy the moment you log in. Others look fine at first, but collapse when you push them with real drip email campaigns, for instance.

That leaves most B2C marketers asking a simple question: what actually works for my team, at this stage, and with my audience? The truth is, there isn’t a universal answer. A beauty retailer’s needs are nothing like a financial institution’s, and what counts as the best customer engagement platform shifts depending on scale, industry, and ambition.

Still, there are patterns worth noticing and mistakes worth avoiding. This blog explores those patterns, what to look for, the top customer engagement platforms, and how to make the right choice from among them without regret.

 

What is a Customer Engagement Platform?

A customer engagement platform is software that integrates data and communication tools so brands can communicate with customers more personally and coordinately. It tracks customer actions, manages campaigns across channels, and helps improve retention by making every interaction timely and relevant.

A CEP integrates different technologies like marketing automation, customer data analysis, and multi-channel communication to provide a unified view of the customer journey.

This platform helps businesses personalize customer experiences, improve customer service, and foster deeper engagement by leveraging data-driven insights. By doing so, CEPs aim to build stronger relationships, increase customer loyalty, and drive business growth through improved customer interactions.

The difference between a customer engagement platform (CEP) vs. a CRM is that a CRM is mainly used to store customer information, manage sales pipelines, and track interactions with prospects or clients. On the other hand, a CEP is basically the control room for how you interact with your customers. Instead of juggling ten different tools — one for email, another for push, another for analytics — you get one system that pulls it all together. The idea is simple: every customer leaves behind signals when they browse, buy, or drop off, and the platform collects those signals to build a living customer profile.

From there, you can send a welcome email, trigger a rich push notification, or set up a journey that runs on its own. Some platforms lean heavily into marketing automation, while others focus more on omnichannel analytics. The balance varies, but the goal stays the same: understand who your customers are and keep them engaged without drowning the team in manual work.

That doesn’t mean these customer engagement management tools solve everything. They can be complex, and some are better suited for small teams, while others are built as enterprise customer engagement platforms. Still, if you’re comparing customer engagement tools, it helps to see them less as campaign machines and more as long-term systems that shape how a customer experiences your brand day after day.

 

5 Ways to Get ROI from Customer Engagement Tools

When marketers talk about ROI, their first thought usually involves revenue. Fair enough; money matters.

But ROI from customer engagement tools isn’t only about revenue lines on a report. It’s also about saving time, reducing churn, building customer loyalty, and keeping teams from drowning in manual work. Some gains show up quickly, others take months. Either way, the returns stack.

1. Uplift in Revenue

Most campaigns without data feel like throwing darts in the dark. A customer engagement platform changes that by tying actions to outcomes. You run tests, analyze customer behavior, and figure out what pushes someone to click or buy. That learning compounds.

For example, Forrester found that companies winning at customer engagement grow revenue about 1.6x faster than their competitors. Numbers like that don’t come from luck; they come from linking every message back to a result.

2. Better Loyalty and Repeat Purchases

It costs way more to chase new customers than to keep those already bought in. Repeat customers spend more, come back more often, and even tell others about your brand, so customer retention is powerful.

With customer engagement tools, you can set up timely reminders, loyalty offers, or personalized follow-ups that feel like someone’s actually paying attention. That little extra effort nudges someone from one purchase to two. And two often becomes three, and so on.

3. Churn Reduction Through Perfect Timing

Churn usually creeps in quietly. A customer signs up, explores once, then disappears. The longer the silence, the harder it is to bring them back.

Customer engagement tools help by spotting those patterns and triggering outreach before it’s too late. Whether it’s a nudge after three days of inactivity, a how-to message, or a special push offer, implementing customer engagement strategies through a tool buys you another chance.

4. Save Time and Cut Costs

Manually segmenting audiences, scheduling campaigns, or even pulling data from analytics tools into spreadsheets can take hours each week. Automated journeys, like ready-made templates, triggers, and dashboards (such as email marketing dashboards), make sure your team doesn’t waste time on repetitive work. Instead, they handle strategy. The best customer engagement tools save effort and redirect your energy to higher-value tasks.

5. Insights That Shape Smarter Decisions

The quieter payoff: data you can actually use. Over time, the best customer engagement platform shows which channels bring value, what content customers ignore, and where they tend to drop off. It’s not instant ROI, but it prevents bad bets in the future.

ROI from customer engagement tools isn’t one thing; rather, it’s a mix of revenue growth, operational efficiency, and stronger customer retention. Some benefits show up in sales, others in saved effort, and still others in customers sticking around. And the mix looks different for every business.

 

How to Choose a Customer Engagement Platform: 8 Criteria to Look For

Picking a new customer engagement platform sounds easier than it is. All customer engagement vendors make the same promises, every demo looks perfect, and in the first week, almost anything feels exciting.

But excitement fades fast. What matters is how the platform holds up once your team is deep into daily campaigns, pulling data, fixing mistakes, and trying to scale. That’s where the cracks show, or the payoff does.

Here are the criteria worth sweating over. They usually decide whether a platform ends up being a help or a headache.

1. Data Storage and Processing Capabilities

Every campaign starts with data. Clicks, purchases, drop-offs, location, device—it all piles up fast. If the platform can’t store and process all of this information without breaking down or slowing to a crawl, the rest doesn’t matter.

So, the first thing to check is how the system actually handles volume. Does it allow real-time processing, or are you looking at a 24-hour delay before the data is usable? Teams should ask about scalability, data archival and storage limits, and processing flexibility. The best customer engagement platform will be able to grow with your brand, rather than forcing you to buy additional tools later.

2. Orchestration of Data and Workflows

Collecting data isn’t enough; it needs to move. A strong platform has an orchestration engine that routes data to the right place, transforms it when needed, and triggers workflows. Without this, you’ll be stuck exporting and importing files between systems.

To evaluate, look closely at how workflows are designed: can a marketer set them up without engineering support, or does every small change need a developer? If it’s the latter, expect bottlenecks.

3. Campaign and Channel Capabilities

Most brands don’t talk to customers through just one channel anymore. Email alone doesn’t cut it, and neither do push notifications on their own. You’ll want orchestration that covers multiple channels and ties them together. Otherwise, your customer might get three different messages that don’t match.

One sign of a top customer engagement platform is how well it unifies multiple channels—email, push, SMS, and in-app—into a single journey. So, when comparing options, actually test how campaigns run across multiple channels. Can you coordinate them in a single journey? Does the reporting tell you which one drove the action, or are you left guessing?

4. Segmentation and Attribution Engines

It’s one thing to have customer data; it’s another to turn it into something useful. Strong customer engagement management tools combine audience segmentation and attribution engines, allowing marketers to slice audiences by behavior and link campaigns directly to outcomes.

Without these, your marketing turns into blind repetition. When evaluating, ask if the segmentation updates in real time or only on a daily refresh. Check if attribution can be customized to your business model, because default settings rarely fit everyone.

5. Integrations and APIs

Even the best customer engagement platform won’t live in isolation. It needs to plug into your existing stack, like CRMs, data warehouses, ad networks, maybe even your mobile app infrastructure. A weak integration layer will keep your teams trapped in CSV uploads.

So look for pre-built connectors, the ability to call APIs without extra cost, and how easy it is to pass data both ways. Don’t just take the vendor’s word; have your technical team run a real integration test.

6. Usability for Non-Technical Teams

Many customer engagement vendors design powerful systems, but a tool only works if marketers actually use it. If the interface is too clunky or every change requires SQL, adoption will stall. This is where demos can be misleading: what looks smooth in a guided walkthrough might be painful day-to-day.

So sit down with your marketers, product managers, maybe even customer service teams, and let them try it. Look for a balance: powerful enough for advanced work, simple enough that everyday users don’t need constant help.

7. Analytics and BI

Having data is not the same as seeing it. The analytics and visualization capabilities make all the difference between “we think this campaign worked” and “we know exactly how it performed.”

Some platforms offer customer engagement metrics and dashboards that update instantly, while others feel stuck in the past. When reviewing this criterion, focus on whether teams can create their own reports without waiting on analysts. Flexibility here can save countless hours over time.

8. Customer Data Privacy

One of the hardest parts of engagement is stitching together the fragmented view of a customer. Someone browses on mobile, buys on desktop, and then clicks an email later. Does the platform recognize all of that as the same person? The ability to build a 360-degree customer profile is critical.

And then there’s compliance. With privacy rules constantly shifting, you need to know the platform can handle data governance—whether it’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), or internal rules. Ask vendors not only if they are compliant today but also how they adapt as regulations evolve.

 

10 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Customer Engagement Tool

When you sit down with customer engagement software vendors, the demos usually look great. The slides are clean, the features sound exciting, and the tools seem like they can solve everything at once.

But the real test comes from the questions you ask. The right questions bring out details that matter in everyday use, from data handling to customer support. Here are some you may want to keep in mind during your evaluations.

1. How well does the platform integrate with your data?

Your customer engagement platform will only be as good as the data it works with. It should be able to combine information from online and offline sources, organize it, and then connect it back to your other tools. This is worth pressing on because smooth data movement avoids silos and saves time in the long run.

2. What does the platform offer in terms of meeting your business use cases?

Every company has its own priorities. Some teams focus heavily on onboarding flows, while others are more concerned with retention or win-back campaigns.

Before the demo, it helps to list your most important scenarios. Then ask the vendor to walk you through those specific cases so you can see exactly how the platform handles them.

3. What are the data security features provided by the customer engagement platform?

Customer data requires care. A reliable platform will follow standards such as GDPR, CCPA, and Service Organization Control 2 (SOC 2). It is worth asking about safeguards like single sign-on (SSO) or two-factor authentication (2FA), and how they keep systems updated. Security is one of those areas where clarity up front saves worry later.

4. What is the scope of customer journey orchestration provided by the platform?

Many teams want to design omnichannel customer journeys that move across email, push notifications, SMS, and in-app messages. Ask how the tool supports this in practice. Seeing how journeys are created during a demo will help you judge whether the process feels natural or too complex.

5. How capable is the platform in generating custom reports?

Dashboards are useful, but every brand eventually needs something custom. A good question here is whether you can create new reports without heavy technical support, how frequently data refreshes, and whether you can automatically export reports when needed.

6. What is the scope and scale of customer support provided?

Support can look very different from one online customer engagement platform to another. Some assign a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM), while others rely more on a shared support team. It helps to know what response times to expect and whether you will have access to guidance that is specific to your account.

7. What does the partnership ecosystem look like?

Most marketing stacks consist of many tools, and a customer engagement platform should easily connect to them.
Check which partnerships already exist, and whether they cover your advertising platforms, data tools, or attribution providers. Strong integrations usually make the system much easier to manage.

8. How easy is it to integrate the platform with your existing martech stack?

A digital customer engagement platform that works smoothly with your CRM, analytics, and marketing tools will save your team from extra work. Even small gaps can add friction, so it is worth confirming how the system will fit into what you already use.

9. What does the deployment timeline look like?

Even a strong product can be frustrating if it takes too long to launch. It is better to know early what the setup process involves, how much support customer engagement software vendors provide, and what kind of timeline to expect for your first campaigns. Asking for customer engagement examples of past implementations often gives a clearer picture.

10. What about the training routine offered by the service provider?

Even the best customer engagement platform needs marketers who know how to use it. Ask what training options are offered and how your teams will learn to get the most out of the platform. Smooth onboarding and helpful resources mean your staff can work independently when needed.

Asking these questions upfront can save you months of frustration later. Vendors will usually highlight the shiny features, but it’s your job to dig into the details that impact day-to-day work, and incorporate tips and strategies to migrate to a customer engagement platform.

 

8 Best Customer Engagement Platforms for Marketers

Marketers today have an overwhelming number of tools to choose from, and narrowing down the list of top customer engagement platforms can be tricky. Some platforms cover the full spectrum of customer engagement, while others focus on a single channel like email, SMS, or push notifications.

To help you cut through the noise, here’s a look at some of the most trusted customer engagement tools available today.

1. MoEngage

MoEngage is a full-stack customer engagement platform that brings data, analytics, and campaigns into one place. It’s built for B2C marketing teams that want to personalize at scale and manage interactions across multiple touchpoints without relying on a stack of disconnected tools.

What makes MoEngage different from the rest of the platforms is how it ties customer data to automation and AI, so engagement starts to feel less like a series of campaigns and more like a continuous conversation with each individual customer.

How pricing works: Pricing starts with a free plan for up to 10,000 Monthly Tracked Users (MTUs). Beyond that, there are paid Growth and Enterprise tiers, which scale depending on user volume and event usage.

Features focused on customer engagement:

• Omnichannel journeys – Build flows that span email, push notifications, SMS, in-app messages, on-site prompts, and WhatsApp, all within one platform.
• 360-degree customer profiles – Unified User Profiles give you a complete view of each customer by combining data from apps, websites, and offline touchpoints.
• Predictive insights – Built-in models forecast churn, likelihood to purchase, and the Most Preferred Channel, giving marketers a head start in designing campaigns that reach customers before they drop off or miss an opportunity to buy.
• Segmentation at scale – Define audiences in real time using behavior, purchases, app activity, and predictive signals, then act on them instantly.
• AI-led optimization – The system uses AI in customer engagement to keep learning what works best for each customer, like when is the best time to send an email or which channel is likely to get a response. That usually cuts down a lot of manual work.
• In-depth analytics – Key acquisition, engagement and retention metrics, channel performance dashboards, and custom dashboards connect engagement with revenue impact, so teams can see not just clicks but actual business results.
• Enterprise-grade security and compliance – MoEngage is built to meet GDPR, adhere to CCPA, and follow other standards, ensuring customer data is handled responsibly.

Best for: MoEngage stands out among the best customer engagement tools for mid-size to large enterprises that want a single place to handle customer data and engagement across multiple channels. It’s worth a look for B2C marketers who care about personalization at scale and for teams that need insights fast.

2. Customer.io

Customer.io is a messaging automation platform built for teams that want flexibility in how they reach and engage customers. It leans into a developer-friendly approach, with strong APIs and customizable workflows, so if your team has technical skills, you can stretch what the platform does.

One thing some users keep mentioning is that Customer.io can feel a bit overwhelming at first. There’s a lot to learn, and figuring out how everything works isn’t always straightforward. The email builder has some limits, and segmentation isn’t always straightforward, which can make targeting the right users a bit frustrating (Source).

How pricing works: The Essentials tier starts at $100 per month, while the Premium plan begins at around $1,000 per month.

Features focused on customer engagement: For engagement, Customer.io lets teams send event-triggered messages across email, SMS, and push notifications. The visual workflow builder allows you to create complex journeys without coding, while developers can extend the platform further using APIs and data pipelines. Analytics dashboards provide insight into performance, conversions, and what is actually working.

Best for: Startups and mid-sized companies with technical teams that want a flexible way to design customer journeys without being locked into a rigid system.

3. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is one of the oldest names in email marketing and is still a common choice for small brands. The platform is simple and straightforward, focusing on ease of use rather than heavy customization. That makes it accessible for teams with limited time or resources. Over the years, it has grown to support social media posting, simple ads, website and landing-page creation, event promotions, surveys, and even SMS in higher-tier plans.

Some users feel they pay without unlocking full functionality; even mid-tier paid plans don’t always include key features, making the upgrade seem less worthwhile. Others say the automation tools are basic, and as their contact list grows, the cost starts to feel steep (Source).

How pricing works: Constant Contact’s plans begin at approximately $12 per month for the Lite tier, and go up to about $80 per month for the Premium package.

Features focused on customer engagement: On the engagement side, Constant Contact covers email campaigns, basic automation workflows, and SMS marketing. It comes with a library of templates, list management tools, and reporting features. Options for social posting and event management are also available, though email remains its main strength.

Best for: It works best for small brands and nonprofits that need a reliable email solution without investing in a complex engagement platform.

4. Twilio SendGrid

Twilio SendGrid is built mainly for email delivery at scale. Its strength is reliability and strong infrastructure, helping brands send both marketing and transactional emails without worrying about deliverability. It is not a full engagement suite, but it ensures messages reach the inbox consistently.

Some customers have said getting set up can be tricky, especially when support is slow to respond after an account gets wrongly suspended, which can be really frustrating. Others have run into limits on how many recipients they can email or the size of attachments, which can make sending certain messages more difficult (Source).

How pricing works: You can start with a free trial, and paid plans begin at $19.95 per month for Essentials, with Pro plans starting around $89.95 per month.

Features focused on customer engagement: SendGrid provides robust APIs, a drag-and-drop campaign builder, and analytics for deliverability and engagement metrics. Teams can segment lists, set up autoresponders, and run A/B tests. Its real power is in handling high-volume transactional emails effectively.

Best for: Companies that need scalable and reliable email delivery, especially those handling both marketing and transactional messages at high volume.

5. Textmagic

Textmagic specializes in SMS marketing, offering a lightweight platform for businesses needing reminders, alerts, and time-sensitive messaging. Beyond SMS, it also supports email campaigns and integrates with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger for unified customer conversations. Industries prioritizing mobile communication find it particularly valuable for its multi-channel messaging capabilities and centralized inbox management.

There have been reports of problems when sending emails or multimedia messages, with limits that make it difficult to deliver messages as needed. SMS can also be an issue, with notifications failing to send, unexpected charges, and complicated message management, all of which can disrupt communication (Source).

How pricing works: Textmagic charges about $0.049 per SMS for US messages on a pay-as-you-go basis, and SMS bundles typically start at $24.50 per month for around 500 messages.

Features focused on customer engagement: Textmagic offers two-way SMS, bulk messaging, scheduling, and contact list management. Brands can also integrate it into existing workflows via APIs. Reporting shows delivery status and responses.

Best for: Brands that rely heavily on SMS for customer communication, such as service providers, appointment-based businesses, and retail stores running promotions.

6. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a well-known marketing platform that started with email but has expanded into a broader suite. Email remains its strongest feature, but it also supports landing pages, light automation, and social media marketing.

Mailchimp’s pricing can feel steep, especially for small businesses trying to grow their email lists. Many people also mention that it takes time to get the hang of, with few tutorials available, which makes the more advanced features tricky to use (Source).

How pricing works: There’s a free tier (500 contacts, 1,000 emails/month), then paid plans start with Essentials at $13/month (up to 10 emails per contact each month), Standard at $20/month (12 emails per contact), and Premium up to $350/month (15 emails per contact, for 200k+ contacts).

Features focused on customer engagement:Mailchimp provides email campaign tools, list segmentation, and an easy-to-use template editor. Its automation is more basic than advanced customer engagement tools like MoEngage, but it does cover common use cases like welcome sequences, cart abandonment, and re-engagement campaigns.

Best for: Small to mid-sized businesses that want an all-in-one starter tool for marketing, especially those focused on email with light automation.

7. GetResponse

GetResponse is an email and automation platform that leans into broader digital marketing campaigns. It includes messaging, landing pages, webinars, and conversion funnels, making it more than just an email tool.

Many users feel that GetResponse is missing important features, such as CRM integration, which means they often have to rely on other tools. Many mention a steep learning curve due to complex features and technical training materials (Source).

How pricing works: The Starter plan starts at about $19 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers, with higher tiers like 2,500 or 10,000 subscribers ranging roughly from $29 to $79 per month. The highest-tier enterprise offering is the Max (or GetResponse MAX) plan, which uses custom pricing and includes dedicated support, advanced features (like SMS, transactional emails, and a dedicated IP), and scaling to any list size.

Features focused on customer engagement: It offers email automation, SMS marketing, and webinar hosting. Behavior-based triggers, segmentation, and analytics help teams track performance. Some companies also use it for lead generation because of the landing page builder.

Best for: Businesses that want to combine email engagement with marketing funnel tools and lead capture in one platform.

8. HubSpot

HubSpot is widely known for its CRM, but its Marketing Hub offers engagement tools aimed at nurturing and converting leads. It combines email, automation, forms, and CRM integration into one platform.

Users have expressed frustration over missing features, including limited A/B testing and the need to rely on external SMS providers. Some also point out that HubSpot Marketing Hub’s integrations are more limited compared to competitors (Source).

How pricing works: HubSpot’s Marketing Hub Starter tier begins around $15 to $20 per month, while Professional and Enterprise plans can range from around $360 up to $3,600 per month, depending on features and scale.

Features focused on customer engagement: HubSpot provides personalized email campaigns, lead nurturing workflows, segmentation, and reporting linked directly to CRM data. The integration with sales tools makes it easier to analyze the customer journey from first contact to deal closure.

Best for: Growing brands that want engagement tightly connected with CRM and sales pipelines.

 

MoEngage: The Top Customer Engagement Platform for B2C Marketers

MoEngage provides B2C marketers with a full set of tools to understand, engage, and retain customers at scale without switching between multiple platforms. If you want to unify customer journeys and deliver personalization across every channel, explore our customer engagement solutions to see how top brands do it.

Want to see it in action? Book a quick demo and experience MoEngage firsthand.