Leaving Yotpo Email/SMS? Expert Advice to Make It a Brilliant Migration
From panic to peak performance — here’s how to turn Yotpo’s exit into your best retention move yet.
If you missed it, Yotpo announced that they are shutting down their Email and SMS platform to focus on their core products, Reviews and Loyalty. Existing customers have until the end of 2025 to migrate — but with peak season fast approaching, the sooner you start planning, the better.
>>>Read our 4-Step Guide to what to do here
Yes, it’s an unexpected curveball, but it’s also the perfect chance to reset, rethink, and rebuild your retention marketing into something smarter, stronger, and brilliantly future-proof.
To help you, we’ve gathered insights from top eCommerce email and SMS experts—covering migration best practices, platform selection, and deliverability protection—to help you turn this transition into a setup that’s not just new, but brilliantly better than before.
Yotpo Themselves: Take Your Time to Choose the Right Partner
Eli Weiss from Yotpo reassures merchants there’s no need to panic:
"Take the time to choose the right partner for the long term. If you are a Yotpo customer using our Email or SMS products, there is no change before the end of the year. You do not need to rush a migration before BFCM. What matters most is finding a provider that aligns with your needs on service, long term pricing, and strategic guidance.
We know this is not an easy change. That is why we are working closely with Attentive and Omnisend to offer migration support, pricing assistance, and deeper integrations. That being said, every customer has the freedom to work with whichever provider they believe is the best fit for their business. Yotpo will be here to help every step of the way to make the transition as easy and seamless as possible.
This is part of Yotpo’s renewed focus on our core products, Reviews and Loyalty, with more investment, faster innovation, and deeper integrations to help brands drive retention and lifetime value for years to come."
Yotpo Recommends Moving to Omnisend or Attentive — Here’s Their Advice
Omnisend’s Take
Desislava Zhivkova from Omnisend advises moving early to avoid disruption and ensure a smooth transition:
"Move now so you're ready before the holiday rush. An early switch gives you time to test, fix small issues, and keep both systems running side by side for a bit so nothing breaks. It also lets you warm up properly. If you delay, you'll end up rushing or skipping the warm-up period, which is when inboxes and carriers learn your new setup. Skip it and you risk deliverability problems – emails landing in spam and texts getting filtered. Moving your SMS number and double-checking list permissions can take time, so starting now prevents last-minute headaches around BFCM.
For email, set a clear move date and bring over the money-making flows first (welcome, abandoned cart, back-in-stock, etc), and start sending to your most engaged subscribers. Keep subject lines, timing, and offers consistent so customers don't notice the change, and make sure every sign-up form points to the new platform from the beginning. An early, orderly move protects revenue and sets you up to finish the year strong."
Attentive’s Take
Carrie Mann of Attentive emphasises the importance of keeping email and SMS under one roof:
"With Yotpo exiting SMS and email, timing is everything—moving early avoids campaign disruptions and gives you time to optimize before peak sales season. It's important to find a platform that matches your current goals and brings SMS and email together so you can plan campaigns across channels for the best results. When paired with Yotpo’s loyalty, reviews, and referrals, this creates a seamless customer journey that keeps personalization strong from day one.
Once you’ve made the move, use the transition period to fine-tune segmentation, refresh triggered flows, and test high-performing campaigns ahead of BFCM (check out Attentive’s BFCM Marketing Sanctuary for 90, 60, and 30 day guides). Leveraging a direct integration with Yotpo ensures historical data flows over seamlessly, loyalty and review events trigger messages instantly, and your team can enter peak season with confidence—supported by a proven record of zero outages and a dedicated migration team. To see how this works in action, get a demo with Attentive and make sure your move happens well before the holiday rush."
Act Early, Audit Everything
Why starting now matters
Several experts stressed that acting early—ideally before the end of August—gives you breathing space to migrate before peak season chaos hits.
Rich Evans of Get Better advises:
"If you’re on Yotpo Email/SMS, the most important thing you can do is act early - ideally before the end of August. This gives you the breathing space to migrate before the chaos of peak season and avoids having platform risk hanging over you during Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Delay, and you’ll be trying to juggle migration and peak trading stress at the same time - which is when mistakes happen.
When choosing where to move, be honest about what you actually need. If you were on Yotpo for budget reasons and only send occasional campaigns, tools like Omnisend or Mailchimp may suit you better than going back to enterprise-level platforms. If you left Klaviyo previously, check whether your old account still exists - this can make a return faster and easier, and Klaviyo is already offering a 12-month price match (T\&Cs pending).
A smooth migration isn’t just about moving data. Audit your integrations - whether that’s Recharge, Octane AI, or analytics tools - as not every platform connects as easily as Yotpo did. Avoid “free migration” offers that only handle the basics; these can cost more in lost revenue if they don’t replicate your automations and segmentation depth. And whatever you do, protect your deliverability: clean your lists, warm your sending domains, and suppress old profiles before you hit send on your new platform.
Handled well, this doesn’t have to be a setback - it can be a chance to review your retention strategy, tighten your tech stack, and put your brand in a stronger position for the year ahead."
Jessica Totillo Coster from eCommerce Badassery adds:
"Yotpo’s email and SMS shutdown at the end of the year might sound far away, but in eCommerce time, it’s tomorrow… especially with Q4 around the corner. Move to your new platform as soon as possible so you have time to warm up your new IP and protect deliverability before the busiest shopping season hits. Use the weeks before migration to run re-engagement campaigns on the Yotpo platform, ensuring you bring over a clean, active, and engaged list.
When choosing your next platform, look beyond flashy migration deals. Pick something that fits your business now and where you want to be in a few years. If you use both email and SMS, keep them on the same platform. Splitting channels often means losing valuable engagement and purchase data, making true omni-channel marketing more difficult. And if you’re short on time or resources, invest in migration help. This is a business-critical project, and doing it right now will set you up for a stronger peak season and beyond."
Choosing your next platform
Olamide Ashiyanbi of Potterflow LLC recommends aligning the choice with your brand priorities:
"I’d focus on one thing: choose the next platform based on your brand’s priorities, not just the fastest or default option.
If cost control matters most, an all-in-one like Omnisend or Mailchimp can be a solid fit — just pair the move with rigorous list cleaning so you’re not paying for disengaged contacts. If SMS is a primary revenue driver, then go with a specialist like Attentive and match it to an ESP that can keep pace. If you’re after deep segmentation, advanced testing, long-term growth, and if your setup is complex — multi-region, headless, or reliant on custom events, a data-rich platform like Klaviyo offers the most headroom. The right call now means you won’t be having another migration conversation a year from today."
Emilia Swiecicka from Intuit Mailchimp suggests building a clear “shopping list” of must-have features and testing timeframes before committing.
"When deciding on which platform to move to, the key thing is to develop a good shopping list. Consider what's most important to your day-to-day use of the platform: features, the results you want to achieve, and any business requirements like a connection to the right e-commerce platform and total cost of ownership. I would also rank these in order of importance. For example, if the ease of use creates a big enough time saving to warrant a higher cost, does this then create some flexibility in terms of budget?
The other aspect of the move is the timing. Make sure you leave enough time for testing before any peak seasons or key trading periods so you have time to test the flows, the design elements, integrations, and deliverability after making the move."
Migration execution tips
- Naomi Davies, NMD Marketing: "If you’re caught up in Yotpo’s exit from email and SMS, act now. Peak season is just around the corner, and you’ll need time to warm up your sending reputation before you can confidently message your whole database. For e-commerce brands, Klaviyo is the clear front-runner, as it covers email and SMS in one platform (with WhatsApp coming soon!) and integrates seamlessly with Shopify. I’ve worked on countless migrations over the years, and I’ve never seen a brand regret moving to Klaviyo. Once you’ve moved, warm up your lists carefully, remember email and SMS have completely separate deliverability profiles. Rebuild your core automations straight away, including welcome, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, and post-purchase flows. Let these run for a few days before sending any campaigns. Also integrate SMS within these flows straight away. For a strong Q4, I’d also recommend setting up revenue-driving extra flows such as low inventory, price drop, and back in stock flows so you can capture buyers while urgency is high. Power move: When you migrate, don’t just copy and paste your old flows, if you can, please rethink them. Analyse your last 12 months’ data to identify drop offs, poor CvR or low click rates, then re work the flow to hopefully improve that metric. This is your chance to fix weak spots you may have ignored, so your migration becomes the moment your retention strategy levels up.
- Abby Hehemann, GetResponse: "When a provider exits a core channel like email or SMS, you don’t just lose a sending tool, you risk losing access to your data, breaking critical automations, and ceding control over how and when you can communicate with customers. Our advice, after 25+ years in the email business, is to treat this moment as an opportunity to rebuild on land you own. Map your existing automations, segments, and data flows, then move to a platform where messaging is a core focus, not an add-on. According to our latest research, email delivers an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, and 49% of marketers are doubling down on it as their top channel. And don’t just replace what you had, use the migration to refresh your automations, update creative, and test new features so you emerge with stronger deliverability, sharper targeting, and higher ROI than before."
- Desislava Zhivkova, Omnisend: "Bring over the money-making flows first (welcome, abandoned cart, back-in-stock, etc), and start sending to your most engaged subscribers. Keep subject lines, timing, and offers consistent so customers don't notice the change."
- Glenn Cookson, Apostle: "Time is of the essence here, so I’ll keep my advice honest and direct… If you’re an ambitious e-commerce brand serious about scaling and future-proofing, Klaviyo, the CRM for B2C, is the only real option to consider. Before migrating, clean your lists and review your flows so you’re not carrying over outdated or underperforming automations.
"Be cautious of agencies offering “free” migrations. Do your due diligence! Ask to speak to multiple clients they’ve migrated, validate their competencies, and get clear, realistic timelines plus a project roadmap before signing anything. There’s no room for delays or errors from your migration partner, so choose wisely. Tap into your network for trusted recommendations.
"If you act fast, you can be fully set up well before BFCM. While the situation is far from ideal, treat it as a chance to optimise. Critically review your current customer journey, and partner with CRM experts to create a robust strategy that ensures you enter peak season with your best foot forward."
Keep Channels Together & Personalisation Strong
To reiterate, Carrie Mann from Attentive highlights the value of keeping email and SMS in one platform:
“It's important to find a platform that matches your current goals and brings SMS and email together so you can plan campaigns across channels for the best results. Paired with Yotpo’s loyalty and reviews, a single platform creates a seamless customer journey from day one.”
She recommends:
- Fine-tuning segmentation
- Refreshing triggered flows
- Testing high-performing campaigns ahead of BFCM
- Leveraging direct Yotpo integrations for smooth data transfer
Attentive offers dedicated migration teams and a proven zero-outage record to get you peak-season ready.
Mindset Shift: This Isn’t Just Replacement, It’s an Upgrade
Several experts see this as a rare chance to level up.
Sian Conway-Wood of 181st Street Communications puts it best:
“Brands often treat a migration as a straight swap (especially if they're under a time pressure), but it can be a valuable strategic reset. Use it as an opportunity to audit your data, map out your customer journey, and build some behaviour-based segments and automated flows - aligned to lifecycle stage, purchase frequency, product interest, or engagement level. Then put those segments to work with behavioural triggers: personalised welcomes, cart and browse abandonment flows tuned to what they viewed, and post-purchase journeys that upsell based on what they bought.
Every email you send should move someone closer to becoming a high-value customer. And yet most brands ignore smart segmentation and rely on their weekly newsletter to do the heavy lifting - then wonder why they're not making much revenue from email. With sharper behavioural targeting and new flows, you can drive lifetime value instead of one-off spikes.
This isn’t replacing what you had. This is building something better."
Final Word
Whether you choose Omnisend*, Attentive, Klaviyo*, Get Response* or another provider, the message is clear:
- Act early
- Clean your data
- Protect deliverability
- Rebuild with intention
Handled well, this migration can be the moment your retention strategy jumps to the next level.
Explore more tools in our Email Marketing Technology category on eCommerceTech and dive deeper into email marketing strategy with our Email Marketing category on the Keep Optimising Podcast.
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