There are many options when it comes to SMS marketing platforms. They may all seem very similar on the surface, but if you examine them more closely, you’ll see that they all specialize in different industries, features, and functionality. Most SMS platforms are built with a specific type of client or user in mind. To help you identify which solution is best for you, we created this cheat sheet to compare Tatango and Attentive solutions. Keep reading to determine the best option to help your organization create the most effective SMS marketing campaigns for your subscribers.
About Tatango
Tatango has been an industry-leading SMS marketing platform for political groups and organizations for more than 13 years. Through Tatango’s political text message marketing platform, political groups, candidates, and advocacy organizations can rapidly raise donations, increase voter turnout, grow their communications list of loyal supporters, and be the first to share breaking campaign news with their constituents. With Tatango, politicians can also segment their subscribers by location or cause, create automated SMS marketing campaigns, send eye-catching images/gifs and up to 5,000 characters of text, and pull detailed reports to help improve ROI with every SMS message sent.
About Attentive
Attentive is a text message marketing solution designed for brands like retailers and restaurants. Many eCommerce companies use Attentive to promote sales, promo codes, and special coupons to drive revenue and product purchases. Like many SMS marketing platforms, Attentive also allows for two-way journeys and integration with third-party vendors like Shopify.
Tatango vs. Attentive
With the introductions out of the way, let’s dive deeper into these SMS messaging solutions to help you make an informed decision for your organization.
Tatango vs. Attentive: Industries
As mentioned above, the biggest differentiator is that Attentive is designed primarily for brands and retailers. Attentive’s clients send SMS messages using long codes, which are 10-digit phone numbers like the ones you use to text friends and family. Most of Attentive’s clients aren’t fundraising, but rather using their SMS messages to drive subscribers to online products or shops.
Tatango, on the other hand, is specifically designed to support political groups and nonprofit organizations on all sides of our democracy. Tatango works with politicians and advocacy groups at the federal, state, and local levels to help everyone’s voices be heard and support important causes across the country.
Tatango’s clients send political SMS messages using short codes, which are easy-to-remember 5- to 6-digit phone numbers. Because politicians frequently speak on stages and promote their text message marketing campaigns across podiums, campaign buses, yard signs, and commercials, a short code like 12345 is easy for people to text into and remember—even if they only see it for a few seconds. A 10-digit number (like with Attentive) can be harder for people to remember after a fleeting political advertisement.
Tatango vs. Attentive: Integrations
Another one of the differences between Tatango and Attentive is the partners they integrate with.
Tatango, for example, integrates with all political fundraising tools like ActBlue, WinRed, EveryAction, NGP VAN, and others. This helps our clients send text messages where recipients can click a single link in a text message to easily donate to their favorite politician or nonprofit organization.
Attentive focuses on eCommerce-based integrations like Shopify. This is a great option for retailers who feature online products and want to sync their SMS marketing campaigns with their online shops.
Tatango vs. Attentive: Efficiency
Because time is of the essence in political races, Tatango is designed for clients who need to get their messages out quickly. News changes fast in an election cycle, and you want to be sure that your constituents hear the news from your organization before anyone else. Every dollar and vote matters in close races, so you must be able to get your text messages out quickly when approaching a fundraising or election deadline. For these reasons, Tatango is built so political clients can send 100,000 texts per minute—that’s 6 million text messages per hour! Many political groups have lists of millions of subscribers, so the Tatango platform handles high volume with ease.
With retailers, timing can be more flexible, so efficiency isn’t always as critical. Retailers less often have breaking news and rarely face fundraising deadlines or election timers. However, if your organization has a large list of subscribers and will require urgent communication with supporters, it’s important to ask about messaging speed with every SMS marketing platform you’re considering.
Tatango vs. Attentive: Customer Service
Tatango works with political candidates and nonprofit organizations of all sizes and understands that customer service needs vary accordingly. For this reason, Tatango provides dedicated success managers versed in political text messaging and advocacy text messaging to every client. This ensures that every client’s unique needs and goals are met—and that their SMS marketing campaigns provide a solid ROI.
If you’re a retailer, restaurant, or brand, then Attentive’s customer success managers specialize in those industries. Retail chains, fast-food restaurants, and political candidates all communicate differently with their subscribers, so you want to make sure that your support team is educated in your industry.
Tatango vs. Attentive: Security
Because Tatango works with political groups and organizations, security is a major priority and something Tatango takes very seriously. Subscriber data and personal information are safely stored within the system, while Tatango has a number of protective protocols in place (e.g. two-factor authentication, secure sending, etc.) to ensure that political text message marketing campaigns don’t get into the wrong hands.
For brands, retailers, and restaurants, subscriber security is also important to ensure your subscriber data is safe. However, retailers may be less at risk of foreign interest, so extra security features may not be as essential as with political groups and organizations.
Regardless of which SMS platform is right for you, ensure yours is versed in TCPA compliance and regulations like written consent so you aren’t at risk of illegally collecting subscriber phone numbers or being served with costly lawsuits.
Learn More About Tatango
We hope to have cleared up any confusion you may have had about differences between the Tatango SMS marketing platform and Attentive. Our goal is to make your life (and business) easier, even if you’re not yet our client. If you’d like to learn more about our political text message marketing solution or need further clarification on any of our features or functionalities, we’d love to chat.
Let us know more about your needs to help us match you with the correct SMS marketing professional for your industry and help you meet your SMS marketing goals.
