Choosing the Right Customer Engagement Platform: CleverTap vs. MoEngage Compared

CleverTap and MoEngage are two leading customer engagement platforms, each offering robust capabilities to help brands interact effectively with their users and drive business growth. This blog provides a detailed comparison of their features and a closer look under the hood to really understand how CleverTap stands out as the best choice for your business.

CleverTap is the leading all-in-one customer engagement platform that empowers brands to segment their audience effectively, personalize messaging at scale, and optimize campaigns with actionable insights. It is powered by TesseractDB™, a proprietary database purpose-built for customer engagement, ensuring unmatched speed, scalability, and cost efficiency. With its advanced AI-driven capabilities and robust omnichannel tools, CleverTap helps businesses unlock limitless customer lifetime value.

MoEngage is a customer engagement platform that provides tools for audience segmentation, campaign automation, and analytics. It supports businesses in creating multi-channel user journeys and delivering personalized experiences through insights-driven workflows and AI-powered recommendations.

CleverTap vs Moengage – High-Level Feature Comparison

Selecting the right customer engagement platform often comes down to understanding the key features that set one apart from another. CleverTap and MoEngage both offer advanced tools, but CleverTap’s innovative capabilities and robust infrastructure make it a preferred choice for businesses focused on retention, personalization, and data-driven engagement.

Below is a high-level comparison of features that CleverTap offers and where MoEngage falls short.

Actionable Data

Data is the foundation of customer engagement strategies, but the ability to turn data into actionable insights separates the best platforms from the rest. While both CleverTap and MoEngage store customer data, their ability to make this data actionable varies significantly.

CleverTap ingests and processes up to 10,000 data points per user per month, providing unparalleled depth and granularity. With a 10-year lookback period, businesses can leverage a comprehensive view and deeper context of customer behavior over time. Every single data point is actionable, enabling precise segmentation, real-time engagement, and long-term retention strategies.

This is made possible because of the world’s first database purpose-built for customer engagement: TesseraAct DB. This ensures lightning-fast data processing and querying, making it easier for brands to personalize campaigns and achieve meaningful engagement.

On the other hand, MoEngage retains only 50-150 data points per user per month, significantly restricting its granularity compared to CleverTap. Furthermore:

• The actionable lookback period is limited to 2-3 months. Although MoEngage offers an option to extend this to 1-2 years, it is only for analytics—not for segmentation or engagement.
• This extended lookback period applies only to specific cases (such as low data volumes) and requires additional costs.

Events stored beyond 3 months become non-actionable, making it challenging to deliver personalized, data-driven engagements.

Real-Time Engagement

CleverTap is built on a real-time streaming architecture, ensuring that segmentation, evaluation, and event-triggered messaging are instantaneous and applicable to all use cases. Whether targeting users based on their actions moments ago or re-engaging long-dormant users, CleverTap’s real-time capabilities ensure no opportunity is missed.

MoEngage, on the other hand, relies on a query-based structure rather than a real-time streaming architecture. This results in several limitations:

• Real-time engagement is guaranteed only for filter queries within the last 30 days and is restricted to six messaging channels.
• Key actions like sending real-time push messages, emails, or WhatsApp communications for users segmented beyond 30 days are not possible.

For instance, if a user viewed a product two months ago and showed renewed interest today, MoEngage’s platform cannot immediately act on this behavior, leading to delays in messaging and potential loss of engagement.

Impact of Delayed Engagement

MoEngage’s delayed segmentation and lack of real-time caching lead to:

1. Lost Context: Critical insights become outdated by the time they are processed.
2. Makeshift Personalization: Without real-time data, campaigns are less effective and relevant.
3. Slower Decision-Making: Marketers are unable to view updated data or campaign performance immediately.

Push Message Delivery

Push notifications are a vital tool for user engagement, but their effectiveness hinges on both delivery and rendering rates. CleverTap and MoEngage differ significantly in how they address these needs.

CleverTap’s RenderMax™ technology ensures that push notifications are not only delivered but also rendered on 90% of devices, even in low-power states or with custom OEM configurations. This superior performance maximizes user reach and boosts campaign ROI. CleverTap also offers:

• Rich Media Support: Notifications can include images, videos, and dynamic content to captivate users.
• Custom OEM Rendering: Enhanced delivery on Xiaomi, Huawei, and Baidu devices ensures broader reach.

MoEngage relies on a basic retry mechanism for push delivery, which, while functional, lacks the sophistication needed for optimal performance. Key gaps include:

• Rendering Challenges: Notifications may not render on some devices, reducing engagement.
• Limited OEM Support: Lacks features like custom rendering or advanced support for Xiaomi and Huawei devices.
• Discrepancies in Reporting: Reachability counts have been underreported, inflating delivery percentages.

CleverTap vs MoEngage – Final Thoughts

CleverTap and MoEngage are both well-regarded customer engagement platforms, but their core features and capabilities set them apart in significant ways. While MoEngage provides a functional solution for businesses seeking basic engagement tools, CleverTap’s advanced features and forward-thinking architecture make it the clear choice for brands aiming to drive sustainable growth and maximize customer lifetime value.

CleverTap stands out with:

1. Actionable Data: Unmatched data retention of up to 10 years and 10,000 data points per user, ensuring deep insights and long-term engagement capabilities.
2. Real-Time Engagement: A real-time streaming architecture that empowers immediate, context-aware actions across all use cases.
3. Push Message Delivery: RenderMax™ technology that guarantees superior delivery and rendering rates, ensuring messages are seen and acted upon.

CleverTap’s leadership in the space is underscored by its recognition as a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave™: CCMH 2024 report. This acknowledgment highlights CleverTap’s ability to deliver powerful, omnichannel engagement capabilities that drive results.

Explore how CleverTap can help you step up your customer engagement game. Request a personalized demo today!