Emotive Communications

About Emotive Communications

Emotive Communications, operating as Emotive, positions itself as a conversational commerce platform engineered to enhance customer relationships for e-commerce businesses. The company was founded in 2018 by Brian Zatulove and Zachary Wise, who reportedly started the venture from their USC dorm room after prior experience with a separate startup. Their journey began after observing the high engagement rates of text message marketing and recognizing a need for better customer communication infrastructure in direct-to-consumer markets.

The company's core business revolves around providing a software platform that facilitates two-way SMS conversations between brands and customers, moving beyond one-way marketing blasts. The business model is centered on a subscription service for its platform, which primarily serves mid-sized e-commerce brands on platforms like Shopify and Magento. Revenue is generated by enabling clients to manage and scale personalized text message interactions to drive sales and customer loyalty. In July 2025, Emotive was acquired by Privy, an e-commerce marketing automation platform, to create a unified solution for email, SMS, and conversational marketing.

Emotive's platform leverages a combination of AI-driven automation and human assistance to replicate authentic, real-time conversations at scale. Key features include automated workflows, customer segmentation based on purchase history and demographics, abandoned cart recovery, and promotional campaigns. The platform is designed to integrate with major e-commerce systems, providing tools for list growth, analytics to measure campaign performance, and two-way texting to handle customer inquiries and gather feedback. The service aims to improve conversion rates by delivering personalized and timely messages directly to customers' mobile devices.