Connecting Attentive to your Zest storefronts lets you send branded SMS and email gift notifications — such as gift confirmations, tracking updates, and delivery alerts — directly through your Attentive account.
This integration is optional at launch: Zest can send transactional notifications on your brand's behalf while you get set up, and you can layer in the Attentive integration whenever you're ready. That said, connecting Attentive gives you the most flexibility over how your brand shows up in every gift notification touchpoint.
Before connecting Attentive to Zest, make sure you have the following ready.
An active Attentive account with admin access.
A Zest corporate storefront connected to Shopify.
An Attentive Custom App created with Custom Events API permissions and Subscriber API write permissions enabled.
An API key generated from that Custom App.
A Transactional Subscriber Source ID (see the section below on setting this up).
Access to the Zest app settings in Shopify.
Connecting Attentive to Zest
Everything happens right inside your Zest settings in Shopify.
Log in to your Attentive account and navigate to your Custom App settings.
Confirm that Custom Events permissions and Subscriber API write permissions are both enabled on the app.
Generate an API key from that Custom App and copy it.
In Shopify, open the Zest app and go to Settings.
Select the Attentive integration option.
Enter your API key and your Transactional Subscriber Source ID in the fields provided.
Click Connect. Zest will automatically send test events to verify the setup.
Important: Always use the same Attentive Custom App you originally created for this integration. Creating a new app will break custom event routing and require you to reconfigure your flows from scratch.
Setting Up Sign-up Source IDs
Zest uses a Transactional Subscriber Source ID to opt gift recipients into Attentive as transactional subscribers — this is what allows them to receive your gift notifications.
You do not need a separate Marketing Subscriber Source ID for Zest gift notifications. Marketing opt-ins flow through the standard Shopify–Attentive connection separately.
To find or request your Transactional Subscriber Source ID:
Check the Marketplace section of the Attentive UI — source IDs are sometimes listed there.
If you don't see it listed, contact Attentive support directly to request a custom transactional source ID. For API-based setups like Zest, you'll often need to request this ID specifically.
If you need to update your source ID after initial setup:
Go to the Attentive integration in your Zest app settings.
Click Disconnect to remove the current connection.
Click Reconnect and enter both your API key and the updated Transactional Subscriber Source ID.
There's no way to edit the source ID in place — you'll need to disconnect and reconnect. Your existing flows and journeys won't be affected by this process.
Creating Gift Notification Flows in Attentive
After connecting, you'll build journeys in Attentive that fire when Zest's custom events occur. Your Zest team will provide an integration guide with a complete list of events and suggested message copy (swipe copy) you can adapt into your own branded templates.
Key gift events to build flows for:
Gift initiated
Gift accepted
Tracking updates
Delivery confirmation
Recommended approach:
Build both email and SMS variants for each flow. Because you can't control whether a gift sender provides an email address or a phone number at checkout, running parallel flows ensures notifications are always delivered regardless of how the gifter contacts the recipient.
If you need to prioritize, start with email and add SMS afterward — SMS requires additional transactional messaging setup in Attentive.
Transactional vs. Marketing Message Classification
All core Zest gift notification events — including gift initiated, tracking updates, and delivery confirmation — are transactional, because they contain order and shipping information tied to a specific gift purchase.
When creating journeys in Attentive, you must designate each journey as Transactional at the time of creation. This classification determines compliance requirements and which subscriber source ID Attentive uses to deliver messages.
How marketing opt-in works separately: Zest records each recipient's marketing preference and syncs it to their Shopify customer record, which flows through to Attentive via the standard Shopify–Attentive connection. You don't need to do anything extra to handle this.
Verify with your Zest product contact: Compliance requirements — including disclosure language, opt-in checkbox behavior, and any required SMS copy — should be confirmed against the current implementation before you go live.
Testing Your Attentive Flows
Once your flows are built and your connection is active, you can test everything without affecting real customers.
In Shopify, open the Zest app and go to Settings.
Click Send Test Events to fire test events to Attentive.
Make sure each journey is set to live in Attentive before testing — journeys only trigger on Zest custom events and will not fire accidentally on other ecommerce activity.
You can test flows individually or all at once.
For SMS testing with a real phone number, reach out to the Zest team — they can trigger specific events via API to a test number on your behalf.
Note: Test events from a sandbox Shopify store will appear in your production Attentive account with a zest prefix. They are sandboxed and will not affect real customers or send actual messages.
Troubleshooting Common Issues
Connection error after entering credentials
Verify that Custom Events permissions and Subscriber API write permissions are both enabled on your Attentive Custom App. Also confirm you are using your original app — not a newly created one. Creating a new app breaks custom event routing.
SMS messages are not delivering
Unlike Klaviyo, Attentive requires phone numbers to exist as subscribers before it will deliver messages triggered by custom events. Zest subscribes recipients via the Attentive Subscriber API using your Transactional Subscriber Source ID. If SMS isn't delivering, confirm the source ID is correctly configured and that Zest is successfully subscribing recipients before events fire.
A flow is not triggering
The most common cause is a channel mismatch — for example, a flow set up for SMS only when the gifter provided an email address, or vice versa. Always create both email and SMS variants of each gifter-facing flow.
SMS links are showing error pages
This is caused by HTML tags in your Attentive SMS template. Attentive's link tracking breaks gift URLs when HTML is present. SMS messages must use plain text only — remove all HTML formatting from your SMS templates.
Using Klaviyo for email and Attentive for SMS
Zest currently supports only one marketing platform integration at a time. If your store uses Klaviyo for email and Attentive for SMS, you'll need to choose one platform for all Zest gift notifications. Contact the Zest team to discuss the best approach for your setup.
An attribution line appears in SMS messages
An attribution line may appear at the bottom of SMS messages sent through Zest. Confirm with your Zest product contact whether this line is present and whether it can be removed for your account.