Which Email Marketing Platforms to Use

Working with an email marketing platform is a great way to keep your existing and prospective clients up to date with what’s going on in your business.  Email marketing is actually among the best channels when it comes to online marketing. This is because it has an ROI of around 4,000%. Another way to say this is that the average person get about $40 back for every $1 spent. With a multitude of different platforms available, how do you decide which is the best for you?  There are many factors you will want to take into consideration. Some of these include cost of the service, ease of use, technical support available, automation and reliability.  Below is a list of email marketing platforms worth looking into. There are plenty of other email marketing platforms out there, but this will hopefully give you some clear direction on where to start looking.

1.    Mailchimp

COST: Free – $299 per month

PROS: Mailchimp is one of the most popular and well-known email marketing platforms available today.  It’s easy to use interface and simple, customizable templates make it a great starting point for anybody just beginning to work with an email campaign.  Free accounts allow you to send up to 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers, meaning you can try it before you buy it.  It also includes an analytics tracker and integrates easily with plenty of other platforms.

CONS:  As far as features go, Mailchimp is a bit limited on their offerings, particularly if you are using their free plan.  Additionally, their technical support team is only reachable by email and response time is often quite slow.

2.    SendinBlue

COST: Free – $66 per month

PROS: SendinBlue is another platform that offers users an easy and clear interface.  Drag and drop tools help you to create beautiful, clean emails that will catch your readers attention.  Free plans allow for unlimited contacts, but limit sending to 300 emails per day.  Another added bonus is that this platform uses its AI algorithms to inform you of the best time each day to send your campaigns to ensure they get the most exposure.

CONS:  Compared to some of the other platforms, SendinBlue’s templates are rather limited and basic in design.  Additionally, taking the initial steps to set up your account can be relatively confusing.

3.    Constant Contact

COST: $20-$99 per month

PROS: Soaring above and beyond the basic email marketing campaign, Constant Contact also offers its users the ability to manage events and create coupons and polls.  They also rank around 90% for email deliverability, among the highest of other email service providers.

CONS:  Updating the contact list has posed a few glitches and the organization of the contacts page is a bit confusing as well.  The reporting features also seem to be lacking, particularly in that they are not customizable to your business’s specific needs.

4.    Campaign Monitor

COST: $9-$699+ per month

PROS: Campaign Monitor boasts an impressive 99% customer satisfaction rating, and for good reason.  They not only offer beautifully crafted email designs that are fully customizable, but they are also well-known for their incredible customer service and as a company that believes in giving back.  So much so that their employees spend thousands of hours each year doing volunteer work.  Data segmentation is also a win, as Campaign Monitor allows you to create advanced rules and exclude multiple segments prior to sending.

CONS:  The only real downside to Campaign Monitor is the pricing (which is a bit higher comparably) and the fact that you can quickly rise to the next pricing tier as your email list grows.

Are you enjoying this post? If so, be sure to subscribe for occasional email updates from our team!

 

5.    Drip

COST: Starting at $49/month

PROS: Specifically created for bloggers, eCommerce and digital marketers, Drip offers seamless integration with sites like WooCommerce, WordPress and more.  Along with that, Drip offers intelligent marketing tools that help you target specific customers in your email list for different campaigns.  Additional benefits are live customer support, automation training, free guides and more!

CONS:  Drip is another platform that can get pricey quickly, however, even their cheapest plan offers you access to all of their features.

6.    Aweber

COST: From $19-$149/month

PROS: Aweber is tried and true, being that it’s one of the oldest email marketing platforms around.  It is simple to use and offers detailed tracking insights as well as fast and excellent customer support.  Aweber also offer a host of online tutorials and live webinars to help make it even easier!

CONS:  Although reliable, Aweber is relatively high on their price point, particularly because they don’t offer some of the upgraded features of their competitors and have a pretty outdated interface.  Also, even unsubscribed emails count toward your monthly quota, which doesn’t seem all that fair.

7.    HubSpot

COST: Free – $50 per month

PROS: Hubspot seems to be among the easiest of the platforms to use as far as creating and editing emails goes.  It’s quick, self-explanatory, and allows you to preview how your email will look on different devices and email platforms.  It also has great personalization options and allows you to A/B test your content and subject lines to make sure you get the most clicks per send.

CONS:  Hubspot offers a LOT of features and, while this might seem like a good thing, it can also be a little overwhelming to users who are newer to this type of tool.  It also has limited integrations with other vendors and doesn’t offer a middle ground pricing option.

8.    Clickback

COST:– Varies depending on business.

PROS: Clickback is one of many email marketing platforms that allows you to send unsolicited mail legally to your purchased email lists.  Their drag and drop tools make building your emails easy and effective and tailored reports help you monitor your content so you can build smarter campaigns each time you send.

CONS:  Clickback uses cold-emailing, a form of list-building that relies on buying your audience instead of growing it organically.  This is not considered a best practice in email marketing.  Additionally, Clickback is known to have slow customer support response time.

9.    Mailshake

COST: $29-$49/month

PROS: Mailshake is another platform that relies on cold-emailing.  It offers the same basic benefits as Clickback; customizable templates, easy to use interface, and tracking tools.  At the same time, Mailshake allows users to try the product for a month with a full money back guarantee if you are not fully satisfied.

CONS:  Aside from Mailshake also not following best practice guidelines, editing templates and adding them to a campaign can be relatively confusing.  It also works only with Gmail and G Suite accounts and it could use more detailed analytics tools to make it more beneficial.

So, Which Email Marketing Platform is Right for You?