There is no doubt that email marketing software gives you the highest return on investment (ROI) among marketing channels – $38 for every dollar spent.
Plus, there is a big chance that one of all 1.5 billion Gmail users will become a potential customer.
What does it take to start using email marketing to get started today and what tools do you use to do it?
Different software, platforms, and email marketing services are available at varying price points and have different features.
In essence, most of these tools are excellent, it’s just a matter of finding the right fit for your needs.
The following are some of the most effective email marketing service providers I researched and ranked to help you:
Choose the best one for you based on the needs you have
Saving you as much money as possible is our priority.
Come on, let’s get started.
Table of Contents
What is the Best Email Marketing Software?
Research price, reliability, technical support, template designs, ease of use, deliverability, automation, integrations, and any additional features before deciding on the best email marketing software for your business.
You should be able to create emails easily using email marketing software, segment your list, personalize your messages, and review analytics reports with ease. Most importantly, they should reach users’ primary inboxes as soon as possible.
As a marketing tactic, email marketing has one goal: to deliver the right message to the right user at the right time.
Listed below are some of the best email marketing software and services that you should try this year:
- ActiveCampaign
- Constant Contact
- HubSpot
- Sendinblue
- Moosend
- Mailerlite
- GetResponse
- Pabbly
- ConvertKit
- Omnisend
- Gist
- Automizy
- AWeber
- Mailigen
- Benchmark
- SendPulse
- MoonMail
- Ontraport
- Campaign Monitor
- MailChimp
- Mailjet
1. ActiveCampaign
The Best Email Marketing Software ($9 a month)
My list of top 10 email marketing softwares includes ActiveCampaign as #1 as it offers advanced automation features and excellent deliverability, along with its top-notch features and functionality.
It has to be said that machine learning plays a key role in this list due to its status as the smartest tool. By using Predictive Actions, ActiveCampaign enables you to automatically trigger the right actions for your customers based on their answers to tough questions about them.
In addition to ActiveCampaign, you can integrate it with over 850 other apps, including Facebook, Shopify, WordPress, and a whole lot more.
You can automate your list segments, and we automatically move users onto your list based on dynamic email content, follow-ups with sales, and a number of other factors.
There is no doubt that email workflows are robust and easy to manage. Their CRM also gives sales teams advanced lead scoring capabilities with all of this data synced with their CRM.
Additionally, their lead scoring system is flexible as well. You may or may not know what lead scoring is, but it basically involves awarding points based on the actions taken by an individual email subscriber. Once they reach a certain point threshold, they can either enter a new automation funnel or be contacted by a member of your sales team.
Here are the steps you need to follow:
- The first thing you need to do is select your engagement metrics. An example of this could be the opening of an email or clicking on a link, to a content download or a consultation request.
- Following this, you will add your lead scoring rules and points based on these conditions. It is recommended to set them based on the amount of effort and the likelihood of converting.
- The point value of opening an email might be two points, and the point value of clicking a link might be five points. The negative points are awarded for actions such as non-opens or unsubscribes. The subscriber’s data is fed into the Deals CRM once they have reached a predetermined threshold, where they will be entered into a new stage of automation:
I think it’s a great system that large companies use for nurturing email leads in the most personalized way possible.
This platform has a number of strong selling points, including a high deliverability rate of emails, which puts it above all other platforms on this list. The emails they send have the lowest chance of being marked as spam and are most likely to be delivered to Gmail or Outlook’s primary inboxes.
Pricing:
The price of the service is dependant upon the features of the account as well as the size of your mailing list.
- Lite: $9/month
- Plus: $49/month
- Professional $129/month
- Enterprise: $229/month
There is a 14-day free trial included with all plans.
All in all, ActiveCampaign is a great tool if you’re looking for the very best email marketing, CRM, and automation tool in one place.
Get started with ActiveCampaign today. If you want to learn more about ActiveCampaign, you may also read my ActiveCampaign review here.
2. Constant Contact
The Best Email Marketing Service for Small Businesses ($16/month)
It is a company that has been in the email marketing space since 1995. In 2004, they adopted the name Constant Contact and began offering their services under that name. The business was acquired by Endurance International Group in 2015, which is home to other companies including Bluehost, HostGator, and Domain.com.
Their website states that the ultimate goal of the company is to assist small businesses in discovering and leveraging the power, promise, and potential of the web.
With 100+ modern, mobile-optimized templates, they help you engage clients and convert prospects, and offers a number of additional features such as coupons, polls, and live events.
A unique feature of this application is event management, in which users are able to manage registrations, invitations, and tickets:
Email delivery is above average and is one of the best amongst all email service providers, with an average deliverability rate of over 90%.
It is important to note that the pricing of Constant Contact varies according to how many email contacts you have. For the first 500 contacts, they offer a paid plan starting at $18/month.
You can easily use their drip campaigns, which require very little setup time. The functionality of creating simple sequences is available, however advanced filters and condition combining cannot be used.
The bottom line is that if you’re looking for niche features like event management and top-of-the-line email deliverability, Constant Contact is the right choice for you. I have ranked them #2 in my list of my preferred email service providers for the current year.
3. HubSpot
The Best Email Marketing Software for Marketers (Free – $50 per month)
Among the most integrated marketing packages available on the market, HubSpot is the most comprehensive. It is actually one of the simplest ways to create, optimize, and send excellent looking emails that is using their email marketing software. If you are a small business or a large corporate, they are able to provide a wide range of features and the ability to plan and upgrade as you need.
Either you can use the pre-made email templates provided by them or you can start from scratch when creating an email. There are a variety of template formats that you can choose from for adding text, images, buttons, dividers, and all sorts of assets and layouts to your page.
It was the easiest and most straightforward email editor that I found on the market. You cannot find a better tool than this one because it is quicker and easier to use:
You can preview your email before it is sent, based on the recipient, device, or email client you want to use. Examples include Gmail, Apple Mail, and Office 365.
I think this is an extremely useful tool. A subject line, preview text, and in some cases, the content itself, can differ according to the email client that the end-user uses. Having these previews ensures that your emails look good in any inbox.
HubSpot has other strengths as well, such as personalization. In terms of standard tools, you can use common merge tags like the recipient’s first name to customize content. This step is taken even further by HubSpot.
You are also able to personalize content for users based on their device, their list segment, and their geographical location. In addition, you can A/B test your subject lines and content in order to ensure that the opening and clicking rates on your emails are maximized.
During the sending process, you can use their Smart Send functionality to ensure that your email is published as soon as you click send. By adjusting the send time you can ensure that you are getting the most engagement from your subscribers.
The next step is to look at your metrics after sending your email. With HubSpot’s analytics dashboard, you get data on open rates and click rates, along with unique views into how long your subscribers spend reading your emails.
An example of an effective reporting tool that can help you to understand how engaging your email content is for your subscribers is the ability to view whether they Read, Skimmed, or Glanced at your email:
Depending on your kind of business, you may observe, for example, that subscribers glance at your emails only a short time. In order to learn which types of email content need to be improved, you can use this data.
With HubSpot, users can expect their inboxes to get hit consistently with marketing messages. 99% of their emails are delivered successfully to their recipients. There is a reason for these vast numbers, which can be attributed to proper email domain validation settings, which include DKIM and SPF records, and a full preview and testing process.
The main reason why HubSpot is #1 on my list is the fact that their email marketing platform is only one of their many features. Marketing Hub Starter Package is where their real benefits can be found.
With this full marketing platform, you will have the ability to align your marketing and sales efforts as well as everything else:
- Full-featured CRM
- Automated sequences
- Mobile optimization
- A personal calendar for scheduling appointments
- Track email sends and automate outreach with Gmail extensions
- Form builders
- Inbound lead, email, and ad analytics
- Phone and email support
My #3 pick for the best email marketing software is HubSpot simply for one simple reason: It’s the only tool that I can think of that combines inbound and outbound marketing in the most efficient way.
The marketing hub starter package for $50/month is the package that I recommend you upgrade to after you sign up for free.
4. Sendinblue
The best email marketing service that you can get on a budget ($20/month)
The Sendinblue email marketing service is easy to use with a free plan that allows you to send emails to unlimited recipients and upload 300 emails per day. In order to grow your list, you can choose their Lite plan starting at $20/month. It allows you to send up to 40,000 emails per month and there is no daily limit to how many emails you can send each day.
The free platform they offer is all built on the principle of ease of use. Due to its simplicity, it is simple to create templates that look good and can be inserted into emails and forms on your website. As part of their free plan, they also offer live chat and CRM, along with an automation workflow for up to 2,000 contacts.
Using machine learning and artificial intelligence, Sendinblue sends emails at the best time of the day to generate maximum engagement from its subscribers.
Additionally, you can view real-time statistics in addition to necessary reports that document metrics such as opens, click-throughs, deliverability, and heat maps.
Their email automation workflows are one of the best features of this company. In this way, you are able to set triggers based on actions that your subscribers take on your website and within the funnel, and send them through custom workflows:
Automated triggers can help you automate tasks such as sending SMS and emails, segmenting your contacts into sub-lists, and updating their information in your database by sending emails and sending SMS messages.
With Lite Plan you can get started for $20/month and save 10% on annual plans, if you are looking for advanced email marketing automation software on a budget.
5. Moosend
Excellent software to automate your email campaigns (Free – depending on the size of your list, $8/month +).
With Moosend, you can build your own email list, personalize the emails you send, and automate your tasks so you are able to focus on customer relationships and marketing.
Using their campaign builder, you can create custom email templates using drag-and-drop features. You can use this tool to add images, text blocks, social icons, and more to your email messages. There is a variety of layouts for their email templates and they are all responsive and appear great on any device whether it is on the desktop or mobile.
Moosend’s automation capabilities are one of the areas of its quality that makes it stand out. It is possible to automate messages via “Recipes” (pre-built automation templates) in order to assist in promoting upsells, interacting with your customers, and building loyalty. An automation is made up of three different parts: triggers, control steps, and actions. In you can filter your email list segments and send the sequences when any of your specified actions occur when you combine all three.
The following are some of the other key features of Moosend:
- Landing Page Builder Tools: Build custom landing pages with email sign-up forms in order to increase conversions.
- Automation Workflows: These templates will allow you to personalize your emails and nurture customer relationships in a fast, easy way.
- Custom Opt-In Forms: You can design and create custom forms to allow visitors to subscribe to your email list.
- List Segmentation: Segment your list based on customer behavior, such as engagement metrics, abandoned cart emails, and more.
- The reporting tools provide a bird’s eye view of all your important email metrics with their analytics tools.
- There is a phone support option included with each paid plan. Each custom enterprise plan comes with an account manager and support via email, phone, and live chat. Additionally, they have a vast knowledge base of video tutorials and articles that can answer any questions you might have.
You will be charged based on the number of subscribers you have in your email list. Users can get started for free with a free plan that includes sign-up forms, reporting, and a feature that permits unlimited email messages to be sent to their subscribers.
There is a free plan from Moosend for the first month, but the price rises as the number of subscribers increases. There are some plan options that include transactional emails, page builders, and SMTP servers as part of the package. In addition to migration and onboarding support, their enterprise plans come with Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).
Give Moosend a try if you are searching for an advanced email automation tool.
6. Mailerlite
Best Ease of Use and 24/7 Support (for free – $10/month)
Mailerlite is used by over 600,000 customers around the world. Depending on the size of your contact list, they allow you to choose from flexible tiered plans.
There are many features that make them stand out from the competition, such as an intuitive user interface, highly responsive email designs, and excellent 24/7 phone support and email support. In case you only have less than 1,000 email subscribers, you can start with their forever free plan.
You can send up to 12,000 emails per month with this free plan and it comes with limited features.
In order to access all the tools to help with your marketing strategy, you need to upgrade your account to the $10/month plan. These tools include a landing page builder, embedded forms, and pop-ups.
Mailerlite’s click map and open-by-location reports allow you to keep track of your email marketing results if you need to.
Additionally, they provide some other great features, such as:
- They offer live support via email and live chat 24/7
- A landing page builder that is easy to use and powerful
- The integration of leading e-commerce platforms into ecommerce
- Surveys by email
- Gallery of Templates
- Excellent deliverability of emails
In general, if you’re looking for a flexible pricing plan, want excellent deliverability, and do not yet have a large list, Mailerlite is worth trying.
7. GetResponse
GetResponse is offering the best features for Automated Sales Funnels and Landing Pages ($15/month)
The GetResponse platform includes everything you need to grow your business online. To aid in the marketing efforts, they offer email marketing campaigns, high-converting landing pages, and webinar software.
In my opinion, Autofunnel is out of this world – a tool that has 30+ fully-themed landing pages, email templates, and automated sales sequences that are ready-made for you. It is also possible for you to decide what the goal of the journey is.
No matter what your goals are, Autofunnel is the right software for you to generate leads, increase sales, or register for webinars. These are a set of tools designed to help your email list grow and to maximize your funnel’s conversion rate:
However, some of the 500 templates on their site look quite outdated, and their deliverability is about average compared with other companies on the list.
GetResponse will always be remembered for its smart automation tools, which is one of its strongest features. In order to segment your lists automatically, you can use these features to create multiple advanced conditions. Aside from being very intuitive, Sneeze’s drag-and-drop builder also allows you to design high-quality emails very easily.
GetResponse’s email marketing tools can be used to create automated sales funnels to help you generate leads and convert them to customers.
If you are looking to get started, they offer a free trial for 30 days and an upgrade plan for 15 dollars/month. With an annual plan, you can also save between 18 and 30%.
8. Pabbly Email Marketing
SMTP service that delivers emails to your inbox after they have been sent ($29/month)
In short, Pabbly is a highly effective online marketing platform that enables you to create online forms, send email marketing, charge subscriptions, and organize email lists in one place. The product also provides an internet marketing package with all of these tools, dubbed Pabbly Plus, and it costs very little.
No matter if it’s a free or paid plan, your Palbly account gives you access to many of the features you would find in other email marketing services, including marketing automation, list management, autoresponders, and segmentation of subscribers. The application enables sending emails without any additional charges by seamlessly integrating in-built or 50+ external SMTPs.
It is a powerful email marketing tool that allows you to create a custom campaign and send bulk emails to all your prospective users in one click using Pabbly Email Marketing. Likewise, it is able to handle bounces and spam complaints related to all popular SMTP providers like Amazon SES, MailGun, Mandrill, SendGrid, and many more.
It is dependent on the number of subscribers to determine how much Pabbly Email Marketing will cost you. Comparing the annual savings of these options with some of the other options on this list, here is a summary:
Other important features include the following:
The following are some of the highlights of Pabbly Email Marketing:
- A drag-and-drop email editor that is user-friendly
- There are more than 500 email templates available that can be customized in any way you like
- Through its subscription forms, the company is able to collect leads & business-related information
- Connect multiple SMTP servers to route emails through multiple vendors
- With the help of MX cleaner, you can increase the open rates of your emails by removing invalid emails from your list
- To follow up on non-opens, you can send an automatic follow-up email
- Use autoresponders to communicate with users without having to do any manual work
- Automatically send emails based on pre-determined schedules to engage the subscribers
This company’s email platform has a delivery rate of 99% and it is a great option if you are looking for a service that helps you keep your database clean and up-to-date regularly.
Get started with Pabbly Email Marketing today.
9. ConvertKit
The Best Email Marketing Software for Bloggers ($29/month)
Created by creators, for creators, ConvertKit is an all-in-one solution. Among the services they offer is social media marketing, which focuses on building relationships with their clients.
With their user-friendly forms and automated emails, they can increase conversion rates, and they can make it easier to organize your subscribers so that they are more engaged.
They look as if they are straight out of Gmail, and are perfect for bloggers looking to send personalized, text-based emails.
The company also offers a pretty advanced email sequence that is based on actions on the site and actions within emails. With their advanced triggers, they provide some excellent options for list segmentation:
In addition to ConvertKit, there are a few main reasons why it is a good pick:
- It is possible to create personalized email funnels based on advanced segmentation based on various actions taken by your subscribers.
- It looks professional to send messages using text email and there is no annoying branding that appears in your emails.
- You will find that the best emails for your blog will be those that are strictly textual. Do not worry about adding a lot of design features, a bunch of images, a logo, or any other such unnecessary features.
- At the end of the day, it is an excellent platform for lead funnels.
In the case of a sales person, if they were attempting to close a big deal, they would either use a text message or a phone call to achieve their goal. A marketing email that is filled with image heavy branding wouldn’t be used by them.
The pricing starts at $29/month, and the 14-day free trial makes this a great fit for bloggers interested in building high converting sales funnels, even though they don’t have a free plan.
I believe ConvertKit is the best tool for bloggers when it comes to conversions.
10. Omnisend
The best Omnichannel Email Marketing Service for Ecommerce ($16/month)
With Omnisend, you are able to unify all of your email marketing efforts across social media platforms, text messages, push notifications, Whatsapp and more. In 130+ countries, they use their email marketing software to reach over 40,000 marketers.
As a result, Omnisend can help e-commerce companies introduce more relevant messages to customers across a variety of platforms and devices. In this way, they are able to get a better understanding of how people browse the web and what devices they prefer to browse on the web by studying the custom events you create.
Using your website to track user actions and to track them later within your welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, and post-purchase automation series would enable you to segment your messages more effectively.
There is also a wide range of ecommerce platforms they can work with.
Omnisend is an e-commerce software that can be integrated easily into almost any e-commerce platform, including BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and more.
It is possible to send 15,000 emails or take advantage of their automation features by choosing their $16 per month Standard Plan. In addition to interactive form elements such as email sign-up forms and SMS notifications, they also offer product recommendation services.
In particular, this feature set is excellent for improving e-commerce conversion rates since users will receive product-specific messages based on the products that have been viewed on your website.
The Omnisend marketing platform is one of the best choices for omnichannel brands who wish to effectively market to their visitors (and remarket to them).
You can sign up for a free 14-day trial and their plans start at $16/month.
11. Gist
The Best All-In-One Marketing Software (free to use – $34.99)
Gist is marketing automation, live chat, and email software that provides a 360-degree view of your business in real time.
In addition, they have advanced tools such as event tracking, so you can track what people do when they are on your website, and they also have a knowledge base in order to provide customer support automatically.
Gist really excels when it comes to their chatbot features. With the GistBot, your sales teams will be able to pre-qualify leads and book meetings 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a modern, multi-language feel. Your team members have the option of assigning conversations to various members, sending private notes, and organizing your conversations with the option of opening and closing conversations very easily.
Furthermore, you can use their automation tools to create visual workflows to engage and convert your customers. Create actions and tags to understand customer behavior, segment your audiences, and use timing variables to ensure that you deliver the right message at the right time.
All things considered, Gist provides a great all-in-one marketing solution for businesses looking to increase leads for their sales teams with its live chat, event management, and marketing automation features.
When you get to 500 subscribers, you can start for free, and you can upgrade to their professional plan as your business grows.
12. Automizy
An email marketing tool which increases open rates by 34% ($9/month)
Automizy is an email marketing platform that is designed to increase your open rates by giving you all the tools necessary to make your emails stand out in an inbox full of crowded emails.
Automizy’s feature set is made up of all the features you need to send emails, automate tasks, create forms and manage your contact list to accelerate your email marketing campaigns.
In one intuitive interface, you will find all the information you need to achieve your digital marketing goals in one place.
When you use Automizy, you will have access to proven email marketing best practices that will help your open rate increase with built-in best practices, create email automation, automatically resend campaigns to non-openers, save time with email templates, and automate processes.
In order to maximize the open rate of your emails, Automizy provides an email subject line tester so that you can check the score before sending your message. Based on the data collected from over 1 million campaigns, this feature helps you predict subject line performance within each campaign.
Furthermore, automated emails can be subjected to A/B or split testing. You can write up to four variations of the subject line and let our AI optimize them for you.
Get started for $9/month and you will get access to all features including the user-friendly email workflow builder that will allow you to map your best-converting email sales funnel.
13. AWeber
This is one of the best email marketing solutions for small businesses with great support (free – 19 dollars a month)
AWeber is used by over 100,000 email marketers, and it offers features suitable for small businesses. If you are looking for high-quality email and telephone support, and helpful support articles and videos, then you have found the answer you are looking for.
In addition to offering email builders with drag-and-drop functionality, list management tools, and analytics reports, they are included on this list of tools.
You can import a list of email addresses into AWeber list management and it will convert them into a database based on common file types like XLS, XLSX, TXT, and CSV.
With their easy-to-manage lists, you can make any of the rules you create automatically work with your lists. Additionally, with their marketing automation tools, you can create autoresponder workflows that are triggered by actions such as opening emails, clicking links, and visiting websites.
The 700 templates that they offer are one of their selling points, compared to 500 with GetResponse and just 80 with MailChimp. They have a lot of templates that look outdated to me, but there are also a lot of beautiful ones, some of which remind me of high-quality Instagram ads.
In addition to standard fonts, they have just launched a feature that allows you to use web-fonts as well.
I think that AWeber is an excellent choice for small business owners because of the sheer number of templates, the assistance from the support team, and the knowledge base.
If you are new to AWeber, you can start with their free plan, which gives you access to just about all of their features, including unlimited landing pages, sign-up forms, automated email campaigns, hundreds of powerful integrations, and award-winning 24/7 customer support. With the Pro plan from Aweber, you can start bringing in $19/month, but that price depends on how many subscribers you have.
14. Campaign Monitor
They are a people-first company with 99% customer satisfaction ($9/month)
A great all-around email marketing platform, Campaign Monitor was founded in 2004 and has evolved into an industry leader since then. The only thing that sets them apart is not any one specific or unique characteristic. It is true that doing everything well is better than doing nothing at all.
The company has 99% customer satisfaction and gives back to the community, proving they are a global company that values people above all else.
Thousands of hours of volunteer work are spent by employees of Campaign Monitor each year. In addition to providing groceries to nearby food banks, the mission also provides trash pick-up services at local parks and beaches and a distribution program for youth groups at risk.
With their striking designs, these email template designs are perfect for non-profits as well as businesses. Plus, they are known for their customer service and place a value on people as opposed to profits.
It is worth mentioning that their email builder allows users to completely customize their design, including customizing the font and color selections. With their Premier Plan, if brand standards are extremely important to your business, you can lock sections of emails. By adding this extra layer of security to your website, you can keep your brand consistency intact.
As an added bonus, you will be able to add videos from either YouTube or Vimeo to your emails.
In addition, their automation suite can be compared to other platforms in terms of triggers and actions based on emails. Campaign Monitor also excels at data segmentation, as you can exclude multiple segments and create advanced rules before you send the email campaign.
More than 250 pre-built integrations are pre-built by the company to connect with applications such as Salesforce, Magento, and WordPress.
As a final note, the pricing is slightly higher than other tools on this list. You can send up to 2,500 emails a month with their Basic Plan, which costs $9/month. Once you reach this limit, I recommend their Unlimited Plan for $29 a month.
Be sure to pay attention to your mailing list size – pricing scales rapidly based on the size of your mailing list.
For instance, an unlimited plan costs $699 for a list of over 25,000 subscribers, whereas a basic plan costs $299 for a list of under 25,000 subscribers.
It is worth a try if you are looking for fast support and well-designed templates as two of the top priorities that you have.
Getting started with a free account is a great way to test out the features they offer.
15. Mailchimp
It’s one of the biggest names in email marketing (Free – $14.99/month)
In the world of email marketing, MailChimp is one of the biggest names, with over 1 billion emails sent every single day on their platform and over 14 million customers as of 2017.
For a small business, these free features offer a simple interface, the ability to send up to 2,000 emails per month, and up to 12,000 subscribers per month – more than enough.
Their free plan includes autoresponders, transactional emails, analytics, and integrations with lots of third-party services. There is also a Mailchimp app available for iPhone and Android devices.
Depending on the size of your email list, they charge you based on that number, so if you go over 2,000, you join the 2,000-2,500 plan, which costs $30/month.
With over 17 million users as of a few years ago, MailChimp is probably one of the most well-known and widely used free email marketing services on the market.
In any case, I have ranked them a little lower in my list because everybody uses them, but there are plenty of other good tools that can create more personalized emails as well.
If you want to dive deeper, take a look at my full comparison of Constant Contact vs. Mailchimp or my ultimate guide to the 21 Best Mailchimp Alternatives to try this year. There is also this great comparison of Mailchimp vs. SendGrid which you can check out.
Give MailChimp a try if you are looking for a basic solution and you want one of the more basic options.
16. Mailigen
This is the best option for integrations ($10/month)
Founded in 2005, Mailigen is a leading email marketing solution that provides email marketing services to small and mid-sized businesses in various industries, such as online retail, media, advertising, banking, and more.
Some of the key features include email list segmentation, email automation, campaign analytics, sign-up form builders, pre-made templates, and online surveys.
In addition, the service offers users the possibility to integrate online surveys and to send text messages.
You can drag and drop text boxes, images, and other components to design the perfect marketing email using Mailigen. There are several tools available to users in the form of design tools, configuration templates and email template styles that are all designed to help the users in creating and managing their marketing campaign successfully.
It is now possible to customize emails with ease by making use of nine different types of content blocks, as well as include dynamic content by using if/or statements:
A user can also take advantage of the capabilities of the open API, which is another powerful feature. There are numerous plugin integrations available with Mailigen, including Zapier, WordPress, and many more.
In addition, they are in line with e-commerce platforms and social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
There is a tiered pricing structure and the price scales according to how many subscribers you have. Depending on the size of your list, up to 1,000 subscribers, it costs $10/month. For 2,500 subscribers, you will pay $25/month, and if you have 100,000 subscribers, you will be charged $400/month.
If you have over 150,000 contacts on your list then they will offer you a custom high-volume pricing package.
You can get started with a 30-day free trial with AWeber today if you’re looking for a powerful email marketing service that integrates with many apps and features an open API.
17. Benchmark
Drag-and-Drop Email Templates of Best Quality ($13.99/month)
With Benchmark, you are getting a full-featured, easy-to-use email marketing software. It encompasses a number of essential features, such as an intuitive email builder, automated workflows, as well as tools like surveys, polls, and popups that help you build your list.
In the first place, you can add their email sign-up forms and pop-ups to get users to sign up with you.
With triggers, you can add them to automated email workflows that include a welcome series, a post-purchase series, an abandoned cart email series, and many more.
If you incorporate surveys, polls, and well-crafted emails into your marketing strategies (on all devices) then you will be able to build a following of loyal users.
There are also analytical tools within Benchmark that allow you to run A/B tests on subject lines, content, and delivery speeds. Plus, they enable you to preview how your email will look on each platform so you can see exactly what it will look like.
The company also offers 300+ integrations with other services. It is also possible to integrate WordPress plugins, Facebook signup forms, Google Docs, Zendesk, PayPal, as well as lots more SaaS platforms for extending your email functionality.
With Benchmark, you can try the free version for a period of time and then upgrade to their premium plans starting at $13.99/month.
18. SendPulse
The Best Omnichannel Email Marketing Software (Free – $7.88 per month)
SendPulse is an excellent free email provider founded in 2015 that has recently received some very good reviews. Besides that, their free email plan allows you to send an unlimited amount of emails per month for as many subscribers as you want and allows up to 2,500 emails per month.
There are two levels of premium plans for you to choose from. The first plan starts at $9.85/month ($7.88/month if you pay annually). Additionally, they have a pay-per-email plan with 10,000 emails available for $32 ($0.0032 per email).
Despite the fact that the free plan offers high email sending limits, some users have experienced slower performance and fewer options for email templates when using the free plan. The benefits of advanced features such as text-messaging workflows and push notifications to multiple devices far outweigh any performance issues:
Moreover, when you sign up for a SendPulse account, you can get started for free, or receive a $50 discount when you upgrade when you use my link below.
19. MoonMail
The All-In-One Cloud-Based Email Marketing Service (Free – $23.99/month)
They also provide the ability to send messages over e-mail, voice, SMS, and WhatsApp, plus Facebook Messenger, as well as chatbots using Facebook Messenger. MoonMail is a cloud-based email marketing tool that operates on Amazon AWS.
Marketing professionals who want to expand their messaging beyond just email are going to appreciate this form of event-based communication.
In addition to having a drag-and-drop editor and many templates, they are one of the top tools on the list. One of their bonuses is the fact that their email headers are interactive. With HTML and CSS, you can create menus, change the color of the background on hover, apply fades, adjust the opacity, and much more.
In addition to their excellent customer support and knowledge base, they also provide excellent assistance with the following topics:
Despite being free, MoonMail has some fairly limited features. Currently, it allows you to send a campaign to up to 2,000 recipients per day, but you are only permitted to send a campaign to a maximum of 10 recipients per campaign.
On the other hand, one of their big selling points is that they allow users to only pay for emails that are actually sent, as opposed to paying based on how many subscribers you have.
You can take advantage of their Starter Plan at a price of $23.99/month if you choose to do so. Using this plan, you will be able to store up to 25,000 subscribers in your email list, and you will be able to send unlimited campaigns and emails per month with this plan.
Among the many features of this program are the management of bounced emails, spam reports, compliance tracking, automation, and premium customer support.
You can send messages through their open API with WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or any other chatbot.
In addition, they offer a native Shopify app that allows e-commerce merchants to send autoresponders and abandoned cart emails to potential customers.
MoonMail is a great option for marketers and small businesses looking to send more dynamic and interactive emails and use APIs to reach a wider audience.
It is possible to sign up for a free MoonMail account so you can test out the features, and then upgrade to their $23.99/month Starter Plan if you like it.
20. Ontraport
This is the best full-lifecycle CRM for email ($79/month)
In the world of email marketing, it is not surprising why Ontraport is not immediately thought of when thinking of email marketing. As well as, they do have over 100 employees and their yearly revenues are over $10MM. Despite this, they have been in business for more than 13+ years.
Its main selling point is their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform as well as their email marketing platform.
Campaign Builder is the company’s main feature, which is an automated visual marketing platform with live reporting capabilities. You are able to create advanced sequences with this tool and collaborate in real-time with other users:
Ontraport is a powerful block-based editor with lots of contextual help and hover buttons to assist you with any issues that you may encounter while building your campaign.
The only disadvantage of their Basic paid plan is that it starts at $79/month and it only allows 1,000 contacts, which isn’t scalable. By the way, once you reach 2,500 subscribers on your email list your monthly subscription price almost doubles to $147 for a 12-month subscription.
It is most suitable for sales-driven companies in high-end business-to-business and business-to-consumer industries – companies that focus on automating their sales process and sales workflow than sending bulk emails to large lists of contacts.
Ontraport gives you a 14 day free trial of its services so you can check it out before you decide to enroll.
21. Mailjet
Ideal for those with larger mailing lists (FREE – $19.84/month)
The company founded in 2010 is called Mailjet, and it provides email marketing services to companies and individuals. You’d expect you’d be getting lightning-fast email as a result of such a catchy name as Mailjet, and to a certain extent they do provide such features.
It is possible to send 6,000 emails per month or 200 emails per day for unlimited recipients, with their free plan. In general, these techniques work if you are sending fewer emails per day, but have an extensive list of subscribers.
If you want to remove the daily send limits, have access to 24/7 support, and send up to 30,000 emails per month, you can choose their plan that costs $9.65 per month.
One drawback is that they offer only limited free features, i.e., marketing software, and A/B testing tools, right now. Those features can be purchased for $15.50 a month for a subscription.
The Mailjet platform has a simple and intuitive interface that is easy to use, and there is no limit to the size of the mailing list.
What is Email Marketing?
In simple terms, email marketing is when people send emails to promote their products or services. Email marketing is a great way to use email to nurture and build relationships with your email subscribers in order to complete an end goal, such as completing a sale.
There are various types of digital marketing, including email marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, SEO, blogging, etc. Email marketing is just one form of the larger realm of digital marketing.
It was before email that consumers were able to reach out to you with direct mail directly through their mailboxes. This type of marketing strategy can also be carried out online with the use of email marketing, where messages are sent electronically to users’ email inboxes. If a person wants to receive emails from you, he or she has to opt-in to your list. This is the opposite to direct mail.
How Does Email Marketing Software Work?
In simple terms, email marketing software (or e-mail marketing) is a form of marketing that uses online platforms to send bulk marketing emails to your subscriber list. As a result, you will be able to obtain new clients more efficiently, enhance relationships, and establish loyalty with your existing customers.
With email marketing campaigns, you can reach your audience directly on a daily basis on the best channels for them. No more paying for expensive advertisement space on Google or Facebook.
These are some of the essential features that are provided by the best email marketing software:
1. Automation
The ability to send out email sequences when a user joins your mailing list or performs a certain action on your website. Making a purchase is one example but there could also be abandoned shopping carts or making a purchase online.
2. Custom email templates
By utilizing drag-and-drop features, you will not have to worry about coding for your email campaigns, so you are free to focus on the content and images that you want to use for your emails.
3. Dynamic content
Using merge tags in your emails allows you to customize them for each member of your email list based on dynamically changing the content of those tags.
4. List segmentation
With each email you send, you collect more and more data, such as open rates, interest, order history, and more, the longer you engage with your email list.
5. Analytics dashboard
This includes open rates, click-through rates, purchases, and more.
6. Advanced features
Adding applications like polls, contests, coupons, and events to your campaign can make it more interesting and engaging.
Groundhogg might be a better choice for WordPress users looking for a cheap email marketing tool. Using Groundhogg will be more technical.
Your CRM, emails, and marketing automation are all managed from the Groundhogg dashboard. You are in control of everything.
The CRM and email marketing platforms offered by Groundhogg are far less expensive than SaaS solutions. I have written a Groundhogg review so that you can see if it is for you.
In addition, I found a tool that allows you to send videos by email along with a powerful email automation tool. One-click video embedding increases traffic, sales, and conversions by including videos in clients’ emails. This is not a GIF, but a video.
Email Videos Pro’s developers claim that the software increases engagement and profitability tenfold. I reviewed Email Videos Pro so you can decide whether it is for you or not. You can read my Email Videos Pro review here.
What Are the Benefits of an Email Marketing Platform?
There is no doubt that email marketing is essential since it is one of the best ways to build a loyal following, generate revenue, and find users where they hang out – their inboxes.
The moment a user opts-in to your email list, it shows that they are interested in what you have to offer and are open to receiving emails from you. There is no doubt that word of mouth can influence the purchase decisions of 74% of buyers, so email is a natural extension of that capability to collect and share information that the buyers find valuable.
Furthermore, if you work in sales, it is proven that email has the third highest influence on you and your business, after the personal connections you’ve made at work and recommendations given by experts in your field.
The best email service will allow you to send messages on a mass scale, reach out to warm leads without cold email outreach, and you will not be charged any additional fees outside your subscription fee.
The following are some of the benefits of using email marketing services:
Usually, email marketing is incredibly cost-effective and can yield a good return on investment (for every dollar invested, $44 is reaped in return)
Using our easy-to-use email design templates, you will be able to create beautiful, mobile-ready emails in no time
In order to build customer loyalty and brand awareness, email marketing is one of the multi-channel marketing methods used.
You can reach your customers right where they are – their inbox
Marketers can use email to communicate with their audiences in a relevant, personalized, and dynamic manner – 74% of marketers say that personalization makes their customers more engaged.
You can generate incremental revenue from automated emails like abandoned cart emails, welcome emails, and post-purchase emails with little work or effort by automating them.
Email marketing options are endless, and whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, you can find easy-to-use tools that work for you.
What Are Some of the Best Practices in Email Marketing?
A marketing email isn’t just a message written and sent to a mailing list. It is a very sophisticated system that has multiple components. There are many email marketing best practices to follow and benchmarks to hit in the email marketing industry, as well.
In order to make this year’s email marketing successful, here are some top email marketing tips for success:
1. You should not use purchased email lists
The main reason why email marketing is so effective is that people want to engage with your business and receive your messages. This trust is broken by spamming the inbox of your subscribers with unwanted emails and sending them junk mail.
Those who fail to follow these rules will be subject to severe sanctions. If you do not comply with the CAN-SPAM Act, you can be fined up to $16,000 per incorrect email, according to Keap (formerly Infusionsoft).
A healthy open rate is essential to the success of your email marketing campaign. You are bound to have bad open rates when using a purchased list, and you may also receive spam complaints, or even be blacklisted if you interact with a purchased list.
The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) has been in place since May, so here’s a reminder – never buy email lists! Additionally, you should also regularly clean your email list to ensure that your contacts are up to date.
2. Using Merge Tags to Personalize Content
It makes more sense to address an email with the title, “Dear [first name]” rather than with “Dear Members.” There are a variety of pieces of information you can collect directly from your subscribers that you can use to tailor the content they receive.
When a merge tag is configured for a column in a CSV file next to the user’s email address, a merge tag can fire. It is important to understand that a merge tag is a piece of ESP-specific code that can be used in your email to contain unique data about your subscribers.
Email marketers have access to a wide variety of merge tags at their disposal, the most popular ones of which are first and last names. Plus, you have many other options you can use, such as using information from a survey, company name, date of the previous visit, how many emails were opened, products purchased, etc.
The first thing you could do to make your email seem more personal is to begin by using merge tags in your greeting.
3. Create compelling subject lines
In the subject line of an email, you want to convey a sense of urgency, be succinct, and provide enough information, so the recipient knows what he or she is receiving. Does that sound confusing to you? There is no need to worry – it isn’t.
The subject line should have a length between 30 to 50 characters (most email service providers do not allow subject lines longer than that). The message should be clear and entice users to act by cutting through the noise. In order to increase your open rates, you should use emojis that are well thought out and include exciting offers and discounts.
4. Send a Welcome Email Series to New Subscribers
The most common use of email automation is to welcome new subscribers into their list. If a new subscriber opts in to your list, these free autoresponder emails will be sent automatically.
These emails can be sent on day one, three, five, or ten. You are the only one who knows the correct cadence for these emails based on your business goals.
One example is a website that offers 10% off the first welcome email. The brand story, product catalog, and social media accounts can be showcased for emails 2 and 3. A welcome email series engages your list, nurtures prospects into customers, and runs on autopilot.
5. Emails Should Be Formatted Properly
Mobile devices may require scrolling horizontally if emails are wider than 500 pixels.
Never use a “no-reply” email address as your “from” address, such as [email protected]. Subscribers will instantly recognize it if you choose a name they will recognize.
You should place your main marketing message and call to action (CTA) above-the-fold so that your users can see it right away.
Try to keep the text and imagery in your emails to three fonts or less, and make sure the design matches the look and feel of your brand. The last step is to add your logo to the top of the email, so that subscribers can immediately identify your brand.
Email Marketing FAQ
What Are the Different Types of Email Marketing?
You can send three types of emails to your list:
- Marketing emails and newsletters. A one-time email with content, news, and offers is sent to your list.
- Emails used for transactional purposes. Emails such as order confirmations, receipts, invoices, and shipping confirmations are used in ecommerce.
- Behavioral emails. Emails that are triggered by subscriber actions, such as welcome messages when a user subscribes, upsell/cross-sell emails, post-purchase review emails, re-engagement emails, or free trial expiration emails.
Is it possible to do email marketing for free?
If you do not have a large list size, you can still get free email marketing software. There are many email marketing services that offer free plans to those with fewer than 2,000 contacts and a monthly need to only send 10,000 emails.
On the other hand, there are other popular tools that have better deliverability, more unique designs, and more automation capabilities. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
What Is The Best Way To Do Email Marketing?
In order to get started with email marketing, you need to follow these steps:
- Choose an email provider from this list and sign up with them.
- You can grow your email list by collecting contacts through opt-in forms.
- Create your first set of email templates.
- Create a welcome series of e-mails.
- Make sure that your content is free from errors by using one of the best grammar checkers.
- It is a good idea to A/B test your subject lines in order to increase the open rates.
- It is important to preview your email on the platform in order to ensure that it looks the same across all devices.
- Send your email at the best time by scheduling it in advance.
- You should review your email analytics so that you can improve your engagement with your emails.
How Can I Send an Email at the Best Time?
Depending on your business type and the data of your customers, you will need to decide when to send your emails.
The best days to send an email, for example, are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when you’ll see more people opening, reading, and clicking your emails. It is also generally believed that the most effective times to send an email are between the hours of 8 am and 4 pm.
What is the best way to optimize email campaigns?
It is crucial that you conduct A/B testing of your emails and ensure that you view analytics reports in order to improve your engagement rates.
Whenever you test one variable at a time, you will be able to gain a better understanding of how the data reacts. You can for example perform A/B tests with regards to time of day, email subject lines, customer segments, email content, imagery in the email, and the call-to-action written in the email.
In order to determine what to test, you need to make a hypothesis and then view your reports, so that you can see how the changes have an impact on your open rates, click rates, unsubscribers, and sales.
Conclusion
That’s all for now. I hope that this list of the top five email service providers will help you choose the right platform for your online business.
It is essential to know where your price point is and which features are most important to you when choosing a tool since there are a lot of great ones out there.
Be sure to pay attention to the price, the deliverability, the template designs, the ease of use, and the unique features you require.
My final recommendations:
- If you are interested in an excellent new email service that provides advanced automation, you should try Moosend.
- Constant Contact is the best platform for small businesses if you want great email deliverability and the best overall solution for your company.
- The best choice for you if you wish to integrate email marketing into your CRM and integrated marketing toolkit is HubSpot.
- Get started with ConvertKit if you are a blogger looking for text-based emails and sequences on a budget.