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Summer Nguyen | 10-01-2024
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As digital marketing strategies have evolved and spread their wings at a breakneck pace, most entrepreneurs will have the same question: “Is email marketing still working?”
The answer is definitely yes. Email marketing yet proved its irreplaceable role in the market via a report:
Forecast the number of emails activated in 2023 will reach 4.3 billion
For every $1 business spends on email marketing can return $42 of ROI
Out of every 10 marketers, 9 decide to use email marketing to distribute content organically
The truth that your business needs email marketing to not fall behind the competition. However, to run successful email marketing campaigns is not easy.
Email marketing services exist to help you do that without much effort. This post will take you through the most popular email service providers you should not miss.
Read on to discover the best one for you!
If I have to use a phrase to describe email marketing, it must be “a game-changer”. Why?
The ROI rate email marketing delivers is much higher than others. Hence, the most cost-effective marketing strategy for small businesses
Enable business to build a massive community of devoted followers
Able to reach anyone in the world
Easy to check ROI
But before thinking about wonderful ideas for your future email campaigns, you need “an email marketing service.”
Just know that lots of competitive and successful email marketing depend mostly on the email marketing software your business chooses. Because:
Software is responsible more ensuring that your emails actually get delivered
Facilitate business to send and monitoring email campaigns without much effort
Wonderful features like A/B testing, automation, and personalization allow you to run multiple campaigns to engage with an increasingly fragmented audience
Manage and handle all the essential elements in your email campaigns (like subscribers, content, monitor, etc.)
An email marketing service provider will offer strategic business tools that make your email marketing effort worthwhile. The difficulty here is that most email marketing services provide quite similar features.
So, in conclusion, what email platform is the most effective and suitable one for you? Choosing the right service can cut your learning curve while saving you time and money.
Let’s dive right into 9 best email marketing services, which are popular in the market these days.
A good email marketing service always comes with a cost. And making the right choice for an email service will determine whether your investment is profitable or not.
Of course, no one wants to waste their money and effort on useless things. So it’s worth investing your time on thinking about the most suitable email services that can match perfectly with your business.
We understand that it can be quite overwhelming when you face numerous choices, as there are thousands of email marketing solutions on the market. That’s why we suggest you some basic factors to consider when marketing your email service decision.
User interface: The email marketing service’s primary function is to ease marketers’ jobs, not making it more complicated. That’s the first standard of a right service is that it must offer an intuitive user experience
Email automation: Email marketing in the past is a job that requires lots of manual tasks. So email marketing automation is a must-have feature to save time and marketing resources, ranging from scheduling emails to user engagement auto-tracking, etc
Pre-built templates: How annoyed it is when you are in need of a basic email template design but your email service doesn’t support that? Remember to check the number of templates you have at different plans for an email service before making your choice
Non-technical editor: Your email marketing service should allow you to design your own emails with easy to use editor functionality especially if it is for restaurant email marketing.
Analytics dashboards: Open rate or performance click-through rate are 2 among lots of metrics that help marketers test their email campaigns. A good email marketing service will usually support its users with detailed email reports and analytics dashboards
A/B testing: This is a time-tested technique so that marketers can analyze their content performance and make data-backed improvements. In email marketing service, you can live-test multiple version of your emails for its most optimal results
Pricing: The outermost essential factor. No doubt that the email marketing plan you invest in must fit your budget
Mailchimp is the dominant player in the email marketing field and a consistent editor’s choice selection. It’s well-known for seamless controls, a wide range of templates, and smooth integration.
Serving millions of customers in over 175 countries, Mailchimp proves its influence and reputation with those who want to make their email marketing strategies best.
Pros:
Enable you to craft beautify pages with the drag-and-drop content blocks
Offer cross-deice email testing
Allow you to create complex onboarding series via a series of automation features
Provide advanced segmentation and behavioral targeting
For e-commerce, store owners can create beautiful welcome email or run a cart abandonment campaign to retain customers
Help users cut the learning curve via numerous guides and tutorials for learning and self-help
Smoothly integrate with WordPress, Magento, Shopify, and many other platforms
Cons:
Limited when compared its automation features to other providers (te.g. Drip or ConvertKit)
The support is complained too slow by the customers and no match to the quality of service you receive from Avada Email Marketing or Constant Contact
The free plan only serves basic email marketing and lacks some essential features such as send-time optimization, advanced segmentation, multivariate testing, etc.
Pricing: For businesses starting at 500 contacts, free plan offers a limited number of 1,000 monthly email sends, or they need to choose another plan.
Essentials: Free for 1 month then at $13/ mo
Standard: Free for 1 month then starting at $20/ mo
Premium: Starting at $350/ mo
(With each plan, you can estimate your cost based on the number of contacts your business owns)
I recommend the Standard Plan for most as it comes with several advanced features that can meet your email strategies’ requirements.
Best for: Startups or small businesses because of its flexibility and affordability.
Another renowned email marketing service provider we could not miss is Constant Contact.
It has been in the email marketing game since 1995 and managed to become one of the most used email tools in the world, boasting over 650.000 customers.
Pros:
Provide 240+ pre-made templates which are able to customize
Drag and drop email builder is available
Each template is responsive
Users can get access to insightful reports for every campaign (report the open rate, opt-outs, bounce rate, etc.) for future improvements
Offer “Plus” features that enable you to execute specific types of campaigns (e.g., Coupon offers, donation collections, or surveys)
Cons:
Doesn’t offer the most advanced automation even for the premium plan
Relatively low price-performance ratio (high compared to what their plan offer)
Pricing: Offer 60-day free trial (no credit card required) and a 30-day money-back guarantee
Lite: Starting at $12/month with monthly email send limit is 10x number of contacts
Standard: Starting at $35/month monthly email send limit is 12x number of contacts
Premium: Starting at $80/month monthly email send limit is 24x number of contacts
(Price for each plan is based on the number of contacts)
Though Constant Contact is geared towards small businesses, its price isn’t the most affordable one.
Best for: Small business as it has everything they need to create effective campaigns. Best use for website builders.
If you are searching for an all-in-one marketing automation specialist in email marketing solution, then Avada Email Marketing is what you need.
With this software’s support, you can easily set up and manage all your email campaigns, especially Abandoned Cart Email and Follow-up ones.
Pros:
A cost-effective email marketing automation tool
Easily create unlimited automation campaigns for converting customers through their buying journey on site
Allows store owners to run multiple email campaigns (e.g., Abandoned cart emails, welcome emails, order confirmation, and follow up emails, etc.)
Easy-to-use drag and drop email editor
Provide several professional and beautiful templates for your email campaigns
Build your subscriber list will popup and “spin to win” features
Pricing:
Free Plan
Pro Plan: $16/ month
Advanced Plan: $47/month
Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing
(Price for each plan is based on the number of contacts)
Best for: The smart investment and the best email marketing Service for eCommerce
Best for: The smart investment and the best email marketing Service for eCommerce
HubSpot stands out as a dominant force in email marketing, providing comprehensive support for both subscribers and prospective customers throughout their journey.
Offering a range of essential tools such as drag-and-drop builders, journey mapping, and automation, HubSpot also goes beyond the basics with advanced functionalities like precise segmentation and seamless synchronization of the customer lifecycle between sales and marketing teams.
HubSpot offers a suite of standard email marketing tools such as a drag-and-drop builder, journey flows, and marketing automation. In addition to basic features, HubSpot provides advanced functionalities like high-end segmentation and synchronization of customer lifecycles across sales and marketing.
Pros:
Excellent list management and segmentation capabilities.
Robust landing page and marketing automation builders.
Free CRM solution for syncing customer journeys across sales and marketing.
Cons:
Relatively expensive pricing plans.
Feature limitations on lower-tier plans.
Steep learning curve for effectively utilizing all features.
Pricing:
For businesses and enterprises
Professional Plan: $800/month
Enterprise Plan: $3,600/month
For individual and small teams
Free Plan
Starter Plan: $18/month
Professional Plan: $800/month
(Price for each plan is based on the number of contacts)
Best for: HubSpot’s email marketing solution is ideal for large companies aiming to maintain transparent dealings across various stages of the buyer’s journey.
ActiveCampaign acts as an excellent alternative to mainstream email marketing software tools like MailChimp. You will be amazed by how cheap ActiveCampaign is, which makes it so successful in the market of small businesses.
ActiveCampaign is hands-down the most powerful automation tool ever, allowing you to set up virtually any automation you can think of – sales follow-ups, automated segmentation, dynamic email content and many more.
Apart from basic features like segmentation, triggered emails, this tool also offers other advanced functionalities such as multi-user editing, managed deliverability, and so forth.
Pros:
Powerful and well-structured automation
Offer its users with a lot of options, even in the free version
Performs multi-channel marketing like sending SMS, personalized messages to their web visitors, or managing Facebook ads
In case if you already have a different email marketing software, ActivateCampaign offer free migration
Purchase tracking is available for some most popular e-commerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce
Offers all email marketing solutions you could think of at a very affordable price
Cons:
The tracking functionality can be complicated with new users
The price for the premium plan might be high for small businesses
Take a lot more time to get familiar with ActiveCampaign’s advanced features than other tools
With those who only need basic email sequences, Avada Email Marketing or MailerLite are far more budget-friendly and more comfortable to use
Don’t offer landing page editor
Pricing:
Lite Plan: $29 a month - 1 user and 10x contact email send limit
Plus Plan: $49 a month - 3 users and 10x contact email send limit
Professional Plan: $149 a month - 5 users and 12x contact email send limit
Enterprise Plan: $259 a month - 10 users and 15x contact email send limit
Best for: Small businesses and self-employed customers who want to advertise their business via newsletter emails and serious about marketing automation.
Furthermore, if you need an email service that integrates sales and marketing platforms for your business, ActiveCampaign can help you streamline your sales follow-up process.
Moonsend is a powerful email marketing service with a variety of features at an affordable price. With this platform, you can create email newsletter campaigns, landing pages, and multiple forms effortlessly.
Like other major email platforms, Moonsend offers a drag and drop editor for crafting beautiful and professional email newsletters from scratch. Moreover, with the advanced automation features, you can create specific campaigns for your audience segments.
Pros:
Excellent drag and drop functionality
Provide detailed reports and analytics for result measurement
Offer A/B testing feature
Good integration with Salesforce, WordPress, Google Contacts, and so forth
Excellent customer support via chat, phones, email
Users have 100% access to all the features regardless of their account’s sizes
Provide advanced automation workflow builder
Approximately 40 built-in templates available, useful for all sorts of different industries from real estate to e-commerce.
Cons:
Pricing: Offer a free plan for up to 1.000 subscribers
Pro: Starting at $10/ mo and $8/ mo (billed annually)
Enterprise: Need to contact the service provider
(The pricing of Moonsend is baked upon your number of subscribers)
Best for: An excellent choice for small businesses or entrepreneurs who are looking for a powerful email marketing solution without the hefty price tag
One top email marketing service, Brevo is one of the best marketing solutions that involve email and SMS marketing. An extremely easy-to-use platform with excellent support tools to create well-crafted and engaging emails.
Brevo allows marketers to optimize their email campaigns, including advanced email automation, segmentation, personalization, landing page optimization, and forms.
Pros:
All of Brevo’s plans don’t limit the number of contacts
Easy-to-use drag and drop email editor
Able to segment your audience based on demographics or lead scores
Easily manage your email list by importing, exporting, or editing the contacts
Equip your business with SMS marketing tools
Create seamless workflows for automatic follow-up emails
Offer landing page builder functionality
Cons:
Pricing: SendInBlue offers a free plan for businesses with up to 300 email sent per day; however, all those emails will have the service provider’s branding. Paid plans start from $25.
Starter: Starting at $25/ mo (Up to 100.000 emails, no marketing automation)
Business: Starting at $65/ mo (Up to 1.000.000 emails, include automation, landing page builders)
BrevoPlus: Need to contact with Brevo (Offer everything in Premium and other advanced functionalities)
(The plans vary in cost based on the email numbers a business sends per day or month)
Though the price of its entry-level plan can be higher than GetResponse or MailChimp, the number of emails that Brevo support for lite is up to 100.000 (2 times larger than the number of GetResponse)
Best for: Both small and big businesses with a massive list of subscribers want to target their audience more effectively. The best Email and SMS marketing platform.
Having more than 20 years of experience, Aweber provides email marketing services for more than one million small businesses. This turns them into one of the most reliable and popular service providers in email marketing.
Aweber is well known for its deliverability and a dedicated support team that works 24/7. It provides users with plenty of automation options, from creating, curating to sending targeted messages.
Pros:
Offer an entirely free plan
Comes with a vast source of templates
The price is relatively lower than serval similar solution
Integrate with some of the best e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and CRMs (Salesforce)
Extensive reporting capabilities
Offer all of its feature with every plan (except the free one), even the advanced tools
Cons:
Can’t include multiple segments at once when you send an e-newsletter
Don’t provide A/B testing or ways to use Facebook pixels/ Google Analytics cookies in a GDPR compliant way
The RSS to email template is not available to edit if using Aweber’s standard drag and drop email builder
Pricing: Weber offers a free plan with most essential email marketing tools for under 500 subscribers, 3000 emails sent per month, and 1 list profiles limited.
Lite: $12.50/month billed annually
Plus: $20.00/month billed annually
Unlimited: $899/month billed monthly
Best for: Those who are just getting started with email marketing. Or small businesses want to find straightforward rates and every inclusive feature at each pricing tier, then AWeber is the best choice.
ConvertKit is a versatile email marketing solution tailored for real estate professionals, artists, content creators, and businesses that prioritize community engagement. Offering a comprehensive suite of services including website creation, email marketing, and robust monetization tools, ConvertKit distinguishes itself by prioritizing the cultivation of a dedicated fan base over merely accumulating an audience for email campaigns.
With ConvertKit, users can craft personalized email designs or adapt existing templates to align with their brand and messaging. Additionally, the platform provides supplementary functionalities like lead magnet tools, facilitating the construction of opt-in lists directly from one’s website.
Pros:
Comprehensive landing page and email builders supported by a large template library.
Automation tools for lead magnet creation and audience nurturing.
Emphasis on community-building through email marketing.
Cons:
Basic segmentation and reporting features with the standard plan.
Limited number of user seats.
Relatively high cost compared to other platforms.
Pricing:
Free plan available for up to 1,000 subscribers.
Creator: $9/month.
Creator Pro: $25/month
Best for: ConvertKit is particularly suited for individuals and businesses seeking to cultivate a dedicated community around their brand or offerings. Its focus on fostering long-term engagement makes it ideal for those prioritizing relationship-building over short-term marketing campaigns.
GetResponse is another famous name when it comes to email marketing Service. To be more specific, it is more like an all-in-one marketing service specializing in automation.
It’s worth mentioning the Autofunnel feature of GetResponse, a tool that allows its users to create a comprehensive for sales, leads, webinars, and so forth.
Once a target audience enters your funnel, every task is fully automated by GetResponse to lead customers down the funnel via several digital touchpoints.
Pros:
Available in over 20 languages
Easy-to-use drag and drop functionality
Provide over 500 responsive email designs for newbie
Provide you a comprehensive tool kit to grow your subscriber list and monetize those contacts
The entry-level plan comes with advanced features a business needs, such as autoresponders, sales funnels. Considered as one of the cheapest email services
Integrate with most of major 3rd-party lead generation software
Cons:
The drag and drop interfaces for landing page creation and forms are a bit fiddly
Don’t provide phone support (unless you’re on an “Enterprise” plan)
The analytics functionality is not friendly and inconvenient for users
Pricing: Offer a 30-day free trial for each plan
Email Marketing Plan: $15.6/month
Marketing Automation Plan: $48.4/month
Ecommerce Marketing Plan: $97.6/month
GetResponse Max: $1,099/month
Best for: Business lacks CRM software, then I will recommend the Plus plan. Though this rate can be a little higher than some other services, it still comes with so much more.
If all the above email marketing services don’t aim at any business, Drip serves mostly e-commerce companies. This email marketing service focuses on using CRM data to bring back personalized marketing experiences, generate engagement, and build customer loyalty.
What makes Drip apart from the competition is its excellent marketing automation tools, smart email segmenting, and a visual workflow builder.
Pros:
Specialize in eCommerce CRM
Great customer service
Integrate with several third-party software when needed
Flexible automation with easy-to-use rules and workflows
Provide good segmentation and managing subscribers capabilities
Track and report the overall effectiveness of your email marketing for further improvement
Cons:
Offer a fairly good A/B testing system, but if you want to test your email content, it isn’t easy
The email template can be improved to be more professional
Lack of CRO feature and the form builder is limited
Pricing: Offer a 14-day trial to test every customer-focused feature. Their plan starts from $19/ mo with all components included.
2.500 subscribers: $39/ mo
3.501-4000 subscribers: $69/ mo
9.100-10.000 subscribers: $154/ mo
If your business needs more than 200.000 subscribers, you have to contact them
(It will vary when the number of people in your account increases)
Best for: Best email marketing platform for eCommerce. If you are running a website to sell several products, Drip is your top choice
In the list of most affordable email marketing platforms, we have to mention MailerLite. It is a simple, effective, and free email newsletter software that does the job.
They offer you excellent free plans, and even with paid ones, it is definitely cheaper than most competitors like MailChimp. Founded in 2005, MailerLite has served and been trusted by 830.000+ companies in the world.
Pros:
One of the cheapest email marketing software
Provide a solid landing page and web builder
Have easy-to-follow and straightforward interface
Provide advanced automation tools for businesses
Has all of the essential features to run an email campaign such as automation, surveys, landing pages, etc
Integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Facebook, HubSpot, and so more
Cons:
Lacks automation for more advanced triggers such as when they visit a page on your website
Don’t include any social tracking, for example, so if you really need these, we’d recommend a tool like Avada Email Marketing.
Pricing: Offer 30-day free trial to premium features
Free Plan: 12,000 monthly emails for up to 1000 subscribers
Growing Business Plan: $9/month billed annually with unlimited monthly emails for up to 500 subscribers
Advanced Plan: $18/month billed annually with unlimited monthly emails for up to 500 subscribers
Enterprise Plan: Contact for a quote
Best for: Best for basic emails
Klaviyo is a comprehensive platform designed for email marketers with a sales-oriented approach. Alongside its strong e-commerce functionalities, the company delivers specialized solutions tailored to the retail, wellness, and restaurant sectors.
Klaviyo offers an extensive array of features right from the start and seamlessly integrates with various third-party software to augment your campaigns. Additionally, it boasts top-notch reporting and analytics capabilities, standing out as one of the most effective email marketing tools we’ve evaluated.
Pros:
Outstanding reporting tools
Comprehensive selection of templates covering all core features
User-friendly interface with a visual focus for ease of navigation
Cons:
Limited customer support options, particularly lacking in phone support
Requires proficiency in email marketing to fully leverage its capabilities
Pricing:
Free plan: Starting at 500 monthly email sends
Email: Starting at $45/month with 15,000 monthly email sends
Email and SMS: Starting at $60/month with 15,000 monthly email sends
(Price for each plan is based on the number of contacts)
Best for: Beginners in email marketing may struggle to make the most of Klaviyo’s offerings without prior knowledge. While phone support is lacking, Klaviyo’s responsive email and live chat support may suffice for many businesses.
You have the best idea and perfect email service for your email marketing campaigns with faith in a significant conversion rate increase.
But I need to shoot straight with you about one truth of email marketing - your effort turns completely worthless if all the emails you sent could not make it to the user’s inbox.
Let’s look “out-of-the-box” and talk about the most foundational email marketing level that lots of marketers might get left out - email deliverability.
Some tips below could bring you great ideas with techniques for email deliverability improvement.
Build your email list based on audience segmentation. Some commonly used segments are active status, interest, cart abandonment rates, etc.
Choose a Professional Email Address for your business (e.g. [email protected])
Keep a close eye on your sender reputation. If your emails’ sender score is too low, ISPs will automatically reject them from being sent to users’ inbox
Choose the right frequency to send emails for different segments (from 1 to 2 times per week will be ok)
Use branding in your “from” name and make it more personalization. Instead of using a regular name, you could try your name from your company name in the “from” line. (eg. Yael from Promo)
Cut the dead weight from your list. Make sure you purge your list regularly to make sure no non-existent users are in your email lists or else you will ramp up your bounce rate, hence destroy your send credibility
Make your IP valid and trustworthy. At the start of any email campaign, sending small batches of emails to your engaged groups. By this, your IP will start to build trust and not be identified as spam emails. Then slowly increase the email numbers till you scale to your peak volume
Optimize your subject lines for higher open rates
Read more:
7 Common Email Marketing Mistakes You Must Avoid
To wrap up this topic, I will sum up some important points to give you an overview of which email marketing services that are your best options:
For small businesses: To get started with email marketing, then Constant Contact and MailChimp are 2 best options for you. They both come packaged with all the essential features you need to grow your email list with extremely affordable prices
For e-commerce businesses owners: To personalize your email strategies based on user behavior with abandoned carts, welcome emails etc, we recommend you to use Avada Email Marketing. It is the best email automation tool with excellent email editor features and beautiful email templates for your e-stores
For professional bloggers and creators: To make your emails apart from other pre-made templates out there but still high-generating engagement, you should check out ConvertKit. A email marketing service built specifically for bloggers and publishers
For those who prefer to an unlimited number of subscribers: In this case, Sendinblue with up to 1.000.000 contacts supported in the $65 plan is the most suitable choice
For businesses that require a CRM ecommerce integration, you should try out Drip - a marketing service that specializes in CRM data
Read more: 7 Common Email Marketing Mistakes You Must Avoid
Email these days presents an incredible opportunity to reach customers. A survey of Hubspot even states that 91% of consumers use email. And it will be a waste for your business for not taking advantage of email power.
We really hope this post gives you an overall view of the best email marketing services you should know and have a try. Learn more about Email Marketing from Avada now!
Thanks for reading!