The importance of email marketing software cannot be understated in day-to-day business communications. Email is one of the easiest and most efficient means of customer outreach.
Email marketing tools play a critical role for businesses in communicating with prospects and customers. It is paramount that a business uses the best email marketing tools to ensure the emails they send make it to the inbox. This is referred to as deliverability, which we'll discuss.
POPULARITY
CONS
ALTERNATIVES
Best Overall
ActiveCampaign
A marketing automation system that is priced like an email service and offers a ton of integrations.
POPULARITY
If automated emails are important for your email marketing then it is one of the least expensive yet effective automation tools out there for businesses of all sizes.
CONS
- No free plan
- Steep learning curve
- Client email previews get charged
ALTERNATIVES
Best for SMB
Constant Contact
Easy to use and built specifically to help SMBs get off the ground with an email marketing program.
POPULARITY
Remains a favorite among email marketers because of the many benefits. One of the fastest-growing email marketing service providers in the world for years.
CONS
- Limited report options
- Changes not auto-saved
- Support not fast
ALTERNATIVES
Best for Corporations
HubSpot
A marketing automation system and CRM that is built to scale better than most platforms.
POPULARITY
Considering what it offers – the platform is great for users just starting out. Advanced teams and large organizations can leverage quite a bit from HubSpot.
CONS
- Minimal features for starter plan
- Steep learning curve
- HubSpot COS
ALTERNATIVES
Best for eCommerce
Klaviyo
Built to handle the specific needs of eCommerce email marketing better than other systems.
POPULARITY
Up-and-comer has traditionally been seen as a strong e-commerce solution but has expanded its capabilities in recent years to become full-spectrum.
CONS
- Tracking needs improvement
- Shopify integration lacking features
ALTERNATIVES
Best for Sales
AWeber
Allows sales organizations and teams easy access to tools that can be used collaboratively.
POPULARITY
Great for growth organizations that have team needs and can scale up their email marketing by features or as a whole across an entire team or segments.
CONS
- Better platform tool organization and navigation
- Frequently updated
ALTERNATIVES
Whatever the industry in which one operates, it is no secret that email is a tried and true method to keep interested persons informed. The fact is, a well-crafted email is a better marketing tactic than most forms of advertising.
Only blog posts and articles are ranked higher than email newsletters in terms of tactics used. And if you know how to craft your emails, you’ll find that more people will open them, and your click-through rates will be better. This equates to a marketing tactic with sure-fire results.
With that being said, the verdict is in. If you’re ready to find out what the top email marketing platforms and services are, read on.
The best way to tackle your email marketing needs is by partnering with the best email marketing software. Please note that the use of email marketing software, email marketing tools, email marketing platforms, and email marketing services are the same and used interchangeably within this article.
ActiveCampaign
Best Overall Email Marketing Software
ActiveCampaign takes the top spot on this list for a number of reasons including the key role machine learning plays in ensuring users of this email marketing platform get the most for what they’re paying.
Regarded by many as the best email marketing software for high-performing consultants and agencies, ActiveCampaign integrates with over 850 other apps.
ActiveCampaign ranks extremely well when it comes to overall email deliverability bench testing. Users and industry experts agree that this platform’s email sends have the best chance of getting to the primary Gmail and Outlook inbox.
Admittedly, this is not a tech noob’s sandbox, however, it doesn’t have a steep learning curve; just a few hours on it and you will be good to go if you’re a fast learner.
ActiveCampaign Features
Data Migration
ActiveCampaign’s email marketing services include free migration tools that will transfer your data from your current system into theirs for free.
Email Templates
The beautiful email marketing templates give you the freedom to create captivating newsletters as well as engaging marketing campaigns. These mobile-optimized templates help you save time and reduce your marketing efforts.
Autoresponders
Whenever a new person subscribes to your mailing list, you can program the software to send out an automated response email welcoming them. This marketing automation tool is a great email marketing tool to stay active with your subscribers with less effort.
Site Tracking
Analytics is an important part of any email marketing platform. With the site tracking feature, you can perfect your email marketing strategy.
You can gain insight into visitor behavior on your site, and with that data, make the necessary changes to improve click-through rates using this email marketing tool. By effective tracking, you can know for sure if your email marketing strategy is working.
The thorough reporting feature gives you insight into areas such as click maps, page visits, geo-tracking, etc. You get advanced marketing tools to track purchases on higher subscription plans.
Conversations
The conversations feature within ActiveCampaign helps you send targeted personalized emails to your website visitors. This email marketing tool enables you to optimize your customers’ overall experience. Again, you can create a sales funnel out of that to help you convert more visitors.
Automation
ActiveCampaign offers a complete set of marketing automation tools. With its integrated engagement capabilities, you can combine sales follow-up, send unlimited emails, manage drip campaigns, paid advertising, and channel marketing together in your campaigns.
Integrations
ActiveCampaign has one of the more robust libraries of integration apps to add functionality or to work with your existing technology stack like WordPress, Zapier, CRM systems, etc.
Popularity
If automated emails are an important part of your email marketing then ActiveCampaign is one of the least expensive and effective automation tools out there for small businesses to giant corporations.
Ask any company’s sales team what features they cherish in an email marketing platform and you’re likely to hear them speak about being able to sync data to inform actions such as lead scoring. ActiveCampaign’s built-in CRM does so by seamlessly linking up all email marketing data for sales teams to plan their lead scoring.
ActiveCampaign User Reviews
Here’s what people on Trustpilot are saying about ActiveCampaign
“Active Campaign has been a savior as a CRM and an automation tool. The campaigns, automation and lead scoring are really effective. Also, the price is really less than other big players in the market and the customer service is on point” -Nikhil Jain (IN)
“I not only enjoy using ActiveCampaign for myself and my clients, but I can say that their onboarding process is helpful and sets you up for success.” -Rich Cruz (US)
“Active Campaign is the perfect blend of marketing automation and CRM. It's as powerful as enterprise software without the heavy pricetag. It allows our team to be agile, and gather customer insights we otherwise wouldn't have access to….” -Chandal (CA)
Overall Trustpilot Rating: 4.0/5 based on 574 reviews.
Here's how software review sites are rating ActiveCampaign
Capterra – 4.6/5.0 rating, based on 1,684 ratings and reviews.
G2 – 4.6/5.0 rating, based on 9,982 ratings and reviews.
ActiveCampaign Pricing
ActiveCampaign has three plans; Lite, Plus, and Professional. The Lite plan starts at $9 per month for 500 subscribers and goes as high as $549 per month if your mailing list is 100,000 subscribers strong. In total there are 4 pricing plans offered.
ActiveCampaign Lite: $9/month (500 contacts and $29/mo. for 1000 contacts) and includes:
- Automation
- Drag and drop builder
- 125+ email templates
- Segmentation
- Reporting
- Event tracking
ActiveCampaign Plus: $49/month and includes:
- Landing pages
- 50+ landing page templates
- Contact scoring
- SMS messaging
- Automation
- Task reporting
ActiveCampaign Professional: $149/month and includes:
- Website personalization
- Predictive sending
- Predictive content
- Split automation
- Attribution reporting
Contact sales to review the ActiveCampaign Enterprise plan.
This plan includes features like:
- Custom reporting
- Custom domain
- Free design services
- Social data enrichment
- Custom mailserver domain
ActiveCampaign Support
Their customer support system supports communication via email, chat, submitted tickets, and phone. In addition, they have a lively community site, member forum, and university to educate yourself on the product.
Cons of ActiveCampaign
No Free Plan
While you can test out Active Campaign on a free trial, there’s no free plan that can be used beyond the trial period. If you want to use this email marketing service, you’ll have to fork out the minimum price ($15) in order to enjoy the service. Other than that, you will have to settle for a cheaper alternative.
A Steep Learning Curve
As noted earlier, Active Campaign is not for total beginners, and although it is not the most difficult platform to get familiar with, it still needs some getting used to. So for people who want a quick, easy-to-use solution, this is definitely not what they should be considering.
Client Previews Get Charged
While it is nice to preview how your newsletter would look on various email clients, it comes at a cost of $1 per preview.
Constant Contact
Best for Small Businesses
If you’re the owner of a small business looking to sell your services via email marketing, Constant Contact is the email marketing platform that can help achieve your objective. This service is known within the industry as the easiest-to-use service because it was designed to be beginner-friendly. Meaning you won’t need prior experience in order to use it.
Constant Contact is an all-in-one email marketing solution for small businesses as it provides all the digital marketing tools any business needs in one interface. Whether you’re trying to grow your mailing list, gain brand awareness on social media, or want a marketing calendar and pre-made email templates to work with – this service provides you with everything you want in one package.
Your account gives you access to unlimited emails with easy tracking and reporting. It comes with a free image library, built-in social media sharing tools, Facebook ads integration, list segmentation, and an eCommerce integration that is great for businesses managing Shopify stores.
Users who are subscribed to their Email Plus accounts enjoy premium features such as coupons, drip campaigns, email automation, online donations, surveys & polls, and subject line A/B testing – the latter of which is important for maximizing open rate by sending better performing emails.
Is event management one of your business services? If yes then, you’re in luck as one of its many unique features is tailored for event management – giving you the ability to manage invitations, tickets, and reservations.
Constant Contact Features
Email Campaigns
Let's you engage with your customers by making it easy to create beautiful email newsletters and campaigns that encourage them to buy your products and/or select your services.
List Growth Tools
With Constant Contact’s list growth tools, it’s easier to grow your email list so you can expand your audience and reach more customers.
Welcome Emails
This platform’s automation features allow you to welcome new subscribers into the fold by sending them welcome emails to be followed up with offers, discounts, or any sales initiatives you want the new subscribers to take advantage of.
Content management system
Did you know you can use the platform as a social media content management system? Yes! You get to keep your social media audience engaged with posts and videos scheduled straight from within the platform to keep them updated on any new products you may have on sale.
Additionally, with their Sharpspring integration, you have many more powerful tools at your disposal to build campaigns and track success.
A/B Split Testing
The A/B testing feature allows you to decide which version of your email newsletter will perform best by testing different versions.
Landing page builder
Use Constant Contact’s Sharpspring marketing automation platform to build landing pages plus a whole lot more to increase conversions by driving more traffic to your website.
Popularity
Constant Contact remains a favorite among email marketers because of the many benefits it offers users. It has been one of the fastest-growing email marketing service providers in the world for years.
Constant Contact User Reviews
Here’s what people on Trustpilot are saying about Constant Contact
“Great experience. These guys have a real phone number and helped us migrate everything over in less than a day. We sent out 3k emails with no trouble at all. What a great company. Thank you!” -Stanzo (US)
“Excellent company, have been creating email campaigns with Constant Contact for a long time now and the service you provide is excellent. The software is easy to use and if there are any issues these get dealt with immediately. Fantastic company, highly recommend.” -Charlie Clarke (GB)
“I just started sending off emails to businesses, I have talked to and a few friends. Waiting to hear back, but I like all the things I was able to do with the tools you give me to work with so that I do a great job….” -Bonnie J. Smith (US)
Overall Trustpilot Rating: 1.3/5.0 based on 689 reviews.
Here's how software review sites are rating Constant Contact
Capterra – 4.3/5.0 rating, based on 2,028 ratings and reviews.
G2 – 4.0/5.0 rating, based on 4,886 ratings and reviews.
Constant Contact Pricing
Constant Contact offers two plans, Core and Plus. Although it does not offer any discounts, you can try the software for free (yes, no credit card required) for a 60-day period.
Constant Contact Core: $9.99/month and includes:
- Email marketing tools
- 300+ email templates
- Social media integration
- Real-time reporting
- Store, optimize, and view reporting
Constant Contact Plus: $45/month and includes:
- List growth tools
- Marketing tools
- Automated emails
- Auto-generated segments
- Conversion and sales reporting
- Personalized kickoff calls
Constant Contact Support
This is the one service provider whose customer support program is unmatched. From community support to emails, to live chat, and even phone calls; they offer an unmatched customer support experience among its industry peers and contemporaries.
Cons of Constant Contact
Limited report options
The platform should provide more options for reporting. Adding this element would go a long way in helping users understand the performance of their email marketing campaigns better.
Unsaved Changes
We all know how frustrating it is to lose an important update to a document simply because it was unsaved when the system restarted. Sometimes, this happens in Constant Contact and it’s an issue that needs to be addressed.
Faster Support
Usually, when one contacts customer support, it is for something important or an emergency situation. The Constant Contact customer support system needs to provide faster response times along the various support options they provide.
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Best for Sales
With over 64,500+ total customers scattered over more than 100 countries, HubSpot Email Marketing Software (Marketing Hub) is on a mission to make the world more inbound-focused. HubSpot coined the term “inbound” and created a revolution of content-first marketing automation tools that allow companies to build and use content strategically to drive leads.
The Hubspot email marketing software aims at facilitating the growth of companies by resourcing them with tools that are designed to do just that; help them grow and expand.
Inbound marketing campaigns are important to businesses as they are one of the many ways to keep the audience (or target customer) interested in a business and its services.
HubSpot email marketing software was designed to have everything a user would need in order to run a successful inbound marketing campaign that brings business to the doorstep of the user.
HubSpot Email Marketing Features
Dynamic Content
Ability to test dynamic content. Before launching a campaign, users get to test and evaluate its performance before taking the final step and launching the campaign.
With dynamic content, you tailor your marketing emails, landing pages, subscription forms, or website content to make it personable to the recipient. This comes in handy when you have to address individual recipients such as welcome emails and other non-transactional emails.
A/B Testing
A/B testing. Users get to test a campaign in its different variations in order to measure results. Aspects of a campaign that can be tested include the header images, the landing page copy, or even your subject lines. Presenting your best to the audience should be paramount, and that’s what makes this feature important.
Email Deliverability
Email deliverability reporting ensures inbox delivery of your email campaigns. The software achieves this through features such as delivery monitoring, bounce handling, dedicated IP addresses, deliverability tests, and opt-in management.
Landing Page Builder
With the landing page builder, users can create custom web pages for a particular email campaign. Most landing pages usually have web forms attached, and this is convenient for capturing site visitor information that can then be integrated back into the marketing automation software.
Workflows & Drip Email
Email marketing tools like triggered drip sequences make it possible for users to set up drip email marketing campaigns that are triggered once certain events take place.
The drag-and-drop interface of the WYSIWYG email editor enables users to create HTML emails without the need to have prior HTML coding knowledge.
The addition of workflows, lets your email marketing campaign make other things happen by orchestrating certain actions based on those of the email reader. For example, if they click on a certain button within the email, you can send them to a specific landing page but also mark them as a lead and send them to a specific list, all through workflow automation.
Integrations & Add-ons
HubSpot Marketing Hub also has features tailored for campaign management, lead management, social media marketing, platform, and infrastructure, as well as reporting and analytics.
The platform also offers one of the most extensive lists of integrations and custom-built extensions that you can purchase to create functionality or add features.
Popularity
Considering what HubSpot Marketing Hub offers – the platform is quite a steal for users just starting out. Advanced teams and large organizations can leverage quite a bit from HubSpot, even though it is quite pricy to do so.
HubSpot User Reviews
Here’s what people on Trustpilot are saying about Hubspot
“We began using HubSpot just under a year ago as our CRM system and the main tool for marketing communications… I'm really impressed by the excellent customer support. Best in class!” -Barbara (GB)
“Much easier to use than Salesforce/Pardot and helps us make our emails look very professional and we get better open rates.” -Jenny Wakefield (US)
“Started using HubSpot a couple of months before. A great tool indeed. It provides more features and integrations. Very effective for follow-ups and reminders.” -Sri Ram (IN)
Overall Trustpilot Rating: 3.1/5.0 based on 310 reviews.
Here's how software review sites are rating HubSpot
Capterra – 4.5/5.0 rating, based on 4,845 ratings and reviews.
G2 – 4.4/5.0 rating, based on 8,394 ratings and reviews.
HubSpot Pricing
HubSpot Marketing Hub offers three pricing packages: Starter, Professional, and Enterprise.
Starter: $45/month includes:
- 1,000 marketing contacts.
- Remove HubSpot branding from email marketing, forms, landing pages, and live chat.
- Email and in-app chat support.
Professional: $800/month, which adds in addition:
- 2,000 marketing contacts
- Omni-channel marketing automation tools
- ABM tools and automation
- Dynamic personalization
- Multi-language content
- Social media
- Video hosting & management
- Contact and company scoring
All of which are important for automating and personalizing engagement across channels.
Building custom reports with the aid of:
- Website traffic analytics
- Campaign reporting
- Custom reporting
- Salesforce integration
Enterprise: $3,200 per month
Gets the user everything bundled in the Professional package in addition to an extra 10,000 marketing contacts.
With this package, you get to manage your teams and brands with:
- Email send frequency cap
- Field-level permissions
- Hierarchical teams
- Partitioning
- Permission sets
- Single sign-on
Advance your reporting with:
- Behavioral event triggers and reporting
- Multi-touch revenue attribution
- Predictive lead scoring
Also, you can extend the platform with adaptive testing, custom objects, salesforce custom object sync, sandboxes, etc.
Although all the packages seen here are paid, a free trial of HubSpot Marketing Hub is available, so if you want to test the platform with the free plan to decide if it’s worth investing in a paid plan, go for it. The real juice, however, comes with a paid plan.
HubSpot Support
HubSpot provides many avenues for support including chat, email, and direct phone support. The more expensive plans also provide a dedicated representative within HubSpot for ongoing support needs.
From the blog to eBooks and guides, in addition to free courses and certifications, HubSpot provides resources throughout their website that guide any user level to learn and succeed with the platform.
Cons of HubSpot Marketing Hub
Minimal Features for Starter
The Starter package is unsatisfactory when you consider the minimal premium features it comes with. This means for companies looking to do serious business, the Starter plan will sooner than later become a pain point in and of itself, resulting in the need to upgrade to the Professional package.
If you’re looking to upgrade from Starter to the Professional package, you’ll have to deal with a substantial price jump (from $45 to $800). For smaller companies, This is just not a feasible option.
Approve and Leave Comments
If social media post scheduling is one of the features you want to take advantage of on this platform, you will find some features lacking when trying to work collaboratively.
Many users prefer to keep management of social media posts, SEO, analytics, and other digital marketing campaign elements outside of HubSpot.
Steep Learning Curve
Nobody really likes a big learning curve and that is one thing HubSpot Marketing Hub is guilty of. This is a very powerful marketing automation platform, which means getting used to it is not a one-day thing.
More than 60% of HubSpot users who try to go it alone typically fail at using the platform. You are better off having external expertise guide you in its use and setup.
This is one of the best email marketing platforms you can get on the market today, and that means if you’re able to get your sales team using it the way it should, it won’t be long before you start reaping the benefits of making that investment.
HubSpot's COS
HubSpot offers a content optimization system (COS), which is essentially a content management system without some of the benefits and with a proprietary code base. It's not the most friendly system and if you end up using it, it is difficult to migrate to another system.
Klaviyo
Best for eCommerce Businesses
Klaviyo functions as a growth marketing platform helping users deliver personalized experiences and track the customer journey using email and other marketing channels such as SMS marketing, in-app notifications, and web. Klaviyo has a growing reputation and the attention of many email marketers and marketing agencies and is definitely worth the investment.
Klaviyo Features
Behavior-based email marketing tools
Klaviyo offers hundreds of pre-built email templates and allows for segmentation and emailing based on user interactions, behaviors, and triggers with your brand to offer additional layers of personalized email marketing campaigns.
Ecommerce Automations
From purchase flows to welcome emails, and transactional emails to back-in-stock and browse abandonment, Klaviyo offers a huge assortment of automation to help with your eCommerce business.
Pre-built templates
Klaviyo provides a rich assortment of pre-built templates in support of automation, email, SMS, signup forms, and more. You can easily customize using the drag-and-drop editor to make the user experience seamless.
Integrations & Add-ons
Klaviyo offers an impressive collection of 200 pre-built integrations. These include one-click integrations with many of today's leading eCommerce platforms like BigCommerce, Shopify, and WooCommerce.
Customer profiles
Understand what your users do and who they are using Klaviton's powerful real-time customer profiling. The data science employed behind the scenes allows you to predict what actions your users will take along their customer journey.
Popularity
Klaviyo is an up-and-coming platform that has traditionally been seen as a strong e-commerce player but has expanded its capabilities in recent years to become full-spectrum with a unified platform for sales and marketing on a broader scale.
Klaviyo User Reviews
Here’s what people on Trustpilot are saying about Klaviyo
“It's not just an email service provider. It's a data center. I have used Klaviyo since 2018 to help my clients scale their e-commerce business through email marketing. It also provides us with the information we need to ensure that we're making decisions based on data….” -Fred Mosquida (PH)
“Klaviyo is the best email platform for combining Email & SMS if you're an eCommerce store looking to scale! Outstanding Support all the way through.” -Kaloyan Dichev (BG)
“I love Klaviyo! I am an email marketing specialist and love the 1:1 support Klaviyo provides in comparison to other ESPs.” -Macy (US)
Overall Trustpilot Rating: 3.8/5.0 based on 81 reviews.
Here's how software review sites are rating Klaviyo
Capterra – 4.7/5.0 rating, based on 274 ratings and reviews.
G2 – 4.6/5.0 rating, based on 716 ratings and reviews.
Klaviyo Pricing
Klaviyo offers three plans and each of them is free up to an extent. They have a live calculator on their website to help you choose the best package for running your business.
Klaviyo Email: $20/month (500 contacts)
- Up to 500 contacts
- 5,000 email sends
- Email and chat support
Klaviyo SMS: $20/month (500 contacts)
- Up to 500 SMS contacts
- Up to 2,500 SMS or 833 MMS sends
- Email and chat support
- Toll-free number
Klaviyo Email and SMS: $40/month (500 contacts)
- Up to 500 contacts
- 5,000 email sends
- Up to 500 SMS contacts
- Up to 2,500 SMS or 833 MMS sends
- Email and chat support
You get up to 250 contacts for free with this plan. This plan also includes 500 emails, 150 SMS, or 50 MMS for which you won't have to pay anything. When you add 500 contacts, the pricing above kicks in.
Klaviyo Support
Klaviyo provides users with extensive resources like live training, podcasts, help centers, academy, case studies, and guides. To contact their support team you can call or email them.
Cons of Klaviyo
Tracking needs improvement
The pixel tracking code that is used to handle all tracking of transactions and other platform user interactions doesn't always work reliably and may lead to some missed opportunities with loss of critical data capture.
Shopify integration
The Shopify integration, albeit great in and of itself, requires additional applications to be used for improving upon the features one might need. Gift cards, promos, and other edge use case elements that are important for successful eCommerce take a bit more work.
Reporting
The lack of reporting options and the ability to summarize reports seems to need improvements as well as the dashboards themselves. Many users have had to build custom reports to satisfy basic reporting requirements.
Weak Support Documentation
Klaviyo is typically dinged for its less than impressive customer support help section. Users search Google and YouTube to receive support vs being able to rely on the help center within the email marketing tool itself.
AWeber Email Marketing
Best for Teams
For users who want a simple-to-use email platform that’s full-featured, AWeber is the perfect choice as besides its ease of use, it offers high deliverability rates in addition to easy integration with other apps and plugins.
With AWeber email marketing, the user gets access to A/B testing, autoresponders, and email tracking which is complemented by detailed insights, ready-to-use HTML email templates, and list management.
With over 20 years in business and over a million satisfied customers, AWeber continues to make improvements on what has been built over the years – ensuring that the product continues to remain a valuable tool for people who rely on email marketing as a core digital marketing channel. AWeber supports this with powerful features such as AMP emails and automatic RSS-to-email for bloggers, as well as tag-based subscriber segmentation.
AWeber Email Marketing Features
Audience Building
As noted earlier, this platform is the best for sales teams that want to concentrate on building lists to aid in all levels of sales communications. This email marketing platform helps you build an audience by making it easy to create and segment your mailing lists while keeping them engaged with your brand.
On that front, AWeber provides its users with the ability to create, customize, and implement signup forms without the need for them to have HTML coding skills. You cannot build an audience if your emails are not getting to the inboxes of your primary targets.
Other features that fall within audience-building include:
- No send limits
- Ability to send emails to multiple mailing lists at once or simultaneously
- Click automation for customer segment self-selection
- Single and double opt-in options
- Import mailing list
- Robust subscriber management
Campaign Optimization
In this line of work, having access to rich data in real-time is sort of a holy grail. While it is not elusive or even rare, it compares in the sense that rich data is cherished by all whose work revolves around the availability of data and information.
That is why data works as a catalyst in the building of a business as it helps identify what works and what doesn’t, or what wouldn’t at all.
These are some of the campaign optimization features that come with your subscription to AWeber:
- A/B split testing for finding which version of your email newsletter is the star performer. This is done by testing different versions of the newsletter.
- Create segments based on reports.
- Detailed performance tracking and dashboards.
- Phone, email, and live chat support when you need it.
Email Marketing Automation
Don’t wait too long before initiating that ‘thank you’ conversation with a lead or anyone subscribing to your email marketing newsletter or responding to a call to action.
Whatever it is you do in the business space, it is important to stay in touch with your customers and subscribers using email automation tools that get the job done.
Here’s what you can do with AWeber's email automation:
- Send one-off broadcast emails
- Set up action-based automation flows
- Initiate subscribers into your mailing list with welcome emails
- Send thank-you emails for purchases
- Schedule timed emails
- Confirm orders or purchases
- Do follow-ups on products
- Re-engage your previous customers by keeping them focused on the brand, among many others.
- Email your blog articles via RSS feed
Popularity
AWeber's email marketing service is either a hit or near miss – depending on who you ask and whether their expectations of the product were met or not.
Overall, people have generally positive experiences with AWeber. Below are some user reviews we used to help measure the popularity of this email marketing software.
AWeber User Reviews
Here’s what people on Trustpilot are saying about AWeber
“The assistance from A.Weber customer support has made a huge difference. Every support rep I chatted with, has gone above and beyond. I also appreciate the transcripts which serve as reference points for future use. Thank you!” -C. Imani Williams (US)
“Excellent service – love the service fabulous thank you” -Joanne (GB)
“Always available and always helpful! That's why I stay with AWeber. When I started my company back in 2007, AWeber was recommended, and year after year they continue to deliver. To be able to speak with a human being who will patiently walk me through all my tech issues is priceless!” -Ellen Goldman (US)
Overall Trustpilot Rating: 4.4/5.0 based on 75 reviews.
Here's how software review sites are rating AWeber
Capterra – 4.4/5.0 rating, based on 209 ratings and reviews.
G2 – 4.2/5.0 rating, based on 607 ratings and reviews.
AWeber Pricing
AWeber does well to give the user a decent taste of how the software performs with their free version which allows you to work with up to 500 contacts from your mailing list. This is what you get with the Start Free plan:
AWeber Start Free: $0/month
- Up to 500 email subscribers
- Landing pages
- Web push notifications
- WYSIWYG drag and drop builder
- Email templates
- Subscription forms
- Ecommerce capabilities
- RSS to email
- AMP emails
- Dynamic content
AWeber Start Pro: $16.15/month (500 subscribers)
If you love the free experience so much that you want to upgrade your plan in order to remove watermarks and enjoy even more benefits, you can sign up for the Start Pro version of AWeber; beginning from as low as $16.15 per month.
Signing up for Start Pro will entitle you to all you get from the free plan in addition to the following features and more:
- Unlimited email lists
- Advanced email automation
- Remove AWeber branding
- Detailed insights and analytics
- Webpage and sales tracking
- Split testing
- Behavioral automation
- Cart abandonment or purchase tagging
- Branded click-tracking links
- Facebook pixel tracking
- Sign-up form split testing
- Advanced message analytics
- Advanced audience/account analytics
- Webpage tracking
- Email sales tracking
AWeber Support
AWeber, just like every service provider worth its salt does well to ensure its customers are well cared for whenever they have a complaint or an issue with their product. From online resources such as YouTube video tutorials to phone support and more; AWeber performs well in this area in support of small businesses to large enterprises.
Cons of AWeber Email Marketing
Organization Needed
AWeber is an email platform that has lots of tools to offer. Sometimes, this becomes a problem when the user has to comb through the interface in order to locate a particular tool or two for handling certain tasks. Better organization within the interface and a focus on UI/UX would help.
Frequent Updates
Technology keeps changing rapidly, and in order to keep up, the AWeber platform receives frequent upgrades. While this can be seen as a benefit, it makes keeping up with the administration and effective use of the platform somewhat challenging.
Email Marketing Software Alternatives
There are hundreds of alternative email marketing platforms that can be effective for a business that needs reliable email marketing tools. We listed four alternatives that might make sense depending on your particular needs.
Sendinblue
If engaging your contacts and using targeted and meaningful business communication to build a better customer relationship with them is paramount in your game plan, then, Sendinblue is an email marketing platform you should be looking at.
This all-in-one marketing platform lets you track your contacts’ web behavior, and with the information gathered, you craft automation workflows that help you scale and grow your business – while saving time.
Sendinblue Features
Administration
- Template creation
- Preset template availability
Diagnosis
- Content
- Domains
- IP Address
- Policy compliance
Reporting
- Blacklist and whitelist
- Brand reputation
- Campaign performance
- Domain reputation
Tracking
- Alerts
- Open rate
- Placement
- Processing time
- Time to open
Sendinblue Pricing
Sendinblue offers 4 plans in total with one being a free plan. You can store unlimited contacts even with the free plan. This is what you get with the free plan.
Sendinblue Free: $0/month
Using this free email marketing software you can get started with your business. The plan includes:
- 300 emails per day
- Unlimited contacts
- 1 user account
Sendinblue Lite: $25/month (20,000 email sends)
If you need more features you can try out their Lite plan that includes:
- 20,000 emails
- No daily sending limit
- A/B testing
- Advanced statistics
Sendinblue Premium: $65/month
The Premium plan is the most popular option available. If you want more than email marketing services then this is the plan you should choose.
- Marketing automation
- Landing pages
- Facebook ads
- Phone support
- Multiple user access
Sendinblue Enterprise
The pricing of this plan is not mentioned on their website but you can contact sales to get a quote:
- Landing pages
- Custom email volumes
- Access to 10+ users
- Customer success manager
- Priority support
Sendinblue Support
Sendinblue has a help center where you can access their articles library to get answers to any query you have. You can also email their support team or live chat with an agent. They also have an academy available in 4 different languages.
Moosend
Moosend is a simplistic email marketing service suitable for expanding a business’s lead-nurturing strategy. Featuring an easy-to-use interface, email marketing automation platform, and a website builder, you can use this software to manage multiple email marketing campaigns as well as mailing lists.
Moosend’s editor is also great for designing newsletters to be sent to the mailing list.
Moosend Features
- Automation
- Email marketing
- Lead generation
- Personalization
- Tracking and analytics
Moosend Pricing
Moosend offers 3 different plans. One of which is a 30-day trial.
Moosend Free Trial: $0/month
You can check out this plan without giving out your credit card information. The plan includes:
- Unlimited emails
- Automation workflows
- 1 landing page
- 1 Form
Moosend Pro: $9/month
If you want a basic email marketing service you can check this plan out which has the following benefits:
- Unlimited emails
- Automated workflows
- Landing pages and forms
- SMTP Server
Moosend Enterprise
To get the pricing for this plan, contact their sales team. This plan includes:
- All pro features
- Account manager
- Dedicated IP
- Priority support
Moosend Support
Moosend provides customer support through email and live chat. They also have resources in the form of a marketing blog and a collection of FAQ articles where you can find information about the Moosend platform and service offerings.
Omnisend
With the Omnisend platform, you get to add several channels to the same automation workflow. This allows your workflow to have seamless communication via email, SMS messages, and web push notifications, among others.
The WYSIWYG drag-and-drop visual composer for emails is user-friendly. It also features email capture tools such as landing pages and popups; essential for building a business’s customer base and mailing list.
Omnisend Features
- Email marketing
- Lead management
- Online marketing
- Reporting and analytics
Omnisend Pricing
Omnisend offers 3 plans for both your email and SMS marketing needs. They offer a free plan for life.
Omnisend Free Email: $0 per month
- 250 contacts
- 500 emails/month
- 60 SMS
Omnisend Standard Email: $16 per month
- 500 contacts
- 6000 emails/month
- 60 SMS
Omnisend Pro Email and SMS: $59 per month
- 500 contacts
- Unlimited emails
- 3933 SMS
- Unlimited web push notifications
Omnisend Support
Omnisend has a huge collection of resources for its users. Resources include blogs, an academy, podcasts, interviews, and a vast library. You can also talk to their support team using live chat or email.
iContact
Small business owners will appreciate some of the simplistic elements of iContact. If you run a small and medium-scale business and want to stay in touch with your customers – either through technical support or deliver them the best customer service without paying an arm and a leg, then, iContact Marketing Service is what you might want to consider.
An email marketing platform with unlimited sending as one of its key features, iContact seamlessly integrates with Facebook and Twitter – giving you data that can be exported into all the tools you might need to extend email marketing applications.
If you’re a user who enjoys the simplicity of drag-and-drop then, you will enjoy this platform as iContact delivers just that to you.
Create fully responsive emails using the drag-and-drop editor. Also, you can send emails based on user behavior and customer journey through automation tools. For example, behaviors such as engagement triggers, date and time, and even events the subscriber responds to can be used to inform what emails to send.
If you’re looking to fine-tune your marketing messages so only ones destined to perform well get sent out, you can perform an A/B split test to determine what gets mailed out.
iContact offers hundreds of templates, aside from the many themes around which you can then decide to customize a look and layout for your emails.
iContact Features
- Automation
- Monitoring
- Ease of Use
- Analytics
- Segmentation
- A/B Split Testing
iContact Pricing
If you're solely looking for free email marketing software, the good news here is that you can kickstart your iContact experience with a free version.
With iContact Free, you get to enjoy the following platform benefits:
- As many as 500 contacts
- Send up to 2,000 emails per month
- WYSIWYG drag & drop email designer
- Single hosted landing page
- Email support
iContact Advanced: $23 per month for 1500 contacts up to $350 per month for 50,000 contacts.
The lowest-paid Advance plan gets you everything under the Free version in addition to the following:
- Up to 1,500 contacts
- Unlimited email sends per month
- Unlimited hosting landing pages
- Create an unlimited number of landing pages
- Multiple users on the same account
- An unlimited number of welcome series emails
- Smart sending
- Marketing automation
- Live chat and email support
You can see from the above Advanced pricing that the only thing that changes as you go higher is the number of contacts you get to work with. The paid iContact pricing plans start from as low as 1,500 contacts to 50,000 at the highest level.
High-volume email senders, whose mailing list has over 50,000 contacts, will have to get in touch with the company to design the right package for their unique needs. Call them at +1 (919) 957-6150.
iContact Support
For prospective customers who would like to learn more about this email marketing platform, iContact has available resources to get started. You will need to sign up for an account in order to gain access to the guides and video tutorials.
If you need to reach customer support, you can send queries via email. You can fill out the contact us form on the website and there are always live chat and phone options to take advantage of.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing refers to promoting products and services via email campaigns. With the best email marketing services, you develop and nurture relationships with your email subscribers toward achieving your end goal of making a sale.
Before email became a channel of communication, businesses reached their customers and prospects through their mailboxes in a strategy we know as direct mail marketing, also referred to as snail mail. This tactic is still used today with some success but is costly.
It is this same strategy that email marketers adopted but with the added bonus of faster delivery, lower costs, and the ability to track success. The big difference between these, however, is that with email, your reader gets the chance to opt in or unsubscribe from receiving your messages.
You can’t discuss digital marketing strategy and tactics without email marketing service being part of the conversation. It is as critical as any other technique and when done well, it is arguably the best.
What makes Email Marketing Tools Great?
With email marketing tools, it's important that they solve problems for the user. That they are intuitive and they provide features that can be easily interpreted and put into practice to the benefit of the user and the recipients of the emails.
However, there’s more to email marketing platforms than simply making the task easier. The best email marketing software, aside from its primary functions, is able to cater to specific niches.
By using the best email marketing services, systems, and sales tools, you can do SMS marketing, run strategic email campaigns, add unlimited contacts, leverage advanced automation features, and dominate the email marketing space.
Marketing automation is an important part of many email marketing platforms. Not only can you can design email campaigns and build templates using the drag-and-drop email editor using these top email marketing services but you get automation, workflows and advanced segmentation features that you don't always see with budget options.
Most email marketing platforms offer email templates that you can customize according to your email campaign needs. You can customize the templates using the drag-and-drop email editor. Once the templates are customized you can use them to run automated emails to your subscribers.
The best email marketing service also offers analytics so you can track how your email campaigns are doing. Without tracking your email marketing campaign, you can't get insights into what your customer truly needs.
Some of the best email marketing services also offer SMS marketing along with email campaigns. The best email marketing tools integrate with other software making marketing automation seamless. You also send transactional emails to your customers when they purchase your products.
Characteristics of Email Marketing Software
The best email marketing services are expected to make your work easy by giving you options that complement various aspects of your email marketing strategy.
You should have an easy user interface (drag and drop email editor preferably) that allows you to create highly engaging email newsletters. Also, you should be able to send personalized emails to your mailing list without having to jump through hoops. This is what marketing automation is.
The best email marketing services should make it possible for you to manage your contact list and segment users into appropriate groups. Service with such advanced features will make it easy for you to track how your email marketing campaigns are performing.
Avoiding the spam folder is the aim of every email marketer. And that is why a good email service would be designed to ensure your email marketing campaigns do not end up in the ‘hell’ of email; the spam folder.
Below is a list of more advanced features that any good email service provider should be able to offer with their email marketing software.
Deliverability
Compare benchmarks from the various email software providers to be sure your messages are reaching their intended destination; people’s inboxes. Remember that average deliverability rates are around 80%. You want to get as close to 95% as possible but there are many factors that play a role in achieving that.
Automation
The best email marketing software is capable of sending a welcome series of emails to a first-time receiver once they subscribe to your email list or sign up for a package.
Analytics and Reports
Your email marketing tool should enable you to track metrics such as bounce, click, click rate, open, open rate, sales, and more.
Email Layout Templates and Designs
A good email marketing platform should give you a variety of pre-made email designs, so you can tailor your emails to various industries and purposes.
List Segmentation
Your email marketing platform should give you the option to segment your mailing list by factors such as their interests and purchasing behavior, even how they interact with your content. Basically, you should be able to do segmentation based on whatever custom field you choose.
Advanced eCommerce
For people looking to make sales – and we believe the end goal of every email marketing campaign is to make a sale – it is important that your email platform is able to integrate with eCommerce platforms.
With personalized email marketing campaigns, you can send abandoned cart reminders via email, while having the necessary data to inform you in segmenting your list based on purchase history.
Opt-in Forms
These are embeddable forms that you add to your website in order to capture email addresses. In this line of business, emails are the Holy Grail, so go in for an email marketing platform that ensures you don’t lose out on expanding your list.
Multi-Inbox Previews
While this may not be a dealbreaker, it certainly comes in handy as it allows you to preview the emails based on the service provider. So you get to preview how it looks in Gmail, Outlook, Yahoomail, etc.
Customer Data
Features like customer notes and lead scoring are important for converting leads into sales. So if your purpose is to close sales, check if the platform you’re considering provides customer data that can help inform your decisions going forward.
Choose the Best Email Marketing Service for Your Business
Statistics from the Direct Marketing Association indicate that on average, email marketing sees a 4300 percent return on investment (ROI) for businesses in the United States – making it one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies for small businesses to adopt.
This is because email marketing, aside from allowing you to establish direct contact with your customers, gives you full control aside from being easy to manage.
Because your email marketing software is responsible for your emails getting delivered into the inboxes of your leads, your success at email marketing is largely dependent on the email software you choose to work with.
A pain that lots of inexperienced people often encounter is that due to their being naive regarding such matters, they end up paying way more money for software that offers fewer marketing features with deliverability rates that in the long run, result in them losing money.
Best Email Marketing Software Wrap-up
From cold emails to on-demand subscriptions, email marketing remains critically important for getting the message out to your subscribers and customers. As the restrictions around other types of digital marketing campaigns continue to progress, email marketing tools grow in importance.
Email remains one of the most effective marketing channels. However, with the many options we have when it comes to email marketing software, making the right selection can seem a daunting task – especially if you’re just starting out.
An approach for many starting out is to try out a free email marketing service to see if it meets your needs and then select an appropriate plan that works within your budget. The best email marketing software for you is the one that best meets your needs now and well into the future.
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