Email Marketing Platforms: Automating and Optimizing Your Email Campaigns

Email marketing remains a cornerstone of digital marketing strategies, allowing businesses to connect with their audience directly and deliver targeted messages. Businesses rely on email marketing platforms to effectively execute email marketing campaigns. These platforms provide a comprehensive suite of tools and features to streamline the process, automate campaigns, segment audiences, and measure performance. In this blog, we will explore the world of email marketing platforms, delving into their functionalities, benefits, and how they can empower businesses to maximize their email marketing efforts. From designing captivating email templates to tracking open and click-through rates, we will uncover the power of email marketing platforms and how they can drive engagement, nurture leads, and achieve conversion goals.

Top Email Marketing Software & Platforms

To successfully create and execute your email marketing strategy, you’ll need to find the best email marketing software platform for your business. Here’s a look at the best 31 email marketing software platforms and what makes each a good pick.

1. Campaigner

If you’re searching for a tool to help you with marketing across multiple channels, check out Campaigner. Included in its powerful list of features is advanced email marketing automation. You can use it to create email workflows, track conversions, nurture prospects, and personalize every aspect of your emails.

If you need help designing your email, it offers hundreds of ready-made, responsive templates. Most email marketing platforms offer a decent selection of templates. Hence, this isn’t a unique selling proposition. Campaigner offers extra value because it includes a sophisticated template management system with restricted access and tagging features to organize your templates. This is especially useful if you’re part of a bigger team. Another area that takes it one step further is the inclusion of a built-in image editing tool. This way, you can customize your visual assets without switching to another editing tool.

Its reporting features also deserve special mention. Its comprehensive reports include standard things like open and click rates. Still, it also includes geolocation reporting that lets you zoom in on how your email marketing campaigns are performing per location.

Key Features:

• Email templates.
• Triggered campaigns.
• A/B testing.
• Sign-up forms.

Pricing:

Pricing starts at $59 per month for up to 5,000 contacts.

2. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue)

Bravo is an all-in-one platform covering many types of business communications, including email, SMS, Facebook, chat, CRM, and more. The company’s mission is to help businesses meet their customers. They help you to focus on the important tasks and put the rest on autopilot with automation. You can create professional-looking emails using its email builder in no time, but the magic lies in the platform’s features. With chat, SMS marketing, Inbox, CRM, and automation, you’ll find it easy to piece together smarter and more compelling email campaigns. Facebook Ads functionality is built-in, making it possible to retarget contacts and attract new leads.

Key Features:

• A shared inbox so you always keep track of your customer email history.
• 60+ responsive email templates.
• Built-in CRM.
• Built-in SMS and Chat.
• Contact Segmentation – make your emails more relevant by targeting smaller groups of contacts with a tailored message.
• Facebook Ads for Lead Generation.

Pricing:

Bravo is free for up to 300 emails per day to unlimited contacts. Pricing starts at $25/month for up to 20,000 emails.

Also read : 7 Best Email Deliverability Software & Tools For Testing Email Delivery Rate

3. Omnisend

Omnisend is an all-in-one email marketing automation platform catering to e-commerce brands. It enables you to expand your newsletters and boost sales with automated emails, segmentation, and the added potential of SMS.  It includes pre-built automation for cart abandonment, welcome series, and transactional emails to help deliver streamlined buyer engagements.

Key Features:

• A library of templates makes it easy to create professional, stunning emails without coding that you can easily customize to fit your brand, add products, include dynamic discount codes, and save for your next campaign.
• An Automation Library with pre-built workflows for every step of your customer journey.
• Segmented targeting that can be used both for campaigns and automation across all the channels Omnisend caters for.
• Pop-ups and forms aid lead generations.
• Reports and analytics track sales and identify winning campaigns.

Pricing:

Omnisend is free for up to 500 emails per month, but pricing starts at $16 per month. SMS costs additional, although higher plans offer SMS credits.

4. SMTP

SMTP’s solutions are more focused than many other email tools. Instead of offering you several features that will help with the visual aspects of creating marketing emails, it’s all about delivery. In short, SMTP offers reasonably priced SMTP relay (short for simple mail transfer protocol – the standard communication protocol for sending emails) and email delivery services that you can count on to send and track high-volume emails. Each month, it sends billions of emails using its secure and reliable email delivery platform, which helps ensure the emails get delivered. After all, that should be the main goal of any email marketing campaign. It’s also a great tool for transactional emails. It will trigger transactional and automated emails super fast.

Key Features:

• Superior delivery rates
• An optional Reputation Defender that will keep tabs on the health of your email list proactively by suppressing invalid email addresses
• Various transactional emails like password resets, privacy policy updates, receipts, and account updates
• Plug-and-play integration with marketing tools
• Detailed reporting

Pricing:

Pricing starts at $25 per month for up to 50,000 monthly emails.

5. EmailOctopus

EmailOctopus is a popular email marketing software platform that aims to provide email marketing that’s simpler, more intuitive, and better value than the competition.  It offers templates you can customize in a drag-and-drop editor or begin your emails from scratch. The app also includes a landing page builder with everything you need to generate leads and grow your email list. Integrations are a drawcard for agile brands. Many of your existing tools, including Shopify, Gravity Forms, and WordPress, easily pair with EmailOctopus, making it an attractive tool, especially for brands with ambitious goals.

Key Features:

• Import existing subscribers and keep growing with customizable forms for your website, or create stunning landing pages to capture more subscribers.
• Start with a pre-designed template and customize it or build your designs from scratch.
• Leverage email automation to deliver campaigns.
• Use insights and data to segment your subscribers into target audiences.

Pricing:

EmailOctopus offers a free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 monthly emails. Paid plans start at $8 per month.

6. Convertkit

ConverKit is a great fit for eCommerce businesses and creators. Its clean interface makes for an enjoyable experience, and it’s feature-rich. It includes opt-in forms, landing pages, email workflows, tagging systems, data management, and more. ConvertKit also has helpful integrations with other platforms, like Woocommerce.

Key Features:

• Automate your sales funnel to send content to subscribers automatically, getting them prepped to purchase.
• Sell digital products with a tool built for creators.
• Change the URL after the email has been sent with Creator Pro.
• Create personalized email marketing campaigns.
• We are building professional landing pages and sign-up forms.

Pricing:

For those weighing their options and looking for a detailed comparison between ConvertKit and another popular email marketing tool, this ConvertKit vs Tinyemail guide can provide valuable insights to get more options and help make an informed decision

7. GetResponse

GetResponse is one of our favorite email marketing platforms, and it’s widely used by marketers across industries. It includes email automation, email templates, segmentation, and personalization. A neat Auto Funnel feature also provides a ready-made marketing funnel for email marketing campaigns. GetResponse packs powerful features geared toward brand growth, from A/B testing to a comprehensive analytics tool that tracks email campaign performance.

Key Features:

• Autoresponders will send welcome emails, follow-ups, and educational series and nurture leads automatically.
• One-click integration to run powerful retargeting campaigns using Facebook Pixel.
• Website visitor tracking lets you send relevant communication based on page visits.
• Build landing pages for lead and sales generation.
• Create paid ads for Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

Pricing:

GetResponse offers a 30-day free trial. Pricing starts at $13.12/month.

Also read : Best Email Autoresponder Tools to Use (Free and Paid)

8. EngageBay

Apart from a standalone Service Bay product (covering activities such as live chat, helpdesk reports, tickets, and more), EngageBay offers three products:

1. Marketing Bay
2. CRM & Sales Bay
3. All-in-One Suite

Email marketing is included in the Marketing Bay and the All-in-One Suite, although CRM email integration is part of the CRM & Sales Bay. Their email marketing system includes rich text formatting, a landing page builder, email marketing templates, free email automation, and more.

Key Features :

• Marketing automation
• Email marketing
• Email sequences
• Landing pages
• Web forms
• SMS marketing
• Inbound Marketing
• Site messaging
• Push notifications
• Contact segmentation
• Email templates
• Bulk SMS marketing

Pricing:

EngageBay is free for up to 250 contacts. Pricing for their All-in-One Suite (including both Marketing and CRM & Sales Bay options) starts at $12.74 monthly when paid biennially.

9. AWeber

AWeber is a great email marketing platform for teams, small businesses, and entrepreneurs. It includes a drag-and-drop email editor, templates, automation and workflows, A/B testing, segmentation, autoresponders, and many integrations. Like others on our list, AWeber offers a landing page builder. It’s clean and drag-and-drop-based, making it easy for anyone to quickly build and deploy a landing page and an email campaign.

Key Features:

• AI-powered email template designer so you can create stunning branded emails quickly.
• Automate email content creation by broadcasting the latest posts from your blogs.
• Direct campaigns to the right people using tagging and dynamic content.
• Drag and drop landing page builder.

Pricing:

AWeber is free for up to 500 subscribers. Pricing starts at $16.15/month.

10. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an affordable email marketing platform, making it great for small marketing teams and creators. It includes all the features you’d expect, like automation, segmentation, triggered emails, email funnels, autoresponders, A/B testing, and scheduling. It also includes more advanced features like conditional content, geo-tracking, managed deliverability, and multi-user editing. Geotracking shows you where your subscribers are from, and you also get managed deliverability and multi-user editing (update multiple fields in an email with subscriber information).

Key Features:

• Segmentation and dynamic content make it easy to customize your message and send targeted emails to the right contact.
• Personalize your emails based on any contact information you have.
• A/B testing to find the best-converting emails.
• Use simple split testing to make your emails get more opens, clicks, and buys.
• Built-in landing page builder.

Pricing:

Pricing starts at $29/month.

11. Drip

Drip is one of the more advanced email marketing platforms on our list. It is the perfect option for eCommerce businesses because of its seamless integration with eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento. You can use eCommerce CRM data to create personalized marketing, segmenting your email list based on criteria like clicks, purchase history, email opens, and more.

Drip also integrates SMS marketing, elevating it into a sphere few email marketing platforms play. SMSs can be sent for various engagements, from abandoned cart reminders to promotional deals.

Key Features:

• E-commerce CRM lets you learn more about your customers to create targeted and personalized email marketing campaigns.
• Communicate with your customers no matter where they are, from email to SMS to social and beyond.
• Connect your eCommerce store to Drip to collect revenue-attribution data so you can make better marketing decisions.
• SMS automation to drive engagement with buyers.
• Segmentation and reporting on email campaigns.

Pricing:

Drip offers a free trial. Pricing starts at $39/month.

12. MailerLite

MailerLite is a strong competitor in the creators and small-medium business bracket. It includes the basics for successful email marketing, like surveys, automation, popups, and landing pages. MailerLite also integrates with dozens of eCommerce platforms and marketing tools you already use.

It is one of the more understated platforms, largely due to its clean design. But that’s also what makes it powerful. Everything about the platform is geared towards growth, from eCommerce campaign functionality to automation, segmentation, promotional pop-ups, and the ability to create landing pages.

Key Features:

• A website builder and landing page builder for quick web asset builds.
• Pop-ups and embedded forms help you bring in more leads.
• Personalize your campaigns using advanced targeting features.
• Test, experiment, and streamline your emails to improve your email marketing benchmarks.

Pricing:

MailerLite is free for up to 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. Pricing starts at $9/month.

13. Keap

Keap is technically a customer relationship management service. Still, it has robust email marketing, automation, and sales tools, earning it a spot on our list of the best email marketing platforms. Keap includes automation and workflows, email templates, quotes, invoices, and proposals, and it integrates with your other favorite business tools and apps. The true power of this platform is its automation and CRM. These help you turn current customers into repeat customers, and they are easy to navigate. Keap also integrates with your other favorite business tools and apps, making it a smart move for small eCommerce brands with a growing MarTech stack.

Key Features:

• Advanced marketing and sales automation, customizable campaigns, and app integration to power growth.
• Automatically capture new leads, assign tasks, and trigger personalized messages.
• Manage your contacts and leads in Keap and sync your Outlook and Gmail.
• Revenue reports and analytics help drive smarter brand decisions.

Pricing:

Keap offers a free trial. Pricing starts at 129/month.

Also read: 11 Best Email Outreach Automation Software And Tools

14. Constant Contact

Constant Contact helps you create email marketing campaigns like a pro. It includes a smart email editor that makes it easy to customize and design great-looking emails that stand out on every device. Other features that make it a catch for smaller brands and non-profits include automation, social marketing for lead generation, and the ability to build websites and landing pages. Constant Contact also has specialized email marketing for eCommerce tools to help your online store grow. You can upload contact lists from Excel, Outlook, Salesforce—or wherever you store your contacts.

Key Features:

• A smart email editor to design professional and aesthetically pleasing emails.
• Email marketing automation includes a welcome email for new subscribers, triggered email series, contact segmentation, resending emails to non-openers, and powerful list-building tools.
• Smart eCommerce tools and results, including segmented and automated emails.
• Website and landing page builder.
• Social marketing for posting ads, scheduling content, and tracking performance.

Pricing:

Constant Contact offers a one-month free trial. Pricing starts at $9.99/month.

15. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most established email marketing platforms out there. It’s particularly well-suited for beginners and startups and offers tools like email automation, data segmentation, templates, personalization, A/B testing, lead capture forms, and integration with CRMs.

While it started as an email-focused solution, the platform offers much more today. You can build a free website, buy a domain, create paid ads and landing pages, publish social media posts, and send printed postcards to any destination worldwide.

Key Features:

• Get predictive insights about your contacts so you can personalize your marketing.
• Personalize individual content blocks within your emails with dynamic content.
• Design personalized customer journeys using conditional logic and branching points.
• A/B testing to identify high-converting messages.
• Website and landing page builder.

Pricing:

Mailchimp offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts and one audience. Paid plans start at $11/month.

16. SendX

SendX is affordable, intuitive email marketing software that you can use to design, schedule, and track email campaigns, driving sales from your emails. You can upload an opted-in email list, send broadcast email campaigns, and create reports to measure clicks, opens, measure conversions, and more. You can automate your email marketing with a powerful rules-based interface based on user activity, audience segmentation, and more.

Key Features:

• Design, schedule, and track email campaigns, automating when relevant with a powerful rules-based interface.
• Build your email list using high-converting email pop-up forms, inline forms, and landing pages to own your audience.
• Create landing pages for lead generation.
• Design emails without HTML. SendX drag-and-drop editor is meant for marketers to design professional-looking emails with ease.
• Click heatmap for email campaigns shows where subscribers are based.

Pricing:

SendX offers a 14-day free trial. Pricing starts at $7.49 per month when paid annually.

17. SendPulse

SendPulse is a multi-channel email and messenger marketing platform built for sending emails and SMS and creating chatbots for Facebook and Telegram. It may seem like a mouthful, but these features can help brands drive strong and more engaging brand experiences for buyers.

SendPulse lets you send different messages separately or combine them with Automation 360. It includes a suite of email marketing tools, helping you to collect users’ contact information, create responsive templates, and set up automated flows.

Key Features:

• A drag-and-drop editor to create responsive emails without any HTML knowledge, including 130+ templates.
• Trigger emails to nurture leads in every stage of your sales funnel and convert them into paying customers.
• A form builder to create a pop-up, embedded, or floating subscription form on your website to collect email addresses and other information from your visitors.
• SMS and web push notifications for lead generation.
• Built-in landing page creator.
• Built-in CRM.

Pricing:

SendPulse is free for up to 15,000 emails to 500 subscribers. Pricing starts at $5.20 per month, and additional marketing channels incur additional costs.

18. Freshmarketer

Freshmarketer is a full-featured marketing automation solution for your business, including email marketing. With email campaigns, it has tools to engage and convert your audience from subscribers into paying customers, so you can provide relevant information at the right time and deliver integrated campaigns that improve conversions.

Admittedly, this is a CRM first, but that’s what makes it a powerful platform. Its CRM functionality helps brands gather in-depth customer insights, strengthening marketing campaigns. Automation also powers lead generation and nurturing and can send subscribers invoices or help generate recurring revenue via email reminders.

Key Email Features:

• Build emails from scratch effortlessly with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, or choose from a vast collection of templates to create design-rich emails that complement your messaging.
• Send emails that speak to your audience with personalization and can bring in more conversions.
• Gain detailed campaign performance with analytics.
• Automate welcome emails, invoices, reminders, and more.
• Segment customers.
• Build journeys to automate email communication and leverage personalization throughout a customer’s lifecycle.

Pricing:

Freshmarketer offers a 21-day free trial. Pricing starts at $19/month for the Marketing Cloud when paid annually.

19. Bitrix24

Bitrix24 aims to replace many services and apps with a single ecosystem for your business. Its tools cover communications, tasks & projects, CRM, contact center, and website. Bitrix24’s email platform comes with web forms, SMS and instant messaging marketing, and Facebook, Instagram, and Google paid advertising functionality.

Yes, this makes Bitrix24 sound like a large and clunky tool, but it’s far from it. Brix24 has a relatively easy-to-navigate interface, and with features like a built-in CRM, creating powerful email marketing campaigns is a goal well within reach.

Key Email Features:

• Many channels, one contact center: social networks, mobile messengers, email, telephony, website live chat, website forms.
• Contact center reports (activity by channel, activity by day/time, average response time, client satisfaction, supervisor ratings, custom reports).
• Marketing and sales, including email marketing.
• Google Ads remarketing capabilities.

Pricing:

Bitrix24 offers a free starter business toolset with a basic Contact Center tool set. Plans start at $49/mo.

20 Voila Norbert

Voila Norbert is an email finding and verification tool that allows you to find the right contacts, enrich your email lists, and verify email addresses. It has a 98% accuracy rate, making it the most accurate email finder tool on the market. 

Your sender’s reputation is the basis for good sales outreach, ensuring your cold emails land in the inbox, not the spam folder. Voila Norbert removes bounces and helps you improve your sender’s score over time. An accurate email finding and verification tool like Voila Norbert will increase your deliverability, open rates, and revenue. 

Key Features:

• Find individual or bulk emails ;Norbert will produce a valid email in seconds all you need to provide is your prospect’s first name, last name, and the company’s domain name.
• Prospect list export allows you to download your list of prospects to CSV, XLCX, or Google Sheets.
• Bulk email verification and enrichment service allows you to clean large email lists and maintain a healthy sender’s score.
• Norbert has a fully documented API that allows easy integration with additional software and a wide range of integration options.
• Volia Norbert’s interface is clean and user-friendly. While it may not boast flashy elements, this simplicity is one of its key assets. 

Pricing:

Voila Norbert offers a 50-lead free trial, allowing you to explore the effectiveness of their tool at no cost or financial obligation. Pricing starts at $49/month for up to 1000 leads.

Also read : Top CRM Software: Managing & Nurturing Customer Relationships

Conclusion

In conclusion, email marketing platforms play a vital role in the success of email marketing campaigns. These platforms provide businesses with the tools and capabilities to streamline and optimize email marketing efforts. From creating visually appealing email templates to automating campaigns and measuring performance metrics, email marketing platforms empower businesses to engage with their audience effectively, nurture leads, and drive conversions. By leveraging the power of these platforms, businesses can maximize their email marketing efforts, deliver personalized and targeted messages, and build strong relationships with their subscribers. Email marketing platforms are essential for businesses looking to harness the full potential of email marketing and achieve their marketing goals in today’s competitive digital landscape.

FAQs

What are email marketing platforms?

Email marketing platforms are software solutions that enable businesses to design, send, and track email campaigns to their subscribers. These platforms provide features such as email templates, contact management, automation, analytics, and A/B testing to optimize email marketing efforts.

How do email marketing platforms help businesses?

Email marketing platforms offer several benefits for businesses. They streamline creating and sending emails, automate campaigns, segment audiences, and track performance metrics. These platforms help businesses engage with subscribers, nurture leads, drive conversions, and build stronger relationships through targeted and personalized email communication.

What features should I look for in an email marketing platform?

When selecting an email marketing platform, consider features like intuitive email builders, automation capabilities, contact management, segmentation options, analytics and reporting, integration with other tools, and deliverability rates. The required features may vary based on your business’s needs and goals.

Are email marketing platforms suitable for small businesses?

Yes, email marketing platforms are well-suited for small businesses. They offer scalable solutions that fit different budgets and provide tools to help small businesses grow their subscriber base, send professional-looking emails, and analyze campaign performance. Small businesses can leverage these platforms to establish and strengthen their email marketing strategy.

Can I integrate an email marketing platform with other tools?

Yes, most email marketing platforms offer integrations with other tools and platforms. These integrations allow businesses to connect their email marketing efforts with customer relationship management (CRM) systems, e-commerce platforms, landing page builders, and more. The integration provides a seamless flow of data and enhances the overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns.