The best email marketing software for opt-in will be different than what’s best for your business and different if you’re a blogger or an ecommerce store. If you’re a blogger, you probably want to use a free email marketing software that specializes in list building. If you’re an ecommerce store, you’ll likely track email campaigns closely and might need an email marketing platform that caters more to the advanced functions of email marketing such as automation.
Email marketing is one of the fastest-growing trends in marketing as it’s still one of the most effective digital marketing tactics. Email marketing is a way to market your business, promote your products and increase sales by sending emails to targeted customer list. But with so many platforms, software and different strategies to use in email marketing the challenge lies in producing content that appeals to prospective customers. This can be done by using email marketing software. A lot of email marketing platforms offer you templates which allows you to create professional looking content inspite of being a novice. There are several email marketing software platforms you can use: MailChimp, Aweber, GetResponse and Constant Contact but they aren’t the only ones. They have other competitors as well (I’ll discuss them below). I hope these reviews will help you narrow down your choices when it comes to choosing the best email marketing software for opt-in list.
Email marketing software is used by both large and small companies to improve their email marketing methods. Email marketing tools help in increasing the number of customers and more importantly to increase the average order value. The software allows you to create campaigns quickly and effectively. Not only this, it also helps in assessing proper results of your campaign.
The Best Email Marketing Software for Opt-In can be a great way to promote your business and bring it to the top of search engines. It is a tool that helps you get new customers while retaining existing ones, thus improving your bottom line. With so many options available in the market today, it can be difficult to know which one best suits your needs and budget.
What Is Email Automation?
Email automation is a process where you send targeted email campaigns to your customers through a pre-built and self-operating system.
Usually, this is done with the help of email marketing tools. We’ll give you an entire list of these tools in just a minute.
For now, it’s important to understand the process of email automation.
When you’re using the right tools, you can automatically capture new leads. Then have those leads sent to your mailing list.
And finally, you’ll create and send your automated email campaigns to your leads to transform them into paying customers.
Hubspot—Best Marketing Email Software for Comprehensive Marketing Solutions
Hubspot was founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah to allow customers to participate in the marketing process of their respective brands.
Soon after, it garnered thousands of customers owing to its diverse marketing tools covering every aspect of digital marketing. Recognizing the high return rate on email marketing, Hubspot was quick to develop its email marketing tools. Today, it stands tall as one of the most affordable yet effective email marketing tools for small and large-scale businesses.
Hubspot Features
Along with various advanced features that almost every other marketing tool offers, Hubspot is ahead of the game credit to the following three features:
1. Easy to Manage Dashboard
Digging through piles of emails just to look for that one particular file is a huge waste of time. To simplify managing your dashboard and emails, Hubspot introduced a smart filter that allows you to categorize emails based on their status, campaign, and folder. You can even search for a particular email by just looking up its title in the search bar.
2. Export Email Information
Your work cannot be entirely restricted to Hubspot, and they understand it. That’s why they came up with an email information export feature that allows you to collect all your campaign data and export them to a different device or tool.
3. Edit Columns to Check Email Status
Surely, you’d like a detailed insight page as it’ll help you understand how your emails are performing. But sometimes, all you need to know is whether or not they have been delivered and opened.
Hubspot simplifies checking email status; you will find dedicated columns right beside the email title. You can even edit these columns to choose what data you want to see first.
Pricing
Let’s take a look at the Hubspot pricing plans:
- Starter Plan at $45 for 1000 contacts
- Professional Plan at $800 for 2000 contacts
- Enterprise Plan at $3200 for 10,000 contacts
The most impressive part of the pricing scheme is that they’re flexible and you can add additional contact in each pack with minimal extra charges.
Pros:
- Easy navigation
- Adequate automation
- User-friendly dashboard
- Simplified email data management
Cons:
- No free plan is available
| Software | Our score | Pricing |
| Hubspot | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Starts at $45 |
| Summary | |
| Starting Price | $45 |
| Free Trial/Demo | Free trial |
| Deployment | Web-based, Saas, Mobile Applications |
| Integrations | Gamil, LinkedIn, Google Ads, Slack, etc |
| Features | Easy to manage dashboardSimplified email information exportInstant email status check |
Drip—Best Email Marketing Automation Software
Founded in 2013 by Pushkar Mukewar and Neil Kothari, Drip is a fresh breath of air amongst a sea of similar email marketing tools.
Drip beats all its other competitors with an exceptional level of automation. The features that come under Drip’s regular plans are far more advanced than what you might find in enterprise-level plans of other email marketing tools.
Drip Features
Here are the three best features of Drip:
1. Advanced Segmentation
Drip dives deep into your customer’s data and brings out unique information that you can use to curate the perfect email for them. You get everything you need to know about a lead with Drip, from their likes and dislikes to understanding the requirements through their previous actions.
2. Email Funnels
You must have heard about sales funnels but do you know how an email funnel works? An email funnel lays down your customer’s entire journey, starting from their first interaction with your emails to their last response. This helps you see the potential hurdles of the campaigns and areas that need improvement.
3. Cross-Platform Marketing
Don’t just limit your email marketing campaigns to desktops. With Drip, your emails are now optimized for tablets and mobile applications for every operating system. The motto is simple — create from one and share with everyone.
Pricing
After the 14-day free trial ends, you can start with the basic Drip plan for 500 contacts at $19 a month.
If you need a bigger plan, check out Drip’s price calculator and customize the perfect plan for your business.
Pros:
- Impressive multi-channel compatibility
- Unbeatable automation service
- New-age customer segmentation and tracking
- Seamless cross-platform marketing and data management
Cons:
- Core email marketing features could use some improvement
| Software | Our score | Pricing |
| Drip | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Starts at $19 |
| Summary | |
| Starting Price | $19 |
| Free Trial/Demo | Free trial |
| Deployment | Web-based, Saas, Mobile application |
| Integrations | Shopify, Magneto, AccessAlly, etc |
| Features | Customer segmentationCross-platform marketingEmail Funnels |
Sendinblue—Best Bulk Email Marketing Software
If you are looking for a tool that focuses on email marketing and offers a complete package, try Sendinblue.
The tool will provide you with both basic features like adequate email templates and reporting tools and advanced features like A/B testing. Not to mention that you get all this at an affordable price.
Sendinblue Features
Here are the 3 best features of Sendinblue:
1. Simple & Clean Dashboard
The biggest problem with most email marketing tools is the complexity of their dashboard, which makes it difficult for beginners to grasp their features. However, Sendinblue has a pretty neat and simple dashboard. You can get an idea of all the features at a simple glance and easily navigate through the menu to start your journey.
2. 100% Deliverable Transactional Emails
The biggest concern of most marketers is the deliverability of transactional emails. But with Sendinblue’s team constantly optimizing your content and helping you design the perfect transactional email, 100% deliverability is guaranteed every single time.
3. Smart Delivery Solutions
The hardest part of email marketing campaigns is not creating the email itself but understanding and nailing the factors that influence its success. Sendinblue will help you find the perfect version of your email with a simple A/B test.
Moreover, they also offer an intelligent machine learning-powered delivery time optimizer so that your email reaches your customer’s inbox only when they are most likely to see it.
Pricing
Sendinblue offers 4-tier pricing:
Free Plan
- Unlimited contacts
- 300 emails a day
Lite Plan
- Starts at $25/month
- Unlimited contacts
- 40,000 emails a month
Essential Plan
- Starts at $39/month
- Unlimited contacts
- 60,000 emails a month
Premium Plan
- Starts at $66/month
- Unlimited contacts
- 120000 emails a month
Take a look at their detailed plans here:
If your needs aren’t met by any of these plans, you can also reach out to the Sendinblue team for a customized plan.
Pros:
- Straightforward for beginners
- Affordable pricing
- Guaranteed content & optimized delivery
- 100% deliverability on transactional emails
Cons
- Daily limit on the free plan
| Software | Our score | Pricing |
| Sendinblue | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Starts at $25 |
| Summary | |
| Starting Price | $25 |
| Free Trial/Demo | Free plan |
| Deployment | Web-based, Saas, Mobile application |
| Integrations | WordPress, Stripo, PrestShopetc |
| Features | Smart Delivery Solutions100% deliverability guaranteedSimple & clean dashboard |
Omnisend
It’s a powerful email marketing and SMS automation platform. With advanced automation workflows, customer segmentation features, full integration with eCommerce platforms, Omnisend is a complete marketing automation solution for eCommerce businesses.
Features:
- Channels
- SMS
- Push Notifications
- Automation workflows
- Abandoned Cart
- Order Confirmation
- Shipping Confirmation
- Cancellation Confirmation
- Cross-Sell
- Order Follow-up
- Welcome
- Customer Reactivation
- Birthday
- Custom Workflows
- SMS Automation
- Customer Feedback
- Signup Forms
- Popups
- Landing pages
- Wheel of Fortune
- Targeting and Personalization
- Website Tracking data history
- Website Tracking – Live View
- Segmentation
Pabbly Email Marketing
Pabbly Email Marketing is one of the most affordable and efficient email marketing software that offers unlimited features in all its pricing plans.
Features:
- Comes with unlimited features like inbuilt templates, integrations, custom fields, subscription forms, etc.
- Offers a very high email deliverability rate of 99%.
- Doesn’t restrict you on the number of emails. You can send unlimited emails even with the basic plan.
- One of the very few email marketing software that comes with an In-built delivery engine.
- Using its SMTP routing feature you can divide your campaign into smaller groups and send them an email via multiple SMTPs which results in improved email deliverability, avoiding spamming of your emails, reduced email bounce.
- Provides you with the ability to connect 50+ external SMTP for sending emails.
- Unlike the other email services that provide marketing automation in higher plans, it offers automation in the basic plan.
- Efficient autoresponders help in sending automatic emails whenever a new subscriber joins your list.
- Comes with list segmentation feature to send targeted emails to your audience.
- Offers advanced and in-depth campaign reports.
- This is quite a pocket-friendly application that comes with a free plan and the paid plans start at as low as $29/month.
BenchMark – Easy to Navigate
Available in 15 different countries with a huge support team that gets back to you quickly.
| Best For | Easy to navigate the softwareOnline Support, loads of videos to watch |
| Average Price | Free Plan: Includes 250 email p/m1000 Contacts: $23 p/m |
| Comments | Wide variety of templates available Fast drag-and-drop editor Built-in-image editor Free spam testingDeliverability rates need improving |
Editor’s Note: Their easy-to-use editor allows your agency to design niche-specific opt-in forms that can help capture more leads.
Their marketing automation allows you to create behavioral-based campaigns that are great for follow-up campaigns and lead nurturing.
How Much Will You Spend on an Email Marketing Service?
Most email marketing service providers charge a monthly subscription fee based on the number of contacts you want to engage with and the number of emails you plan to send. Plans then vary further based on specific features. Some providers offer free versions of their software with limited features, subscribers, and sends, which can be a great risk-free way for businesses to try out email marketing for the first time.
On average, monthly plans range in price from $10 per month for 500 contacts to $4,000 per month for 1 million contacts. For businesses that only occasionally need an email marketing service, some providers offer per-email or pay-as-you-go pricing. This is a flexible option ‒ you only pay for what you use rather than paying the same amount each month for a subscription that may largely go to waste.
Email marketing services that do not offer a free version often allow you to sign up for a free trial so you can test out the software and see how it works for you. The services we examined offer trials ranging from 14 to 60 days.
Conclusion
Social media is great. There are lots of tools out there to help you organize your social media activities. But sometimes it’s hard to keep track of everything that you’re doing on your blog. That’s why you need good email marketing software.
Email marketing is a key part of any digital marketing strategy; it lets you stay in touch with your leads, prospects, and existing customers. If you aren’t using email marketing software, you are likely sending emails back and forth manually. This can be time-consuming, ineffective and give you a lack of control over how you communicate with your audience.