If you are running a Shopify store with an aim to drive sales and boost the performance of your store, you will definitely need an email marketing software to stay connected with your customers. Choosing the right email marketing software is important. This is because it plays a pivotal role in helping marketers execute targeted customer campaigns effectively. There are several email marketing tools available in the market. And, here I will help you find the best one for your Shopify business.
Email marketing is one of the most powerful ways to connect with your customers and grow your business. But with so many tools on the market, it can be difficult to choose the best email marketing software for your business. We’ve created this guide to help you make the right decision for your company.
The Shopify platform already comes with a number of powerful built-in marketing tools. But are they enough for your business? Maybe not. The truth of the matter is that even the best email marketing software for Shopify remains at the heart of your own personal marketing efforts.
The best eCommerce platforms should provide features that support multiple sales channels, payment gateways, and currency. It should also have an easy-to-use interface for both frontend and backend customers. It is important to choose a software that will help you drive more customers to your website.
Does MailChimp Offer Email Marketing for Shopify?
One email marketing platform you might be surprised not to find on this list is MailChimp. That’s because MailChimp recently stopped making their integration with Shopify available to users.
Ostensibly, this decision was based on their being unable to come to an agreement with Shopify regarding terms of use, although some have pointed out that the move also coincided with MailChimp’s acquisition of a Shopify competitor.
Regardless of the reason, the removal of the integration is a shame, considering the popularity of both tools.
However, if you’re dead-set on using MailChimp with your Shopify store, it’s not all bad news – there are a number of third-party integration tools like ShopSync and Zapier that can connect the two platforms and carry out most (if not all) of the tasks that a direct integration would achieve. You can read more about what the different MailChimp-Shopify integration tools can do here.
Shopify Email
Difficulty 🛠: Beginner
Cost (out of 3 💰): Free
Unique feature 💡: Native to Shopify, ecommerce focused
Shopify App Store rating ⭐️: 4/5 (869 reviews)
Shopify Email is an easy-to-use email solution to help you connect with subscribers and build long lasting customer relationships. Its clean and minimalist app removes the hassle found in apps like MailChimp or GetResponse, and it’s perfect for merchants who want powerful email functionality with little effort.
Shopify Email lets you:
- Send branded emails to subscribers in a few clicks, directly from your Shopify admin
- Save time with pre-built templates that automatically incorporate your logo, product images, descriptions, prices, and URLs from your store
- Customize your emails by editing text, buttons, images, and more to make it your own
- Import customer lists into Shopify
- Segment emails to personalize each message and get it to the right person
- Track results including click-through and open rates, products added to carts, and purchases in real-time
With Shopify Email, you get 2,500 emails free each month and pay $1 for every 1,000 emails you send after that. There are no monthly commitments, and you’ll have access to all the features.
Sendinblue
Difficulty 🛠: Easy
Cost (out of 3 💰): Free
Unique feature 💡: Advanced features, low cost
Shopify App Store rating ⭐️: 4/5 (50 reviews)
Sendinblue is an email marketing service aimed at small to medium-sized businesses. With powerful CRM and automation features that streamline redundant tasks, it’s become a complete digital marketing hub for Shopify stores.
Key features include a library of templates you can use to create beautiful email newsletters that engage subscribers. It also lets you build subscription forms quickly and offers pre-built automation flows for welcome sequences, abandoned cart emails, and more.
Sendinblue also offers powerful features for Shopify merchants. For example, you can connect your customer list and purchase data to your Sendinblue account. With that information, you can segment and target groups of customers based on their purchase history and other details.
You’ll also be able to reach customers through multiple channels like SMS through the Shopify plugin, which businesses often use for order and shipment confirmation.
ActiveCampaign
Difficulty 🛠: Easy
Cost (out of 3 💰): 💰
Unique feature 💡: Sophisticated workflows and CRM capabilities
Shopify App Store rating ⭐️: 4.4/5 (295 reviews)
ActiveCampaign is a popular email marketing service trusted by over 145,000 businesses around the world. Whether you’re an established brand or just starting out, ActiveCampaign’s marketing automation is like having another employee on your team.
Once you integrate ActiveCampaign with Shopify, you can access a library of 500+ pre-built automations to launch campaigns, like abandoned cart emails or a welcome series, or design a landing page in minutes. ActiveCampaign also has over 850 pre-built integrations so you can connect all your business tools.
ActiveCampaign pulls directly from your Shopify data to send personalized emails that drive sales. Use one of ActiveCampaigns 125 email templates and deliver 1:1 messages to customers based on past interactions with your brand. This email marketing platform also offers merchants SMS marketing capabilities, as well as integrations with Google Analytics and Facebook Audiences.
You can start with ActiveCampaign today with a free 14-day trial. If you like it, you can upgrade to the Lite Plan, which starts at $9 per month.
Omnisend
With its strong focus on ecommerce, multi-channel provider Omnisend fairly and squarely lands the number one spot on our list. This slick tool offers a range of automated workflows targeted at different stages of the customer journey (browse abandonment, cart abandonment, order confirmations, etc.), plus some very cool email features such as gift boxes, scratch cards and other incentives.
Beyond email, Omnisend also allows you to send SMS, push notifications, and Facebook and WhatsApp messages.
Pricing:
- 500 emails/month to up to 250 contacts: Free
- Up to 500 contactable subscribers and 6,000 emails/month: $16 per month
- Up to 1,000 contactable subscribers and 12,000 emails/month: $20 per month
- Up to 5,000 contactable subscribers and 60,000 emails/month: $65 per month
You can store unlimited contacts on all plans. See our detailed pricing guide for more information.
What we liked: The ease of integration with Shopify. You can create a sign-up form that automatically links up with your store in Shopify (as long as you’re not using a third-party template, in which case you just need to insert some code into your site). The email editor also lets you automatically add products from your store straight into your email. And conversion-focused features such as scratch cards, gift boxes and ‘wheel of fortune’ signup forms are quite unique to Omnisend – we haven’t really seen them in any other provider. The fact that the free plan comes with unlimited subscribers is a big plus (though be aware that you can only contact up to 250/month).
Where they could improve: While the email editor lets you integrate some features with your store (e.g. Product Picker, Featured Product and Product Listings, letting you add these directly into your email), other features like the Product Recommender and Gift Box didn’t seem to have that same direct integration. And while the 20 or so email templates provided look nice and modern, it would be nice to see a wider range of templates. The free plan used to have a much higher sending allowance.
Who we would recommend Omnisend to: If you need a multi-channel platform that lets you manage your ecommerce business marketing communications out of one place, and would like to be able to add some unique extra features to your emails, which is why Omnisend is listed as the best email marketing app for Shopify.
GetResponse
A powerhouse provider of marketing automation, GetResponse goes that little bit further than your average email marketing service. It does this by offering features like landing pages, webinars and a CRM.
It also happens to be one of the best tools for Shopify email marketing, with its Deep Data integration allowing for synced customer, order and product data, advanced segmentation and tagging, and automated campaigns.
Pricing:
- Up to 1,000 subscribers and unlimited emails: $19/month
- Up to 5,000 subscribers and unlimited emails: $54/month
- Up to 10,000 subscribers and unlimited emails: $79/month
What we liked: GetResponse comes with a wide range of handy, ready-to-go templates for building out automations for your store, including abandoned cart campaigns, post-purchase emails and sales promotions. You can also automatically add recommended products to your emails, which are personalized based on customers’ historical purchases – a super useful feature.
What could be improved: Opt-in emails get sent to customers by default, which is a little annoying, although this can be disabled in your campaign settings. Contacts and products get imported every 24 hours, which could mean a delay in triggering automations. Support could be better, too – we couldn’t find a whole lot of information on the Shopify integration in GetResponse’s Help Center.
Who we would recommend GetResponse to: GetResponse is best suited to larger stores – they would benefit the most from advanced marketing automation, segmentation features and CRM. We’d also recommend it if you need extra features such as landing pages and webinars.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is, specifically, marketing software for ecommerce, which makes it a great match for Shopify shop owners. On their website, Klaviyo state that ‘Shopify stores make $85 for every dollar they spend on Klaviyo’. Who knows how this compares to the other tools on this list, but that is a pretty good ROI.
No doubt, this increase in profits is due to their advanced segmentation and marketing automation workflows, which, it turns out, are very easy to set up.
Pricing:
- Up to 250 subscribers and 500 emails/month: Free
- Up to 1,000 subscribers and unlimited emails: $30/month
- Up to 5,000 subscribers and unlimited emails: $100/month
- Up to 10,000 subscribers and unlimited emails: $175/month
What we liked: The integration with Shopify is quick and easy to set up. They have some very attractive, modern-looking email templates that work with dynamic blocks, so you can determine which customers see what based on their data. A/B testing is also possible.
Their selection of pre-built workflows is extensive, covering everything from welcome and abandoned cart emails to post-purchase follow-up and win-back emails. You can also set them up from scratch.
The ‘Profiles’ section is their CRM, where you can see what your customers have done, how much they’ve spent and when they’ll purchase next gives you a holistic view of your customers and makes personalized marketing simple.
What could be improved: At $100 for 5,000 contacts, it’s one of the more expensive providers on this list, and in light of the cost, the customer support could be better.
Their app has caused frustration among some customers due to issues with sending their campaigns and having their accounts temporarily disabled.
Who we would recommend Klaviyo to: Because of its focus on email marketing for ecommerce, Klaviyo is a great option when it comes to Shopify email marketing apps. The fact that they offer a built-in CRM makes it a great choice for both small and medium-sized businesses with larger client bases and teams.
Privy
With a 4.6 overall rating by 24.382 reviewers on Shopify, Privy offers an easy usage of email marketing specifically built for ecommerce.
Features:
- Customizable, mobile-friendly display
- Coupon code integration
- Automated A/B test
- Real-time reporting
- Autoresponders and reminder emails and texts
- Newsletters, abandoned cart, follow-up emails
- Targeting based on triggers (time on page, scroll percentage, frequency of visits)
Pricing:
- Free Trial
- Growth Plan: $20/m up to 10.000 average page views
- Privy Email: $10/m up to 1000 mailable contacts and $5 per addition
Should I use Shopify Email Marketing or Another Service?
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Shopify email marketing is offered by the website builder. So now that you’ve seen all that the top email marketing services can do for you and your Shopify store, which option is right for you?
Why Shopify email marketing?
- It’s convenient to have everything under one roof
- No additional costs (until you surpass 2,500 emails/month)
Why use another email marketing service?
- You’ll have much more flexibility when it comes to design & customization
- Advanced automations & workflows
- Advanced reporting
- Unique conversion-focused features
- Personalization
- Tagging & segmentation
It’s clear that those who are serious about email marketing will be looking to integrate with a third-party service, and considering the range of options and flexibility these will give you, I’d say that was a wise decision.
Conclusion
If you have an online store, then you need to use email marketing software to grow your business. Email marketing can help you increase sales and reach more customers. Email is still considered the king of all digital marketing channels, when it comes to conversion rates. Using email marketing software can help you get a better return on your investment and generate more sales.
The best email marketing software for Shopify stores helps you connect with your audience. With all of your customer relationships in a single, easy-to-use platform, the best email marketing software for Shopify makes it easier to send targeted, relevant and timely messages to your customers.