Email may be the oldest marketing tool in existence, but it also takes the crown for being one of the most effective ways a marketer can get the word out about their product. The biggest problem it presents is repetition.
Marketers are bound to find themselves spending several hours a day performing the same tasks for different subscribers. What you need is a cheap and easy-to-use marketing tool that offers a range of features that you can use to engage prospective customers.
What’s the best email automation tool?
An automated email campaign involves sending a series of emails automatically as prescribed by factors you define.
It’s hard to define what the best email marketing tool is overall because different teams have individual goals, budgets, and requirements. Depending on every one of these factors, the best automation tool might be the one that saves you the most time or reaches the most subscribers.
Every company should first define their goals and expectations before adopting an email automation tool in search of results.
The top 20 email marketing automation tools
Omnisend
Omnisend is an e-commerce-centered marketing platform whose main triumph is the number of features it brings to the table, especially as compared to other platforms available on the market.
It has a visual drag-and-drop campaign builder that’s thankfully 100% compatible with HTML. If you have HTML knowledge, you get more fine-grained control of your templates and forms. You can see the code (both HTML and CSS) and change it as you see fit. If you have no coding knowledge, the drag-and-drop builder should be more than sufficient for your needs.
Ominsend works wonders for small platforms without the budget to afford long, complex and ultra-optimized workflows. It comes with pre-built resources and deep integration with other channels other than email. You can connect with customers over forms of media, too. Omnisend for WooCommerce is a well-loved integration, as are its Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and SMS features.
Aside from bringing all these platforms together, it automatically segments users depending on factors such as their location, shopping behavior and how they interact with your platform.
RafflePress
RafflePress is a WordPress plugin with drag-and-drop functionality that can be used to set up contests and giveaways. It allows you to set up competitions on your blog and social media platforms, but users have to sign up with their email addresses before participating. It provides an effective way of collecting email addresses that you can then import into MailChimp or another automation tool.
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is an email marketing tool that helps founders and entrepreneurs send beautiful, relevant newsletters to help brands grow engagement levels. It comes with features such as a drag-and-drop builder, over a dozen pre-built templates for non-tech savvy marketers and engagement-based segmentation.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is an email automation tool for SMEs. It allows businesses to create trigger campaigns – where emails are sent out when users take certain actions – and collect new emails automatically. More advanced features will let marketers segment their target audience and send follow-up messages to move them further down the marketing funnel. It’s lean on features but does its job quite efficiently.
MailChimp
MailChimp rose to the limelight as an email marketing tool for automated sending of mail to subscribers but has quickly grown into a full-blown marketing automation tool. It comes with more features than can be listed here but is one of the most detailed email marketing tools you’ll come across.
Contactually
Contactually is a unique product because it doubles up as a CRM other than serving the basic functions you’d expect of an email automation tool. Once you’ve collected emails, it vets them by collecting as much information about them from the internet to help guide your campaigns.
Notificare
Notificare is a marketing tool that handles automated sending of all kinds of notifications to users. Push notifications over web and mobile, emails and SMSs are all covered. In addition to that, it also grants access to usage data – who read your email at what time and where.
Drip
Drip is an extensible email marketing automation tool aimed primarily at e-commerce platforms. It allows marketers to create personalized content based on customer behavior and other adjustable metrics.
Customer.io
Customer.io is an email automation tool whose focus is on subscription businesses looking to increase customer engagement. It works best for businesses that need constant access to data, sending personalized messages and integrations with other platforms.
HubSpot
HubSpot is an instantly-recognizable brand. It has been consistently ranked as one of the best marketing automation tools in the world and keeps that title for a wide range of tasks. Its email automation feature is just as advanced as you’d expect from such a renowned service, relying on automated workflows to streamline your marketing campaigns.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampagin is a relatively new player in the market, but one that has quickly risen through the ranks as one of the most reliable email automation services in the world. It is much loved for its affordability, deep integrations, customer support and accessibility for smaller companies.
Intercom
Intercom isn’t the first thing most people think of when email automation is mentioned, but it is pretty formidable at the task. It lets you send automated email conversations right through the app, driving engagement almost immediately.
E-goi
E-goi helps you go past simple email marketing automation. It was designed to help web developers, marketing departments, agencies and bloggers to open up their marketing campaigns to new mediums – SMS, voice messages and even fax. A unique feature that most marketers will appreciate is the ability to track opens and automatically resend the unopened email after a while.
SendinBlue
SendinBlue was built from the ground-up to be a transactional email platform rather than a full-on marketing automation tool like MailChimp or Intercom. It will appeal to developers that need to plug into an API and marketers that need a high-deliverability platform to integrate with their software.
Benchmark
Benchmark is a feature-light platform designed for marketers who aren’t too familiar with the modern tech landscape. It was designed to be easy to use instead of being packed full of features. The platform has a great interface, drag-and-drop builder and fast customer support. It’s an ideal choice for someone that’s just starting.
GetResponse
GetResponse has been one of the most popular email automation tools for quite a while, despite their rebuilding of the platform to be an all-in-one solution. It’s not very feature-rich, but will seamlessly allow you to collect emails, create mailing lists, newsletters and automate sending emails to subscribers.
Newsletter2Go
Newsletter2Go is primarily a newsletter automation platform with features like a drag-and-drop builder, which is pretty standard for most email automation services today. Features that are a bit more unique include auto-translation, deep integrations, and affordable pricing. The more emails you need to send, the cheaper it becomes.
Pinpointe
Pinpointe’s strength comes in the form of a marketing software that comes with all the necessary tools to create automated customer flows, professional emails, and detailed contact lists. More than anything, it makes two-way communication with customers incredibly simple. Other features include A/B testing, spam filters and more.
Cakemail
Cakemail works best for small companies looking to improve their reach. It has the most detailed customization features of any platform we’ve covered so far, with themes, fonts, and colors that can all be changed with a few clicks.
Startups that want to establish their identity will find it a very useful feature. Otherwise, you’ll be able to organize your contacts in various groups and schedule emails with almost no effort.
Aweber
Aweber is one of the oldest email automation tools on the market, and this is reflected by their approaches to email marketing. For instance, it doesn’t integrate with other tools but takes the crown for the sheer number of templates for their drag-and-drop builder.
For companies looking to scale past a certain point, the pricing model might be a bit too expensive, especially if you were to cross-reference them with the kinds of features (and notable lack of integrations) it offers.
Conclusion
Email remains one of the most important marketing tools a modern marketer can have in their toolkit. From boosting engagement to encouraging repeat visitors, the kinds of benefits it offers are almost unparalleled. To reap the full benefits that email marketing has to offer, you have to adopt one or two marketing tools into your workflow.
These allow you to automatically collect emails, build templates and send curated messages to your subscribers. Picking the right platform depending on your marketing budget, the number of emails you have to send, and the kinds of features you need will make all the difference.