From basic newsletter blasting and automations to more advanced AI-powered marketing and personalization, email marketing is the central channel. Modern email management tools have made these processes more efficient than ever, helping businesses organize, automate, and optimize their communications.
By 2022 over 347.3 billion daily emails will be sent per day throughout the world [Statista, 2020]. Email also continues to have a massive return on investment, where $1 spent on email marketing can generate an average return of $42 [DMA, 2019].
It’s no surprise that with email marketing on the rise, dozens of Email Service Providers (ESP) have sprung up to serve the market needs, typically with a unique differentiator.
The one thing that I think is most important for you, is that it was built with Ecommerce in mind, because that makes your automations and campaigns that much more powerful, and easy to implement. For a full guide on what email marketing automation you need, check out this article by ShopPad.
And, to add to the convolution of the industry, it’s worth mentioning there are other types of tools, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRMs) and Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) that may encompass email marketing in their tools.
As a store owner, your time and resources are limited. And choosing the right email marketing provider is a big decision. You should expect to dedicate at least 5 hours to researching, vetting, demo’ing, and selecting the right provider for you. And I’ve seen this go up to 40+ hours of time for larger Ecommerce merchants.
To help cut down that time, and get you closer to the end goal – making money with email marketing – we’re sharing our list of best email marketing service providers specifically for Ecommerce businesses.
We breakdown better fit solutions based on the size of your store from a revenue standpoint, as your revenue will indicate about how many contacts you have, and how many hours of resource time you can dedicate to the tool.
Your needs change as you grow… Whether you’re a brand new store – sub $1 mil revenue, in growth mode, mid-market ($5-$100 mil), or enterprise level.
A few key differences I’ve noticed are:
At all stages of your store, the bottom line with email is revenue, whether that is in the form of increasing:
With so many different tools (and acronyms), choosing one can be a daunting and difficult task.
Although each platform offers different functionalities, the main goal is to choose one that integrates seamlessly with your Ecommerce platform to pull metrics such as purchase data, customer tags, as well as shopping behavior. These metrics provide valuable insight to your business at large and will ultimately determine the performance and growth of your email marketing campaigns.
Let’s briefly explore the difference between these three technologies.
A CRM is used to track new leads, sales, manage contacts, and support and sales teams. By effectively managing all communication and interactions with customers and potential customers throughout their life cycle, businesses are able to streamline their processes, as well as improve profitability.
The real value in a CRM is in the flexibility of the data you can bring in for each contact. CRMs make it easier to manipulate customer data, create automations and segments, and view customer journey’s.
In all honesty, most ESPs are CRMs at some level, since you can see the email address and some basic customer information. You could even say that Shopify has a CRM in their “customers” tab in the backend. But you’ll notice limitations with the simpler ESPs at some point and will generally want to sacrifice some ease of use for customization, as you grow.
A CDP creates unified customer profiles with data gathered across online and offline channels. By collecting primary data, they can streamline customer experiences and messaging across platforms, as well as understand customer behavior.
The main difference here is that this may be used across product and marketing, and typically requires a network of integrations and possibly manual APIs.
Put more simply, you could say a CDP is a more advanced CRM, but is typically removed from the act of marketing – taking action with the information.
CDPs are more commonly used by enterprise retail and Ecommerce businesses because their capabilities of gathering consumer data points across multiple channels / sources helps unify what is often a fragmented view of the customer profile. However, a CDP does not convert this data automatically into marketing campaigns.
An ESP creates marketing campaigns in the forms of emails. These providers offer email design tools for newsletters and automations, as well as segmentation, personalization, triggers, email optimization tools and more.
Although CRMs and CDPs are nice-to-haves for exploring customer touchpoints, they are not needed for every Ecommerce business. But you absolutely must have an ESP that sends emails, as well as starts the most basic version of your CRM by collecting and storing customer data.
We divided this article into 4 sections based on stage of your store:
So you’ve just started out, maybe you are on Shopify, and you’re looking for something that does the trick, but will keep your app costs relatively low.
As a small business, you’re going to need a tool that provides contact management, a strong email editor and automated email responders to keep in touch with your growing database.
Although there are dozens of ESPs for startups and small businesses, we wanted to focus on four that also excelled at providing:
I’m sure you have too many things to do and not enough time. Between wearing the email marketing hat, you’re also juggling logistics, customer service, and supply chain management.
Opting for a tool that can be easily set up within a few hours with as little distraction as possible will be key here.
Let’s take a look at four starting tools that will save you time and come in at the low end of the market ( keeping your costs low):
And I do also believe many of the tools in the “scale” section, a little bit lower, could be a great fit for you too. They are simply in a different section because they offer a bit more “upper mobility” than these three.
In-App Email Marketing Platform
As a small business, you might not have time or the patience to log in into various apps and keep multiple passwords. Seguno is made with the simple small business in mind, but also has a good deal of automation components, and dynamic discount codes. If you need basic functionality and don’t have the time to invest heavily in email, this may be a good fit.
Seguno is free for businesses who have 250 or less subscribers, while its month-to-month plan begins at $10USD per month for up to 1000 subscribers. Offers billing through Shopify.
All-in-One Marketing Platform
As a leader in the email marketing provider market, Mailchimp was once the most popular app for email marketing.
In March 2019, Mailchimp announced that it had removed its Mailchimp for Shopify integration from Shopify’s marketplace. With hundreds of Shopify users already using the app, many began migrating their lists to alternative providers. Others relied on third-party apps like Zapier, Automate.io and ShopSync to link both apps together.
Mailchimp continues to be a contender for the Ecommerce community including Shopify for a variety of reasons.
Opting for a tool that provides an all-in-one marketing platform can lend small businesses the opportunity to grow regardless of their resources or budget.
Mailchimp is free for up to 2,000 contacts and includes segmentation, behavioral retargeting, as well as 7 different marketing channels like Facebook and Instagram advertising, postcards, social posting and more.
For a detailed explanation, check out this extremely detailed article from SendX called “MailChimp Pricing“.
Automated Platform Based on Real-Time Data
For more advanced segmentation and personalization, Sendlane can allow you to keep tabs on your entire customer’s journey.
Sendlane provides a 14 day free trial, while their most basic plan Growth offers all features for up to 5,000 contacts at $79USD/month.
Emails “Done for you”
This tool literally writes your emails for you, using your product feed, images, brand voice, and a few questions you answer for them. Great for a small store or small team that perhaps isn’t so focused or experienced in email marketing.
Starts at $38/month (billed annually, or $45/month billed monthly), for 1,000 contacts, and going up from there. Right now, when you sign up, you can get an extended 60 day free trial (subject to change in the future, check their site for any changes/updates).
As your business scales and your email marketing list grows, your data will understandably become more complex, you’re going to want to start segmenting, and you may need some advanced automation.
Opting for a platform that provides powerful segmentation will be key here, as you’ll begin to build unique newsletters and automations based on your audience and behavioral data.
Here are some key features to look out for when choosing the best ESP to scale your business:
Although there are a variety of tools that can help you scale your email marketing game, here are our top suggestions:
Data-Driven Email Platform
A leader in ESP for Ecommerce due to its advanced customer data capabilities and deep integrations, Klaviyo is a top tool for both small and large stores. Klaviyo considers itself primarily a data science company with email as its main marketing channel.
Klaviyo offers free plans to businesses with a list of up to 250 contacts and 500 email sends. At 3000 subscribers, you can expect to pay $80 per month with your subscription changing every 1000 subscribers.
Dedicated Ecommerce CRM (eCRM) Platform
As a dedicated Ecommerce CRM or eCRM platform, as they’ve dubbed it, Drip provides the tools to collect advanced customer data and build personalized email workflows.
By building automations with unique data, businesses are able to build more personalized shopping experiences not only through email, but through Facebook, Instagram and other channels.
Drip offers its full suite as a free trial for 14 days. After this trial period, businesses pay $49 per month for up to 2,500 subscribers. Once reaching 3,000 subscribers, the monthly plan increases to $122 per month.
Omni-Channel Automation Platform
A leader in omni-channel automation, Omnisend offers a user-friendly interface for small businesses, as well as advanced tools to customize and personalize your automations.
Its “Campaign Booster” feature allows businesses to engage with those who did not open your email campaigns by redelivering your email with a new subject line. This gives a second chance to reach subscribers who are most likely to engage and helps boost sales.
Omnisend provides a lifetime free plan for businesses looking to send 15,000 email per month without SMS marketing, automations, audience segmentation or omni-channel marketing.
Its Standard plan that includes SMS marketing, automations and audience segmentation starts at $16 per month for up to 500 subscribers. While its enterprise plan is the only package that offers Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and a dedicated account manager.
Platform for Email and Social Proof
In 2019, Campaign Monitor acquired Conversio to deliver an all-in-one advanced marketing solution known as CM Commerce. CM Commerce provides a range of tools and functionalities for businesses looking to merge their apps under one roof.
CM Commerce’s Starter plan begins at $9 per month to send 5,000 emails to 500 people, but does not offer browse abandonment email, social proof or integration with Facebook ads at that price point. For lists of 501-1000 subscribers, businesses can sign up for their Growth plan at $49 per month for unlimited emails, as well as all core features such as social proof and deep integrations.
AI-Powered Omni-Channel Platform
AiTrillion is unique because it really does combine nearly all aspects of Ecommerce tools into one. We’re talking loyalty, automation, pop-ups, chatbots, product recommendation tools, and AI tools.
With 8 major tool categories under one roof, this tool can be considered quite a beast.
AiTrillion offers a starting plan of $29 per month for up to 500 contacts and unlimited email sending, as well as loyalty rewards, push notifications, product reviews and live chat. The platform also offers fair pricing for scalability by charging $140 per month for up to 10,000 contacts.
If you’re looking for an email provider that meets mid-market to enterprise needs, you’ll probably be migrating from an existing ESP that you’ve outgrown.
With complex management, logistics and customer data, you’ll need a platform that integrates seamlessly with your ecommerce provider and perhaps your CRM and other automated systems.
You’ll also need a tool that uses advanced segmentation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics to better digest data across multiple channels and develop new, cohesive strategies.
Some other key features to look out for:
There are many enterprise competitors that offer the data and support for mid-market and enterprise businesses, but our top 4 are:
Enterprise Marketing Automation Suite
Designed for mid-market and enterprise ecommerce businesses, GetResponse MAX delivers advanced marketing automation, omnichannel engagement, and data-driven personalization—all in one scalable platform. Trusted by global retailers and DTC brands alike, GetResponse integrates seamlessly with major ecommerce systems and CRMs to unify data across channels, boost conversions, and optimize every stage of the customer lifecycle.
Features
Pricing
Request a demo for enterprise plans.
End-to-End Personalization Platform
Built for enterprise businesses such as Urban Outfitters and Ikea, Dynamic Yield offers an all-in-one platform for personalizing all web, mobile, app, email and advertising not only for B2C businesses, but also B2B, Gaming, Media, Travel and more.
Request a demo for pricing.
Retail Lifecycle Automation
For enterprises wanting to deliver richer and more personalized customer experiences based on trends and KPIs, Enalito offers retailers and brands the opportunity for cross-channel marketing.
Dynamic customer segments, AI-powered product recommendations
By providing brands with key data, Enalito is able to develop more effective, automated strategies that highlight their strengths and build upon their weaknesses.
Request a demo for pricing.
Retail AI-Powered Automation
Vue.ai was mostly built for retailers to individualize each shopper’s journey in real-time by understanding their unique style profiles.
Request a demo for pricing.
Outside of a dedicated ESP there are a few other tools worth mentioning that solve specific problems. Although several ESPs can do similar functionalities, these tools are worth a mention because they are dedicated to this one aspect of the funnel.
Conversion Rate Optimization / Email Collection
Originally an on-site popup service, Privy has developed new email marketing capabilities as well as SMS marketing features that help businesses increase customer retention. The reason this is important is because they can increase abandon cart email sends by up to 500% (more sends = more $$$) – it’s the crucial integration of having your pop up tool and your email automation tool be one in the same, because without that, like if you send email addresses from a pop-up tool to your ESP, you lose some tracking components, and therefore lose opportunity.
Privy offers a full email marketing suite for up to 1000 contacts and access to its pop-up displays for up to 3,000 page views per month at $10 per month. It also offers SMS marketing for up to 100 contacts at $10 per month.
Website Abandonment Platform
If you would like to focus exclusively on recovering lost Ecommerce sales outside of an ESP, CartStack can help.
Price:
CartStack offers a free trial until you recover $1000 from their app. Once recovered, CartStack’s plans are built on monthly orders. For a Pro plan that allows for up to 100 orders or less per month with browse abandonment email campaigns, exit intents and send my cart campaigns, you’ll pay $49 per month.
Transactional Optimization Platform
If you’re not leveraging Shopify’s existing transactional emails, then you should be.
Spently allows businesses, both small and large, to leverage their notification emails within Shopify with marketing components. Most importantly, you can turn your most important emails, tracking notification emails (among others) into marketing collateral for cross-sells and upsells.
While some ESPs help with creating notification emails, Spently focuses specifically on solving the problem from within Shopify and has robust tracking/analytics for understanding the business impact.
All plans are based on total monthly orders.
For Shopify businesses who generate 50 orders or less per month, Spently’s Starter plan is completely free.
For businesses generating 500 orders or less per month, Spently’s Essential Starter plan is $99/month and allows for follow-up emails, personalized discounts, referrals and integration with Limespot, Kit and Sufio (which is not available in the Starter plan).
Pricing goes up from there.
Choosing an email service provider is one of the most important decisions you can make in your business. And as your business grows, your needs grow, which could mean what you started with is no longer the best option for you.
It’s important to think critically about your business, as you hire new marketing roles, get more creative with your channel marketing strategy, and just generally expand, and think about what kind of data, segmentation, and sequences, will be best for you.
And remember, having the tool is different than using the tool. If you’re not in your email marketing tool weekly, you’re probably missing key findings, opportunities to optimize, and you may also be clogging your database with useless contacts that should be removed.
After you get email off the ground, or migrate platforms, I strongly consider implementing additional channel tools like Messenger, SMS, and push notifications. And be sure to integrate your email marketing with your loyalty program to build brand advocacy.
