Email Marketing Automation 101 and 11 Platforms You Need to Know
Keep reading to learn how email marketing automation can improve your email strategy and save you time.
When you think about developing your email marketing campaigns, are you smiling, care-free, and enjoying your morning cup of coffee? Or are you a little more stressed, tired, and frustrated?
If you relate more to the latter, then it might be time to invest if your email marketing — and that investment should be an automation platform.
With the help of email marketing automation, you’ll have time to enjoy your morning coffee while feeling less stressed about the emails that need sent today. Choosing the right platform will allow you to easily create, schedule, and manage all of your email marketing needs.
Not sure if email automation is for you?
In this article, we’ll take you down a quick 101 course on what email marketing automation is and what features and benefits it can provide you. Then, we’ll leave you with 11 different email automation platforms to checkout.
If you’re looking to skip ahead, here’s a quick list of the platforms we’ll cover further down the article:
- Listrak
- Mailjet
- GetResponse
- Omnisend
- Hubspot
- Marketo
- ActiveCampaign
- SendinBlue
- Outfunnel
- Mailchimp
- ConvertKit
Email Marketing Automation 101
So you’re looking to learn more about email marketing automation? Well you’ve come to the right place!
In this section, we’ll take a look at all the things you need to know when getting started with email automation and what features to expect from an automation platform.
What is email marketing automation?
Email marketing automation is simply the idea of taking the manual work out of your email marketing process.What does this mean for you? More time to focus on improving your email efforts or implementing new marketing tactics.
From scheduling emails to send based on subscriber interactions to creating automated workflows to move customers through their purchasing journey — automation offers a number of benefits.
Marketing automation provides a number of benefits for companies. From time savings and increased revenue to lead generation and customer retention — you’ll quickly see the results. Image courtesy of Emailmonday.
Here are just a few of the benefits you can expect to see when investing in an email marketing automation platform:
- Nurture new leads into purchasing customers
- Improve email relevancy through real-time data
- Increase brand awareness
- Reduce costs related to email creation and sending
- Boost business revenue by targeted subscribers at the right time
- Improve campaign targeting and segmentation
Beyond the typical email automation platform capabilities, many platforms can provide you with advanced capabilities such as machine learning and predictive analytics. These technologies will help you better understand your subscribers and send them the most relevant content based on their personal profiles.
What features come with email marketing automation?
Email automation platforms can provide you with an array of different features. Whether it’s simply scheduling emails or using advanced technology to predict future behaviors — it’s all possible with the right automation platform.
To help get you started, we’ll take a look at a few of the most common and effective features that come with email automation.
Email automation platforms can help you improve your email tactics. In fact, the right platform can help hit every single one of the tactics listed in this chart — meaning you can drastically increase your email efficiency. Image courtesy of FinancesOnline.
You’ll find that most of the platforms you come across will offer these basic features, but it’s important to understand why and how they are so valuable. The more you know about how to utilize each, the better off you’ll be to start using them to improve your email marketing efforts.
Email Templates and Design Tools
Almost all email automation platforms will provide you with some sort of email template or design tool.
In most cases, these tools are very intuitive and provide you with drag and drop capabilities. These tools are meant to eliminate the need for HTML coding and extensive design work on every single email you develop.
This is a huge time and money saving feature. Think about it this way, if you’re sending 100 emails each month you no longer have to have someone who specializes in coding dedicated to your emails. That cuts an entire step out of the process and frees up precious coding time for another project.
Another valuable thing that comes with these email design tools is the ability to build responsive emails every time.
Responsive emails are very important in the current digital era we live in. It probably comes as no surprise that emails that are designed for all device types receive higher click rates than their non-responsive counterparts. Image courtesy of Medium.
When you consider that 66% of all emails in the US are now opened on a smartphone or tablet, non-responsive emails can be a huge problem. Luckily, with the right automation platform you no longer have to worry about how your emails render.
Automated Email Campaigns
When it comes to developing large-scale email marketing campaigns, the more you can automate the better.
This is especially true if you’re running multiple campaigns at one time. Trying to manually manage two or more campaigns can be a challenging task that even the best marketing teams would struggle with — but that’s why we have automation platforms.
Automating your email campaigns will not only result in less time spent for your marketing teams but also higher campaign metrics.
Automation can provide you with higher click rates, revenue dollars, and conversion rates across the board. Add these metrics with the time savings and the investment in an automation platform is a no brainer. Image courtesy of TrustPulse.
Here are a few common types of campaigns that can easily be automated:
- Welcome campaigns
- Customer journey campaigns
- Retention campaigns
- Abandoned cart campaigns
- Product recommendation campaigns
Whatever campaigns you’re currently running, there’s a way to automate them further to save time and money. Because these can be set-up to continue to run and enroll subscribers as they quality all without your intervention — this may be one of the most beneficial tools that come with a marketing automation platform
Subscriber List Segmentation
Segmenting your subscriber list is one of the most effective ways to increase engagement and improve relevance for your customers. By putting your subscribers into smaller segments that group them with other alike customers, you can send more targeted messages.
The more targeted your emails are, the more likely customers are to engage with the content. In fact, segmenting your subscriber list can increase open and clicks, while decreasing bounces and unsubscribes — a win-win.
Taking the time to segment your subscriber list will allow you to see higher numbers on the metrics that count. No matter what the campaign or email is, segmentation will always improve your results. Image courtesy of Smart Insights.
Not sure where to get started with segmentation? It doesn’t have to be difficult, these are a few easy ways to start:
- Demographics
- Previous engagement
- Geography
- Past purchases
- Time since last purchase
- Browsing behaviors
While these are only a few places to get started, there are plenty of different ways you can segment your subscriber lists to improve personalization and see higher campaign metrics.
11 Email Marketing Automation Platforms
When it comes to selecting an email marketing automation platform, there are several things you need to consider. From knowing what technology you need to meet your goals to identifying future opportunities — it all needs to be considered.
But one of the most important things may be finding an automation platform that fits your business’s size. If you’re a small business or just getting started, investing in an enterprise platform could result in higher costs. While if your business is quickly expanding, you may soon grow out of a platform focused on small businesses.
That’s why we’ll take a look at email automation platforms for three different business types:
- Platforms that perform well for business of all sizes
- Platforms that are best for large companies
- Platforms that will help small businesses
No matter your business’s size, you’ll want to take your time and find the platform that’s the perfect fit. Use this list to get started, but do your research and get to know exactly what your business needs are for the best results.
Platforms for Any Size Company
The first group of email automation platforms we will look at are good solutions for companies of all sizes. This means that whether you’re a start-up, growing business, or have already reached enterprise level — you can benefit from utilizing one of these platforms.
With advanced technology and the ability to grow with you, you’ll find that you can’t go wrong choosing to invest in a platform that is designed to fit all company sizes.
Listrak
Listrak is a great email marketing automation platform for companies of all sizes. Not only does it offer a convenient platform for all of your automation needs, but it also provides you with the opportunity to continue to grow and advance your marketing.
With Listrak’s email automation platform’s help, you can react to how your subscribers are already engaging with your content. This allows you to send relevant and timely emails that have a higher chance of attracting and converting customers. Image courtesy of Listrak.
Listrak’s email marketing capabilities include:
- Intelligent customer journeys that send customers the right email at the right time based on their real-time data and interactions
- Trigger and transactional emails such as shopping cart abandonment to help you directly increase sales or win-back campaigns to reach inactive subscribers
- Drag-and-drop responsive email editor to make creating emails easier than ever and avoid the hassle of HTML
- Predictive technology that identifies product recommendations and provides relevant content based on historical and real-time customer behaviors
What you need to know:
- Pricing is based on business needs
- Listrak has earned an industry-leading Net Promoter Score of 82
- This platform can grow with your business as your automation needs begin to expand beyond email marketing
Mailjet
Mailjet is another excellent email automation platform for companies of all sizes. Having the ability to choose your plan based on the number of emails you plan to send and your business needs provides you with flexibility.
Adding personalization to your email marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. With templates prepopulated with personalization tags, you’ll never have to worry about sending non targeted messages again. Image courtesy of Mailjet.
Mailjet’s email marketing capabilities include:
- Templates designed to integrate personalization into your current email marketing efforts easily
- Automated emails to engage customers based on their interactions, including welcome messages, confirmation emails, and more
- A collaborative platform that allows your marketing team to create and manage your email automation and improve efficiency
- An intuitive drag-and-drop editor that makes creating emails simply and includes templates to get you started
What you need to know:
- Pricing is based on the number of emails you plan to send a month. There are four plan options, including:
- The Free plan
- The Basic plan starts at $9.65 per month
- The Premium plan starts at $20.95 per month
- The Enterprise plan that is customized based on business needs
- Mailjet has a strong focus on email marketing automation but does have some SMS capabilities also
GetResponse
GetResponse is an email marketing automation platform that can help any company manage their emails and subscriber data. You can easily manage leads, schedule messages, and increase revenue with this platform.
GetResponse has all the email marketing tools you need to succeed. From a simple to use email editor to improving your campaign targeting, this platform will help you do it all. Image courtesy of GetResponse.
GetResponse’s email marketing capabilities include:
- Autoresponders that help nurture leads by sending the right response at the right time based on the subscribers interactions
- Improved segmentation that allows you to send highly-targeted emails
- The Perfect Timing and Time Travel delivery tool ensures that emails land in subscriber inboxes when they are most active
- Email templates to quickly create responsive emails that look professional and display right on all devices
What you need to know:
- Pricing is dependent on how many subscribers you have on your list. There are four plan options, including:
- The Basic plan starts at $15 per month
- The Plus plan starts at $49 per month
- The Professional plan starts at $99 per month
- The Max plan that is customized based on business needs
- GetResponse has a 99% email deliverability rate
- With multiple marketing automation capabilities, this platform is a great option for companies who plan to expand their efforts in the future
Omnisend
Omnisend is an email marketing automation platform designed for ecommerce companies looking to take email to the next level. From growing your subscriber list to sending the right messages based on customer behavior, you can do it all with Omnisend.
Improve your subscriber segmentation and send more relevant messages based on your customer interactions. Through Omnisend you can better understand your customers and use that data to increase your revenue. Image courtesy of Omnisend.
Omnisend’s email marketing capabilities include:
- Customizable forms to help grow your subscriber list and attract new leads
- Automated email series to help convert leads into purchasing subscribers based on their position within the sales funnel
- Track and react to customer browse and purchase behaviors to send relevant emails
- Utilize cross-selling and up-selling to directly increase sales and revenue dollars through your email marketing efforts
What you need to know:
- Pricing is dependent on the number of contacts you have. There are four plans options, including:
- The Free plan
- The Standard plan starts at $16 per month
- The Pro plan starts at $99 per month
- The Enterprise plan that is customized based on business needs
- Omnisend is an automation platform designed for ecommerce companies
- This platform will allow you to continue to grow your marketing tool through various automation capabilities
Platforms for Large Companies
Next, let’s take a look at a number of email marketing automation that are designed with large companies in mind. These platforms will easily be able to manage your large subscriber lists and monthly email sends while offering you the ability to continue to grow and invest in your marketing efforts.
Hubspot
Hubspot is an email marketing automation platform that was created with large companies in mind. Not only can you manage your subscriber list and emails, you can also add additional resources to your plan to continue to grow your business in numerous ways.
Know exactly how well your emails are performing with easy to use analytics dashboards.With this knowledge you can continue to improve your emails and see increased engagement and conversions for future campaigns. Image courtesy of Hubspot.
Hubspot’s email marketing capabilities include:
- An easy to use email builder and predesigned templates to help you create professional emails without the hassle of coding or needing a designed
- Improved personalization to tailor emails to each and every subscriber on your list
- A/B testing capabilities to test and various parts of your emails such as subject lines and call-to-actions to increase engagement rates
- Create custom landing pages for your email marketing campaigns to drive traffic to one central location
What you need to know:
- There are two plan options available, including:
- The Free Marketing Tools
- The Marketing Hub that starts at $800 per month
- Hubspot provides a number of resources to help get your business needs up and running
- If your business needs more than just a simple email marketing platform, Hubspot allows you to manage your CRM, customer service software, and more
Marketo
Marketo is a marketing automation platform that will help large companies manage their email marketing in one central location. As an all-in-one platform for enterprise companies, you can manage your leads, send emails, and more with Marketo.
With the help of Marketo, you no longer have to worry your messages didn’t make it to your subscribers. Industry-leading deliverability provides you with peace of mind that your message made it to their inbox. Image courtesy of Marketo.
Marketo’s email marketing capabilities include:
- A visual email editor that makes creating emails simple and responsive to ensure they appear properly on all devices
- Triggered emails to help you respond to customers in a timely manner based on their activity levels
- The Audience Hub allows you to dynamically integrate personalization into your emails to ensure you’re sending the most relevant content
- Ensure emails make it to every subscriber’s inbox with industry-leading deliverability
What you need to know:
- Pricing is based on business needs
- There are training and learning opportunities available to help improve your understanding of the platform and marketing capabilities
- Marketo is part of the Adobe brands and offers a wide array of automation capabilities for companies
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is an email marketing automation platform that is a great solution for large companies. You can manage all things email and take control of the entire customer experience from one central platform.
Easily design and create emails to increase customer engagement with a simple to use email designer. You can get professional emails without having to worry about hiring email team members based on their coding experience. Image courtesy of ActiveCampaign.
ActiveCampaign’s email marketing capabilities include:
- Broadcast emails that allow you to reach all of your subscribers at once to provide important company updates
- Autoresponders that are triggered based on a customer’s behavior and provides them with instant follow-up
- Email funnel automation that helps move new subscribers towards making a purchase and becoming loyal customers
- Schedule emails for a specific time, date, holiday, and more to ensure you’re engaging with them at the most opportune times
What you need to know:
- Price is based on the number of contacts you have. There are four plans available, including:
- The Lite plan starts at $9 per month
- The Plus plan starts at $49 per month
- The Professional plan starts at $129 per month
- The Enterprise plan starts at $229 per month
- One-on-one training and free migration are available to get you up and running
- ActiveCampaign allows you to manage a number of your marketing efforts to continue to expand your business
SendinBlue
SendinBlue is an email marketing platform that provides customers with a wide range of automation capabilities. For large businesses looking for a platform to invest in that goes beyond simple email management, this is a great solution.
Send transactional emails with dynamic personalization to make the most out of your messages. With an integrated CRM and a simple email builder, it’s easier to do than ever before.Image courtesy of SendinBlue.
SendinBlue’s email marketing capabilities include:
- Simple ways to add personalization to your emails through cross-channel data collection and improved segmentation
- Templates to help you create professional looking emails that match your brand and engage your audiences
- A/B testing that will allow you to learn what works and send the hughes performing message to all of your customers
- Transactional messages that are sent to customers based on their purchases and behaviors and keep them informed on a purchase
What you need to know:
- There are four different plans available, including:
- The Free plan
- The Lite plan starts at $25 per month
- The Premium plan starts at $65 per month
- The Enterprise plan that is customized based on business needs
- Customer support is always available to help with any needs that arise
- SendinBlue does provide businesses with a wide range of services for companies including SMS, chat, CRM, and more
Platforms for Small Businesses
Last but not least, these are a few email marketing automation platforms that are great for small businesses. While many of the other platforms can be used by small businesses, these are some great options for businesses looking to expand and automate their email marketing.
Outfunnel
Outfunnel is an email marketing automation platform that can help small businesses grow and reach their full potential. With everything you to improve your email campaigns and more — this is definitely a platform to consider.
Track campaigns with analytical dashboards to identify high performing messages and learn what resonates with your customers. With this information front and center, you can continue to improve future campaigns. Image courtesy of Outfunnel.
Outfunnel’s email marketing capabilities include:
- Automatic email campaigns including one-off messages or drip campaigns to move users through a specified workflow
- Build relationships by adding personalization and using dynamic content to appeal to each subscriber
- Track and analyze email success with campaign data such as clicks and open rates
- Lead scoring to identify subscribers who are more likely to purchase and convert
What you need to know:
- There are three plan options available, including:
- The Starter plan that is $19 per month
- The Growth plan that is $49 per month
- The Professional plan that is $125 per month
- Provides various integration opportunities with other marketing sites
- Outfunnel offers a variety of marketing tools and can help growing small businesses reach their goals
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email marketing automation platform that will help you reach your customers at the right time, with the right content. It’s also another great tool for companies looking for a platform that can grow with them.
Create emails that are tailored to your customers and connect them directly back to your estore. The more you know about their interests, the more relevant and personalized these emails can be — and the more likely they will be to convert. Image courtesy of Mailchimp.
Mailchimp’s email marketing capabilities include:
- An easy to use drag and stop email builder to ensure you’re sending professional emails every single time
- A customer journey building tool that allows you to send emails to your subscribers at the right time based on their current needs
- Campaign analytics that allow you to know exactly how each campaign is performing and make data-driven decisions in the future
- Transactional emails that are personalized and relevant to customers based on their purchasing behaviors
What you need to know:
- Price is dependent on the number of contacts you have. There are four plan options available, including:
- The Free plan
- The Essentials plan starts at $9.99 per month
- The Standard plan starts at $14.99 per month
- The Premium plan starts at $299 per month
- There are various resources and training opportunities available through this platform
- Mailchimp has become a full service marketing automation platform and has all of the tools your business needs to continue to grow and expand in the future
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is an email marketing platform that works well for small businesses by focusing on your business needs. With the right tools in place, you can take your small business to the next level.
Create custom templates and manage all of your email marketing needs from one central location. With ConvertKit, you’ll have everything you need to make the most out of your email strategy. Image courtesy of ConvertKit.
ConvertKit’s email marketing capabilities include:
- Custom landing pages designed to convert email subscribers into purchasing customers
- Easily design emails with templates that present professional messages every time
- Automate your sales funnel and send subscribers messages that are timely and relevant to their needs
- Organize and segment your subscriber lists from one central location to ensure you’re sending emails tailored to their needs
What you need to know:
- Pricing is dependent on how many subscribers you have. There are three plans available, including:
- The Free plan
- The Creator plan starts at $29 per month
- The Creator Pro plan starts at $59 per month
- ConvertKit is a great tool for bloggers
- There are some additional capabilities beyond email, but this platform focuses mainly on email marketing
Get Started with Email Marketing Automation
So there you have it. Email marketing automation is a great resource to add to your marketing toolbox and will provide you with the results you’re looking for.
Whether you’re hoping to improve personalization, save time, or automate your monthly campaigns — you can do it all with the right platform. Now that you’ve completed our 101 course on email automation and have a list of providers to get started — the rest is up to you.
One thing is certain, no matter how or when you choose to get started you’ll be happy you did.
