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Top 6 Campaign Monitor Alternatives for 2021
Here is a quick comparison before we deep dive into each one of these:
1. SendX
SendX is an intuitive & affordable email marketing platform that focuses on high-deliverability, responsive emails templates and providing unlimited emails. It was recently ranked amongst the top 15 email marketing softwares by Hubspot.
Email Editor
Sendx gives you a drag-and-drop editor with 10 different elements like - buttons, text box, image, HTML, social sharing options, divider etc. This allows you to create and customize emails to your liking.
If you wish to create from scratch there is an option to load your HTML code or write your code directly in the editor.
Templates & Images
If you want to save time and effort that goes into drafting an email, you can choose from a library of 20+ professionally designed email templates.
These will have an already selected color palette, column structure, button size, and best font pairings. These are fully customizable and all the designs are responsive. So you don’t have to worry about the look getting deformed on mobile or iPad.
You also get access to half a million stock images so your emails always look fresh and you never have to go searching for the perfect image on the web.
Automation
The best use of email marketing software is when you can automate your marketing and instead focus on scaling your business, strategy, and just living your life.
SendX helps you automate your email marketing with a rule-based interface. You use the simple logic of IF-THEN-ELSE and run your automation.
You can custom-define a trigger to enable action. For example, you can define that when a new subscriber joins (trigger), then the system should send him a personalized welcome email (action).
The automation feature in SendX is available to every paid plan, irrespective of your number of subscribers.
Pricing Comparison
SendX Full Pricing
2. Moosend
Moosend is an email marketing software that is popular for it’s automation features & intuitive email editor and landing page designer, all available at affordable prices.
Automation Builder (even in the free plans)
Moosend offers a visual automation builder which allows you to create various sequences like cart abandonment, welcome emails, thank-you email etc.
You can also choose from one of the pre-built automations and customise according to your requirements. This is one feature that is either not available in email marketing tools at this price or if available, you have to choose expensive plans to access it.
To make the deal sweeter, it is available in all the plans - free or paid.
Drag & Drop Email Editor & Landing Page Designer
You get a drag-and-drop editor for creating emails & an easy to use designer for creating landing pages.
There are pre-built templates for both of these. These templates are fully customisable and responsive. The full library for emails has 70+ templates.
The landing page designer also comes with customisable forms, fonts, countdown timer feature etc.
Pricing Comparison
3. HubSpot Email Marketing
HubSpot is a CRM platform that gives you access to all the tools you need to grow your business in an easy and convenient way, and the HubSpot email marketing tool is no exception to that.
Deeply Personalized Emails
HubSpot’s free CRM automatically collects the email addresses you capture via a form, chat box, email, or other digital marketing asset, where it then keeps track of all the information your visitors share with you as well as all their behavior and interactions with your business. The CRM also pulls intelligent data on specific websites and companies to give you additional context. This powerful information can be used to personalize your emails and create a better experience for your subscribers, helping you increase conversions and sales.
Marketing Automation
HubSpot allows you to set up complex automation flows that go beyond autoresponders and email drip campaigns. You can automate internal contact and lead management, set up reminder tasks for you and your team, as well as automate other marketing activities in your customer’s journey.
Free Marketing Tools
In addition to email marketing, HubSpot provides you with a free signup and popup form builder, landing pages, an ad management tool, live chat and bots, and more. It’s all the tools you need to set yourself up for success.
The generous free plan gives you tools for marketing, as well as sales and customer service, with unlimited contacts so you build the necessary foundation needed to grow your business.
Pricing Comparison
Full Pricing
4. ActiveCampaign
Active Campaign is a slightly advanced email marketing platform. Some notable features are - marketing automation, segmentation, lead scoring and analytical reports.
Email Builder
ActiveCampaign provides a basic drag-and-drop email builder. You can also code your own template using HTML and CSS. You get 30 pre-designed template options to get started
One thing that’s good about their email builder is that you can create as many columns as you want & even adjust the column size.
Automation
For creating automation, they provide an easy to use flow chart system that is pretty intuitive. If you want to add any element, you just use a drag-and-drop builder. You can get started on basic automation and drip campaigns by using pre-built automation templates and customize according to your needs.
With the Automation Map feature, you can view how different automations are connected to each other. You can also see high-level reports on how each automation is performing.
Lead Scoring
ActiveCampaign offers lead scoring that allows you to assign scores based on past actions of subscribers. This helps you segment the audience from highly engaged to totally inactive. And thus helps you make actionable decisions for your marketing strategy.
List Management & Segmentation
ActiveCampaign’s list-management features are very popular.
You can segment contacts via custom fields (which are contact fields that include additional data about the contact, e.g. location or interests etc). Tags and custom fields can be added or removed via automation.
List management features can be used to segment your audience into categories and upsell service or relevant products.
These are just some of the examples. You can create segments based on location, age group, buyers’ history, size of deals etc.
Pricing Comparison
Full Pricing
5. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is a feature-rich platform that provides not just email marketing but also SMS, landing page builder, Facebook ads integrations, signup forms, etc.
Email Editor
You can find templates for creating emails as well as landing pages. If you know HTML or have your own code, you can create these from scratch too. Their editor is an easy drag-and-drop type.
Automation
You can choose from the 9 pre-built workflow templates or create something from scratch. The workflow editor is also visual and all you need to do is select the element to add.
To maximise your open rates and increase engagement, you get a ‘send at best time’ option that will automatically send an email based on the time when the recipient is most likely to open it.
Reporting
Reporting is basically like any other platform but also focuses on conversions. You can set your own way to judge what conversion means for you and the dashboard will track that. If you have a premium plan, you can also get data based on the location of people who clicked or opened your emails.
Their segmentation capabilities allow you to store as many data points as you want, on your contacts, without paying anything extra
Sendinblue offers dedicated transactional email templates & reports.You get different setup options for your transactional emails, such as API, SMTP Relay, eCommerce plugins, or marketing automation
*Campaign Monitor charge is based on the number of contacts and Sendinblue charge is based on the number of emails sent, so not doing a price comparison between the two.
6. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an all-in-one email marketing platform that is most popular for its easy to use interface, good looking templates and large number of integrations.
It allows you to get started with it’s forever free plan.
Email Builder:
Its email builder is easy to use, has a clean interface and you don’t need to know HTML to create your emails
You will find 5 main categories of templates to choose from:
- Layouts (Featured & Basic): Choose an option and build on top of it
- Themes: Pre-defined templates you can customize
- Saved Templates: Templates you created or exported from 3rd party platforms
- Campaigns: Email campaigns you sent in the past
- Code Your Own: Option to create your template using HTML, from scratch.
All layouts are mobile-friendly.
Layouts:
Themes:
Campaign:
All the categories of templates can be edited with drag & drop functionality, except when you code your own. Mailchimp offers only 13 functional units for you to manipulate with text, images, social media, videos, and buttons.
Integrations
For the functions that Mailchimp doesn’t provide on its own platform, it helps you to integrate with third-party tools easily.
Mailchimp has integrations with 500+ apps. This allows you to integrate your email marketing with other channels, load data, create forms, payment systems and whatnot.
For example, you can integrate PayPal with Mailchimp and import contacts of everyone who buys from you using their PayPal account. Or you can integrate Typeform to create sophisticated forms and quizzes for lead generation, sales, and client onboarding.
Pricing Comparison
Full pricing
Mailchimp’s Venture Into eCommerce
One important update for all those looking at Mailchimp as an option is that Mailchimp has also recently launched its own online stores for SMEs, and a new service for booking appointments. The appointment booking service went live on 28th April 2021, and the new eCommerce features are scheduled to become available for the US and UK Mailchimp customers by May 18th 2021.
New ‘Websites and e-commerce’ plans will be introduced (and free-plan users will have to pay 2 percent transaction fee). Transaction fees will be reduced for users of different pricing grades, for example, those who go for a Plus plan at $29, only 0.5 percent transaction fee will be applicable.
Besides, for $10 extra, Mailchimp’s branding will be removed and you will get email and chat support, and you will only have to pay 1.5 percent transaction fees.
All their plans will also include SEO tools and Google Analytics integration. Plus, you can build websites with unlimited pages and without bandwidth restrictions.
And when it comes to the online stores by Mailchimp, you can build your product catalogues, manage your orders, and taxes and shipping configurations.
But if you don’t need all of these additional features and services, you should still proceed with comparing Mailchimp with other email service providers for your email marketing needs, like SendX.
Which Email Marketing Platform Should you Choose?
All of these platforms are good at what they do & there is no doubt that all of these will keep innovating. So which one to pick is still a question for you.
If I have to look at features provided, ease of use, and email deliverability - all without breaking a bank, I would suggest SendX.
We all love a good deal — and it’s even sweeter when the best product is the one that costs the least. SendX will cost you only $7.49/mo for 500 contacts and you get access to all features. And unlimited emails.
You will be impressed with their simplicity, customer support, powerful automation tools & vast options for templates & pop-ups.
You don’t have to take my word for it. You should give it a try yourself. You can sign up for a free trial here. No credit card required. You get access to all the features for free for up to 14 days.
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