Make the most out of your email marketing efforts with the right automation platform.

Image courtesy of Pexels.

Email automation is a great option for companies looking to make the most out of their email marketing efforts. Whether the goal is to improve personalization, build brand awareness, or simply automate mundane daily tasks, automation is the answer.

Marketing automation has become a very popular investment for companies across all industries. In fact, 49% of companies are now using marketing automation — proving that it’s a worthwhile investment.

Whether you’re brand new to the email automation world or looking for a new platform to partner with — you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits you can expect to see when automating your emails and take a look at 10 platform options to consider.

By the end of this article, you should feel confident in the decision to invest in an automation platform and have a few companies to start researching.

Just interested in the details on each platform? Here’s a quick look at the email automation platforms we’ll cover:

Listrak
Sendinblue
Constant Contact
Mailchimp
Mailjet
Pardot
Drip
Omnisend
Marketo
ActiveCampaign

Email Automation Benefits

Investing in email automation is a great opportunity for companies looking to increase engagement and revenue. On top of allowing you to focus on other daily activities, having the ability to target customers on a more personal level and guide them through their purchasing journey are only a few of the benefits you’ll see.

The great thing about email automation is that you can make it work for you. Whatever your goals may be, from more brand awareness to higher engagement and conversion rates — there’s a way to reach them through email.

Move Customers Through the Funnel with Automated Nurturing Campaigns

The ultimate goal of your email marketing efforts is to drive subscribers to your website and make a purchase.

But it’s not always that simple.

In fact, only 4% of website visitors are ready to make a purchase. That means that the vast majority of the people coming to your website are simply browsing and will leave with an empty cart.

The likelihood of a customer coming to your site and making a purchase on the first visit is fairly low. It generally takes multiple touchpoints and interactions with a brand before someone is ready to complete a purchase. Image courtesy of REH Real Estate.

That’s where nurturing campaigns come into the picture. A nurturing campaign is designed to help move a subscriber through the sales funnel and help move them towards completing a purchase.

There are many different types of nurturing campaigns you can implement to reach your customers across the buying journey. It’s important to understand what stage of the journey a customer is in to ensure you’re serving them the right content to help move them along towards a purchase.

Here are a few examples of how you can use nurturing campaigns across the various stages:

For brand new subscribers, you’ll likely enroll them in a welcome campaign that introduces them to your brand and warms them up
You can send promotional and sales emails to customers who haven’t purchased in a while and may need a little extra incentive to come back and browse your site
Many of your subscribers may become inactive and risk churning, for these people you can enroll them in a retention campaign to try and win-them back

When it comes to nurturing campaigns, the possibilities are endless. You just have to remember to understand your customers and know where they are in their journey to provide the most relevant experience.

Tips to get started: these are a few steps you’ll want to take when creating your lead nurturing campaigns:

Define your audience and segment
Lead with the value you have to offer the subscriber
Set objectives and goals for your emails to measure success
Identify a timeline for your email series
Track and analyze campaign success and adjust future campaigns as needed

See Higher Campaign Engagement by Driving Customers to the Right Place

Emails are an extremely important element when it comes to developing marketing campaigns. If you create a landing page in an effort to convert more leads, but don’t have enough traffic drivers pointing towards it — you’re wasting your time.

If the goal of your campaign is to get users to the landing page or drive users to product pages to complete purchases, you need an email strategy in place.

But it can’t be an email you threw together in 10 minutes. You need to spend time thinking about how the two connect and how a customer will engage with the campaign.

Simply sending an email won’t be enough to get subscribers to your site and encourage them to make a purchase. The email and landing page need to work together to seamlessly move the user from reading the email to filling out a form or purchasing a product.

Here are a few tips on how to make your email stand out and receive more click-throughs:

Write an enticing subject line
Make sure to tell the reader exactly what to expect and what the campaign is about
Use a call to action that encourages users to click and keep reading

It’s also important to keep the landing page experience in mind as well. Of course, the message between the email and landing page should be consistent.

This is a great example of how a campaign can flow perfectly between email and landing page. The messaging and imagery match and the customer knows exactly what the message is. Image courtesy of Crowdy.ai.

But there are also a few other factors you should consider when developing the campaign’s landing page including:

The messaging and design should match from the email to the landing page
Don’t over-complicate the landing page, it should be easy for users to complete the task at hand
Use one, clear call to action
If your landing page is meant to generate leads, keep the form short and simple or you’ll lose people

Overall, your goal should be to make the entire campaign work together to tell a story and encourage your audiences to take action. Using email marketing as a complementary tactic for your campaigns will help drive traffic and result in higher revenue dollars.

Improve Personalization and Better Target Customers

If you’re looking for ways to quickly improve your email marketing, look no further than personalization. In fact, adding even the smallest amount of personalization to your emails can greatly increase your overall ROI.

Personalized emails marketing generates a median ROI of 122%

Time and time again, personalized emails outperform non-personalized messages. So it’s no surprise that companies are moving towards more personalized content and looking for ways to make this process easier.

Emails with personalization outperform non-personalized messages every single time. It’s a great way to improve the customer experience while increasing engagement metrics. Image courtesy of The Daily Egg.

Email automation allows you to take your personalization to the next level, without major effort or investments.

By collecting and analyzing customer data, you can start to react to their actions and behaviors in real-time. This means sending emails that are relevant to their needs at the right moment, leading to more conversions.

Some platforms allow you to then begin to predict customer needs based on this data to provide an, even more, personalized experience — one they may not even know they needed yet.

Personalization can be a very powerful tool. Investing in an automation platform will allow you to take your personalization to the next level, with little effort on your part.

Use Transactional Emails to Increase Revenue

Transactional emails are messages that are automatically sent to subscribers based on their real-time actions. In most cases, customers welcome these messages because they are relevant and timely — that’s why they outperform other email types.

Transactional emails have an average CTR of 4.8% — that’s three times higher than non-transactional emails.

A few of the most common transactional emails used by companies include:

Cart abandonment messages
Order confirmations with product recommendations
Double opt-in messages with incentives
Welcome campaigns design to introduce new subscribers to your products

Transactional emails are extremely effective and can provide you with a number of benefits beyond increasing revenue. When done right, they will help build trust, increase engagement, and improve brand recognition.

Cart abandonment emails are a great example of transactional messages that can help increase revenue. A quick reminder email might be all they need to come back and complete their purchase. Image courtesy of Barilliance.

You’ve likely seen and received transactional emails in your own inbox. Many companies are already using these types of communications to keep up with their customers and increase revenue dollars.

Utilizing an email automation platform will help make creating, scheduling, and sending triggered emails easier than ever. Build workflows can identify when a subscriber has qualified for a specific email and it will automatically send the appropriate email once the event has been triggered.

Once you’ve developed the campaign and built the workflow, the platform will do all the work. From there, you can sit back and enjoy the benefits of transactional emails without having to spend hours mining data and sending out each message yourself.

10 Email Automation Platforms

Finding the right automation platform for your business needs will allow you to take advantage of these benefits and get more out of your email marketing efforts. From easy to use, drag and drop email builders to advanced predictive technology — the possibilities are endless.

But with so many options out there, how do you choose?

In this section, we pulled together a list of 10 different email automation platforms to help get you started. Each one will provide you with a variety of email capabilities and will be a great option to help take your strategy to the next level.

So go ahead, dive in, and find the perfect automation partner for your business.

Listrak

Listrak is a full-scale marketing automation platform that will help you understand your customers and improve your email targeting. From easily creating responsive emails to using predictive analytics technology to foresee future needs — the possibilities are endless. Image courtesy of Listrak.

Listrak is an email automation platform that will help you take your emails to the next level through predictive technology and cross-channel capabilities. By understanding the actions and behaviors of your customers, Listrak helps you improve targeting and predict what your customers need next.

What the Platform Can Do:

Utilize advanced technologies including predictive analytics and machine learning to improve targeting
Easily create emails with an easy-to-use responsive email designer
Implement cross-channel marketing efforts to reach customers through email and more
Develop abandonment messages to bring site visitors back to complete a purchase

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“Our previous digital marketing provider could not deliver the results, product depth, and support that Listrak does. We could tell from the minute we began onboarding with Listrak, there was no comparison. They truly care about our business’ success and help us daily to maximize our growth” — Listrak Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good solution for companies of all sizes
Offers marketing capabilities beyond just email including SMS messages, predictive marketing, and more
Pricing is dependant on business need

Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a great option for companies looking for a plug and play solution. Easily create campaigns and professional emails within the platform and send them out into the world. Image courtesy of Sendinblue.

Sendinblue is an email marketing automation platform that helps you simplify your email strategy. With an easy to use drag and drop builder and the ability to create personalized emails, it’s a great option for companies of all sizes.

What the Platform Can Do:

Create professional-looking emails with an easy to use drag and drop builder — perfect for teams with limited designers
Dynamically serve personalized content into all of your emails
Continue to build your subscriber list as long as you choose with an unlimited number of lists and contacts
Set up transactional emails based on customer behaviors to reach customers at the right time with the right content

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“I love creating campaigns with the drag & drop builder! I just choose a template, then customize the design how I want.” — Sendinblue Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good solution for companies of all sizes
Offers capabilities beyond just email automation including SMS marketing, CRM, and chat functionalities
There are multiple plans available to fit your budgets: the Free plan, the Lite plan starting at $25 per month, the Premium plan starting at $65 per month, and customized Enterprise plans

Constant Contact

Easily create and track email success with the help of Constant Contact. The automation capabilities will save you time and money while improving the overall experience for your customers. Image courtesy of Constant Contact.

Constant Contact is a great email automation platform for companies looking for an easy to use solution. Set up triggered campaigns, improve list segmentation, and continue to reach new customers with list building tools.

What the Platform Can Do:

Create emails that look great on every device with their drag and drop editor
Send trigger email series to engage customers based on their actions and behaviors
Segment your subscriber list to better understand the wants, needs, and interests of your customers
Utilize list building tools to continuously grow your subscriber list and reach new customers

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“Using Constant Contact has been really powerful for growing our business” — Constant Contact Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good solution for companies of all sizes
The platform focuses mainly on email marketing automation but does offer additional website and social media management services
There are two plans available to fit your budget: the Email plan starting at $20 per month and the Email Plus plan starting at $45 per month

Mailchimp

Easily create and develop email campaigns to reach customers at the right time based on their interactions and behaviors with MailChimp. Image courtesy of MailChimp.

MailChimp is a commonly known email automation platform that can help you create, send, and manage all of your email marketing needs. With the ability to easily design messages with a drag and drop editor to scheduling triggered emails — it’s a great tool.

What the Platform Can Do:

Create automated workflows to move users through the customer journey and increase sales
Manage all of your content and imagery within the platform for easy access whenever you need it
Analyze campaigns in real-time to understand what’s working and identify any potential problems
Send transactional messages to get customers the information they need at the right time

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“The main benefit is that we can make our emails look a lot better than the technical expertise that we have.” – MailChimp Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good solution for companies of all sizes
MailChimp has expanded its service offering beyond just email and now allows you to manage additional tactics including social media, landing pages, and more
There are four plans available to fit your budget: the Free plan, the Essentials plan starts at $9.99 a month, the Standard plan starts at $14.99 a month, and the Premium plan starts at $299 a month

Mailjet

Mailjet offers an easy to use platform that allows your team to collaborate through the entire email process. Image courtesy of Mailjet.

Mailjet is a true email automation platform. Its capabilities are meant to help boost the performance of your email marketing efforts and make the process seamless.

What the Platform Can Do:

Utilize templates created specifically for your business to easily send emails in no time
Add dynamic content to your emails to display the right information based on each customer segment
Manage your contacts and continue to build your subscriber list through landing page opt-in forms
Work effectively and manage tasks with your entire team through the platform to improve efficiency

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“Not only did we achieve cost savings with a better system, our department is now more efficient than ever. Now that we’re with Maijet, it takes less than half the time to build campaigns.” – Mailjet Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good solution for companies of all sizes
Mailjet is primarily used for email marketing and does not include management of other channels
There are three plans available to fit your budget: the Free plan, the Basic plan starts at $9.65 a month, the Premium plan starts at $20.95 a month

Pardot

Easily create workflows to ensure you’re sending the right emails to the right customers, at the right time. Image courtesy of Pardot.

Pardot is an email automation platform that is designed to help B2B companies improve their email marketing and better align with sales. While this one may not be the right tool for smaller, B2C businesses, it’s a great option for largest B2B companies.

What the Platform Can Do:

Create responsive, out-of-the-box templates with the intuitive email builder
Develop workflows to automate nurturing campaigns, schedule emails, and send autoresponders based on customer engagement
Personalize email content with improved segmentation, dynamic content that changes with user interaction. And more
A/B test emails to understand what content works and what doesn’t to improve your future campaigns

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“The move seemed daunting and risky at the outset, but that couldn’t have been further from reality. We felt in very good hands with Pardot and the performance we’re seeing daily proves it was worth it.” – Pardot Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

Pardot is designed to work for B2B businesses and is best for larger companies
The platform capabilities extend to lead generation and efforts to align marketing efforts with the needs of your sales teams
There are four plans and various add on options to fit your budget: the Growth plan is $1,250 per year, the Plus plan is $2,500 per year, the Advanced plan is $4,000 per year, and the Premium plan is $15,000 per year

Drip

Send, test, and manage emails all from one central location with the Drip platform. Personalizing each experience will improve the customer experience and increase your sales opportunities. Image courtesy of Drip.

Drip is an email automation platform for companies looking to personalize the customer experience and drive revenue. This platform allows you to easily use real-time data to understand your customers and build campaigns around their wants and needs.

What the Platform Can Do:

Use real-time customer data to understand what content to send to who form a more personalized experience
Create workflows to automatically engage with customers at critical moments within their experience
Strategically send emails based on customer behaviors such as browsing your website or knowing when they’re most likely to open an email
Track and manage campaign success to understand what strategies are working and which ones need adjusting

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“We have a dynamic landing page, a completely personalized email, a semi-gamified loyalty program, and I don’t know any JavaScript. That’s amazing.” – Drip customer testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good platform for companies of all sizes
Drip is primarily an email marketing platform but does have some additional capabilities when it comes to analytics and integration options
Pricing is based on the number of contacts in your account and can start as low as $19 a month

Omnisend

No designer? No problem. With Omnisend you can easily create emails and utilize premade templates to make the design stages less stressful. Image courtesy of Omnisend.

Omnisend is an email automation platform that will help you take your email marketing to the next level. Easily create and integrate the platform with your storefront to send users to the right products.

What the Platform Can Do:

Utilize one of the many templates available to easily create professional emails without needing a designer on hand
Create emails with dynamic content blocks that help drive customers to your site and increase conversions
Integrate the platform with your storefront to easily add products to emails
Optimize campaigns by using their Campaign Booster to resend messages to subscribers who didn’t engage initially with new subject lines to pique their interest

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“Two important things convinced me to try Omnisend: simplicity and support” – Omnisend Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good solution for companies of all sizes
The platform goes beyond just email automation and allows you to also manage SMS messages, social media channels, and gain customer insights
There are four plan options to fit your budget needs: the Free plan, the Standard plan starts at $16 a month, the Pro plan starts at $99 a month, and the Enterprise plan which is custom based on your needs

Marketo

Easily engage customers with personalized messages based on their interests and behaviors. Image courtesy of Marketo.

Marketo is an enterprise-level email automation platform. It offers everything you’ll need to manage your email marketing and provides multiple solutions beyond that.

What the Platform Can Do:

Understand your customers based on their interactions and behaviors across all platforms
Create triggered emails to engage customers in real-time without having to involved programmers
A/B test campaigns to continue to learn, improve, and get the most out of each campaign
Track and manage campaign metrics from one easy to read dashboard

What Their Customers Are Saying:

‘What’s exciting about Marketo, is that you can start to see the benefits that Marketing is bringing to the table.” – Marketo Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good platform for larger companies
Marketo offers a wide variety of additional services beyond just email marketing including lead management, mobile marketing, account-based marketing, and much more
Pricing is based on business need

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign allows you to easily personalize emails with basic demographic information and purchase history. Image courtesy of ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign is a great email automation platform for any company. It allows you to do everything you need to advance your emails and land more sales.

What the Platform Can Do:

Send broadcast emails to everyone on your list to share exciting announcements or sales
Create triggered emails that are sent to customers based on site visits, purchases engagement, and more
Set up email campaigns that are designed to move customers through the sales funnel and increase revenue dollars
Schedule emails ahead of time and make reaching your customers easier than ever

What Their Customers Are Saying:

“My primary use of AC is to set up email automations to be sent to subscribers. I am able to save a lot of time, create beautifully functional emails with the templates provided and easily organize my contact list.” – ActiveCampaign Customer Testimonial

What You Need to Know:

A good solution for companies of all sizes
ActiveCampaign offers additional services including CRM and sales automation
There are four plans available to fit your budget: the Lite plan starts at $9 a month, the Plus plan starts at $49 a month, the Professional plan starts at $129 a month, and the Enterprise plan starts at $229 a month

Make Email Automation Work for You

Email automation is a great tool for companies looking for ways to improve their current process and make email marketing more effective. Whether you’re looking to improve revenue dollars through a comprehensive campaign, nurture customers through their journey, or send triggered messages to increase revenue — email can help you do it.

Whether you’re just starting out or already using an automation platform, there’s always room to continue to grow and improve. By choosing the right automation partner, you can ensure you’re taking your email marketing in the right direction.

So what are you waiting for? Check out each of these platforms and find the perfect partner for your needs