Selecting an email marketing platform is no easy task. Suitability, capability, ease of integration, price, usability and automation capabilities are just a few of the key points to consider when assessing which email marketing platform is right for your business. Recently updated, we've created a rundown of our 10 favourite ESPs for 2021.
Many ESPs offer similar benefits, functionality and capabilities to help your business deliver successful email marketing campaigns. So how do you differentiate and decide which platforms are suitable for your brand?
Every business has unique requirements, so there's no right or wrong answers, but there are key considerations and ways to assess suitability, according to business type, industry, size and budget. Our experienced email experts selected our top 10 email marketing platforms for 2021. Here’s the rundown, in no particular order:
HubSpot is a B2B marketer's dream. However, if you are writing off HubSpot because you're B2C, you could be missing out.
HubSpot is not just for B2B's it's also a great choice for retailers who are running stores on Shopify. We love the CRM platform as well as Sales Hub and Marketing Hub. It's a very strong platform for automation and certainly the best option for B2B businesses, but I've seen retailers take HubSpot a long way with email marketing in all sectors. When it comes to email, they have a large range of templates and themes, but it's the automation and analytics where they excel most.
Key benefits:
The great thing about Hubspot is that it's constantly evolving, according to testing and feedback from within the HubSpot community. It doesn't need to do big launches, the team are dedicated to learning, innovation and continuous improvement, and add new features all the time. In 2021 they've already launched an update to the drag and drop editor for email and there are more feature releases planned for later in the year.
Many email marketers are turning to Klaviyo as their email marketing solution of choice. They just built out a UK presence that is quickly expected to grow.
You might choose Klaviyo because:
Mapp's reputation has been rapidly growing in the enterprise market for years, but just recently we are seeing more mid-market brands head that way too.
Mapp say that they provide an enterprise-level customer engagement platform - but without the enterprise-level cost. Mapp help marketers to focus on what makes a difference for their business, instead of spending precious time and resources taming the technology behind it. They can rely on real, reliable marketing insights that enable true one-to-one personalisation – and set the foundation for successful cross-channel marketing activities.
What's impressive about Mapp, is that it's three platforms in one. An ESP, CDP and DMP all in one massively powerful marketing box - well, cloud. This in itself, shows the ambition of how Mapp are supporting and empowering ambitious marketers to create industry-leading campaigns and marketing automation.
We're seeing a lot of retail and pure-play brands move over to Emarsys, as well as a handful of travel brands. Emarsys is so powerful and can integrate with almost any Ecommerce platform. You might pick Emarsys because:
Omnisend are still proving a popular email platform on the shortlist of potential ESP solutions, particularly on the automation side of email marketing.
You might choose Omnisend because:
Exponea are cropping up on our client's short lists more and more. They have a powerful platform that makes automation easy and their ethos is about connecting with people, not web sessions, which is exactly why our team are fans of Exponea. I think we'll see a lot of marketers choosing Exponea in 2021.
Exponea is usually selected because:
Ometria have been on the Enchant radar for quite some time. We're finding that a lot of retail brands are either considering Ometria or have already invested in the platform. Choose Ometria for:
We are big fans of DotDigital and it's a popular email marketing tool with our clients. The platform is easy to use and great for retailers, especially as it's so well integrated with Magento and Magento 2. We are big fans of Dot Digital's EasyEditor tool, as it enables marketers to create HTML templates they can use again and again – with no need for additional coding. It renders really well too.
Here's just a few of the great benefits and features available with DotDigital:
Key benefits:
This is one of the simplest tools on the market, when it comes to ESPs, but this doesn't limit its impact. Is it the right email marketing platform for you? Well, it's always down to what's right for each individual business. However, if you haven’t got the luxury of much time to shop around or go through a long RFP tender process, dotmailer is your go-to tool.
Sailthru created waves in the industry in 2014. They shook up the market and showed up the existing platforms. It revolutionised thinking and enabled brands to integrate effectively with other channels and deliver great automation and personalised messages.
Sailthru:
Here are Sailthru's 4 pillars of retention that outline their vision for helping brands deliver emails that delight subscribers and nurture customer relationships:
They are dedicated to delivering segmentation and personalised emails, tailored to subscriber needs according to analytics and driven by automation. It's an all-in-one service for brands looking to align their email marketing activities.
The clever kids at Sailthru created an ESP that enables marketers to create amazing experiences across the whole customer lifecycle with complex email workflow recipes and smart tools. It was so far advanced from what was about at the time. The rest of the market is catching up, but Sailthru is still a great platform for most industries, such as not-for-profit, travel and retail.
Perhaps the best-known email marketing platform to the masses, MailChimp is the everyman of ESPs. However, don't think of it as a simplistic solution, as MailChimp actually offers powerful email automation capabilities.
MailChimp features great recipes for marketers and retailers on shoestring budget, for setting up effective email campaign workflows. You can get all the automated marketing you need for a pinch of the budget. You don't need a designer either, as the emails are easy to create
Key benefits:
The ESP has made big strides in convincing marketers that this isn't just a budget option. Bigger brands are going to MailChimp, as their tools can now compete with the more expensive platforms on the market. Account management is the only thing holding it back, but most marketers don’t expect their ESP to revolutionise their strategy, in terms of account management, this with where an email marketing agency comes in. MailChimp gets you up and running.
Adobe Campaign is the mothership platform! It's super deep, great for workflows and easy to integrate with other apps and third-party solutions. This is really the high-end ESP option for big and ambitious brands.
Key benefits:
Adobe Campaign is a leader and visionary in the business. Its synchronised and sophisticated multichannel customer experiences has seen Adobe Campaign rated as a leader in Gartner's prestigious Magic Quadrant report for multichannel campaign management.
If you’re an enterprise business and you want to integrate your email with any other experience, this is the platform for you.
Any of these ESPs sound like a good fit for your brand? We hope so, as they're all great options to help you create and deliver high-effective email campaigns. As we mentioned, every business has its own set of goals, visions and requirements, but this should help your selection process!