The best Email Marketing Softwares in Comparison

What is Email Marketing?

Email Marketing is part of direct marketing and describes the sending of an advertising message via email. The recipients are generally customers or leads of a company and are informed about products, services or news of the company through email marketing. Thus, email marketing is part of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in many companies and organizations.

What are newsletters?

Emails sent in this context are also known as Newsletters. Newsletters, literally translated as "letter with news," are an email marketing tool and are often sent weekly, biweekly or monthly via email to a distributor. There are newsletters from companies, organizations, or individuals that can be subscribed to. A newsletter subscription has the advantage that subscribers receive certain information first. This includes, for example, product news, offers or discount promotions.

Advantages of Newsletter and Email Marketing at a glance

• Low costs
• Comprehensive tracking & monitoring
• Interactive communication with recipients
• References to websites and webshops
• Optimization through testing with methods like A/B tests
• Maintenance of a digital contact database
• High ROI

What is Email Marketing Software?

Email marketing software or newsletter software is used to implement the email marketing of a company, organization or person. There are both standalone newsletter tools and integrations of these into comprehensive CRM systems. Which newsletter tool or CRM system with email marketing function is suitable depends heavily on the features and functions needed. Monthly costs are also an important selection criterion for the appropriate email marketing tool. It is therefore worth comparing the variety of email marketing solutions providers.

These are well-known providers of Email Marketing Software:

• rapidmail
• Mailchimp
• HubSpot Marketing Hub
• Brevo
• Mailingwork
• GetResponse
• CleverReach
• ActiveCampaign
• Optimizely Campaign
• Klaviyo

On OMR Reviews, you can not only compare email marketing tools and providers, but also find the right software for your company with the help of verified reviews and experience reports and users from the OMR community.

OMR Reviews Grid Overview with the best Email Marketing Softwares (Q1 2021)

16 tools have been selected for the OMR community in Q1 by the weighted number of over 500 submitted reviews for the email marketing grid in March 2021. Our grid overview sorts the email marketing tools vertically by their relevance and horizontally by the weighted score. For the purpose of better differentiation and visibility, we only displayed the score ranks from 6-10. The generally good reviews of the software show that there is currently a large selection of very solid email marketing solutions.

The most important functions and advantages of newsletter tools at a glance:

• Functions for personalizing the newsletter such as addressing with first and/or last name
• Automations like automatic newsletter sending at certain events like the newsletter sign-up, an automatic process for sending order confirmations or automatic categorization in customer/contact lists
• Interfaces to other tools like CRM systems, Analytics Tools or Webshop Software
• Creating layouts and designs for professionally looking emails and newsletters with an easy-to-use editor
• Responsive templates for designing the newsletter for desktop, mobile and tablet
• Easy management of multiple contact lists
• Functions for segmenting contacts and recipients
• Targeted emails increase efficiency in communication with customers
• Improvement of the effectiveness of email marketing through tracking, testing (e.g. A/B tests) and reporting & statistics function in the newsletter tool
• GDPR-compliant email marketing tool allows compliance with data protection laws

Finding the best Email Marketing Software for your business

If you want to do successful email marketing, you can't avoid using a professional newsletter tool. When choosing the tool, it depends on what requirements you or your company place on the tool. Since each tool offers different functions, you should definitely compare them. Pay attention to these factors when choosing:

1. User interface
2. Functions and interfaces or native integrations (e.g. with a CRM)
3. Tools and learning content
4. Customer service
5. Cost per month or per year
6. User experiences and reviews

If possible, it is also recommended to test the newsletter tool to detect missing functions and potential problems early on.

Why are Email Marketing and Newsletter Tools important?

Email marketing is versatile and therefore often used in the marketing mix. Latest investigations prove that currently within one day approx. 2.3 billion emails reach potential readers. In addition, email is a daily medium for around 95 percent of German web users. And last but not least, email marketing still convinces with the highest ROI (Return on Investment) of all digital marketing measures.

Nevertheless, email marketing is constantly being declared dead. The constantly growing social networks, instant messaging and other modern marketing channels seem to leave no room for such an aged medium. In fact, however, newsletters, marketing emails, retargeting emails and the like are more indispensable and promising in marketing today than ever before.

For many companies and also for personal branding, email marketing offers a good entry into the broad field of marketing. However, it is not a self-runner. Maximum successes are hardly achievable without suitable tools.

Reasons for Email Marketing:

• Long-term success opportunities: Social Media and communication change. Not all channels are and/or will be relevant for you and your target group in the future. The keywords "MySpace", "Vine", "ICQ" and logically constantly developing user behavior as well as associated expectations illustrate the problem without big explanations. Emails will also have long-term existence in the digital world. This is because on the one hand they prove to be very practical and versatile and on the other hand they are absolutely established. This combination means that no other digital medium can match email.
• Flexibility: Email marketing can be very different and offers various benefits. For example, you can use it to generate leads, force purchases or build your expert status, increasing your chances of long-term strong business relationships. There are suitable email marketing tools for every requirement. Most solutions cover several important areas.
• Easy implementation: Email marketing is not automatically crowned with success. Nevertheless, useful measures can be realized relatively easily and also cheaply. Email marketing tools even give you hints for the potentially best way. The implementation then takes place in simple steps: With a few clicks you build newsletter registration forms into your web presences and you create the mails themselves via user-friendly editors by drag-and-drop.

There is no doubt: Email marketing is not outdated and will provide many advantages in the long run. Email marketing software is more than justified. It is very successful in many respects.

Who can benefit from email marketing software?

Right from the start: An email marketing program can not only provide clear benefits in large companies. Email marketing solutions also allow for more efficient processes in sending email campaigns and managing contact lists in SMEs, i.e. small and medium-sized enterprises and startups.

The targeted approach to your contacts with the right program is much more effective than manual segmentation and contact with the target groups. This is because many processes in the tools are automated. In addition, many newsletter tools give useful tips on how you can improve your email marketing. Especially in times of GDPR, it is extremely important that you send legally compliant newsletters. E-mail marketing tools often already provide the ideal conditions for this.

For larger companies, which have many contacts and plan extensive email marketing, the high relevance of an email marketing software is beyond question. The management and the right approach to the often numerous target groups here, the generally large volume of mail and the long-term advantageous orientation of the activities are practically impossible without a special tool.

What are the most important features of newsletter software?

Email marketing software offers many advantages compared to manual email sending, depending on its range of functions. To be able to work successfully with a newsletter tool in marketing, certain features must be included. These are the most important features of newsletter tools:

Personalization of newsletter content

To reach newsletter recipients with your content, they must first open your emails. Your chances of getting attention for your content are better if the potential readers feel personally addressed. You achieve this through personalization. At the very least, you should address your subscribers by name. Ideally, the newsletter content should be individually tailored. This way, you can benefit from significantly increased conversions. A modern newsletter software should enable corresponding personalizations with little effort.

Automation: Newsletter systems that work largely independently

Automation allows you to supply your subscribers with suitable information fully automatically. For example, they can be contacted at certain times or milestones in the customer relationship. For example, after visiting a product page: This can be defined as an event to send interested parties further information about the products. Thus, a good email marketing tool achieves conversions such as purchases.

Interfaces: Easily manage contacts, products and more

If you operate an online shop, for example, and want to distribute products via your newsletter, a suitable interface should be available in the newsletter tool. With the right connection, you can quickly place product links with titles, descriptions and images in your mails with just a few mouse clicks. Furthermore, it should be possible to create links to other important applications, such as your CRM and perhaps specially used analytics programs. The more interfaces provided, the more flexible you are and the more efficiently you can proceed - provided you use them correctly.

Responsive templates and email editor: Professional design for all devices

Technical errors and related design mistakes are poison for your email marketing. Your message is either not received at all in such cases or it does not convey the intended value. Lack of clicks and subscriber cancellations are imminent. Professional responsive templates that deliver optimal presentation on all conceivable devices avoid such risks and at the same time present your content in the best light. Good email marketing providers therefore provide easy-to-use editors with layout and design templates.

Recipient Management: assign content to the right target groups

Regardless of whether you are dealing with large or small contact lists - recipient or target group management can quickly become complicated. In almost every company, there are groups of people with different needs that need to be taken into account in email marketing. So you always have to adapt your newsletter for different target groups. A flexible and powerful recipient management system is therefore a must. Only through such a feature can you convince your subscribers in a targeted manner.

Tracking, Testing and Reporting: analysis of opening rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, etc.

One of the great advantages of email marketing is the given possibility of precise tracking as well as analysis of corresponding measures. Who opens which emails, who clicks on which links and who buys what in what context: All this is valuable information from which future newsletters can be improved. Furthermore, concrete effectiveness tests of different content on specific target groups - A/B tests - are very helpful here. Reporting applications interpret and present the raw data. A newsletter software should at least record opening rates and clicks.

Legal compliance: send newsletters in compliance with GDPR

Some features are recommended to be able to effectively conduct email marketing. Others, however, must be present in order to comply with legal requirements. An email marketing software has to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when used in Germany. For example, newsletter subscribers must first receive sufficient information about the use of their data. In the newsletter registration form, there should be notes on the recipients' right of revocation and the general data protection regulations. In addition, there should be a checkbox that has not been checked in advance, via which interested parties consent to the use of their data for advertising purposes. Furthermore, a double opt-in is absolutely necessary. This is an additional confirmation of the registration for your newsletter by the user via email. These prerequisites should be easy to achieve within a newsletter software.

Cloud-based newsletter tools and newsletter software: Which types of email marketing programs are there?

Often there is no difference between cloud-based email marketing tools and email marketing software. Even with us, the terms are largely synonymous in use. However, the variants have differences that need to be known.

Most email marketing programs on the net are cloud-based newsletter tools. They are not installed locally on the company's servers.

Advantages of cloud-based email marketing tools

• Any desired computer provides access to the respective newsletter tool.
• When software updates are required, these are unnoticed in the background, automatically played - this creates no extra work for you and you don't have to worry about downtime.
• Cloud-based email marketing providers generally combine other services behind the actual software. Here the appropriate web space and a corresponding technical maintenance are especially worth mentioning.
• The mail servers of cloud-based solutions are best prepared for large email volumes. They have whitelistings and certifications, which increases deliverability.
• Most of the time you benefit from comprehensive support with cloud-based newsletter systems. This is not the case with open-source programs, at least.

Disadvantages of cloud-based newsletter tools

• Cloud-based systems usually store the recipient lists on a server outside of your company: This must be properly regulated in terms of security and also data protection law.
• In addition, a cloud-based email marketing tool is generally more expensive than a locally installed email marketing software: While the cloud solution incurs monthly costs for the subscription, a local tool only has to be purchased once.

Despite their disadvantages, cloud-based newsletter tools are the best solution in many cases. Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the maintenance effort of software installed in-house is simply too great. The costs for a system in the cloud, on the other hand, are usually reasonable. Only the concerns about security and data protection remain: But here too, all clear can be given. Because the providers of the newsletter tools meticulously ensure that no such risks arise.

What does email marketing software cost?

It is not easy to say in general terms what email marketing software costs. As a rule, monthly or annual subscriptions for newsletter tools are concluded. But there are also prepaid tools that are paid monthly in advance and only when they are needed.

Newsletter software subscriptions

Subscriptions offer cheaper rates than monthly prepaid tools paid in advance. As soon as you send one or more newsletters per month, such a subscription rate is worthwhile. With most email marketing tools, the monthly costs are calculated based on the number of contacts or recipients in the database or the number of mailings. For this, it is possible to send an unlimited number of mailings per month or to have a large number of contacts that do not further influence the price. As a rule, these tools can be cancelled monthly.

Providers for newsletter software subscriptions:

• CleverReach
• Mailchimp
• Mailify
• rapidmail
• ActiveCampaign
• GetResponse
• KlickTipp
• Mailjet

Prepaid Newsletter Tools

Prepaid email marketing tools are paid monthly and only when they are used. As a rule, these tools are worthwhile if you only plan to occasionally send mass mailings. Plus, there's no contract obligation, so the software doesn't have to be cancelled. It is practically added for one month at a time as required to send newsletters.

Providers for Prepaid E-Mail Marketing Tools:

• Sendinblue (formerly Newsletter2Go)
• rapidmail

Free Newsletter Tools

There is also free email marketing software. In addition, many tools are free up to a small number of contacts or recipients or emails. For this, their range of functions is often limited. Most providers make their tools available for free test phases.

Providers of free newsletter tools

• Mailchimp (up to 10,000 emails per month & to 2,000 recipients)
• Sendinblue (up to 300 emails to 300 recipients daily)
• CleverReach (monthly up to 1,000 emails & to 250 recipients)
• Mailjet (monthly up to 6,000 emails with a daily limit of 250)