Choosing Your Email Marketing Platform

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There are SO many email marketing platforms available today that, when you’re just getting started with email marketing, it can be difficult to make a decision.

When I ask people why they chose a certain platform, a lot of the time the responses are “I heard this one was good” or “I know someone that uses it and they like it.”

Truth be told, ALL email marketing platforms are good. The real question is: which platform is the best fit for you and your business?

The three platforms I recommend are ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, and MailerLite. I use all three of these on a daily basis and love to recommend them to business owners. I am an affiliate for all three of these platforms because I truly believe these are great systems. If this information helps you decide on a marketing platform, I always appreciate it if you use my affiliate links on the page. I will receive a commission if you end up purchasing a subscription and there is no additional cost to you.

And if you’re saying “But wait! I was going to use a different platform”, that’s okay! If you’ve evaluated the platform you’re planning on using and it has all of the features and functionality to suit your business, go for it! But if you aren't sure it's the right fit and you're looking for something different, you're in the right place.

ActiveCampaign

I’ll just go ahead and say it: I LOVE ActiveCampaign.

It has quickly become my favorite email marketing platform and I think it’ll stay my number one go-to platform. If you’re brand new to email marketing, this might not be the best system for you (yet!) because it has a much steeper learning curve than the other platforms, simply because there is so much functionality.

However, if you’ve been in the email marketing game for a bit, possibly have a team that coordinates your marketing efforts, and have outgrown your current platform, ActiveCampaign is likely a great fit!

Flexibility

One of the main reasons I enjoy ActiveCampaign so much is the sheer flexibility of the system. If there’s something you want to do with your email marketing, there’s a 99% chance that it can be done inside of ActiveCampaign. With so many options available throughout the system, it’s typically not a matter of if you can do something, it's how you can set it up.

With great flexibility comes a large number of settings. This can be overwhelming, especially in the beginning, but gives you true freedom to configure your email marketing exactly the way you want it to be. They also have a great development team that thoughtfully rolls out new features and improvements.

Integrations

Are integrations really that important in marketing? YES!

When I’m scoping out an email marketing platform for a business, one of the biggest questions I have is: what other technology platforms are you using? Taking a holistic approach to planning all of your technology and making sure it works together makes it much easier down the line.

The good news with ActiveCampaign is that is has so many integrations options that, it likely integrates with the technology you are planning to use (but still double check). While I love Zapier and the ability to connect platforms that don’t have a native integration, depending on a third party connector early in your marketing journey can become costly quick. It’s okay when you have a small number of subscribers and connect via Zapier, but what if you had 50 new subscribers per day and paid integrations with three other systems? Yikes! Unless that’s in the budget, it’s a costly monthly subscription you probably weren’t planning on.

A system like ActiveCampaign makes scaling with new technology simple with their integration options. And, if they happen to not integrate, you do still have the option of using a connector if needed.

Full CRM

Occasionally I’ll hear people refer to their email marketing platform as a CRM (customer relationship management system) and, in some cases, it’s simply not true. CRM functionality is completely different than email marketing functionality. Whereas email marketing focuses on automation, mass email blasts, and tagging, a true CRM tends to have more focus on workflows, collecting custom data, and using a pipeline.

ActiveCampaign gives the best of both worlds with email marketing and CRM functionality with their Plus level membership and above. While you may not need most of the specific CRM functionality, a major benefit of the option is that the system was built to handle LOTS of custom data fields in addition to tags, all without slowing down the system.

Want to dive deeper? Check out this post for more of my thoughts about ActiveCampaign.

ConvertKit

Most people hear about ConvertKit quite a bit and for good reason. It’s a great platform for both new comers and adept email marketers alike. Their primary focus is on bloggers and creators, but they work well for other business models too.

Tagging

One of the best features of ConvertKit is the flexibility of their tagging. You can create as many tags as you need and use them for any number of tasks throughout the system. When I talk about ConvertKit, I usually call it a true tag-based platform because it functions best with tons of tags.

If you’re new to tagging, it might sound complicated but it’s not too bad. A tag is essentially pieces of data about an email subscriber you might want to know.

Want to know who downloaded a specific freebie? Tag them. Need to track what link someone clicked on in an email? Tag them. Trying to find a way to start an automation for a group of people? Tag them. Have a group of members you need to communicate with separately? You can probably guess… tag them.

Tagging is essential in email marketing since it is used to build segments, allowing you to hone down on a specific group of people for your email. For example, if someone already purchased your online course, do you want to keep sending them emails to buy your online course? No! You want to know who those people are and to send them other content that will be relevant to them.

Automations

If you haven’t been automating your email marketing, you need to! The power of email marketing comes with automating your email sequences so that you don’t have to manually craft emails each time you want to send it. The good news? ConvertKit makes it easy!

Making your first automation might seem a bit overwhelming as there are several different pieces to create to put them all together, but if you start simple, you’ll get the hang of it in no time. ConvertKit’s visual automations show you all of the steps of your automation.

Growing / New Features

ConvertKit is still relatively new compared to some other email platforms. Even though it has been around for quite a few years, there has been a lot of growth recently. The team at ConvertKit is tightening up their functionality while adding in great new features. With any company that has growth, there’s always a sense of growing pains, but ConvertKit has been able to mitigate most of them.

Given their focus on bloggers and creators, many of the new tools and resources have been geared to that audience. The landing page builder, integrating payment methods for products, and image editing have all been improved over the past several months. I find this to be a benefit since it means there is still plenty of room for expansion with ConvertKit, and that they’re listening to their clients as they plan next steps.

Want to know more? Check out this post for more details about ConvertKit.

MailerLite

Of the three platforms here, MailerLite is the one I adopted most recently and I must say, I was impressed. A lot of entrepreneurs that are just starting out with email marketing tend to gravitate towards MailChimp to get a decent platform with a good free tier (and I’ve recommended plenty of people to MailChimp in the past) but I’m hoping more people discover MailerLite. Here are my top three reasons for recommending MailerLite.

Simplicity

There is a lot of technology out there that is supposedly easy to use, but MailerLite is the real deal. If you’re new to email marketing, there will be a bit more of a learning curve, but this interface will help you out tremendously when getting started.

The layout is straightforward and logical. Need something subscriber related? Click on Subscribers. Want to send an email? It’s all in Campaigns. Building an Automation? Everything is visual so you can see the flow. You can see all of the settings clearly laid out on the screen.

You might be wondering, is this really a benefit worth mentioning? Yes, it absolutely is.

One of the most common reasons I see people move away from a platform like MailChimp is because they can’t find anything. There are menus and sub-menus, and settings hiding in sections that don’t make sense. I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until I started setting up a new MailChimp account. Even though I work in email marketing platforms everyday, nothing made sense to me. The interface had changed substantially, there were all sorts of limitations, the search function was glitchy… it was a headache-and-a-half.

If that’s how a poorly designed email platform makes me feel, how could it possibly make sense to someone just getting started with email marketing? (hint: it doesn’t)

The good news is that MailerLite is SO much better than that and you can feel confident that you’ll get the hang of it quickly.

Email Design

When it comes to drag-and-drop style builders, MailerLite has one of the most intuitive interfaces I have used. It flows from left to right across the screen. First, select your “block” of content, then add it to the email, and finally, adjust your content and settings.

I absolutely love the default formats of the blocks. There is plenty of spacing and padding between sections, creating an open and airy feel to the emails. And the image gallery options? Gorgeous! Not to worry though, all of these settings can be adjusted to get that email design just right.

While there are a lot of options and settings available, they are easy to use and provide real value while designing your emails. Once you’ve built a few emails, you’ll be a pro!

Pricing Options

Isn’t it the best when you see pricing as a benefit?! By far, MailerLite has one of the best free plans around which is perfect when you’re getting started with email marketing and have a subscriber list of zero.

As of writing this, you can have up to 1,000 contacts on the free plan and have almost all of the functionality of the paid plan! Other platforms will take away key features from their free tier (such as removing automations), but MailerLite takes a different approach. A few of the nice-to-haves aren’t available for free, like the custom HTML editor or auto-resend, but you wouldn’t need those right away anyway.

You really get a good feel for the entire platform before you need to upgrade. And if you do go over 1,000 subscribers on the free tier, the next tier of pricing is from 1,001-2,500 subscribers for only $15/month. Yes, you read that correctly… only $15/month.

Want to keep researching? Check out this post where I explore more about MailerLite.

My Side-by-Side Comparison

Now that you know a bit about the benefits of each system (and there are more than I listed here!), let’s take a look at a high level comparison and how I would rate them on various features.

All three platforms are solid choices and can be a great fit for your email marketing. So which one are you going to choose, MailerLite, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign?

Need Help Deciding?

Choosing technology for your business often seems overwhelming, especially if technology isn’t your strong suit. Have no fear! Almost all email platforms on the market are great options, it’s a matter to finding the one that works best for you.

Sometimes you just need to make a decision and run with it for awhile. By learning an email marketing system, you'll quickly find out which features are important for you to have available and which are nice-to-haves. And even though you don’t want to plan for switching platforms right away, it’s always an option to find a new email marketing system if the one you initially choose isn’t working for you.

However, if you’d like some one-on-one guidance before making a decision, reach out to schedule a consultation with me! We’ll discuss your business, how you plan to use email marketing, and other technologies you use so we can make a decision about the best platform for you.