Which Email Marketing Platform Is Right For You?

Picking your email marketing platform is the first step in your email marketing journey. Since there are so many email service providers to choose from, it can be overwhelming to find the perfect one. 

If you’ve decided to invest your time and energy into email marketing, you likely already know how lucrative email marketing can be in moving potential customers through your email marketing funnel. 

Here’s the thing: No matter which email platform you end up choosing, you’re making a great marketing investment for your business. But choosing the platform that best fits your business and aligns with your goals will not only make your email marketing more effective, it will make your life easier as well!

That’s why it’s worth spending time to learn about your options before you commit to a particular platform. While you’re never stuck with the email marketing platform you choose, it can be a hassle to switch later on–and even negatively impact your deliverability rates after the transition. 

In this blog, we’ll break down the pros and cons of some of the most popular email platforms so you can make an educated decision about which will work best for your business. 

Flodesk

Flodesk is one of the most aesthetically-pleasing options for email marketing, and it’s incredibly easy to design emails that are pretty to look at. It also offers a flat monthly rate for any number of subscribers, instead of a pay-as-you-grow rate. This means that no matter how big your email list gets, you’ll still pay the same price. 

PS: Want a 50% discount on your Flodesk subscription? You can get a flat rate of $19/month by using this link.

Flodesk is great for newsletters, but it’s not the best option for funnels. As your email list grows bigger and you want to segment your subscribers, do detailed A/B testing, and tagging, you might run into hurdles since the platform lacks detailed automation.

If you’re a service-based business that wants to focus on sending out newsletters, have just a few automated sequences, and appreciates beautifully designed content, Flodesk is a really great option. 

MailerLite

MailerLite offers a cheap, free email platform (for up to 1000 subscribers) that will get the job done for most businesses. It’s fairly easy and intuitive to use, with a drag and drop editor that makes creating emails very straightforward. 

The downside is that MailerLite is a text-based design platform. Meaning, it’s not super aesthetic and it doesn’t have the best templates. But, if you’re on a budget and you don’t mind simpler email templates, MailerLite is an excellent choice. Keep in mind that you might outgrow this software as your business scales. 

Active Campaign

If you need robust automations, detailed segmentation, and thorough reporting, Active Campaign is a platform worth looking into. With this platform, you’ll be able to conduct A/B testing and customize reports to analyze your data. Their reporting functions offer next-level insights into email marketing data.  

However, it’s important to note that this platform is more “techy” than the others, so there’s more of a learning curve when first starting out. Active Campaign also has pay-as-you-grow pricing, which can get spendy depending on how large your email list is. They have tons of email templates to choose from, and their drag-and-drop editor is easy to use. Active Campaign’s segmentation, tagging, and automation options are incredibly robust. If you plan to scale your business, it will be tough to out-grow Active Campaign’s software. 

ConvertKit

This email provider offers plenty of options for segmenting your email list, adding tags, and building sequences and automations. It’s easy to use, and you are also able to build many different email capture forms and landing pages where you can direct subscribers. In a lot of ways, ConvertKit has a lot of similarities to Active Campaign–but ConvertKit is almost like the watered down version of Active Campaign. This could be a good or a bad thing for you! If you want an email marketing system that’s easier to learn but still offers great segmentation and automation options, ConvertKit will be great for you. 

However, if you’re looking to go all-in on email marketing and really dive in to reporting, scaling, and customer segmentation, ConvertKit might limit you in some regards. Like Active Campaign, ConvertKit has pay-as-you-grow pricing, which can quicking add up for larger email lists. 

Klaviyo

While most email marketing platforms can integrate with Shopfiy, we always recommend that e-commerce providers choose Klaviyo for their business. Klaviyo integrates extremely well with Shopify, which makes tracking and reporting email purchases a breeze. It offers robust options for email sequences, signup forms, and segmentation. 

The major downside to Klaviyo is that it’s not optimal for graphic design. However, by leveraging Canva or another design platform to create graphics, you can achieve aesthetically pleasing results in Klaviyo. That way, you get the best of both worlds–pretty designs and effective email marketing!

Next Steps

Take some time to think through your options and figure out what your business priorities are. Is it more important to have eye-catching newsletters, or robust analytics? Do you prefer pre-designed templates or customizable emails? Are you focused on affordability, or being able to develop detailed automated sequences?

Thinking through these questions will give you a good idea of which platforms will best suit your needs. Once you select your email service provider, you’ll be able to dive into the process of actually setting up your automations and sending out emails to your subscribers. 

For more details on the process of email marketing–including writing email sequences and setting up lead capture forms–download my free guide below. It walks you through the most important aspects of email marketing to make sure you start off on the right foot!