Whether you run a small online store or a multi-million dollar DTC brand, email is the most important component of your marketing strategy. From nurturing potential customers to acquiring them and finally making them repeat customers, you’ll need email marketing at every stage of the customer journey.
Why Do You Need an Email Marketing Tool?
Without proper email automation tools, you may end up sending out emails that aren’t likely to convert, which will cost you time, money, and effort.
As a modern DTC marketer, you are expected to not only engage with your presumably huge mailing list but also to make sure that your messages are hyper-personalized and effective. Almost 60% of retail, ecommerce, and consumer goods brands are personalizing emails based on past purchases, versus 38% in 2019.
With the help of email marketing tools, you can automate email campaigns like welcome series, cart abandonment, winback series, and much more to boost customer retention and lifetime value. They can also send trigger-based transactional emails like successful purchases, order confirmation, and order delivery, which can help you increase customer satisfaction.
Best Email Marketing Tools for Ecommerce Brands
1) ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign integrates email marketing, marketing automation, sales automation, and CRM software into one platform designed for small businesses. The features differ based on the pricing plan selected. As per G2, the overall rating is 4.6 out of 5, the ease of use rating is 8.9, and the quality of support is 8.3.
Top features:
- In addition to email, other options include SMS, Facebook Custom Audiences, and in-app notifications.
- Easy-to-modify, automation workflows with a drag-and-drop interface
- The ability to further customize your messages thanks to a wide range of segmentation choices
- Lead scoring reveals how your contacts have connected with your company and their inclination to make a purchase.
Pricing: They have structured their pricing based on the contact volumes. It includes four plans: Lite, which starts at $29, Plus, which starts at $49, Professional, which starts at $149, and Enterprise, which is customizable.
ActiveCampaign review:
2) Lifesight Engage
Lifesight Engage is an all-in-one solution for the entire on-site marketing funnel from acquiring new subscribers with the use of popups and landing pages to keeping them engaged and activated with email, SMS, and push notifications.
email-and-sms-marketing-tool-lifesight-engage 
Top features:
- Centralizes all of your customer information, from site interactions to behavior across your support, review, subscription, and shipping apps.
- Segments your customer into insightful groups, from high-value to those at risk of leaving.
- Email functions tailored specifically to ecommerce, including recommended products, unique discount codes, and much more
- 20+ ready-to-use Email and SMS automations from welcome series, abandonments, upsells, and winbacks to drive purchases & repeat revenue
Pricing: As of now, Moda offers 2 plans Starter and Growth. Start the journey of turning your customers into repeat buyers by signing up now!
Lifesight review:
3) AWeber
AWeber is another significant email service provider that was among the first to enter the market with email marketing tools. One of its main advantages is the variety of integrations it provides with ecommerce platforms. G2 rates it 4.3 out of 5 stars overall, with 8.2 for ease of use, 8.8 for quality of support, and 8.3 for ease of setup.
Top features:
- Large library of 600+ email templates
- Includes web push notifications
- With the landing page editor, you can quickly design pages tailored to each specific campaign.
- Through the use of analytics, you can learn specifics about your audience, like which links are most popular and how often they are clicked.
Pricing: There are free and pro plans available. Everything in the free plan is included in the pro plan, as well as additional features such as unlimited email lists, advanced email automation, removing AWeber branding, detailed insights, and analytics, split testing, and more. If you pay annually, the pro plan starts at $16.15 per month.
AWeber review:
4) Constant Contact
Constant Contact is an older, popular, yet overly basic email marketing platform that is sufficient for small businesses with basic email marketing needs. According to G2, it scores 8.4 for ease of use, 8.1 for quality of support, and 8.4 for ease of setup.
Top features:
- Large library of built-in integrations
- Pre-designed email templates
- Offers live chat and phone support for all subscription plans
- List-Building tools to build and grow your email list
Pricing: They offer 2 types of plans. The core plan starts at $9.99/month and a Plus plan at $45/month.
Constant Contact review:
5) Drip
Drip is notable for its segmentation and automation workflows. You can better target customers and offer them relevant messages at the right moment. Drip’s 20 workflow templates cover the whole customer journey. E-commerce store owners can customize them and employ targeted, segmented mailing lists to deliver the best possible service. According to G2, it received an overall rating of 4.4. The usability rating is 8.4, the assistance quality rating is 8.8, and the ease of setup rating is 8.3.
Top features:
- Automated workflows are simple to set up and use
- The email builder allows you to easily design emails that are consistent with your brand’s aesthetic and tone.
- With the use of A/B testing, you can discover which approaches are most effective.
- Audience segmentation
Pricing: It’s based on the number of contacts. The monthly cost of email and SMS begins at $39.
Drip review:
6) GetResponse
With GetResponse, you can design automated workflows easily thanks to the platform’s powerful visual automation builder. In addition, it is excellent email marketing software because of its pre-made email templates and product recommendations. The overall G2 rating is 4.2 out of 5.
Top features:
- Allows you to add a range of conditions to help segment your subscriber list automatically.
- Lead generation feature allows you to create sales funnel and landing pages.
- Google and social media ads feature
- Live chat feature so that you never miss a lead
Pricing: There are four plans available for GetResponse, each with its own set of features and price points: Free, Email Marketing, Marketing Automation, and Ecommerce Marketing.
GetResponse review:
7) Klaviyo
Klaviyo is an email and SMS marketing automation platform for ecommerce. It is an easy-to-use solution that enables e-commerce entrepreneurs to personalize, target, optimize, and monitor their Facebook, email, and Instagram marketing campaigns. As per G2, Klaviyo has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5. With 8.7 scores for usability, 8.5 for support quality, and 8.4 for setup simplicity.
Top features:
- Advanced personalization for maximizing repeat sales
- Drag-and-drop email designs
- Targeted forms
- ROI-based reporting
- Product suggestions based on quizzes
Pricing: The cost is based on the number of contacts. When you reach 501 contacts, your free plan will terminate. The cost of the email plus SMS plan begins at $35 per month, while the cost of the email plan alone begins at $20 per month.
Klaviyo review:
8) Mailchimp
Mailchimp empowers small businesses to do big things by giving them innovative marketing tools that help them grow. Whether you want to get more people to download your app or keep loyal customers coming back, Mailchimp has all the features and integrations you need to become the brand you want to be. G2 rates it 4.3 out of 5, with 8.8 for ease of use, 8.3 for quality of support, and 8.7 for ease of setup.
Top features:
- Advanced automation to send triggered emails to subscribers
- Great reporting features to help you quickly track email campaign efficiency
- Content optimizer with suggestions for more engaging emails
- Very easy to use and build campaigns
Pricing: It’s based on number of contacts. The free plan doesn’t cost you anything. Their essential plan starts at $9.99, the standard plan is priced at $14.99 and the premium plan at $299.
Mailchimp review:
9) Mailerlite
MailerLite is simple, free, and effective software for sending email newsletters. They have a great free plan, and even their paid plans are cheaper than competitors like Mailchimp. Automation is not as elaborate as, say, ActiveCampaign, but it works very well. G2 gives it a score of 4.6 overall, 9.3 for ease of use, 9.2 for support, and 9.1 for ease of setup.
Top features:
- Lets you create email newsletters and send email promotions.
- A/B split testing of subject lines, email content, and other elements to optimize email campaigns.
- Create forms and targeted pop-ups
- Not only can you make emails with MailerLite, but you can also make landing pages, opt-in forms, and (mini) sites. They will even help you host it.
Pricing: Based on the number of subscribers. The Free plan allows you to have up to 1000 contacts, the Growing company plan starts at $9/month, the Advanced plan starts at $19/month, and the Enterprise plan offers custom pricing.
MailerLite review:
10) Omnisend
Omnisend is software for email and text message marketing that helps ecommerce stores build customer loyalty and make more sales. It integrates with Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and more with just one click. This makes it easy to get started and sync data with the platform without any problems. The total G2 rating is 4.6 out of 5, with scores of 9.3 for usability, 9.0 for support quality, and 9.2 for ease of setup.
Top features:
- Easy-to-use segmentation that allows you to target customers and send them personalized messages.
- Pre-loaded popups, signup forms, and landing pages
- Provides customer insights
- Offers 24/7 support
Pricing: Based on the number of contacts. The Standard email plan starts at $16/month, and the Pro plan with Emails + SMS starts at $59/month. Omnisend also offers a free plan.
Omnisend review:
11) SendinBlue
SendinBlue is an email marketing platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) who want to send and automate email marketing campaigns. In a nutshell, SendinBlue is a more cost-effective alternative to MailChimp. The overall G2 rating is 4.5 out of 5, with 9.1 for simplicity of use, 8.8 for quality of assistance, and 8.9 for ease of setup.
Top features:
- Easy-to-use drag-and-drop email editor
- You will be able to view a log of soft and hard email bounces. Hard bounces are automatically removed.
- Create landing pages from scratch or use one of their templates
- Create segments of subscribers based on their interests, behavior, and lead quality scores.
Pricing: SendinBlue offers 4 plans: Free, Starter, Business and Enterprise.
SendinBlue review:
Final Thoughts
There are a plethora of email marketing tools available in the market. Some offer basic capabilities like templates, email editors, auto-responders, reporting, and analytics while more advanced tools include customer segmentation and other marketing automations.
But before you go on a hunting spree, you should write down the problems you want to solve by using this tool. Also, what are the goals that you plan to achieve with email marketing? Remember your aim isn’t to pick the best and most expensive email marketing tool, but rather to select one that meets your specific marketing needs.
To find the most suitable tool for your business, you need to compare prices and analyze the key features of the tool. Most of these tools also offer a free trial period so please don’t stress over making an incorrect choice. You can always switch to a different tool if you aren’t satisfied with the one you initially chose.
