With a return of investment of approximately $40 for every $1 spent, email marketing continues to be a powerful tool. On top of this, it is still retaining the number 1 spot – ahead of social media – as the most effective digital marketing tool a business can have at its disposal. 

Here below are what we believe to be the 3 best email marketing tools of 2022. 

In order to really capitalize on the power of email marketing and optimize the efficiency of email campaigning, you will need to have the best software for the job, whether you are selling car insurance or B2B services. What the best software may be will, of course, depend on your individual business type and your needs. 

With the right pick, email marketing software can be a potent solution for increasing the growth of your business and increasing its revenue and if you’re ever wondering why marketing is important, then coming up with the right email strategies will show you just how much ROI you can make with the right tools. 

1. Mailchimp

Mailchimp can be found on just about any best-email-software list – and for a good reason. Whether you are just starting out in business or are a seasoned professional: whatever your business size, type, or requirements, Mailchimp will be able to accommodate your needs. They are excellent for creating unique custom emails that really make brand originality stand out. 

Cloud-based, they boast an array of features that cover virtually anything the majority of businesses could possibly need. Mailchimp allows you to create, send, schedule, and track emails, as well as monitor the real-time data of an email campaign, thanks to the analytical software that is included. This provides the ability to get reports on open and click-through rates, unsubscribe rates – plus a whole lot more.

Loaded with templates and with a treasure trove of stock images on hand, Mailchimp’s easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality makes the creation of unique stand-out emails simple – and fast. All the bells and whistles are included to really put the shine on your brand name and help you keep up with the latest visual trends. Don’t get too worked up over your email banner appearing on mobile devices like iPads. With Picmaker email banner builder, you can easily convert between different sizes.

An additional bonus is that of all the email marketing software companies out there – and there are a lot – Mailchimp very generously offers one of the best forever-free packages on the market. This Pearl Lemon Leads review of Mailchimp can give you more information about how well its features work and show you whether it’s worth the money.

Pros:

• Free package (capped at 2,000 contacts);
• Simple UI and customization capabilities;
• Excellent analytical tools;
• Can be integrated with other platforms.

Cons:

• Can get expensive higher up the ladder;
• Phone support could be better;
• Could be too basic for some advanced marketing.

Costs:

• Free plan;
• Essential: $9.99 – $270 monthly;
• Standard: $14.99 – $540 monthly;
• Premium: $299 – $1,190 monthly.

2. EngageBay

EngageBay is a simple, easy-to-use email marketing automation platform. Featuring a wide range of marketing tools, including landing pages, social media integration, and A/B testing, EngageBay offers excellent bang for the buck and is tailored for people who are looking for cost-effective alternatives to some big brands in this space. 

EngageBay’s email marketing suite keeps things simple and intuitive, but it’s far from basic. The in-depth analytics allow you to track key metrics such as open rate, click-through rate, bounce rate, and so on. It’s quite perfect for small business owners and solopreneurs.

EngageBay allows you to create responsive templates so your emails look great on all devices, including smartphones and tablets. You can use the built-in landing page builder to create professional-looking landing pages for your campaigns in just minutes.

You can customize every aspect of your emails and landing pages, from fonts, colors, and styles to CTAs, headers and footers, images, etc. The tool has dozens of templates for both emails and landing pages, which is more than enough for most small businesses. You can also add your own CSS code if needed.

Also, a cool thing about EngageBay is how unified it can be, with a free and integrated CRM, live chat, and service desk. You can integrate sales and other marketing automation tools too, and it doesn’t require buying separate packages.

Pros:

• Intuitive interface
• Easy to use
• Free, integrated CRM with live chat & service desk
• Zapier and Shopify integration
• High value for money

Cons:

• Not as many integrations as Mailchimp
• Not as customizable as HubSpot
• Can add more templates for emails

Costs:

Basic: $12.99 a month

Growth: $34.99 a month

Pro: $69.99 a month

The free plan lasts forever and most of the key features work in it, but you’ll have certain limitations, like 500 contacts and 1,000 emails a month. Annual and biennial plans come with 10% and 20% discounts on these prices respectively. 

3. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign stands out for its superb automation functions – there are hundreds of them. ActiveCapaign gives you the ability to personalize your marketing tactic to each subscriber – and it offers excellent deliverability. 

Machine learning is put to fantastic use: the Predictive Actions feature will act for you after deciphering the details of your subscribers and then steer them into the narrow end of your sales funnel. Easily manageable workflows are solid, and all data synchronizes with ActiveCampaign’s in-built CRM. 

It can also be integrated easily with well over 800 other tools and platforms: Facebook, WordPress, BigCommerce and just about any other of the big hitters in software that will immediately come to mind. 

ActiveCampaigns deliverability also really stands out: its sent mail is, of all the providers out there, the least likely to be sent on the detour to the spam folder, and mails reach their targeted inboxes as intended. As well as providing powerful software, ActiveCampaign is backed up by first-rate customer support. 

Last but not least, ActiveCampaign is known to be a part of modern, open MarTech stacks. The integrations the tool offers can even contribute to accurate ROI attribution through a multi-touch customer journey.

Pros:

• An abundance of automation features;
• All packages include data migration services;
• Compatible with other popular software;
• Easy to use for experienced marketers.

Cons:

• Price-jump between bundles;
• The basic plan is ActiveCampaign branded: an unnecessary, off-putting self-promo;
• For the inexperienced, it could be difficult to get to grips with.

Costs:

• Basic: $15+ monthly;
• Plus:  $70+ monthly;
• Pro:  $159 monthly;
• Enterprise:  $279+ monthly.

• A 14-day free trial is offered, with which you can see for yourself what ActiveCampaign can do for your marketing. Beyond that, a subscription to any of the above four plans will be required.

4. Hubspot

The Hubspot suite offers its customers a great all-in-one marketing package. It can supply reports from an array of email marketing channels including websites and social media platforms, and has a fully-featured CRM. 

Hubspot’s dashboard provides excellent analytical tools. It can report a variety of metrics and supply some incredible data, which makes it immensely helpful to any business or digital marketing agency. For instance, it will even let you know just how much time a recipient has spent looking at your email. Whether it’s been opened, read, merely glanced at, or read in full, these deep observations will give you the ability to really get an edge on where to improve engagement factors. 

This widely popular software has an intuitive drag-and-drop builder that gives its users the ability to build and design aesthetically appealing marketing emails. This is aided by its large library of clean and tidy email templates. 

Hubspot’s email marketing software has been put together, especially so as to fit like a glove over its HubSpot CRM software. This combination gives users some real firepower and the muscle, with which to harvest much improved results.

Pros:

• A complete marketing package including CRM;
• Pay only for the recipients you are targeting;
• Online training is a nice touch;
• Well-optimized for mobile applications.

Cons:

• No free or good value low-cost base plan;
• Expensive beyond the minimal starter service;
• The learning curve is very steep;
• Problematic if wishing to incorporate a separate CRM.

Costs:

• Starter: $50 monthly;
• Professional: $800 monthly;
• Enterprise: $3,200 monthly.

To conclude…

As with any business tools and software, specific requirements – and budgets – will ultimately become the determining factor when making selection. The three email service providers listed above all offer excellent features – but are very individual animals. For this reason, they made the top three. If you feel that none of those may quite be right for you, or they are but you have budget concerns, you may also want to check out the following best email marketing benchmarks  and  companies and what they have to offer for 2022:

• MailerLite;
• Mailgun;
• Sendinblue;
• Drip;
• Constant Contact;
• Mailjet.

From basic marketing capabilities to more complex, automated services, today, there is an affordable solution available for every business – and any problem.