4 Best Email Marketing Software for Ecommerce Businesses
Running an ecommerce business is no small feat. You need to take care of your inventory, orders, and, of course, your customers. Luckily, many things can be partially automated and optimized, and your email marketing is no exception.
As your customer and subscriber lists grow, you may find it necessary to invest in dedicated email marketing software to manage your campaigns. There are dozens of options available, which doesn’t make it easy to decide what’s best for you. To help you wade through the chaos, we've narrowed down the four best tools for ecommerce businesses out of 232+ email marketing providers.
Each tool has its own strengths to cover the needs of every type and size of ecommerce business.
What Makes the Best Email Marketing Software for Ecommerce?
It's worth noting that "the best" email marketing software will depend on your specific needs as an ecommerce business. We have therefore taken our overall ranking of the best email marketing software as the basis and tailored it to the most important functionalities for online stores.
That said, we found that the following criteria are especially critical for any ecommerce business to consider when choosing email marketing software:
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Ecommerce Features: This includes all functions that are particularly relevant for online shopping. Among other things, this includes abandoned cart emails, automating coupon codes, tracking of users (which items they look at, who has viewed the shopping cart, etc.), sales history, and other individual features such as a wheel of fortune.
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Integrations: Great email marketing software should integrate with other tools you use, such as the most common ecommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, and Wix. Other important integrations we considered involve connections to ad managers from Facebook and Google as well as to CRM systems. Integrations ensure a seamless workflow, so you can send the right emails to the right contacts at the right time without a complicated setup.
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Personalization: Automated emails should feel like they were written to the recipient, not sent en masse. It is particularly important in ecommerce, as it allows you to tailor messages based on customer behavior and interests.
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Automation: Put your email campaigns on autopilot with automated workflows. Automation allows you to send triggered or scheduled emails based on customer actions, like when they abandon a shopping cart or make a purchase.
Note: A business selling physical products might have different requirements than one offering digital subscription services. We recommend creating a list of features and functions you need for your business before choosing software.
The 4 Best Email Marketing Software for Ecommerce
The following email marketing solutions offer strong price-performance ratios and the best features for ecommerce businesses. We will discuss each software below and list its strengths and weaknesses. The providers are ordered, meaning that the best software tools are coming first.
1. Omnisend
First up is Omnisend. This comprehensive platform is specifically designed for ecommerce businesses and is loaded with features. It stands out with its multichannel marketing capabilities, which lets you manage automated campaigns across email, SMS, push notifications, social media, and more.
This can make your segmentation unbeatable, as you can send hyper-personalized messages due to optimally using customer data and preferences.
Their ecommerce capabilities don't stop there. With abandoned cart reminders, product recommendations, a wheel of fortune, and automated workflows designed specifically for online stores (like up-sells and cross-sells), Omnisend is an excellent platform from start to finish.
Considering all criteria, Omnisend offers the best overall email marketing solution for ecommerce companies.
Free Plan
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Omnisend is completely free for up to 250 contacts and 500 emails per month. The best thing is that you can still use all the features of the paid plans.
Worldwide SMS & Web Push Notifications
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Send your customers updates via SMS or push notification messages directly through their browsers. Both ways are great for announcing discount promotions or launching a new product.
Google & Facebook Ads Integration
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Sync all of your contacts or specific segments with your ad managers to automatically retarget customers or build lookalike audiences without any manual work like CSV uploads.
Customer Lifecycle Management
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Stay on top of every customer's journey with Omnisend's customer lifecycle management tools. Reduce customer churn with powerful analytics and automated segmentation.
Ease of Use
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The software used to be hard to use as new features were constantly being added. After restructuring in recent years, this has been fixed, making the software easy to use and extremely powerful at the same time.
Fairly Priced
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The plans are well composed and do not break your wallet.
Pros
No CRM Functionality
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Although Omnisend offers a great selection of features, it lacks one element, which is CRM (customer relationship management) capabilities. This could be problematic if you are selling high-ticket products. Keeping track of customer data, journeys, and 1 to 1 communications is not something you would be able to do flawlessly without a CRM system.
Limited Emails
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Omnisend limits the number of emails you can send per month to 12 times your plan's contact limit. So if you pay for 1,000 contacts, you can send 12,000 per month. By upgrading to the Pro plan, you can send an infinite number of emails.
No Contact Scoring
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You can segment subscribers, but if you want to measure their engagement level or loyalty on deeper levels, you won’t be able to do so via contact scoring.
Cons
2. Klaviyo
Next on our list is Klaviyo. Again a platform that focuses on ecommerce businesses, Klaviyo helps merchants create personalized email campaigns to engage customers, increase sales, and boost loyalty. Klaviyo's integrations with Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and other popular ecommerce platforms make it easy to get started.
Its onboarding process is also relatively straightforward, and the platform offers a variety of pre-built templates for when you're in a time crunch. With over a decade of experience, Klaviyo is a trusted name in the ecommerce email marketing space.
Robust reporting, A/B testing, and analytics are all part of the package with Klaviyo. This lets you measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and make changes as needed to maximize conversions.
Customer Data Platform
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Klaviyo's CDP comes very close to a CRM and allows you to integrate data from different channels, which greatly enhances an omnichannel strategy.
Free Plan
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Like Omnisend, Klaviyo offers a free plan with 250 contacts and 500 emails per month, which is also not further limited in features.
Predictive Data
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Forecast a customer’s next order date, lifetime value, churn risk, spending potential, predicted demographics, and more. Plenty of Native Integrations: Besides the major ecommerce platforms, Klaviyo integrates very well with other tools like Zendesk, which can simplify the support process between you and your customers.
Plenty of Native Integrations
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Besides the major ecommerce platforms, Klaviyo integrates very well with other tools like Zendesk, which can simplify the support process between you and your customers.
Pros
No Global SMS Sending
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SMS messages cannot be sent worldwide and are limited to the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Sending SMS is also significantly more expensive than with Omnisend.
Limited Emails
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There is no plan that allows you to send an infinite number of emails per month. The included ratio is 1:10. So if you pay for a plan of 1,500 contacts, you will be able to send 15,000 emails per month.
More Expensive
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Depending on the selected plan, Klaviyo costs on average 20-30% more than Omnisend.
No Landing Pages
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Unlike the other providers, Klaviyo does not offer landing pages. These can help create promotion pages or generate new leads.
Cons
Let's move on to the titan of marketing automation, ActiveCampaign.
It’s the first software on this list that is not specifically developed for ecommerce, but it’s so flexible that you can use it for literally any type of business. ActiveCampaign is able to do everything that the other tools can, plus it offers many more features on top. For example, using machine learning, you can estimate the purchasing probability of leads, and with predictive sending, ActiveCamapaign can analyze the opening behavior of each of your contacts individually so that it can deliver your emails when they are most likely to be opened.
The software is much more comprehensive than the other tools, but you might already guess that the price is correspondingly higher. You can control the price by choosing a plan that includes only the features you need, but you can also just go with any of the other options we discussed.
However, ActiveCampaign has one specific use area for which it will always be worth it, and that is high-ticket products or services. If your ecommerce store sells more expensive products that lead to an average shopping cart of $1,000 and above, then AC is definitely your best bet. This is because the more advanced features can quickly make a big difference in sales, making them worth leveraging. After all, what's an extra $100 a month for the software if it gets you 2-3 more sales?
Here are all the pros and cons of ActiveCampaign at a glance.
Unmatched Marketing Automation
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There is no email marketing software that comes close to the full range of features you can use to create automations. Secure even the smallest advantages in personalizing and optimizing your messages.
Unlimited Emails
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You can send unlimited emails per month with no extra cost on all plans.
Flexible Pricing
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You only pay for what you need. Need Predictive Sending? Upgrade your plan. Need to send SMS? Purchase the addon. Need a CRM? Get the bundle. Ready to commit to a yearly plan? Save 20%.
Available CRM
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The built-in CRM tool makes it easy to manage conversations, and monitor your pipeline and contacts.
Global SMS
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The SMS addon allows you to send SMS to any destination. You buy credits, which are consumed more or less depending on the destination country. The other solutions we discussed also follow this scheme.
Excellent Live Support
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The support team is really knowledgeable about their own tools. If you have something complex in mind that doesn't work out, the live chat support will help you get it right.
Pros
Learning Curve
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With so many features and capabilities, one thing that has to fall short, the usability. The software is not witchcraft but requires a certain learning curve to master it.
No Free Plan
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ActiveCampaign does not offer a free plan. While you can test the software during a 14-day trial, payment is required afterward.
Expensive
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The pricing is a lot more expensive than the other providers, which is also due to the fact that the lowest plan cannot be used for ecommerce, because the integrations with ecommerce platforms are unavailable.
Cons
4. MailerLite
Last but not least, we have a budget-friendly variant with Mailerlite.
This email marketing software targets all the general basics, making it ideal for beginners and people who don't need to have every imaginable feature.
Don't get me wrong, you still get the essential things for your ecommerce store, like creating cart abandon emails, mapping emails and sales, marketing automation features, and even creating landing pages. It's all just a bit more stripped down, so you won't be able to track the behavior of your users as detailed to create a more aligned omnichannel presence.
If you just want to send automated emails that look good, share a newsletter here and there, or create landing pages for products, then MailerLite is just perfect for you.
Free Plan
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You can use the software for 1,000 contacts and 12,000 emails per month for free. The functions are hardly restricted at all. MailerLite thus offers an incredibly generous free plan; you may not have to upgrade for a long time.
Unlimited Emails
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Send as many emails per month as you want, no matter which paid plan you choose.
Inexpensive
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MailerLite is the most affordable software on our list, making it an optimal choice for small ecommerce businesses that only need basic email marketing features.
Ease of Use
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Since the software is not packed with all the features you can think of, it is very easy to use and thus extremely beginner-friendly.
Incredible Support
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As a paying customer, you can reach someone from the support team 24/7 and get a helpful answer. The support is among the best we have tested across all email marketing tools.
Pros
No Website Tracking
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MailerLite is the only platform on our list that does not offer website tracking. Thus, you cannot add a code snippet to your website that lets you track your subscribers' actions. This in turn limits your possibilities in terms of automation and sending dynamic content tailored to the user’s behavior.
No SMS Sending
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MailerLite doesn't offer any option for SMS sending, so you don't have the possibility to include them in your automations.
No CRM & Detailed Analytics
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The data of your subscribers is very limited. You can only record clicks, email opens, the user's location, and the sales volume via email campaigns. The same applies to general analytics, which are very limited.
Shopify & WooCommerce Only
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There are other integrations with ecommerce platforms listed, but we found that only Shopify and WooCommerce actually provide value and work well.
Cons
All free plans from the featured providers come with a visible logo inserted at the end of each email you send. If you want to remove their branding, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Conclusion
All four email marketing tools are great software for ecommerce businesses. Some come with more features for marketing automation, SMS, segmentation, and reporting, while others focus more on the core functionalities. There are also differences in price here and there, which are more or less relevant for everyone. Ultimately, it's up to you to decide which email marketing software is best for your project.
We recommend taking a close look at what is most important to you. Then you can use the process of elimination to decide which solution is most in line with your priorities. If you want to explore the differences between the tools even further, visit our Comparison Tool.
FAQ
Why use email marketing software for ecommerce?
As ecommerce is heavily focused on discount promotions, customer loyalty, and branding, it is vital to maintain a continuous relationship with customers. Email marketing software helps to maintain this customer relationship by driving targeted campaigns that encourage purchases and build trust in the company. Next to that, you can create personalized campaigns for each customer's needs and preferences. Email marketing software also helps you track the performance of your campaigns, identify trends in customer behavior, and optimize your marketing efforts for a better ROI.
How do I choose the right email marketing software for my ecommerce business?
When choosing the right email marketing software, it's important to consider the needs of your ecommerce business and your budget. Your needs will dictate which software best fits your business. It is helpful to start writing down the use cases, i.e., to know exactly which tasks and scenarios your email marketing software should be able to fulfill. You can then use our list above to check which tools are best suited for these purposes. If you still haven't come to a conclusion, check the pricing structures and decide on the solution that offers the best cost-performance ratio for you.
Which ecommerce platforms are compatible with email marketing software?
Theoretically, all of them. It depends on how committed the email marketing software providers are to developing an integration. The most common integrations include Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Wix, Square, and PrestaShop. Before choosing email marketing software, it is important to check whether there is an integration with the ecommerce platform you use.
If you find no native integration, many of the best email marketing platforms offer a Zapier integration, which allows you to connect almost any application or platform with your email marketing software. There are also third-party plugins and API integrations available for most of them.
Average tennis player with above-average skills in marketing automation. I’m obsessed with delivering results but also tend to read each marketing email I receive five or more times to analyze it.
