Newsletter tools in comparison: These are the best providers for professional email marketing

In the age of social media and influencer marketing, newsletters may seem a bit outdated. In fact, this is not the case. In fact, email marketing is still one of the channels with the best conversion rates that companies have in their repertoire - regardless of whether they serve B2C or B2B customers.

There are many providers of newsletter tools, most of which reduce the creation process to a simple modular principle and thus enable even non-professionals to carry out professional email marketing. That is why we would like to use this article to introduce you to the most popular tools and compare them with each other. In doing so, we will focus on their use in combination with Shopify.

There are many newsletter tools

Email marketing is neither antiquated nor does it have anything in common with the contentless spam with which it is sometimes wrongly associated. Properly applied, email marketing is actually very well received. A survey conducted by MarketingSherpa in the US found that 91% of respondents would like to receive promotional emails at least occasionally from companies they would like to do business with. There is little reason to believe that such a survey would yield a significantly worse result in this country.

Because the channel is so popular and has long been firmly integrated into the online marketing mix, numerous providers of newsletter tools have established themselves. We have analysed some of them more closely and would like to present our results to you in the following.

Our candidates for the newsletter tool comparison:

#1 Emarsys

Our newsletter tool comparison starts with the Austrian SAP subsidiary Emarsys. Emarsys describes itself as an "omnichannel customer engagement platform" and counts well-known companies such as Sky and Gerry Weber among its customers. In addition to personalised email marketing, Emarsys also offers the option of placing ads on social media. There is no free version, and the provider does not openly communicate its prices at all and instead invites interested parties to a demo. The solution is primarily oriented towards medium-sized and large companies.

In combination with Shopify, Emarsys can unfortunately only convince to a limited extent. Although there is an integration via app for Shopify Plus, our experience has shown that merchants cannot avoid an individual development for the connection, as the app does not function satisfactorily.

Pros:

+ integrated ad placement for social media

Cons:

- Intransparent pricing
- Poor Shopify app
- Free version: No
- Paid version from: Flexible

Free version: No

Paid version as of: flexible

#2 CleverReach

CleverReach is a German newsletter tool and has been on the market since 2007. In addition to a free version, CleverReach offers various packages for 250 to 150,000 recipients. A big plus is the fact that there is no limit to the number of e-mails sent in a month - you can send as many mails as you like and address as many subscribers as you want. One shortcoming, however, is the email editor, which is not very user-friendly and could be one of the reasons why CleverReach is not very well known beyond the DACH region. Although CleverReach offers a free Shopify app, users complain about high complexity and a lack of support.

Pros:

+ Suitable for businesses of all sizes
+ No limit for emails/month

Cons:

- Internationally rather unknown
- Not very user-friendly editor
- Complicated app connection for Shopify

Free version: Yes

Paid version from: 9€/month

#3 Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a user-friendly newsletter tool that primarily addresses shop owners, as it can be seamlessly integrated into various shop systems, including Shopify and Shopify Plus. In Germany, Klaviyo is less well-known than some of the other candidates in our newsletter tool comparison. In our opinion, however, the provider is underestimated. Klaviyo is also suitable for large contact lists beyond 100,000 subscribers and is used by more than 265,000 companies worldwide. The tool's great strength lies in its automation, which makes it easy to build segmentable retargeting loops to re-engage your subscribers at a later date. The functions can also be expanded very easily by connecting other apps. If you do run into problems with this, you can contact the support team, which is appreciated by the community for its competence and friendliness. Klaviyo also supports sending text messages, although this feature is not yet available in Germany. If you want to get a first impression of the provider, you can arrange a free demo appointment.

Pros:

+ Specially developed for merchants
+ Very good connection to Shopify, Shopify Plus and other systems
+ SMS dispatch (not yet in DE)
+ Functional automation
+ Easy connection to other apps
+ Good support
+ Demo possible

Con
- Rather unknown in Germany

Free version: Yes

Paid version from: $20/month

#4 Dotdigital

The London-based cross-channel marketing platform dotdigital focuses on customer engagement and personalised content presentation. In addition to creating email campaigns, dotdigital can also be used to send text messages. Furthermore, the tool has a live chat function with which customers can contact the retailer directly with questions. By means of AI, retailers can also play out product recommendations that are determined on the basis of user behaviour.

All these features make dotdigital more than a platform for pure email marketing - but it also has its price. The London-based company offers its customers a flexible pricing model that is, however, in the high-price segment and starts at around 350 euros per month. For this reason, dotdigital is more of a provider for large companies. The platform can be connected to your Shopify shop via the free app. The app enjoys many positive reviews in the app store.

Pros:
+ Live chat function
+ SMS dispatch
+ Product recommendations via AI
+ Good connection to Shopify

Cons:
- Very expensive

Free version: No

Paid version from: flexible

#5 Sendinblue

The number #5 in our comparison of the best newsletter providers has, according to its own information, more than 180,000 customers in 160 countries. This makes sendinblue one of the tools with an international reputation, and rightly so. The provider also maintains a headquarters in Berlin, which merged with the German Newsletter2go in 2020.

Sendinblue has dedicated itself above all to the DSGVO issue in connection with newsletters and guarantees its customers absolute security in this regard. Here, too, automation is one of the provider's strengths, which is even available in the free package. There is room for improvement in the free mail templates, which do not come close to those of the other candidates. The fact that the drag & drop editor cannot be used for standard mail templates such as the double opt-in or the subscription/unsubscription confirmation is also a weak point. Apart from that, sendinblue can be very easily linked to Shopify via a plugin. Subscription and unsubscription forms can also be integrated as HTML code or as an iframe.

Pros:
+ Guaranteed DSGVO-compliant
+ Internationally known
+ Functional automation
+ Good connection to Shopify

Cons:
- Less user-friendly editor
- Few appealing mail templates

Free version: Yes

Paid version from: 19€/month

#6 Mailchimp

The US provider Mailchimp is one of the big players in email marketing. The mail editor also shows why this is so. It impresses above all with its simplicity and a multitude of functions. Non-professionals and/or traders who have little time to create their own mails will find the extremely attractive mail templates particularly appealing. In addition to a free version, Mailchimp offers the three plans Essentials, Standard and Premium, which can be adapted according to the number of contacts. This creates a very flexible and transparent pricing model.

However, despite all the advantages, we cannot recommend Mailchimp as a newsletter tool - at least not in combination with Shopify. This is not DSGVO-compliant and harbours a high potential for warnings.

Pros:
+ Internationally known
+ Very user-friendly editor
+ Good mail templates

Cons:
- Not DSGVO-compliant with Shopify

Free version: Yes

Paid version from: $9.99/month

Zusatz: Zapier (Middleware)

Finally, we would like to introduce you to a newsletter tool that is actually not a newsletter tool at all: Zapier. Zapier aims to offer its customers a simple solution to connect different systems. The tool acts as middleware through which a variety of services can be integrated, including some email marketing providers.

So if you are not satisfied with a tool's standard app, Zapier can be used as an alternative to custom development. However, this is not an option we would recommend in every case, after all, middleware incurs additional costs. In the case of Zapier, these are calculated in so-called tasks. Tasks are generally data transfers between your shop and the service you have integrated. For example, if a user registers for your newsletter, a task takes place. It is difficult to determine in advance how many data transfers occur each month. This makes dimensioning the tool difficult.

Pros:
+ Middleware as an alternative to individual development
+ Large selection of integrable services

Cons:
- Additional costs due to middleware
- dimensioning difficult to estimate

Free version: Yes

Paid version from: 17,95€/month