[HN Gopher] I tried every top email marketing tool
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I tried every top email marketing tool
Author : steve-benjamins
Score : 85 points
Date : 2024-11-15 13:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sitebuilderreport.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sitebuilderreport.com)
| coreyh14444 wrote:
| I love the idea of a breakdown like this, but so many of the
| author's deal-killers are not relevant for most startups (the
| audience here). This is more of a list of solo freelancers.
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| That's fair. Any specifics?
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| Just to add this wasn't written from the perspective of a
| solo freelancer. I'm part a 4-person startup (Atlist.com)
| greedylizard wrote:
| This is very relevant to my industry (escape rooms). Our mailing
| lists quickly reach 10,000+ and unsubscribes happen often.
|
| I was so focused on deliverability with Mailchimp that I didn't
| realize (until I just checked) that I've been paying for 2,000
| unsubscribers. I had assumed I wasn't. Deleting them would have
| moved me down a tier. Strongly considering MailerLite now.
| Hizonner wrote:
| > Deleting them would have moved me down a tier.
|
| Presumably it would also have lost your record of the fact that
| they'd already asked to not get your email. So you'd have added
| them back to the spam list if they ever dealt with you again,
| so they'd have to unsubscribe _again_.
|
| Spam has gotten so normalized that not only are people not even
| pretending to get opt-ins, but they don't see why they should
| have to pay any real attention to opt-outs.
|
| Yes, you are a spammer, and so are most of the businesses on
| the Internet at this point.
| kyleee wrote:
| You can archive users when they unsub to avoid them counting
| towards your billable total
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| Do you have to manually do this or can it be automated?
| portaouflop wrote:
| Manual afaict.
| gmays wrote:
| Good analysis. One correction though, EmailOctopus does offer
| auto-plan downgrades. Screenshot of the billing page on our
| account: https://share.cleanshot.com/VJdQPrjP
|
| After trying a few also we ended up with EmailOctopus because of
| simplicity (we only send plain text emails) and cost. The trick
| was using their Connect [1] plans so it could send via our AWS
| account, which is cheaper (we pay $30/mo for the 10,0000
| subscriber plan).
|
| I also tried Loops and wanted to love it since they're perfect
| for SaaS companies, but back when I tried them we just got a ton
| of spam subscribers since they didn't have any built-in
| mitigation, so our list (and cost) grew.
|
| But that was in their very early days, so I assume they've
| resolved it by now and I'd like to try them again at some point
| since they're much more modern and purpose-built for SaaS (and a
| YC company).
|
| [1] https://help.emailoctopus.com/article/161-what-is-
| emailoctop...
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| Great point. Thanks for sharing.
|
| (I originally considered it "not automated" because it wasn't
| on by default but that's a bit harsh in hindsight. )
| jonathanbull wrote:
| CEO of EmailOctopus here. I was just about to offer this
| clarification, so thanks for commenting! Confirming that we
| offer auto-plan downgrades (and if you prefer it to not be
| automatic, as a lot of people do, you can manually
| increase/decrease your tier at any time).
| Terretta wrote:
| In the "you had one job" category of things to look at from an
| email marketing tool:
|
| _What about email deliverability?_
|
| _Deliverability refers to the percentage of emails you send that
| actually make it into your contacts ' inboxes._
|
| _The tool you choose can impact deliverability. However, it's a
| complex topic, and I won't dive into the details here. If this is
| something you're concerned about, there are experts far more
| knowledgeable than me who can explain it thoroughly._
|
| This ought to be disclaimed at the top instead of the end.
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| I disagree. It's a dimension of the decision, certainly not the
| "one thing" to look for.
|
| ... unless you're a spammer haha.
| Terretta wrote:
| Or unless your emails matter to your customers, with you
| seeing them as individual names instead of spray and pray
| marketing.
|
| Deliverability is the single most important thing to reach
| individuals in the first place, even more critical to
| maintain the transactional or workflow email relationship.
|
| Anthropic right now has an issue where their "passwordless"
| emails go to junk for M365 customers (85% of SMBs in U.S.),
| people literally can't use the service since the email isn't
| delivered to the inbox.
|
| To your point, in a past gig helping thousands of businesses
| with turning contacts into not just buyers but fans, I
| discovered mass marketers don't really care about
| deliverability at the level of "every single communication
| must land with every person".
|
| At the same time, I learned customers you want to build a
| relationship with very much do care. Ever since, when
| evaluating these, I start there, even before price. How many
| communications, transactions, or workflows with a future
| buyer with intent are you willing to fail to connect?
|
| "You had one job" means the primary, not only, dimension.
| Yes, the primary job of a mailer is for the mail to get
| there.
|
| I agree there's lots more to look for as well!
| Hizonner wrote:
| That ("Anthropic's" deliverability issue) is a Microsoft
| issue. Don't normalize Microsoft's bad practices.
| Terretta wrote:
| That's just one current example of when email delivery
| matters, likely to resonate with HN as being senders and
| receivers they recognize struggling with this. Not just a
| Microsoft thing, we can talk about a dozen where Gmail
| files things wrongly as well, and where the common
| element is the mailer.
|
| These mailers all have different levels of trust and
| deliverability stats. It's critical to know.
| Hizonner wrote:
| I don't think you're getting what I'm saying here. If an
| email provider is throwing away wanted messages from
| legitimate senders because of some "trust" metric, then
| it is _that email provider 's_ reponsibility, _not the
| sender 's_, to make damned sure that doesn't cause the
| loss of desired email.
|
| You are of course correct that _neither_ GMail nor
| Microsoft 365 or Hotmail or whatever they call it this
| week is suitable for any serious use.
| layer8 wrote:
| You don't have deny the responsibility of the relevant
| authorities to properly maintain hiking trails, in order
| to place responsibility on a hiking guide to safely get
| you along poorly maintained trails.
| portaouflop wrote:
| Write your own guides if you don't like the ones that are
| freely provided to you.
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm talking about a person that you hire as a guide.
| portaouflop wrote:
| How is gmail not suitable for serious use?
|
| Never had any issues with deliverability or receiving and
| been using it for years in a business context.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > That ("Anthropic's" deliverability issue) is a
| Microsoft issue.
|
| Emphasizing this. Validation emails sent to Microsoft
| hosted email are at high risk of never arriving.
|
| For at least 2 years I've seen this on MS's free, paid
| and enterprise/hosted services. The issue is per
| validator; mails all arrive or none ever will. Generally
| I'll try again months later and find that service is
| still blocked.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| LOL I wonder if Copilot or Azure AI validation emails are
| at a high risk of never arriving?
| 101008 wrote:
| Anthropic has a lot of issues. I tried paying them and my
| card is rejected without explanation.
|
| I tried different cards, addresses, even a VPN. Nothing
| works. After googling a bit I found on Reddit that this is
| very common. I don't thinks their investors are happy with
| them not accepting customers.
| portaouflop wrote:
| They most likely only care about Enterprise customers.
| Individual consumers like you are not relevant to their
| bottom line.
| yanko wrote:
| You did not evaluate adobe marketo.
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| True! Have you tried it? Any thoughts?
| layer8 wrote:
| Your main headline claims you tried every email marketing
| tool. ("Top" is only in the HN title, and even then I don't
| know if Adobe Marketo doesn't qualify as "top".)
| portaouflop wrote:
| Every "top" marketing tool. Obviously it's not possible to
| try all tools, there are probably thousands. "Top" is a
| subjective category so OP just evaluated most relevant
| tools probably.
| layer8 wrote:
| As I already tried to point out, "top" is only in the HN
| title, not in the actual article title.
| jeffgreco wrote:
| Wow you're telling me he didn't try every one of 12,000
| marketing tools that exist?
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm telling you he's being criticized for the hyperbole.
| kweks wrote:
| Adding our recent experience with Klaviyo. Klaviyo charges by
| "profile". When paired with Shopify, it automatically imports /
| pulls customer information 5o it's servers _even when the
| customer specifically opted out of marketing_.
|
| First month, we were debited 3500EU for opted-out profiles that
| they had auto-pulled, against the consent of customers and us.
|
| Even with the CEO looped in on emails, we had to threaten
| chargebacks before they refunded.
|
| They also refused to remove data under our official GDPR request.
| frereubu wrote:
| _That_ explains why that box hasn 't worked when I've used
| Shopify stores before. I couldn't be bothered to take them to
| task individually, but I figured they were using some kind of
| crappy "legitimate interest" basis.
| simple10 wrote:
| There's one tool worth mentioning that was missing from the list:
| High Level.
|
| It's commonly known and used in the agency and marketing world.
| Search for "go high level" on YouTube. Every marketer I know
| switched from ClickFunnels (reviewed in article) to High Level.
| It uses Mailgun on the backend for email delivery or can connect
| directly to SMTP.
|
| If you need a CRM with AI features, calendars, newsletters,
| funnels, etc. then High Level is worth considering. I've been
| using it for a couple years and love it. For startups, it's a
| cheaper alternative to HubSpot.
|
| https://gohighlevel.com/
|
| For additional context, I've switched all my businesses and
| clients out of Mailchimp and Klaviyo to High Level.
| mtlynch wrote:
| I appreciate that the author disclosed it, but the reason they
| went to all this effort is likely that they expect to make money
| as an affiliate for the platforms that they recommended.
|
| Affiliate-driven reviews introduce a major bias into the author's
| opinion, as they have incentive to speak more positively about
| platforms that are likely to pay the most.
|
| And email marketing platforms pay a _lot_ in affiliate fees. Just
| scanning some of the recommendations, if someone signs up for
| MailerLite through this reviewer 's link, they'll pay the
| reviewer 30% of that subscriber's fees forever.[0] I wouldn't be
| surprised if the reviewer's top pick is coincidentally the
| platform with the highest-paying affiliate program.
|
| The thing that really woke me up to affiliate-influenced reviews
| was the 2017 article, "The War To Sell You A Mattress Is An
| Internet Nightmare."[1] The reporter figured out that top YouTube
| mattress reviewers just gave positive reviews to whichever
| company paid the most in affiliate fees, and when one company
| lowered their fees, the reviewers retroactively downranked them
| for contrived reasons.
|
| [0] https://www.mailerlite.com/affiliate
|
| [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-
| blogg...
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| Op here. I sort of agree but all these tools offer affiliate
| programs and I can assure you we chose MailerLite because we
| think it's a tool we can use for 5-10 years.
|
| That being said: besides running a startup (Atlist.com) I also
| run an affiliate site (it's how we funded Atlist) and I would
| agree there is good reason to read affiliate websites
| skeptically. I regularly receive offers from website builders
| to "buy" the top spot in my best website builder roundup.
| https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/best-website-builder
| chevman wrote:
| A big driver of the right tool is your overall send volume and
| customer record count. Both of these will also influence pricing.
|
| Even for smaller shops, would recommend checking out some of the
| big players (eg Adobe, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Eloqua,
| Twilio, etc) as they have entry level lower tiers that may end up
| costing less over time than some of these startup focused
| solutions (which all seem to nickel and dime you and hit you up
| with various types of overage charges), and will get you much
| higher deliverability, automation, and integration capabilities.
| binarymax wrote:
| s/email marketing/spam/
|
| Going to get downvoted for this - but I don't know how spam is
| just considered OK and normal. We're all bombarded with garbage
| every day. Managing my inbox is more annoying than ever. Just
| stop it already.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are degrees of everything. Good luck with "If you build
| it they will come." Lots of people here hate advertising of any
| form as well.
|
| You need to promote things in some form in almost all cases.
| araes wrote:
| Bachman has relevant commentary on marketing and companies like
| MailChimp:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Ir9WuI8-8
| simple10 wrote:
| Great article. Thanks for writing it all up. A followup article
| on deliverability would be helpful as many people seem to only
| have a surface level understanding of the difficulties of
| deliverability.
|
| With bigger and more expensive email providers like Mailchimp,
| you're ultimately paying for higher deliverability.
|
| For startups just getting going with waiting list signups and
| newsletters, there are a few basic rules to staying out of the
| spam folder and Promotions tab.
|
| 1. Make sure SPF, DKIM and DMARC are setup properly
|
| 2. Always "warm up" a new domain and outbound email address
|
| Double opt-in where people have to either reply (highest signal)
| or click to confirm their email address tremendously helps warm
| up email. It's also important to slowly ramp up send volume over
| a few weeks or months and then keep send volume relatively
| consistent.
|
| 3. Consider using a warm up service that auto sends to and
| replies from an existing pool of recipient email addresses. It
| can help land your emails in the Primary inbox.
|
| 4. Watch out for shared IP addresses that end up on blacklists.
| If newsletters and emails are important to your biz growth, it's
| worth getting a dedicated IP address. Just be sure to warm it up
| properly.
|
| 5. Watch out for spam trigger words. Crypto, supplements, etc.
| It's an ever evolving list of words and phrases that bump up spam
| scores. Tools like https://www.mail-tester.com/ are useful for
| checking email config and spam scores.
| rwmj wrote:
| _> A followup article on deliverability would be helpful as
| many people seem to only have a surface level understanding of
| the difficulties of deliverability._
|
| How about never. Is never good for you?
| technion wrote:
| It's not an issue of being too hard to understand.
|
| The moment I say "double opt in", marketing will decide I lack
| the skills to be involved in mail and deliverability will be
| placed in the hands of someone with a graphics design
| background that has never heard of dns.
|
| I've seen it in every single place I've tried to help marketing
| campaigns for over 20 years.
| locallost wrote:
| If Brevo is one of the best, I am sceptical. I've had he
| displeasure of using it this year and the tools they offer are
| very iffy. But even ignoring that, the service is often down. I
| was often trying to edit a template, but it would not work
| because you keep getting a message like "something went wrong"
| and nothing gets displayed.
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| Can you be specific about "iffy"? I'd be curious to know more.
| locallost wrote:
| You can build kind of blocks that you use, but for anything
| more complex you're pretty much forced to use a kind of free
| HTML field, which of course is just a text field where you
| either suffer by editing html and their templating system in
| a browser text field (the templating is something Django
| compatible) or you copy and paste from your text editor which
| is also a form of torture. I've edited the wrong template on
| occasion, and saved it. Even if you just stick to their
| wysiwyg you still have to sometimes add conditional blocks
| and this also is for me anyway difficult. They have developer
| mode too, which is your email as a giant yaml.
|
| So they support a bunch of things, but personally I would not
| use it for anything except simple marketing campaigns. We do
| use it for that, but someone had the idea of having all
| customer emails go through it, and I don't really like it.
| ctippett wrote:
| I don't have a horse in this race, but I came across Postmark[1]
| several years ago and thought to myself if I ever needed to send
| marketing emails -- or transactional for that matter -- I'd give
| them my business. They seem.. nice.
|
| Anyways, I'm surprised to not see them mentioned or considered at
| all. Did they fly under the radar or do I just have the wrong
| impression of them?
|
| [1] https://www.postmarkapp.com
| mtlynch wrote:
| Postmark is owned by Active Campaign, which was included in OPs
| list, though I'm not sure how the Postmark product differs from
| the original Active Campaign product.
|
| I've been using Postmark for hobby projects for the past three
| years, and I've been happy with them, but my needs are super
| minimal - just sending out <100 emails per month
| programmatically where latency doesn't matter.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| The article is "I tried every top email marketing tool" and
| starts with eliminating a majority of the field based on an
| arbitrary rubric of what the author specifically is looking for.
| Then fails to compare essentially anything about the tools to
| provide any semblance of a useful review for any other person to
| consume for their own research. I have to agree with the other
| poster that this really just seems to be a reasonable attempt to
| get affiliate link click throughs.
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| OP here.
|
| What would you compare the tools on? Be specific
| bitwarrior wrote:
| I think the issue here is with the word "tried" and what that
| communicates. I think "compared" would be far more
| appropriate.
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| That's fair! I actually "tried" more than the "elite 6" but
| I eliminated many of those tools for different reasons
| JamesSwift wrote:
| Deliverability, price, pricing model, api/automation, UI,
| email builders, support, etc.
|
| The article is just "why we chose breva" and is very specific
| to you. As far as I can tell you didnt even use half of the
| offerings since they were ruled out purely due to pricing
| models.
|
| EDIT: just an example. If I wanted to know about sendgrid and
| how it compares, the only information this page gives me is
| "it has an overage charge". How am I supposed to consume this
| article as an informative comparison?
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| ... We didn't choose Brevo.
|
| You didn't even read the article!
| JamesSwift wrote:
| Sorry, mailerlite. I definitely read it and just swapped
| your 2nd pick.
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| This is not a universal comparison. This is the story about
| how I tried 25 email marketing tools. I'm sharing my
| subjective experience. You might be looking for something
| that my article doesn't claim to offer.
| malisper wrote:
| It's interesting to note none of the email tools I'm most
| familiar with are mentioned by the author. It's clear the author
| is a different demographic from me given they said they want to
| stay under $200/mo. Some of the tools I hear companies use the
| most are: - Customer.io - Iterable -
| Braze - Marketo - Salesforce Marketing Cloud
|
| My understanding is Customer.io is what most startups use these
| days with larger companies using one of the other four.
| pentacent_hq wrote:
| Interesting point about charging for unsubscribed contacts!
|
| I am building an Open Source email marketing platform
| (https://www.keila.io) and our current pricing model only
| considers the amount of emails you send, not the number of
| contacts/subscribers.
|
| I've been thinking about switching to charging per contacts
| instead - and I probably wouldn't have considered not including
| unsubscribed contacts if they're still stored on the platform.
| But now I will, thanks!
| walrus01 wrote:
| I particularly thought this part was really fascinating, where
| they start complaining about a EMAIL SPAM SPECIALIST COMPANY
| which uses, surprise surprise, shady email marketing list sign-up
| tactics. It does what it says on the label, as the saying goes.
|
| "5. Scammy Email Tactics Then there's their sneaky signup
| process. When creating an account, there's a checkbox that reads:
| "By NOT checking this box, I agree to receive promotional
| emails.""
| somid3 wrote:
| What about https://sendy.co -- 1 million is about $100
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