When compared to self-service options, selecting business email marketing software is an entirely different ballgame. Email volume, price, functionality, and integration requirements will be vastly different from a small firm. The internet is brimming with information about email marketing tools for small to medium-sized enterprises. However, when it comes to enterprise email marketing, things appear to dry up rapidly.
If you’re looking for an enterprise email service but don’t know where to start, ListCleaningAdvice’s experts have covered you.
But first, what do we understand by “enterprise”?
What defines an enterprise
In the business world, an enterprise is a massive company with hundreds or thousands of people.
As per the OECD, an enterprise is a company that employs more than 250 people.
Consider it as a vast structure with many staff, customers, leads, and subscribers.
Essentially, we’re talking about a large amount of data. And this will be an essential consideration when selecting enterprise email marketing software.
What is the Distinction Between Enterprise and Small Company Email Marketing?
Naturally, some email skills will be vital regardless of organization size—to mention a few, data protection, deliverability, and design.
However, email marketing solutions for major enterprises differ significantly from those for small firms.
The features of a business email service will often differ in the following ways.
Contact management: Able to sort and categorize a huge number of customers, subscribers, and leads.
Data management: Enterprise email systems must be capable of storing and handling massive quantities of data.
Email volume: To communicate with a large number of subscribers, use a high-volume email marketing feature.
Price: Bulk email marketing with extensive features and support is more expensive. That comes as no surprise. However, as you’ll see in our comparison below, some enterprise solutions are far less costly than others.
Customization: Many ESPs provide customized enterprise email solutions. This offers far more freedom than the self-service programs intended for small firms.
Email send restrictions, the number of contacts stored, customer support, functionality, and connectors are all examples of customization possibilities. You can always choose the best email marketing tools for small business for your email marketing needs.
The most common use-cases for enterprise email
- Lead-nurturing sequences
- Welcome emails
- Transactional messaging (shipping notifications, order confirmations, account updates, password resets)
- Emails sent automatically in response to website or subscriber activity
- Abandoned cart emails
While a small to medium-sized business/e-commerce may have similar email procedures, sophisticated email automation and segmentation are critical for an enterprise dealing with many clients and subscribers.
As we get deeper into business email marketing features, we’ll look at these in greater depth.
What features should an enterprise email service have?
So, what are the enterprise email features that will ensure the success of your campaigns? What should you especially check for while comparing solutions?
You’re going to find out since we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the major email success factors.
The finest business email marketing systems, in our opinion, contain most or all of the following characteristics.
Advanced segmentation
It is critical to be able to segment contacts based on their various traits, behavior, and demographic information.
Why? Because the more relevant and tailored an email is, the higher the level of interaction.
Look for a technology that allows you to segregate at the granular level. Automation is also used in this case. Lead scoring and dynamic
segmentation, for example, will save time by automatically updating client profiles and contact lists.
Email automation
When you are sending an automated email or series of emails in response to contact activity, this is known as email marketing automation. This might include things like hitting a certain link, purchasing a specific type of goods, leaving a checkout, and so forth.
Manually sending individual emails is just not an option for a business. Email automation is required to eliminate human labor and send the appropriate message at the appropriate time.
So, what should you anticipate from an enterprise ESP in terms of automation?
Basic autoresponders, on the other hand, are the bare minimum. An enterprise email service worth its salt, on the other hand, would offer powerful automation features.
If/then/else logic, emails prompted by on-page events, and a visual workflow builder are all part of the package. You know, the more complicated stuff.
Bonus points if it provides a multichannel marketing automation package that extends beyond email for a comprehensive strategy.
Integrations
It is critical to have plugins and integrations that link to your website and other company applications.
Priority support
When you pay the top price for an enterprise email service, you want to know that help will be there when you need it. Multiple support channels, including phone, chat, and email, is the standard.
The top business email systems will go above and above by including a dedicated customer success manager. Not only will this individual assist with problem resolution, but they will also handle setup and onboarding.
This is important because, as you will see later, certain business email programs have a severe learning curve.
A helping hand will make things much easier and faster, especially if you’re transferring from another ESP.
Custom reports and dashboards
You want to be able to simply obtain reports and track critical email performance indicators.
An excellent enterprise ESP will deliver detailed real-time reports. These are particularly useful for transactional emails when timely delivery is critical.
Additional analytics capabilities such as heat maps, geography, and device reporting get extra points.
A/B Testing
One of the most effective strategies to enhance email open rates and engagement is to test and learn. Seek a solution that allows you to A/B test email subject lines and content.
Email templates and design features
This is completely dependent on your in-house design resources.
You don’t have an email designer, and you don’t know how to write HTML? Then email editors for beginners, such as drag-and-drop builders, will be your best friend.
Any provider that provides unique email templates is a huge advantage if you want great designs that will stand out in the inbox.
SSO (Single Sign-On)
It is critical for business security to limit logins to a single set of credentials. An SSO feature saves employees from having to remember several passwords and lowers potential security issues.
Service Level Agreement
An SLA will provide you with peace of mind. It will include things like an uptime guarantee or a set support response time.
Multi-user access and Sub-account
Enterprise marketing teams are generally large, encompassing several company units and areas. Numerous users must be accommodated by a business email system.
Look for systems that include sub-account administration and IP addresses for distinct company divisions. Essentially, a centralized system that allows teams to maintain their freedom and flexibility in managing their own email marketing initiatives.
Email personalization and Dynamic content
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: personalized, relevant emails get more engagement.
The term “dynamic content” refers to email content that displays messages based on if/then/else logic.
For example, if a consumer purchases an outdoor tent, send an upsell email template that is immediately generated with other camping goods. This is live content.
CRM module
With so much customer information at your disposal, a CRM module that centralizes contact information in individual profiles is certain to be useful.
Is it necessary to have all of these functionalities for enterprise email marketing?
Most likely not. Do your research to determine what your company truly needs.
The last thing you want to do is overpay for features you’ll never use.
Making the line between ‘necessary’ and ‘good to have but not vital’ can save you hundreds of dollars over time.
Above all, your workplace email solution must be user-friendly and scalable.
Which are the Most Effective Enterprise Email Marketing Platforms?
You’ve undoubtedly heard of the big-name brands in the B2B enterprise segment (like Marketo, Pardot, HubSpot).
Then there are less well-known but less expensive ESPs (like ActiveCampaign, Sendinblue). These are mostly aimed toward small to medium-sized enterprises and e-commerce, but there are enterprise options available.
Let’s take a detailed guide to what each has to offer.
(1) ConvertKit
ConvertKit is an email marketing solution that caters mostly to bloggers and content providers.
Most services strive to suit everyone. ConvertKit, however, does not. They instead appeal to a certain target — bloggers and content developers.
As a consequence, we have a well-crafted product that is really easy to use. With the inclusion of opt-in forms and landing pages, you receive all of the essential features, such as visual automation. While a dedicated landing page builder will give you more mileage, it’s a wonderful tool to have for developing your email list.
Simple reporting provides a solid general picture of how your forms are doing and how your email list is developing, and tagging/segmentation is quite simple.
You may create email sequences and then drag and drop them into the visual automation builder. Forms could be utilized in the same way. Most email marketing systems require you to switch between these choices, but you may open both while changing your automation.
There are certain limits due to ConvertKit’s simplicity. For example, screening your subscribers is more difficult than with other providers; there is no spam rating and no visual email builder.
Even if you’re a total newbie to email marketing and want simplicity without losing significant email automation capability, ConvertKit is worth a look.
Key features:
- Visual automation that is both powerful and easy: If you’re new to email marketing, you’ll enjoy how simple it is. You can accomplish a lot with their email automation builder.
- Easy-to-use user interface: The UI makes it simple to start your email list without much of a learning curve.
- Opt-in forms and landing pages are included: Create opt-in forms and landing pages without using any other software.
- Ideal for individuals who have a lot of lead magnets: You may provide a new lead magnet with each form or landing page you build.
Pricing:
A free account with up to 1,000 subscribers is offered. However, it does not contain visual automation or email sequences. Paid options start at $29 per month and include up to 1,000 subscribers and unlimited email blasts.
(2) Sendinblue
Sendinblue distinguishes itself as an email marketing platform that provides exceptional value without losing functionality.
You’ll discover essential tools like a drag-and-drop email builder, robust marketing automation, and more specialized capabilities like spam testing and A/B split testing.
In a few ways, Sendinblue stands distinct. For starters, they provide a transactional email.
What exactly is transactional email? There are two kinds of emails—transactional and marketing. If you send newsletters, this is considered a marketing email.
Transactional emails are those linked to product purchases and account sign-ups — the type of emails that are needed by default. Even if you’re running any kind of eCommerce website or any other website that requires you to send account-related emails, this will come in pretty handy.
Furthermore, Sendinblue charges for its services depending on the volume of emails sent rather than the number of subscribers. So, if you send emails regularly, Sendinblue might save you a lot of money.
It’s worth mentioning that unless you’re on the Premium or Enterprise subscriptions, automation is limited to 2,000 contacts.
Overall, Sendinblue has a robust feature set that is especially surprising given its low pricing point. They also feature an appealing user experience that makes the service fun to use. x
Key features:
- Sendinblue is a transactional email application that you may use if you run a website that requires transactional emails. On higher subscriptions, transactional SMS messages are also supported.
- Excellent email automation: It’s amazing to see such sophisticated automation at such a low cost.
- Live chat integration: Live chat is accessible on higher-tiered services. This is wonderful since you can combine it with your email automation, and it eliminates one tool from your marketing stack.
- Landing page builder & Facebook Ads: More expensive plans include a landing page builder as well as Facebook Ads integration.
Pricing:
With restricted functionality, you may send up to 300 emails every day for free. Choose the Lite subscription to send 100,000 emails each month and have access to extra features. Higher-level plans provide access to even more services, and “Pay as you go” pricing is available.
(3) Drip
Drip is a solid eCommerce CRM, and although they do it really well, they are also one of the greatest all-around email marketing systems we’ve encountered.
You can use their powerful visual automation builder and create drip email campaigns, individual broadcasts, or drip email campaigns. The ability to split tests within automation is a really useful feature.
You may send simple emails that get you out of the promotions page, or you can utilize their graphic email builder to create customized emails.
They provide a plethora of reporting capabilities. You’ll also get eCommerce-specific reports that are amazingly valuable for folks owing eCommerce sites.
Even if you don’t have an eCommerce site, Drip is worth a look. It’s, without any doubt, one of our favorite email marketing tools.
Key features:
- Power more sites for less: If you operate many sites, Drip becomes significantly less expensive. Rather than purchasing separate accounts for each site, you may simply create a secondary user account for your primary one.
- Robust email automation with split testing: Drip’s visual automation builder is simple to use and allows you to immediately split-test your automation.
- Tracking on-site for a comprehensive history: You receive a comprehensive picture of everything your subscribers do on your website, much like some of the other providers on our list. You can use that data to build up your email automation sequences.
- Drip’s feature set is specifically tailored to eCommerce businesses, and it includes e-commerce-specific reporting.
Pricing:
Plans begin at $19 per month for 500 subscribers with unlimited email blasts.
(4) ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign is a well-known email marketing solution that offers the ideal blend of capability and price.
This application provides a plethora of features that extend beyond email marketing. Besides that, it provides one of the most sophisticated visual automation builders we have seen.
When it comes to essential emailing functionality, you have all you need. For example, you may pick from a library of email templates or create your own using a drag-and-drop editor.
You may send your campaign emails in a variety of ways, including scheduled campaigns, one-time emails, RSS-based, automated emails, auto-responders, or A/B testing.
In terms of contact management, ActiveCampaign has a ton to offer. You receive a plethora of contact filtering options, as well as a complete history of how your contacts have engaged with you — this works in tandem with their site and event monitoring tools. List cleaning is provided, and it may also be done via automated processes.
It is very simple to segment an entire email list, and you’ve access to complicated features like dynamic content and A/B testing. These two features alone can increase the number of opens, clicks, and conversions.
ActiveCampaign is the greatest all-around email marketing service for balancing capability, pricing, and performance.
ActiveCampaign’s product is designed in such a manner that it makes industry-leading marketing automation available to content producers and small organizations while providing enterprise-specific features to bigger enterprises.
User profiles for your team are accessible, as well as live chat, on-site messaging, custom domains, CRM & sales automation, and much more.
Key Features:
- A large automation sequence library saves you time and effort: Don’t squander your time creating lengthy automation sequences from the ground up. Import pre-made sequences that you may change in a matter of seconds.
- Marketing automation at its best: ActiveCampaign’s visual automation builder is one of the most feature-rich on the market.
- A live chat feature is included: In minutes, you can add live chat to your website and effortlessly integrate it into your automation workflows. To respond to live chat messages while on the go, use mobile applications.
- The site and event monitoring: Automate your email marketing depending on event triggering and how your website visitors engage with it.
Pricing:
Plans begin at $9/month (paid yearly) for their light plan, which contains all of the critical email and automation tools that most people will want. Increase your plan to gain access to custom domains, site messaging, SMS marketing, CRM, and more.
(5) GetResponse
GetResponse is an industry veteran when it comes to email marketing software systems.
While they were formerly losing pace to rival email marketing platforms, they have significantly improved their game by adding a host of new capabilities.
While GetResponse’s core email marketing product has always been good, the inclusion of visual marketing automation, landing pages, webinars, CRM, and other additional capabilities has assisted GetResponse in becoming more of an all-in-one platform.
There is a large range of email templates grouped by industry. Split testing is also possible for newsletters. The visual email builder is drag-and-drop, with preview features and spam rating integrated into it.
Contact management makes filtering, list hygiene, and reporting simple. You’ll discover a robust visual automation builder that, like ActiveCampaign, comes with automation templates to get you started.
What intrigued us the most about GetResponse’s features was their Conversion Funnel tool. They’ve established a platform that provides you with everything you need to build a comprehensive sales funnel with their other capabilities.
This includes creating ads to fill your funnel, landing pages, webinars, exit-intent popovers, sales pages, eCommerce integrations, and payment processor integrations. Within the platform, you may also create your own store.
And because you can perform all of this within a single platform, analytics and reporting are really convenient.
The only complaint we have with GetResponse is its complicated pricing. It appears to be intended to perplex. Some fundamental automation features, such as segmentation and on-site tracking, aren’t available unless you upgrade to a higher subscription.
Key features:
- Develop whole sales funnels quickly: Autofunnel helps you to quickly create well-designed sales funnels.
- Email marketing automation at its finest: The visual automation is simple to use and includes templates to get you started.
- Built-in shop building tools: GetResponse allows you to create your own micro eCommerce store, ideal for those selling digital items. You may also integrate payment gateways or other eCommerce systems.
- Easy development of a landing page and a form: While many email marketing programs have a landing page builder, it is usually rather basic. This is not true for GetResponse.
Pricing:
Plans begin at $15 a month and provide access to basic features. Higher-tiered plans provide access to additional features. Unfortunately, unless you upgrade to a higher plan, not all automation capabilities are available.
A free package with restricted capabilities is offered for up to 500 contacts.
(6) Mailerlite
On the sixth rank is Mailerlite, which is a fabulous email marketing software that has grown in popularity in recent years as a result of its feature-rich free plan.
You receive a simple UI, efficient subscriber management, a drag-and-drop email builder, and a full-featured visual automation builder.
Subscribers may be segmented, inactive subscribers can be removed with a few clicks, and subscriber activity can be seen. You may do split tests on your campaign emails or send them through RSS.
The visual email builder has several good templates and may be used to construct emails for usage in your automation (paid plan required).
In recent years, we’ve been utilizing Mailerlite as an alternative for MailChimp for our smaller sites. We began to see a decline in open rates with MailChimp, which makes sense given that everyone who adds us to mailings without our consent appears to use MailChimp. Mailerlite, on the other hand, requires all new users to be approved before they may send emails.
Overall, considering the features supplied, we were impressed by the service’s simplicity. And we appreciate the fact that there is a simple subscription plan that unlocks all functions. So, whether you pay $10 per month or $1,000 per month, you get access to all functions.
We’ve encountered a few problems using Mailerlite. Support was unable to address them, and each time their staff took 3+ weeks to respond with an answer of “we don’t know” or “we couldn’t locate a problem” – this is why it is not ranked highly on this list.
Key features:
- One of the most affordable email services we’ve found: It’s incredible how much less expensive Mailerlite is when compared to other providers. It’s tough to predict whether this will be a positive or terrible thing.
- Excellent free plan: Get a free account with up to 1,000 email subscribers and a few feature restrictions. Custom domains, promotional popups, a visual email builder, email templates, live chat support, auto-resend, and a few additional capabilities are all available only with a subscription account. Still, not too shabby!
- Integrated landing page and opt-in form builder: You won’t get as much mileage out of it as you would with a purpose-built platform like Leadpages, but it’s excellent in comparison to what comes with some of the other options on our list.
Pricing:
A free starting plan with access to the majority of features and limited support is offered. You will be provided with a free trial of premium features. Paid subscriptions begin at $10 per month and provide access to all features.
(7) SendX
SendX is a relatively new email marketing solution on the market.
Despite competing with a slew of renowned companies, they’ve launched a feature-rich platform that’s far less expensive than some of its rivals. In fact, on a per-subscriber basis, it outperforms the majority of the platforms on this list.
The layout is basic and easy to use, and it’s simple to maintain your contacts. Unsubscribed and bounced contacts are simple to locate. You can view a chronology of their behavior in your contact history.
Campaigns may be configured as either a newsletter or a drip campaign. You may also A/B test your campaigns or use site activity to trigger campaigns.
They provide a drag-and-drop email builder and a good range of templates.
SendX does not currently offer a visual automation builder (but it is in the company’s product roadmap). They do, however, have a rule-based if X happens, then Y happens type system.
If you’re having trouble connecting SendX with other solutions, you can use Zapier to connect to 1,500+ additional apps.
Key features:
- Team accounts: We weren’t expecting to see team accounts because of SendX’s relative newness in the email marketing field, yet they do.
- Simple landing page and popup creator: You receive a few nice-looking templates, to begin with, as well as some very extensive capabilities. Popovers, for example, allow you to specify trigger behavior such as scroll depth, time spent on site, and exit intent.
- Over 500,000 stock pictures are included: Do you want to use stock photographs in your emails? You can do so immediately.
- Email campaign click-heat maps: Look at where people are clicking on your emails to see where they are going.
Pricing:
Plans start at $9.99 per month and include up to 1,000 subscribers and unlimited email blasts.
(8) AWeber
We originally used AWeber as an email marketing platform. They’re one of the few platforms which have remained focused on its primary function – email marketing.
AWeber is a wonderful choice if you want a solid solution for delivering straightforward emails (but not overly so).
They feature a fantastic drag-and-drop email builder and a massive library of 700+ templates to make your emails look excellent. Because they’re such a popular platform, you’ll discover that many tools interface with them.
Tags are simple to add, and split testing allows you to evaluate your subject lines, email content, and other aspects.
You have the ability to filter your email subscribers and obtain detailed reporting. AWeber provides automation. However, there is no visible builder. Depending on your preferences, this might be a good or negative thing.
Unsubscribes count against your plan and must be manually erased, which is a huge disadvantage of AWeber.
Key features:
- Making landing pages: Make landing pages to help you expand your email list.
- Designer of AI-powered email templates: It’s never been easier to create visually appealing emails.
- Traditional auto-responder vs. automation: You may utilize AWeber’s auto-responder if you don’t require complete email automation. Automation is straightforward to use, but unlike the other tools on our list, it lacks a visual builder.
- A large number of email templates are available: 700+ email templates are available.
Pricing:
Plans begin at $19 per month for 500 subscribers with unlimited email blasts.
Try AWeber Free
(9) Sendlane
Compared to some of the other companies on our list, Sendlane is a relative newbie to the email marketing service field. They have a robust feature set.
You may carry out all of the fundamental campaigns and newsletters. Choose from a variety of email templates or create your own with the drag-and-drop builder. Segment your list using custom fields and tags and monitor real-time metrics.
Sendlane’s graphic editor for composing emails is extremely polished. It’s a drag-and-drop application with a nice user interface.
Some plans, however, are only accessible on specified list sizes.
Regardless, Sendlane has a lot to offer and is taking on some of the more known email marketing heavyweights with its extensive feature set. Try it out for yourself!
Key features:
- Automated list hygiene: You may automatically clean it and choose which parameters to include when creating a new list.
- Machine learning to optimize send times: This will help you enhance your open rates.
- Pre-programmed automation sequences: Do you want to reactivate dormant subscribers? Or do you want to provide a digital product? To begin, you can import pre-built automation sequences.
- Visual automation creator: Sendlane’s visual builder makes it simple to create automation sequences.
Pricing:
Programs begin at $99 per month, with extra features available on higher-level plans.
