Top 10: Email Marketing software and services

2019. Mailchimp expanded from email to full marketing platform



Mailchimp, renowned for its popularity as a customer-oriented email tool, is expanding its offerings to provide a comprehensive marketing platform tailored for smaller organizations. This new platform will incorporate a range of innovative products, including lead tracking and management technology, domain purchase and website building capabilities, ad retargeting on Facebook and Instagram, and social media management features. Additionally, Mailchimp will leverage artificial intelligence to provide business intelligence insights and recommendations on effective marketing strategies, targeting specific audiences. This development is particularly noteworthy due to the vast amount of data Mailchimp has accumulated from its 4 billion user base, encompassing individual responses to emails and other services offered by the platform.


2017. Email Marketing company SendGrid raised $131 million



SendGrid, the marketing email company, has successfully raised $131 million through its initial public offering (IPO) with a pricing of $16 per share, exceeding the anticipated range of $13.50 to $15.50. Starting from Wednesday, the company will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SEND. SendGrid specializes in assisting businesses with their marketing email campaigns and boasts the impressive milestone of processing over one trillion emails, as stated in its IPO filing. The company acknowledges competition from SparkPost, MailChimp, and various divisions of Amazon, Oracle, and Salesforce.

2017. Adobe Campaign gets AI-features



Adobe has unveiled several enhancements for its email marketing tools in Adobe Campaign. While many of these features are already accessible, such as improved dashboards, new email templates, and enhanced support for multilingual campaigns, the most intriguing additions are the new machine learning-powered capabilities. These advancements enable the identification of optimal subject lines for emails and, in the near future, suggest personalized images for specific recipients who open marketing emails. Another noteworthy predictive feature demonstrated by the company is a tool that predicts customer churn based on their email engagement patterns. Although this employs conventional machine learning techniques, the accuracy of such predictions heavily relies on the quality of the input data. When combined with data from Campaigns, this tool can anticipate when a customer is likely to unsubscribe from a service, offering valuable insights to businesses.


2017. Microsoft adds 5 new services for SMB to Office 365 Business Premium


In order to further integrate small businesses into the Office 365 ecosystem, Microsoft has recently launched (in preview) five new tools specifically designed for SMBs. One of these tools, Microsoft Connections, enables users to create email marketing campaigns similar to Mailchimp. Another tool, Microsoft Listings, facilitates the management of business listings on popular platforms such as Facebook, Google, Bing, and Yelp, while also providing the ability to monitor online views and reviews. Additionally, Microsoft Invoicing allows for the rapid creation of professional-looking estimates and invoices, ensuring prompt payment processing. These new tools will be consolidated within the Office 365 Business Center, alongside the previously introduced Microsoft Bookings and Outlook Customer Manager. Furthermore, the Office 365 Business Premium package will also include the app MileIQ, which helps track business mileage when using personal vehicles. Over the next few weeks, these new services will be available for preview to Office 365 Business Premium subscribers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.


2017. MailChimp combines email marketing with Facebook Ads



MailChimp has expanded its offerings beyond email marketing by introducing a Facebook advertising integration. This integration enables users of the email marketing platform to create Facebook ads and monitor their performance within the same platform. By leveraging MailChimp's intelligent segmentation capabilities to target recent customers or engaged subscribers, businesses can efficiently generate lookalike audiences on Facebook. The rollout of Facebook Ad Campaigns will occur gradually, with availability for all customers expected by February 2.


2016. Website builder Weebly adds marketing emails



Weebly, a website building service tailored for small businesses, has introduced Promote, a dedicated platform for creating marketing emails. Weebly CEO David Rusenko emphasized the significance of email marketing, which ranks as the second most important concern for small businesses, right after their websites. However, a substantial portion of Weebly users fail to capitalize on existing email marketing tools due to their complexity and difficulty of use. To address this issue, Promote enables users to construct marketing emails using the familiar drag-and-drop tools they already employ to build their websites. Currently, Weebly Promote is exclusively available to existing Weebly platform users, but the company plans to extend access to a broader audience in the near future. The pricing for Weebly Promote starts at $8 per month.


2015. Email marketing service Zoho Campaigns is available on Android



Until now, Zoho Campaigns exclusively catered to iPhone users who wished to manage their email campaigns through the mobile app. However, an exciting development has occurred as they have recently announced the availability of the same application for Android users as well. Android users can now enjoy all the prominent features that were previously limited to the iPhone app. These features encompass prompt access to email campaigns, mailing lists, and subscribers, comprehensive views of all reports and sharing capabilities, the ability to handle contacts and subscriber lists, and the convenience of offline access for uninterrupted productivity even without an Internet connection. Moreover, Android users can now stay organized by receiving mobile notifications that notify them when their campaigns are ready to be sent. This means that, even while on the go, you can effortlessly deliver your completed campaigns to your subscribers directly from your smartphone.


2015. Email marketing solution Mailjet gets $11 million



French startup Mailjet has recently secured $11 million in funding for its versatile email delivery service, catering to both marketing campaigns and transactional emails. What sets Mailjet apart is its ability to effectively address both markets: marketing and transactional. When it comes to transactional email services, reliability in terms of API functionality and prompt delivery is crucial. Mailjet initially focused on providing exceptional transactional email services. On the other hand, marketing email services require the capability to send a high volume of emails, even if it takes a few minutes to accomplish. They also need to establish a reputable relationship with major email providers like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to prevent newsletters from being flagged as spam. Additionally, Mailjet offers tools to customize the design of emails, further enhancing the marketing email experience.


2014. Sendwithus gets $2.3M to help marketers optimize transactional emails



Email marketing startup Sendwithus has successfully secured an additional $2.3 million in seed funding. The company provides a range of valuable tools, including A/B testing, that allow businesses to optimize their transactional emails. These transactional emails serve specific purposes and are typically associated with particular events, such as "reset your password" or "thanks for signing up." These emails hold significant value as customers are more likely to open them, yet they are often overlooked by marketers. Sendwithus enables marketers to experiment with different variations of these messages without requiring developer involvement. In recent developments, Sendwithus has introduced segmentation capabilities, empowering businesses to target specific groups within their customer database. This allows for focused communication with users who have received activation emails but haven't completed the activation process. Moreover, Sendwithus seamlessly integrates with email delivery services like SendGrid and Mailgun, enhancing its overall functionality and reach.