50 of the Best Email Marketing Tools

[updated] May 25th 2017

The Power of Email Marketing

Email remains one of the most effective digital marketing tools for both B2B and B2C marketers, outperforming social media and paid search when it comes to ROI. And as the majority of emails are now read on mobile devices, gone are the days of a stringent 9-5 window of opportunity: emails are more frequently read by people as they travel to and from work, or at home in the evenings. MailChimp is easily one of the most popular email software providers, but it’s a pretty crowded market place. So we wanted to delve in a bit deeper.

This article provides some interesting stats on email marketing, as well as 50 of the top recommended email marketing tools to use.

Some Interesting Email Marketing Stats

• The number of email users worldwide is currently 2.6 billion and is expected to grow to over 2.9 billion by 2019. (MediaPost)

• A large majority of U.S. adults — 72% — prefer communication with companies to happen through email. (MarketingSherpa)

• Email is the only digital channel that outperforms old media standbys in terms of how consumers prefer communcations with companies — postal mail (preferred by 48%), television ads (preferred by 34%) and print media, such as magazines and newspapers, (preferred by 31%). Only 11% of people prefer mobile apps and just 7% prefer online video ads. (MarketingSherpa)

• Email is the most effective digital marketing tactic for B2B marketers, with 31% saying it has the biggest impact on revenue. (MarketingProfs)

• Across all age groups, email is the preferred method of communicating with companies (with about three-quarters of consumers/buyers choosing this). However, while more than 60% of those aged 55 and older like to communicate with companies by postal mail, just 29% of millennials say the same. (MarketingSherpa)

• Personalized email subject lines increase open rates–but the effect varies considerably across industries. Personalizing the subject line increases open rates for consumer products and services by 41%, versus 13% for B2B emails. (MarketingSherpa)

• For consumer products and services, personalizing email subject lines also increases transaction rates by 49%, and revenue per email by 73%. (MarketingSherpa)

• And yet, only 35% of brands personalize their email subject lines. (MarketingSherpa)

• 46% of startups use email marketing. (TNW News)

• Digital marketers rank email as their top marketing tactic, with 54% saying it’s their most effective channel and just 11% calling it the most difficult. Mobile marketing and SMS, however, ranked near the bottom in the same survey, with just 9% citing it as their most effective tactic while 34% viewed it as the most difficult. (TNW News)

• Email is viewed as the most effective digital marketing tactic for customer retention purposes. But while 56% of marketers viewed email as an effective retention tactic, just 8% said the same for mobile advertising. (TNW News)

• Direct marketers say email has the highest ROI of any marketing tactics. Mobile falls near the bottom of the list, however, below direct mail and just ahead of paid search advertising. (TNW News)

• Asked about all the different devices they use to open and read emails, 93% of consumers use a laptop or desktop computer; 67% use a smartphone; and 42% use tablets. (Email Monday)

• Asked why they unsubscribe from brand emails, 33% of consumers said they do so because mailings are too frequent. 24% unsubscribe because the content is repetitive and boring. (SocialTimes)

Email Marketing Software Solutions: Top 50 by Alexa Rank

In identifying 50 of the best email marketing tools, we wanted to use a metric to measure this against. As Alexa is a well-established indicator of traffic levels to a website through sessions and unique visits, we were curious to see how well these email marketing providers fared when entered into the jaws of this global ranking tool. We also looked at how these rankings changed over the last 3 months and considered how well they ranked in the United States (marketers in the US seem to like email marketing a lot!)

So here’s our list of the top 50 email marketing providers according to their Alexa rankings*

Global Alexa Rank: 355

Global Alexa Rank: 412

Global Alexa Rank: 588

Global Alexa Rank: 714

Global Alexa Rank: 1,301

Global Alexa Rank: 1,731

Global Alexa Rank: 2,800

Global Alexa Rank: 6,450

Global Alexa Rank: 7,723

Global Alexa Rank: 11,125

Global Alexa Rank: 15,263

Global Alexa Rank: 16,641

Global Alexa Rank: 17,297

Global Alexa Rank: 18,370

Global Alexa Rank: 18,433

Global Alexa Rank: 18,530

Global Alexa Rank: 22,974

Global Alexa Rank: 24,398

Global Alexa Rank: 32,786

Global Alexa Rank: 43,557

Global Alexa Rank: 44,303

Global Alexa Rank: 50,208

Global Alexa Rank: 50,540

Global Alexa Rank: 51,159

Global Alexa Rank: 55,372

Global Alexa Rank: 57,501

Global Alexa Rank: 60,080

Global Alexa Rank: 63,393

Global Alexa Rank: 67,265

Global Alexa Rank: 74,627

Global Alexa Rank: 91,985

Global Alexa Rank: 93,716

Global Alexa Rank: 101,890

Global Alexa Rank: 105,888

Global Alexa Rank: 117,817

Global Alexa Rank: 141,099

Global Alexa Rank: 151,556

Global Alexa Rank: 152,014

Global Alexa Rank: 153,409

Global Alexa Rank: 166,080

Global Alexa Rank: 181,598

Global Alexa Rank: 204,516

Global Alexa Rank: 228,701

Global Alexa Rank: 268,052

Global Alexa Rank: 355,213

Global Alexa Rank: 380,182

Global Alexa Rank: 431,905

Global Alexa Rank: 443,361

Global Alexa Rank: 594,715

*Information obtained from Alexa.com on 25/05/2017

Email Marketing in Alexa’s Top 100,000

We can see from this list alone that there is a lot of competition among email marketing providers, with more than half currently sitting comfortably in Alexa’s top 100,000 websites. And it’s fair to say that they are deservedly there. If we look at the top 10 providers from the list and analyse their social media following, here is the breakdown:

While Alexa may only be an indicator of traffic to these websites based on those who have installer the toolbar, the social media following of these providers listed above only further justifies why they deserve to come out on top; they have thousands of advocates right behind them, they are highly active on their social media channels, and they always provide engaging content for these followers to read. This in turn will only drive further traffic to their website.

As email marketing doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon, we can only assume that the providers will keep coming too. However, this comes as a caution as this is a highly competitive market with very little room for a brand new USP that these top 10 companies haven’t thought of.