What are some tools that I can use for email marketing?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 2 Jul 2025
Updated 18 Aug 2025
7 min read
Email marketing is a cornerstone of digital strategy for businesses of all sizes, offering a direct line to customers and prospects. The effectiveness of your campaigns, however, heavily relies on the tools you choose. These platforms go beyond simply sending emails, providing functionalities for list management, design, automation, and analytics.
The right email marketing tool can streamline your workflow, personalize your communications, and ultimately boost your return on investment. With so many options available, understanding what each offers and how it aligns with your specific goals is crucial.
Whether you are a small business just starting, an e-commerce store, or a large enterprise, there is a tool designed to meet your needs. Many platforms offer free tiers or trials, allowing you to test out features before committing. This flexibility makes it easier to find a solution that scales with your growth.
Choosing the right email marketing platform
When selecting an email marketing platform, core functionalities are paramount. You need a system that enables you to easily create, send, and manage your email campaigns. This often includes features like drag-and-drop editors, customizable templates, and audience segmentation tools.
Automation is another key aspect, allowing you to set up automated email sequences for welcome series, abandoned carts, or re-engagement campaigns. These capabilities save time and ensure timely, relevant communication with your subscribers. Look for platforms that offer robust automation workflows to support your customer journey.
Some of the most popular and comprehensive platforms include Mailchimp, known for its user-friendly interface, HubSpot with its extensive CRM integration, and Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) for its all-in-one marketing and sales features. These tools often provide a holistic approach to email campaigns, from creation to analysis.
For those seeking more advanced capabilities or specialized solutions, there are tools focusing on specific aspects of email marketing. For example, some platforms excel in e-commerce automation, offering deep integrations with online stores and personalized product recommendations. Others provide advanced segmentation based on user behavior, allowing for highly targeted messaging.
Tools like ActiveCampaign offer sophisticated automation and CRM functionalities that are ideal for complex customer journeys. Similarly, MailerLite is often praised for its ease of use and powerful automation features, making it suitable for growing businesses.
When integrating with your existing tech stack, ensure that your chosen email marketing tool has native integrations or robust API capabilities. This ensures a seamless flow of data between your CRM, e-commerce platform, and other marketing tools, providing a unified view of your customer interactions.
Choosing your platform
Selecting the right tool for email marketing involves evaluating several factors. Consider your budget, the size of your email list, your technical expertise, and the specific features you need, such as advanced automation, A/B testing, or CRM integration. Many providers offer tiered pricing plans that scale with your subscriber count and usage.
Ensuring email deliverability and reputation
Beyond the basic sending capabilities, the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts is heavily dependent on deliverability. This refers to the ability of your emails to reach the recipient's inbox rather than being diverted to spam folders or rejected entirely. Factors influencing deliverability include your sender reputation, email authentication, and content quality.
Maintaining a strong sender reputation is vital. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) track your sending behavior, including complaint rates, bounce rates, and whether your IP address or domain appears on email blocklists (also known as blacklists). A poor reputation can lead to significant deliverability issues. Monitoring your domain reputation is a continuous process.
Email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are crucial for proving that your emails are legitimate and not spoofed. Properly configuring these records is a fundamental step towards improving your deliverability. For example, a DMARC record tells receiving servers how to handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM authentication, offering a powerful defense against phishing and spoofing. You can explore a simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM to understand these protocols better. To safely transition your DMARC policy, you can find a guide on how to safely transition your DMARC policy.
List hygiene: Regularly clean your email lists to remove inactive subscribers and invalid addresses. This reduces bounce rates and spam complaints.
Sender authentication: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These are critical for verifying your identity and preventing spoofing.
Content quality: Send valuable, relevant content. Avoid spammy keywords, excessive images, or broken links that can trigger spam filters.
Monitoring: Continuously monitor your deliverability metrics, blocklist status, and bounce rates.
Common pitfalls
Buying email lists: This is a fast track to low engagement, high bounce rates, and getting added to blacklists.
Ignoring authentication: Failing to set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC weakens your email's authenticity and makes it susceptible to spam filtering.
Inconsistent sending: Erratic sending volumes can negatively impact your sender reputation, making ISPs suspicious.
Not monitoring feedback loops: Ignoring feedback loop data means you're missing direct signals from recipients about spam complaints.
Measuring success and optimizing performance
Once your emails are successfully delivered, measuring their performance and optimizing for better results becomes the next critical step. Email marketing tools typically provide comprehensive analytics and reporting features that allow you to track key metrics like open rates, click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and bounce rates. These insights are invaluable for understanding how your audience interacts with your campaigns.
A/B testing is a powerful feature found in many email marketing tools that allows you to experiment with different elements of your email, such as subject lines, calls to action, or email content, to see what resonates best with your audience. This iterative process of testing and refinement is essential for continuous improvement and achieving higher engagement.
Beyond basic metrics, some tools offer advanced analytics, including heatmaps, geographic data, and device usage, giving you a deeper understanding of subscriber behavior. This detailed data helps you refine your segmentation strategies and personalize your content further, leading to more impactful campaigns. You can learn more about email deliverability and analytics platforms to assist with this.
Optimizing campaign performance
Personalization: Use subscriber data to personalize email content, subject lines, and offers for better engagement.
Segmentation: Divide your audience into smaller, targeted segments based on demographics, behavior, or interests.
A/B testing: Continuously test different elements of your emails to identify what drives the best results.
Mobile optimization: Ensure your emails are responsive and display correctly across all devices, as many users open emails on mobile.
Specialized and complementary tools
Beyond the mainstream platforms, a variety of specialized tools cater to niche needs within email marketing. For instance, some tools focus solely on inbox placement testing, allowing you to preview how your emails will appear across different email clients and devices, and crucially, if they will land in the inbox or spam folder. This is vital for ensuring your messages look good and reach their destination.
Other tools specialize in email list validation and cleansing. These services help you remove invalid, outdated, or risky email addresses from your lists, which can significantly improve your deliverability rates and reduce bounce rates. A clean list is fundamental to healthy email marketing, helping you avoid spam traps and blacklists.
Additionally, tools like OptinMonster are renowned for their lead generation capabilities, helping you build your email list through various forms, pop-ups, and landing pages. These tools complement your main email marketing platform by helping you grow your audience effectively.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Always prioritize building a healthy email list through opt-ins, rather than buying lists.
Regularly monitor your domain and IP reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools.
Segment your audience based on engagement and behavior to send more targeted messages.
Continuously test and optimize your email campaigns for better open and click rates.
Common pitfalls
Neglecting email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) can lead to emails landing in spam.
Sending emails to unengaged or old lists increases bounce rates and spam complaints.
Over-automating without personalization can make emails feel generic and reduce impact.
Ignoring feedback loops can prevent you from identifying and addressing deliverability issues.
Expert tips
Leverage DMARC reports to identify potential spoofing and authentication issues.
A/B test subject lines and call-to-actions rigorously, even small changes can have a big impact.
Understand your audience's preferences to send them content that genuinely interests them.
Don't be afraid to sunset inactive subscribers; a smaller, engaged list is better than a large, unengaged one.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says implementing DMARC with a 'p=none' policy initially is a safe way to gather data without impacting deliverability, helping to identify unauthorized senders.
2024-05-08 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says relying solely on open rates for campaign performance can be misleading; focus more on click-through and conversion rates.
2024-05-08 - Email Geeks
Navigating your email marketing journey
The landscape of email marketing tools is diverse and constantly evolving, offering a solution for nearly every business need and budget. From all-in-one platforms that manage your entire customer journey to specialized tools that fine-tune specific aspects like deliverability or list growth, the options are vast.
The key to successful email marketing lies not just in choosing a popular tool, but in selecting one that truly fits your strategic objectives, integrates well with your existing systems, and supports your commitment to strong deliverability and engaging content. Regular monitoring and optimization, combined with the right tools, will ensure your messages consistently reach and resonate with your audience.
