Did you hear? Email marketing is making a comeback.

Companies have had decades to refine email techniques and respond to consumer trends. Recent laws that allow people to unsubscribe from emails means that marketing companies have had to learn how to make customers want their emails. Many marketers have learned what it takes and email marketing is making a comeback. Even through all of the changes of laws, consumer habits, technology, and social media, email has remained one of the top ways to market.
Knowing this, it’s important to make sure that you choose the right email marketing software. Whether you’re new to email marketing or want to revamp your current software, we’ve taken a look at the top email marketing platforms and ranked them.

We used several different metrics when looking at the various platforms:

• Ease of use
• Ability to create and edit your emails
• Price
• Metrics
• Special features

These are all things that impact the way we and our clients use email marketing software. Making sure the platform you choose is the best and contains the features you need will have a huge impact on your email marketing ROI.

Hubspot:

We’re putting Hubspot first because this is the one we use and the one we trust for our clients. For starters, it’s the only one on this list that not only handles email marketing, but also offers support for websites, SEO optimization, social media integration, and more. You really get the most bang for your buck with Hubspot because they do so much more than just emails and offer across-the-board integration for your business. They have incredible support and at their higher tiers, and offer personal brand management as well. If you’re looking for a platform that allows you to do more in one place instead of trying to juggle multiple platforms for your marketing needs, Hubspot is going to be your best bet.

• Ease of use: Hubspot is intuitive to use. It has a great interface with an easy to understand dashboard. And if you run into any issues or questions, they have a ton of free informational resources on their website as well as a great, responsive customer support team.
• Ability to create and edit your emails: Hubspot offers templates and allows you to create emails and save your own templates. They offer a wide range of design options, including allowing plain text emails. Editing and creating is easy and Hubspot gives you a lot of creative freedom.
• Price: Free – $2,400
• Metrics: Even their free tier gives you some great reports and analytics, and the higher tier you choose, the more detailed reports they offer. At their highest tier, they even offer predictive lead scoring. They also offer integration with Salesforce and support crucial functions such as A/B testing, revenue management, and event-based triggers.
• Special features: As we mentioned above, one of the biggest draws to Hubspot is their integration with their other marketing support. They truly offer a cohesive experience and will allow you to get the most done with less effort. Hubspot offers all of the perks of the other platforms on the this list – and more.

MailChimp:

If this platform’s name sounds familiar, it’s likely that you’ve heard it before! MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing platforms and for good reason – it’s easy to use and provides a ton of functionality. Still, they’re overall a solid platform that can be used easily by virtually anyone in your company.

• Ease of us: As we mentioned above, MailChimp is very easy to use. It’s got an intuitive interface and walks you through the steps of creating your email campaign.
• Ability to create and edit your emails: When it comes to designing your emails, MailChimp gives you the most versatile options. They have email themes and templates built into the software but also will allow you to import your own templates as well as code emails from scratch.
• Price: Free – $240
• Metrics: They offer a variety of reports at all levels, but the more detailed reports you want, the higher tier of membership you need to join.
• Special features: One of Mailchimp’s best features is its ease of integration with other platforms such as WordPress, Shopify, and Google.

Constant Contact:

This platform is one of the largest email marketing platforms around. What sets ConstantContact apart is their unparalleled support and ease of use. This is a great choice for anyone who’s new to email marketing.

• Ease of use: ConstantContact is very user friendly. And should you have any questions, they have support staff ready to help you via live chat, phone, and email. They’re a very responsive company and offer an array of resources for their clients to learn to do their email marketing.
• Ability to create and edit your emails: This platform has plenty of templates to choose from and, if you choose, will walk you through each step to creating your perfect emails. Their design interface is intuitive and easy to use.
• Price: $20 – $125 per month
• Metrics: Their metrics reports are detailed and easy to read. They can even tell you which links in each email were clicked the most.
• Special features: ConstantContact excels at deliverability. Overall, they have one of the highest rates of getting their emails delivered to an inbox instead of to spam folders.

SendinBlue:

SendinBlue is a great tool for small businesses as well. It’s a no-frills platform that pulls its weight in third-party integration, detailed metric reports, and email automation. It’s a solid contestant and gets the job done. This option is best for someone who has had some experience with email marketing platforms before.

• Ease of use: It’s fairly easy to use. There isn’t the support and step-by-step instructions such as MailChimp and ConstantContact though.
• Ability to create and edit your emails:
• Price: SendinBlue’s pricing is different from most in that they charge per email sent as opposed to the other brands on this list that charge in tiered plans. Your price with this company will vary depending on factors such as your list size and how many emails you send per week.
• Metrics: They have great reports that are detailed and easy to read.
• Special features: One thing that does set SendinBlue apart is their ability to help you create a specific landing page for your emails. This is a great tool that can make it easier for you and will save you some time from manually updating your website as well.

Get Response:

GetResponse is another popular email marketing platform. It is easy to use and has some excellent advanced marketing tools that can help you manage your contact lists and various email campaigns with ease. It also does a fantastic job with integrating with third party lead generators, such as Salesforce and Zendesk.

• Ease of use: It’s fairly easy to use. Because it contains some more complex features, such as workflow management, it may require some level of experience to get the most out of using this platform.
• Ability to create and edit your emails: GetResponse offers a fairly standard package of templates and designs to choose from. Their selection won’t disappoint and customizing their templates is easy to do.
• Price: $15 – $250
• Metrics: Metric reports are another reason that GetResponse stands out. They excel in advanced marketing tools such as A/B testing, automatic responses, and tracking.
• Special features: GetResponse has advanced marketing techniques. It’s integration with the major lead generation sites also helps it stand out from its competitors. GetResponse offers great features – and you definitely pay for it. Though there is a free trial, there is no free plan with GetResponse.

Drip

This modern, sleek, easy to use email platform is great for small businesses and newcomers to email marketing. It has a very modern feel and is simple to use without sacrificing the basics that every business needs for a successful email marketing platform.

• Ease of use: Incredibly easy to use, intuitive platform.
• Ability to create and edit your emails: Drip has a few templates that you can choose to edit and create your emails. Their templates really shine with simpler, sleeker designs.
• Price: Free – $83
• Metrics: Great, easy to use and understand reports. It’s easy to find what you’re looking for and get the results that you need to measure your metrics.
• Special features: Drip is an incredibly user friendly platform. It features great integration with third party platforms and multiple emails as a part of a single campaign. Drip gets the job done in a straightforward, no-frills way and provides solid results.

These are our top four email marketing platforms ranked. They’re all solid options and contain both pros and cons, but we’ve found that some platforms deliver a broader range of better quality service than others. Whichever platform you decide to try or switch to, make sure your choice is informed and best fits the needs of your business. And hurry – your customers can’t wait to hear from you.