There are several email marketing automation platforms available today, all of which promise a similar range of benefits:
- To help you increase your conversion rate and ROI from email
- To make building your email list a simple, automated process
- To give you more power to reach targeted prospects via email
Some of the best known names in email marketing automation software are Drip, Infusionsoft and Ontraport. Today, we’re going to review ConvertKit — an email marketing automation tool that’s designed for a combination of marketing power and ease of use.
Unlike some of the other email marketing automation apps, which attempt to do everything a marketer could need from one interface, ConvertKit is simple. It only has two key features: to grow your email list, and to make sending automated emails as simple as possible.
Since there’s no built-in CRM, PPC management software or anything else, ConvertKit makes it easy to focus on growing your email list and marketing to your subscribers.
If you’re a blogger, content marketer, small business owner or digital product developer in need of a reliable, personalizable email marketing automation tool, you’ll love ConvertKit. Read on for our full review of ConvertKit as an email marketing automation platform.
What does ConvertKit do?
ConvertKit is an extremely simple, user friendly email marketing automation platform. With just a few clicks, you can make a new landing page or opt-in form, add a new email to your marketing sequence, send a mass email broadcast, or import subscribers into a custom audience.
The goal here is to make managing your email marketing a quick and easy process that anyone — from a total beginner to an experienced marketer — can manage.
Although ConvertKit is designed for ease of use, it doesn’t lack any features. It includes a form and landing page builder with color customization, a powerful email sequence builder, an email automation rules system, and simple import features for email tools like MailChimp and Aweber.
Features
Form and landing page builder
ConvertKit includes and form and landing page builder that lets you create customized landing pages and opt-in forms in just a few minutes.
Like most of ConvertKit’s features, the form and landing page builder is designed more for ease of use than power. You can add a custom image for your product or lead magnet and select the text, accent and button color, giving you some level of control over your landing page’s style.
ConvertKit comes with four different landing page templates, all of which are designed for lead generation.
If you’re a blogger or content marketer who needs to capture leads from organic visitors, you’re unlikely to need more than the four templates included with ConvertKit. The included templates cover everything from eBook giveaways to free services, webinars and other digital products.
However, if you’re a PPC marketer in need of highly customizable landing page templates for your campaign, you’ll find ConvertKit’s selection a little bit limited and will probably need to use a third party landing page tool like LeadPages or Instapage.
Automated email sequences
ConvertKit is designed to make sending automated email sequences extremely simple. Email sequences are referred to as “courses” in the ConvertKit interface. Setting up a new course is an easy process that anyone, even total beginners, can complete.
Email courses are managed via a drag-and-drop interface. Each tab contains a separate email, with a specific send date and a field for the email’s subject line and content. ConvertKit includes full formatting options for email, as well as the ability to embed images and video content.
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You can set a specific delivery time and date for your emails, such as the option to only send out emails on certain days of the week. You can also exclude subscribers from receiving a course if they meet certain behavior or group criteria, such as existing paying customers.
Email broadcasts
Broadcasts are one-time emails that are sent to all or some of your subscribers. Sending email broadcasts in ConvertKit is quick and simple — just enter your subject line and content, choose your target audience, and specify a time and date for the broadcast to be delivered.
From ConvertKit’s interface, you can monitor metrics like open rate, click rate and unsubscribe rate for each email broadcast you send. You can also resend broadcasts to people that didn’t open the original message to improve your campaign’s response rate.
Automation rules
Using ConvertKit, you can create automation rules that trigger specific actions whenever users complete a specific task. For example, you can program ConvertKit to send a reminder email to customers if they view information about a product.
Like creating email courses, setting up new automation rules in ConvertKit is simple. Rules use an if-this-then-that type of logic, where one action leads to another.
Once a user completes a certain action, such as completing a course or clicking a certain link on your website, you can program ConvertKit to add them to a new course, remove them from a current course, or tag them as part of a custom audience.
Once you start to add automation rules, ConvertKit behaves less like traditional email marketing software and more like an automated salesperson, delivering targeted emails to your audience based on the way they interact with your website or respond to your email courses.
Pricing and value for money
ConvertKit is priced very affordably, with a sliding pricing scale based on the size of your email list. All ConvertKit plans include unlimited emails, forms, courses, landing pages and automation rules.
The cheapest ConvertKit plan is $29 per month. This plan allows for up to 1,000 subscribers. As your list grows, pricing gets progressively lower on a per-subscriber basis:
- 1,000 subscribers costs $29 per month, or $0.029 per subscriber per month
- 5,000 subscribers costs $79 per month, or $0.016 per subscriber per month
- 95,000 subscribers costs $619 per month, or $0.006 per subscriber per month
As your audience grows, ConvertKit will automatically upgrade to the next pricing tier so there’s no interruption in your service.
Compared to Drip, which has the most in common with ConvertKit of its competitors, ConvertKit is about 10-20% more affordable on a monthly basis. When it comes to value for money, it’s one of the best SaaS applications in its category.
All ConvertKit plans come with a 30-day refund policy. If you’re disappointed, frustrated or upset with the software, or just think it doesn’t quite live up to its promises, you can send an email to support@convertkit.com during your first month to receive a full refund.
ConvertKit vs. The Competition
ConvertKit is one of several email marketing automation tools available today. Some of the most popular alternatives to ConvertKit include Drip, Ontraport, and Infusionsoft.
Is ConvertKit a better option than the competition? The answer to this question depends on your priorities as a marketer and the way you plan to use ConvertKit as part of your digital marketing toolkit.
In terms of core email marketing automation features, ConvertKit holds its own compared to the competition. It offers all of the features you could need as a marketer, from email broadcasts to courses and automation rules.
Its biggest weakness is its limited range of landing pages, which reduce its effectiveness if you generate leads using PPC. With this said, ConvertKit does integrate with tools like Leadpages, making it relatively simple to use one application for lead capture and the other for email.
In terms of raw power, ConvertKit doesn’t quite match up to Infusionsoft or Ontraport. Both of these tools offer a variety of features that make them better choices for large businesses that need built-in CRM and sales software.
However, for bloggers, independent marketers and small to medium-sized businesses, ConvertKit is one of the best email marketing tools available. It’s easy to use, affordable, and more than powerful enough to help you turn your email subscribers into paying customers.
Is ConvertKit worth it?
If you want to turn your blog’s readers into subscribers, send automated email sequences to fuel sales and revenue, and program automation rules to send targeted messages based on the way users behave on your website, you will definitely like ConvertKit.
Thanks to its clean user interface and simplicity, ConvertKit is ideal for bloggers, marketers and entrepreneurs who don’t want to deal with the complicated learning curve of high-end software like Ontraport and Infusionsoft.
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ConvertKit does 90% of what its far more expensive and complicated competitors can do, all at a lower cost and in an easier package. Instead of spending several days learning how to use it, you can get your first email course up and running in less than an hour.
For this reason, it’s one of our favorite email marketing automation tools. Whether you’re aiming to promote an eBook or digital product, sell an online service, or encourage people to register for a webinar or special event, you’ll find a huge amount of value in ConvertKit.
Since it’s priced from just $29 per month, has no long-term commitment and includes a 30-day refund window, ConvertKit is very cheap to try. If you want to start sending automated emails to your subscribers without learning how to use complex software, ConvertKit is for you.
