Last Updated on November 26, 2022 by Alex Birkett
Popups, countdown timers, exit-intent… Email marketing automation and ecommerce marketing strategy are not just about that anymore. In fact, it’s not about “spraying and praying” at all. It’s about finding the right leads to nurture before you make your first sale.
That’s why you need a Shopify email marketing platform that can help add a more significant element of personalization to your emails for greater customer engagement. And let’s not forget, for more sales!
Luckily, there are hundreds of email marketing platforms that integrate directly with your Shopify store.
To help you out, today, I will review some of the best Shopify email marketing apps to use for your online store.
However, before that, let’s see what attributes to consider before you pick your ecommerce email marketing tool.
What Makes a Good Ecommerce Email Marketing Tool
Make sure to look for these features in a Shopify email marketing tool:
- Direct Shopify Integration – First and foremost, you should be able to sync your email service provider directly with Shopify. Otherwise, you’ll need to integrate it via third-party apps like Zapier or do it through custom codes.
- Deep Data integration with Shopify – To keep up with your customers and their preferences, your ecommerce email marketing platform should automatically extract data from Shopify. Iy should also keep your subscriber list up to date all the time.
- Attractive Email Templates – Visual appeal is essential to customers. A captivating design not only looks great, but it also takes less time for customers to complete their purchase.
- Automation Workflows – It’s important to segment your audience and send them tailored messages that will make them act. Automation workflows allow you to create multiple rules when a positive trigger happens. Let’s say you have an automated workflow where the subscriber receives the product demo email upon signing up for a free trial.
- Segmentation – Segmentation enables you to send highly targeted messages to your subscribers. This helps you improve the engagement with your audience as these relevant messages will ensure that only recipients who are interested in the subject of the email will be able to read it.
- Product Recommendations – One of the most important features provided by these platforms is product recommendations that are based on your customers’ email history, which can help you gain more conversions.
An intuitive drag-and-drop builder, A/B testing, social media integration, email deliverability, customer monitoring, a CRM tool, etc., are some other features that your Shopify email marketing should have.
Editor’s note: I’m going to use some affiliate links when possible to try to earn some revenue from my content. These don’t change the opinions espoused in the content nor the style in which they are written. If I think a product sucks, I’m not going to say otherwise. This is just a bonus and a way to fund the whole operation. Anyway, enjoy the article!
Shopify Email Marketing Tools Overview
Here’s a quick breakdown of the email marketing software I reviewed in the article:
| Free Plan | Unlimited Contacts | Abandoned Cart Recovery Workflow | Ecommerce Gamification Elements | Web-Push Notifications | SMS Marketing | Live Chat | Landing Pages | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sendinblue | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes; Only with plans above $65/mo |
| Moosend | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes; with plans above $8/mo |
| Omnisend | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| GetResponse | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ActiveCampaign | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes; Only with plans above $129/mo |
| Klaviyo | Limited free plan | No | Yes | No | (Only on an iOS app) | Yes | No | Yes |
| MailChimp | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| ConvertKit | Yes | No | No (unless you use Zapier) | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Privy | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
The 9 Best Email Marketing Tools for Shopify
1. Sendinblue
Best For: Sending transactional emails and SMS marketing.
G2 Score: 4.6
Sendinblue helps you connect with your customers and target audience through emails as well as text messaging. The fact that Shopify provides native integration with the platform is also a bonus. It’s also free to install from the Shopify marketplace (external charges still apply, though).
Aside from SMS and newsletters, Sendinblue even lets you send transactional emails for free. So, it’s all under one single dashboard. And it’s one of the few platforms to allow this.
It’s also easy to set up and comes with many cool features that help store owners like you make great use of their email marketing campaigns.
You get 65 email campaign templates, along with a drag-and-drop builder. You can even copy and paste your own HTML code or use the built-in rich text editor for simple emails.
Plus, you can filter the templates by industry and your goals, such as ecommerce, follow-up, events, and more.
The email campaign builder is also easy to use. There will be a bunch of blocks (content elements, footer elements, design elements, and header elements) that you can drag and drop wherever you want.
Then, you can alter the color, width, padding, text, and more block by block to make it align with your brand and requirement.
And if at any point in time, you feel that the previously edited version was indeed better, then you can simply restore that version.
And while Sendinblue is no MailChimp when it comes to template designs, they trump the more popular MailChimp in many other departments. When I compared MailChimp vs. Sendinblue, the latter actually outperformed in areas like segmentation and CRM.
Talking of CRM, Sendinblue comes with a full-fledged CRM. You can organize, track, and even follow up with your subscribers. Not just that, you can assign roles to other team members, add notes, assign tasks, track audience interaction, and a lot more.
You wouldn’t have to integrate your Shopify store with a separate CRM tool, for the most part.
They don’t cut any corners when it comes to automation, either. From trigger emails to automated funnels, Sendinblue comes loaded with every automation function you’d need.
You’ll get pre-designed workflows grouped by different scenarios and goals. There are workflows for cart abandonment, welcome messages, special events, and more.
One of the best things about their workflow builder is the number of actions and conditions they let you choose from.
Aside from the standard “send an email” after a particular time or send a notification, you can opt for triggered actions like record a conversion, call a Webhook, etc.
Other key features include:
- Advanced segmentation options
- Send-time optimization
- Facebook ads
- Live chat
- Unlimited contacts with all plans, even with the freemium plan
- Real-time and comprehensive email metrics, such as open rate, click-through rate, delivery rate, etc.
Cons:
The platform has some terrible reviews on the Shopify marketplace. There are more than just a few complains about the lack of an issue with the abandoned cart emails workflow, customer support, and overall working of Sendinblue in tandem with Shopify.
That said, the overall rating is 4/5, which is pretty decent. So, you can still give Sendinblue’s free plan a try that allows unlimited contacts and up to 9000 emails per month.
Pricing:
Paid plans start at $22.5 per month (for up to 10,000 emails per month and unlimited contacts) when paid annually.
2. Moosend
Best For: Small businesses, startups, and freelancers.
G2 Score: 4.7
Moosend is another familiar name, and its USP is its low cost. If you are a small business and only need to send up to 2,000 emails, you can get Moosend for as low as $8 per month.
And don’t let the pricing fool you. Moosend does offer some impressive email marketing features, along with the ability to send transactional emails.
First, the email campaign editor is a breeze, and you also get access to over 40 mobile-responsive email templates.
You can drag and drop the design elements without any hassle. However, I preferred Sendinblue’s approach of grouping elements (footer elements, header elements, etc.). Nothing too stressful, though!
I found the templates similar to Sendinblue. Somewhat bland and outdated.
You be the judge.
Other than email campaigns, you can use Moosend to build landing pages and registration forms. They’ve got plenty of landing page templates as well in their library.
Moosend also comes powered with pre-designed, automated workflows. Or you can map your customers’ journeys from scratch using the simple automation editor.
You’ll also get the option to run tons of scheduled or instant triggers and actions from Moosend.
Another key selling point is their “weather-based product recommendations.” This feature would be incredibly convenient for you if your products depend on or change from one weather to another. For example, clothing items.
Moosend also sends Amazon-like product recommendations to your customers based on their previous buying patterns. These features make it perfect for an ecommerce platform like Shopify.
However, you won’t find Moosend in Shopify’s marketplace. You’ll have to integrate it via Zapier.
Other key features include:
- Advanced segmentation options (along with segmentation recommendations)
- Personalized subject lines
- Reporting and analytics
- Website and user tracking
- Email monitoring through heat maps
- Built-in CRM tools
- A/B Testing
- Data from your Shopify store gets automatically stored in Moosend, allowing you to create more personalized campaigns.
- Landing pages and subscription forms
Cons:
- Doesn’t provide omnichannel options like SMS marketing and live chat.
- Email templates aren’t very attractive.
Pricing:
Paid plans start from $8 per month and lets you send up to 2,000 emails/month.
3. Omnisend
Best For: Best overall email marketing software for Shopify and other ecommerce stores.
G2 Score: 4.6
With a bunch of omnichannel marketing and ecommerce features, Omnisend is specifically built for ecommerce platforms.
It helps you power SMS marketing, Facebook and WhatsApp messages, web push notifications, retargeted ads, and automation workflows in a streamlined flow.
Create automated engagement campaigns, welcome series for new customers, post-purchase email marketing, or abandoned cart boosts with the click of a mouse. Plus, all the workflows (including abandoned cart workflow) are built using customer data and past behavior.
You can also split your automation based on various factors, such as:
- Trigger events
- Contact properties or personal information
- Contact activity with previous workflow messages
Here are some of the pre-built workflows you’ll get:
- Welcome series
- Product abandonment
- Cart abandonment
- Order confirmation
- Shipping confirmation
- Cross-sell
It is built to help grow your business through active customer engagement.
A, create your promotional campaign using a standard drag-and-drop builder and a bunch of attractive email newsletter templates.
They also have a “Product Picker” tool to import your products and all the details directly. Dynamic recommendations of items your customers are most likely to purchase are also a huge plus point for your Shopify store.
Omnisend’s gamification features like scratch cards, coupon codes, wheel of fortune, gift boxes, and more also make it stand out from its counterparts – and make it a perfect fit for an ecommerce platform like Shopify.
These features are solely focused on converting your leads into paying customers. And you’re unlikely to find them in even the most prominent email marketing platforms.
You can also create multiple types of Signup Forms with different trigger rules and field customization options.
Key features include:
- Built-in automation and message reports
- Automation splits and A/B testing
- Audience Sync for Facebook & Google
- Campaign click maps and dynamic reporting
- Cross-sell with dynamic suggestions
- Customer lifecycle stage breakdowns
It’s also pretty easy to integrate with Shopify. Both the sign-up form and email editor automatically syncs with your Shopify store date and even let you add products instantly.
Cons:
- Creating segments isn’t as intuitive. You might need some time to get used to it.
- Limited template selection.
Pricing:
Omnisend has a free email plan that lets you send up to 15,000 emails per month. Paid plans start from $16/month.
4. GetResponse
Best For: Automation workflows and omnichannel digital marketing.
G2 Score: 4.2
GetResponse is a powerful Shopify email marketing software that enables business owners to send bulk emails to customers and build a long-term relationship with them. It also helps the users to track their campaign performance and re-engage their audience.
The platform also has a full-fledged CRM tool, SMS marketing functions, the live chat option, a drag-and-drop email builder, pre-designed email templates, and a landing page builder.
The templates are attractive, and the builder is intuitive and pretty easy to use.
Beyond that, GetResponse comes with a powerful webinar tool (both automated and on-demand webinars) and the web push notification feature. You can run webinars to further promote your Shopify store or product, or service.
GetResponse hits the sweet spot, especially when it comes to its pre-built, ready-to-use sales funnels, and lead management funnels. You’ll also get to see your results at every stage of the funnel. For example, how many people downloaded your lead magnet
Each pre-defined scenario consists of attractive images and sales copy and pages like:
- Sign up page
- Exit pop-up form
- Follow-up email
- Sales page
- Order form
- Abandoned cart email
- Upsell page
- Confirmation page
- Confirmation email
See it in action:
What makes it a perfect fit for your Shopify store is the ability to extract products automatically. It also uses real-world data to automatically recommend relevant products to potential customers. What’s more, Shopify customers automatically get added to your GetResponse contact list as soon as you integrate the platforms.
Countdown timer to share time-sensitive deals and special offers is another valuable ecommerce-centric feature. It should help you induce FOMO in your potential customers, nudging them towards making a purchase.
Native integration with payment gateways like Square, Stripe, PayPal, BlueSnap, and PayU allows you to sell directly from your landing pages. Another brownie point for the acclaimed email marketing platform.
Other key features include:
- List management and advanced segmentation
- Email analytics (key metrics and automated reports)
- Autoresponders
- Website visitor tracking
- Transactional emails
- Unlimited tags for better profiling
- Automate purchase follow-ups and cart abandonment recovery
Cons:
- Contacts and products take 24 hours to get imported to GetResponse from Shopify.
Pricing:
Starts from $15 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers. While there’s no forever-free plan, you do get a 30-day free trial.
5. ActiveCampaign
Best For: Building automation workflows and CRM.
G2 Score: 4.6
ActiveCampaign is one of the most powerful email marketing automation tools available. It’s an email marketing tool that goes far beyond simple autoresponders. While it does have autoresponder capabilities, this is but a small part of what ActiveCampaign can do.
You’ll also get access to over 270 workflows that help you map customer journeys and convert customers even after they abandon your cart. Dynamic email content and segmentation, along with the option to add multiple conditions/actions, help you target customers with products they are most likely to purchase.
Here’s ActiveCampaign’s automation workflow builder:
In addition to creating an effective email automation workflow, it offers SMS marketing, Facebook audience monitoring, Facebook retargeting, and more. All these features are super valuable for an ecommerce store.
And like GetResponse, ActiveCampaign also offers deep data integration with Shopify. This means that all your customer data will get automatically added from Shopify to ActiveCampaign – allowing the email marketing campaign to be relevant and highly targeted to your customers.
It also comes with a solid CRM tool and contact profiles that give you a complete insight into your customers’ abandoned carts, purchases, order value, and more.
The CRM also works in sync with the automation system, allowing you to update deals, notify team members, assign tasks, and even nurture leads automatically.
The tool has one of the best CRM tools in the industry. So much so that you might not even need a separate CRM tool for the most part.
It also has lead scoring in place. It takes away the guesswork and answers questions like: which leads are most likely to purchase? Who is your highest priority lead? And so on!
And that’s not it! ActiveCampaign has one of the best delivery rates, even better than MailChimp.
Here’s what I unearthed while comparing ActiveCampaign Vs. MailChimp:
And in most of my previous comparisons, MailChimp usually had a better delivery rate than its counterparts. This makes ActiveCampaign’s delivery rate pretty remarkable.
Other key features include:
- Integration with over 860 third-party apps
- Advanced segmentation and list management
- Landing page builder and templates
Cons:
- The landing page feature is only available with the pricier plans.
- No free plan is available.
Pricing:
Paid plans start from $9/month for unlimited emails/mo and up to 500 subscribers. The cost increases with the number of subscribers.
6. Klaviyo
Best For: Mid-sized businesses (for building automation workflows and streamlining customer data).
G2 Score: 4.6
Klaviyo is a Shopify-based email marketing app with the focus on “Automating your email marketing for ecommerce.”
It takes your existing customer data and makes it scalable, which lets you add customers to a data pool as they buy specific products or complete certain actions in your store. These customized segments can then be used to trigger automatic email campaigns to drive repeat purchases and upsells.
They also have attractive, modern-looking templates and a standard drag-and-drop email builder. The builder comes with dynamic blocks, allowing you to hide or display information based on recipients’ preferences.
It’s also an omnichannel marketing platform that lets you run SMS-based campaigns, social advertising, and even track website behavior.
You’ll also find it easily in Shopify’s app marketplace, so setting it up with Shopify is straightforward. No coding required!
Also, just like many other tools on this list, Klaviyo provides direct data integration with Shopify. Klaviyo seamlessly collects and stores all valuable customer data, allowing you to deliver relevant emails, drive more sales, and build stronger relationships.
Based on the data received from Shopify, dates, filters, A/B testing, and more, Klaviyo will also help you create personalized automated workflows.
Besides, Klaviyo has ecommerce-centric features like special offers and replenishment reminders. These features can be triggered to automatically win back customers who abandoned their cart.
When it comes to analytics and reporting, the ecommerce-centric email marketing tool goes beyond your standard click rate and open rate metrics. The reporting is entirely growth-focused, allowing you even to monitor your revenue and precise return on investment.
In addition, Klaviyo utilizes data science to automatically predictions like:
- Customers’ Lifetime value
- Churn risk
- Gender
- Optimal send time
- And personalized product recommendations
Once you are privy to these details, sending highly personalized emails to target audiences gets easier.
Cons:
- More expensive than most of its counterparts.
- There have been complaints regarding shoddy customer support.
Pricing:
There’s no fixed plan. Although, you can calculate the cost based on your subscribers. For example, you’ll be paying $100 for up to 1000 subscribers, making it one of the most expensive email marketing platforms. The cost increases further if you plan to use their SMS marketing service as well.
The free tier lets you send 500 emails maximum to up to 250 contacts. You’ll get prompted to upgrade to a paid plan once you cross this limit.
7. MailChimp
Best For: Small businesses and existing MailChimp users.
G2 Score: 4.4
MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing tools today.
Mostly known for its drag-and-drop email builder, attractive template choices, and near-unlimited automation options, MailChimp is easy to use and has great features for small businesses.
Some of its key features include:
- Advanced audience management tools
- In-app recommendations and a subject line helper
- Send-time optimization
- Pre-designed automation workflows (welcome email, abandoned cart recovery workflow, etc.)
- Real-time reporting and analytics
- Monitor and compare your competitors’ email engagement metrics with yours
However, there’s bad news for MailChimp fans. You won’t be able to integrate it directly with Shopify since MailChimp recently discontinued it. That said, there are still ways around it.
For instance, you can use Zapier to connect your Shopify store to MailChimp.
If you’re not adamant about using MailChimp or aren’t an existing MailChimp user, then I’d suggest picking another email service provider on this list. There are better MailChimp alternatives available either way, such as GetResponse and ActiveCampaign.
Cons:
- One of the most significant cons of MailChimp is its inability to add subscribers from different lists to the same campaign.
- The CRM tool is insufficient (it doesn’t even let you assign roles and tasks).
Pricing:
Starts from $10.46/mo for up to 500 contacts and lets you send up to 5,000 emails/mo. There’s also a forever-free plan that lets you send up to 10,000 emails/month to up to 2000 subscribers.
8. ConvertKit
Best For: Course builders and ecommerce store owners who want to build their email newsletters from scratch.
G2 Score: 4.4
ConvertKit is a simple email marketing tool that also allows native integration with Shopify. You’ll get all the standard email marketing features, including an email builder, automation workflows, sign-up forms, and more.
List management and tagging functions are pretty flexible too.
ConvertKit allows you to:
- Tag your entire email list using a bulk action.
- Create a separate segment for subscribers with the ‘Shopify-No Marketing’ tag, and at the same time, excluding those who have the ‘Existing Subscriber’ tag.
ConvertKit doesn’t provide pre-designed templates, however. And the email builder is also primarily text-based.
And it’s not even the most significant downside.
The biggest letdown is the lack of automation unless a purchase is made. This means you can only trigger an automated email in case a customer makes a purchase. So, creating an abandoned cart workflow or welcome email workflow is out of the question.
Cons:
- Doesn’t provide pre-designed email templates.
- You can’t create automated workflows without a purchase (unless you use Zapier).
- It’s somewhat expensive considering the limited features.
Pricing:
Paid plans start at $29 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers. The free plan lets you send emails to up to 1000 subscribers per month.
9. Privy
Best For: Ecommerce-based gamification elements.
G2 Score: 4 (only 25 reviews)
Privy is an all-in-one email marketing solution that provides one-click integration with Shopify and Shopify Plus. It has a complete suite of marketing tools, including pop-ups, SMS marketing, email automation, and more.
There’s also an intuitive, drag-and-drop email builder and attractive email templates.
However, note that it only lets you create a handful of standard workflows, including abandoned cart recovery, customer win-back, and purchase follow-up.
That said, after Omnisend, it’s the only Shopify email marketing platform on this list that provides ecommerce-centric gamification features. Some key ecommerce based features include spin-to-win wheel, banners, flyouts, announcement bars, free shipping bar, etc.
Cons:
- You can’t create advanced automation workflows.
Pricing:
The cost depends on the number of contacts. For instance, you have to pay $30 per month for up to 2,000 contacts, and unlimited email sends. You’ll have to pay less per contact if you have a larger contact list. You can also use it for free for up to 100 contacts.
10. Retainful
Best For: Automated Email Marketing, Abandoned Cart Recovery, and Referral Marketing.
Retainful does email marketing automation, creating automatic, effective, and dynamic email campaigns for your ecommerce store.
By sending several appealing cart recovery emails to persuade customers and recover lost sales, Retainful helps you combat eCommerce’s worst nightmare, cart abandonment.
Retainful creates a variety of post-purchase emails. The tool can send welcome emails, thank you emails, win-back emails, order follow-up emails, product recommendation emails, upsell and cross-sell emails, and other types of emails.
The coupon system in the Retainful app offers customers the purchase of things from your store at a reduced price.
You have complete control over your automated workflow with dynamic templates and a fantastic drag-and-drop email editor. It’s simple to set up and includes various useful features that allow store owners to deploy perfect email marketing campaigns.
Key features include:
- Abandoned Cart Recovery
- Welcome Emails
- Thank You Emails
- Win back Emails
- Order Follow Up Emails
- Next Order Coupon
- Referral Marketing
Pricing:
There is a Free forever plan. And 3 premium Packages are:
- Starter: $19/month
- Growth: $49/month
- Professional: $199/month
Final Verdict
So what are the best Shopify email marketing tools for you? It comes down to personal preference, size of your email list, ecommerce business goals, and your budget.
For example, suppose you want a complete ecommerce-focused solution that comes with all the bells and whistles like gamification features, website banners, etc.. In that case, Omnisend and Privy are perfect for you. And even then, you might only prefer Omnisend if you want to create advanced automated workflows as well.
For more advanced segmentation options, CRM tools, and email automation, I would suggest going for GetResponse and ActiveCampaign.
While not the best options, you might even prefer MailChimp or ConvertKit if you’re an existing user of either of these platforms.
Make sure to review these tools carefully before making the final choice.