Background Memberpress Mailerlite
When I asked you to name an email Marketing tool, what could you say? Memberpress Mailerlite
MailChimp? Aweber? ActiveCampaign?
Like most online industries today, email advertising continues to be Dominated by the same large players for the previous decade. Which means they get encouraged very deeply and accomplish a lot of mindshare.
Now and then, however, an Underdog disrupts the marketplace, causing long-time users to question their loyalties.
MailerLite has done exactly that.
So today, in this review, I’ll be tearing MailerLite from limb To limb to see if it stands its own ground against the big boys…
…and, what’s more, whether youshould consider making the switch.
MailerLite Advantages
– Uses tag-based system (called Groups)
– Powerful Segmentation using principles
– Custom Fields for innovative email personalization
– Advanced Campaign kinds (auto-resend, A/B, etc.. )
– Simple to Use email builder/template editor
– Practical Email components such as countdowns and product boxes
– Intuitive Form, popup and landing page builder
– Supports Automations employing visual workflows
– Offers Both readable and in-depth reporting
– A Fraction of the price compared to most other solutions
Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.
MailerLite Drawbacks
– Strict Approval process
– Few email Templates available
– Very few Form templates accessible
– Can’t Create emails without leaving the visual workflow builder
– No Support for site monitoring Memberpress Mailerlite
Sign-up Process
Like most email advertising providers these days, You’ll Need to Go through a review process before being able to correctly use the software.
When you first sign up, you’ll be asked to finish your profile.
This includes information like your organization name, site, Business, address, business size, record size and even the type of content you intend to send.
Then, You Have to confirm your Site (or domain name).
This is still part of this approval process, and MailerLite will Simply ask which email is related to that domain so they can email you a verification link.
Once you’ve completed those Measures, you ought to wait it out.
The MailerLite staff will review your application, assess your Website, and determine whether you’re a fantastic fit for their services.
(Quite simply, they are making sure you’re not a spammer/scammer)
As shown above, you’ll still be Able to use the software to make campaigns and perform with the features, but you will not have the ability to send anything until approved.
I was”partially” approved within a few hours, which gave me a Temporary limitation of 500 subscribers.
Here’s what the email said:
Annoying, sure.
However, while these steps aren’t ideal for getting started, it Does help stop malicious users from damaging everybody’s deliverability.
Campaigning
If you are anything like me, you’ll rely upon automations to Deal with The majority of your email advertising.
(We’ll get to automations shortly, don’t worry.)
But if it’s a new blog post, podcast, or timely Announcement, there is always some excuse to send a more immediate email.
That is where’Campaigns’ come in.
Clicking the new’Produce Campaign’ will give you several options.
– Regular campaign: A traditional broadcast email.
– A/B split campaign: Multiple email Versions, including subject line, from title and, yes, even email content. (Woop!)
– Auto resend: Resend to readers who Don’t open your broadcast email, with the option of changing the subject line and email articles.
– RSS campaign: Create a recurring campaign That sends fresh content to subscribers using your site’s RSS feed.
Apart from a few additional choices, most of these will follow The exact same step-by-step process of a normal campaign.
So let us walk you through it.
As Soon as You click to create your campaign, you’ll be requested to Pick a preferred editor, whether that’s the dragn’ drop, rich text or HTML.
Otherwise, you can change to the Templates tab and select from one of the pre-designed email templates — that will move you into the dragn’ drop editor by default.
At the time of writing, there are 21 email templates to choose From which is a little on the low side, however, the designs are super modern.
And, of course, if you would just Prefer to reuse a previous email, you can click on the’Recent Emails’ tab.
For this example, I will select the first template from the library.
The editor is easy to work with, Which makes viewing these templates a 5-minute job.
You can also utilize the blocks in the sidebar to add different Types of content to your email, such as videos, merchandise columns, and social connections.
After making your changes, simply click’Done Editing’ and you’ll Be carried to the recipients’ options where you can choose your groups or segments.
The advanced tab also allows you To develop segment-like rules on-the-fly, in the event your targeting isn’t quite perfect.
Finally, right before sending, you’ll get into the’Program’ screen.
This is where you control if your broadcast email should go Out, if that’s instantly, at a set time/date, or in accordance with your subscribers time zones.
Impressive, right? Memberpress Mailerlite
Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.
Managing Your Clients
Having granular control over your readers is arguably one of The most important aspects of any email marketing program now.
Why?
Because highly personalized efforts Are Essential if You’re looking to increase opens, clicks, and, most importantly, your conversions.
And while most providers allow you to”tag” subscribers in order To target them more effectively, MailerLite uses a slightly different strategy.
When you start up your subscriber dash, you’ll see two Options; Segments and Groups.
Segments are essentially rules.
Your readers belong to a segment only when they meet the Specified rules, and are automatically added or eliminated so.
Here is what establishing a rule looks like:
Notice the way you can also combine Principles, in addition to another rule when the first does not exist.
Pretty smart, eh?
The following tab is for classes, and despite the difference in name, These behave much like your normal”tagging” system.
(MailerLite even debated Changing the title to’Tags’, but ultimately decided against it.)
Unlike Segments, Groups are updated manually or via an Automation rule — which we’ll get to in a minute — and they have no value besides what you actually call them.
As you Begin to use this stage, you’ll Start to understand Where Segments and Groups are typically used, however, MailerLite delivers a hand in case you’re unsure:
Fundamentally, groups are more of a Deliberate activity on a per-subscriber foundation, whereas Segments allow you to lump multiple subscribers together based on a frequent denominator.
Somewhat confusing, I will admit… but I feel it is a fair trade-off For the additional flexibility. In any case, they’re optional.
Finally, the’Fields’ tab is used to customize your email copy.
You’ll notice that MailerLite has Already populated this area with their own fields, such as title, company, and country.
If you want to create your own custom fields, you can do this by Clicking on the’Add new field’ button.
So how do they actually work?
You can either upload a CSV file of your subscribers along with Your custom field data in separate columns… or may easily add these fields to your forms which will only apply to future subscribers.
Here’s a screenshot of a test field I created and added into a form:
I will not go too much to the shape Things here because I have an entire section on this below, but this is the strategy I would recommend if you wished to use this attribute.
Again, once you’ve gathered your custom field data from new Readers, you are able to pull them in to your email content and subject line.
Just click on the’Personalization’ drop down and select your Customized field.
I’m barely scraping the surface Of what is possible with custom fields, but it is important that you know that this is a feature you can use.
Overall, it is fair to state MailerLite has their contributor Direction and personalization features on stage. Memberpress Mailerlite
Landing pages.
If you’re not impressed with what you’ve seen so far, then perhaps The webpage builder will tickle your fancy.
After selecting’Landing Pages’ in the forms page, then you’ll be Able to select from 8 pre-designed templates.
Again, while the template selection Isn’t winning any awards, but it will offer a great base to work from if, for example most of us, you don’t have that natural eye for layout.
I went ahead and selected the’Lead Generation’ template, though They finally do the same job; accumulate an email address.
This time, the editor will Provide you 17 building blocks to Further construct or alter your landing page.
Now, I’ve used my fair share of Visual site builders, and this is already better than some dedicated alternatives *cough* WPBakery.
Together with the basic building blocks, you can use elements like Hero segments, popup buttons, testimonials and countdown timers.
No, it won’t be replacing landing Page builders like Thrive Architect or even LeadPagesanytime shortly, but credit where credit due, this item over-delivers on all 3 kind types.
Form Builder Tool
Unlike some email advertising tools, MailerLite really Provides a Adequate pair of form building tools.
Also, but you can also create popups and landing pages Through this exact same interface, so there is a lot to cover here.
Let’s start with your Bog-standard embedded type.
These forms are created inside MailerLite so as to get An embed code, which you can then put on your site to show it on particular pages.
Despite beginning super fundamental, the form designer lets you To customize everything from the kind style, fields, background, title, input fields and, of course, the button.
Form text can also be edited directly, which gives you a Opportunity To envision your own backup in real-time.
It would have been nice to have Some templates here, but as you know, there is more to a form than simply its appearance.
Clicking on the’Settings’ tab will allow you to configure the way the Form functions, including adding extra fields and establishing a custom success page.
(There is a GDPR compliance alternative. Sweet.)
And speaking of the success page…
…MailerLite also lets you customize the default message, That will replace the embedded form also prevents users from redirecting.
Last but certainly not least, you Can check the way your form screens on mobile by switching the toggle to responsive mode.
You won’t be able to make any design changes , but it makes Sense to test, nevertheless.
So that is an overview of this Embedded form but as I said before, you may also create popup forms in MailerLite.
While the majority of this setup process is identical, you will find A few differences I’d love to point out.
Unlike embedded forms, you can choose between a set of Templates:
While this isn’t the most Comprehensive selection, they do provide a fantastic base to work from and the editor is at least as easy to use for this form kind.
Clicking the’E-commerce’ template requires me to a preview Before moving to the editor.
Here, you’ll notice there are a few new choices under form types Now around:
Contemplating paid programs such as Thrive Leads exist for ribbons and slide-in forms, it’s pretty impressive to observe this amount of control over popup types.
And, like before, you can perform the styling options to get it Matched with your branding.
Last, you can Select the near Behavior of your type under the’Settings’ tab.
The default option is the X icon, but you can swap out this for A”No thanks” text option, or have both.
This is really where most email Marketing platforms will leave you, but MailerLite has one more trick up its sleeve.
Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.
Reporting & Analytics
Like many tools, you’ll find a summary of your campaign Statistics in the dashboard.
Here you’ll see everything from effort open and click data, Subscriber growth, automation analytics, and form signups.
Clicking into any campaign will Give you special reporting for this effort.
This is where you’ll find some more advanced statistics such as Unsubscribes, spam complaints, bounces, studying surroundings, email client and more.
This should be plenty of Information for the average consumer…
…but if you really want To dig into the numbers, you can click into individual areas of this report to get a more detailed breakdown.
You can find some real gems under These reports.
For example, the’View Email’ tab also shows a click map, so It’s possible to see your readers interacted with your emails in relation to one another.
Reports for automations will also be Accessible under the’Automations’ tab, even although I found to be less insightful than campaign reports.
Here’s a quick example:
Overall, MailerLite does a Stellar job with their reporting interface, and many will find the available data more than enough to fulfill their needs.
Email Automation
What’s email marketing with no dashboard of automation?
For most reading this, MailerLite’s automation capabilities Could simply make or break this particular review.
The good news? If you have ever used a visual workflow builder, You will immediately feel at home here…
Much like the rest of MailerLite, That the automations interface is easy, clean and easy to navigate — something which certainly can not be said for every email advertising program.
After establishing your trigger, you can begin adding steps to your workflow.
These steps can be anything from sending an email, adding a Postpone, a bubble break, or an action, such as moving a subscriber or updating their records.
Here’s a straightforward workflow I put together, where subscribers Are unsubscribed when they do not open my email within 7 days.
There are countless Possibilities in regards to workflow automations like this, and MailerLite should have no trouble with the vast majority of use cases.
Granted, it is not quite as Feature-rich as something such as ActiveCampaign because it lacks a number of the conditional components. (Split, Go To, Goal, etc.. )
For example, there’s now no automation for transferring Subscribers directly into another automation.
That being said, the Majority of these actions can still be achieved by moving Subscribers into different groups that activate new automation workflows. It is simply much less effective…. yet.
Another question of efficiency here is when creating new mails From the automation workflow builder.
After having an email cube to The workflow, you’ll be asked to put in your topic line which appears on the block itself.
From there, clicking the’Design email’ button will fire up the Editor:
Now, you’ll be temporarily Redirected to the typical campaign creation wizard, which I covered earlier in the critique.
This time, but once you’ve established your email, clicking the ‘Done editing’ button will guide you straight back to the automations workflow instead of the usual sending options.
Ultimately, your email will probably be Loaded into your own automation.
A Wonderful touch here is using a thumbnail preview of your Email within your automation cube, so it’s possible to get an idea about what it contains at a glance.
While this procedure may seem like A grind on newspaper, it’s really much faster than what I am utilized to with other email marketing tools — ActiveCampaign being a fantastic example.
On the other hand, if you’ve come over from something such as ConvertKit where The editor is loaded inside the automations builder, so you will probably find this a downgrade in performance.
It is fast enough for me, Personally, however I guess it’s all relative.
Before I wrap up this section, there is one type of automation You will not find in MailerLite, and that I think it’s important to highlight.
Site tracking.
The ability to trigger an automation (or step) based on how Subscribers interact with the webpages on your website.
This Sort of behavioral targeting just is not available in MailerLite at this time, so if it’s something you use or plan to utilize, you may want to skip this one. Memberpress Mailerlite
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Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.
Pricing
The Price of MailerLite is one of those tools largest Selling things, and let’s face it, we all love a good deal.
For starters, they offer an infinite free plan that includes All attributes (including premium) to get as many as 1,000 subscribers.
While there is some subtle Branding on your mails using this plan, it’s still an wonderful option for those starting out.
And what about the top programs?
It ends up, at around half the Cost of the competition on average, MailerLite is undoubtedly one of the cheapest options on the industry. Plus, if you are willing to pay yearly, you are also able to get a much greater discount.
In Reality, I haven’t been able to find anything that does the same job, cheaper.
Summary
MailerLite is among the very few marketing tools The (very crowded) sector in recent decades, which is no simple feat.
While it’s not as fast as ConvertKit, or as feature-rich As ActiveCampaign, or as template-heavy as MailChimp, it works exceptionally well at virtually anything you can throw at it.
I find MailerLite strikes the perfect balance Between flexibility, simplicity and speed, and at a price point you will seriously struggle to conquer.
Thinking of giving it a spin? Let us know how it works for you In the remarks. Memberpress Mailerlite
Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.