Background My Emma

If I asked you to name an email Marketing instrument, what would you say? My Emma

MailChimp? Aweber? ActiveCampaign?

Like many online industries today, email marketing continues to be Dominated by the identical large players for the last decade. Which means they get promoted very heavily and achieve a great deal of mindshare.

Now and then, however, an Underdog disrupts the marketplace, inducing long-time customers to question their loyalties.

MailerLite has done precisely that.

So now, in this review, I’ll be tearing MailerLite from limb To limb to find out if it stands its ground against the big boys…

…and, what’s more, whether youshould consider making the change.

MailerLite Pros

– Uses tag-based system (called Groups)

– Powerful Segmentation using principles

– Custom Fields for advanced email personalization

– Advanced Campaign kinds (auto-resend, A/B, etc.. )

– Simple to Utilize email builder/template editor

– Practical Email elements such as countdowns and merchandise boxes

– Intuitive Form, popup and landing page builder

– Supports Automations using visual workflows

– Offers Both readable and comprehensive reporting

– A Fraction of the cost compared to most other solutions

Click here to sign up your free account of Mailerlite.

MailerLite Disadvantages

– 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  My Emma

Sign-up Procedure

Like most email marketing providers Nowadays, You’ll Need to Go through a review process before being able to properly use the software.

When you first register, you’ll be asked to complete your profile.

This includes information like your company name, website, Business, address, business size, record size and also the kind of material you intend to send.

Then, you need to verify your Website (or domain ).

This remains part of this approval process, and MailerLite will Simply inquire which email is associated to that domain in order that they can email you a confirmation link.

Once you’ve completed these Measures, you ought to wait it out.

The MailerLite team will review your application, check your Site, and ascertain whether you are a fantastic fit for their service.

(Quite simply, they are making sure you are not a spammer/scammer)

As revealed above, you’ll nevertheless be Able to use the software to create campaigns and play with the attributes, but you won’t have the ability to send anything until accepted.

I was”partially” approved within a few hours, which gave me a Temporary limit of 500 subscribers.

Here’s what the email said:

Annoying, certain.

However, while these measures are not perfect 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 handle The majority of your email marketing.

(We’ll get to automations shortly, don’t worry.)

But whether it’s a brand new blog post, podcast, or timely Announcement, there’s always a reason to send a more instant email.

That’s where’Campaigns’ come in.

Clicking the brand new’Create Campaign’ will provide you several choices.

– Regular campaign: A Conventional broadcast email.

– A/B split effort: Multiple email Versions, such as subject line, from name and, yes, even email content. (Woop!)

– Auto resend: Resend to subscribers who Don’t open your broadcast email, together with the option of altering the subject line and email content.

– RSS effort: Produce a recurring campaign That sends new content to subscribers using your site’s RSS feed.

Apart from a few added options, the Majority of these will follow The same step-by-step process of a normal campaign.

So let’s walk you through it.

As Soon as You click to create your campaign, you’ll be asked to Pick a favorite editor, whether that’s the dragn’ drop, rich text or HTML.

You can switch to the Templates tab and select from one of their pre-designed email templates — which will move you into the dragn’ drop editor by default.

In the time of writing, you’ll find 21 email templates to select From which is somewhat on the low side, however, the layouts are super modern.

And, of course, if you’d just Prefer to reuse a previous email, you can click the’Recent Emails’ tab.

For this instance, I’ll choose the first template from the library.

The editor is easy to work with, Which makes customizing these templates a 5-minute job.

You can also use the blocks in the sidebar to include distinct Types of articles to your email, such as videos, product columns, and societal links.

After making your changes, simply click’Done Editing’ and you will Be taken to the recipients’ choices where you are able to choose your groups or sections.

The tab also allows you To build segment-like rules on-the-fly, in the event your targeting isn’t quite right.

Finally, right before sending, then you’ll get into the’Program’ screen.

This is where you control if your broadcast email should go Out, whether that is instantly, at a set time/date, or in accordance with your subscribers time zones.

Impressive, right? My Emma

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Managing Your Subscribers

Possessing granular control over your readers is arguably one of The most essential facets of any email marketing software now.

Why?

Because highly personalized campaigns Are Essential if You are searching to increase opens, clicks, and, above all, your own conversions.

And while most providers allow you to”label” readers in order To target them more effectively, MailerLite uses a slightly different strategy.

When you open up your subscriber dashboard, you’ll see two Choices; Segments and Groups.

Segments are basically rules.

Your readers belong to a section only when they fulfill the Specified rules, and will be automatically added or removed accordingly.

Here is what establishing a rule looks like:

Notice the way you can also combine Rules, as well as an alternate rule when the first does not exist.

Pretty smart, eh?

The next tab is for classes, and despite the difference in title, These behave much like your usual”tagging” system.

(MailerLite even debated Changing the name to’Tags’, but finally decided against it)

Unlike Segments, Groups are updated manually or through an Automation rule — that we will get to in a minute — and they don’t have any value aside from what you call them.

As you start to use this platform, you’ll begin to understand At which Segments and Groups are generally used, however, MailerLite offers a hand in case you’re unsure:

Fundamentally, groups are much more of a Deliberate action on a per-subscriber foundation, whereas Segments allow you to lump multiple contributors collectively according to a frequent denominator.

A tad confusing, I’ll admit… but I feel it is a fair trade-off For the additional flexibility. In any case, they’re discretionary.

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 name, company, and nation.

If you want to create your own custom fields, you can do this by Clicking the’Add new field’ button.

So how do they actually work?

You can either upload a CSV record of your subscribers along with Your custom field data in distinct columns… or may simply add these fields to a forms which will only apply to future subscribers.

Here’s a screenshot of a test area I created and added into a form:

I will not go too much into the shape Stuff here since I have an entire section on this below, but this is the approach I’d recommend if you wanted to use this feature.

Again, as Soon as You’ve collected your custom field information from new Subscribers, you can pull them in to your email content and subject line.

Just click on the’Personalization’ drop down and choose your Custom field.

I am barely scratching the surface Of what is possible with custom fields, but it’s important that you understand that this is a feature you may use.

Overall, it is reasonable to say MailerLite has their subscriber Management and personalization features on stage. My Emma

Landing pages.

If you’re not impressed by what you’ve seen so far, then perhaps The webpage builder will tickle your fancy.

After choosing’Landing Pages’ in the forms page, then you will be Able to select from 8 pre-designed templates.

Again, while the template choice Is not winning any awards, it will offer a great base to work from if, for example the majority of us, you don’t have that pure eye for layout.

I went ahead and selected the’Lead Generation’ template, though They all ultimately do the same task; accumulate an email address.

This time, the editor will give you 17 building blocks to Further build or alter your landing page.

Now, I’ve used my fair share of Visual site builders, and it is better than a few dedicated alternatives *Infection * WPBakery.

Together with the fundamental building blocks, you can use elements like Hero sections, popup buttons, testimonials and countdown timers.

No, it will not be replacing landing Page builders like Thrive Architect or even LeadPagesanytime shortly, but credit where credit due, this item over-delivers on all three form types.

Form Builder Tool

Unlike some email advertising tools, MailerLite actually offers a Adequate set of form building tools.

Also, but you can also create popups and landing pages Through this same interface, so there is a lot to cover here.

Let’s begin with your Bog-standard embedded form.

These forms are created inside MailerLite so as to get An embed code, which you can then put on your site to display it on particular pages.

Despite beginning super basic, the form designer allows you To customize everything in the kind style, fields, background, title, enter fields and, of course, the button.

Form text can also be edited directly, which gives you a Opportunity To visualize your copy in real time.

It would’ve been nice to have Some templates, but as you know, there’s more to some form than simply its physical appearance.

Clicking on the’Settings’ tab will allow you to configure the way the Form functions, including adding additional fields and setting a custom success page.

(There’s a GDPR compliance option. Sweet.)

And talking of the success page…

…MailerLite also enables you to customize the default message, That will replace the embedded kind and prevents users .

Last but surely not least, you Can check the way your form displays on mobile by shifting the toggle to reactive mode.

You won’t Have the Ability to make any layout changes , but it makes Sense to check, nevertheless.

So that is an overview of this Embedded form but as I said before, you may even create popup forms in MailerLite.

While the Vast Majority of this setup process is identical, there are 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 offer a fantastic foundation to work from and the editor is just as easy to use with this form type.

Clicking on the’E-commerce’ template requires me to a preview Before moving into the editor.

Here, you’ll notice there are some new choices under form types Now around:

Considering paid tools such as Thrive Leads exist for both ribbons and slide-in forms, it is pretty impressive to observe this level of control over popup types.

And, like before, you can play with the styling options to get it Matched up with your branding.

Finally, you can Select the near Behavior of your type under the’Settings’ tab.

The default option is the X icon, but you can swap this out for A”No thanks” text option, or have .

This is really where most email Marketing platforms will leave you, but MailerLite has yet another trick up its sleeve.

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Reporting & Analytics

Like most tools, you’ll find a summary of your campaign Data in the dashboard.

Here you’ll see everything from effort open and click info, Subscriber development, automation stats, and kind signups.

Clicking into any campaign will Give you specific coverage for this effort.

This is where you’ll discover a few statistics such as Unsubscribes, spam complaints, bounces, reading surroundings, email client and more.

This should be plenty of Information for the ordinary consumer…

…but in Case You really want To dig into the numbers, you can click into individual areas of the report for a more comprehensive breakdown.

You can find some real gems under These reports.

For example, the’View Email’ tab also shows a click map, so You can see how your readers interacted to another.

Reports for automations are Accessible under the’Automations’ tab, even although I found these to be less insightful than campaign reports.

Here’s a quick example:

Total, MailerLite does a Stellar job with their reporting port, and many will get the available data more than sufficient to fulfill their demands.

Email Automation

What is email marketing without a dash of automation?

For most reading this, MailerLite’s automation capabilities Could easily make or break this particular review.

The great news? If you’ve used a visual workflow builder, then You’ll instantly feel at home here…

Much like the rest of MailerLite, The automations interface is simple, clean and easy to navigate — something which certainly can’t be said for each and every email advertising program.

After establishing your trigger, you can Start adding steps to your workflow.

These steps can be anything from sending an email, including a Delay, a bubble break, or an action, like moving a subscriber or upgrading their records.

Here’s a straightforward workflow I set together, where subscribers Are unsubscribed when they do not open my email within 7 days.

There are innumerable 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 since it lacks some of the conditional components. (Split, Go To, Goal, etc.. )

For Instance, there’s currently no automation for transferring Readers directly into a different automation.

That being said, the Majority of these activities can Nevertheless Be achieved by moving Subscribers into various classes that trigger new automation workflows. It’s simply not as effective…. yet.

Another matter of efficiency here is when generating new emails In the automation workflow builder.

After having an email cube to The workflow, you will be asked to add your topic line which then appears on the block itself.

From there, clicking the’Design email’ button will automatically fire up the Editor:

Now, you’ll be temporarily Redirected to the standard campaign creation wizard, which I covered previously in the review.

This time, but once you’ve created your email, clicking the ‘Done editing’ button will guide you straight back to the automations workflow instead of the usual sending alternatives.

Finally, your email address will be Loaded into your automation.

A Wonderful touch here is using a thumbnail preview of your Email within your automation block, which means you can find an concept about what it contains at a glance.

While this process may seem like A grind on newspaper, it is really much faster than what I am used to with other email advertising 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 within the automations builder, so you’ll probably find this a downgrade in functionality.

It’s fast enough for me, Personally, however I guess it is all relative.

Before I wrap up this segment, there’s 1 type of automation You will not find in MailerLite, also I think it’s very important to highlight.

Site tracking.

The ability to activate an automation (or measure ) based on the way Readers interact with all the webpages on your site.

This Sort of behavioral targeting only is not accessible MailerLite right now, so if it’s something you use or plan to utilize, you might want to skip this one. My Emma

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Pricing

The Price of MailerLite is among those tools largest Selling points, and let us face it, most of us love a fantastic bargain.

For starters, they offer an infinite free plan that includes All features (including premium) to get up to 1,000 subscribers.

While there is some subtle Branding on your mails using this plan, it is still an amazing option for anyone starting out.

And what about the top plans?

It ends up, at approximately half of the Cost of this rivalry generally, MailerLite is undoubtedly among the cheapest options on the market. Plus, if you are ready to pay annually, you are also able to get a much greater discount.

In fact, I haven’t been able to find anything that does the Exact Same job, cheaper.

Wrap-up

MailerLite is among the few advertising tools to disrupt The (very crowded) sector in the last couple of decades, and that’s no simple feat.

While it is not as quickly 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.

Overall, I find MailerLite strikes the perfect balance Between flexibility, simplicity and speed, and at a price point you will seriously struggle to conquer.

Thinking about giving it a spin? Let us know how it works for you From the remarks. My Emma

Click here to begin your free account of Mailerlite.