The easiest way to attract or retain customers is through direct marketing methods. The oldest, but still effective method interaction with the target audience is.

What are mailings?

Mailings are a low-cost method of marketing communication. Sending emails allows you to quickly promote various goods and services on the market (advertising and PR), as well as actively interact with an existing customer base (loyalty, informing about new products), so it is a good way of promotion.

The most popular forms of email newsletters are:

• letters and commercial proposals;
• advertising brochures and catalogues;
• Greeting Cards and invitations.

Initially, such letters were sent manually to a pre-prepared list of recipients, which took a lot of time and effort - monotonous work completely killed the motivation of valuable employees. Times have changed! Nowadays it is much more profitable to carry out automatic sending using online email marketing services.

Mailing services operate on cloud technology, which ensures high level reliability in the delivery of letters and the relative ease of passing spam filters.

This tool allows you to create a huge database of contacts online from different sources, manage multiple mailings and conduct accurate analysis their effectiveness.

Paid and free mailing services

Modern services are rarely 100% paid or free - competition in this area is too high to lose customers. Most services offer both options, albeit under different conditions.

Payment for services is mainly carried out through electronic money(most often Webmoney, Qiwi or Yandex.Money), much less often payment by bank cards is possible (usually Visa or MasterCard, sometimes credit cards).

Most popular services

Subscribe (Sendsay) - leader of e-mailers

Subscribe (after rebranding Sendsay) is one of the oldest email newsletter services on the Runet - it has been in steady demand since 1999. It occupies a stable position in the market (more than 5 million subscribers and 50 thousand subscriptions) and is even included in the top 20 of the world's best mailing services. We are pleased with the reliability and ease of management, but are disappointed by a number of limitations associated with managing the client base and the abundance of self-promotion in each newsletter.

The free service package divides letters into three conditional groups: “Gold”, “Silver” and “Bronze”, which on the one hand is quite convenient, but on the other hand may not always correspond to your vision. Service administrators distribute letters into categories, focusing on what materials will potentially be of interest to recipients.

Delivery efficiency is: 99.9%

official site .

Smart Responder - great opportunities for mass mailings. (Updated: The service has been closed)

Smart Responder is a very popular domestic service focused on the needs of medium and small businesses. Known in Runet since 2002 as a useful tool for direct marketing. Analysis of the effectiveness of mailings is facilitated by the ability to add to letters and redirect recipients to a specified site (after subscription). (Updated: The service has been closed)

The free package allows you to interact with 1000 subscribers, sending them 50 thousand emails monthly.

The email design is quite simple - users can only choose from 10 ready-made templates. Database import from Microsoft files is available, integration via API is possible, and interaction with some CRM systems is also possible.

Delivery efficiency is: 99.8%.

You can use the service by going to the official website.

MadMimi is an excellent business tool

MadMimi is an extremely simple and effective mailing service. The main disadvantage is the small number of functions, which is compensated by the excellent free version. An important advantage for small and medium-sized businesses will be prompt service technical support.

The free version allows you to manage a base of 25 thousand subscribers and send 12,500 emails monthly. The design of messages is laconic, there is a choice of different shades for block templates.

Letters are optimized for mobile devices, there is integration via API and with some platforms for online stores, manual import of client databases from Microsoft documents is possible.

Delivery efficiency is: (exact data not specified).

You can use the service by going to the official website.

Mailchimp - simple, fast, reliable

Mailchimp is a worthy favorite of the Russian Internet community. A nice interface and simple controls make it indispensable for sending mass mailings.

The main disadvantages can be considered high cost paid version, as well as possible the language barrier when interacting with technical support (English only).

The free version is designed to send 12,000 emails monthly and create a base of 2,000 subscribers. Personalization of mailings is carried out at a high level - in a matter of minutes you can create a nice design based on ready-made templates (more than a hundred interesting solutions). I'm pleased with the ability to import a contact database (manually), the availability of API integration, as well as with different CRM systems and platforms for creating .

Delivery efficiency is: 96-99%

You can use the service by going to the official website.

GetResponse - ideal for reputation

GetResponse is the brainchild of Polish developers. The service will be useful to companies operating not only in the CIS, but also abroad. Technical support is provided in Russian, English and Polish.

Database import is possible (manually from Microsoft documents, automatic from Google services). Postal service has powerful internal analytics, which allows users to easily evaluate the effectiveness of mailings.

The free version is available for a month after registration.

Unfortunately, the “trial” package is very limited - you can create a very small database of recipients (up to 250 people). But the letters are designed extremely attractively thanks to a large number extraordinary templates (more than 500 varieties of design).

The effectiveness of email campaigns

Email newsletters are effective if they hit the target. Are you trying to reach your target audience and minimize the percentage of emails ending up in spam? Follow the basic guidelines:

1. Intriguing subject line. The headline should be relevant to the essence of your proposal and grab the reader's attention. Let's allow moderate humor and “selling” tricks. Do you constantly notify your customer or partner base about new changes? Try to come up with the most original names for each shipment.
2. Clear content. Brevity - required condition for email distribution. The first two paragraphs of the letter should contain 60-80% of the main message. Would you like to provide more information? Add a more extensive attachment to the “selling” part.
3. No unnecessary investments. Avoid sending a large number of attachments. Ideally, their number should not exceed 2-3 documents (text and graphic). An interested client will find a way to contact you (don't forget to include up-to-date contact information). You should definitely not send archives via email - such letters are instantly sent to spam.

Using a decent email marketing service

Whether the email reaches the recipient depends 30-40% on the quality of the service you choose. Especially when it comes to large-scale and frequent mailings. You should not get involved with “quarrelsome” email mailing services, which, upon receiving several complaints about spam, arrange real quests for their clients (requests to reactivate a huge database of email addresses, blocking mailings until the complainants provide a written apology for spam, etc.)

• high rates of opening letters (in comparison with the total mass of ignored ones);
• the frequency of recipients clicking on the link specified in the text (or the number of live calls);
• minimal sending to spam.

However, competent drafting letters and cooperation with powerful email newsletter services make the task much easier. Popular services show a very high delivery rate - from 98 to 99.5% hit rate!

Hello friends and colleagues, Pavel Yamb is in touch.

With the closure of the smartresponder email newsletter service, many webmasters and bloggers are faced with a problem: which email newsletter service to choose now to send emails to their subscribers and clients? The problem is really difficult, because there are many of them on the Internet, with different functions, capabilities and pricing policies.

I also asked myself which newsletter service is better, and began searching the Internet for information. After trying various platforms, I settled on getresponse. Honestly, I'm a little blown away by what it gives the user and what it gives me as a content marketer and blogger. I would recommend it to everyone, but the choice depends on your goals. I have one for him series of video lessons for beginners, and today I will give a general comparative analysis of the services that I came across and considered.

After reviewing and comparing, all you have to do is figure it out for yourself and choose, depending on your needs and capabilities. Some people are willing to spend $30 a month, while others still only have 100 subscribers and 5 bucks. Or he wants to save money by doing a free test first to ensure quality.

In general, let's go.

By what criteria did I compare in this rating?

I have determined for myself a list of priority functions and capabilities based on which I will make a decision in favor of one or another mailing service:

1. Service language.
2. Letter design.
3. Possibility to conduct A/B testing of the letter.
4. Convenient analytics.
5. Trigger mailing function.
6. Mailing scheduler.
7. View emails on different devices.
8. Availability of API.
9. Minimum tariff.
10. Free trial.
11. Support service.

After that, I actually sat down and worked in each service described, creating a form for the site, sending letters, contacting the support service. Then I gave each service my personal rating, based on how quickly I was able to achieve what I needed, whether I was able to set up the mailing list, whether everything was clear intuitively and what caused difficulties.

I will only briefly introduce some services for sending emails, but with others I have prepared an individual, often fun investigation with screenshots and explanations, so make yourself comfortable. Here's what I got.

Unisender

General impressions

Unisender I actually liked it. Quite acceptable quality for the money. But of course, you will need to figure it out a little and set everything up correctly yourself. But this is not such a difficult task, especially with such a support service.

Main advantages

• intuitive interface and nice design;
• a beginner will figure it out without much hassle;
• availability of a “rare” tariff: the amount in the account does not expire every month, but is spent depending on the number of letters;
• a bunch of templates and possible options letters;
• the ability to insert a subscription form anywhere, even on any website, even in the CRM;
• RSS feed;
• availability of trigger mailings, A/B testing and API.

Flaws

• The support service does not work at night;
• there is no ability to preview a letter on different devices before sending;
• small free features;
• the price is higher than the average of competitors.

Expand my investigation with screenshots and explanations

Well, let's let's register? Registration is quick:


The letter arrived instantly in my inbox:



I joined the email life by filling out 10 registration fields and went to get acquainted with the tariffs:


We automatically have the “Free” tariff. There is an interesting opportunity to pay for each letter sent. This is not something you will find everywhere, and this tariff may be suitable for many.

Let's now create a subscription form to embed on the site. Here everything turned out to be “drag and drop”, that is, you just take and drag the necessary fields to the right places. The smart one was not nearly as convenient.

Everything can be intuitively configured in styles: color, background, location...

And integrated into the site template:

But when I tried to leave my email, an error occurred:

I couldn’t figure it out quickly, so it’s time to test the support service: I’ll ask them. It's night now. Chat doesn't work.

Interesting, but the answer came at 6 am. It explained to me in detail, with screenshots, what needs to be done:

Set up a confirmation email and enter your mailing address. Earned:

I received an email in my inbox that I configured. By the way, I set it up in a minute, using a ready-made template, of which there are more than 100:

Finally, we made emails adaptive; there was no such feature before:

I was especially pleased with the following features:

That is, there will be a trigger newsletter. Let's say you sent your subscriber a letter, but he didn't open it. You send him a second letter with a threat:) Open it, they say, and follow the link, otherwise I will be offended by you. Just kidding, of course, but this is actually a good thing about email marketing.

I sent a test letter to my address before sending it to the mailing list. Unfortunately, it arrived in promotions and not directly in your inbox. But it didn’t end up in spam – that’s good news. Admire:

But let's send it to subscribers. As we can see, it is possible to conduct a split test: this is great:

And when sending, we see the setup of statistics and integration with the analytics system - absolutely gorgeous:

The letters arrived in the inbox, everything is clear.

In the paid tariff there is also the opportunity to send SMS if the subscriber left you his phone number:

General impressions

In general, an excellent service for sending email newsletters, ideal for small businesses, without unnecessary functionality for which you have to overpay. Statistics, segmentation of analyst subscribers - everything that is so necessary is present and at a decent level. If you have up to 1000 subscribers in your database, then the service is free for you - a super offer, and in general the prices are below average.

Main advantages

• there are no complaints about support;
• ease of use;
• if you have up to 1000 subscribers, then the service is free, you can send an unlimited number of letters;
• low prices with normal quality;
• all basic tools are present.

Flaws

• if you don’t have your own website, you won’t be able to confirm your account;
• Sometimes you are redirected to English-language pages, and you need to select the language again.

I had a fiasco with this service and an interesting correspondence with the support service. EXPAND

I registered and the email arrived quickly. I was delighted and began to confirm my account. I filled out my profile, and then it turned out that I also needed to confirm my domain email. That is, you need mail linked to your website, and if you don’t have one, then you won’t be able to use this mailing service. Can you imagine? Usually an account on Facebook and even Twitter is enough, but here it’s not! See what it looks like:

I had to create an additional box. I did it using Yandex, at this address: https://pdd.yandex.ru/domains_add/

I created a file, uploaded it to the server - confirmed ownership, then I was stunned by the following:

Having pressed this button, I thought that everything would be ok. Alas, I failed: I still had to go to the registrar and change the DNS there. Moreover, after subscribing, I immediately received a letter in the mail, like, here’s a video tutorial on how to create your first letter. And they tell you what is already clear. But to do this, you still need to go through this damn registration and for some reason you must have your own website. Okay, here's a good reason to trust the support service and write to them.

Online chat on English language:

While this is not a problem for me, it might be a problem for someone who studied Spanish at school.

My English is poor, but I can express myself, so I asked support: “I don’t have a website, how can I confirm something that doesn’t exist?”

By the way, they answered me in Russian. It’s funny, of course, but I also switched to Russian:

By and large, I didn't like it. Well, okay, not fatal, so let’s take a closer look at this newsletter. Moreover, it was recommended to me by respected bloggers.

Let's create a form to insert into the site. Here you can make both a popup and a landing page, it’s cool:

Yes, the design is 10 times simpler than that of Unisendera:

But for example, this doesn’t matter to me, because I set the styles for the form on the site myself in the style settings of the site itself, and it doesn’t matter to me what the form looks like in the designer. I created the form easily and quickly, inserted it into the site in two ways that were suggested - html code and script:

Let's now send me an email and look at the analytics and mailing capabilities.

So far everything is great – it couldn’t be better:

Both templates and drag and drop are pleasing:

Shine! Drag, change, save:

I saw how it would look on a mobile device:

We also send a test email, which instantly appears in your inbox.

Getresponse

General impressions

Getresponse became for me best choice email newsletter service. I sincerely recommend it, especially since I have a number of video tutorials on this service for beginners, in which I show step by step how easy it is to make your newsletter correctly.

Main advantages

• nice and simple interface;
• huge, clearly thought out functionality. There is everything you need.
• creation of landing pages;
• possibility of holding a webinar;
• 500 ready-made letter templates.

Flaws

• many fields during registration.

Expand my comments with screenshots

In your personal account Getresponsa everything is immediately clear and visual:

At first glance, it’s clear how, for example, to create a subscription form that has many options to suit every taste. Everything is convenient and well customizable:

It integrates easily with the site, as you can see from me. There was only one question that the support service helped me resolve. By the way, the support service here is both Russian and English. Let me remind you: in online chat I contacted support and communicated in English at night. And in the morning I received a letter in the mail, already in Russian, about how glad they were that I was able to resolve my issue without Russian-speaking assistants.

A clear and convenient statistics system that immediately allows you to send letters to all those who did not open the previous letter, or opened but did not click on the link:

You can easily sort the contacts themselves and work magic on them:

General impressions

A serious, paid service for sending emails to a large number of subscribers. Provides online training for its functionality. This provides significant savings in time, which is usually spent searching for answers in manuals and using search engines.

Main advantages

• fixed tariff;
• payment only for the volume of mailing;
• extensive functionality, adaptive design for emails;
• wide variety of messages - from ordinary to transactional;
• the ability to segment subscribers according to many parameters, track and delete inactive ones.

Flaws

• no trial version - presentation only;
• quite high fee;
• There is no payment based on the number of subscribers.

Mad Mimi

General impressions

The first thing that can scare you away Mad Mimi– English interface, but the service is localized for Russian-speaking users, you just need to choose the language yourself. And so - popular and easy to use, it positions its interface as simple, even minimalistic - just right for beginners. Has a free plan - with limited features, but quite suitable for the average volume of mailings of a small store. And the paid package is quite cheap.

Main advantages

• easy to use thanks to visual tips with screenshots;
• unobtrusive design;
• attentive and prompt support service;
• convenient email editor;
• linking RSS to the newsletter;
• clear statistics;
• goes to spam minimal amount letters.

Flaws

• still the functionality is not enough;
• limited ability to work with text;
• There may be refusals to work with the mailing list if it is considered spam.

Pechkin-mail

General impressions

Russian service for email distribution Pechkin-mail. Easy to use, with convenient pricing plans for both small and bulk mailings. Provides the opportunity to analyze the effectiveness of carried out marketing activities, tracks subscriber activity.

Main advantages

• three types of tariff plans;
• the ability to pay only for the number of letters;
• free minimum volume of 100 subscribers and 500 letters;
• templates in Russian style - special. chip;
• the ability to create interactive letters;
• user-friendly interface;
• efficient and fast technical support response.

Flaws

• an overly simple set of templates and design tools;
• lack of Internet promotion opportunities, including automatic distribution from RSS;
• lack of mobile application.

Sendsay

General impressions

Russian-language mailing service Sendsay ranks first in terms of the number of mailings in Russia. It is possible to configure detailed mailing settings - from e-mail to SMS and RSS mailings, which is very convenient for large stores.

Main advantages

• reasonable prices;
• a large number of parameters by which you can evaluate the effect of the mailing;
• the ability to create a mailing algorithm based on the actions and financial indicators of subscribers;
• The feature of the service is the ability to conduct subscriber surveys.

Flaws

• inconvenient guide to working with the service and video tutorials of poor quality;
• There is no preview of letters before sending.

General impressions

– another Russian-language service with the ability to send mailings in any quantity. One of the features is cloud software. A demo version for 14 days and a mailing volume of 500 letters allows you to test its capabilities.

Main advantages

• adaptive design;
• various possibilities for triggered mailings;
• function of viewing letters on different devices;
• website traffic analytics in one console;
• Constant and dynamic updating with new functionality.

Flaws

• there is no tariff plan with payment according to the number of subscribers;
• moderation with checking messages for spam.

General impressions

– an expensive service. Positions itself as a professional system with high speed of importing and sending data. Can handle large volumes of mailing – more than 2 million letters per day.

Main advantages

• demo after online demo;
• detailed analysis of customer actions, as well as statistical and behavioral data;
• convenient interface.

Flaws

• the highest tariffs;
• Some have a limit on the number of letters per month.

eSputnik

General impressions

ESputnik has a convenient and simple service, a trial period and a free tariff with mailing up to 2500 letters. The highlight of the service is templates to match the style of the newsletter owner’s website. Suitable for both beginners and professionals.

Main advantages

• the functionality is available in full and for free use;
• free bonus system;
• Russian-language localization of the service;
• excellent support service;
• sending both emails and SMS;
• visual analytics.

Flaws

• There is no option to preview emails before sending.

SendPulse

General impressions

Sendpulse is the only service that has both very positive and very negative reviews. Although many of the “buns” look attractive.

Main advantages

• special and quite favorable terms of cooperation for startups;
• significant limit for free newsletters– 2500 subscribers and 15000 letters per month;
• the ability to send Push messages even with the browser closed;
• a large set of free ready-made letter templates;
• user-friendly interface;
• fast pre-moderation.

Flaws

• there is no option to automatically publish new posts via RSS;
• many complaints from users on the Internet about the support service;
• Problems arise when switching from a free to a paid plan, which is associated with a different approach to moderating the content of the newsletter first and then.

Watch my video from the email newsletter course:

My course

Hello everyone!

I haven’t written anything in the E-mail marketing section for a long time, although interesting topics so many. And I want to talk now about one of them - email mailing programs. Quite a lot of people do not use online services like MailChimp, but rather PC programs.

In total I know several programs and services:

• . English-language e-mail newsletter service. I am using it now and am completely satisfied;
• UniSender. Paid online service, but there is also a free plan. And technical support is at the level;
• Epochta Mailer. A paid program for e-mail newsletters, but there is also a free, stripped-down version. Installed on PC. It is in certain demand, as it is almost the best option. I have experience working with it;
• . In November 2016 this service email newsletters are closed. Reason for closure: stopped bringing pleasure and satisfaction from work to its creator. In short, the creator got tired of Smartresponder. However, the service was the most convenient and practical among all others, in my opinion;
• AMS Enterprise. Direct competitor to Epochta Mailer. Shareware program.

By the way, recently a new player appeared on the domestic email marketing market - the Falconsender service. The project was created from scratch by guys who are very for a long time were working on another large service.

When you first meet you, you will be struck by a convenient and accessible interface and the presence of all the functionality necessary for mailings. We are pleasantly surprised by the prices, one of the lowest on the market: with a base of up to 1000 subscribers, you can use the service absolutely free, and a tariff with a base of up to 10,000 subscribers will cost only $14!

Among the shortcomings, it is worth noting that the service is just beginning its journey, so there are some minor shortcomings.

The support service responds very quickly and tries to listen to all requests.

If you need stable service at a reasonable price, then this is an excellent choice.

Of course, there may be much more best options, but I only know these, and have only worked with a few. I have already written about two online services (Smartresponder and MailChimp), and today I would like to tell you about the Epochta Mailer program.

You can buy/download the program. Cost - 2900 rubles. But you know that there is always a way out 😉

Benefits of the program

I became acquainted with this program when I was still quite green, when I was just starting to access the Internet. Then it was planned to find clients through e-mail newsletters, but for some reason it didn’t work out for me (I don’t remember exactly why). I worked with it for literally a week, but already during this time I saw a number of advantages that the paid version has (I somehow managed to crack the program):

• Unlimited number of e-mail addresses;
• SPAM test. A very useful thing;
• Clear interface;
• Ability to monitor the effectiveness of mailings;
• Detailed reports;
• The program supports HTML message format;
• Well, and a few others.

And this is what the Epochta Mailer interface looks like:

Click on the image and it will enlarge. As you can see, it’s convenient to form letters here and send letters too - just make a couple of clicks. However, before sending it is necessary to make a number of settings, without which the program will not be able to work.

Setting up Epochta Mailer

In order to be able to send letters, you must have an SMTP server - a protocol designed for simple sending of letters. Epochta Mailer has a built-in one, but it will not be enough for the program to work fully. But we can use other options:

1. SMTP server of your Internet provider. To use it, you need to check with your provider whether it provides SMTP. Most likely there are strict restrictions on the number of letters sent. In some places you can send 500 letters, and in others less;
2. The hosting provider's SMTP server can also be used for sending via Epochta Mailer, but most likely there will also be limits here, but much more expanded. For example, certain providers allow you to send up to 3,000 emails per day. For many this will be enough;
3. Free email services from Yandex, Google, Mail.ru. Anyone can use it, the main thing is to have an account in the system whose SMTP you want to use. In this lesson we will use Yandex;
4. Renting an SMTP server. There are special services that allow you to rent servers and send messages.

As I already said, we will use an SMTP server from Yandex. The limit is 150 messages per day, as far as I remember:

1. Open the program and fill out a short form. It opens when you first start the program:
   Be sure to fill in all fields, otherwise sending letters will not work;
2. Next, on the top panel, click on the “SMTP Wizard” button:
   In the window that appears, select “Use external SMTP”:
   This way you can use all available free SMTP servers. Click "Forward";
3. Next, click on the “Add” button:
   A window will appear in front of you with a list of all available servers. Select the server of the mail service where you have an account. I will choose Yandex (smtp.yandex.ru):
   In the same window we see limits on the number of messages per day;
4. Then double-click on the SMTP server in the selection window, after which another window will open with server parameters, where you will need to specify the login and password of the account from which letters will be sent and SMTP will be used:
   
5. Click OK and then Finish.

This completes the setup. Now you can create a letter to send to subscribers. The editor here is such that it won’t be too difficult to work with him. Everything is extremely simple and clear:

Sending letters

Before sending a letter, you need to upload addresses for mailing. This can be done through the “Addresses” item:

The finished database can be downloaded by importing a .xls or .csv file, or via Google Sheets:

An email newsletter service is the main tool of an email marketer, his main work environment. Ideally, it should comprehensively solve business problems in the field of email or direct marketing. Moreover, in the context of both functionality and approach to the profession.

The approach to the profession is how the service’s ideologists understand the tasks, needs, and challenges within the email marketing community. It is on this basis that the functionality of their product is built.

Therefore, an easy way to avoid making a mistake when choosing an email newsletter service is to familiarize yourself with the content that is generated within its framework. If your views coincide with the views of ideologists, most likely the service will suit you.

Why is it important to make the right choice?

If you choose and begin to develop within an unsuitable service, you will face a painful, long and resource-intensive move. Since email marketing today is based primarily on automation, it will be very difficult to carry out reintegration and efficiently transfer all databases to another service.

Therefore, when making your choice, go through this checklist:

• think about what goals you want to achieve with email marketing;
• formulate the tasks to be solved, and then evaluate what functionality is needed for this;
• think about what you would like to save the most time on;
• look a little into the future and figure out what functionality you will need when you start to develop;
• Determine how you will analyze the results and what metrics you need to track regularly.

What criteria were used to determine the email marketing services included in this review?

There are a lot of services for email newsletters. About 20 platforms participate in the EmailSoldiers rating alone. Of course, you won’t be able to find a complete overview of all the tools in one article, so we will focus only on a few of them.

The review also did not include the following services:

• far behind the level of those being monitored
• specialized services for delivering only transactional or trigger emails (for example, TriggMine, UniOne, Mandrill)
• services, marketing level + (for example, MindBox)

What to look for when choosing a service?

First- when reading reviews, keep in mind that the capabilities and functionality of services change regularly. What can be called a feature today will become an anachronism tomorrow. So don’t go too deep into the details, pay attention to what the service is based on and what its main idea is.

Second- decide what niche your business belongs to and what tasks you want to solve in the field of email marketing. Pay attention to the client's portfolio of services. If it contains projects similar to yours, perhaps this solution will suit you.

Third- take into account the opinions of everyone who will work in the email marketing team.

Fourth- do not talk about the cost of the service in a narrow perspective. Also consider: what costs will be needed to set up the integration, how much custom settings will cost, whether the service has paid functionality and whether you need it.

Different services are monetized differently. For example, MailChimp can be used for free with basic settings, it has functionality that is only available for paid accounts, and there is also a pro level. The same goes for Getresponse.

In eSputnik or Unisender, absolutely all functionality is available in any tariff.

Fifth- pay attention to how the service itself positions itself. For example, a service for e-commerce projects with a base of 50,000 contacts. If you are a company's target audience, then most likely it offers special solutions for your niche.

About subjectivity in comparing mailing services

This review, like any other reviews, is very subjective. No matter how hard you try to objectify the information, you will always encounter a contradiction:

1. A high-quality review cannot be written by a person who has no real experience working with the service; conditionally objective reviews based on clear criteria are written by people who have no experience with services (perhaps even with none of them).
2. A specialist who has real experience and knows what is important and what is not physically cannot study in equal detail all the services he writes about. Even if there is such a task, everything ends with the first problem, which is more convenient to solve with another, more familiar service. But this does not mean that the same problem cannot be solved in another service, even if it is more difficult.

Important! At the end of the article there will be a table comparing email marketing services according to several criteria.

Until then, I will only consider special ones, mainly unique characteristics services.

Ideal for: content projects, small and medium-sized businesses to solve simple problems.

Main features.

1. Results-oriented automation

Previously, in the field of automation, the service offered only an email scheduler. At the same time, the reports accumulated data about all sent letters in the chain, but again every day. Thus, it was impossible to view the general statistics of the trigger letter.

Now the service offers new automation in which you can build scenarios consisting of “actions,” “nodes” (checks and analysis) and “result” (success or failure). Partly correct and interesting approach, but quite controversial.

But now you can track statistics for each chain and record how many users have achieved “success” and how many have achieved “failure”.

With their help, you can monitor audience activity by examining different types letters separately. Similar statistics are available in eSputnik, but they appeared here earlier.

This is not a unique feature; it is also found in other services, but it’s worth saying a few words about it. You can create segments within lists using personal ratings of users, which are based on their activity. True, the principle by which the rating is assigned is not completely transparent and it is difficult to verify the reliability of such segmentation.

Overall, I don't really like the segmentation in Unisender. Like Mailchimp, it is built on two concepts: lists and segments within lists. At the same time, you cannot combine or combine segments from different lists into one without resorting to export-import.

General impressions

A very popular service in the CIS space, with good analytics and visualization, but with disabilities in segmentation and automation.

Ideal for: online stores and marketplaces.

Main features.

eSputnik reports allow you to quickly understand if something is wrong with an email. Domain statistics will show if you are in spam, even without contacting PostMaster. The paid version of MailChimp also has the same one.

Unlike other services, here you can track not only the effectiveness of mailings over time, but also the state of your contact base, see how fast it is growing, from what sources it is replenished, you can see the dynamics of the growth of individual groups, and much more.

An additional bonus is integration with BigQuery for generating custom reports.

2. Flexible segmentation

A huge number of conditions and only three types of groups allow you to create any combination. The most popular in e-commerce is segmentation based on the RFM matrix. For example, you can create a group “Customers with more than 10 purchases, with an average purchase of $100, who made their last purchase 30 days ago.”

Segmentation is probably eSputnik’s strongest point. And the ideologists of the service plan to actively develop this aspect, opening up even more opportunities.

3. Flexible automation

Despite the fact that the service is not integrated with virtually any CRM/CMS platform, its API allows you to solve any marketing problems.

At the integration stage, you will definitely need a programmer, but the automatic filling of the service will allow you to forget about this in the future. The user has access to all events and data that are transmitted to the system. You can easily juggle any arrays to create the most complex and intricate scenarios.

4. Solutions for online stores

Due to the fact that the service is focused on e-commerce, it offers ready-made solutions that online stores need: product recommendations, reactivation trigger messages, integration with the order database and much more.

5. A letter editor that has no equal

The new email editor (the Stripo app if you want to use it while working with another service) is undoubtedly one of the product's strengths.

Here you can create any letter with a custom design using only a manual interface. At the same time, you also have access to the code of the entire letter and its individual elements, which is excluded by other editors.

In the interface, you can also set up a responsive design and significantly change the layout of the letter for mobile phones.

Editors of other services allow you to manually create relatively simple template letters. For MailChimp, which is used mainly in the West, this is definitely not a problem. But if you have an unusual, complex design, you will have to layout it separately and then upload the finished code into the system.

The only drawback of the eSputnik editor is that due to the large number of options in the interface, the letter weighs quite a lot and sometimes you need to manually remove unnecessary code.

General impressions

In general, the service demonstrates functionality that is more typical for the “marketing +” level, and if we talk about the pricing policy, it is more affordable than many weaker platforms.

Ideal for: content projects, small businesses.

Main features.

I'm not sure if I can call this an advantage, but it's definitely a feature. Automation was not long ago a paid option for MailChimp, but is now available to all users. Anyone who is not very familiar with programming will easily understand how it works, since different tasks here are combined by logical blocks. For example:

Simple chains triggered by certain types of triggers are very easy to create and edit. In analytics, you see statistics not only of individual trigger emails, but also of the entire chain.

2. Integration with a large number of platforms

Since the service is a world leader, most companies integrate with it on their own initiative. And it's convenient. For example, working in conjunction with MailChimp-SUMO is a real pleasure.

I called the service optimal for content projects also because it allows you to generate landing pages internally and even add advertisements to email chains. Great tools to accompany this niche.

4. Tracking completed goals

This is a really valuable report that is not available, for example, in eSputnik. The feature is called Analytics360 and is only available for pro accounts. With its help, you can track conversions, income, completed goals, and calculate ROI.

5. Manual customization of everything related to subscription forms

Manually adjust how forms and pages for subscriptions, unsubscribes, data updates, popups and static forms will look. Easily install the generated code on your website. What is missing from eSputnik.

Flaws

Segmentation is what I dislike most about MailChimp. Due to the fact that the service is monetized, starting from total number users in each list separately, it is very difficult to carry out any manipulations with groups here without doubling the size of your tariff plan. Not to mention that if one user is on three different lists, in order to leave the database, he will have to unsubscribe from all three.

General impressions

The service is massive with a huge number of users, so its functionality is universal and quite simple. For beginners - an excellent choice. The pro functionality is good, but there are more affordable and universal solutions on the market.

Ideal for: educational platforms, information business, b2b.

Main features.

1. Integrated marketing tools

I already mentioned landing pages that you can create directly in MailChimp and use them in email campaigns. It's not that difficult to be honest, considering that the editor is still the same as the letter editor. A beautiful marketing move.

But Getresponse has other features besides landing pages - a platform for conducting webinars, a service for creating surveys.

An excellent combination for information business and educational platforms.

The CRM tab is another godsend for those who work with small subscriber bases and long transaction stages. This functionality finally determined the audience that the service is aimed at.

2. Automation templates

About the same story as with MailChimp, but more convenient. There are really a lot of templates. You don't need to understand how chains work to achieve certain goals - just take them and use them.

If you have a regularly updated blog, using the RSS module you can set up sending a digest with a given frequency according to a given template to a given group of recipients. The functionality is very convenient. There is a similar one in MailChimp and Unisender.

4. Scoring and tagging of users

For any action you choose, assign points to the user. This segmentation can be used to create more personalized chains. Same thing with tags. Tag users with special tags and change communications with them.

General impressions

The interface is very friendly, there are a lot of well-visualized educational materials.

Ideal for: small and medium businesses.

Main features.

Of course, this is not a decisive advantage, but a feature that, at least, is not present in other reviewed services.

Multichannel is one of the features of the service. You have access to not only email, but also SMS, push, and viber communication channels. The disadvantage is that all these channels cannot be combined in one scenario. For each of them you need to use your own automation.

But you can create non-standard push subscription forms, for example, pop-up windows.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a solution provided by the service for sending transactional messages. You can integrate it with your system for sending transactional messages, while monitoring deliverability and viewing statistics of sent letters in your SendPulse account.

Reliable servers, dedicated IP addresses, SPF and DKIM records increase the likelihood that your emails will not end up in spam.

General impressions

The service is great for simple tasks; there is nothing superfluous in the interface; a beginner can easily understand it. But there is practically no segmentation, the functionality is weak for medium and large businesses.

Comparison table of email marketing services

Criterion / Service
Letter editor	Adaptive	Adaptive	Adaptive		Adaptive, limited capabilities
Segmentation	Average level	RFM segmentation, high level of flexibility	High level	Average level	Average level
Analytics	Average level	High level	High level	Average level	Average level
Integration	API, 25+ platforms	API, Zapier	API, 200+ platforms	API, 200+ platforms	API, 25+ platforms
Automation	There is a mailing scheduler, automation in beta mode	There is a script editor and an event recording system	There is a script editor, scoring, client tagging	Automation based on marketing tasks	There is a script editor
Multichannel	Email, SMS	Email, SMS, Push, Viber	Email	Email	Email, SMS, Push, Viber
Technical support		Russian-speaking, several channels, answer in work time- within 10 minutes	Russian-speaking, email, chat, response within 30 minutes	English-language, several channels, response during business hours - within 2-3 hours	Russian-speaking, several channels, response during business hours - within 10 minutes
Monthly tariff for a base volume of 10,000 contacts	$51	$59	from $65	from $80	from $35

Conclusion

The most important thing in choosing a service is decide on your goals and objectives. If goals and objectives become your main criterion, you can find the answer to whether an email newsletter service is right for you, even by talking with its sales manager. Since few people will take responsibility for promising something they are unable to fulfill.

Agencies or independent email marketers also have a very reasoned position regarding services. Find out if an experienced marketer can solve your problems. If yes, find out what service he is going to use for this.

Chat with the service's ideologists - find out how they approach solving marketers' problems. This will tell you a lot about the functionality of their product.

Register and test several services yourself. But start integration and automation only when you are sure that you are ready to develop within the framework of this particular platform.

If you are interested in a comprehensive solution for your business, and our specialists will give professional free consultation.

Despite the rapid development of advertising and marketing technologies, the way to communicate with customers using mass mailing letters remain a very effective business tool. The easiest way is to send letters by e-mail, for example, mailing via mail ru.

Log into your mail account at mail.ru, click the “Write” button, fill in the “To” field with a list of addresses (click the checkbox).

Then everything is even simpler - enter the subject, write the text of the letter, fill out the signature and press the “send” button.

After this, the message goes to all marked recipients. For best design There are buttons above the text field. With their help, you can change fonts, add postcards, change your signature, etc.

Despite its apparent simplicity, novice users often complain that their emails often do not reach the recipient or end up in spam. Professional programmers and marketers voice the reasons and explain how to properly prepare letters for sending and set up mass mailing to mail ru.

• Before mass mailing, the IP and domain need to be “warmed up” - increase the number of letters gradually, since large information traffic from an IP that does not yet have a reputation can lead to its inclusion in spam filter databases. This will also lead to your email being blocked.

• When sending a letter, you need to be 100% sure of the existence of the specified mailbox at the client's. If more than 5% of all email addresses in your mailing list are not valid (do not exist or are not used), this may lead to complete blocking of the entire mailing list.

• In the body of the letter, it is very important to provide the opportunity to unsubscribe from the mailing list, otherwise users who are not interested in it will use the “spam” button, which will ultimately lead to your blocking.

• It is advisable to use Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) authentication. This authentication method will ensure that all your mailing lists have a consistent reputation.

Mail agent who is not 007

This is a program for audio/video communication and instant messaging online. It comes in two versions - linked to a mail page, or it can be installed separately on a computer. It makes it possible to send short free SMS. Convenient if the client base is small, otherwise it is pointless, because each number will have to be entered manually.

In the lower right corner of the account page there is a narrow strip, click on it, a window with contacts appears, click in the lower left corner on the cloud with the inscription sms, another window appears with the name “Send sms”. We enter the text and phone number, or the name of the contact, if you enter a name, make sure that the number was previously entered in his account, click “send”.

This method is suitable for short notifications or congratulations to clients.

"Trojan Horse" mail ru updater

The first thing you will see when you enter the phrase “mail ru updater” into a search engine is endless rows of links with answers to the cries of the soul “how to remove the updater from mail ru”, “can’t be cleaned from the registry”. Experienced users already know that this is a pig in a poke or a real Trojan that, without your knowledge, delivers something to your computer and shamelessly steals any available data.

Pros and cons of mass mailings through the Mail ru service

Let's consider objectively positive and negative sides, which are given to us by mass mailing via email.

Pros:

• quick start, you don’t have to search for and understand a variety of services for sending letters;
• Even a beginner can send a newsletter this way;
• mailing is potentially free.

Minuses:

• there is no way to automate mailing certain hours or with certain shares;
• you cannot know for sure whether your letter will pass spam filters;
• Most of the functions that are important for business and making money are not available, such as auto funnels, series of letters, advanced statistics, letters based on an event, integration with landing pages, telephony, SRM, etc.;
• to send SMS, you will have to use and study the subroutine agent on the page or install its independent analogue on your computer.

The maximum number of recipients in a letter is 30. There are also restrictions on the speed of sending letters from mail.ru and limits on the number of letters. Read more about limits.

How to send mass emails via mail ru from a computer

Eat special programs, their general algorithm is simple - we launch it, and once we create an action record (there is a corresponding button there) as a template. At the same time, open the page with the email address, enter all the necessary addresses in the field, form the text and before sending, click the “save” button, the template is written down. A file is generated, opening which for the second and hundredth time, we can, with the click of one button, send the prepared template to a large number of clients without going to the email page. The text of the message can be changed, the list of addresses will remain the same.

Programs for mass mailing of letters from mail ru mail are of the same type in the basic design; there may be only minor nuances in additional “bells and whistles” for design. All of them are created in the form of a step-by-step guide, it won’t be difficult to figure it out, you can download any one.

The only thing worth noting are packages like Email or Atomic Marketing Studio - it contains three programs, each of which allows you to create mass mailings, checks addresses for reality, and also makes it possible to generate automatic responses or notifications. Convenient “three in one” product.

Using programs, the likelihood of ending up on spam lists is many times higher than when working with services.

Alternative mass mailing services

Services are orders of magnitude more convenient than the most best program, and independent services. Let's look at the top leaders.

Allows you to send both email and SMS messages. The service is paid, the cost depends on the selected service package; you can check the prices on the website. Unisender uses a designer for professional letter design, with its help you can download databases from Excel, as well as set the start time for mailing.

Pros:

• professional design of the content of the letter;
• ease of use of the database;
• scheduled launch;
• the ability to check a domain in spam databases;
• convenient reporting form.

Minuses:

• the cost of sending one letter with a small client base.

A very large service for sending letters and more, it is notable for the fact that it has its own API, which makes it easier to integrate its services into projects. It is possible to connect an SMTP service. Quite an interesting service with the ability to choose the design of the text of a letter from ready-made templates.

Pros:

• good technical integration capabilities, API available;
• many ready-made templates for all occasions;
• abundance of additional tools (SMS, split testing, etc.)

Minuses:

• not free, although it is possible to send up to 15,000 letters per month for free (you need to check on the website, as conditions may change).

Pros:

• A fairly young service that cares about every client;
• free mailing to a small customer base.

Minuses:

• a meager set of technical characteristics;
• no editor, pre-installed themes;
• there is no API for integration;
• less clear statistics.

Relatively new service, specializing in providing an expanded range of marketing services. There is a convenient editor, many ready-made templates with adaptive design. It's disappointing that there is no free version for beginners, but there is free version for 30 days with a base of up to 250 people.

Pros:

• provision of a wide range of services;
• good technical basis for maintaining statistics.

Minuses:

• prices are above average, aggressive payment policy;
• there is no API, which may lead to the complexity of full-fledged “native” integration;
• no SMS messaging.

An interesting service that provides a “full package” of services for sending letters. It has a convenient newsletter content editor, many newsletters, and a built-in photo editor.

Pros:

• b free up to 1000 subscribers;
• has “a full complement of young fighters” on board.

Minuses:

Pros:

• free newsletter for a small client base;
• convenient API and the ability to integrate into any project;
• all types of mailings, convenient monitoring system and viewing statistics;
• smart editor and many templates.

Minuses:

• minimum functionality, sufficient only for the simplest tasks.

Total

Having analyzed the pros and cons, it can be noted that sending letters through mail ru is carried out mainly manually and has additional problems, such as possible espionage from an updater. It is more convenient for any businessman to work with safe automation. Mass mailing method via mail [Total votes: 5 Average: 3.6/5]