10 Best Email Marketing For Shopify Services

Melanie Balke
|
January 4, 2022

10 Best Email Marketing For Shopify Services

Are you a Shopify owner who wants to uplevel your business? Then choosing excellent email marketing services should be on your to-do list.

But not all email marketing services are created equally--some email marketing services are better suited to Shopify than others. Some are more compatible with Shopify: those that allow you to send triggered emails such as abandoned cart campaigns or confirmation emails, have prebuilt workflows for targeted email campaigns and personalized emails, and allow you to access your store and customer data directly from your email marketing tool.

Does all this sound a bit like an unknown language to you? We get it, it's A LOT. To make matters more confusing, there are TONS of email marketing tools to choose from. So we thought it'd be helpful to create a list of 10 solid bets for your email marketing needs. You'll get an overview of why email marketing works, the types of emails you'll want to include in your email campaigns, and what features to look for in various email marketing services.

Why Your Online Store Needs Email Marketing

Hands down, email marketing is one of the best, if not the actual best, marketing tools business owners have at their disposal. Email marketing's ROI is unmatched: for every $1 spent, email marketers produce $44. And the cost of email marketing is generally much lower than other forms of marketing, like, say, a televised campaign.

Furthermore, email marketing has a HUGE reach. The number of email users is estimated to be almost 4 Billion. And online customers spend 138% more when they receive marketing communication through email.

So with a low cost, impressive ROI, a massive audience, and the stats to back it, email marketing really has no drawbacks. It's an accessible and fantastic option for businesses of all sizes and stripes, and one that is particularly beneficial to ecommerce business, and therefore has special relevance to Shopify business owners.

Types Of Emails In Your Email Campaigns

What kinds of emails will be included in your email marketing campaign? Hammering out your email marketing strategy before selecting your service might help shape your choice, so don't neglect to think strategy before investing in tools.

So before we unveil our list, we thought it would be useful to set out the types of emails that might figure into your email marketing campaigns. You can choose to include ALL types of emails into a comprehensive email strategy, or start with a manageable focus on those emails you feel best to connect with your particular customer base.

Operational and Transactional Emails

These emails are sent out based on customer actions. They are usually considered a staple in the email marketing toolbag, so our advice would be to have at least a few of these on hand and ready to go as you set up your email campaigns.

What are they exactly?

  • Onboarding: welcome emails, account set up, profile set up
  • Billing, terms and conditions, membership details, privacy agreements, data agreements
  • Statements and Receipts
  • Confirmation Email
  • Notification of Shipping

Retention Emails

We can't resist saying see our blog here on this topic. Keeping your existing customers coming back sustains your business.

Firstly, retention emails are essential because retaining customers is cheaper than attracting new ones. (5x less expensive!).  Secondly, the likelihood of selling to a new customer is 5-20%, whilst the likelihood of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%. Thirdly, a customer that has ALREADY bought from you has a 32% probability of purchasing from you again in the first year.

So these emails are serious bread and butter. And it's a good idea to get serious about them. The retention email can come in the form of a survey to find customer preferences and gauge customer satisfaction, it can re-engage inactive subscribers by offering a discount, or it can be a simple appreciation email.

Other examples of Retention Emails:

  • Cart Abandonment
  • Newsletters
  • Seasonal offers
  • Curated Products
  • Announcements of Sales or Product Updates
  • Special Discounts
  • Reminder (for example, that their membership is due to expire)
  • Social Proof or Testimonials
  • Post-purchase emails
Example Of An Effective Retention Email

Because retention emails are so important often neglected, we thought we'd include an example of an elegant retention email from... to spark inspiration. You can have fun with these!

Why This Clicks

This email shows a clear and eye-catching design with a clear CTA and sizable discount. It makes a compelling case for an upgrade and backs that up with a deep sale.

Milestone Emails

With these emails, you have a chance to show the customer you care about them on an individual level. They can be a chance to give back a little, with say a specialized discount, or simply give recognition to the customer and show that you value them.

What are they exactly?

  • Birthdays! Everyone loves a little birthday greeting--especially if it comes with a discount ;)
  • Anniversaries of Membership--as in other partnerships, an anniversary honors the time you and your partner, in this case, your customers, have spent together.
  • Seasonal or  Customer Rewards--seasons greetings are a GREAT way to check in and keep your relationship with your customer warm. And many companies choose to offer rewards to regular customers. There's some overlap with retention emails here--remember your EXISTING customers deserve a lion's share of your focus and attention.

What Can Email Marketing Services Do With Shopify?

At this point, now that you are convinced that email marketing is essential for any online store we can get into the juice of how email marketing tools integrate with Shopify and the Shopify store.

Here are the features you'll want your email marketing tool to have:

  • Templates, readymade and customizable
  • Forms that synch up with Shopify, pop-ups and sign-ups
  • Marketing Automation
  • Synchs with your email list/contacts
  • Segmentation
  • Tracking and Reporting, (similar to google analytics)
  • Ease of use in integration
  • A/B testing

10 Best Platforms And Apps (in no particular order)

Below we'll go over some of the best email marketing services, with some pros and cons, and thoughts on what type of online store will benefit most from each one.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is one of the best ecommerce platforms available, and the one that we probably use the most. Klaviyo was developed specifically for ecommerce and Shopify online stores.

With advanced marketing automation workflows and advanced segmentation, it's intuitive to use.

Pros
  • Easy integration with your Shopify store
  • Great templates
  • A/B testing
  • Large selection of pre-built workflows, from the welcome series to  a quick way to create abandoned cart campaigns,  you can save time and get started on your email marketing campaigns quickly.
  • Great tracking of customer profiles in their "Profiles" section, including customer behavior, past purchases, estimations of future purchases. You really get to know your customer with Klaviyo!
Cons
  • One of the more expensive options on this list
  • There have been some comments about slow customer service
  • Some issues with deliverability and temporary disablement of accounts
Who's Best Suited To Klaviyo?

Klaviyo is a great option for Shopify online store owners because of its focus on email marketing for ecommerce. Small and medium-sized businesses with large client bases and teams can benefit are great candidates for Klaviyo, with its built-in CRM.

Omnisend

Omnisend

Omnisend is a powerhouse ecommerce email marketing platform. With a wide range of automations to target different stages of the customer journey (browse abandonment, cart abandonment, order confirmations, etc.), it also features cool email features like gift boxes, scratch cards, and other enticing offers.

Omnisend can also be used to send SMS, push notifications, Facebook and WhatsApp messages, as well as other types of messages.

Pros
  • Super easy to integrate with Shopify
  • Easy creation of sign up forms linking your online store to Shopify
  • Email editor tool allows you to add products from your site directly to your emails
  • Features like scratch cards, gift boxes, and "wheel of fortune" sign-up forms that focus on conversion, which we haven't seen in any other service.
  • Free plan comes with unlimited subscribers (but a send per day limit of 250)
Cons
  • Some features do not integrate with your store (Product Recommender and Gift Box)
  • Limited email templates (though the ones there are attractive)


Who's Omnisend Best For?

For those who want their email marketing software to have more than just email marketing capabilities, Omnisend offers a multi-channel marketing platform that allows you to manage all of your store's marketing communications from a single location while allowing for unique extra features in your emails.

SendinBlue

SendInBlue

Sendinblue is one of the more budget-friendly options here, but with top-quality email marketing service. It started out as a transactional email service, but now offers SMS as well as email. There are also a number of eye-catching tools like landing pages, automations, Facebook ads, live chats, and lead scoring to take advantage of.

Pros
  • You can use SendinBlue's free Shopify app to easily create and launch email campaigns
  • Transactional messaging features allow you to send emails and SMS, such as payment confirmations, order summaries, and shipping notifications, to your customers (via SMTP)
  • Convenient drag and drop feature allows you to integrate store products with email
  • Allows for precise segmentation and display of conditional email content based on the individual email subscribers history
Cons
  • Advanced features require coding, so ease of use is questionable here
  • Limited email templates and plain interface
Who's it for?

For the Shopify store owner on a tight budget, Sendinblue is an excellent email marketing service, with powerful transactional and re-engagement email features.

Privy

Privy

Very highly rated on the Shopify App store with a 4.6 rating overall among 24.382 reviewers, this email marketing tool was built specifically for ecommerce shopping and integrates seamlessly with Shopify.

Pros
  • Comes with email marketing features such as free shipping bars, coupons, pop-ups,  and, of course, automated abandoned cart emails.
  • Good-looking email templates
  • Automated A/B test and real-time reporting
Cons
  • Very limited free plan, though the paid plans offer unlimited emails
  • Has just a few autoresponders (win back, abandoned cart, and purchase follow-up emails). Setting up more complex automation workflows isn't possible.
  • Pricy for its relatively limited marketing automation capacity
Who Does Privy Work For Best?

Privy is best for those who are looking for a simple, well-designed e-commerce email marketing solution. You can try out the paid plan with a 15-day free trial.

Drip

Drip

Drip calls themselves the ‘Ecommerce CRM’  and places emphasis on enabling communications at each step of the customer journey. Users of Drip can create marketing automation around a multitude of small actions, allowing for a deeper kind of segmentation.

Because Drip integrates with Facebook Customer Audiences, you can use Shopify's automated campaigns with targeted Facebook ads.

Pros
  • Easy integration
  • Highly customizable workflow automations
  • SMS abilities
  • Great documentation on the integration process
Cons
  • If you go over your plan's limit, you'll be automatically upgraded to the next plan
  • Customers who are synced over from Shopify will count towards your contact limit
  • Not many email templates
Who Drip Works For:

Shopify store owners who want to dig into deep segmentation and make use of those automation features.

Happy Birthday Email Discounts

Happy Birthday Email Discounts Screen

This app is super specific and we like that. As the name suggests, this app from Union Works is THE app for birthday send-outs.

Pros
  • Great way to connect with email subscribers
  • Intuitive interface
  • Integrates with several email marketing platforms such as Omnisend and MailChimp
Cons
  • Has consistent 5-star ratings so there don't seem to be many complaints :)
Who Would Use It Best:

Business owners who want to connect with customers and place importance on milestone emails.

Active Campaign

ActiveCampaign

With several automation features available, Active Campaign is now available for Shopify with it's Deep Data Integration.

Pros
  • Well-designed segmentation
  • Deep Data Integration with Shopify makes integration easy
  • Reports on revenue, new customers, orders, repeat customers
  • You can add products from your store into emails via the drag and drop editor
  • Shows orders, abandoned carts, and spending totals with contact profile
Cons

Not as easy to learn and use as other email marketing tools

Who It Works For:

Large e-commerce businesses with many repeating customers that require complex marketing automation and who are looking for a robust customer relationship management system (CRM).

Constant Contact

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an email marketing platform that is deservedly well-known because of its well-developed email marketing tools. Constant Contact offers truly unique features including surveys and social campaigns.

Pros
  • Pre-built segmentation for first-time customers, lapsed customers, returning customers, and more
  • Drag-and-drop blocks quickly insert products from your store as well as coupon codes.
  • Mobile-user friendly email templates
Cons
  • Automation tools are not as advanced as other email marketing services
  • Expensive for limited capabilities
Who'll Benefit With Constant Contact?

For those looking for a name-brand email marketing service and value reputation, Constant Contact is a good bet. Free to install, with a 16-day free trial.

Spin-A-Sale

Spin a Sale

This is one of the more fun email marketing apps. Its super fun tool allows visitors the opportunity to win a prize when they enter their email address in your pop-up form. You guessed it: the wheel spins!

Pros
  • Great for increasing subscriber base
  • Fun and notable
  • Quick and easy to set up
  • Proven track record
Cons
  • Big price jump between plans
  • The lowest tier plan doesn't offer individualized discounts, so customers can play over and over, getting more and more discounts
Who Will Like This Email Marketing Tool?

Those looking for a way to add some fun to their online store, and add to their email list and increase the number of subscribers will especially benefit from Spin-A-Sale

Shogun Landing Page Builder

Shogun Landing Page Builder

This is one of the best-rated email marketing apps for Shopify. They are a Shopify Plus Partner, so it's super easy to integrate.

Pros
  • Customizable pre-made templates
  • Great support team
  • Comes with an Analytics dashboard for a campaign monitor
  • Impressive SEO features
  • Can manage multiple online stores
Cons
  • To create something unique for mobile users you might need some help with coding for the mobile and tablet templates
Who Suits Shogun Landing Page Builder?

Business owners with multiple online stores who need to integrate high-converting landing pages and synch with email campaigns.

Mailchimp?

Wait, wait! Is there a glaring omission here? What about the stalwart platform that is one of the most recognizable names in ecommerce? What about Mailchimp?! Doesn't that make the 10 Best List?

Well, believe it or not, recently, MailChimp stopped allowing users to integrate with Shopify.

This decision was made ostensibly because they couldn't come to an agreement with Shopify regarding terms of use, but some have pointed out that the move also coincided with the acquisition of a Shopify competitor by MailChimp.

However, if you love MailChimp and also love Shopify, there IS still a way to connect these feuding friends. Third-party integration tools like ShopSync and Zapier can connect the two platforms and perform most (if not all) of the tasks that a direct integration would accomplish.

The Shopify Email Marketing App

Shopify Email App

It would be remiss not to mention that Shopify actually offers its own email marketing tool. Although clients would be able to use this tool at no additional cost, and it can be nice to have all your email marketing needs under one roof so to speak, we hesitate to recommend this email marketing service.

Using a third-party email marketing service like those we outlined above offers much more flexibility with customization and design, more advanced marketing automation, better personalization and conversion tools, and nuanced segmentation with better reporting.

Conclusion And A Few Thoughts

This list is in no way comprehensive, more of a spotlight on some of the best email marketing for Shopify that can make a big difference in your email marketing campaigns.

And since this list is in no particular order, we would advise anyone looking for email marketing services for their marketing emails to make use of free trials. Most of these apps and platforms are free to install and have a 14-day free trial policy.

In the end, the email marketing platform or apps you choose will depend on what your particular needs are, and probably on how easy you need the interface to be. If you are seeking to build your email list, you'll want a service that focuses on conversion, or if you want detailed customer data, one that offers advanced reporting.

The end game is, of course, better and better email campaigns and more sales, and the above email marketing services will integrate with varying degrees of ease with your Shopify store and work towards that end game.