Elevate Your E-commerce: Unveiling the Best Email Marketing Platform for SA

Email marketing is a tried and true platform for businesses looking for a more direct means of online communication with their customers.

Manually sending emails to a large number of customers quickly becomes impossible, though, so many businesses opt to use dedicated email marketing platforms.

Email marketing platforms make it easy to send emails to a huge number of customers.

They can even help you automate your entire online sales funnel. 

But how do we know which one to choose?

Well, read on, where we go over 8 of the best email marketing platforms for South African e-commerce businesses.

Hubspot

Hubspot offers a great email automation service with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor, a wide variety of prebuilt templates and advanced personalisation features.

If that was all they had, it would be an easy recommendation.

The thing that really sets them apart, though, is that their platform plugs into the rest of their marketing automation platform. 

This allows you to better integrate your email marketing with the rest of your CRM strategy, using advanced tools like custom headlines drawn from your customer database and easy A/B testing to see what your customers respond to.

Overall, you can’t go wrong with Hubspot. 

Especially if you’re already using their other services, it just has every feature you could want out of your email marketing platform. 

The only downside is that they are quite pricey, especially factoring currency conversion rates in. 

Pricing:

Free up to 2000 emails p/m.

Plans start at approximately R800 p/m.

Features:

• Free Trial
• Image Library
• CRM & Marketing Automation Integration
• Easy A/B Testing
• Social Media Integration
• Great customer support

Who it’s for: 

If you want a great all-in-one email marketing and CRM solution, and you’re willing to spend the money, you can’t go wrong with Hubspot.

Especially if you’re already using it, and you already know the rich set of features they bring to the table. 

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing services among startups, and for good reason. 

Their pricing model is amazingly flexible, you don’t have to pay anything until you have more than 2000 customers on your subscriber list. 

If you’re using the platform to its potential, by that time the service should more than pay for itself. 

On top of this, it has all the features you would want to set up an email marketing campaign or survey your customers.

Because of this, it’s an easy recommendation for startups and small businesses looking to expand into email marketing. 

Pricing:

Free up to 2000 contacts. 

Plans start at approximately R160 per month.

Prices vary based on the number of subscribers on your list.

Features:

• Free Trial
• Image Library
• Built-in Surveys
• Email automation
• Easy A/B Testing
• Social Media Integration

Who it’s for: 

Mailchimp is a great budget option for small and new businesses, without sacrificing features or quality. 

If you’re looking to get started with email marketing for the first time, try them out and see if they work for you. 

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is another giant in the space, which has recently expanded its offering to include a visual website builder along the lines of Shopify and WooCommerce.

They also boast a great amount of native support for integrating other e-commerce sites into their platform that are made with website builders. 

Both these things make them a great option for dedicated e-commerce businesses because of the large degree of features aimed at the industry.

For example, you can easily track conversions from email campaigns across your whole site once it’s been properly set up.

The downside, again, is that they can get pricey quickly depending on the size of your mailing list. 

Pricing:

60-day free trial after which you have to pick a plan.

Basic plan (“Email”) starts from approximately R320 p/m.

Advanced plan (Email Plus) starts from approximately R740 p/m.

Prices vary based on the number of subscribers on your list.

Features:

• 60 Day Free Trial
• Image Library
• Built-in Surveys
• Email automation
• Easy A/B Testing
• Social Media Integration
• Easy E-commerce Site Integration

Who it’s for: 

If you’re a dedicated e-commerce business looking for a solution tailored to the e-commerce industry, go with them. 

They’re not the cheapest option, but the variety of easy integrations with your e-commerce site, whether you created it through their platform or not, maybe worth it for your business. 

Everylitic 

Want to support a local business that can help you navigate South African legislation?

Everylitic is one of the leading email marketing service providers in South Africa.

Their main selling points are their full suite of communication platforms aimed at the South African market and help to make sure your strategy complies to the new POPIA legislation coming 2021. 

If you go with any other option on this list, you’ll have to navigate the legislation on your own.

Which is not too big of a hurdle, but it is a great added value to have a business that understands the legislation to help you navigate it. 

Pricing:

Quote based. 

Prices vary based on the number of subscribers on your list.

Features:

• SMS and Voice Marketing Supported
• Email automation
• CRM Integration
• Strong Personalisation Features
• Strong Knowledge of Local Business Problems

Who it’s for: 

If you’re looking for a local partner to handle your email marketing needs, look no further than Everylitic. 

While their offering isn’t quite as comprehensive as some of the international companies, having a partner that truly understands the local market is always valuable. 

Omnisend

Omnisend is an email and marketing automation platform aimed specifically at e-commerce businesses. 

The idea behind these kinds of services is to automate your entire online sales funnel.

Everything from the ad that lets a customer discover your business, through to targeted emails designed to get them to buy an offer, can be automated through these kinds of services.

Omnisend is a great platform in this category, because of their focus on only providing services relevant to the e-commerce industry. 

Their platform is easy to set up and integrate with most website builders like Shopify and WooCommerce, making it easy to start automating your marketing right away.

The benefit of marketing automation is that we can deliver highly targeted and relevant offers to consumers in a way we could never do manually.

This has great potential for creating high-quality leads and sales for us.

Pricing:

Up to 2000 emails per day and 15000 emails per month free. 

From R260 p/m on the cheapest plan. 

They offer different levels of plans with more features.

Prices vary based on the number of subscribers on your list.

Features:

• Free Trial
• Image Library
• CRM & Marketing Automation Integration
• Easy A/B Testing
• Social Media Integration
• Great customer support
• E-commerce Focused

Who it’s for: 

If you’re looking for an overall marketing automation solution for your e-commerce business, that includes email marketing, go with Omnisend.

They have a world-class service offering

Sendinblue

Sendinblue is another email marketing solution designed around easily automating and implementing your email strategy across different platforms.

They have a great visual drag and drop email editor and they support SMS marketing, live chats and Facebook ads through their platform. 

They’re a great option for businesses looking to establish an automated marketing journey across channels.

Their platform lets you direct your consumers through a highly personalised journey that can do wonders for boosting up your conversion rate. 

Pricing:

Up to 300 emails per day for free.

Plans start at approximately R410 p/m.

Either fixed pricing or variable pricing on their “Enterprise” plan based on the number of subscribers you have. 

Features:

• Free Trial
• Image Library
• Easy Personalisation Across Platforms 
• Easy A/B Testing
• Social Media Integration
• Great customer support

Who it’s for: 

If you’re looking for a platform that will let you create an automated cross-platform sales funnel for your consumers, and not just over email, go with Sendinblue. 

GetResponse

GetResponse is another email marketing platform that offers services designed to automate your entire online sales funnel for you.

Their prices can get quite high, but they offer an incredible amount of rich features for the money. 

Even the basic plan gets you email auto-responses, unlimited landing pages and unlimited leads funnels.

This makes them a great tool, especially for businesses without a CRM system in place, for all in one sales funnel automation.

You can again guide your target market through highly personalised and automated experiences through to becoming a customer. 

Pricing:

Starting at approximately R250 p/m on the cheapest plan.

They offer different levels of plans with more features too.

Prices vary based on the number of subscribers on your list.

Features:

• Image Library
• Built-in CRM System
• Easy A/B Testing
• Social Media Integration
• Great customer support

Who it’s for: 

If you’re looking for a feature-rich CRM and email marketing platform, and you’re willing to front the costs, GetResponse offers amazing value for money in creating a totally automated online conversion funnel. 

MailerLite

Do you already have a CRM or marketing automation solution, and you just want a no-frills email platform?

MailerLite is designed to be a lightweight offering that lets you access the tools you need for your email marketing strategy, and nothing more.

They forego added features and extra services in favour of creating cost savings.

Pricing:

Free up to 1000 subscribers and 12000 emails per month.

Starting at approximately R160 p/m on the cheapest plan. 

Great cost savings when you pay annually. 

Features:

• Free Trial
• Image Library
• Email Automation
• Easy A/B Testing

Who it’s for: 

If you’re looking for an email marketing platform without all the bells and whistles, you can’t go wrong with MailerLite.
They offer exactly the tools you need for your email marketing strategy and none of the extras.

Ideal for when you weren’t going to use the added features anyway. 

Conclusion

We hope that helped you decide on which email marketing platform best suits your South African e-commerce business. 

Whether international or local, these tools can provide a tremendous amount of value when used correctly. 

 

This article was brought to you by Syte.

We’re e-commerce digital marketing specialists with a passion for driving up your bottom line.

If you need any help setting up your digital marketing strategy, feel free to reach out with the form below.