Another email marketing SaaS
Hello guys!
I recently looked for email marketing softwares to use for a small side project.
I tried Mailchimp, because everything uses it, but I really have to say it's somehow bulky in some areas and also doesn't provide some functionality I wished for (better styling and customizing of forms for example, although you can just get an unstyled form and style it yourself... didn't like this approach either).
For me there were some things I know I could do better. It just wasn't as straight forward as I wish (I needed quite some time until I knew what I can do with Mailchimp).
And then there's the pricing, which is relatively high if you have a higher number of contacts.
I also looked at ConvertKit, which looked good, but was focused on bloggers.
SendGrid email marketing was an option too - the UI looked better, although the UX was really not good for me.
I thought about a Mailchimp alternative with much more flexibility and also the ability to create an unstyled form or GDPR-compliance without hassle.
I'm talking so much flexibility that you could create payed newsletter signups, run email marketing as a freelancer or even as a Fortune 500 company.
Still I want to create it to be as easy-to-use as possible. Literally anyone could use it.
What do you guys think? Is there room for a new competitor?
What problems do you guys face when trying to start with email marketing?
Have you tried ActiveCampaign? They seem pretty cool.
Regarding UI/UX issues of Mailchimp, when you say it could be improved, don't base this statement only on your needs. Because, when you will build your product, you might end to be the only one who is using it because you made the UI/UX based on your needs only.
I don't know I had the same pain finding a mail service for my project. I used sendinblue, MailChimp, sendgrid, mailgun in the past and none satisfies me so far. Either UX, API, support or something is really bad.
I chose sendgrid for my project, but still not happy.
Recently ran into elasticmail. Anyone using them?
Hey thanks for your reply! Could you specify in a short list what are the main features you miss in mailchimp or sendgrid that would make you happy with the product?
I've used MailChimp a long time ago so I can't elaborate. With Sendgrid the UI is not intuitive and I'm constantly switching pages to find what I'm looking for. The integration was also very nerve breaking as every time I wanted to validate my domain from their menu I was redirected to their quick setup and a new validation DNS record was generated. I still went with them since their API is good. I do understand, however, that these services are trying to appeal to all types of use cases so they end up being quite complex.
I’m in the email business with Kingmailer.co
Starting an email marketing company is tough, but there’s room for everyone ... so I would not discourage you for trying
You will get customers too
But unfortunately, there are a lot of spammers that will just hurt your business :/ so be on the lookout for this
Good luck 👍
That looks extremely like a Postal instance 🤔
I already know about spammers - where do you encounter them tho? Are they spamming your forms, using your software for spam or what exactly is it? Thanks for your input!
I see that Mailchimp is a 20 year-old company and SendGrid was founded around 2009. Personally, their product is very very mature, especially Mailchimp. Unless you created something brand new otherwise it's hard to compete.
Well that's what I see too, still I see a lot of improvement points in functionality and UX. Also, Mailchimp doesn't have many serious competitors, which is why they may not see the need to improve or innovate much on the product (just an assumption, I could be wrong). I think it's worth a try.
I used Mailshake, of course! every tool has its own pros and cons (I mentioned the bug) but the new tool comers take time to fix it, usually done after the ticket is raised from our end. Yes! it takes time to resolve it but there are many email marketing tools available in the market.
I usually face problem with subject line and pre-header text (to increase my open rate)
I've dealt with many email providers (SendGrid, Mailchimp/Mandrill, Klaviyo, Drip, Sendlane, SES, Mailgun) as well as the email add-ons to marketing automation platforms (HubSpot, InfusionSoft, ClickFunnels, LeadPages, ActiveCampaign, ClickDimensions, Marketo, Mautic). I'm very opinionated, but most issues fall into one of three camps: tracking, deliverability, and design.
Basic open and click tracking is table stakes--if you can't give me accurate numbers I'm out. Even better would be to break this down by device, client, etc, to help me understand my audience better. Also, being able to aggregate reporting across segments and campaigns and broadcasts. This is where most providers suck hard.
As for deliverability, I know what I'm doing after email marketing for years and managing lists and IP pools, etc. But a lot of new folks that sign up have no clue, so onboarding is very important. You've got to rate limit new senders to warm up their IPs and you've also got to manage your own IPs so that shitty senders don't tank your good clients' deliverability. SPF and DKIM can be a tad complicated for non technical folks. Even working with big companies, I have had trouble getting account reps and tech support to understand why it's a problem that it says "sent via X" in the subject line. People are paranoid!
Design is where it gets tricky. People want WYSIWYG, but that generally leads to really shitty markup on the back end as well as client compatibility issues. Some providers (like SendGrid) offer a hybrid code + WYSIWYG editor so the more tech savvy can get dangerous, but then you also have to worry about sanitizing input, so some challenges come with that. I'm a big fan of simpler designs as those have been for effective in my testing, but YMMV. One great tool to provide is the ability to split test content, not just an entire email but subject lines, elements within an email (buttons, hero images, etc).
Also within design, I include campaign design and this is where most regular providers fall flat on their faces (calling out SendGrid's new new automated campaigns here). One of my biggest headaches was not being able to have a countdown campaign that only delivered the remaining emails at the time the contact opted in, plus a welcome email. So there were a potential 16 emails in the sequence if the contact opted in at the start of the campaign (8 weeks out-2 emails per week), but if they opted in later, they should only get the remaining emails. Sounds easy enough, except it needed to be an evergreen campaign triggered based on a dynamic end date on a custom contact field provided on opt in. Sounds complicated, maybe, but this is the sort of use case I come across all the time dealing with funnel marketers. So the more configuration options they can have, the better. This is an area that InfusionSoft really excels.
Anyway, best of luck to you! I'm working on something similar and I love the space.
I've had many customers switch from Mailchimp to my system, Adbase.ai. They really like our WYSIWYG editor and predictive subject and preview line tool we built in. Snag your free account and let us know your thoughts. AI powered to deliver the perfect send time to each contact in your list, not just groups.
Try PushSend.com very easy to use. Customer Service is amazing
Flodesk.com is a newcomer that looks promising.