Mailchimp has dominated the email marketing space for a long time and seeks to continue that trend by expanding into e-commerce, enabling merchants to create online stores, and evolving the platform into a multichannel marketing hub.
Summary
MailChimp was created in 2001 by web design agency owners Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius who wanted to create an affordable email marketing service for small businesses. It has grown into a full-fledged marketing platform offering landing pages, websites, postcards, and more. We chose it as the best email marketing software because it offers small businesses high-level email marketing with both free and affordable paid plans.
MailChimp’s free email software makes it easy for business owners new to email marketing to get started. The platform offers premade email templates, opt-in popups and signup forms, audience segmentation, and basic personalization. Users also get a mobile app that lets them view campaign performance and send emails with just a few clicks.
MailChimp’s drag-and-drop templates let users create professional, branded emails with no design skills. A built-in analytics tool also keeps track of open rates and clicks, and segments data to help show what’s working and what’s not. Users can automatically send out targeted emails based on user behaviors, like a welcome message for new signups or a related product recommendation for a recent buyer.
Most small businesses can get pretty far using MailChimp’s free plan. The paid plans add more subscribers and lists as well as more detailed automation:
Pros
- Has evolved into a full-featured marketing platform
- Workable free tier, highly flexible pricing
- Powerful slew of automation options
- Impressive third-party integration options
Cons
- Reporting functionality could be better
- Move to marketing platform could alienate smaller businesses