Campaign Monitor Review: Features and Pricing 2021

Campaign Monitor in a nutshell

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What is Campaign Monitor? 

Campaign Monitor is one of the most established email marketing tools in the industry, being founded in 2004. It has perfected its email automation options and templates over the years, making it a great choice for medium-sized businesses. Being able to send unlimited emails is also the icing on the cake.

Campaign Monitor Pros & Cons

PROS

• Beautiful templates: Campaign Monitor offers around 60 professionally designed email templates. This might sound little compared to some of its competitors, but these templates stand out through their visual quality. These templates are responsive and use a drag-and-drop builder. You can also incorporate an array of fonts. 
• Great segmentation options: This platform offers a truly flexible segmentation approach. Unlike many of its competitors, Campaign Monitor allows you to send emails to multiple lists at once. You can also exclude segments from a list and create unlimited lists based on multiple criteria (location, purchase history, contacts’ behavior, interests, etc.) 
• Easy automation: You can set up automated workflows in this platform by using different triggers such as email opens, clicked links, website visits, and purchased products. The flowchart-style menu features ‘yes/no’ conditions that make it easy to design the customer journey. You can also set up reminders or create RSS-triggered emails. 
• Good reporting: Campaign Monitor offers a good selection of real-time reports such as open rates, customer bounces, unsubscribes, clicked links, social shares. The platform also generates heat maps that help you understand when and for how long your campaigns engage customers, as well as comparison reports. 

CONS

• Limited split testing: Campaign Monitor’s split testing function is very basic compared to what you can achieve with competing platforms. This software only allows you to test 2 email variants against each other according to a few simple criteria such as subject header, content, or sender. Other platforms will allow you to test multiple email variants and different send times. However, Campaign Monitor compensates because it also offers spam testing. 
• No free plan: Campaign Monitor does not offer a free option with its pricing plans. Even for the basic plan, which allows you to send up to 2,500 emails/month and offers analytics and basic automation, you have to pay $9/month. However, before purchasing a plan, you can access the platform’s trial to test its features. You can also pay per campaign if you don’t want to sign up for a monthly plan.

Who is Campaign Monitor Good for? 

Campaign Monitor recommended if:

• You want to create attractive emails: This platform features a great selection of professionally designed email templates that you can easily populate with content. Moreover, these templates adapt to different goals such as outreach emails, promotional emails, newsletters, welcome emails. 
• You want to send unlimited emails: With the second subscription plan called the Unlimited, there is no limit to the number of emails you can send, and the same goes for the Premier plan. 
• You’re looking for an easy list segmentation process: you can create different lists with Campaign Monitor based on a wide array of criteria. Furthermore, you can also track your contacts to enhance the segmentation process by using, for example, Google Analytics to see which regions you should focus on more. The platform also offers pre-built segments.  

Campaign Monitor is Recommended If:

• You’ve got a large contacts’ list: although Campaign Monitor pricing starts at only $9 per month, the price can rise sharply if you have a large subscriber list. For example, for the Basic plan you will have to pay $49 if you have 5,000 contacts and $89 for 8,000 contacts. You’d also pay $149 per month for the Unlimited plan and $249 for the Premier plan for 8,000 contacts.  
• You need access to the full suite of automation but you will have a limited budget: Campaign Monitor offers great automation features, and they are also easy to use, but you’ll only be able to access the full suite if you choose the highest payment plan. 

Campaign Monitor Deliverability (Rated: 4/5)

Campaign Monitor has an impressive delivery rate, and features that enable you to improve your emails’ future performance through the insights offered by the system. Overall, they earn a score of 4.

Campaign Monitor has an impressive delivery rate of 99% and regularly monitors its users’ bounce rates, spam complaints and unsubscribe rates. It uses this data to improve email formats in the future to ensure your messages will get through.

You can also schedule emails to go out at different times across different time zones; this way, your customers won’t be woken up by notifications in the middle of the night.

Campaign Monitor pricing (Rated: 3/5)

There is no free plan on offer and the pricing spikes drastically the more contacts you have in the system, which makes it difficult to expand your network without incurring extra expense. Their score is 3.

Campaign Monitor pricing plans vary a lot depending on the number of contacts and the plan you use. There are 3 tiers, and the price fluctuates according to your list’s size. The basic tier allows you to access all the core email marketing features, email support, the analytics suite, link review, a free image gallery, and automation. 

Bear in mind, the prices listed above only cover up to 500 subscribers. For every 1,000 subscribers you add, you can expect to pay around an additional $30 per month. 

For example, if you had 3,000 subscribers on the Unlimited plan, you’ll need to pay $90 per month.

Cancellation/Refund policy 

Campaign Monitor doesn’t offer refunds, as stated in their Terms & Conditions. If you want to ask for a refund in exceptional circumstances or you’ve had a problem with the application process, you’re required to contact the support team.  

To close your Campaign Monitor account, you simply have to click on your profile image and select Account Settings. Then, choose Company Details and click on Close my Account.

Key features and workflows

Creating emails and campaigns

It’s quite straightforward to set up a campaign using the software, and a drag and drop email templates make things even easier.

Emails sent/opened and links clicked

You can get a feel for how well your campaign is doing by looking at the reporting tools available via your dashboard. You’ll get critical marketing benchmarks like open rate and click rate and, if your marketing isn’t quite having the impact you’d like, Campaign Monitor can offer you advice on how to improve these key metrics.

Bear in mind, though, you can’t track open and click rates on any non-HTML emails, so you’ll need to use this format if you want any reporting statistics.

Creating and importing email lists

You can create email lists from scratch, or you can import a CSV list of contacts you already have. You won’t be able to import bought email lists, or any emails associated with gambling or pharmaceuticals, though. Otherwise, there are no restrictions, and you have a lot of freedom to choose your own headings.

Split tests and A/B testing

Basic A/B functionality is available with Campaign Monitor. You can send different variations of the same email to various segments of your audience and get analytics on the results. While you’ll only be able to send two different types of email per campaign, Campaign Monitor does provide advice on where you might be going wrong, such as tweaks to subject line, length, and word order.

Personalization

You can personalize just about every aspect of your campaigns, including content, copy, imagery and even emails delivered to customers based on previous purchasing habits.

Reporting and analysis (Rated: 5/5)

Campaign Monitor’s analytics offer in-depth insights to your campaigns’ performance, covering engagement, campaign comparisons and more. The selection is all you would need, and so they receive a score of 5.

Good reporting, statistics and analytics are vital to the success of any email campaign. Luckily, the software offers a full suite of insight and reporting tools to help you make decisions in real-time.

Engagement reports

You’ll find a range of engagement metrics in your campaign dashboard such as open rates, number of bounces, customers that unsubscribe, number of social shares, and link clicks. The reports let you know what’s going well, and what you need to work on. 

Heat maps

You’ll have access to real-time tracking metrics to see which customers are engaging, when, and for how long.

Campaign comparison report

While Campaign Monitor offers a wide range of analytics via your dashboard, you can’t easily compare the results of two different campaigns.

Campaign Monitor Segmentation

Segmentation can be entirely personalized to suit your business. Create groups that cover geographic location, purchase history, personal interests and those that’ve engaged with past campaigns. You can create unlimited lists to cover every conceivable type of segmentation.

Social media tracking

All major social media platforms can be integrated into the software, and you can even get detailed analytics such as the number of times someone has shared your content via social media, and those buying as a result of social media marketing efforts.

ROI analysis

While you won’t find a return on investment analysis, you will get a list of instructions showing how you can calculate this figure yourself.

Campaign Monitor Integrations (Rated: 5/5)

The integrations are as expected, with a decent range of add-ons that gives you the extra functionality you need. I give them a score of 5.

You’ll find a decent range of integrations and add-on tools with your membership. As expected from most email marketing tools, you can integrate the software quite easily into just about every web building platform, as well as find apps to give you extra functionality.

Google Analytics

You can integrate Google Analytics into the software, primarily to give you more detailed information on links clicked, and heat maps to find out who’s visiting your site directly as a result of your marketing efforts. This lets you know which regions and segments might need more work.

API integrations

The platform has a flexible API that’ll allow you to integrate the software into just about any blog, content management system or other third-party app. You can integrate any software that uses Ruby, Python, PHP, .Net, Perl and Objective-C programming languages. 

eCommerce tools

Campaign Monitor has easy one-click solutions to connect you to Magento, Microsoft Dynamics, Shopify, WooCommerce and WordPress. However, you might have difficulty when trying to link other eCommerce platforms. 

CRM integrations

You’ll find some big name CRMs to integrate with Campaign Monitor, including Zoho, Insightly and Zapier. If you can’t find your particular CRM in the app store, get in touch with customer service as there’s usually a way to get it integrated.

Social media integrations

Integration is easy with most social media accounts. Find out how many times people are sharing your newsletters and products, as well as how many conversions you’re getting through social media.

Apps

Campaign Monitor has around 250 apps available in its store. Most are the kind you might expect to see across any typical email marketing tool like extra analytics options and eCommerce store integrations. 

However, Campaign Monitor goes a step further and invites you to build your own apps for the platform. So, if you have the developer skills, or can afford to hire someone who does, you could build precisely the app you need.

Plugins

You’ll find plugins for popular web builders like WordPress, Magento and Shopify.

Campaign Monitor Automation (Rated: 5/5)

Campaign Monitor’s automation is easy and completely customizable, perfect for creating and managing large email campaigns. However, the full range of automation tools are only available to the highest paid tier. Regardless, they earn a score of 5.

Automation works via a pathway system. At the start of every email campaign, you’ll map out all potential responses and routes it could take, and when an email hits one of those criteria, an automated step is activated. 

For example, step one could be an initial contact. If the customer spends $200 or more, they’d then activate the VIP email and receive a discount in the next message. Or, if a customer doesn’t open the mail, you could set the campaign to issue a follow up a few days later. Automation is completely customizable so you can build any email pathway you’d like.

Design and ease of use (Rated: 5/5)

Campaign Monitor offers a wide range of email templates, making it easy to create email campaigns, which are easily customizable, as well as an accessible drag and drop interface, earning Campaign Monitor a score of 5.

Drag and drop interface

You’ll start with a choice of hundreds of templates, and you can fully customize each one with a drag and drop tool. It uses a simple WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface, meaning you get to see exactly what your customer will see as you edit.

Landing page creator

You’ll have to download a landing page tool from the app store, and most are perfectly serviceable. You can direct traffic to your landing page from social media posts as well as email campaigns.

Email templates

From hundreds of different templates, you can choose emails tailored to special offers, outreach mails, newsletters and new customer welcome notes. Each template is fully customizable for fonts and colors, and the adventurous among you can even create a brand new HTML template from scratch.

Campaign Monitor alternatives 

AWeber - AWeber is a straightforward email marketing platform you can rely on for email or form building and customization. This tool also features advanced reporting and tracking tools and a wide array of integrations. AWeber offers good customer support and a community of users. 

Benchmark - Benchmark is one of the reputable email marketing platforms that has been on the market since 2004. This platform offers pretty affordable pricing plans, and just like Campaign Monitor, it provides good segmentation options. Analysis, A/B testing, and anti-spam tests are also available. 

Active Campaign - Active Campaign can compete with Campaign Monitor in terms of email design options. This platform also features an intuitive email builder and multiple useful templates. You can also easily build landing pages using a drag-and-drop editor and gain access to a variety of reports and A/B testing. 

Campaign Monitor Customer service (Rated: 3/5)

One of Campaign Monitors more disappointing aspects, the support system is very limited as a result of the lack of live or phone chat available to users. The online forum was also retired in 2018, which removed a resource that could’ve been utilized by users. I give them a 3.

Customer support is a little limited as there’s no phone or live chat available. You’ll need to email customer service and wait for a response. In addition, the online forum was retired back in 2018, which is a shame as it’d built up a strong archive of user-resolved issues. 

Contact Information

https://help.campaignmonitor.com/

At the moment, you’re limited to the how-to articles on the website, which don’t always go into enough detail for newcomers.

My verdict 

Campaign Monitor is a very solid email marketing platform, and is a great addition to any medium sized business. With unlimited emails starting at just $29 per month, and a host of customization and automation tools, you’ll be able to run large marketing campaigns. 

However, it might not be for you if you don’t have a lot of experience in email marketing. The limited customer support means you might find yourself struggling with some of the more advanced features. In addition, if you have a lot of subscribers, things can start to get quite pricey very quickly. 

What I liked about Campaign Monitor

• Great automation tool
• Able to send unlimited emails
• Wide range of email templates
• You can connect to social media easily
• Good selection of reporting and analytics

What I didn’t like about Campaign Monitor

• It doesn’t have the best customer support
• The full suite of automation tools is only available on the highest paid tier
• Prices start to increase sharply the more subscribers you have