EngageBay Review - Marketing, All-In-One

What Is EngageBay?

Email marketing services can come in a variety of different forms, and EngageBay, founded in 2017, has created a system of operations with several business services rolled into one big integrated machine. It gives you the option of individual product subscriptions or an all-in-one plan for a platform tailored to your specific needs.

EngageBay Pros & Cons

Pros

• All-in-one platform - Having an email marketing, CRM and sales platform all together on one platform results in easy integrations between different workflows. You won’t have to juggle multiple subscriptions and waste time integrating everything together, as here, you’re safe knowing it’ll all work smoothly in one package

• Cost-effective price plans - There’s a range of price plans on offer that gives you scalability at a fair price. If you only want the email marketing services, there’s a separate price plan available, so you can pick and choose what you need for your business

• Live support - A real stand-out feature is the helpfulness and responsiveness of the customer support team. A live help chat is integrated into your dashboard for support at any time, with someone always seemingly there and happy to help. On higher plans, you can also get a dedicated accounts manager to help with all your queries

• Easy to use - Moving multiple functions to one platform might seem daunting. Luckily, EngageBay makes this transition easy by offering free onboarding on certain plans. The easy to follow UI and editable templates mean you’ll have your campaigns up and running in no time

Cons

• Missing features in early plans - Some essential features for a good email marketing tool aren’t present in low-cost plans, with the likes of marketing automation and A/B testing capabilities only available on the more expensive subscriptions

• Only basic documentation - The help guide only has simple explanations without much depth for some advanced needs. The platform is constantly adding new features, which is great, but sometimes new features lack documentation - there could be clearer communication when new features are added

Who Is EngageBay Recommended For?

If you’re looking for an all-in-one customer relationship manager at an affordable cost, EngageBay could be just what you’ve been looking for.

It’s an easy-to-use platform with a super-responsive live help team makes for a service that anyone can use, regardless of your prior knowledge or experience with these systems.

Who Is EngageBay Not Recommended For?

Missing email marketing features on early plans might be a bit off-putting if you’re not ready yet to jump to a more advanced plan. But while there might be certain minor annoyances, the value for money you do get in the higher plans, along with the scalability, means this could actually be an effective tool for most businesses.

EngageBay Pricing

The prices on show here are for the all-in-one monthly plans, though there are discounts for yearly and biennial contracts. This gives you access to four products; email marketing, CRM, the sales bay, and the service bay. If some of these don’t appeal to you, there’s also the option for standalone plans. The email marketing paid solo plans range in price from $12.99 - $49.99 monthly. If you need more email credits, you can request more at $4 per 1,000 extra emails. 

Cancellation/Refund Policies

For longer-term contracts, a full refund will be granted for unused months if the request is made within 3 days of purchase, which goes down to a 50% refund and account credit if the request was made within one month. Any refund requests made after 2 months of purchase won’t be granted. Cancellation is possible through your account and you’ll be able to still use services for any time left on your plan.

EngageBay Features

EngageBay has a range of features available over various plans for different business needs. I’ll be concentrating here on some stand-out features relating to email marketing capabilities as well as some other complimentary services.

·       Ease of Use

A free onboarding session, a dedicated account manager, live responsive chat. All these combined features mean you should have no problem at all setting up your new account and understanding how it works. Having everything in one place also foregoes the process of having to integrate everything.

·       Customer Journey

Keep track of every exchange between your business and individual customers in a clear overview. Having an understanding of how your contact list interacts with certain campaigns and what they opt-in for means you can target your emails to hit the right marks.

·       Multichannel Marketing

Integration with social media and SMS sending means you can expand your marketing capabilities even further. Different people have different communication preferences, so the ability to market outside of email inboxes should allow you to reach more potential sales for an improved ROI.

·       Email Design

An ever-expanding library of email templates gives you a solid foundation to start effective campaigns without the learning curve. The drag-and-drop functionality along with flexible customizations makes a solid tool for the creative minds out there.

·       Customizable Dashboard

As this platform has so many different functions, the option of customizing your own dashboard to display the information you want is important. Having all the info you personally need in one place stops the need of flicking between multiple tabs and services to get an overview of performances.

·       Lead Capture

Create customizable forms, which you can then embed within your websites or link in emails, to capture new leads and grow your customer base. There’s a double opt-in feature too to ensure your new signups are legitimately interested in engaging with your campaigns for a better interaction rate.

·       A/B Testing

This feature gives you the option of sending two variations of a single marketing campaign. See which receives a more favorable interaction rate, then automatically send the winner to your remaining contacts for improved engagement.

FEATURES SCORE: 4.5/5

EngageBay Automation Features

Due to the nature of an all-in-one platform, automating across different functions becomes a walk in the park. A visually pleasing drag-and-drop designer opens up your options to make even the most complex sequences easy for anyone to create.

Email marketing automation - Custom fields and lists can be assigned to trigger certain actions based on how the customer interacts with your business, while sequences give you the ability to create timed drip campaigns. An integrated system of marketing, sales and support allows you to create sales funnels, which will guide a customer from their signup to an eventual purchase.

EngageBay Software Integration

EngageBay has quite an impressive list of external integrations considering it hasn’t been around as long as some other platforms. These include the likes of Zapier and Shopify, as well as other services that’ll add to your capabilities.

I mentioned earlier how you can purchase the all-in-one service or individual products. The integration possibilities with other CRMs and email distribution services means that even if you only want one product that this overall service has to offer, you’ll still be able to integrate with other external systems if compatible.

EngageBay Alternative Brands

Hubspot - A ton of great features gives you all the tools you need for customer management, marketing and sales tracking all in one place. Hubspot has been a market leader for some time now and is a great way to start organizing your business.

SendX - For an uncomplicated tool that provides you with a range of features, this alternative is solid when it comes to satisfying your email marketing needs. A quality design function lets you design unique email templates, forms and landing pages to keep a consistent brand image.

Omnisend - When it comes to services for ecommerce, this tool will give you all you need to control your sales and marketing workflows effectively from one place. They offer you multiple outlets for marketing on different platforms so you’re not just confined to email. 

Conclusion

EngageBay is a top product for your email marketing and wider customer relationship and sales needs. It’s managed to create a service akin to the likes of Hubspot while keeping your costs at a minimum. 

The user-based subscription model and cost-effective plans make this a great choice for small-medium businesses or entrepreneurs wanting the benefits of a fully integrated system without the associated price tags.