Mailerlite Email Marketing Review

Mailerlite in a nutshell

Key features and workflows

Creating emails and campaigns

It won’t take you long to set up your first email campaign, as the email editing tool is easy to use and automation options are made clear. You’ll also be able to keep track of your campaign with some useful metrics.

Emails sent/opened and links clicked

Tracking of emails sent/opened and links clicked is standard across most email marketing platforms, and Mailerlite is no different. These metrics are vital in measuring the success of your campaign, and the software makes your statistics clear and easy to find.

Deliverability rates and delivery by time zone

Mailerlite doesn’t disclose its deliverability rates, but you'll be able to see how many of your emails are being marked as spam, the hard and soft bounce rate, and which customers are unsubscribing after receiving your mail. Keeping an eye on these metrics will let you know if your email format needs changing to look less spammy.

You can help to improve deliverability rates by scheduling emails to go out at set times across different time zones. This way, your emails are less likely to get ignored.

Creating and importing email lists

You can create mailing lists from scratch or you can upload a bulk list via a CSV file. Once you’ve uploaded the file, you’ll see a preview of your data. Here you can amend headings and data items to make sure everything is in the correct format before you hit submit and import your subscribers.

Split tests and A/B testing

Test your campaigns on a small group of subscribers before sending emails to your full list. The platform has a very easy to use A/B testing feature where you can trial different subject lines, sender names, and email bodies. You’ll then choose what the ‘winning’ criteria will be, such as opens or links clicked. 

Personalization

Mailerlite offers some decent personalization options based on the data you’ve collected on your subscribers. For example, you can add personal touches by sending birthday messages, send news about promotions in someone’s hometown or simply adding your customer's name in the subject heading.

Reporting and analysis

As a tool aimed at small businesses and bloggers, you won’t find as wide a range of reporting tools as you might with other email marketing platforms. However, you’ll still get all of the basics, and should have more than enough to run some good campaigns.

Engagement reports

From your main dashboard you’ll find average statistics across all of your campaigns that include open rates, click rates and which subscribers are marking your mails as spam or unsubscribing. You’ll even be able to see which devices people are using to open your emails, which can help you better optimize campaigns for mobile.

Heat maps

The software doesn’t come with a built-in heat map, but a number of third parties have developed a suite of free tools you can download from the app store. The heat maps will tell you exactly where your campaign is going well, and where it might not be landing effectively.

Campaign comparison report

The platform doesn’t have a feature that allows you to compare individual campaigns. However, you can pull a report that gives you the average statistics across all of your campaigns combined. This can be a useful tool in tracking overall improvement, but other marketing tools provide more detailed reports.

Segmentation

Mailerlite offers segmentation options, but it can be a little confusing if you’re new to email marketing. You’ll have two options, segments and groups, and both are a little different. To be in a segment, your subscriber will meet a certain set of rules that you have set up, such as ‘Made a purchase’, for example.

The groups option allows for even further segmentation beyond this and works like a tagging system found with other email marketers. This is also where your automation options are. 

Luckily, a how-to guide is available to help walk you through exactly how groups and segments work. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll find a great deal of customization on offer.

Social media tracking

You can link to your social media accounts when you send emails, but Mailerlite doesn’t track engagement via social media.

ROI analysis

The platform doesn’t provide any return on investment reporting, this is a metric you’ll have to calculate yourself once your conversion rate statistics start rolling in.

Integrations

As it’s aimed at small businesses and the solopreneur, Mailerlite is more limited in terms of choice of its integrations than its competitors. There are still some good tools on offer, though, and it has around 100 integrations in total. 

You’ll also be able to find some integrations made by third-party developers that partner with the platform, however, you might need to pay extra for some of these.

Google Analytics

You can integrate Google Analytics with your dashboard using Zapier’s app.

API integrations

The Mailerlite API is built on HTML and RESTful coding languages. If you have some developer skills, you can use the platform to develop your own apps and integrations. 

eCommerce tools

You’ll find all of the major eCommerce tools here such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Stripe and PayPal. Through these apps you can track stats on what your customers are buying as a result of your email campaigns across every store you use.

CRM integrations

You’ll find 13 out-of-the-box CRM integrations with popular platforms like Zapier, HubSpot, Zendesk, Zoho and Pipedrive. Connecting with any of these CRMs will allow you to sync all of your contacts seamlessly with your marketing efforts.

Social media integrations

Mailerlite’s social media integrations are very basic. You can’t sync your social media accounts directly to your dashboard, but you can use basic functions like adding a subscription tab to your mailing list on your Facebook page. 

Apps

You’ll find some reliable survey apps that let you build interactive quizzes and games into your newsletters and emails, which can really help with engagement. Some other popular apps include landing page builders, an email verification checker that cleans up your mailing list and a tool to embed videos into your campaigns.

Plugins

Plug-ins are centered around WordPress, with 10 to choose from in total. Options are a little more limited if you’ve developed your eCommerce site using a different platform, though.

Automation

Mailerlite uses a workflow based automation tool that’s based on the different groups you’ve set up and assigned your subscribers to. It’s a fairly easy interface to get to grips with, and you have a lot of automation options open to you.

For example, you can trigger follow-up emails to every subscriber that clicks a link, issue monthly newsletters to loyal customers and even automate campaigns that are based around key dates and anniversaries. 

Design and ease of use

Ease of use is definitely one of the platform’s strengths. Its interface is clean, looks modern and it’s easy to find everything you need. Once you understand how groups and segments work, it’s straightforward to set up campaign automations and track results.

Drag and drop interface

The Mailerlite drag and drop editor is incredibly user-friendly. You’ll be able to customize just about every aspect of your emails including fonts, colors, images, signatures and your call to action. The preview editor shows you exactly how your email will look to your customers, making it easy to tweak as you go.

Landing page creator

You’ll get a few pre-built landing page templates that cover topics like ebooks, pre-launch product hype and a ‘coming soon’ option. You can edit these templates to fit any sort of marketing situation you’d like, or use the drag and drop editor to create a landing page from scratch.

Email templates

Mailerlite has dozens of different email templates to get you started that cover industries like real estate, healthcare, book stores and general eCommerce. If you don’t like any of the templates, or can’t find one to suit your business, the customization options mean you’ll be able to create something that’s perfect for you.

Mailerlite pricing

Pricing will increase steadily based on the number of subscribers you have. The features of any paid plan will be exactly the same, but prices go up as follows:

• Up to 2,500 subscribers - $15 per month
• Up to 5,000 subscribers - $30 per month
• Up to 10,000 subscribers - $50 per month

If you have more subscribers than this, check out the price slider on the website to get an idea of how much you’ll pay.

Customer service

The platform has great customer support that’s available in 12 languages. The free version gets you free email support, while the paid packages let you access the 24/7 live chat option. You’ll also find a number of how-to articles and videos that walk you through the most popular features.

H3 Contact Information

https://www.mailerlite.com/contact-us

My verdict

Mailerlite is an excellent choice for freelancers, bloggers and those running a small business. If you have less than 1,000 subscribers, the free package has more than enough features for you to get by on. For larger organizations, the ability to send unlimited emails at such a low price is also a great incentive.

The only downsides are it doesn’t have as many features as its competitors, and the segmentation will take a little getting used to. However, this shouldn’t put too many people off.

What I liked about Mailerlite

• Easy to use
• Great customer support
• Free plan is more than enough for freelancers and bloggers
• High quality email templates
• Good landing page editor

What I didn’t like about Mailerlite

• Segments and groups can be difficult to get to grips with
• Not as many features and apps as its competitors