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Curious about email marketing platform EmailOctopus? I’ve got you covered. In this EmailOctopus review, I’ll take a “deep sea dive” into this tool’s features, pros, cons, pricing and more.
EmailOctopus is a powerful email marketing platform that can help you grow your list, message your subscribers, and set up automated campaigns. Despite its range of features, EmailOctopus keeps its prices competitive, making it a great choice for bloggers and small businesses.
It even offers a free plan for up to 2,500 subscribers, one of the most generous free plans in the market. If you’re interested in trying EmailOctopus, read on to learn how this email marketing tool can help you grow your business.
In this EmailOctopus review, I’ll discuss:
- What EmailOctopus is
- Key features
- Pros
- Cons
- What is EmailOctopus Connect?
- Customer support
- EmailOctopus pricing
- How to sign up for EmailOctopus
- EmailOctopus alternatives
- EmailOctopus review final thoughts
EmailOctopus review: What is EmailOctopus?
EmailOctopus is a feature-rich yet straightforward email marketing tool created in 2014. This platform can help you grow your blog, communicate with subscribers, and track the success of your campaigns.
This automation tool is simple, easy to use, and affordable, making it a favorite tool among bloggers, and small business owners. With EmailOctopus, it’s easy to create embedded forms to collect your visitors’ names and email addresses.
You can send one-off messages to your subscribers or set up autoresponders. For example, you could set up an autoresponder that welcomes new subscribers with a series of emails over several days.
EmailOctopus offers email campaign templates for you to use, or you can create your own from scratch. You can also send time-based drip campaigns.
EmailOctopus allows you to categorize your mailing list into target audiences based on factors such as age, gender, preferences, or how someone learned about your blog. You can then design personalized emails to send to individual audience segments or choose a template provided by EmailOctopus.
Key Features of EmailOctopus
This email marketing tool has several useful features. Here’s what stands out.
Subscription Forms
EmailOctopus helps you grab the attention of visitors to your site through subscription forms. With EmailOctopus, you can create embedded forms that sit inside a page or blog post. With these embedded forms, you can create a relevant call to action (CTA) button to increase conversions.
EmailOctopus also integrates with plugins such as MailOptin and OptinMonster so you can add other form types to your WordPress site, such as pop-ups or slide-in forms. While some other email marketing platforms, such as ConvertKit, include these forms, EmailOctopus requires that you use a separate plugin.
Landing Pages
With EmailOctopus, you can design customized landing pages with calls to action (CTAs) to encourage blog visitors to perform a particular action.
EmailOctopus provides easy-to-build landing page templates. If you don’t like the pre-designed landing pages on this email marketing platform, you can also design original landing pages via Card or Instapage (connected through Zapier) and import them to your account.
Marketing Emails and Campaigns
EmailOctopus has an easy-to-use email editor that lets you customize pre-designed email templates to match your site’s branding. You can also create emails from scratch or import HTML templates from third-party sites.
EmailOctopus has a preview function that lets you optimize emails for desktop, tablets, or mobile.
Automated Campaigns
One of the best features of email marketing platforms is the ability to set up automated email campaigns. With EmailOctopus, you can create automated drip campaigns according to your pre-set conditions.
For instance, you can set automate a series of emails to send when someone joins your list or clicks on a specific link. You can also set intervals to send emails about your products or services.
Segmentation
The EmailOctopus segmentation feature lets you divide mailing lists into different target audiences based on age, gender, location, behavior, and preferences. Using this feature, you can engage your various target audience with the most relevant messages and email campaigns.
Personalized messages increase conversion rates and clicks; they help turn readers into loyal fans and customers.
Analytics
EmailOctopus’s analytics tool provides an easy-to-interpret analysis of how visitors and subscribers interact with your blog.
With this data, you can:
- Get insight into open rates and clicks on your emails
- Evaluate your audience’s behavior
- Identify areas that need improvement and plan future email marketing campaigns
- Segment your audience to target groups even further
Integrations
EmailOctopus uses Zapier to integrate campaigns with third-party apps. You can quickly grow your mailing list by adding apps such as OptinMonster or ClickFunnels.
Zapier has more than 500 apps that form a robust network of essential tools. However, you might have to pay extra for some of the add-ons.
Some tools you can access via Zapier include:
- Shopify
- Amazon Seller Central
- WooCommerce
- Yoast
- PayPal
EmailOctopus also integrates with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools such as SalesForce, Agile, and Microsoft Dynamics. Plus, you can integrate with social media platforms through Zapier.
Developer API
If you have experience in coding, EmailOctopus’s Application Programming Interface (API) allows you to design personalized integrations.
Pros of EmailOctopus
No EmailOctopus review would be complete without a closer look at this tool’s pros and cons. Let’s start with the benefits.
Affordable
EmailOctopus is one of the cheapest email marketing tools in the market; it offers free email marketing services for up to 2,500 contacts. Paid plans start at just $20 per month.
Easy To Set Up and Use
The EmailOctopus sign-up process only takes a few minutes. After that, you can begin to organize subscribers and send marketing campaigns. Plus, the user interface is beginner-friendly, with simple drag-and-drop features to design your email campaigns.
Fully Automated Set-Up
EmailOctopus provides plenty of templates for setting up your autoresponders. If you’re new to email marketing, these pre-designed series can be a huge help.
After setting conditions for your target audiences, the platform automates the rest. All you need to do is sit back and watch the magic happen.
Easy To Optimize Emails
EmailOctopus’s preview feature shows how your campaigns will look on different devices, such as desktop, tablet, and mobile phones. This feature allows you to optimize responsive content that every reader can access, regardless of their device.
Cons of EmailOctopus
Now let’s consider some of the downsides of this email marketing tool.
Limited Form Options
At the time of writing, EmailOctopus only offers embedded forms for your site. You’ll need to integrate another app to create pop-ups or slide-in forms. Most other email marketing tools let you create and add forms to your site from within their platform.
May Require Integrations With Third-Party Apps
For forms and some other features, you need to integrate with external apps and platforms. Some other email marketing tools provide more functionalities on their own.
Segmentation Feature Has Limitations
EmailOctopus allows you to segment your list based on some user behaviors, but it’s lacking certain segmentation options.
Lacks Some Advanced Capabilities
Some email marketing platforms are optimized to help e-commerce businesses sell products to customers with features like abandoned cart tracking. Or they include customer relationship management (CRM) tools for account managers.
EmailOctopus doesn’t have these features. It’s a simpler, more straightforward tool (but the strength in this is that it’s easier for beginners to learn).
What is EmailOctopus Connect?
EmailOctopus also comes with a secondary email marketing product known as EmailOctopus Connect.
EmailOctopus Connect integrates with Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), a cloud-based email service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Given that EmailOctopus Connects integrates with Amazon web servers, it’s cheaper than EmailOctopus’s main email marketing platform.
EmailOctopus Connect is suitable for advanced users familiar with Amazon’s SES product.
EmailOctopus Customer Support
If you experience any problems with EmailOctopus, its customer support is available through email. The platform also comes with a thorough knowledge base for troubleshooting any issues.
Plus, you can check out its blog to read up on current trends in email marketing. The blog also features guest posts and interviews from marketing experts and EmailOctopus users.
EmailOctopus Pricing
Next up in this EmailOctopus review is a look at pricing. This tool comes in two plans: a free Starter plan and a paid Pro plan. The starter plan is free for up to 2,500 subscribers and up to 10,000 emails per month.
One limitation of the free plan, however, is that EmailOctopus branding will show up on your emails. If you want to remove that branding or have more subscribers, you can upgrade to a paid plan, starting at $20 per month.
Prices increase based upon your number of subscribers.
How to Sign Up for EmailOctopus
To sign up for EmailOctopus, start by heading to the EmailOctopus website. You can get started by entering your email address on the home page or clicking on “Sign Up” in the top right corner.
After you’ve entered your email, EmailOctopus will send a confirmation email to your inbox. Open the email and click “Activate Account.” The link will redirect you to EmailOctopus’s plans.
Select your preferred plan and enter your personal and business information, such as your name, address, location, business name, and website address.
After providing the required information, you’ll need to wait for EmailOctopus to approve your account. Once it’s approved, you start to grow your email list and design your campaigns.
EmailOctopus Alternatives
EmailOctopus is a simple and affordable email marketing tool suitable for bloggers and small businesses. But if you have more advanced needs, you might consider an alternative like ConvertKit or MailChimp.
EmailOctopus vs. ConvertKit
ConvertKit has more advanced features than EmailOctopus, such as in-depth analytics reports and form templates that you can add to a WordPress site without any third-party integrations.
However, ConvertKit is pricier, considering its free plan only accommodates up to 1,000 subscribers. If you have more than 1,000 subscribers on ConvertKit, you’ll be required to choose between the Creator and Creator Pro plans.
Here’s how much ConvertKit costs:
When comparing EmailOctopus vs. ConvertKit, you can see that the former is cheaper. If you have more advanced needs or want to avoid having to integrate with third-party apps, ConvertKit could be the way to go.
But if you’re looking to keep costs low and don’t need additional features, consider EmailOctopus.
EmailOctopus vs. MailChimp
MailChimp is an email marketing tool popular with small business owners, bloggers, and email marketers. It’s relatively affordable and has certain advanced features, such as geo-tracking and social media and Google analytics integration.
However, I’ve found that MailChimp isn’t as user-friendly for beginners as EmailOctopus or ConvertKit.
EmailOctopus review final thoughts
Now that you’ve made it to the end of this EmailOctopus review, you can see that EmailOctopus is an excellent tool if you’re looking for a not overly complicated yet effective email marketing platform.
The platform is affordable and easy to use, which makes it ideal for beginner bloggers and small business owners.
It might not be the most popular tool out there currently, but it offers all the features you need for successful email marketing campaigns.
