Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to market your small business, if you are not building a list and making use of email marketing you are leaving money on the table.
One of my biggest regrets is not taking notice of email marketing when I first started working online and the more I learn about email marketing now, the more I see how powerful it is.
Recently I stumbled across an email marketing service provider that I was previously unaware of – Sendpulse. I signed up for their free account and I have spent the last two weeks checking out their website and products.
Table of Contents
SendPulse Review – What SendPulse Has To Offer
SendPulse is not your average email marketing service provider. Along with email they also have push notifications and sms. All three channels work together in the same system to maximize your potential reach. It is the only ESP (email marketing service provider) that I know of that offers multiple channels in one system.
In addition to this, SendPulse also offers AI to increase open rates, click through rates, engagement and revenue.
SendPulse also has SMTP which is a transactional service, it enables you to send email via their server but from your software or website.
Read on for more detailed information on everything SendPulse has to offer.
SendPulse Pricing and Plans
SendPulse offer a wide variety of plans to suit your needs, starting with a free account for up to 2500 subscribers and up to 15 000 emails per month.
There are plans based on the amount of subscribers you have starting at $9.85 per month (or $118.20 per year) for 1 – 2500 subscribers going all the way up to $7000 per month (or $84 000 per year) for 4 000 001 – 5 000 000.
You can also choose to pay as you go instead and only pay per email. VIP plans are available from 1 million subscribers
Push notifications are free and unlimited.
Sms campaigns are charged per sms sent.
The first 12 000 emails are free for the SMTP service, thereafter they have a monthly subscription starting at $8.85 for 25 000 emails or pay as you go starting at $15 for 10 000 emails.
AI is available with all the paid plans.
Click here to view all their pricing information.
Getting Started With SendPulse
Getting started with SendPulse is quick, easy and free. You can sign up using your email address or one of your social media accounts (Facebook and Google Plus).
The screenshot below shows you what your dashboard looks like.
Building Your List
If you are moving over from another service provider or you already have a list of leads, you can import them easily from the dashboard.
The next step is to create your subscribe forms, this is done easily by using one of their templates which you can edit to suit your needs, or you can create your own using their form builder.
You have an option of an embedded subscribe form (for your sidebar or to embed in a page), popup or floating. For popup and floating subscribe forms you can set conditions for the form to show – when the page loads, if a button is clicked, when the page is scrolled to a certain place or when the cursor leaves a page.
You can also set how often to show the subscribe form to your visitors.
SendPulse offer responsive subscription forms so you don’t need to worry about how the form will look on different devices or screen sizes – this is all taken care of for you.
There is also a WordPress plugin for SendPulse to make it even easier to integrate your website and SendPulse.
You are also able to integrate your website registration process with SendPulse using their API.
Sending Email
The first step is to create some templates to make your email marketing efforts streamlined. There are a number of pre-designed email templates that you can choose from or you can make your own. You can use html or text emails.
You can create a campaign to send out when you need to send out a newsletter, you can also automate a lot of the process and send out a series of newsletters when someone subscribes, send out an automated email at a certain date set in a variable and send out an automated email that is triggered by a certain action.
Segmentation & Personalization
The more relevant and targeted your emails are the better your conversion rate will be. Segmentation gives you the opportunity to segment your subscribers into different groups based on various categories such as age, gender, location and interests.
Personalizing your emails will give you a much better report with your audience.
A/B Testing
A/B testing is absolutely vital to fine tune your marketing efforts and will help you to find the best possible way to send appealing emails to your audience. SendPulse offers a wide variety of ways to test your marketing efforts to see what works best.
Push Notifications
Push notifications is highly effective way of driving your readers back to your website. A push notification is a notification that will come up on your visitors device even when they are not on your website.
You can send a push notification to inform your reader of important updates, new articles and product information. Push notifications can also be automated and sent out when a certain criteria has been met.
Reports
SendPulse offers in-depth reporting and analytics to track your performance. You will be able to access information pertaining to your open rate, click through rate and unsubscribe rate, as well as any errors. You will also be able to see the geographics of your readers and the devices that they use to access their emails.
You can also integrate Google Analytics for even more in-depth performance tracking.
Artificial Intelligence
SendPulse uses artificial intelligence to collect information about your readers preferences and behavior. SendPulse then finds the best time, communication method, device and geolocation to send each of your subscribers messages, thereby increasing open rates, engagement and revenue for your business.
SendPulse Referral Program
SendPulse has a referral program where your referrals can get a $50 discount for the monthly plan. They will get $10 off each month for 5 months.
Once one of your referrals has been with Sendpulse for those 5 months you will receive $50.
Customer Service and Support
SendPulse staff are available 24 hours to help you with any queries you may have. You can contact them via phone or live chat on the website as well as send in a support ticket and see a history of your online queries.
There are also lots of resources available for anyone struggling or wanting to learn more about email marketing:
What Is My Personal Opinion Of SendPulse?
Now that we have run through all the things that SendPulse has to offer what exactly do I think of SendPulse? Honestly I am impressed. I’ve been with Mailchimp for a few years and then I switched to aWeber and I have been with them for a few years. While I have absolutely no complaints about either one of them I have to admit that it looks to me like SendPulse may just be the best bet.
While I have spent the last 2 weeks checking out SendPulse I have not taken the leap of moving over my lists for all my websites or the newsletter series that I have set up, or the subscribe forms. It will be quite the job and I wanted to have a really good look at SendPulse before I made such a huge decision. That said I believe that I am now completely ready for it and these are my reasons why:
SendPulse Is Simple And Easy
I like the way that SendPulse is so simple and easy to use. I might have 3 websites but I do find the technical side of things very trying. I like to be able to get things done with the minimum amount of fuss and from what I can see SendPulse has the simplest interface.
I struggle to do things like customize email templates and subscribe forms and they usually come out looking like a dog’s breakfast but when I was playing around with SendPulse it was simple and easy to understand.
Cheapest Email Autoresponder
I have a total of 5719 leads between my 3 websites so I am currently paying $69 with aWeber because I fit in the 5001 – 10 000 subscribers plan. SendPulse has more customized plans so I will pay $40 per month for the 5001 – 6000 subscribers plan. Only when I hit 12001 – 14000 will I have to pay $69 again, that is a lot of room for growth until I have to pay $69 again.
A quick comparison there – aWeber charges $149 for 10 000 – 25 000 subscribers. That is a massive difference!
The pricing structure that SendPulse offers is much more reasonable and customized.
SendPulse is cheaper than Mailchimp, aWeber and GetResponse which are the main email marketing service providers that I was aware of.
SendPulse Offers Much More
Not only is SendPulse much cheaper but you get so much more bang for your buck with free web push notifications, sms and of course the AI. It looks to me that SendPulse is much more on the ball when it comes to staying ahead with technology. Let’s face it, technology is racing along in leaps and bounds – artificial intelligence is one of the biggest upcoming SEO trends.
The way that SendPulse is offering AI and integrating multiple marketing channels makes me feel like being with SendPulse will mean that I am going to be right up there in front with cutting technology when it comes to marketing my business.
Great Support
Like I have already mentioned, I can sometimes take a bit of time to understand something technical and I am not the most patient person on the planet. If I can’t understand something and I need help I get seriously frustrated. I just don’t like to wait.
While checking out SendPulse I had a few questions and I used the live chat 3 times. Each time I had an answer within minutes which I just loved. Having support and help at my fingertips whenever I need it night or day appeals to me big time.
Conclusion
I highly recommend checking out SendPulse even if you are already with another email marketing service provider. At this stage I like everything about them, there was not one thing I could find fault with.
I am a firm believer in try it before you buy it, I have tried it and now I am more than happy to buy it.
I am in the process now of moving my lists and email series newsletters over to SendPulse. It will take some considerable work changing my sign up forms on my websites and getting myself settled in but I do feel that this move will make a massive difference to my marketing efforts.
I will update you all when I have spent some time with SendPulse to let you know how it is going.
Click Here To Sign Up For SendPulse
That is a very thorough review of the SendPulse email marketing tool. I have not reached the level that you are on in subscribers yet but have thought about the future and what I will need to have to grow my leads.
At what point did you decide that you needed a program like SendPulse to take over your email marketing? Did you do it based on number of followers or amount of content on your website?
Thanks for the honest review
I started using Mailchimp about a year after I built my online store which was my first online venture. When I first started using Mailchimp I never really learned how to really utilize email marketing and I never made much of an effort to build my list. It is only in the last 4 years that I started to make an effort and I can see the potential that email marketing has.
If I could go back I would have started collecting leads the minute my website was launched. So I believe you should get started immediately. If you have any website visitors you are letting leads slip through your fingers.
I now have close on 6000 leads, but not all in the last list. I have a list for each of my websites.
I suggest you sign up with SendPulse and start collecting leads. I added the web push notifications to this website and I have already collected a number of new leads but I have to change my sign up forms. It is going to be a bit of work to get it all sorted out.
I’m so glad I came across this article! I’ve just started a website and one of my main concerns and goals right now is starting to build my email list. I was going to use Mailchimp, but after reading your article I will certainly be considering SendPulse now!
The first thing I am doing, however, is creating an educational eBook to give to subscribers for free. Do you have any recommendations on anything else I could offer as an incentive to sign up?
Hi Joshua
Creating your own ebook is a great way to go about it, that’s what I did. I know a lot of people use PLR ebooks but they are not original and they are not always high quality.
You could also consider creating free printables, for example checklists that your readers may find useful. Writing an ebook does take some time and you will want to start building your list as soon as possible.
In fact you can create different products to give away and place them on different posts on your website and in this way grow your list even faster.
I am currently using AWEBER, but I am honestly intrigued. If the AI can help with getting more engagement and traffic, it might be worth the $, as I am currently only promising to my readers new articles and nothing more. Thanks so much or this, I will need to make a decision!
Hi Joe
I would seriously take a look at SendPulse, they will save you a load of money in the long run as well as give you more. I have added the web push notifications to this website and already I have a good number of subscribers which is awesome. I haven’t sent any push notifications yet but I am looking forward to seeing how well they perform.
Lynne,
Your review of SendPulse is very thorough and well done. My website is not very old but as traffic is now starting to flow, I think it is time to start inviting visitors to opt-in for newsletters and notifications of new posts.
SendPulse sounds like it is better than MailChimp or aWeber, the two providers that I am considering.
With SendPulse, how much time does it take to set up and maintain a list for this kind of activity?
How much more effective is email than just continuing posting to my website?
Thanks,
Ed
Hi Ed
It doesn’t take long to set up an email subscribe form, in fact you can just use one of their templates and add it to your website.
I do advise that you set up an email series as soon as possible, this is a series of emails that you design and when someone signs up they will be sent all of those emails in the order that you set in your autoresponder. This does take some time to do but the results can be amazing.
Consider this – if someone lands on one of your articles through Google search what will bring them back again? Chances are that if you don’t have email that person may never come back to your website again. Building a list means you can bring those readers back over and over again!
Digital marketing is made up of many parts, and I feel it is important to make use of as many as possible. In my opinion email marketing is an essential element of online marketing.
What a great review on Send Pulse!
I am only 2 months into starting building my own website and honestly haven’t thought much about getting an email campaign going. I noticed you said you had 6,000 leads – did you get all of these through your email campaigns?
I’ve been thinking about how I can get my eyeballs to my page initially but then after that how do I keep them coming back. Email campaign, and in particular Send Pulse, really seems like a great way to get repeated folks.
Do you have any other tips you’ve used to get leads?
Thanks!
Hey Mat. Well I have done a few different things to get leads. On my mommy blog which is my main business I run regular baby competitions, moms go mad for baby competitions! Then for this website I wrote an ebook that I give away to new subscribers and it works really nicely. For my addiction blog I wrote an ebook that I sell and I give away a free preview of it to my subscribers, along with a discount coupon to buy the ebook.
You can do free printables too which are very popular and don’t tale nearly as much time or effort as writing an ebook.
Wow, Lynne ! Thanks for the thorough review of SendPulse. It was about as in depth as it possibly could be and it answered all of my questions about WHY it makes so much sense. I am not at a stage where email marketing is imperative, but preparing myself for that eventuality, your page is clearly one to bookmark. Thank you for being so thorough, Lynne ! I’m glad I finally found your page to read your review !
Hey Rico 🙂 I am so glad you enjoyed this review. Honestly though I feel that the right time to start with email marketing and building your list is the day that your website is live. Think about it, while you may only have a few visitors what is going to bring those visitors back again? Yes they may bookmark your website like you have done, but I bookmark loads of websites that I never visit again! The answer is email, or web push notifications.
A LOT of people tell me this, that I am missing out by not getting people to sign up for my site with email marketing. I guess because of the type of my site, I wondered how I could incorporate this and utilize it. I think that the lightbulb finally went off after reading your article. Just building up my reader audience and getting them to come back is good. I don’t know why I didn’t really consider this before, so thank you!
Email marketing is essential in my opinion and something I just couldn’t do without, have you read my article about the importance of email marketing?
I hope you get started with it soon, I kick myself for not starting to build my list as soon as I started working online.
You are absolutely right. Email marketing is the most important way possible you can market your business.Send pulse seems like a great option to pursue thank you for bringing it to my attention. I am always looking for ways to increase my brand and effective email campaigns are a great way to do so.
It is a pleasure Dadga 🙂 Enjoy!
Wow I’ve never heard of SendPulse before. The only email marketing service I have used was Aweber, and I had no problems with it at the time.
I was wondering, what is so great about Sendpulse that other ones like Aweber or mail chimp didn’t offer? While I am not currently using an email provider right now — I do want to start using one in the near future again.
Thank you again for a great in depth review about this program.
Hi Michael
I agree with you, Aweber is a good email autoresponder for sure. I am currently with them, but like I say SendPulse just offers so much more for less money so I am going to hop over soonest. I have just paid for my monthly subscription with Aweber so I have a month to move everything over.
Wow! I’ve worked with MailChimp for a few years for work, and I’d heard about Aweber and other providers like Constant Contact I’ve never heard about SendPulse. Glad I found this article!
While I’m just starting out with my website, I do understand that email marketing is an important part of online success, and the fact that they have a free option to start up sounds like it’s time to jump in!
Are the templates and form builder similar to MailChimp’s layout? Do they have as many options?
Hi Noelle
I used Mailchimp about 5 years ago and I can’t remember how many options they had. That said SendPulse has a lovely collected of templates to choose from.
I do remember finding it tricky to use Mailchimp and I have found SendPulse quite easy to figure out.
That’s very encouraging – I can work my way around MailChimp, but man is it clunky. Thank you Lynne!
Yes I also found it quite chunky in Mailchimp, great word to describe it!