20 Top Email Automation Tools to Grow Your Business in 2023

If you’re growing a business, your goal is clear: Generate leads, nurture prospects, and get more conversions.

That’s where email automation tools can help you. 

Instead of spending hours on manual tasks like sending cold or promotional emails, you can let automation take over. 

With email automation, you can streamline outreach, concentrate on strategic moves, and boost your lead generation efficiency. 

It’s a game-changer.

It can help you save time and resources while reaching your business goals.

In this guide, we’ll help you understand what email automation is and find the top email automation tools for your business.

Top Email Automation Tools : Table of Contents

• What is Email Automation?
• Why Do You Need Email Automation Tools?
• How to Choose the Best Email Automation Tools
• Top Email Automation Tools That You Should Check Out
  • Best Tools For Cold Email Automation
  • Best Tools For Email Marketing Automation
  • Best CRM Email Automation Tools
  • Email Automation Tools For List Building
• Key Takeaways
• FAQs

What is Email Automation?

Email automation tools are like your personal email assistants. 

They help you send emails in bulk without doing all the work yourself.

Instead of sending each email one by one, these tools can send emails automatically when something specific happens.

It could be anything — like when you sign up for a website or buy something online. 

Think of them as robots that can send the right email to the right person at the right time, all on their own. 

It’s handy when you want to send bulk emails to a huge audience. 

You can use email automation tools to send:

• Welcome emails
• Drip campaigns
• Product recommendations
• Cart reminders
• Event reminders
• Follow-up emails
• Cross-selling and upselling emails
• Re-activation emails

…and other types of emails.

Why Do You Need Email Automation Tools?

Imagine sending the same email to lots of people – it takes forever! 

Every time you want to tell your prospects about your new product or send a follow-up email, you’d have to do it manually. 

It would take hours and you’d still likely miss out on important updates.

That’s why you need automation to send emails. 

Here is how you can benefit from using email automation tools:

• Time-Saving: They automate the email-sending process, saving you the hassle of doing it manually.

• Personalization: You can tailor emails to suit each recipient, making them more engaging.

• Consistency: Emails are sent out precisely when scheduled, ensuring you don’t miss important communications.

• Analytics: They provide insights into who opens your emails and what content they find interesting, helping you fine-tune your email strategy.

How to Choose the Best Email Automation Tool For Your Business

Email automation tools are plenty.

Each one claims to be the best, and just the one that you need.

So, how do you cut across this promotional clutter?

How do you find the best email automation tool for your business? 

When you are comparing different email automation tool alternatives, here are a few features you should consider:

• Workflow Automation: It can do tasks automatically when someone takes a specific action.

  For example, when someone joins your subscriber list, you can automatically send them a welcome message. 

• Segmentation: Your subscribers aren’t all the same. Some of them will be new to your product or service, while others know about it in depth.

  This feature helps you segment your lists based on pre-selected criteria. 

• Personalization: Think of personalization as making your emails feel more like one-on-one conversations.

  These tools allow you to customize your emails for each recipient, adding their name, location, and other relevant information.

• A/B Testing: When you’re trying to figure out what works best in your emails, A/B testing is like conducting experiments.

  You can create two (or more) versions of an email with slight differences, like different subject lines or images.

  Then, you send these versions to different groups of people and see which one gets a better response. It helps you adjust your email strategy based on real data.

• Analytics: Analytics tools are like having a dashboard for your email marketing.

  They provide you with data on how many people opened your emails, how many clicked on the links, and how many took some action.
   
  This data is essential for tracking the performance of your email campaigns and making informed decisions to improve them.

• Integration: Think of integration as making sure all your digital tools can talk to each other. These tools should be able to fit smoothly into your existing marketing technology setup.

  Whether it’s your customer relationship management (CRM) system, your online store, or other marketing tools, compatibility is essential so that data can flow seamlessly between them.

  This makes managing your campaigns and understanding your audience much more efficient.

• Templates: Templates can be great starting points for your email designs.

  Instead of starting from scratch every time you want to send an email, these tools provide you with pre-designed email templates.

  You can then customize them to match your brand and message. 

• Scalability: Your business can grow fast, and you don’t want your email marketing tools to become a bottleneck.

  Scalable tools can handle your needs as you expand. They offer flexible pricing.

  Some of them can also manage larger email lists or more complex campaigns without slowing down or becoming too expensive. 

  It’s all about keeping up with your business growth without sacrificing performance.

• Deliverability: This is a crucial feature to make sure that the emails you send actually land in people’s inboxes and don’t get lost in their spam folders.

  It’s important to choose email automation tools with a proven track record for good email deliverability.

  These tools typically come with features like email authentication and dedicated IP addresses, which help improve the chances of your emails reaching their intended recipients.

• Compliance: When it comes to sending emails, there are rules and regulations you need to follow, like CAN-SPAM and GDPR.

  Ideally, you should use email automation tools that have features for people signing up (opt-in), deciding they don’t want to receive emails anymore (opt-out), and allowing them to easily unsubscribe if they wish.

  These tools help you send emails in a way that respects people’s privacy and the law.

20 Top Email Automation Tools That You Should Check Out

When choosing an email automation tool, it’s important to understand that each tool has a different focus.

You’ll find tools specialized for cold email outreach, marketing automation, CRM integration, and list building. 

To find the best fit for your business, you need to clarify your specific requirements. 

In this post, we’ve included the top five email automation tools for each category.

Best Tools For Cold Email Automation

Cold email automation tools are designed to streamline your outreach efforts. 

They help you send personalized emails at scale, automate follow-ups, and track engagement. 

Some of these tools have specialized features to boost deliverability so your cold emails don’t end up in the spam folder. 

Here are the best cold email automation tools that you should check out:

1) Saleshandy

Saleshandy is a powerful tool for sending cold emails. 

Yes, we admit that we can be biased — but we say that with good reason.

Whether you’re trying to find potential customers, reach out to make sales, or increase the number of bookings for a service, we’ve got you covered.

It can be your go-to tool for sending cold emails that feel personalized. 

When you’re reaching out to new contacts, you can take advantage of the mail merge feature. 

It lets you insert specific details like the person’s first name, last name, company, or any other information you need right into the email. 

Here’s how it works – It automatically fills in the content from your data sheet for each recipient.

As a result, it appears as if you’ve written a unique email for every individual recipient. 

Plus, you can set up multi-stage sequences for your cold email campaigns.

Multi-stage sequences are like having a plan for how you’re going to get to know someone better. 

You might start with a friendly introduction, then ask about their interests, and gradually share more about yourself too.

This structured approach helps you build a relationship step by step. 

In the same way, when you’re trying to connect with potential customers or prospects, using multi-stage sequences means you don’t just send one email and hope they respond. 

You have a plan in place for a series of interactions. 

This makes it more likely that they’ll get to know you and respond positively over time. 

You can also set up trigger-based automatic follow-ups on Saleshandy to make sure your messaging is on-point and relevant.

If a prospect doesn’t respond to you for a couple of days, you can also send them a quick follow-up email.

On the other hand, you can choose to stop sending them emails after not getting opens from them.

It’s your choice.

You can set the conditions beforehand and create a customized sequence.

Once you’ve set up and sent out a series of emails to people, you might be curious to know how well they’re doing.

With Saleshandy’s Sequence Score algorithm, you can figure out how well your sequence is performing.

It tracks how many people opened your emails, how many of them clicked on the links inside, and if they replied to your emails.

If you analyze this data, you can track what is working for you, and what needs more improvement.

For example, if you notice that a lot of people are opening your emails but not clicking on the links inside, you can change your approach. 

Maybe you’ll make your links more enticing or adjust the content to grab their interest.

So, using this data can help you fine-tune your email sequence.

Key Features

• Send emails to prospects in their time zone.
• Send automated follow-ups based on pre-set conditions or triggers.
• Switch between different email accounts within an email sequence (Sender Rotation) to improve deliverability.
• Use A/Z testing to experiment with 26 different email versions to find the best approach.
• Manage all your prospects from a unified inbox.
• Warm up your domain by sending emails to peers to boost sender reputation.

Pricing

• 7-day free trial available for all plans

• Add-On Service: Email Verification for $60/30000 Recipients

• Agency: Custom pricing available
  • Master Dashboard to View Clients
  • Add Unlimited Clients
  • Add Clients Without Sign-up
  • View Only Mode for Your Clients
  • Add Unlimited Team Members
  • One-Click Login to Any Account
  • Dedicated Success Manager

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.6/5 (528 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (128 reviews)

2) Mailshake

Mailshake enables you to send personalized cold emails in bulk with ease, while also offering powerful tracking of their performance and engagement.

They also have a scheduling feature, so you can send your emails when your audience is likely to be the most active. 

If you use this feature strategically, you can boost your open rates. 

What’s more, Mailshake equips you with a list-cleaning feature to help you weed out inactive or uninterested email addresses.

If you upgrade to their Sales Engagement plan, you can also get options for social selling, phone dialer, list cleaning, and others.

Key Features

• Personalize text and links for individual recipients.
• Tailor your sending schedule to align with your prospects’ preferences.
• Automatically pause sequences when a prospect responds, unsubscribes, or bounces.
• Implement automated follow-up sequences for improved communication.
• Keep an eye on email performance metrics, including open rates, click-through rates, and response rates.
• Carry out split testing for emails, follow-ups, or entire campaigns.
• Simplify prospect filtering with Data Finder by searching for prospects based on specific roles, locations, or companies.

Pros

• Mailshake features an AI-powered email writing tool that assists in rapidly creating cold email templates.
• Mailshake provides integrations with a range of apps, including Pipedrive, Calendly, Salesmate, Twilio, Nimble, and more. 

Cons

• Regular users complain that bulk cold emails do end up in the spam folders

Pricing

• Email Outreach: $58/user/month billed annually
• Sales Engagement: $83/user/month billed annually

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.7/5 (235 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 (105 reviews)

Also read: Best Mailshake Alternatives

3) Reply

If you want to run a multichannel cold email campaign, Reply is a great option. 

Using this platform, you can create multichannel sequences to reach out to your prospects via email, phone, LinkedIn, SMS, or even WhatsApp.

On the platform, you can also check pre-populated messages for each email sequence that you add. 

Along with email content templates, Reply also has sequence templates for various use cases. 

If you want to set up your sequences quickly, these templates can come in handy.

For each email sequence that you create on Reply, you can add multiple email accounts. 

By using multiple email accounts, you can send messages to a larger number of recipients simultaneously. 

This also helps you avoid spam filters effectively. 

While your email sequence is live, you can also A/B test your email steps to see which version is working the best for you. 

Key Features

• Utilize AI-powered features to write and optimize your outreach emails for enhanced effectiveness.
• Integrate Reply.io with your CRM and other software tools to streamline your sales workflow.
• Automate the process of finding email addresses by using Reply.io’s email finder.
• Ensure the validity of email addresses with Reply.io’s email validator, cleaning your list for genuine outreach.
• Safely warm up your sending reputation with Reply.io’s email warmup feature to avoid spam filters.
• Save time on LinkedIn outreach with Reply.io’s automation for sending connection requests and messages.

Pros

• Reply features an intuitive and straightforward user interface.
• You can rely on a responsive customer support team for assistance.

Cons

• Reply lacks an easy way to sort and categorize contacts by email campaign

Pricing

For Businesses:

• Free – $0/month
• Starter – $60/user/month
• Professional – $90/user/month
• Custom – Request for a custom quote.

For Agencies:

• Free: $0/month
• Agency Starter: Talk to their sales team for a custom quote.
• Agency Professional: Talk to their sales team for a custom quote.

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.6/5 (1,129 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (96 reviews)

4) Woodpecker

As a cold email automation tool, Woodpecker works to build your sender reputation with its Email Warmup feature. 

It’s a great feature to make sure your cold emails don’t end up in the spam folder.

However, it is currently not available for Google accounts.

Additionally, Woodpecker checks your email lists to prevent sending emails to spam accounts.

When sending cold emails, you can create personalized follow-up sequences in Woodpecker that react automatically to prospect actions.

By default, Woodpecker waits for 3 days after the first step in your sequence. However, you can change the date and time based on your requirements. 

To boost your email open rates, you can use Woodpecker to send cold emails at different times. 

At the most, you can add up to three timeslots per day. 

Key Features

• Predicts and prevents potential sending issues
• Safeguards you from exceeding your sending limits with the Bounce Guard feature
• Crafts email sequences with triggers and conditional logic
• Easily categorizes your contacts based on attributes like demographics and behavior
• Improves email deliverability using features such as blacklist monitoring, spam checks, and email authentication.
• Access comprehensive reports detailing open rates, click rates, unsubscribe rates, and more to fine-tune your email campaign performance.
• Seamlessly integrates with popular apps like Zapier, Aircall, Calendly, and others

Pros

• Offers a simple, user-friendly interface, making it easy for anyone to get started swiftly.
• Automatically scores leads based on engagement
• Get in-depth analytics, including open rates, clicks, and unsubscribes, offering valuable insights.

Cons

• No option to rotate sender email accounts
• Email warmup feature doesn’t work with Google accounts

Pricing

• Cold Email – $54/user/month
• Agency – $59/user/month
• Sales Assistant – $64/user/month

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.3/5 (41 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (31 reviews)

Also read: Best Woodpecker Alternatives

5) Lemlist

With Lemlist, you can effortlessly send cold emails, optimize your sales engagement, and manage follow-ups, all from one centralized platform.

When sending cold emails, Lemlist offers a scheduling feature to enhance engagement. 

This feature allows you to choose the specific date and time for sending each email, optimizing your outreach efforts.

But what if you see a drop in engagement on weekends?

You can skip sending emails on those specific days. 

This kind of flexibility can help you tailor your email outreach to align with your audience’s preferences. 

To take your outreach efforts to the next level, you can also use Lemlist’s sales automation module. 

With it, you can create multichannel outbound sequences that automatically send email messages triggered by predefined conditions.

Key Features

• Craft expert-quality email copies effortlessly using AI.
• Easily integrate Lemlist with your chosen CRM to synchronize outbound activities for centralized management.
• Customize content, images, dynamic landing pages, and more to make your emails truly distinctive.
• Lemlist’s Lemwarm feature safeguards against emails ending up in spam folders, 
• Increase your outreach capacity by sending campaigns from multiple accounts without the concern of emails being flagged as spam.

Pros

• Ability to add personalized images to templates
• Enables you to use custom tracking domains

Cons

• Lemlist lacks the ability to assign a deal value to your prospects and set priorities.
• Lemlist does not offer a unified inbox, requiring you to switch between accounts whenever you need to reply to emails across different email accounts.

Pricing

• Email Outreach: $59/seat per month
• Sales Engagement: $99/seat per month
• Agency: Pricing available on request

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.2/5 (137 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (370 reviews)

Also read: Best Lemlist Alternatives

Best Tools For Email Marketing Automation

If your main goal revolves around sending emails to prospects who have opted in, consider exploring email marketing automation tools. 

With these tools, you can leverage behavioral triggers with your prospect data. As a result, you can send highly relevant emails.

6) Mailchimp

Mailchimp, as an email automation tool, offers a versatile range of features. 

With the Customer Journey Builder, you can efficiently automate campaigns and send emails based on your customers’ needs and specific behaviors.

In their higher tier plans, you can add up to 200 journey points.

Mailchimp further streamlines automation by providing ready-made options and recommending triggers such as welcome series and abandoned cart sequences.

These suggestions can greatly expedite your campaign processes.

From within the platform, you can also build landing pages and forms to boost conversions. 

Key Features

• Choose from custom-coded or pre-designed templates 
• Leverage predictive segmentation for targeted communication.
• Personalize content dynamically for various audience segments.
• Optimize email campaign effectiveness through multivariate and A/B testing.
• Seamlessly integrate with over 300 apps, including Canva, Shopify, and WordPress
• Access real-time, actionable data, enhanced custom reports, and analytics with Standard or Premium plans to boost campaign performance.

Pricing

Mailchimp’s pricing structure is flexible. It varies with the number of contacts you have in your email list. 

For 500 contacts, these are the pricing details:

• Free Plan: Starts at $0 per month 
  • Users: 1 Seat
  • Monthly Email Sends: 1,000
• Essentials Plan: Starts at $4.61 per month (for 12 months)
  • Users: 3 Seats 
  • Monthly Email Sends: 5,000
• Standard Plan: Starts at $6.88 per month (for 12 months)
  • Users: 5 Seats 
  • Monthly Email Sends: 6,000
• Premium Plan: Starts at $137.66 per month (for 12 months)
  • Users: 1 Seat 
  • Monthly Email Sends: 1,50,000

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.2/5 (137 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.6/5 (370 reviews)

7) MailerLite

MailerLite empowers you to create seamless email workflows with ease. You can send triggered emails when subscribers join a group, complete a form, or click a link. 

Its precise date matching is perfect for managing newsletter subscriptions. 

With this email automation tool, you can also set up several triggers for a single workflow, allowing multiple entry points. 

For increased work efficiency, they also provide integrations with popular apps, including Shopify and Woocommerce. 

But, if you can’t find a pre-existing integration, MailerLite’s API also allows you to seamlessly integrate with other applications.

Key Features

• Segment subscribers based on behavior and interests.
• Utilize advanced trigger options, including custom field updates and specific dates, with multi-trigger automation for up to 3 triggers per workflow.
• Perform A/B tests on subject lines, content, and send times with up to 3 variations for data-driven decisions.
• Integrate with supported services such as Stripe, Make, Zapier, Shopify, WordPress, and WooCommerce.
• Access real-time reports for audience engagement, metrics, and automation history to monitor subscriber activity and workflow progress.

Pricing

• Free Plan:  $0
  • Subscribers: Up to 1,000
  • Monthly Emails: 12,000
  • Users: 1
• Growing Business Plan: $10/month
  • Subscribers: Up to 500
  • Monthly Emails: Unlimited
  • Users: 3
• Advanced Plan: $20/month
  • Subscribers: Up to 500
  • Monthly Emails: Unlimited
  • Users: Unlimited
• Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing
  • Suitable for businesses with over 100K subscribers.
  • Monthly Emails: Unlimited
  • Users: Unlimited

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.7/5 (786 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 (1,826 reviews)

8) Mailjet

As an email automation tool, Mailjet covers all the basics for you.

With it, you can send welcome sequences, react to contact attribute changes, or schedule emails for specific dates.

If you want to build an automation workflow quickly, you can use their built-in automation scenarios.

To personalize them, you can further segment your lists based on interests, attributes, or behaviors.

Once your campaign is active, you can track its progress using the Statistics Dashboard. On it, you can track delivery status, unsubscribe data, open/click rates, and other important metrics. 

Key Features

• Drive personalized and targeted communications with Dynamic Sections that display different messages based on the recipient.
• Group subscribers with similar interests and behaviors for customized and personalized messaging
• Test sender names, subject lines, or visual content with up to 10 versions to find what works best.
• Seamlessly manage email lists, modify individual contact properties for personalized campaigns, and create GDPR-compliant subscription widgets.
• Access detailed data on open rate, click rate, non-delivery reports, click maps, ISP statistics, and more in the advanced plans. 

Pricing

• Free: $0/month (Forever)
  • Emails: 6,000/month
  • Daily Limit: 200 emails/day
  • Contacts: Unlimited
• Essential: Starting at $15/month (Billed monthly)
  • Emails: 15,000/month 
  • No daily sending limit
• Premium: Starting at $25/month (Billed monthly)
  • Emails: 15,000/month 
  • No daily sending limit
• Custom: Available upon request

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4/5 (148 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.3/5 (300 reviews)

9) Omnisend

Omnisend comes loaded with pre-built workflows, subject lines, and messages so you can set up your automation quickly. 

Whether you aim to greet new users, promote products, or dispatch a cart abandonment email, they have pre-designed workflows for each scenario.

If you want to customize their pre-built workflows, you can do that easily with their drag-and-drop Editor. 

Furthermore, Omnisend offers several optimization features to enhance your email marketing efforts. 

With Automation Splits, you can customize special offers and incentives along personalized messaging paths within a single workflow. 

This level of customization empowers you to target your audience more effectively.

Key Features

• Optimize conversions by experimenting with channels, incentives, and subject lines through A/B Split Testing.
• Track sales and engagement data within the Automation Editor with built-in Message Reports.
• Deep-dive into workflow performance, compare channels, and track conversions with Automation Reports.
• Leverage third-party data, including custom events and loyalty program data, for personalized messaging with 130+ integrations.
• Show specific email content blocks to select audience segments using Conditional Content Blocks.
• Achieve hyper-personalization with dynamic product recommendations and segmented messaging paths.

Pricing

• Free: $0/mo
  • Reach up to 250 contacts
  • Unlimited contact list size
  • 500 emails/mo
• Standard: $16/mo
  • Reach up to 500 contacts
  • 6,000 emails/mo
• EMAIL + SMS Pro: $59/mo
  • Reach up to 500 contacts
  • Unlimited emails

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.5/5 (831 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 (698 reviews)

10) Benchmark Email

Benchmark Email is an ideal choice if you’re seeking a straightforward email automation system. 

It’s designed for those who want basic automation features.

It comes with three pre-made email series: Welcome Series, Abandoned Cart, and Follow Up Series.

After your campaign goes live, you can access detailed reports to check bounce rate, open rate, links clicked, and more. 

You can also see how many people shared your emails on social media. If you have an international audience, you can use the geotracking report to find out where your users are coming from.

Key Features

• Customize welcome, lead conversion, and purchase confirmation templates.
• Segment your lists for precise targeting based on attributes and activity.
• Track and analyze email open rates, click rates, and other key metrics in real time.
• One-time list verification to improve email deliverability.
• Optimize email content and sending time with A/B testing.
• Integrations with over 1500+ apps including Google, Facebook, and Shopify.

Pricing

• Free: $0/mo
  • Emails: 3,500 emails/mo.
• Lite: $9.99/mo 
  • Emails: 3,500 emails/month
• Pro: $15/mo 
  • Emails: 7,500 emails/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing available
  • Starting at 25,000 contacts
  • Emails: Unlimited emails/month

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.3/5 (87 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.2/5 (173 reviews)

Best CRM Email Automation Tools 

If you seek a software solution that manages lead routing, segmentation, and email automation in one package, consider exploring these CRM email automation tools. 

Some of the tools on this list even offer a free plan. So, you can test out their features before you commit to a paid plan.

11) HubSpot

While HubSpot is mainly known for its CRM features, it also offers email automation in its Marketing Hub.

It lets you create dynamic lists, segment your contacts, route leads, and set up internal notifications.

These features are great for fostering collaboration between your sales and marketing teams.

Plus, HubSpot’s CRM integration can be incredibly helpful for sending more targeted emails. 

For instance, within HubSpot, you can group your email recipients based on where they are in their lifecycle journey. 

This allows you to send them emails with more relevant subject lines, attachments, links, and CTAs.

With HubSpot Workflows, you’ll also be able to establish personalized automated email sequences triggered by various actions. 

These actions could include someone joining your mailing list, clicking email links, visiting specific pages on your site, engaging with your ads, or meeting specific criteria indicating their interest in your marketing. 

Key Features

• Configure conditions, triggers, and actions to ensure the right emails are sent to the appropriate leads at the optimal time.
• Automate lead scoring, follow-up actions, notifications, and more.
• Boost productivity by automating routine tasks.
• Implement webhooks, score leads, and smoothly transfer leads to your sales team using workflows.
• Use advanced segmentation to enroll the most relevant contacts in your workflows.
• Manage your data efficiently through bulk data handling automation.
• Ensure timely follow-ups with automated task reminders within your CRM.

Pricing

• Free Plan: $0/month
• Starter Plan: Starting at $20/month
• Professional Plan: Starting at $890/month
• Enterprise Plan: Starting at $3,600/month

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.3/5 (87 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.2/5 (173 reviews)

12) ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign offers a range of features to help your business, including CRM, email marketing automation, and sales automation.Using this tool, you can group your contacts based on their purchase history, location, lifecycle stage, or other criteria.

This means you can send them targeted messages that boost engagement and conversions.

To get started, you can use ActiveCampaign’s pre-made automation templates.

They have over 900 such templates tailored for different use cases, including sales engagement, lead nurturing, recovering abandoned carts, and running event marketing campaigns. 

In your workflows, you can set triggers based on opens, replies, shares, subscribes, date-based, or other such criteria.

You can also give scores to your leads based on their level of engagement. 

When they reach a certain score, you can automatically send them the info they need and offer a great deal.

Key Features

• Create customized audience groups to target specific user segments effectively.
• Craft dynamic content that adapts to individual user preferences and behavior.
• Set up automated follow-up sequences triggered by user actions or tags.
• Leverage tags to dynamically swap out sections of text or images within your content.
• Ability to create splits based on specific conditions along with A/B split testing
• Seamlessly integrate with popular platforms such as Google Analytics, Salesforce, Shopify, WordPress, and others.

Pricing

• Plus: $49 per month, paid yearly (USD)
  • 3 Users
• Professional: $149 per month, paid yearly (USD)
  • 5 Users
• Enterprise: Custom pricing available
  • 10 Users

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.3/5 (87 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.2/5 (173 reviews)

13) Zoho Campaigns

Zoho Campaigns is an email marketing tool by Zoho that works smoothly with Zoho CRM. 

When a contact interacts with your emails or takes specific actions, this data is fed back into Zoho CRM. 

To get started with email automation on Zoho Campaigns, you can use the platform’s pre-designed workflow templates.

They are customizable, so you can make changes as per your needs. 

Based on pre-set parameters, you can automatically trigger specific actions. 

This includes such as adding prospects to a different mailing list, sending them a personalized email series, or assigning scores to gauge their engagement level. 

Once your email marketing workflow is in action, you can track the progress through regular reports.

These reports can give you insight into the number of contacts that entered your workflow, as well as their path and progress within it.

Key Features

• Create email workflows effortlessly with drag-and-drop functionality.
• Utilize pre-built workflow templates for quick campaign setup.
• Segment subscribers, assign scores, and send targeted emails based on their interactions.
• Track recipient responses with Reply Tracking, enabling custom workflow actions for responders.
• Seamlessly integrate with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Zoho Commerce stores.

Pricing

• Free: $0/month
• Standard: $3.44/month (Approximately)
• Professional: $5.37/month (Approximately)

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.3/5 (944 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.2/5 (247 reviews)

Also read: Best Zoho Campaigns Alternatives

14) Salesmate

Salesmate is a comprehensive CRM solution that streamlines contact management, email marketing, deal tracking, and activity management, all within a unified platform. 

Using Salesmate’s Sales Cadences, you can automate follow-up emails and text messages. 

With their templates, you can set up email sequences quickly.

You have the flexibility to organize your sales sequences, dividing them into different pipeline stages to ensure precise follow-ups.

Additionally, you can set reminders within the CRM to prompt you for follow-ups, preventing you from missing any important interactions.

You can enroll contacts directly from your CRM, ensuring you never lose sight of your goals. This way, you maintain control and stay focused on your objectives.

Key Features

• Create custom frameworks to score qualified leads based on your business priorities.
• Customize welcome emails, subscription reminders, or special greetings using custom fields in Salesmate.
• Create custom dashboards and reports effortlessly to track critical metrics and analyze sales performance.
• Integrate with Google CRM, Zapier, Zoom, and other popular apps

Pricing

• Starter: $15 per user/month 
• Growth: $30 per user/month 
• Boost: $50 per user/month 
• Enterprise: Custom pricing available

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.6/5 (65 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.7/5 (80 reviews)

15) Freshsales Suite

Freshsales Suite, a part of the Freshworks platform, is designed specifically for sales and marketing teams.

It combines Sales CRM, email automation, marketing automation, and Machine Learning capabilities into one platform.

Using Freshsales Suite, you can create Sales Sequences and schedule a series of touchpoints across different channels including email, SMS, and phone calls.

To set up automated sales sequences, you have two options: Classic Sequences and Smart Sequences. 

Classic Sequences automate actions for contacts on specific days, starting from their entry day (Day 1). 

They’re ideal for straightforward workflows that are triggered by user actions with a fixed order.

But if you want more control over your sequences, you should opt for Smart Sequences.

With their Smart Sequences option, you can tailor your outreach activities based on user actions. 

For cold leads, you can even re-engage them by sending email reminders and adding call reminders.

To keep the conversation flowing, you can even automate follow-ups and send renewal reminders. 

What sets Freshsales Suite apart from other similar tools is its focus on AI. 

With Freddy AI, you can get insights based on engagement metrics and sales data. 

From contact scoring to deal closure predictions, this platform has some great advanced AI features. 

Key Features

• Gain insights into customer interactions across your website, app, and various touchpoints through a chronological perspective.
• Efficiently craft outreach campaigns based on time or user behavior, and manage follow-ups and reminders effectively.
• Send tailored product recommendations based on user preferences and purchase history.
• Identify promising prospects by utilizing scores generated by Freddy AI, which consider both positive and negative signals.

Pricing

• Free: $0/month
• Growth: $18/user/month
• Pro: $47/user/month
• Enterprise: $87/user/month

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.5/5 (1,083 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (594 reviews)

Email Automation Tools For List Building

This section covers email automation tools that have great features to build and grow your email lists. 

They offer an array of features, including precise list segmentation, dynamic content, and seamless platform integrations.  

Plus, some of them even have an option for multi-channel marketing.

16) Brevo

Brevo, previously known as Sendinblue, is an automation platform that integrates email marketing and SMS messaging. 

Moreover, it provides a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder for crafting compelling emails and establishing automated workflows.

If your focus is on list building, this tool might be a great choice for you. 

Using it, you can create a new list from a group of contacts that have similar interests or activity levels. 

To create an automation with a new list, you can fill in the attribute conditions, checking intervals, and when to check.

If you want to add several attributes in Brevo, you can also use the filters option in Brevo.

Once your workflow is live, you can also view stats during a timeframe you set. From unique bounces to hard and soft bounces, you can check it all in this section. 

This includes data like how many contacts are in each step of the workflow and statistics on email opens, clicks, hard bounce, soft bounce, and more.

Key Features

• Access a diverse range of free email templates for content creation.
• Easily send messages across various channels, including email and SMS.
• Segment leads based on past interactions, activity behavior, interests, and attributes.
• Seamlessly deliver messages through email and SMS for broader outreach.

Pricing

• Free: $0/month
  • Monthly emails: 300/day
  • Unlimited contacts
• Starter Plan: Starting at $25/month
  • Unlimited monthly emails
  • Unlimited contacts
• Business Plan: Starting at $65/month
  • Unlimited monthly emails
  • Unlimited contacts
• Brevo Plus: Custom pricing available

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.5/5 (630 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.5/5 (1,750 reviews)

17) AWeber

While AWeber is an all-round email automation and marketing solution, it is great for anyone looking for great list building features. 

For starters, you can create custom sign-ups and landing pages to grow your email list quickly.

In addition to this, you can also segment users based on their purchases, open rates, and other criteria.

In terms of tracking and analytics, AWeber equips you with comprehensive tools to gain insights into your email performance. 

You can configure Google and Facebook tracking to enhance your open rates, clicks, and sales.

Key Features

• Create stunning emails with drag-and-drop simplicity or choose from ready-to-use templates.
• Optimize open rates, clicks, and content through tracking, segmentation, and A/B testing.
• Find the best sending times for maximum impact.
• Add eye-catching images effortlessly with Canva integration and pre-loaded stock image library
• Ability to add dynamic content to give subscribers the impression that each email is customized exclusively for them

Pricing

• Free Plan: $0.00/month
• Lite Plan: $14.99/month 
• Plus Plan: $29.99/month 
• Pro Plan: $899/month 

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.2/5 (627 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.4/5 (281 reviews)

18) ConstantContact

Constant Contact offers flexible email automation options. You can start from scratch or select from a library of pre-designed templates.

Their templates are designed for seamless content display on any device, be it desktop or mobile. 

They automatically adapt to provide a smooth viewing experience for your entire audience, regardless of their device choice.

It also has robust list-building tools for expanding contacts, including custom sign-up pages.

Furthermore, Constant Contact simplifies your social media management. Using it, you can locate and engage with customers on popular platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Key Features

• Access a library of ready-to-use email templates for convenient campaign creation.
• Experiment with different subject lines to optimize message delivery, particularly for recipients who didn’t open your initial email.
• Monitor email delivery, opens, deletions, and link clicks to gain insights into recipient interactions.
• Visualize link click data through a heat map to identify the most-clicked links.
• Segment link click data to better understand subscriber preferences and behavior.
• Integrate seamlessly with various platforms and tools such as Vimeo, Canva, Salesforce, Shopify, and more, enhancing your email marketing capabilities.

Pricing

• Lite Plan: Starting at $12/month
• Standard Plan: Starting at $35/month
• Premium Plan: Starting at $80/month
• Price varies depending on the number of contacts

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4/5 (5,649 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.3/5 (2,547 reviews)

19) Drip

Drip is an email marketing and automation tool made with the needs of e-commerce businesses in mind. 

It’s unique because it doesn’t rely on fixed lists for organizing contacts. Instead, it uses dynamic segments that change in real time.

For example, if someone goes from being a one-time buyer to making a second purchase, they automatically move out of the first segment. 

This means you don’t have to manually sort contacts.

Another USP of this email automation tool is that it features a very intuitive email builder. 

You can display products directly from your store in your email. To customize it, you can change image sizes, font sizes, add spacing, and do more. 

Key Features

• Access over 50 pre-designed ecommerce templates 
• Seamlessly integrate data from e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, LoyaltyLion, and more
• Implement customer action-based triggers to send personalized content in response to specific actions, such as purchases, browsing behavior, and clicks 
• Sync Drip segments with Facebook Custom Audiences, allowing for cohesive and powerful marketing campaigns across various channels.

Pricing

Pricing is based on email list size and sending volume.

• For 2,500 people: $39/month
• For 4,000 people: $69/month
• For 5,500 people: $99/month
• For 10,000 people: $154/month
• For 15,000 to 1,70,000 people: $209/month to $1,899/month
• Custom pricing available for over 1,90,000 people

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.4/5 (457 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.4/5 (178 reviews)

20) ConvertKit

ConvertKit is the ultimate toolkit for creators, offering a range of features to help you connect with your fans, automate your marketing, and grow your audience. 

With landing pages, forms, an intuitive email designer, and reliable email marketing tools, you can effectively engage with your audience.

It’s the go-to platform for creators who want to build strong connections with their fans.

To make it easy to kickstart your marketing funnels, the platform also has pre-built automation templates.

Additionally, you can design email templates for reuse, include default content, and establish RSS feeds for easy one-time publishing.

For RSS feeds, they also have another special feature. 

You can choose different types of liquid tags to create dynamic content. When you use this tag, ConvertKit automatically replaces the corresponding content in the feed.

It means you can send one email to everyone but not everyone sees the same content. The content they see is customized to the added tags. 

You can use this feature to personalize emails based on a marketer’s skill level, purchase status, or other criteria. 

Key Features

• Pre-made visual email automation templates available 
• Ability to build single and multiple entry point targeted automation
• Access to over 100,000 stock images
• Access to fully customizable landing page templates
• Integration with apps including Shopify, Squarespace, Teachable, and others

Pricing

• Free: $0/month
• Creator: $9/month
• Creator Pro: $25/month

Product Ratings

• G2 Rating: 4.4/5 (189 reviews)
• Capterra Rating: 4.4/5 (189 reviews)

Key Takeaways

Picking the right email automation tool boils down to knowing what you need and understanding your industry. To make a smart choice, take advantage of free trials.

These free trials let you explore the features, see how easy they are to use, and check if they suit your industry’s specific demands. 

It’s like a test drive for email automation.

If you want to improve your email campaign ROI, save time, and deliver better results, test out an email automation tool now!

FAQs

1. How can you automate email sending?

You can automate sending emails by using a specialized email automation tool like Saleshandy, Mailchimp, Mailjet, or others.

2. How can you automate emails in Outlook?

Yes, you can use the “Automate Replies” option to send customized automatic replies. If you want to send follow-up messages in Outlook, you can use the  “Auto Follow-Up” plugin. 

3. What is the difference between email automation and autoresponder?

Email automation refers to a broader system of automating email campaigns, including personalized messaging and advanced triggers.

Autoresponder, on the other hand, typically involves a single, predefined response sent automatically in response to a specific trigger.