The Best Campaign Monitor Review of 2021! – MUST READ

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We all know the power of email marketing, from its inception it has been making some HUGE waves and it continues to get bigger every single year. In fact, did you know that email is 40% more effective at converting leads into customers than Facebook and Instagram? That’s simply amazing. 

Just imagine the doors that will open for you if you had a conversion rate of 40%, the possibilities would be endless. Furthermore, marketing and advertising emails influence the buying decision of 50.7% of customers!! 

Now I have to be honest with you, you can’t just send an email and expect to see success, there are a wide range of factors that you have to consider such as your subject line, the content of your email and of course the email marketing tool that you are using. 

As a digital marketer by profession, I know that having a powerful email marketing tool is extremely beneficial to the growth of your business. I have seen countless businesses completely change how they advertise just by taking advantage of the right email marketing software. 

This drove me to do in-depth research and study of the best email marketing tools in this decade. When I was doing my research I came across Campaign Monitor, one of the biggest email marketing software in the world. 

With a wide range of features and benefits, I decided to tear down the entire email marketing platform to its roots and do an in-depth review of the entire software. In this Campaign Monitor Review, I will be taking a look at everything the email marketing tool has to offer! 

So without further ado, buckle up, and let’s dive straight into this review of Campaign Monitor. 

 

What is Campaign Monitor?

Campaign Monitor is an email marketing tool that is not only super easy to use but extremely powerful. Founded in 2004, Campaign Monitor has quickly risen to become a market leader and has made email marketing a more efficient and effective solution. 

With over 250,000 customers at both small businesses and Fortune 500 companies, Campaign Monitor has proven to be worth it. In fact, some of your favorite brands like Rolling Stone, Unicef, Broad Way, and the Red Cross Association all use Campaign Monitor. 

Here’s what James Taylor, Global Creative Director at Rip Curl had to say about Campaign Monitor: 

“Campaign Monitor helped us easily create beautiful emails that turned our Bombshell wetsuit into a global phenomenon”

Enough of the boring stuff, let’s get straight down to the action. Let’s take a look at Campaign Monitor’s best features! 

 

What are Campaign Monitor’s best features? 

Campaign Monitor is packed with some really dope features that make it stand out from the competition. That being said let’s take a look at these features. 

Here’s a list of Campaign Monitor’s best features:

• Templates
• Transactional Email Marketing 
• Marketing Automation
• Personalization
• Segmentation
• Sign-up Forms
• Analytics
• Ease of Use 
• Integrations

Templates

Templates set the tone of your entire email campaigns. I’m not joking when I say having an amazing template can be the difference in whether or not your emails get read. 

The great thing is that this is where Campaign Monitor succeeds! There are over 100 different templates to choose from and the possibilities are actually endless. These templates are also responsive across any device which is definitely an added bonus! 

There is a wide variety of categories that you can choose from, these include announcements, newsletters, deals & offers, and even simple templates just for feedback. 

Moreover, the drag-and-drop builder makes it super easy to customize the templates to make them yours. 

You can even build your own templates from scratch which allows you to put your own personal touch on every email. This can prove to be powerful by giving you first-hand control over every aspect of the design of the email. 

There is even a built-in feature for teams which allows your email designer to lock certain portions of your template so that only your team will have access to them. 

 

Transaction Email Marketing 

Did you know that transaction emails carry the highest open rates? In fact, a recent study has shown that transactional emails are 8 times more likely to be opened than traditional emails. 

Quick Tip : Transactional email is a type of automated email between a sender and a recipient. It differs from a marketing email in that transactional email is triggered by events, interactions, or preferences within a service or application rather than by a company’s marketing campaign. For example, the most well-known transaction emails are receipts and confirmations. (PostMarkApp)

Most email marketing tools don’t even have a feature that is dedicated solely to the perfection of transactional emails. Thankfully, Campaign Monitor has that capability, with advanced tools you can now take full advantage of the emails that receive the highest open-rate! 

My favorite feature of this tool has to be the ability to optimize and test the transaction emails in order to boost the engagement and by extension drive an increase in revenue. 

It’s no secret that transaction emails are probably one of the most important areas of your online business as well as the most sensitive so Campaign Monitor guarantees that you will have world-class deliverability and reliability. 

Here’s what Patxi Barrios, CRM Analyst & Acquisition Manager at Birch Box had to say about Campaign Monitor’s transactional email abilities: 

“Email marketing is core to our customer communications strategy. With Campaign Monitor’s new transactional email service for marketers, we can now provide a consistent brand experience across all of our customer communications with one easy-to-use system”.

 

Marketing Automation 

Now, this is where the magic happens and the fun begins. Thanks to the advanced technology used by the team at Campaign Monitor you can send out automated campaigns based on actions your website visitors take. 

This is thanks to the AutoResponders which allows you to automatically send out “Welcome” emails every time someone joins your mailing list. This adds an additional special touch to the improvement of your customer journey. 

Paired with Marketing Automation the autoresponders have increased functionality, these include: 

• When visitors visit certain areas of your website 
• When website visitors click on certain links  
• When website visitors purchase particular products 

My favorite auto-responder has to be the Birthday offers, with this feature you will automatically send out offers to website visitors on their birthdays. 

Setting up these campaigns could provide a bit of a learning curve but thankfully there are some great guides that Campaign Monitor provides you with to help you begin setting up professionally done marketing automation campaigns. 

 

Personalization 

Did you know that 87% of consumers say that personally relevant branded content positively influences how they feel about a brand? That means you have a higher chance of converting a lead into a paying customer if you serve them content that is heavily personalized. 

Campaign Monitor knows this and they have developed a system that allows you to send the right message to the right person at the right time! 

By fully utilizing Personalisation you will not only boost sales but also improve your overall user experience. Now, this is where it gets really creepy… 

Based on your customer’s journey you can tailor content specifically to what they are facing. For example, let’s say you own Jamie’s Summer Apparel, you may want to send out offers for the new swimsuit to your female clientele and the new swim trunk to your male readers. 

That paired with Time Zone Sending, which allows you to send the message exactly when they’re most likely to open it will make you an absolute beast in the industry. 

 

Segmentation 

One of Campaign Monitor’s strong suits has to be the data segmentation. With this feature, you can group your contacts based on segments so you can provide the highest value to every single customer on your list. 

In a nutshell, this feature basically lets you show the right content to the right target audience at the right time. It’s as simple as that. 

You are given the opportunity to segment based on anything from gender to interests and even location so you can make your campaigns 10X more relevant. 

Segmentation literally allows you to see exactly the type of customers that are attracted to your business and how they directly interact with your email marketing campaigns. 

 

Sign-up Forms 

Sign-up Forms present a unique way to reach a wider audience and an additional way to grow your email list. Thankfully Campaign Monitor provides a variety of different sign-up forms that you can choose from. 

Take for example the subscribe button, you can add a simple branded subscribe button to your website which provides an easy way to convert your website visitors into new subscribers! 

With Campaign Monitor you can also create landing pages, however, if you are looking for a landing page builder with extra functionality I would suggest maybe checking out more dedicated software. (Click HERE to read my review on the 13 Best Landing Page Builders Of The Decade)

Furthermore, you can even embed a form unto your website in order to create a seamless signup process and begin racking in those sign-ups!

Campaign Monitor even takes it a step further by allowing you to take full advantage of your social media by allowing you to place a button on your company’s Facebook page in order to provide an additional avenue to collect signups. 

My FAVORITE feature about the Sign-up Forms is the Campaign Monitor Enlist app which allows you to gather data at live events. So imagine at the next pop-up shop you want to get everyone’s email you simply just download the app on your iPad and get cracking. The best part about this feature is that it works both online and offline! 

 

Analytics

Before I talk about this feature I must first let you know that the Analytics section of Campaign Monitor is slightly limited as compared to the competition. That being said it still provides an amazing birds-eye view of the entire success of your campaigns that can be viewed on any device. 

Through the Campaign Monitor insights, you get real-time insights directly inside the intuitive dashboard. This gives you access to the entire customer journey and how they interact with it at every level which gives you the ability to produce even more amazing email campaigns. 

You will be provided with all the information needed in order to improve your email’s performance, for example, how many times your email was opened and how many times someone opened it but didn’t follow through with the call-to-action.

 

Based on the results from these analytics you can also do A/B split tests where you can test various elements such as your headlines and content in the emails. A/B split testing allows you to see exactly what’s working from what isn’t. 

Moreover, thanks to the integrations offered by Campaign Monitor you can see how your email campaigns are performing against all of your other paid campaigns. For example, you may want to compare your email campaigns to your Facebook ad campaigns. 

All in all, for the majority of customers this analytics report will be enough for you to be satisfied. However, if you are running robust email marketing campaigns then you may want to consider a tool with a bit more features. 

 

Ease of Use

This is hands down the BEST thing about Campaign Monitor, it’s super simple to navigate. Trust me anyone can use this software, okay, maybe not everyone but I’m just trying to drive home the point of how easy the platform is to operate. 

Don’t even get me started about the sign-up process, it required minimal information to get started and was up and running in minutes. 

Despite the fact that it is not as updated and modern as the other email marketing tools I have reviewed, I must say that it’s still really straightforward and I have seen nothing but great reviews on the interface recently. 

 

Campaign Monitor Integrations 

Integrating with your other tools is now the standard when it comes to operating any software. That being said Campaign Monitor seamlessly integrates with hundreds of other apps such as : 

• WordPress 
• Shopify 
• SalesForce 
• Unbounce 
• Google Analytics 
• Magento 
• WooCommerce 

That means if you have an eCommerce website you can connect it directly to Campaign Monitor and create unison across all of your platforms. For example, let’s say you have a Shopify website, you can have a pop-up on your website advertising a 20% discount if they input their email, once the email is inputted it would be sent straight to Campaign Monitor.  

 

Campaign Monitor Customer Support 

Despite the fact that Campaign Monitor’s user interface is easy to use and extremely well laid out you may still come across some challenges when navigating the email marketing giant so it would make sense to have a customer service team at your side to tackle any challenges that you may come across. 

Thankfully Campaign Monitor provides dozens of guides that will access you in any problem that you may encounter using the platform. You can find answers on a wide range of topics from Account Management to Billing. 

There are also training videos that were built in order to help you as you embark on your Campaign Monitor journey! 

There is also a ticket system in place just in case you have any additional questions that you can not find the articles too. 

However, you will only get access to email support on the Basic plan, with the Unlimited plan you get “priority support”. However, with the Premier plan, you will get phone support. 

The only downside is that there is no live chat and if you have read any of my previous reviews before then you should know that I absolutely love having access to a live chat on a website. 

 

Campaign Monitor Pricing: How much does Campaign Monitor cost?

When it comes to campaign monitor pricing it’s no secret that it may be on the more pricer end. In fact, this is probably the most expensive email marketing tool I have ever reviewed. 

There are three different plans, The Basic plan, the Unlimited plan, and the Premier plan. It should also be noted that the price of the plans depends solely on the number of subscribers you have. 

For example, if you have 500 or fewer subscribers you will be charged $9 per month for the Basic plan, $29 per month for the Unlimited plan, and $149 per month for the Premier plan. 

On the other hand, if you have 2500 or fewer subscribers you will be charged $29 per month for the Basic plan, $59 per month for the Unlimited plan, and $149 per month for the Premier plan.

Furthermore, if you have up to 50,000 or fewer subscribers you will be charged $299 per month for the Basic plan, $699 per month for the Unlimited plan and $989 per month for the Premier plan.

I think you get the gist of it. To see exactly how much Campaign Monitor will charge you based on your subscriber count click HERE.

 

How do the Campaign Monitor plans differ? 

Well, with the Basic plan you are limited to the number of emails that you can send out every month. For example, if you have 440 subscribers on your email list you will only be granted the ability to send out 2,500 emails across your campaigns. On the other hand, if you have 3000 subscribers on your email list you can send out up to 25,000 emails across your campaigns. 

You are also equipped with all the core email marketing features, the analytics suite, basic marketing automation, and customer support via email. 

With the Unlimited plan, there is no cap on the number of emails that you can send. In addition to all of the features of the Basic plan, you are also given advanced marketing automation, unlimited inbox previews, time zone sending, unlimited spam testing, a countdown timer, and priority customer support via email. 

With the Premier plan, you get everything offered in the Unlimited plan including pre-built engagement segments, send-time optimization, advanced link tracking, email builder section locking, and even premier phone support. 

However, despite the high price tag Campaign Monitor’s features make up for it! 

 

Campaign Monitor Pros and Cons

I know Campaign Monitor has some mind-blowing features but like every other email marketing tool on the market it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. 

Pros: 

• Due to the years of expertise, Campaign Monitor has experience with a wide range of features that were designed for your email marketing success. 
• The entire user interface is beginner-friendly and easy to operate
• They have a library of some of the most beautiful templates I have ever seen. 
• There is amazing customer service 
• The Segmentation option is advanced and designed to provide an impressive user experience. 
• The Autoresponders feature is really effective and it’s even available in the cheapest package. 
• Expertly built transactional email system 

 

Cons: 

• Campaign Monitor carries a high price tag as compared to its competition 
• You have to purchase the Premier plan in order to get phone support. 
• There is no free trial
• The reports and analytics are quite limited for advanced marketers 

 

The Best Campaign Monitor Alternatives 

Campaign Monitor Vs. GetResponse 

Now I may be a bit biased towards GetResponse since that is my preferred choice as GetResponse is the all in one marketing toolkit. This works perfectly for me as there are many more parts of my business that need my attention instead of just email marketing. GetResponse also has a more modern interface that I personally like. 

Moreover, GetResponse has more customer support options and if you have read any of my articles before then you would know that I’m a big believer in strong customer support. 

Overall, GetResponse has a bit more functionality and is a great bang for your buck, however, Campaign Monitor has been in the game for years and has continued to prove itself worth it in the market!

To read the full review on GetResponse click HERE. 

 

Campaign Monitor Vs. Moosend 

If budget is a part of the equation I would definitely suggest that you check out Moosend, one of the cheapest email marketing tools in the game! Moosend also has some great functionality despite its price point. 

However, when it comes down to features and overall functionality Campaign Monitor comes out on top! I would definitely recommend Moosend or even Mailerlite if you are budget conscious, however, if you have some cash to spend on email marketing then Campaign Monitor is the right way to go! 

To read the full review on Moosend click HERE. 

 

Who is Campaign Monitor for and is it worth it? 

Who is Campaign Monitor really for? Well that depends, if you are a complete newbie to email marketing and you’re just testing the waters then I would suggest that you try another cheaper email marketing tool like Moosend or Mailerlite. Despite Campaign Monitor being super easy to operate, the price tag can be a huge turn off for some entrepreneurs especially if you don’t have the capital upfront. 

However, if you have a little experience with email marketing or you run a business that is generating a decent amount of revenue from its marketing efforts then Campaign Monitor is perfect for you! So if you know you want to begin taking your email marketing seriously then I would highly recommend you check out Campaign Monitor. 

Along with the mind-blowing templates, I would say that Campaign Monitor has amazing features and enough experience to back its high pricing, especially for professional marketers. 

Here’s what Punam Pathak, SVP of Sales & Marketing at Flight Centre had to say about Campaign Monitor: 

“Campaign Monitor empowers us to execute hyper-personalized marketing campaigns and is driving engagement and revenue for our business.”

On the other hand, If you heavily rely on reports and analytics I would also think twice about Campaign Monitor as it lacks in this aspect. The user’s face is also not as modern and as advanced as other email marketing tools I have reviewed like GetResponse.