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47% of marketers say email marketing is the most effective marketing channel. To become one of them, however, you need to find a reliable partner in the sea of email marketing companies. We are here to help you make an informed decision. Using our comprehensive evaluation methodology, we selected the best email marketing service providers out there and prepared a guide on how you can recognize which is the best option for your needs and goals.

Best Email Marketing Companies

The Qualities that Characterize The Top Email Marketing Companies

As insiders of the marketing world, we have developed a comprehensive evaluation methodology to detect the most reliable email marketers. To help you make an informed decision, we’ve also compiled a list of the must-have qualities to look for in email advertising firms. Take a look at the characteristics that make a top email marketing company. 

An Impressive Portfolio & Case Studies

The leading email marketers have extensive portfolios and client lists. You should be able to find these resources on their website. Scan through their client lists. Can you spot any familiar names or even a pattern? For instance, if you’re a small business, you want to consider email marketing firms that have worked with other small organizations and understand your unique challenges. Perhaps, you operate in an industry that requires a particular language to reach potential customers. Examine multiple portfolios to detect the agencies that fit your needs. 

Also, look for case studies as these resources give you a better insight into the agencies’ workflows and techniques. The best agencies showcase detailed case studies on their websites or can provide you with materials upon request. You can quickly eliminate the candidates with poor portfolios or those that can’t offer quality case studies. 

Real Reviews & Testimonials

When deciding which email marketing agencies to feature on our list, we look for honest reviews on third-party platforms and examine the candidates’ presence on Linkedin and social media platforms. Naturally, agencies feature only the most glowing testimonials on their websites, so you want to dig deeper than that. Reputable business directories, the Better Business Bureau’s website, and Google profiles are great places to source quality reviews and testimonials. 

Note that almost every business gets a negative review from time to time. We don’t disregard the email advertising companies based on a few negative comments. Instead, we consider the volume and the overall quality of the reviews and how they handle negative feedback. Are there any repetitive issues that seemed to annoy many past clients? Professional agencies would address any client dissatisfaction, invite the client to reach out for resolution, or explain what happened during the troublesome collaboration.

When you narrow down your choices, you can even contact some of the email marketing companies’ past clients to receive first-hand reviews of their work. This tactic has been a crucial part of our selection process and helps us filter out candidates who haven’t been honest about their performance.

Compelling & Personalized Content

If you want to hire an email marketing agency for full email marketing support, you need to test their content creation capabilities. Your campaigns’ success will directly depend on whether your agency of choice can produce engaging content that gets the clicks, attention, and desired actions from your audience. 

People nowadays receive dozens to hundreds of emails in their inboxes daily. And most of these messages get zero attention. Your email marketer needs to come up with compelling subject lines that will convince your customers to open the emails in the first place. Then you want them to pay attention and take action. 

Like the top content marketing companies, the best email marketing agencies rely on proven methods and take the time to understand your business, your goals, challenges, and your audience before talking to your potential customers. Then, they prepare a personalized strategy to get you to the desired outcomes.

When evaluating the agencies, you should ask for different email samples done for past clients. You want to see various examples to determine how well the agency navigates different audiences and industries. Even if they don’t have experience in your niche, if their research and content capabilities are strong, they will produce winning content for you as well.

Strong Content Testing Strategies

The top email marketing firms understand that running email campaigns is a dynamic job. These experts use tools to test different subject lines and the email content itself. Coming up with compelling subject lines helps you increase your open rate and attract more customers to your business. These top-tier players also use tools or can provide them for you to test different elements of the email campaigns, like article length, visuals, CTAs, layouts, etc., to optimize your campaigns for getting the most clicks. 

Mobile-Optimized Email Marketing Capabilities

Today, a whopping 81% of emails are read on mobile devices. What happens to emails that are not optimized for mobile screens? 80% of them get deleted immediately! You want to deal with email marketing firms that can put together effective mobile email strategies so you can connect with your customers across all screens. 

Proven Spam Detection Strategies

The most prominent email marketing outfits will keep the spam flags away and help you maintain a spotless email reputation. If your messages are identified as spam, you’ll gain a negative reputation that will most likely require professional help to repair. When interviewing different candidates, ask them about their email deliverability rates and spam detecting strategies. The best email marketing companies will give you a detailed answer on how they ensure emails land into subscribers’ inboxes and stay spam-free. 

Well-Versed in the Most Effective Email Marketing Tools

The top email marketers use a comprehensive set of tools to run campaigns of all scales. They have either developed or bought robust platforms to create content, test the content, automate the campaigns, and track consumer behavior and results. 

You might want to ask the potential agencies whether they have their proprietary software or use third-party platforms. The biggest email marketing companies usually have their own platforms which give them more control over the campaigns. They can constantly update and advance their tools and quickly resolve any problems during your campaigns. There’s nothing wrong with using outside software, but these agencies always depend on other vendors for updates and resolving issues. 

The success of your campaigns depends on the quality of the tools the email marketers use. If you want to hire the best email marketing firm for your business, make sure that it’s well-versed in the industry-leading tools. 

Sophisticated Success Tracking Methods

Well-executed email campaigns can increase your sales, consumer loyalty, generate new leads, create repeat business, and reduce your overall marketing costs. As one of the most measurable marketing tactics, email offers all the data you need to get the most out of your marketing dollars. 

Email marketing companies measure the most critical KPIs like open rate, click-through rate, and delivery rate. Aside from the big three, they monitor bounce rates on campaign landing pages, revenue per email, and conversion rates. But it’s what they do with this data that separates the mediocre from the leading email marketers. 

The top-tier agencies use this data to gain insight into more complex success metrics like engagement trends, content performance, overall campaign performance, how well specific elements of the campaigns perform, etc. Then they use this data to plan future actions that will drive the highest ROI for your email dollars. 

While you can’t predict your campaigns’ success, you can ask the potential candidates for case studies. It’s a plus if they have samples from your niche. The top email marketing companies will have ready examples to prove how their efforts translate into profit for clients. 

A Team of Diverse Experts & Forward Thinkers

Email marketing is a complex process that involves everything from crafting a winning strategy and building a healthy email list to selecting the right tools and software, creating compelling messages, and effective campaign management. You also need to track the success and take actions based on the data the metrics have shown. All these tasks require specific expertise to ensure the best return on your investment. The best email marketing agencies are never a one-person show. 

When interviewing different candidates, ask them for the experts that will be involved in running your campaigns. The top contenders have diverse teams of forward-thinkers that garner innovation and execute highly creative and effective campaigns. 

The top email marketing firms usually display their team members and their roles on their websites. But it’s always better to ask for more information about their team structure.

Top-Notch Customer Service

Take note of how responsive the potential candidates are, and how long they took to respond once you submitted the form on their website. You can also call them and ask different questions to see whether they will take the time to give you thorough answers. You don’t want to hire an email marketing company that wastes your time with shallow, generic responses. They will most likely approach your email campaigns the same way. 

What to Expect from a Top Email Marketing Company

We have put together a list of essential qualities you should expect from every reputable email advertising company. Look for these things during your initial meetings or throughout your collaboration to ensure that you’re getting the best treatment. Here is what you can expect to receive from the top email marketing agencies, and if you don’t, you might want to spend your marketing dollars elsewhere.

Personalized Attention on Your Discovery Session & Throughout the Project

You want to schedule discovery sessions with all of your top choices. The best agencies have a customer-centric approach, clear communication channels and will dedicate personalized attention to understand your needs and provide you with a custom offer and quote. Stay away from email advertising companies that try to sell you random services without taking the time to listen to your needs. 

Summary of Their Research & Recommended Solutions

Email marketers can’t start your campaign or spend hours consulting you on how to propel your business with email marketing before officially signing the contract and committing to working with them. The top agencies, however, will take the time to understand your challenges and goals and present you with a personalized set of solutions that will get you to the desired outcomes most effectively. 

For instance, small businesses may need to start small and expand their email marketing management services as they grow. Providing a summary of how they can help you, estimated time frames, and making a custom package of services for your unique business needs is what the best email marketers do. 

Contract With Clear Project Deliverables

The most reliable agencies will present the project deliverables in the contract clearly without using confusing and ambiguous language. They also won’t try to lock you into a long-term commitment and charge you for services you don’t need without your awareness. 

Seamless Client Onboarding & Ongoing Collaboration

The top email marketing companies have well-structured workflows in place. They take the time to gather information about your business, the industry you’re in, your competitors, and your unique challenges and goals. They should provide clear communication channels and train your team to leverage their tools for maximum campaign success. 

In case of any issues, the most reliable providers have in-house experts who can quickly resolve them. Note that even some of the best agencies use third-party software, which isn’t a negative thing. But they might need more time to address issues as they also depend on another provider. 

Transparent & Frequent Reporting

The most prominent email marketing companies will keep you updated on how your campaigns are performing from start to finish. They prepare frequent reports where they showcase what has been done, what results have been achieved, and which areas need improvement. Also, top-tier agencies don’t just care for KPIs like open rate and click-through rate but also translate these actions into actual profits for your business. 

Prices That Align With Industry Standards

Different email marketing firms have different rates and pricing models. If you notice significant differences in prices, you want to ensure that the higher rates are worth it. The most experienced agencies might ask for higher rates than newbies, but they will most likely justify the cost. 

Note that self-managing your email marketing efforts is significantly cheaper than hiring a full-service email marketing agency. Still, the results with the latter option are usually far more rewarding. Buying software to manage the email marketing process yourself can cost you between $9 – $1.000. Note that you will have to take the time to learn how to get the most of your campaigns, prepare the content, track your results, decide which actions to take next, and manage the overall process. 

If you wish to get professional email marketing services, you should be ready to pay between $25 – $200 per hour, depending on your campaign’s complexity and the agency’s rates. 

The exact email marketing cost is hard to determine without knowing the details of your project. That’s why you want to ask more potential candidates for quotes. Making a price comparison will help you understand which prices fall within industry standards, so you don’t end up overpaying. 

What You Need to Do Before Hiring an Email Marketing Agency

You also have to do your homework to ensure that you pick the best email marketing firm for your business. The following steps will help you determine the right option for you in the sea of direct email marketing companies.

Hire With the Big Picture in Mind

Outline your short-term and long-term goals and define your email marketing needs based on where you want your business to go. Maybe you need to start from scratch and build a healthy email list first. Or you want to improve your click-through and conversion rates. 

For instance, if you wish to expand your marketing efforts in the future and use different marketing channels, you might want to go for some of the full-service digital marketing agencies that also offer email marketing services. Depending on your resources like time, knowledge, and money, you should also decide whether you would like to get an email marketing platform and manage the campaigns yourself or hire a full-service email marketing agency. 

At the moment, you might need to start with a smaller budget or test different strategies on a smaller scale. In any case, always have your big picture in mind and think of the services you’d like to add in the future when choosing between the best email marketing companies. 

Outline a Budget

Decide how much money you can dedicate to email marketing and be honest with the potential candidates about it. The top agencies will provide you with at least a rough summary of what they can do for your business and the expected results for your given budget. You can later compare their answers and go for the direct email marketing firm that offered the best value for the price, rather than for what seems like the cheapest option. 

Look For Agencies Experienced in Your Niche

You want to look for direct email marketing companies experienced in your industry, especially if they will handle the content creation part for you. While every top email marketing company will thoroughly research your business, market, competitors, and audience to develop compelling content, having previous experience in the niche is a huge bonus. This is especially important for companies that deal with sensitive subjects. The last thing you want is to anger your potential customers unintentionally. 

Hire a Culture

Pay close attention to your initial calls or discovery sessions with the potential email marketing companies on how the person/team behaves. Is there any “chemistry” between you? There’s no correct answer on culture. But you have to find an email marketing company with values, behavior, and style of work that align with yours. You also want to hire an agency with a healthy work atmosphere and that respects its employees. If the agency’s in-house teams aren’t happy at work, chances are their dissatisfaction will reflect on your campaign success. You can quickly check these things on reputable employer review sites.