Email is an inexpensive yet highly effective channel of communication. It’s been here for a while now – it’s turning 50 in October 2021 – and its popularity doesn’t seem to be waning. Some statistics project the number of emails sent out per day in 2021 will near 320 billion. That’s over forty emails per every person alive today – a staggering number.

What’s even more mind-boggling is that a large chunk of those emails never reach the people they were aimed at. For good reason, too – there are plenty of emails that are unsolicited, harmful, or deceitful, and the place they often end up in the spam folder.

The problem with the spam folder is that the emails you send as part of your email marketing campaign can easily end up in it. This is why it’s important to understand not only how to prevent emails from going to spam, but also how it can get there in the first place.

It seems we have our work cut out for us! We’ll cover:

Why Do Emails End Up in the Spam Folder?

The most obvious answer to this question is because a spam filter caught the emails and placed them into the spam folder. Often enough, it will do it because the emails are indeed spam – they are unwanted junk emails sent out in email blasts to whoever might get them.

But what if your emails don’t fit that bill? What if they’re sent with all the intention and purpose of a highly-targeted email campaign, and they end up flagged as spam anyway? Some of the things that might have gone wrong include:

The good news is that you’ll be able to address most of the issues, if you want, either on your own or through cooperation with the email recipient. There are plenty of things you could be doing, so let’s start tackling them one by one.

Pick Your Email Service Provider Wisely

It’s common knowledge that WordPress’ email sending capabilities aren’t always up to the assignment you give them. And while you are more than welcome to dive into the reasons behind WordPress’ bad track record of mail deliverability, you would do much better to try and fix it.

Among the methods you have at your disposal is configuring SMTP for your WordPress website, which means updating it to use the latest protocol. One way to do it is by using SMTP service providers, some of which can also serve as email service providers.

Choosing a good email service provider is important because the reputable ones will do their share to help your emails reach the recipients and not the spam folders. So besides working hard to keep their record squeaky clean, they should also be able to help you set up email authentication – a very important step for helping your emails appear less spammy to spam filters. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are authentication methods your email service provider should help you use.

Get the Names Right

Two names appear in your email address – the domain name and the sender’s name. There’s no reason to try and change the domain name or otherwise mask it – you want the recipient to recognize that they’re getting the email from your website, after all.

As for the sender’s name, WordPress’ default is set to “wordpress,” which isn’t that impressive and might turn off some of the recipients. It doesn’t just look generic, it is generic. Luckily, there are more than a couple of ways to change the sender name in WordPress, and any one you use could work wonders.

Just keep in mind that, even if it doesn’t say “wordpress,” the sender name can still make your emails look spammy. Avoid names that include lots of words, gibberish, or long sequences of numbers.

Using Double Opt-In

Using double opt-in verification significantly reduces the likelihood of emails being flagged as spam for several reasons. First of all, a double opt-in confirms the validity of the subscriber’s email address, ensuring that messages are sent to active and engaged users. This practice also minimizes the chance of fake or mistyped email addresses entering the mailing list, which can trigger spam filters. Finally, double opt-in demonstrates a clear consent from the recipient, enhancing sender credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of email service providers.

The second step of the opt-in can be a welcome or confirmation email, with a link that the users need to click on to complete the subscription, or a checkbox. If you’re using one of the emailing and newsletter services like Mailchimp or Constant Contant, you will find double opt-in among the features.

Build Your List

If you’re working with WordPress, you’ll have plenty of awesome contact form plugins to help you build your mailing list. Sure, just putting a contact form on your website might not build you a mailing list overnight, but it’s a start. You’ll still need a way to get people to the page that has the form, and you’ll still need to give them an offer that will make them give you their emails.

Still, it’s worth the effort because doing it any other way just means trouble. You should never try to buy email lists and expect to see delivery and open rates as you would with organically grown mailing lists. You shouldn’t even expect to avoid being blacklisted for long if you go down the path of buying email lists. Just don’t do it.

Respect Your Subscribers and Handle Them with Care

When you’re collecting people’s email addresses, you should notify them that they will receive emails from you in the future. It might seem like it’s common sense that you’ll take an email address so that you can send emails to it, but you should do your best to let the people know what they’re signing up for.

When you send them the first email, it’s always a good idea to ask the recipient to whitelist your email address. They can do so by adding your address to their contacts list. It only takes a second to do it, and it can save you a world of trouble later on.

Finally, you should give your email recipients a way out – the unsubscribe link or button. You want it to be visible and marked, as it’s not something that should stay hidden. If you’re choosing between having your emails marked as spam and losing a subscriber, it’s always better to lose a subscriber. When enough people mark your emails as spam, you’ll have a much harder time getting through the spam filter.

Be Mindful of the Contents

The contents of the email matter, but so does the subject line. It shouldn’t look spammy. Exclamation points, dollar signs, offers that are just so obvious and aggressive might be something to avoid. Keep it real, informative, and don’t waste people’s time.

As for the contents of the email, you should be mindful that images tend to get blocked when emails are loaded by the recipient, so try not to use too many of them. Make sure that the subject and the contents match. The contents should be written plainly, using proper grammar, and with no spelling errors.

Dynamic scripts, images that are too big, adding too many links, and a bunch of attachments won’t have the desired effects on the spam filters. On the other hand, adding your physical address – if your business has it – to the email might make you appear more trustworthy.

Keep Good Hygiene with Regular Checkups

Every single component of an email marketing campaign can and should be subject to regular checkups. Everything from your IP to the email addresses on your list and the copy you use should be reviewed and tested regularly to ensure a timely reaction in case something is wrong.

Some of the things you should be checking include:

Of course, keeping an eye on the KPIs such as open and bounce rate is equally important for gauging the success of your campaign. Remember that, if something goes wrong, you want to know about it sooner than later and address the issue promptly.

Complying with Relevant Internet Privacy Regulations

This one is not something that necessarily guarantees the delivery of the emails in the right inbox, but it can significantly affect it, as it helps bypass some IPS blocks. In the past few decades, a whole array of internet privacy laws and regulations has emerged to protect internet users and their sensitive data. One of the most important such regulations is GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which covers the European Union and all businesses and entities having customers or visitors in the EU. Make sure to check out our guide on GDPR for WordPress, as well as the list of the best GDPR plugins.

Also important is the CCPA, which we covered in our piece on CCPA and WordPress compliance, as well as the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), and CAN-SPAM Act.

Bear in mind that compliance to these an similar regulations relative to your operations is mandatory even outside the concerns for emails ending up in spam. It’s always easier to simply adhere to them than to face legal repercussions of ignoring them.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

It’s really hard to imagine the internet without email. The technology’s older than most internet users, and it managed not to lose a smidgen of its usefulness or allure over time.

However, it’s also hard to imagine email without imagining spam emails. It’s unavoidable, but you should still do your best to prevent adding to the problem. Go through all the steps of making your emails less likely to end up in spam folders, and you’ll be doing yourself, the recipient, and the internet as a whole a huge favor.

The term “omnichannel” can be defined as an approach or strategy that integrates all available methods and channels of interaction with customers. These days, when physical and digital worlds are more interconnected than ever, omnichannel indicates an integration of both online and offline advertising, marketing, communications and sales.

It is a particularly relevant term in e-commerce, as it aims to provide a seamless and cohesive approach to digital and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences. In practical terms, an omnichannel experience is when you receive a coupon via sms or email and then use it in a physical location. Or, when you sign up for a newsletter in a store and then receive promotions via your social media or email.

We’ve written extensively about this in our guide to omnichannel marketing and WordPress, and this time around we want to focus on some of the best omnichannel tools for WordPress that can help you promote your brand, boost your conversions and grow your sales:

Omnisend

Omnisend is an all-in-one marketing solution for e-commerce businesses. Once you have collected a pool of leads (email addresses, phone numbers, etc), Omnisend allows you to create automated campaigns, tailored for your specific needs, that engage your customers whatever channel they’re using. Omnisend’s rich features help you create pre-built automations such as welcome message series, abandoned cart recovery, post-purchase campaigns and more.

Omnisend also offers rich segmentation and targeting abilities – you can create very narrow and specific audiences and then target them with custom campaigns. The audiences are updated in real time and all the actions can be automated using an intuitive and functional dashboard.

This tool is very easy to integrate into your operations, and it can be done pretty quickly, too, with guided migration and complete data sync. Should you encounter any difficulties, you can count on 24/7 support.

For small businesses or for those who just want to try Omnisend out first, there is a free plan. Paid plans start at $16/mo for medium businesses focused on email marketing and the true omnichannel features come with the pro plan that includes sms too, and costs $59/mo.

Brevo

You may not have heard of Brevo, but you’ve certainly heard of Sendinblue, the classic email marketing tool for WordPress and other platforms. Well, Sendinblue has just rebranded and it’s now a full-fledged CRM platform with a new name – Brevo.

Brevo is a platform designed to help brands build and develop customer relations throughout various channels – most importantly email and sms, but also live chat, social media and more. The great thing about Brevo is that it’s not just for marketing purposes – in addition to creating seamless campaigns throughout email, sms, WhatsApp and more, it also helps with identifying and targeting leads, tracking deals and optimizing your pipeline with automated actions.

Triggered emails are a particularly attractive feature of this platform. Brevo automates all your transactional messages with precision and reliability, thanks to an API that guarantees a 99% delivery rate. It also features an inbound email parser that captures data from what you receive and sends it in appropriate databases, from where it can be used for campaigns.

Brevo is a scalable platform that can be equally beneficial for small startups and big enterprises. It integrates seamlessly with WordPress and WooCommerce, as well as Zapier, Salesforce, Zendesk and other popular platforms.

Brevo comes with a free plan for those who just want to try it out. Paid plans are divided into functions – there are plans for marketing platform, sales platform, email, etc. The cheapest Marketing platform plan costs $25, Conversations plan is $15, the Sales platform is free and the Transactional emails plan is free as is and you pay per number of emails sent.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a feature-rich, powerful product for marketing automation tool that focuses on hyper-personalized customer messages across the most important channels – email, sms, push notifications, and beyond. It features advanced segmentation features, with any possible combination of rules, from profile and demographic info, location and behavior to order date, and more. Growth tools, such time-based pop-ups and dynamic forms, help turn visitors into subscribers. Behavior-based messaging can target customers based on engagement, event data and predictive analysis. On top of all that, the AI-driven tools help you proactively message your customers by predicting their next order time, churn rate, lifetime value and other important aspects.

Furthermore, Klaviyo features channel-based templates that are industry-specific, as well as cross-channel attribution and reporting.

Klaviyo has 300+ easy-to-install tech integrations, offers 24/7 support, live training and certifications, and has a network of 6,500 partners.

The pricing is based on the number of contacts a business has. If you’re starting with none or very little, you can use the basic Klaviyo plan for free. For businesses with 1,001-1,500 contacts, the Email and SMS plan costs $60/mo and Email only is $45. More contacts mean slightly more expensive plans.

HubSpot

While we’re on the subject of CRM platforms with omnichannel marketing features, we can’t skip to mention HubSpot, one of the leading marketing and CRM tools on the market for a while now. In addition to helping you effectively manage customer relations, HubSpot also streamlines your marketing campaigns and track customer interactions, building a cohesive system that allows you to craft pitch-perfect strategies that make the most out of every lead.

HubSpot offers a centralized customer data overview with interactions, manages and tracks leads throughout the pipeline, automates marketing tasks and their follow-ups, creates behavior- and preference-based targeted campaigns, and much, much more.

The platform’s Service Hub helps with tickets, support and feedback, and knowledge bases. The Operations Hub includes data sync, powerful and programmable automation and data quantity automation.

On top of all this, you can also use HubSpot as a content management system (although you won’t be needing it if you’re using WordPress) – it features a drag-and-drop editor, SEO tools such as keyword and topic recommendations, web hosting and custom domain connection, and even website templates.

As for the pricing, different tools (or hubs) come at different costs. For individuals and small teams, all solutions start at $30/mo. The enterprise and premium solutions are more costly, of course: the Marketing Hub starts at $800/mo, Sales Hub and Customer Service both start at $450, CMS is $360/mo, and operations is $720/mo. Note that you can also combine the products and make a bundle, in which case individual products will cost less.

Buffer

These days, no omnichannel strategy is complete without social media, and that’s where Buffer comes into play. It’s a powerful, reliable and feature-rich tool for scheduling and targeting automated social media messages and content, complete with analytics tools. You may remember it from our piece on how to automatically post to Facebook from WordPress. The people behind Buffer understand that social media represents an enormous pool of possibilities and one of the fastest and cheapest ways to grow your audience and your brand. They also understand that managing social media campaigns can be quite time-consuming. With their automation tools, it doesn’t have to be, though.

With Buffer, you get actionable insights about which content will perform the best, and at what times. It will also help you share to the right channels so that you reach the best possible audience for your message. Thanks to scheduling features, Buffer will literally post the content for you at scheduled times, in automated processes that help you save tons of time. And, regardless of your team size, Buffer’s collaborative tools (featuring permission settings and approval flows) allow your team to work by itself, without having to be (micro)managed.

This tool is known for a very user-friendly interface and easy integration with many popular tools and platforms, including, of course, WordPress.

Buffer has a free plan for individuals and small brands, which allows connecting up to three channels and comes with a landing page builder, planning and publishing tools and an AI assistant. Paid plans go from $6/mo to $120/mo and they come with a 14-day free trial period.

Evam

Evam is a real-time cross-channel marketing solution specializing in telecommunications, retail and loyalty, transport and travel, as well as financial services. In addition to omnichannel marketing, it also provides solutions and tools for customer experience management and operational efficiency. This platform uses AI and data collected from billions of touchpoints daily to take the optimum action in real time, showing the next best offer for each customer.

Evam’s omnichannel marketing tools hub helps users engage with their customers across all digital touchpoints in a cohesive, unified manner, assuring that both the branding and the messaging remain consistent, with maximum efficiency. It provides tools for cross-channel surveys, collects customer feedback, creates valuable insights and makes sure all campaign messages are delivered at critical moments. Unlike many other CRMs, Evam doesn’t create rules for individual touchpoints and instead uses weeks- or months-old journeys to manage customer interactions. This provides a more precise and reliable overview of the customer journey and thus assures more efficient customer interactions.

Evan provides businesses with a scalable and easy to use digital platform that’s ready to deploy out of the box and doesn’t require any IT support. The platform uses machine learning to develop scenarios, thus supporting agile value creation.

This is an advanced solution that doesn’t exactly integrate into a WordPress website like a plugin. The company can create tailored solutions and is made specifically for agile-oriented digital businesses, which is perhaps why the only way to learn of its pricing is to get in touch with them.

Wrapping It Up

There you have it – a selection of the top omnichannel tools for WordPress available on the market right now. You may have noticed that these tools are not exactly cheap (especially in enterprise versions). This is because they offer complex automation features that go far beyond simple plug-and-play solutions that are available for WordPress.

You may also have noticed that most of the tools focus on email and sms. These communication methods lie at the heart of omnichannel strategies. There are email automation tools that focus solely on that, but we made sure to include tools that help you easily integrate as many channels as possible, in an automated (and often AI-powered way). If there’s a tool you use and like that we didn’t include on our list, make sure to let us know!

Despite being more than 50 years old, email is an important digital communication method that is still going strong. Even though many different types of digital marketing have emerged over the years, email marketing is still as relevant as ever. Due to its longevity, resilience, and reach, it’s highly important to ensure that every aspect of your email is functioning properly. It’s not just about the content of your emails and your overall email marketing strategy and campaigns – making sure your emails get delivered and not end up in spam is of key significance, too. And these are some of the core reasons why the topic of email header is so relevant.

This time around, we plan to talk about what an email header is, what it consists of, as well as why it’s so important in the first place. We will also show you how to view email headers in some of the most popular email services while we’re at it, so let’s dive right in:

What Exactly Is Email Header?

Basically, an email header is a code snippet that contains different information about a specific email. It usually comprises of things like sender and recipient details, email subject, date, as well as the path of the email before it reached the inbox of the recipient. All this information is crucial for an email to get delivered successfully. You can use the email header information to see whether the entire path of the email was secure and to check if any errors occurred along the way.

What’s also characteristic about email headers is that they always get listed before the email body (which consists of the email’s contents). Some email header aspects can be accessed at the very top of the email, while the rest (custom header) needs to be opened separately.

What Are the Components of an Email Header?

Now that we’ve briefly explained what an email header actually is, we should also mention some of the most important components that can usually be found in it. Here they are:

What Are the Benefits of Email Headers?

So, now that we’ve covered the most important aspects of each email header, it’s time to set the record straight. What makes email headers so important, anyway?

There are multiple benefits to using email headers. Stick with us as we list some of them.

How to View an Email Header

Once you’ve learned all about the email header’s key elements and its different benefits and uses, you must be wondering how exactly you can access the email header in the first place. Simply put, his process is mostly determined by the email service provider you are using. We will show you how you can view an entire email header using some of the most popular email service providers.

Viewing an Email Header in Gmail

To access your email header if you’re using a Gmail service, you need to open the email message whose header you wish to inspect.

Then, you need to click on the three-dotted menu located in the top right corner of the mail (right next to the “Reply” button).

Choose the option called “Show original”.

This will open a new window containing the complete header with some info in text, and the rest in the HTML format. You will be able to view things like message ID, creation date, DKIM signature, and the list goes on.

From here on, you can click on the “Download Original” button if you want to take a look at each piece of information in more detail. You can also copy the email header to the clipboard and then paste this data anywhere you like (a document, an email that you plan to send to one of your coworkers, etc.).

Viewing an Email Header in Yahoo

The process for Yahoo is similar to the Gmail service. You need to go to your Yahoo email client and click on the specific message whose header you’re curious about.

You then need to click on the icon with three dots (next to the Spam button) and select “View raw message” once the dropdown menu opens.

This will trigger the opening of a new window, which will contain all the data of the email header in question.

Viewing an Email Header in Microsoft Outlook

To do this using Microsoft Outlook, click on the email in question, then hit the Actions button located in the menu in the top right corner.

Select “View original message” from the dropdown.

This will open a new window, where you’ll be able to click on the button called “Message Details”. Once you do this, you’ll be able to view some basic email header info about the message you selected.

Finally, copy the contents of the email header and paste them into a Word or plain text document. By doing so, you will be able to view the contents of the entire email header.

Wrapping Things Up

Email headers play a huge role when it comes to email deliverability. Different elements of the email header can help you check the email identity, assess its legitimacy, as well as overall security in order to protect you from spam. While you can view some of the basic bits of info (such as sender and recipient info, subject, and delivery date) at the very top of each message, you do need to access your email header separately to view it in its entirety. Most of the popular email service providers like Gmail and Yahoo contain similar options for viewing full email headers. Just make sure to follow the instructions we provided above to learn how to access them and you’ll be all set.

For as long as there has been correspondence, people have been signing off, and email is no different. Whatever your line of work is, you will have seen an email signature: the couple of lines with the name and the contact information of the sender. You will have also likely seen the richer sort of email signature – the kind with colourful fonts or branding.

There is a lot of work a well-constructed email signature can do for you in terms of brand building and marketing, and we are going to go over the possibilities and best practices in this article. Here‘s what we‘d like to talk to you about:

What Is an Email Signature

In its very basic, pared down form, an email signature contains a farewell message and a name, as in the olden days of snail mail. The email header itself contains more about the sender information, and all email clients have the reply functionality, so there is no real need to include the email address of the sender.

However, an email signature is usually conceived as a business card, and typically contains other information about the sender: job title, academic degree, personal website, social media profiles, email address (even if it is redundant), phone number, and sometimes even a photo.

Parts of an Email Signature

An email signature may sound simple, but it can be very complex and convey a lot of information. It can consist of several parts:

Of course, your email signature does not need to contain all of the above. We will discuss it in the subsequent section.

What Your Email Signature Says About You

In your email signature, you provide information about yourself, both deliberately and through subtext. How formal is your signoff phrase, for instance? How formal or informal do you want it to be? Even serious businesses sometimes cultivate an image of informal culture of address (take WordPress‘s Howdy greeting, for instance), but the choice is virtually unlimited. It only depends on your preference and brand strategy.

Furthermore, an email signature is a great opportunity to promote your brand identity. It can be as explicit as including a logo, or it can be a little more subtle, such as fonts and colors. In any case, it can tie you to your brand, while providing pertinent information to the reader.

Finally, your email signature may contain direct advertisement or a call to action button or link. Whether this is appropriate for you depends on who is supposed to read your emails and what your brand strategy is like. Sometimes, a business may benefit from very explicit advertisement, while at other times your email readers may feel like they‘re being shoved down a sales funnel – and that doesn‘t feel nice.

How to Set Up an Email Signature

Most email clients contain options to generate an email signature, and, depending on the elements you are using, these may be enough for you.

Email Signature in Gmail

If you are using Gmail, you can find these settings by clicking on the gear icon and selecting See all settings.

To create a signature, go to the General tab and find the Signature section. Click the Create new button, and then name your signature.

Finally, you will be able to edit all of your signatures, as well as control when and how they are used.

Email Signature in Outlook

If you are an Outlook user, the settings are even easier to find. Simply click on the gear icon and search for the settings you want. Once done, select the Email Signature option.

The window wherein you can input and configure your signature should appear.

Email Signature on iPhone

Finally, if you are an iPhone user, navigate to Settings/Mail and scroll down until you find the Signature setting.

Selecting the Signature setting will open the screen where you can do just that.

There is a great variety of email clients, though, and covering all of them would be impossible. Consult their help sections if you need to know how to locate these settings.

However, a lot of email clients are limited in terms of options for generating automatic signatures. A word processor will typically have more formatting options, and you can use one to create a template which you can then copy and paste into the signature field of your email client and distribute to your staff easily.

Finally, there are email signature generators (such as signature.email and HoneyBook, to name but two we have used in the past). A lot of email marketing tools offer email signature generators, too.

Email Signature Best Practices

Having in mind what your email signature says about you and your brand, you can now take a look at which elements to include and compose your email signature accordingly.

While you can include a lot of information about you or your business in your signature, how much of it is really necessary? Focus on what really matters to you. An email recipient will ideally pay close attention to the main body of the email, but you can‘t count on them to study each and every signature in each and every email they read. Avoid clutter, but do provide the information necessary. Are all your social channels really important? Is there any need for more than one CTA? Try keeping things as simple as possible.

Inconsistent email signatures may look unprofessional in a business setting. If you are running even a small team, set up clear guidelines and take steps to ensure that all your staff who communicate with clients know what information needs to be provided in an email signature.

Many email clients allow you to generate multiple email signature templates, and you should make use of that. Your company may be catering to different audiences, and different audiences require different approaches for best results.

Adapt and optimize your email signatures if you are using them for marketing purposes. If you are using a lot of graphics, make sure the email signature template looks good on different screens.

In Conclusion

An email signature can be as simple as your name and title, but it needn‘t be so. An email signature communicates for you and about you even if you don‘t want it to. So why not make use of that? You can use classic email marketing campaign elements in your email signature, but you don‘t even need to do that in order to make it work for you. Something as simple as choice of colors can promote your brand and a simple link can drive more visitors to your website. Leverage that.

If you know the first thing about email marketing, you know about Mailchimp. Mailchimp being a comprehensive solution for marketing and emailing automation, it is no surprise that it is as popular as it is. However, despite its popularity, Mailchimp is not without alternatives. In this article, we will be talking about Mailchimp alternatives, both free and paid.

There are plenty of good reasons to use Mailchimp, and we have endorsed the service in the past: in our articles on email newsletters and mailing lists, for instance. We have even gone so far as to compile a comprehensive guide on using Mailchimp with WordPress. Still, we are not married to it: good as it is, it may not be the best for everyone.

For instance, some free alternatives offer functionalities reserved for Mailchimp’s paid version. But we are not talking only about businesses operating on a shoestring budget: there are significant differences in features available. We have taken a look at the broad gamut of alternatives to Mailchimp, and are very happy to bring you our picks.

So, without further ado, here are our choices:

HubSpot

Not just an email automation platform, Hubspot combines a suite of marketing tools (such as a landing page builder, a forms builder, and so on) into a solid CRM (customer relations management) platform. While the developer offers different pricing plans, HubSpot’s Email Marketing Tools is available for free in its basic versions, with additional functionalities available through premium plans. The service’s free version boasts a limited emailing feature, a visual template builder, making you independent of designers or programmers, and a feature which lets you organize your subscribers into lists.

Its main limitation is the number of subscribers it services in its free plan, but additional subscribers can be enabled using addons.

Moosend

Moosend is a feature-rich email marketing solution which provides the full range of capabilities. It does not come with a free plan, but it has all you need to run a successful email marketing campaign nonetheless – and more. With Moonsend, you can send unlimited emails to your subscribers, create landing pages and forms using a visual drag-and-drop editor, and segment your audience and manage audience lists for precision targeting. To top it all off, Moosend integrates with a host of popular apps and services, such as WooCommerce, Google Contacts, Facebook Lead Ads, and many more.

Sendinblue

If you are looking specifically for a free emailing service, you should definitely consider Sendinblue. Its free plan allows you to import unlimited contacts, but only send a small number of emails per day (and with Sendinblue branding), making it a great fit for businesses which are just starting up. You also get an email builder and several email templates, audience segmentation, and other important functionalities.

Features such as logo removal, A/B testing, statistics, unlimited sending, Facebook integration, and many more are reserved for paying customers, should you choose to upgrade.

MailerLite

MailerLite is a simple email marketing service that can nonetheless stand in for Mailchimp in many use cases. It boasts a drag and drop editor for emails and forms, email automation, and up to ten different landing pages on its free plan. However, as your subscriptions grow (or in case you want to send your subscribers an unlimited number of emails, you will have to upgrade your plan.

The paid plans offer such additional features as templates, unsubscribe pages, Facebook integrations, promotional pop-ups, and more.

GetResponse

GetResponse is a comprehensive online marketing solution with a whole host of options, and a remarkably feature-rich free plan. The free plan includes a website builder and hosting, including SEO tools, sign up and contact forms, but the real selling point is the unlimited number of emails. With GetResponse, you can send however many emails you like, created using a drag and drop editor alone or in conjunction with one of the many templates from a library.

Still, while the number of emails sendable is unlimited, the free plan does come with a limit on the number of contacts. The email marketing suite of tools comes with functionalities for A/B testing, licences for Shutterstock images, dynamic content tools, and more.

Klaviyo

A premium emailing and SMS marketing solution, Klaviyo offers a broad gamut of marketing tools. You can use it to create campaign newsletters and many other messaging features. It comes with a drag and drop editor and a library of pre-built templates ready to go. Other features include customer profiling, unlimited customer data storage, automated A/B testing, and more. Klaviyo has a dynamic pricing plan based on the number of contacts.

Sender

Sender is a very simple email marketing tool which nonetheless provides you with all the requisite functionalities. You get a library of templates, a drag and drop editor that requires no coding, personalized messaging, email automation, analytics, and more. Features such as removal of Sender branding, SMS messaging, and email previews are reserved for paying customers.

Mailjet

While Mailjet has only a limited free plan, it is nonetheless worth considering. You get all the basic features, including unlimited contacts, with the limits being placed on the number of (branded) emails you can send per day and per month. Its free plan also includes a set of basic statistics tools which allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your email campaign.

Should you decide on a paid plan, you can remove the Mailjet logo from your emails, but also preview your emails, segment your audience, engage in A/B testing, create dynamic content, and more.

SendPulse

SendPulse is a premium, pay as you go solution which comes with a variety of tools, including those for email marketing. The free plan is limited in terms of both subscribers and the number of emails per month, but comes with a visual email editor and some automation features. Even the cheapest paid plan, though, introduces A/B testing, multiple landing pages, and customer segmentation. SendPulse is a decent choice if you are looking for scalability both in terms of the number of your subscribers and your budget.

Constant Contact

An industry leader and a premium solution, Constant Contact has been around for decades. The pricing is based on the number of contacts, but it always includes hundreds of ready-made templates, sign-up forms, Facebook ads, basic real-time reporting tools and social media integration.

Other features are available for advanced users, and they include Google ads integration, lookalike ad targeting, automated emailing, automatic subscriber segmentation, advanced conversion reporting and more.

AWeber

AWeber is another premium solution for all your email marketing needs. It has a free plan with the basic functionalities, including automation, templates, and dynamic content support. It integrates with Canva for easy visual editing of email templates, allowing you to create professional looking designs within minutes. AWeber also comes with extensive automation features, segmentation functionalities, and subscriber tagging for easy targeting.

In Conclusion

Clearly, there is no shortage of solutions for email marketing, and, if you are looking forMailchimp alternatives, you are in luck. But which one is the best for you? Well, that all depends on what you are looking for. Most of these solutions have a free plan or at least a free trial, so you can try them and find the best fit. These free plans are typically limited in terms of either the number of subscribers or the volume of email traffic available, so you even have a choice there.

When a certain market is dominated for so long by one brand, other brands, regardless of their quality, have a peculiarly tough time to position in the market and win their share of the consumers. Microsoft Office 365 has been a synonym for an excellent email server, with Outlook as one of the most popular email clients for years. This powerful platform guarantees a very high level of security, office integrations, and additional extensibility, so it is no wonder that it is the first choice for such a large number of companies.

But not every company needs all the features Outlook can offer. A business needs to change and transform over time, especially in the online world. Some organizations may benefit more from a simpler solution than what Microsoft offers. Luckily, Outlook nowadays has healthy competition, and you can choose from a wide variety of Outlook alternatives.

In this article, we’ll have a closer look at some of the most promising Outlook alternatives. Stay tuned to read more about:

Why Would You Look for a Microsoft Outlook Alternative

The most common reason why the majority of companies look for an Outlook alternative is its price. A standalone license can be bought for $159.99 and can be used for only one device, which obviously is not the most practical or profitable solution for large enterprises or even small businesses.

Apart from the price, many users find a lot of room for improvement when it comes to Outlook’s admin interface. Too many options that the majority of users won’t need or use just make the whole experience unnecessarily complicated.

What’s maybe the most interesting part is that despite its stellar reputation, when it comes to reliability Outlook doesn’t get all As. It is prone to occasional sluggishness, unforeseen crushes, transfer errors, has complex password recovery, and lacks integration with Google Drive. If you experienced some of these issues, or have other reasons to look for an Outlook alternative, there are many great options to consider.

Mailbird

Mailbird is a free email client for Windows that features a contemporary and polished design. It originates from Palo Alto and all of its development takes place in the US. Mailbird’s simplicity of use and the ability to connect with your email accounts from other providers like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AIl, and Outlook are the features that are widely appreciated by its users.

Calendar, address book, and file-sharing features are all integrated so this email client can provide well-rounded support to your business organization. Its interface design might remind of Outlook’s style, while the user experience it provides feels more like Gmail. Thanks to Slack integration, Mailbird also includes chat capabilities. All the functionalities needed for a desktop client come with Mailbird and you can also count on compatibility with Mac and Linux, apart from Windows.

What’s particularly great is that despite the fact that it is free, some premium features like email delegation and multi-account support are included.

Thunderbird

The traditional look of Thunderbird‘s interface made it a popular choice for all those who loved how Outlook Express looked before Windows XP was released. You will surely notice some influence of Gmail’s and Yahoo Mail’s design in some details as well.

This email client is another great, free, open-source alternative that works with all the popular operating systems. As for the technical features, Thunderbird supports POP and IMAP protocols for receiving mails as well as SSL/TLS encryption of the data. Thanks to the IMAP IDLE, synchronization of emails across devices is also possible. It also offers the option to create folders for storing emails. If you find message filters useful, this email client allows you to create filters and define specific actions for specific messages that match certain, defined criteria. This way you can, for example, separate your personal emails from the business ones. Address books and RSS feeds are also included so that you can easily organize your contacts.

For the moment, Thunderbird is only available for Windows and Linux, while for Mac it offers a separate version named Seamonkey.

Google Workspace and Gmail

The mighty Google offers two practical email service solutions – Gmail and Google Workspace. There’s hardly anyone who hasn’t had the chance to use Gmail in some way. This email service is free and persistently stays on top of the best free email clients. Depending on your needs, even Gmail can perfectly serve your business. But, Google also has a strictly business email called the Google Workspace.

Google Workspace allows you to create, delete and edit email accounts within your organization as an administrator. Both Gmail and Google Workspace can meet the needs of a large variety of businesses. But only with Google Workspace you have the possibility to create email addresses with a custom domain, like Jane.Doe@mybusiness.com. Another advantage that comes with Google Workspace is more storage space and shared drives. A calendar is also included which makes it easy to schedule meetings and communicate them across your company.

As both email clients are a part of the Google ecosystem, all the other Google features like Google Drive and Google Docs are also available for use for business purposes. Both Gmail and Google Workspace are web-based email clients and have no desktop version. Some of the features that are most popular include automatic email filters and categories, video meetings, intelligent writing suggestions, spam filters, and many more. As mentioned, Gmail is entirely free, while Google Workspace offers three plans with prices ranging from $6 – $18 per month per user. There’s also a possibility of creating custom plans.

Shift

Shift is a desktop email app that enjoys huge popularity among business users. It is easy to use and allows you to handle emails via keyboard shortcuts which is an amazing time-saver. This app is also a good solution for organizing business tasks as it includes a neat task panel where you can see all the tasks as they are delegated. It is responsive and includes mobile and tablet versions that work seamlessly and are just as practical as the desktop version. Compared to Outlook, Shift may even seem like a minimalistic solution, but don’t let that trick you as this app can support a large variety of business needs. What’s also important to know about Shift is that it is constantly updated and new useful features often emerge. As for compatibility, Shift supports Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

You can download the iOS version of Shift from the App Store for free, but to use all of its features you’ll have to pay the subscription fee. Also, what’s important to know is that Google Workspace is not supported by Shift, only Gmail accounts are.

As for pricing, the basic plan that allows for up to two accounts (Gmail, GSuite, Outlook, Office 365) and up to one app account is free. There are advanced business plans that come at a price of $99.99 per year.

Polymail

Polymail has an attractive design and comes with a versatile set of features that allow you to streamline your communication easily. Thanks to the email tracking feature you will immediately be informed when the receiver opens your message. You also have the option to send reminders to those who skip opening important emails for a long period of time. The snooze functionality allows you to easily prioritize your emails and leave those not so important for a later review.

Apart from the calendar, there are also many more functionalities that allow you to organize your business more effectively. A powerful search functionality lets you find the target message in just a few seconds. You can schedule the emails to be sent at a certain time, schedule meetings directly through the calendar, get push notifications together with reading receipts so that you never miss an email, and many more.

One of the most interesting advanced features is the option to create a custom emails logo. Integration with Slack and Salesforce is also supported so Polymail can also help you manage the workflow more easily. As for the pricing, there’s a free trial version with limited functionality, and three paid plans with prices ranging from $10 – $49 per user per month.

ProtonMail

If you are dealing with a lot of confidential and sensitive information, ProtonMail is one of the best choices. The feature that ProtonMail is most famous for is its “Zero-Knowledge policy” which guarantees a very high level of security and confidentiality of your email correspondence. All the messages and data communicated via this platform are encrypted at all times and not even the company has the power to decrypt them in cases when law enforcement agencies demand so. Simply put, this email client provides you with an incredible level of control over the data exchanged via emails.

Compared to Outlook and some other email clients, ProtonMail’s interface may seem to be a lot less stylish. Nevertheless, the abundance of practical features like a Calendar and Drive easily make up for its shortcomings in terms of design. It also has the option to define an expiration date for emails, after which they are deleted from the recipient’s inbox. ProtonMail is very easy to use and also runs on mobile devices so you can safely work on the go. Thanks to the ProtonVPN that is included for free you can encrypt your internet connection when using public WiFi hotspots or browse the internet anonymously without jeopardizing your business ID or data.

As for the pricing, the basic plan is free, and paid plans range from €48 – €288 per year.

Spike

Spike offers a simple and user-friendly interface that many find very appealing and practical for business. If you don’t really need a variety of features and run a smaller business, the simplicity of this email client may be just enough. The interface only shows the email sender and subject as the concept of Spike’s design makes emails look like chat bubbles on your screen.

This platform allows you to send emails via SMS, create personalized replies and canned responses, create and manage email folders, organize contacts into groups, and many more features that help streamline business communication. There’s also the email tracking option with optional read receipts. You can also write notes, set tasks, and have video chats.

Spike is free for personal use, but there’s also a variety of business plans as well as the possibility to create customized plans for large enterprises. Prices start at $8 per account per month. What’s particularly good about Spike is that many features that are often considered premium, like shared notes and email snoozing, are included in the free plan.

Spark

Spark is compatible with Android, iOS, and Mac, but for the majority of users, it is an excellent Outlook alternative for the Mac. It comes with a clean design and intuitive interface. Thanks to the smart Inbox feature you can collect and automatically categorize emails from different accounts and also set templated responses with the Quick Replies feature. Just like Outlook, Spark also includes schedule delivery, email reminders, snooze, and task management functionalities.

The most popular reason why companies choose Spark as their email client lies in the power of its team collaboration features. This platform streamlines communication across multiple teams within a company. It allows you to create shared email drafts and let entire teams work on them at the same time, leave comments on emails for only your team members to see, and many more features useful for teamwork. It is also possible to forward emails to defined recipients, set deadlines, and get notifications when a task is complete.

The only downside to this may be Spark’s privacy practices. Spark stores your password on a server which enables automatic synchronization of accounts across different devices but also makes it vulnerable to hackers.

As for prices, the basic version is free and the prices for paid plans start from $6.39 per active user per month. There’s also the possibility of creating custom plans.

In Conclusion

All the Outlook alternatives in this list offer different advantages. Some, such as Spark, are more focused on collaboration features. Others focus on providing the safest possible user experience – ProtonMail is one of those. Spike, on the other hand, offers an interesting and unique user interface that looks more like chat and less like a business inbox.

In case you’re looking for a well-rounded alternative that can compete with Outlook in every sense, you’ll probably go with some of the propositions from the top of the list – Thunderbird or Mailbird. Almost all the email clients come with a free version, but when it comes to premium versions prices are very variable. It is up to you to analyze your needs and see which of the email clients meets your expectations best.

WooCommerce is the premier online store solution, and for very good reason: its free version comes with loads of useful functionalities. The most important bit, though, is that it comes with everything you need to start a web store out of the box. However, a lot of functionalities you might need are not immediately included, but rather available through free or premium modules and addons. Among these is an easy way to test WooCommerce email templates.

In this article, we will be showing you several WooCommerce test email techniques. However, we would like to do a little more than just that: we would like to discuss some reasons why you might want to test your templates in the first place. Once we are through with the why, we will be showing you how to work around WooCommerce‘s core features to test the email templates, as well as how to use a free plugin for WooCommerce test email techniques and templates within WooCommerce‘s own interface.

Here‘s what we‘d like to talk about:

Why Test WooCommerce Email Templates

The answer to this should be obvious: if you have a system in place, you want to make sure it does what you set it up to do. But in the specific case of emails, you need to consider that they are the principal means of communication between your shoppers and your business. This makes emails a more important aspect of user experience for stores than for many other types of websites.

Apart from the functionalities you might expect, such as user name and password matters, online stores use emails for a wide variety of notifications, such as order confirmation emails, shipment tracking, promotions, and other important and less important information. This gives the shoppers access to various useful information, but the emails do more than just that: they improve their awareness of your brand, on the one hand, and make shoppers feel safer about entrusting you with their sensitive personal data, on the other.

There is the flip side to consider, though: would you trust an online store or service whose emails aren’t professionally designed, are riddled with errors, or contain bugs? Would you feel safe giving them your name, street address, and credit card information? Do you think your shoppers would?

This is exactly why you might want to make an extra effort to check whether your email templates look and work correctly.

How to Test WooCommerce Email Templates by Editing the Email Template

Email notifications come included in the WooCommerce package. To see how they look for your shoppers, you can send yourself any email notification you like.

To do so, navigate to WooCommerce/Settings from your WordPress dashboard.

Next, click on the Emails tab.

Once there, find an email template and click the Manage button to edit it.

Once there, check the Enable/Disable check box to Enable the email notification in question; in our case, the New order notification. You also need to change the Recipient (s) to your own email address. Finally, click on the Save changes button.

Having done that, navigate to the orders screen by selecting WooCommerce/Orders from your WordPress dashboard.

On the Orders screen, select any order to edit it.

Finally, in the Order action menu, select the Resend new order notification and click the right arrow button.

You will get the email immediately. Open it and review it as you would any other.

Just don‘t forget to return to WooCommerce/Settings/Emails and reset the addresses to avoid any further confusion.

How to Test WooCommerce Email Templates by Creating Dummy Orders

You can also create a dummy order and use your email to see what your shoppers’ user experience looks like firsthand.

To do that, navigate to WooCommerce/Orders from your WordPress dashboard.

On the Orders screen, select any completed order.

Once on the order‘s edit screen, select the pencil icon to edit the billing information, which includes the Email address.

Replace the customer‘s email address with your own, and click the Update button.

Finally, from the Order action menu on the right-hand side, select an action and click the right arrow icon next to it to execute the action.

And you will receive an email notification as if you were the customer who placed the order. You can open it and review it, correcting whatever you find necessary.

You can, of course, do the same with any kind of active or complete order.

How to Test WooCommerce Email Templates Using a Plugin

You will note, however, that the above two methods are workarounds that do not let you test the templates from WooCommerce‘s interface. To do that, we will have to use a plugin. The one we have opted for is free and very straightforward: it‘s called Preview E-mails for WooCommerce.

After having installed and activated the plugin, navigate to WooCommerce/Preview Emails from your WordPress dashboard.

Once there, you will find the plugin‘s very simple interface. From the first drop-down menu up, Choose Email, select an email you wish to preview. We went with the Cancelled order email, but you can, of course, choose whichever email you like. Next down, in the Choose Order menu, you can select an order for which to test the template. You could also search for an order by entering the order‘s ID in the Search Order field below. Finally, in the Mail to field, enter the email address to which you wish the template mailed. Once you are happy with your settings, click the Submit button.

You will immediately see what the email will look like. The email will also be sent to the address you specified, so make sure to use your own address or at least one which won‘t cause confusion.

If you want to test another template immediately, click the Show Menu button.

You have the same menu options as in the plugin‘s interface, as well as the Back to Admin Area link which you can use, unsurprisingly, to return to the admin area.

In Conclusion

As you can see, there are multiple ways to test WooCommerce email templates even if they are not explicitly provided by WooCommerce itself. You can always use the workarounds we have described. However, if you really want to make it easy on yourself, all you need to do is install one simple, user-friendly, and free plugin and, with just a couple of clicks of the mouse, you can very easily test all the email templates you want.

Having a custom email address is important for the authenticity of every brand. For this very reason, most businesses strive to have their email addresses match the domain name of their website. Not only can using emails with your own domain name make you more reliable in the eyes of your potential customers, but it also helps emphasize your professionalism by a long shot. Therefore, if you want your business to stand out in a deserving way, switching to using a custom email address with the name of your domain is practically mandatory. But the true question is – can you achieve this by using Gmail?

The short answer is – yes, you can. And this time around, we are going to list all the steps necessary to use the familiar Gmail platform with your domain name completely for free. We will also talk about how to connect your Gmail to your custom email hosting address using the help of SMTP and POP3 mail protocols (more on this later). Make sure to stick around as we cover:

Creating mail and Custom Hosting Email Accounts

To get started, aside from your domain name, you will also need to have your own web hosting provider and a free Gmail account. Many hosting providers offer a free domain name for at least a year, and this includes WordPress-friendly providers like Bluehost and Hostinger.

Having these two accounts is important so that you can connect them and send and/or receive emails using your custom domain name while on your Gmail account. But, as we’ve already mentioned, you need to have a regular free Gmail account set up first.

In case you already have a Gmail account (your-username@gmail.com), you can use it. That being said, we do recommend separating your business account from the personal one as doing so is far more professional. All in all, you should make sure to add the name of your business or organization when creating your free Gmail address (i.e. your-business-name@gmail.com).

Your next step should be the creation of your custom email using your email hosting (your-name@your-site.com), that is if you haven’t already done that. Go through all of the steps to create your account and sign in.

For example, if you use a hosting service that uses cPanel like Hostinger, you can access your email hosting options by going to Email Accounts and hitting Add email account. Then, add your credentials and hit the Create button.

Most cPanel-based hosts have similar options, so creating an email account shouldn’t be too complicated regardless of the service you’re using.

Using POP3 to Allow Gmail to Receive Emails

After you create your Gmail and custom email account (using your email hosting), you should allow your free Gmail account to import emails from your email hosting account. This can be easily done using the POP3 protocol. Make sure to find and access your POP3 settings in your hosting account.

For example, if you’re using cPanel-based hosting like Hostinger, you should be able to find your POP3 information in your email account’s Configuration settings.

Next, you need to go back to your Gmail settings. You can do this by clicking on the gear icon (located in the upper right corner of your screen).

Hit the Accounts and Import tab and make sure to find the Check mail from other accounts option. Then, hit the button called “Add a mail account”.

A new window will pop up, providing you with the fields and steps you need to follow to add your custom email address to your Gmail account.

After you add your email address, you should click on Next and select the option named “Import emails from my other account (POP3). Hit Next once again.

Then, you will have to insert different bits of information. Make sure to enter your username (usually the part that comes before the “@” sign), password (the one you set when creating your custom Gmail), and Pop server and Port (you can find this using your host provider info).

Also, make sure to mark the first three checkboxes (“Leave a copy of the retrieved message on the server”, “Always use a secure connection”, and “Label incoming messages”).

Finally, click on Add Account when you are done.

Setting Gmail to Send Emails With SMTP

Your next step of the process should be allowing your Gmail to send from your custom email address using the help of SMTP. In other words, you will have to find the SMTP server information in your email hosting and then enter your information in Gmail. More often than not, the SMTP information is located in the same place as your POP3 info.

Once you’ve got the SMTP info you need, click on Accounts and Import in your Gmail settings once again. Search for the option called “Send mail as” and hit the “Add another email address” option.

The popup window will open once again with new steps.

You should insert your name, your custom email address, and make sure to mark the box “Treat as an alias”. Then, click on the next step.

You should simply insert the SMTP info that you found using your email hosting. This includes entering your SMTP server and choosing the Port.

Once again, you should enter the username and password of your custom email. Picking the secured connection method suggested by Gmail is your best bet.

Hit the Add Account button and you’re all set. The only thing left for you to do is to click on the link located in the email automatically sent by the Gmail Team. This will be your confirmation code to use your custom email address.

Wrapping Things Up

And that completes our tutorial on how to enable Gmail to work with your custom domain name. While the process of creating and connecting Gmail to your custom email may seem a bit tricky at first, you will realize that it’s actually not that complicated once you start following the detailed steps we’ve shared with you above. Plus, the benefit of having a professional-looking email address with your brand name while still using the free Gmail service will be well worth it.

So, you should make sure to have a free Gmail account set up first, and then create a custom email account using the hosting provider that allows free email hosting. Next, you find the POP3 and SMTP information in your email hosting account and insert this information into your Gmail account to successfully connect Gmail to your custom email address. If you can’t find these settings in your hosting account or have any other issues, we suggest that you check with your hosting provider.

Email remains one of the most important means of business communication. It provides an easy way to reach a huge number of users and convey all kinds of messages and data. That being said, sometimes mailing issues can occur, causing your email to end up in spam. Or, even if your email does reach its targets, it does not necessarily mean it will get opened. Luckily, you can always set up a feature for tracking email opens to learn which emails you send get clicked on and which ones don’t. And in this article, we will show you how to do just that. But first, let’s see why installing email tracking on your WordPress site might be a good idea in the first place.

What Are the Benefits of Email Tracking?

Email tracking is the process of following whether emails you sent have been opened or clicked on by a recipient. This is usually done by the email tracking service that adds a tracking pixel in your email. This tracking pixel is then able to determine the exact date and time when an email has been opened.

So, if you add an email tracking feature to the emails that get sent from your WordPress site, you will be able to find out who clicks on and opens your emails and who doesn’t. This is especially useful as it allows you to gather information about the emails that get read the most (and vice versa) and even analyze any potential email marketing mistakes you might be making.

Also, while you can always resend your emails in case they haven’t reached the people you’re targeting, if the first email you’ve sent hasn’t been opened, the chances of a follow-up email being clicked are even slimmer. So, you can take advantage of this email tracking data to save yourself valuable time and stop yourself from sending unnecessary follow-up emails that most likely won’t be opened in the first place.

On the other hand, if you see that the emails you send get opened and read regularly by specific recipients (for example, you send them promotional emails once every two weeks and they open them every time), then you will know that these recipients are most likely interested in what you have to say. So in that scenario, you can increase your outreach towards those recipients and send them relevant follow-up emails in a timely manner.

In short, email tracking not only allows you to learn which emails you send get clicked on and which ones don’t, but it also provides you with unique insights that can help you determine whether someone is truly engaged with what you have to say or offer, and then use these insights to your advantage.

So, without further ado, let’s see how you can easily set up this practical feature on your WordPress site using the email tracking plugin. We will be using the free plugin option for our tutorial to ensure that everyone can track their email clicks (despite their budget), so make sure to read on.

Setting Up WordPress Email Tracking With the Help of a Plugin

Nowadays, most email marketing services like HubSpot and MailChimp come with the email tracking feature out of the box, along with reports that offer some in-depth insights about your email marketing campaigns. This includes information about which emails, links, and documents that you send in your emails were clicked (and when). For example, MailChimp has a feature called a click map that provides you with detailed click data related to your campaigns. It also allows you to track where people usually click when they open your emails, including information about how people interact with the links in your content, individual link performance, and more.

That being said, not every business needs to use tools with such comprehensive features, or even lead big email campaigns to begin with. For example, if you own a small-scale business with a relatively modest customer base, then using a simple email tracking plugin with a few basic features is more than enough. This is also true if you only wish to send a few emails to your subscribers from time to time (emails related to your products/services or your brand in general, like limited-time offers, different events, etc.) directly from your WordPress dashboard, and then track whether your customers have opened them.

If this applies to you, then we recommend using a simple plugin called Email Tracker. The plugin is free to use, easy to install, and allows you to effectively track whether the emails you’ve sent from your WordPress site have been clicked on or not. Some of the features include IP tracking as well as the ability to track an unlimited number of emails and see how many times emails have been read, together with the information about the date and time.

What’s also great about Email Tracker is that it’s constantly improved with regular updates, and it’s also compatible with many third-party plugins, including Contact Form 7, Ninja Forms, Gravity Forms, WooCommerce, and the list goes on.

After installing the plugin and activating it, you should head to Email Tracker >> Settings to choose the user roles that will be able to manage all emails. WordPress administrators get the ability to access all emails by default, but if you want, here you can also allow editors, authors, contributors, and any other available user roles to do the same:

Save your changes when you’re done and then click the option called Compose Email located in your admin dashboard.

Here you can fully compose your email and send it to any recipient you like. You will also be able to use From, To, Subject, and other standard email fields.

Once you are done with composing your email, make sure to hit the Send button located below.

Once you send your email (or emails), feel free to go to Email Tracker >> Email Tracker (in your dashboard) to check whether your email has been read. You will be able to see this information in the Read Log section:

You will also be able to view the exact date and time of when the email has been being read and/or clicked on.

If you want, you can also upgrade the plugin to the premium version (with the pricing of $2.42 a month) to use the ability to track whether users have clicked on your email links, together with email reads and clicks. You can start the plugin upgrade process by accessing Email Tracker >> Upgrade.

Conclusion

Using an email tracking service is a good way to help boost the overall efficiency of emails that you send from your WordPress site. Apart from allowing you to learn whether your emails were read in the first place, this feature can help you gain some useful insights about who clicks on your emails most often, as well as what types of emails get opened the most. If you have a relatively modest subscriber base and simply wish to track your email reads directly from your WordPress dashboard, then the free version of the Email Tracker plugin might be your best bet. To get the ability to learn whether your subscribers have also clicked on any of your email links, you can upgrade to the premium version of Email Tracker. But in case you need a more comprehensive set of email tracking features and want an in-depth insight into which links get clicked on in your emails, then we suggest that you opt for one of the leading email marketing services instead. Either way, you can rest assured that you will be able to keep track of all your emails with complete ease.

WordPress websites are incredibly versatile when it comes to monetization options you can use with them. You could say that it’s all up to you – whatever you choose to make with your website and whatever monetization method you decide to apply might work if you’re capable to pull it off. You can try selling stuff via affiliate links, building your own WordPress store, or creating a food blog and monetizing it with ads.

Creating a paid newsletter is another great way to earn money from your website, although it’s not one you see often. Your ability to succeed will depend greatly on your ability to produce awesome content and set up a way to monetize the subscriptions. We’ve offered plenty of advice to help you improve the content and even dip your toes in content marketing. This time, we’ll help you set up a Mailchimp paid newsletter in WordPress.

In this article, you’ll read:

A Primer on Paid Newsletters

Putting content behind a paywall isn’t a new monetization strategy. It was used to prop up a whole section of media – print media – and we’ve seen those same publishers implement that model on their digital outlets. Some did it with more success than others, granted, but either way, the idea of asking people to pay for access to digital content isn’t new. Neither is the idea to deliver that content in the form of a newsletter – and that’s great news for you.

Because this is something people have tried before, you have some information that can guide you. Writing for Mailchimp’s Courier magazine, Substack’s Nadia Eghbal shared that the monthly prices for personal interest newsletters range from $5 to $7. For business newsletters, prices average between $10 and $15, and even more. That’s some great information to have when starting.

Equally useful is the info from the same article about what constitutes a good open rate for newsletters – it’s between 50% and 60% – and that 5% to 10% is a good conversion rate from free to pain newsletter. Of course, all of this is important to you if you plan to develop a free newsletter first, and then piggyback your paid newsletter on it. And that’s something you don’t have to do.

When starting a paid newsletter, you must have some proof that your newsletter will be able to deliver value people will want to pay for. A free newsletter is as good as proof as you can get, but any other kind of content you create can work, too. You can create great articles, or have your own YouTube show, or a podcast, and offer a paid newsletter. Your content should demonstrate the type of newsletters you’ll create, and that you can do it with a consistent level of quality.

Preparing Everything You Need

Now that you know a thing or two more about paid newsletters than you did before you started reading this article, let’s see what are the things that you’ll need to create a paid newsletter. You’ll have some room to pick and choose with some of the components. We’ll let you know what we chose and why.

A WordPress Website

Whether you want to create high-quality articles to draw an audience, or you plan to build up an audience with a free newsletter first, a WordPress website will be an asset you’ll never regret.

Building a WordPress website is easy, and with our Qi Theme, you’ll have free access to a professionally designed WordPress theme. Just install it and import a couple of demos, and you’ll be on your way to creating a great-looking website. Choose a couple of staple plugins, and you’ll be set to go.

A Mailchimp Account

There are a couple of reasons why we’ve chosen Mailchimp for a paid newsletter. One is that Mailchimp is a popular service that offers plenty of integrations that make newsletter monetization easy.

The other reason why you see Mailchimp used for emails all over the place is that WordPress’ native email delivery system is notoriously fickle. It will let you down when you need it the most, and you’ll never be sure whether your newsletter ends up in the trash folder or the inbox.

Tools like Mailchimp take care of that issue. Plus, setting up and using Mailchimp for WordPress is incredibly easy – you just need to make an account on Mailchimp, install a plugin on your website, and connect the two.

A Subscription Management Platform Account

Among the subscription management platforms that integrate with Mailchimp, you’ll find services such as Chargebee and MoonClerk. We’ve opted for Campaignzee because it’s easy to set up – we’ll show you how in the next segment when we talk about connecting Mailchimp to a subscription management platform.

A Payment Processor Account

Different subscription management platforms will work with different payment processors. Campaignzee works with Stripe only, and you need to create a Stripe account for the tutorial to work for you. If you’ve ever made Stripe work with WordPress, you already have an account so you don’t need to create a new one. If you haven’t, they are easy to create.

In case Stripe doesn’t offer service in your region, you’ll have to use one of the other subscription management platforms. Chargebee offers a wide array of payment options, including PayPal, so you might consider giving it a go.

Connecting Mailchimp and Stripe to Campaignzee

At this point, you should have a WordPress website connected to a Mailchimp account, as well as a Stripe account. The next step would be to connect Mailchimp and Stripe to Campaignzee, which you’ll do in the process of creating a Campaignzee account. Head over to the Campaignzee website, click on the “Sign Up” button and provide your email address and a password. After clicking on the “Create Account” button, you’ll be prompted to connect your Mailchimp and Stripe accounts.

Clicking on the “Connect Your Mailchimp Account” button will prompt you to provide your Mailchimp login information. After you do that, you’ll be asked to authorize Campaignzee. You have to accept it to continue with the process, but make sure you read all the text about Campaignzee and app authorization.

After you authorize Campaignzee, you’ll be brought back to the page where you can connect Mailchimp and Stripe. With Mailchimp down, Stripe is next – click on the “Connect Your Stripe Account” button. You’ll be asked to provide Stripe login information and prompted to choose which account you want to connect to Campaignzee. You’ll also be able to create a new account.

After you’ve connected Mailchimp and Stripe to Campaignzee, you’ll access the Lists menu which will show all of the lists you have in Mailchimp as well as their status. Click on a list, and you’ll be prompted to create a subscription form for it. You’ll have to provide information about the list, including the author’s name, a support email, a description, terms and conditions, and a signup message.

After providing that information and activating the list, you’ll be able to access the list setting and create a listing plan. Creating a plan is fairly simple – you just need to provide the name, amount, currency, interval, and an optional trial period.

After you’ve created the plan, you’ll notice that, when you access the list for which you’ve created it, there’s an additional button titled “Links” right next to the “Settings” button.

Pressing that button will show the link where the subscription form for your newsletter is hosted, as well as some code that will allow you to embed the form on your website. This is what the hosted form looks like.

You can choose how you want to share the form with your users. Either way, your job is done – you’ve created a paid newsletter with Mailchimp and WordPress, and you can start charging people for the awesome content you create.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

The ability to create content people will find useful, or funny, or maybe both is something you should consider monetizing. One way to do it is using a paid newsletter – a method that’s not as mundane as some others are, but that’s been used enough time for us to know that it could work.

If you decide to try and create a paid newsletter with WordPress, Mailchimp will be tremendously helpful. With it, a service like Campaignzee, and Stripe, you’ll have your newsletter up and running in no time!