Choosing an email marketing platform should not feel like spinning a wheel and hoping for the best. The right tool helps you grow your list, send the right messages at the right time and see what actually makes money. The wrong one becomes another monthly bill and a reason to avoid your inbox.
Start with your goals
Before you compare features, get clear on what you need email to do for your business in the next 12 months. Examples:
- A weekly newsletter that builds trust and drives steady traffic to your site
- Lead nurturing for sales calls with automated follow ups
- Ecommerce revenue from product launches, abandoned carts and post purchase upsells
- Simple sequences for webinars, courses or digital products
If your only plan is a monthly newsletter, you do not need enterprise level bells and whistles. If you sell online and want serious segmentation, you will need stronger automation and product data. Decide the outcomes first, then pick the platform that makes those outcomes easy.
Email Deliverability and the boring but vital setup
Great content is useless if your emails land in junk. Look for:
- Clear guidance for authentication set up, specifically SPF, DKIM and DMARC
- A custom sending domain rather than a generic shared one
- List hygiene tools for removing inactive contacts
- Sensible send throttling and warm up advice for new or imported lists
If deliverability support looks like an afterthought, keep shopping. Good providers make setup straightforward and provide useful diagnostics so you can fix issues quickly.
GDPR and compliance for UK businesses
You need a platform that respects privacy and makes compliance practical. Check for:
- A proper Data Processing Agreement you can sign
- Easy double opt in settings and compliant forms
- One click unsubscribe links in every email
- Clear record keeping so you can prove consent if asked
- Data export tools so you can move if you ever need to
If you collect data from the EU or UK, choose a provider that explains where data is stored and how it is protected. No platform can make you compliant on its own, but a good one will not get in your way.
List management and segmentation
Healthy lists are organised lists. Look for flexible tagging and segments so you can group people by behaviour, interests or lifecycle stage. Useful examples:
- New subscribers who have not opened yet
- Customers who have bought in the last 90 days
- Leads who clicked a pricing link but did not book
- Subscribers interested in specific products, services or topics
Strong segmentation lets you send fewer emails and make more sales. If the platform limits you to one master list or clunky filters, you will outgrow it fast.
Email Automation and customer journeys
Automation turns your best follow up into something that runs every day. Look for:
- A visual builder that is easy to follow
- Triggers based on form submissions, page visits, purchases and tags
- Branching logic so you can change paths based on behaviour
- Time delays, goals and exit conditions
- Reusable blocks or templates for common steps
If you build even one solid welcome sequence and one simple nurture flow, you will feel the difference. Advanced tricks are nice, but you should not need a computer science degree to set up a basic journey.
Templates, branding and personalisation
Emails should look like your brand, not like a sampler pack of random layouts. Check:
- Brand kit features, such as saved colours, fonts and logos
- A clean drag and drop editor that does not fight you
- Mobile responsive templates that do not break
- Personalisation tokens for names, products or recent actions
- Dynamic content blocks that change based on segment or behaviour
Plain text often performs well, so do not obsess over design, but make sure you can produce a tidy, on brand email in minutes.
Testing and analytics you will actually use
You need to know what works. Look for:
- A B or multivariate testing tool for subject lines and content
- Clear reporting on opens, clicks and conversions
- Revenue attribution if you sell online
- Link tracking that plays nicely with your analytics platform
- Cohort or segment reports so you can spot patterns over time
If the dashboard feels like a slot machine flashing lights, that is a warning sign. You want numbers you can act on, not noise.
Integrations with your existing stack
Email should not sit in a silo. Check the integration gallery and make sure you can connect:
- Your website platform, such as WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce or Squarespace
- Your booking tool, course platform or webinar software
- Your CRM, payment processor and membership plugins
- Automation bridges like Zapier or Make for the odd one out
- Facebook and Google for audience syncing, if you run ads
Native integrations are best. If everything relies on third party zaps, you may run into limits and brittle connections.
If you run ecommerce
Some platforms were built for ecommerce and it shows. Must haves include:
- Real time sync of product catalogue, orders and customer profiles
- Prebuilt flows for abandoned cart, post purchase and win back
- RFM or lifecycle segments, so you can target high value customers
- Back in stock and price drop notifications
- Transactional email support to keep receipts and order updates in one place
If you are on Shopify or WooCommerce, shortlist tools that specialise in ecommerce first, then compare price and ease of use.
If you are a creator or service business
Your needs are usually simpler, but you still benefit from automation. Look for:
- Easy lead magnet delivery with tagged opt ins
- Clean broadcast workflow for newsletters
- Simple sales funnels for discovery calls or intro offers
- Built in landing pages for quick campaigns
- Basic digital product or subscription support if you sell content
Do not pay for heavyweight features you will never touch. You want speed and clarity.
Pricing without surprises
Pricing pages can be slippery. Avoid shocks by checking:
- How subscribers are counted, active contacts only or total contacts
- What happens if you exceed your tier, automatic upgrade or hard cap
- Monthly send limits, some plans restrict the number of emails per contact
- Cost of extra user seats and permissions
- Charges for add ons like SMS, transactional email or advanced features
- Annual discounts and contract terms
- Migration or setup fees, some providers charge for concierge onboarding
Make a simple spreadsheet with your current list size, expected growth and average sends per month. Model the cost for 12 months on two or three platforms. Pick the one that still looks fair when you hit your target numbers.
Usability and support
You or your team will live in this tool. Test:
- How fast the editor loads and saves
- Whether you can find things without hunting through menus
- Quality of the help centre and how to videos
- Live chat response times during UK business hours
- Access to email or phone support on your plan
- Availability of a human onboarding session
A platform that saves you ten minutes per campaign is a quiet win that compounds across the year.
Data ownership and portability
You should be able to leave as easily as you arrive. Confirm that you can export:
- Contacts with tags, custom fields and consent data
- Templates and images
- Automations, even if only as a visual map or JSON file
- Reports, including revenue data if relevant
Vendors that make exports painful are telling you something. Believe them.
Popular Email Marketing Platforms
Every business is different, but here is a simple way to think about the usual suspects.
- MailerLite. Clean interface, sensible pricing and enough automation for most small businesses. A good default if you want simple, reliable and quick to learn.
- Mailchimp. Broad feature set and a huge integration library. Good for general newsletters and simple automation. Reporting and templates are familiar to many teams, which helps with handover.
- ActiveCampaign. Strong automation and built in CRM features. Suits service businesses that want deeper pipelines and scoring without buying a separate CRM.
- Brevo. Known for transactional email and SMS alongside campaigns. Pay by email volume is attractive if you keep a lean list.
- Kit. Built with creators in mind. Simple automations, tags and products make it useful if you sell courses, downloads or memberships.
- Klaviyo. Ecommerce focused with robust Shopify and WooCommerce integrations. Excellent for behaviour based flows and revenue attribution.
- HubSpot. A full suite rather than just email. If you already use HubSpot CRM and want everything under one roof, this can make sense. If not, it is often more than you need.
Treat these as starting points. Test the two that map most closely to your goals and stack.
Getting Started with Email Marketing
Try before you buy
Most platforms offer a free trial. Use that time like a dress rehearsal. In the trial, aim to:
- Connect your domain and set up authentication
- Build one branded template and send a real campaign to a small test segment
- Create one simple automation, such as a welcome sequence
- Import a sample of contacts with tags and check the data looks right
- Pull a report and see if the numbers are clear
If the trial feels clunky or you hit support walls, believe that too.
Plan your migration
Moving platforms is not hard with a little prep. Use this plan:
- Audit your current setup. List forms, tags, segments, templates and automations.
- Clean your list. Remove bounces and long term inactives.
- Export everything that matters, including consent timestamps.
- Recreate key templates and core automations in the new platform.
- Warm your sending gradually. Start with your most engaged segment, then scale.
- Keep the old account live for a month so you can double check reports and catch stragglers.
Set aside time for testing. A focused week beats a slow, half finished migration that drags for months.
A simple decision scorecard
Give each item a score from 1 to 5, then add them up for your shortlist.
- Ease of use for my team
- Deliverability support and diagnostics
- Automation power I will actually use
- Integrations with my website, store and tools
- Reporting that answers my questions
- Pricing at my current and projected list size
- Quality and speed of support
- GDPR clarity and data portability
If a platform scores well and feels good to use, you have your answer.
Quick checklist
- Clear goals for the next 12 months
- Authentication set up plan
- GDPR boxes ticked
- Segmentation model mapped
- One welcome sequence planned
- Template and brand kit ready
- Integration list confirmed
- Pricing modelled for growth
- Trial tasks completed
- Migration steps scheduled
Need a hand with Email Marketing?
If you want this done without the faff, My Tech VA can help. We audit your current setup, recommend the right platform, migrate your data, set up authentication, build your core automations and hand over with training. No lock in, no drama.
Email us today at [email protected] and ask about our email marketing packages.