Despite the plethora of digital communication channels today, email is certainly the most used and the one that can ensure the highest conversion and engagement rates. From there, the question becomes which tool(s) to choose.

There are a lot of solutions for sending "massive" emails. They generally provide several tools among which visual editors, access to statistics, campaign and subscriber list management tools or automation and workflow tools.

Among the known solutions used at Talk to me, we can mention Mailchimp, Mailjet, Twilio or Sendinblue. We integrate them to various degrees or for various purposes, but we prefer some of them, like Sendinblue.

This provider has a number of strengths that we discuss here. Sometimes in comparison to Mailchimp which remains the most used and known tool.

Rates

Compared to Mailchimp, this is clearly a first strong point. After a period of customer acquisition based on aggressive pricing, Mailchimp has completely revised its pricing plans and these have gone up, especially when you have to use the advanced features and/or when the number of subscribers climbs. The Mandrill transactional email tool is also no longer available separately.

Sendinblue has a clear and easy-to-understand pricing structure with a very attractive premium rate of 49 euros and advanced features available from the first rates.

Sendinblue has a clear and easy-to-understand pricing structure with a very attractive premium rate of 49 euros and advanced features available from the first rates.

Multichannel

Sendinblue is obviously first and foremost a mailing tool, with a simple but sufficient template editor. It offers a certain number of "starter" templates for classic cases, especially in e-commerce. We will see later, but the scripting language is very powerful and easy to use. In addition to that, Sendinblue allows you to manage the sending of SMS, as well as the possibility to integrate a CHAT to your site. Always practical.

Sendinblue provides integrated SMS management

Marketing automation and transactional emails

Certainly the BIG strong point of this solution. Mailchimp has a lot of automation triggers, but where Sendinblue shines is with its visual editor that allows you to clearly build, view, adjust and debug the workflow.

In concrete terms, this allows you to send fully automated emails following the actions of your users on your site. For example, an abandoned cart, the sending of a discount code for your loyal customers, the completely automated sending of emails to participants in your online courses, etc..

The best part is that this tool is available from the free price plan. The limit is set at a subscriber list of 2'000 people. But this allows you to start comfortably already.

Integrations and APIs

Another area where Sendinblue stands out is in the connectivity with your applications.

Plugin and Zapier

Concretely it offers a lot of plug-ins or integration via Zapier. The plug-ins cover common CMS and e-commerce solutions, such as Wordpress, Wix, Prestashop, WooCommerce, Magento, or Shopify.

Having tested the respective solutions for Wordpress and WooCommerce, we can say that the integration work is very clean and makes the job much easier. It would take an article in itself for the WooCommerce part, but know that it will take your site to the next level.

API

An API is an interface that allows you to program an application. A good analogy is a restaurant: the menu is the API, your order is a "call" to the API, the dishes that will come from the kitchen are the result of the call. So the Sendinblue API will allow you to remotely call almost any order offered in the Sendinblue interface from the software of your choice. But which application will you ask for?

In the restaurant: the menu is the API, the order is a "call" to the API, the dishes served by the kitchen are the result

• Automatically synchronize your customers from the CRM
• Automatically send an SMS to your customers when your delivery person leaves the pizzeria
• Send an email/SMS one day before a dental appointment.

Engagement and statistics

The cockpit of your mailing solution is of course the tools that allow you to analyze the deliverability and engagement rate of both your campaigns and your transactional emails. These two areas are well supplied with the following statistics and tools:

• Performance (Delivered, opened, bounced, blocked, ....)
• Heatmap on your emails: Which buttons and areas generate the most clicks?
• A/B testing: Create two versions of an email and analyze which one works better?

Deliverability and dedicated IP

Probably the most asked question among customers? Why are my emails going to SPAM? There are many causes, but one of them is the use of a series of identical IPs (unique number identifying the email sender). On free or low cost accounts, these are shared with several customers.

It's like having one phone in a 30-story building. If the neighbor of the second floor is having fun placing fake orders at the local pizza shop, chances are that the shop will block the number. Even if you are the one calling to order for 12 people, the pizzeria won't know and will still block your call.

To get around this, the best is to work on the principle of IP addresses dedicated to your own use. Already your customers will not see the "info@mon-domaine.ch via Mailchimp), but you can manage your own "reputation".

Responsive support in French

One point that is not necessarily expected for SaaS platforms is a support that answers your questions quickly, including in French. We have not tested all platforms, but we appreciate this service.

In conclusion

This is obviously not an exhaustive comparison of each product. Rather, it is a review of tools that we have been using and integrating for projects and clients for several years. If you would like some guidance, please contact us.

To go further

https://www.emailtooltester.com/en/blog/sendinblue-vs-mailchimp/