Sendinblue Review 2022: A Way to Up Your Digital Marketing Game

June 27, 2022
| Maria Harutyunyan |
11 min read
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Looking for some practical tools to succeed with your email marketing campaigns?


Nowadays, effective outreach softwares help the biggest companies in the world become even more successful.


If you want to communicate with your clients, create stronger business ties, and get the word out to your prospects, then Sendinblue, one of the most popular marketing and sales tools has got you covered. 



What is Sendinblue?


Sendinblue offers an all-in-one sales and marketing platform with features such as Email Marketing, SMS Marketing, Chat, CRM, Marketing Automation, Landing Pages, Shared Inbox, and more. It serves over 180,000 expanding businesses around the world with its cloud-based digital marketing tools. It really offers the complete kit. There's a nice email design tool, great reports, and advanced features like A/B testing, contact management, and so on.


Using Sendinblue, you will be able to hold as much of the sales as possible by minimizing any extra operating costs. With the free plan, you can try out the tool without any investment, to see if you like it. With the help of its outreach tool you can manage email campaigns, send text messages, and automate the process of engaging with contacts to build effective customer relationships through targeted communication.


Pros
Omnichannel marketing for the same cost as email marketing alone
Highly developed and engaging email and landing page templates (Drag and Drop Email Designer)
Offers transactional and auto responder email options
Use web, email, social media, SMS, and chat to build stronger relationships with your clients.
Try A/B testing to learn what content works best.
There is an algorithm which decides the most effective time for sending emails for each contact. So, it automatically schedules the next email campaign.
Cons
Sendinblue provides over 60 email templates to choose from. But compared to other vendors that offer hundreds of free email templates, the number of templates in Sendinblue is quite limited.
While its CRM features are useful, it lacks opportunity management, quote management, meeting scheduling, and other CRM-specific features.

Who is it for?


The marketing automation tool from SendinBlue is a simple-to-use solution for anyone who wants to create new workflows or automate basic email sequences. It offers email marketing solutions aimed mostly at small to midsize businesses (SMBs) who are looking for a SaaS solution for relationship marketing, and need a software to automate email marketing campaigns, even if they have a limited budget.


Sendinblue Pricing




The price of Sendinblue is determined by the number of email messages sent rather than the number of contacts in your account. Sendinblue provides completely free accounts that allow you to send up to 300 emails per day. You can upgrade to a plan that meets your needs as your company expands without breaking the bank.


The Lite ($25/m) plan doesn’t pose a daily sending limit. It also offers A/B testing. The Premium ($65) and Enterprise also provide marketing automation for multiple users. The Enterprise plan is different in that it provides a more personalized approach to the emails, with custom volume and priority sending. With the Enterprise plan, you can create more than 20 landing pages.


Sendinblue Key Features

Email Marketing


To create an email campaign, sign in to the Sendinblue account and go to Campaigns > Email > Create my first email campaign. 



Personalize your content


We start from the Sendinblue dashboard. First thing you should know is how to import contacts. Go to the top left and click on “Contacts,” then on the top left you will see “Import contacts.” You should download email contacts as a CSV file from your other email marketing provider then you can upload it by clicking on the button “Upload a file.” 



The next step is mapping the contact data. Here it sorts all types of data and you should make sure that it assigns the right data to the right column. For example, in the section called names you have the name of the recipient, in the email section you have an email, IP address, and so on. 


After this, you should confirm the mapping and select the list where you want to put these contacts. To finalize the import, there are some configurations and settings you should modify and confirm that you have the permission to put those emails inside of our account. You can also set up a new sender email. 


Once you are done with finalizing the list of your contacts you can go to the “Templates” section on the dashboard. You already have some default templates, but you can of course make a new one. Find more free templates here.


Design


You should first fill in the basic information such as the campaign name, subject line, preview text, email. Once you are finished, move to the next step to continue designing. 

  • The first option is to use full opportunities of the drag and drop editor to design stunning newsletters. Here can customize the layout of your letter with only a few clicks.


  • You can also employ the Rich Text editor which will allow you to create plain text emails.


  • Another variant is to simply copy and paste your code in the HTML editor and work with your coded material from scratch.



Contact Segmentation


On the next step, you select your list and apply contact filters if you wish. Sendinblue gives you unlimited lists and contacts, so you can be as creative as you want! Here you should simply select the list of contacts you have already gathered through the other steps, from previous and ongoing campaigns. 


For a more targeted approach, you might want to take your strategy further by choosing even smaller segments based on criteria you select. 


Sending 


Once you've decided which contacts to include in the workflow, you'll use a series of "if/then" conditions to pick what to send with your next step in communication. The follow up messages are organized based on the opens. Different response emails are sent to the recipients who open the emails and those who don’t. There is an unlimited number of interactions you can generate within a workflow. However, your account is limited to the number of emails you can send.



You can either choose to send your message at the moment or schedule a specific time or just click on the “send it at the best time” button. With the help of this "Send at the Best Time" algorithm, you can take the stress out of scheduling your next email campaign. It uses a machine learning model to automatically predict the send time with the highest probability of engagement for each contact over the course of 24 hours, based on anonymized behavior from previous campaigns and aggregated profiling data.

A/B testing 


A/B testing is one of the automation workflows available in Sendinblue. This provides you with the necessary insight into your campaigns so that you can meet your campaign objectives. You should keep on top of the metrics as well as other A/B research figures for 2020, whether it's to increase open or click-through rates.


In just a few clicks, you can set up your A/B testing conditions with Sendinblue. You can add any condition you like by simply clicking on the plus keys. You may use A/B testing to test various aspects of an email, such as the subject line, copy, and call-to-action, among other things. After you've completed the exam, look at the A/B test results to see which version performs better.


SMS Marketing 



To begin with, creating an SMS campaign requires almost the same steps as an Email campaign. First you should do the setup and fill in some basic information such as the name of the campaign and the sender.

Short codes, rather than full phone numbers, are used to send SMS marketing messages.  These short codes are usually 5-6 digits long and can be assigned to a single sender or shared among several.


Many nations, including the United States, prohibit the alteration of sender information. This means that your message will appear as a text message from your provider's short code (not from your business). That is why it is critical to include the name of your company in the message.

Once you choose your recipients’ lists you should confirm and start sending the messages. 


With SMS marketing, you can send two kinds of messages:


1. Campaign messages that are bulk text messages sent to a large number of people. Promotions (coupons, sales, etc.) and general information are usually communicated through them (event details, updates, weather alerts, etc.).


2. Transactional messages are one-to-one messages that are sent in response to a specific event or behavior. An order confirmation or shipping notification for an e-commerce purchase is an example of this. These messages provide individuals with accurate and timely information.


CRM 


Keep all of your contact information in one place, including notes from past calls or meetings and related documents that you can upload directly into the CRM contact profile. Make any necessary changes only once, rather than remembering where your contact information is stored.



Use different lists to coordinate your contacts based on similar features, acquisition source, conversion funnel step, or any other criteria that you find useful!


To stay on track, create tasks in your CRM, assign them to different members of your team, and set a deadline. Take things a step further by using marketing automation to automate follow-up emails and contact list management. 


It should also be noted that Sendinblue allows you to integrate other CRM platforms if the need be. 

Monitoring email performance 

A transactional email, also known as a trigger email, is sent to a single recipient triggered by a specific action. Sendinblue is an email marketing app that also serves as a third-party SMTP server. Instead of using a webmail client or their own server, the users have the choice of sending email via Sendinblue account by activating SMTP. 

From delivery to click, real-time statistics show the entire journey of your transactional mailings. These events are aggregated by the second and minute in the real-time perspective. This allows you to keep track of your sending volume and identify any potential problems as they arise.


Respond to leads and clients' questions in real time, right from your Sendinblue Chat Inbox! To make things even simpler, you can see directly in the chat which page of your website the visitor is on, saving both your and your clients’ time.


You can also easily organize customer emails among your team members, as well as assign conversations to one another and mark them as resolved.

Reporting and Analytics 


SendinBlue can monitor specific data for you once you've created an email automation workflow.


Automation workflow


On the top bar on your account you should be able to see a button “Automation.” Here you can click on “create a workflow.” Then if you choose a custom workflow you should choose a name and a description. The people who we want to put in this workflow are the people who signed up with our form. Our entry point can be for example “a contact submitted a form.” Everybody who signed up with this form will be automatically put in this workflow. We can send immediate email welcoming them to our newsletter. 



So you can add more steps in forms of emails, sms or anything else then add a “delay” (one day for example). This creates a sequence of emails to be sent automatically with a specific time gap. Finally you should click on the “Activate workflow” button on the top left. 


You can check the statistics of your email, how many people opened or clicked any links in the emails. To do that you should go to the “Statistics” on the left. When it comes to reporting and analytics, SendinBlue's program keeps track of all the important email metrics, such as:



  • Sending, bouncing, opening, and clicking
  • A/B testing results for subscription and unsubscribe rates
  • Automated marketing statistics


It also ensures integration with Google Analytics. Sendinblue applies tracking codes to your email campaign links automatically. As a result, you can use Google Analytics to track all of the people who have opened your emails and decide which promotions are the most successful.

Integration and API 


Since SendInBlue is part of the Zapier library, you can use it to link your account to hundreds of other apps. Consider lead generation tools, online courses and learning management systems (LMS), event management, e-commerce, analytics, and content management systems (CMS).


SendinBlue comes with a number of built-in integrations, including Drupal, WordPress, SalesForce, Magento, Shopify, Wix and others. The SendinBlue WordPress plugin, for example, is extremely common.


Other Features

Landing Pages and Sign up forms 


You can also use Sendinblue to create landing pages, even without any coding skills. There are hundreds of pre-made landing page templates, but you can also make your own with the drag-and-drop landing page builder!


The drag-and-drop form builder is also used for making signup forms.

Facebook Ads 


With Sendinblue you can also create Facebook ads to help you achieve your business objectives. You will just need to upload your image, enter your ad text, and then select a CTA that corresponds to your goal.


Using Facebook's lookalike audience feature from your Sendinblue account, you can either retarget a particular list of contacts directly or use a contact list to find new people who are similar to these contacts. You can also set up your ad parameters. 

Alternatives

 


Sendinblue is one of the most useful influencer marketing softwares. But in case you are looking for similar outreach tools that you would like to try before picking your final choice, we recommend you explore BuzzStream, Mailshake, Pitchbox, and Yesware.

Maria Harutyunyan

Our blog covers a combination of industry trends and professional insights from behind-the-scenes experiences. We provide weekly updates on link building, content marketing, on-site and technical SEO, and more! Sign up for our newsletter and join our LinkedIn to be on top of industry trends!

Maria Harutyunyan
Our blog covers a combination of industry trends and professional insights from behind-the-scenes experiences dealing with every aspect of SEO. We provide weekly updates on topics such as link building, content marketing, on-site and technical SEO and more! Don’t miss any industry updates by signing up for our newsletter! You’ll also receive exclusive SEO strategies and learn about industry secrets like:

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