Affiliate marketing, as a less traditional marketing strategy, is taking the world by storm. Affiliate marketing allows you to take a commission in referral sales, and it could easily enable you to escape the caged employee routine. If you are starting out with affiliate marketing, I recently posted an article of the highest paying affiliates in 2020.
The statistics behind affiliate marketing show that 81% of brands and 84% of publishers tap into the excellent benefits accrued by using affiliate marketing. By the end of 2020, the spending on affiliate marketing will exceed $6.8 billion in the US alone.
Couple affiliate marketing with the best and most suitable email marketing software, and you get success knocking on your door. This post will guide you on all the best autoresponders and email marketing software you can use in 2020.
We have prepared a list of email marketing software that we consider to be the best options for email marketers and the reasons for this. You’ll also get more information on other software that should be avoided by email marketers and the reason why we feel this way.
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How To Choose the Best Email Marketing Autoresponder for Affiliate Marketers
As we established before, to run successful campaigns, you need the best software for email marketing. To get the best out of your email marketing software for your affiliate marketing venture, consider the following factors:
- Rate of delivery.
- Marketing automation option.
- Available plans and pricing.
- Ease of use from start to finish.
- Available trial period.
Before we go deeper into how these factors influenced our choice of the juiciest email marketing software for affiliate marketing, let us first get done with that software that you, as an affiliate marketer, should avoid.
Software Affiliate Marketers should avoid and why
The list you’ll see below has some software that appeared on our 2020 list of Best Email Marketing Software. However, if you do not want bogus or zero returns from your campaigns as an affiliate marketer, we recommend avoiding the four below (more to be added later). Most of them currently don’t support any sort of affiliate activity.
Mailerlite
Mailerlite might be one of the cheapest options available, but please avoid it if you plan on using your email list for affiliate offers. Their terms of use are a bit hazy on Affiliate Marketing, which they prohibit and Affiliate Links, which they allow.
Mailchimp
MailchimpMailchimp’s Terms of Use also prohibit Affiliate Marketing but allow Affiliate Links in their campaigns.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign isn’t that friendly towards affiliate marketers, despite their unique approach to automation funnels that would be a massive boost to affiliates.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact has made a deliberate stance towards protecting its reputations and its customers by avoiding such users as niche affiliate marketers. They argue it is useful since such marketers as usually associated with spam.
Now, below you’ll find a list of the five best email marketing software for affiliate marketers.
5 Best Email Marketing Software for Affiliates
Based on the criteria we provided above for selecting the best email marketing software for your affiliate marketing endeavors, here is a list of a compilation of the best choices available:
- GetResponse
- Aweber
- ConvertKit
- SendLane
- Actionetics
- EmailOctopus
#1. GetResponse
GetResponse is like an autoresponder on steroids and copious amounts of coffee. It is our overall best email marketing software for affiliate marketing and one of the best email marketing software in general.
GetResponse earned this spot for the following reasons:
Deliverability
GetResponse has the best deliverability, and they aren’t shy when it comes to declaring this openly. GetResponse has an overall deliverability rate of 99% for all their collective customers.
Automation
GetResponse Marketing Automation lets users build a scoring model for handling best leads and a function for tagging that will allow you, an affiliate marketer, to encourage and follow up on subscribers you wish to by remembering their behaviors automatically. Their automation also will enable you to create stackable workflows, trigger suitable actions, and add filters for a more sharpened targeting.
Pricing and Plans
GetResponse has the following plans:
Basic
This plan starts at $15 per month. It allows for a list size of up to 1000 contacts and has such features as email marketing, autoresponders, unlimited landing pages, and automation templates and landing pages and sales funnels.
Plus
Plus plan is the most popular and starts at $49 per month. The Plus plan has a limit of upto 100,000 contacts and includes every feature in Basic and such additional ones like Automation Builder and 5Webinar funnels.
Professional
With a list of up to 100,000 contacts, you can get this plan starting at $99 per month. You will get everything in Plus and such extra features as unlimited sales funnels and webinar funnels.
Enterprise
This plan offers tailored solutions for users with over 100,000 contacts. You can get a quote for their Enterprise plan by contacting them. The Enterprise solution offers everything in Professional plus such extras as an account manager and dedicated IP address.
If you wish to see more on their plans and pricing, follow this link.
Ease of Use
GetResponse offers you the best landing pages without complicating the access to this platform. Their beautiful, pre-built templates for email makes using GetResponse a breeze.
Trial Period
You can try GetResponse free for 30 days.
#2. Aweber
Aweber came second on our list because even though it is considered friendly towards affiliate marketing through email, it isn’t reputedly sophisticated when email marketing automation is considered. And, the platform doesn’t have landing pages. Otherwise, it offers other great features.
Deliverability
Aweber rightfully brags more than 51years years of experience in deliverability with a dedicated team and in-house 24/7 reputation management system to ensure the users’ email security.
Automation
With the Aweber automation tool, you will automatically send a sequence of emails you have set up. You will be able to send triggered email campaigns and use your customers’ actions for user tagging. Their drag and drop builders also are used to create automated sequences easily.
Pricing and Plans
Aweber has the following plans based on the number of subscribers:
- 0-500 subscribers at $19 per month
- 501-2,500 subscribers at $29 per month
- 2,501-5,000 subscribers at $49 per month
- 5,001-10,000 subscribers at $69 per month
- 10,000-25,000 subscribers at $149 per month
- For more than 25,000, you have to contact them for pricing.
From these plans, you get such features as unlimited sending privileges, drag, and drop builder, impressive template library, 750+ native integrations, and many more. To view all the plans, their pricing, and features included, just hit this link.
Ease of Use
Aweber might not have the best functionality as compared to GetResponse, but it is relatively easy to use. They also avail customer support in case any user gets stuck or encounters any difficulties. The drag and drop feature also does wonders in easing use.
Trial Period
Aweber offers its users a 30 day free trial period.
#3. ConvertKit
When it comes to the most excellent combination of power and interface sleekness, then ConvertKit is a powerhouse with what might be the sleekest interface for users today. ConvertKit is mainly designed for creators and has made it third onto this list for this and more pros, as discussed below:
Deliverability
ConvertKit boasts a deliverability rate of 98.9% on over a billion messages sent, as seen in their April 2020 Deliverability Report. For all emails sent via this platform, the average open rate is 32.3%, which means this senders reputation can be ranked as very high.
Automation
ConvertKit uses a visual automation builder to send timely, targeted, and focused content with ease. This tool will help you as a creator to create powerfully automated funnels, establish rules and let the app do the rest, use actions to customize a subscriber path, be a step ahead of your subscriber, segment your audience and send well-targeted content.
Pricing and Plans
ConvertKit has the following plans for you:
Free
To kick start your interest in ConvertKit, they offer the first plan, Free plan, at absolutely no cost. This plan comes with unlimited landing pages and customizable CTAs + signup forms, unlimited traffic, customizable domain setups, and an option to manage 500 subscribers.
Complete
This plan starts at $29 per month. It includes everything from Free plan and such additions as an option to manage 1,000 subscribers, visual automation funnels, and automated email sequences.
You can get more info on ConvertKit’s plans and pricing by visiting them here.
Ease of Use
As an online creator, ConvertKit offers you opt-in forms that are easy to embed and customizable. It has a very basic email editor, with only a few templates available. However, the editor might be a bit complicated to learn and use, and it might not be suited if you aim at sending attractive emails.
Trial Period
Apart from a Free plan, ConvertKit has a free 14 day trial period for potential subscribers of their Complete plan.
#4. SendLane
Sendlane is another friendly for affiliate marketers. However, they, too, have their ‘line on the sand’ that clearly defines what they do and do not accept as far as affiliate marketing is concerned. Their cool-kind approach towards email marketing in general and their availability of affiliate links that affiliate marketers can use to make a few bucks has earned the fifth spot on our list.
Deliverability
Sendlane deliverability cannot be quoted in a precise percentage, so the issue is a bit vague, but it is lower than that of ConvertKit, Aweber, and GetResponse.
Automation
Sendlane also incorporates behavior-based marketing automation in its platform, such automated funnels as abandoned cart funnels. They offer in-depth website tracking and data-driven messaging. They also provide a quite competitive segmentation tool for targeting campaigns.
Pricing and Plans
Sendlane offers the following plans:
Growth
This plan starts at $79 per month. It has such features as unlimited emails, drag-and-drop visual email builder, pre-built automation funnels and email templates, and a template library.
Pro
Pro plan starts at $125 per month. It includes everything in Growth plus multi-user access, integrations, and a dedicated account manager.
Starter
This plan starts at a one-time payment of $497. It is a package for starters with the necessary tools and education available.
For more on Sendlane’s plans and pricing, follow this link.
Ease of Use
Sendlane has an interface that is attractive, quite intuitive, and building landing pages on this platform can be considered pretty use. All these piles up to providing a platform that is easy and fun to use.
Trial Period
Sendlane offers what they call ‘a free 14-day test drive’ of the Pro Package plan. You can check this out by following this link.
#5. Actionetics (Now called Follow Up Funnels)
Actionetics is famous for its follow-up funnels that you can create inside the platform. Actionetics has illustrated in detail the steps for creating Follow Up funnels on their website. Actionetics also has incredible features as unlimited contacts, and an option for sending customizable affiliate offers to your subscribers, among others that we discuss below.
Deliverability
This platform has high deliverability. They understand the importance of deliverability and have worked extra hard to ensure it is as close to 100% as possible.
Automation
Actionetics, by itself, is an automation platform provided by ClickFunnels. The beaver of features offered by Actionetics automation will enable you as an affiliate marketer to get more information on the market, communicate automatically with your market, create tags, and do a myriad of other things that automation tools on different platforms can do.
Pricing and Plans
Actionetics ha the following pricing tiers:
Click Funnels
This tier is suitable for starters creating their first funnel. It starts at $97 per month.
Click Funnels Platinum
This tier starts at a monthly fee of $297.
Click Funnels Collective
Click Funnels starts at $1497 per month.
For more on the tiers available on Actionetics, follow this link.
Ease of Use
One of the most dominant features of Actionetics is its focus on simplicity, clarity, and a very user-friendly interface.
Trial Period
Actionetics has a free 14day period.
#6. EmailOctopus
Would you like to email a large number of users at a reasonable cost without compromising the success rates? Well, EmailOctopus claims to do this and much more, and we have given them a position in our listing so we can see just how well they do this.
Deliverability
EmailOctopus has a reputation for high deliverability, according to a variety of users that we asked.
Automation
EmailOctopus has an Automation feature that allows you to send emails in bulk with just one click. You can also track the performance of your campaigns with minimal effort. The lists and campaigns are also unlimited, so numbers and limits won’t be a bother.
Pricing and Plans
EmailOctopus offers the following plans:
Starter
This plan is free. It includes up to 2,500 subscribers and a monthly limit of 10,000 emails. You will also get essential support and EmailOctopus branding on emails.
Pro
Pro has pricing that scales with your business. For subscribers total of 5,000, you get 50,000 emails per month for a monthly price of $20. With this plan, you get an email design that you are in full control of and priority support.
For more on their plans and pricing, visit their website by clicking here.
Ease of Use
EmailOctopus is reputedly easy to use with a neat and straightforward user interface. And in case any user has difficulties, the platform offers excellent customer support services too.
Trial Period
The platform doesn’t have a free trial period but instead offers the Starter plan for free.
Video Reviews of Best Email Autoresponders for Affiliate Marketers
My name is Nate Reiner and I am the editor here at 10Webtools. I have 8 years of experience using 50+ different web tools ranging from podcast, web hosting, email marketing, and much more. I previously managed a team offering support services to a large conglomerate that utilized tens of software solutions. I now run this blog full-time and when I am not reviewing or testing software, I enjoy riding bikes and supporting my clients achieve internet success. You can reach me directly at [email protected]