Here are 5 tools you can use to test and optimize your email marketing campaigns. More beginner email marketers will likely just need an ESP and maybe a swipe-file, while experts will want to leverage some of the more advanced tools on this list.
- ESP — Any high-quality Email Service Provider will allow you basic testing functionalities. You’ll be able to A/B test most of the factors mentioned in Part 2 of this series and monitor results right inside of your ESP. A few of our favorite ESPs are Mailchimp, ConvertKit, and Drip.
- Swipe-File — When you start trying to consistently test and improve your emails. You’ll occasionally think to yourself… what should I test? And one of the best ways to answer that question is by looking through emails you’ve received which have caught your attention, and try to apply the attention-grabbing element of those emails to your own campaign. Test it and see what happens. To collect these attention-grabbing emails, subscribe to different email lists within your industry and save especially engaging emails in a separate folder (“swipe-file”) so you can steal ideas when you’re trying to test and improve your own emails.
- Subject Line Analyzer — You can’t know for sure whether a subject line is going to generate a healthy amount of opens until you send the email. But you can use an analyzer tool to try and optimize your subject lines before you even send them. There’s no guarantee, of course, but most subject line analyzer tools base their analysis off of emotional trigger words, statistically evocative terms, and other cross-industry subject line data. You can give Email Subject Line Grader or Send Check It a try and see if they help you squeeze more opens out of your subject lines.
- Holistic Email Optimization Service — This is for more advanced email marketers who want to consistently test and optimize every campaign they’re sending, and collect all of that data in a single cohesive location. Paid tools like Email On Acid and Litmus can check email compatibility on every popular email client, mobile, tablet, and desktop compatibility, analyze landing pages, clean your list, and tons more.
- Email Previewer — Before you send an email campaign for the first time, it’s a good idea to first preview it or send it to yourself to see what it looks like and to make sure every element is doing what you want it to do. Most ESPs will allow you to test or preview your emails with just a few clicks. We recommend doing this every time that you send a new email or edit an old email.