Sendinblue Review 2023: The Best For Affordable Email Automation?

Welcome to our Sendinblue review.

Do you want all the features of a solid email marketing tool without the cost getting out of control? Do you want an email marketing tool that can cover other functionality such as landing pages, SMS marketing, and live chat?

There are plenty of marketing automation tools that address these concerns and more. One of them just happens to be the tool we’re reviewing today — Sendinblue.

But how does Sendinblue stack up against its competitors? Does it have all the marketing automation features you need to push your business forward? And how much will it cost?

In this Sendinblue review, you will learn everything you need to know.

Let’s get started:

Note: Sendinblue is now Brevo. While it doesn’t seem that too much about the core workings of the platform has changed apart from its branding, the interface has been improved significantly. We will update this review in due course.

What is Sendinblue?

Sendinblue is a marketing automation platform that aims to lessen your workload as an entrepreneur so that you can focus on other business concerns. It also works for those in the digital marketing space looking to work smarter, not harder.

So how does Sendinblue help its users with their marketing campaigns?

This platform has multiple features that are all designed to not only simplify your workload but to make you more efficient.

Email marketing

Sendinblue is one of the smartest solutions for email marketing. Why? Because while some services offer email automation, this company goes further and makes it more affordable. It lets you design professional-level emails either through its many templates or by starting one from scratch.

Its drag-and-drop editor makes it possible for just about anyone to design emails even if they’ve never typed a line of code in their life. Just insert the elements that you need and watch Sendinblue work do its thing.

Because email designs are highly customizable, you can make them closely match your company branding. Of course, the customization options don’t stop there.

You can have Sendinblue populate specific fields automatically. That means your emails can be personalized to fit the person you’re sending emails to. Sendinblue even says that you can customize the email to show product images that match the recipient’s favorite color. As long as you have data, you can use it to your advantage.

Since emails have unlimited lists and contacts, you can send all emails to as many people as you need. Not sure which email design is better? No problem. Use A/B testing to figure out which design works best for your audience.

And when you’re ready, you can schedule your emails to be sent at the most optimal times. You can rely on Sendinblue’s machine learning capability to figure out when you should be sending your emails.

So as you can see, Sendinblue is a great email marketing tool — and we’ve barely scratched the surface. It has even more to offer.

SMS marketing

It’s also possible to send SMS messages to your audience through Sendinblue. This is especially useful in situations where you need to promote time-sensitive events. All you need to do is to create a draft, select a contact list, and then schedule when you want Sendinblue to send it.

You can even set up transactional SMS — meaning you could send valuable information to customers such as shipping updates, order confirmations, and other details that facilitate smoother transactions.

As with emails, you can personalize your SMS so that your messages reflect the recipients’ personal information like their names, companies, or orders.

And there is an analytics feature that will allow you to track your progress. It’ll show you your engagement rate (alongside other valuable metrics) and what you need to do to improve your performance.

Chat support

Most e-commerce sites provide customer support via live chat. If yours doesn’t have that feature yet, then Sendinblue can help with that.

You can customize your chat to match your online business. This includes changing the colors and adding a logo. The chat support can be installed in seconds. You only need to paste a few lines of code into the header of your website.

Once the chat feature is available, you can have conversations with potential and current customers from the Sendinblue Chat Inbox. When you engage a user, you’ll know where they are on your website so you’ll have some clue as to what issues they could have.

You can set up your team in such a way that the most qualified members handle specific types of inquiries. Simply put, you can have salespeople answer sales questions. Or you could have your lead generation team handle potential clients. Not only does this save time, but it also makes sure that all concerns are handled by the right people.

Shared Inbox

One of Sendinblue’s best features is its Shared Inbox. It allows users to reply to customers much faster because it consolidates all messages you receive. This is where you can assign messages to specific team members and mark them as resolved once you’re done.

What’s even better is that it keeps track of conversation histories. Now you don’t need to pull previous conversations just to stay up to date whenever a customer reaches out a second time.

This is also useful for lead generation since you already know what products or services a returning lead is interested in.

You can connect different email service providers including Gmail, Outlook, Office 365, and Yahoo. And if your email provider isn’t on the list, you can use IMAP to connect it to Sendinblue.

These features are just some of the reasons why we highly recommend this email marketing software. It’s one of the best automation solutions for digital marketing professionals.

The Sendinblue interface

Your Sendinblue journey starts at the main dashboard. Here you’ll be encouraged to set up your email campaign by completing the profile form, importing your contacts, and scheduling your first email.

Campaigns

There are four main sections. When you log in, you’ll likely find yourself in the Campaigns section. The sidebar will show you all the different subsections that you could explore.

Email is where you can create your first email campaign.

Sendinblue does a great job of walking users through the process. Right off the bat, you can configure if you’re running a regular campaign or an A/B test. You can specify the campaign name, subject line, preview text, and other relevant data.

The next step will bring you to the drag-and-drop editor where you can design your email.

You can update the elements of your design, add text, insert images, and preview the design (on both desktop and mobile devices).

When you’re happy with the design, you can save it and move on to the next steps which are adding the recipients and confirming your settings.

Templates is where you go to create templates for the other types of emails you’ll send out including transactional emails. So you can do order and registration confirmations, for example. Setting up templates is fundamentally the same process as setting up an email campaign only you’re limited to the set up and design stages. When you’re ready to use your templates, they’ll be available when you’re setting up a campaign.

Statistics shows you all the data Sendinblue collected during the course of your email campaigns.

You can select the period to see how your campaign fared during a select period. You can also view your conversion numbers.

Under Settings, you can connect third-party tools or adjust your preferences.

Automation

Automation is where you can configure Sendinblue to trigger actions based on your contact’s details or actions. This is where this email marketing tool shines.

Creating your first workflow is easy. Sendinblue will present you with several options to get you started. All you need to do is to select which one applies to your needs.

Picking from one of the options will prompt Sendinblue to show you the workflow’s overview. This will give you an idea of what happens when the workflow is activated.

If you can’t find a workflow that meets your requirements, you can create a custom workflow instead.

When you’re ready, just hit Create and you’ll be redirected to another page where you can configure your workflow. Just follow along with the on-screen instructions and you should be set. You can test your workflow or activate it when you’re done.

Transactional

Here you can set up your transactional emails. It too has different subcategories that are worth exploring.

Real Time is where you configure your SMTP. You’ll need to do this so you could not only send transactional emails but to track if they were successfully delivered, opened, and clicked on.

It can be a bit technical especially for those who have never used email marketing platforms before so you might need to ask for help or do your research to set up your SMTP.

Statistics is where you go to find more details about your transactional emails.

Logs will store data about the emails that you send.

As with Email Campaigns, you can use Templates to create, well, templates for your SMTP campaigns.

Transactional Settings will allow you to configure your preferences and view blocked users and domains. This is also where you can manage tags for your transactional emails.

Contacts

Contacts is where you’ll find your contact list. You can add a contact manually or import contacts from your computer (Sendinblue accepts CSV, XLSX, or TXT files).

Alternatively, you can use an embedded form on your site or a landing page to generate leads and add them automatically to your contacts list. Sendinblue lets you create a form or landing page directly from the platform.

You can use Lists to assign leads or customers to a specific group and use that in your automation campaigns.

Forms is where you create a subscription form. It’s a great tool for lead generation. You can also use it to learn how your audience feels about your products or brand.

Sendinblue pricing

Sendinblue offers four plans: Free, Lite, Premium, and Enterprise.

Free version

The free version lets you add unlimited contacts. However, you can only send up to 300 emails per day. You also get access to the email designer, template library, SMS marketing, email and SMS personalization, and chat.

Lite

The Lite plan’s pricing starts at $25/month and increases as you raise the email limit. The lowest you can go is 20,000 while the highest is capped at 100,000.

It includes all the features that you’ll find in the free version. However, it removes the daily sending limit, adds email support, and introduces A/B testing. It will also remove Sendinblue branding.

Premium

The Premium plan works the same way as Lite in the sense that it starts with a base price and increases depending on the email volume limit that you set. The lowest you can go is 20,000 emails for $65/month. It goes all the way up to 1 million emails.

This plan gives you marketing automation, Facebook ads, landing pages, multi-user access, and telephone support alongside all the features you’ll find in Lite.

Enterprise

Enterprise is for those with advanced digital marketing needs. You’ll need to get a quote from the Sendinblue team to see how much it’ll cost.

With this plan comes custom email volume, priority sending, 20+ landing pages, access for more than 10 users, a customer success manager, and more.

Sendinblue pros and cons

Is this email marketing platform worth the price? What are its advantages and disadvantages?

Let’s see.

Pros

• Feature-rich email marketing — Sendinblue is one of the best email marketing tools we’ve tested.
• Full-stack features — Sendinblue is a great solution for those that need lead generation features on top of email automation.
• Pricing — The flexible pricing options make sure that you only pay for what you need for your business.
• Sending limit — All paid plans do not have a spending limit.
• Workflow editor — This makes it so easy to design an automation workflow that helps you achieve your email marketing goals.
• SMS marketing — You can handle all of your SMS marketing needs from within Sendinblue.
• Lead generation built-In — Build landing pages, opt-in forms, and run Facebook Ads right from this platform.
• Transactional emails — Most email marketing services simply don’t offer this. In fact, we use Sendinblue’s transactional email functionality for our own site.
• Better customer communication — Live chat, customer email inbox, and built-in CRM can help you keep up with customer communication.

Cons

• Customer service — The Lite plan only has email support. To get phone support, you’ll have to upgrade to the Premium plan. The Enterprise plan has priority support.
• Interface — While Sendinblue walks you through setting up an email campaign, the rest of the interface does seem complicated, especially for newbies.
• Multi-user access — You can’t use this feature unless you’re subscribed to the Enterprise plan.

Sendinblue review: final thoughts

Now, let’s wrap up this review. We’ve talked through the features, the interface, pricing, and the pros/cons.

Should you use Sendinblue?

That depends on your needs. If you’re looking for an affordable email marketing tool, Sendinblue’s pricing makes it a great choice.

It’s also a great choice for anyone who needs a full-stack marketing tool that includes email marketing, automation, live chat, CRM, landing pages, etc.

The interface is a little on the complex side but that’s only natural for a tool that provides so many features. So, if you’re looking for a simple email marketing tool, this may not be for you.

But I highly recommend checking out the tool for yourself to be sure.

After all, there’s a free tier plan you can use to make sure Sendinblue fits with your needs.

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