If you're committed to expanding your business, you must invest in a reliable email marketing service. The right platform can help you convert more customers, enhance your brand, and increase sales. But, determining where to allocate your marketing budget requires careful consideration. Take a look at this comparison of ConvertKit vs Mailchimp to determine which tool is best for your business. We'll also share a successful project that integrated one of these platforms into their marketing strategy.
ConvertKit vs Mailchimp: Summary If you're looking for top-line takeaways, here's a summarized version of this feature comparison.
ConvertKit is best for creators and small eCommerce business owners. It offers more automation flexibility than Mailchimp. However, Mailchimp is better in terms of reporting capabilities.
Mailchimp is recommended for small to medium-sized enterprises. It has well-designed templates for efficient branding, and detailed reports allow marketers to gather essential performance data.
Let's discuss the similarities and differences between the two email marketing platforms based on their key functionalities.
Templates and Designs When you create a Mailchimp campaign, you can immediately choose between nearly 100 themed templates, covering everything from newsletters and ecommerce to holiday emails and promotions. They also have 14 blank templates to design your email layout.
ConvertKit has a very different process. Before creating your first Broadcast (or campaign), you must go to your "Email templates" settings and create a new template.
You're limited to three basic designs, which you can easily customize, but you can't drag-and-drop modules as with Mailchimp.
ConvertKit's approach is excellent for keeping things simple (their research showed that plain-text and simple emails outperformed heavily designed emails) but can seem lacking if you want more choice and complexity.
Marketing Automation Automation is a crucial strength of ConvertKit, which is evident in their recent introduction of the 'Visual Automation' feature. This feature reflects their commitment to refining automation processes.
The' Sequences' feature is at the core of ConvertKit's automation system, allowing users to create email sequences such as welcome or onboarding series. What's particularly convenient about this feature is the ability to create and edit emails within the sequence without switching to another tool section.
'Visual Automation' serves as ConvertKit's workflow-based editor, enabling users to define how individuals enter a sequence (e.g., sign up to a form, purchase, or receive a tag). Users can add steps based on conditions, actions, or events like advanced automation editors and even incorporate multiple sequences into automation.
MailChimp also offers automation and a visual editor. One thing they do better than ConvertKit is provide a broader range of automated campaigns. With MailChimp, you can set up campaigns based on web page visits. MailChimp and Convertkit need to let you access automation on their free plans. It's a strange choice, considering many other email marketing services do.
Landing Pages Built-in landing page builders are still a new feature of email marketing platforms. Luckily, both ConvertKit and MailChimp offer this feature, giving us the perfect opportunity to compare them.
ConvertKit has 50 templates for building a landing page, which is pretty decent.
MailChimp, on the other hand, offers ten templates, including a few blank layouts to which you can apply your design. They also offer more design flexibility, thanks to drag-and-drop content blocks.Luckily, the landing page editor is much easier to get your head around than the form editors.
Reporting ConvertKit's reporting is fundamental. There needs to be a dedicated section for reports; you must go to the individual email or sequence to access them.
The reports themselves are disappointingly limited. You'll see stats on open rates, click rates, unsubscribes, and links clicked, but that's about it. There's no bounce rate or geographical data; click heat maps. Or any other detailed insights that could be valuable to an email marketer.
Aside from traditional performance reports, MailChimp offers an extensive array of reports, such as:
Hourly performance breakdowns Social statistics Open rates by location Click maps Performance breakdown eCommerce sales Integrations ConvertKit and MailChimp offer numerous integrations and the ability to set up APIs, but one stands out for going the extra mile.
ConvertKit boasts nearly 90 integrations with various tools and applications, including significant platforms like Wix, WordPress, Shopify, and Stripe. Additionally, they have integrations with Zapier, expanding the range of connected apps even further. However, they surprisingly lack integrations with significant CRMs, which is unexpected for an email marketing tool.
MailChimp excels in the integration department. With almost too many to keep track of, you can expect to find all the major providers for CRM, ecommerce (including Shopify), CMS/web builders, lead capture, and social tools seamlessly integrated.
Success Stories: How Orange Peel Become a Top‑Selling Independent Music Venue The last two years have been challenging for many small businesses worldwide. And live music venues are no exception. In the United States, tour cancellations were among the first signs of uncertainties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The reopening of businesses took work, particularly in the music industry. Lower ticket capacities and a new slate of responsibilities for club owners are some of the many challenges.
The Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina, is no exception. Known for its wide-ranging artist lineup and intimate feel, the 1,000-capacity club has brought world-class musical acts to the mountain town since it opened in 2002, gaining praise everywhere from Rolling Stone to Southern Living .
How did email marketing help The Orange Peel gain the public's attention? As an existing Mailchimp user, their first step was to utilize their existing database and send out an email every week. The email newsletter was the exclusive place to give pre-sale codes to different customer segments.
The Orange Peel has gained much national attention, and Asheville has become a popular tourist destination. The company deliberately promotes the expansion of its subscriber list. They decided to place Subscribe to our Newsletter in front and center of their website. That was a big part of The Orange Peel's strategy.
Final Thought Summing up, Mailchimp is the winner in this edition of the email marketing battle of features and usability. But if you are considering ConvertKit vs Mailchimp, is it the best tool for your email marketing strategy ?
Here's our thoughts on it. Mailchimp is packed with commendable features, although sometimes you might feel they've added new features instead of devoting their time to updating older ones. However, based on the number of features alone, Mailchimp outshines Convertkit. But, if specific features like list management and support are important to you, then Convertkit can do a much better job of these.
