Email marketing has never been as powerful and relevant for brands as it is today, and the trends show it will only keep growing. That’s why choosing the right email marketing tool for your business is crucial to getting promising results.
It’s always a good idea to compare options before making a choice. If you’re unsatisfied with Mailshake or are simply shopping around for a better alternative, then read on to find out:
- What important features to look for in an email marketing tool
- The main drawbacks of Mailshake
- And the top Mailshake alternatives to consider for your email marketing goals
Let’s dive in!
Key Features To Look For In Email Marketing Software
Many email marketing tools have a wide range of features that can be useful but are not exactly what you need to run a successful email campaign.
When considering if an email tool is the right one for you, keep an eye out for these top features.
Email Account Warm Up
After putting in all the time, money, and effort into crafting your email campaign, the last thing you want is for your messages to be flagged as spam. Enter email warm up, an essential step in boosting your sender reputation and deliverability to make sure your messages land in the right inbox.
Warming up your email account means sending and receiving emails in a natural human-like pattern until your sender reputation allows you to send thousands of emails without triggering spam filters or getting your email address blacklisted.
An automatic email warm up feature like the one Instantly provides does all of the above to ensure you have the right level of deliverability to send emails at scale without landing as spam.
Email Automation Features
Automated email tools will save you countless hours and allow you to quickly scale your campaigns in ways that would otherwise be impossible.
Email mail merge, warm up, automated personalization, and email sequence scheduling are a handful of standard automation tools to search for in email marketing software.
Easy-To-Use Email Builder
An intuitive email builder will save your team time and allow you to create stunning emails without having to know HTML code. A simple drag-and-drop email builder is the ideal tool to look for when it comes to building email templates.
Editable Templates Gallery
Instead of creating a marketing email from the ground up, a good email tool will have a bank of editable templates to choose from. Once you’ve picked the right template, all that’s left is adding your brand content and it should be ready to send.
Emails Optimized for Mobile
Over 50% of people use mobile devices to open emails, making it more important than ever to have mobile-friendly emails. A great email marketing tool will make sure your emails are mobile-friendly with previews and guidelines that include the optimal subject and snippet line lengths for mobile devices.
Email Previewing and Testing
It’s important to be able to preview and test your emails before starting a campaign. That includes previewing how an email will look with your branding, if merge tags are properly filled, and sending test emails in advance.
Integrated Analytics
Email marketing would be nowhere as effective as it is without tracking and analytics. Hence, most standard email tools will track and provide a variety of metrics. At minimum, these are the key metrics that should be included:
- Deliverability rate
- Open rate
- Click-through rate
- Bounce rate
- Unsubscribe rate
Knowing the above will allow you to measure each campaign’s success and identify any shortcomings to make the proper adjustments.
Have top deliverability but a critically low open rate? Perhaps your subject lines need changing, and so on.
Mailshake Disadvantages
Mailshake includes a lot of the features mentioned above and is a widely used email marketing tool. Below, however, are the top reasons why an alternative may be a better choice.
Difficult to set up custom tracking domains
A custom tracking domain will help your sender reputation and allow you to track key metrics like open and click-through rates. Setting one up on Mailshake can be difficult, pushing users to skip doing it altogether and as a result, potentially harming their deliverability.
Setting up email campaigns can be confusing
Another common issue with Mailshake is that creating email templates and initiating email campaigns can be confusing and cause mistakes. New users may find the video tutorials outdated and the UI hard to navigate at first.
Updated and expensive pricing options
Mailshake has updated its pricing model to yearly billing only and has increased its monthly subscription costs. This can be an issue for new and small businesses looking to try out the tool and pay monthly instead of one lump sum.
There is also an extra charge when adding team members, making it an expensive option to have several members under one account.
Top 8 Mailshake Alternatives
We’ve gone over what to look for in an email marketing tool as well as the top disadvantages of Mailshake.
Now let’s dive into the best Mailshake alternatives that will supercharge your email marketing campaigns.
Instantly.ai
Instantly.ai is a sales and marketing tool designed to scale your email outreach campaigns with unlimited sending accounts, smart email warm up, and powerful automation tools.
Instantly users have access to an intuitive and visual dashboard with several sections that include:
- Leads: import your list of leads through Google Sheets, CSV files, or manually add prospects.
- Sequences: create email and follow-up sequences with a range of options like smart send and email rewriting to avoid spam.
- Scheduling: schedule emails to be sent periodically at the best dates and times of day that result in the best reply rates.
- Analytics: access and analyze sent emails, open rates, reply rates, and more to monitor campaigns and scale up.
You can link an unlimited number of emails to your account from any established email service provider such as Gmail, Outlook, or your own custom email, and send thousands of messages per day.
Instantly’s automated email warm up saves time and boosts the deliverability and sender reputation of each individual account, making sure your messages land in the right inbox and stay out of spam.
Key features:
- Automation tools to mimic optimal email sending patterns, perform follow-up sequences, and warm up emails.
- Smart features such as smart send and email rewriting to make outreach more unique and avoid spam.
- Built-in email merge tools for personalized messaging at scale.
- Add an unlimited number of sender email accounts.
- 14-day free trial.
Interested to learn more on how Instantly can help scale your lead generation and cold outreach to new levels? Click here to find out!
Gmass
Mailshake does not include a Gmail extension, so if that’s something you’re looking for, Gmass might be a suitable alternative.
Gmass allows users to manage their campaigns entirely through Gmail. You can use merge tags and attributes to personalize emails and send messages more than Gmail’s typical limits.
While there is no email warm up option included, you can validate your email list and track deliverability with a convenient email tracking report.
Key features:
- Email marketing features from your Gmail account.
- Includes mail merge with Google Sheets for email personalization.
- Built-in email verifier.
MixMax
If you’re not in need of a standalone platform like Mailshake, MixMax is another email tool for Gmail built for lightweight email campaigns.
It works as an overlay on assigned Gmail accounts and includes a range of impressive features such as email scheduling, personalization with merge tags, and basic email tracking.
A calendar button can also be added within emails that makes scheduling sales calls or meetings easy from within messages.
Key features:
- Simple to use and send cold emails from Gmail.
- Email templates with merge tags for personalization.
- Built-in calendar scheduling button.
- GDPR compliant.
Yesware
Yesware is a multi-channel sales engagement platform (SEP) designed to help with email outreach.
Like Instantly, Yesware has tools to help users create email templates that can be personalized and sent out in bulk for instances like follow-ups and reminder emails.
Follow-up messages can also be scheduled and sent periodically. Once a contact replies they are automatically removed from follow-up sequences, which is a nice automated feature.
Key highlights:
- Built-in calendar booking feature that can be attached to cold emails.
- Can be integrated with Salesforce to keep data on one CRM.
- Includes email analytics.
- Multi-channel personalized outreach campaigns.
Vocus
Vocus is similar to Mailshake with many features in common. You can create multi-step cold email campaigns, automate follow-ups, and personalize emails.
It’s a platform built moreso for individuals or very small teams, making Instantly a better option if you’re in need of something more versatile and scalable.
One key highlight of Vocus is that it also includes a Gmail extension that allows you to access its tools through your Gmail inbox. It does not include an automated email warm up feature, making it difficult to have optimal deliverability for your campaigns.
Key features:
- Gmail and G Suite extensions included as part of a standalone platform.
- Templates can be saved and reused for future campaigns.
- Includes multiple integration options with common CRMs.
- Detailed tracking and analytics reports.
Reply
Similar to Mailshake in many aspects, Reply is an outreach platform built for large enterprise sales teams. Starting out, it requires a minimum of three people to be using the platform.
Reply includes most of the standard features expected from an email marketing tool but also has interesting features like a cold email rating system based on how engaging your email is.
It can be easy to get lost among all of Reply’s features, as well as its rather steep pricing per user.
Key features:
- Suitable for medium to large teams.
- Integrates with most CRM platforms.
- Multi-channel outreach options across email, phone, and LinkedIn.
- Includes standard and unique email marketing and tracking features.
Hubspot Sales Hub
If a lack of pipeline management is one of your concerns, Hubspot Sales Hub is a comprehensive CRM with customizable sales pipelines and a wide range of integration options.
Most major social media and email channels can be integrated with Hubspot to centralize outreach, engagement, and customer relationship management.
Its primary downside is it’s expensive for small enterprises and as your business grows, so do monthly subscription costs. Because of the comprehensive nature of the platform, it’s easy to become fully reliant on its system and difficult to migrate from.
Key highlights:
- Create and send email campaigns that include follow-ups through the Hubspot CRM.
- Track key metrics such as open rates, click rates, and customer engagement.
- A wide range of results-based email templates for cold outreach and follow-up.
Salesloft
Mailshake comes with a solid range of features but one of its limiting factors is that it can be difficult to add team members or work with a large team.
Salesloft is a sales outreach platform built more for larger enterprises running account-based marketing campaigns.
While the platform has a robust set of tools, it is rather complex to navigate but capable of accommodating large sales teams and detailed workflows. Users also have access to helpful guides and support for every stage of the sales process.
Key highlights:
- Cold email tools with email scheduling and follow-up reminders.
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration.
- Post-sales tools that focus on customer retention and re-engagement.
Key Takeaways
With so many email marketing tools out there, it’s important to know what main features to look for and compare the right tools before making a decision. When choosing the right email tool for your business, make sure to check:
- If the tool has the right personalization and automation tools to save you time.
- What performance and campaign analytics the email tool offers.
- If the user interface and email builder are intuitive and easy to use.
- The types and range of templates for follow-ups, cold outreach, reminders, etc.
Instantly provides all of the above and offers a 14-day free trial. Be sure to check out how Instantly can be the perfect fit for your email outreach campaigns!