SendinBlue Review: Powerful Email Marketing for Growing Businesses

Discover everything you need to know about SendinBlue email marketing software in this comprehensive review. We’ve conducted a detailed analysis of every feature and gathered user experiences to help you decide if SendinBlue is the right choice for your business.

SendinBlue Email Marketing Overview

SendinBlue is an email marketing solution designed for small and medium-sized businesses looking to send email marketing campaigns, newsletters, and automations, even with a limited budget.

Simply put, SendinBlue is often seen as a more affordable alternative to MailChimp, offering a free version, a free trial, and often more functionality.

SendinBlue‘s approach appears to have paid off. Today, it boasts over 80,000 users and sends an impressive 100 million emails daily. Founded in 2012, SendinBlue recently underwent a redesign, so this review focuses on the current version of the platform.

Key Features of SendinBlue

Most brands and marketers utilize SendinBlue software primarily for sending email marketing campaigns and newsletters. The platform also supports automated triggered campaigns, such as welcome emails, alongside a host of other capabilities.

What can you achieve with SendinBlue email marketing software?

Here are the main features of SendinBlue:

• Drag-and-Drop Email Editor: SendinBlue includes an intuitive drag-and-drop email editor, making it easy to customize your email design and content.
• A/B Testing: Improve your campaign results by testing different subject lines and choosing the winner.
• SMS: Use SendinBlue to send SMS messages alongside autoresponder emails.
• Landing Pages: (Available in Premium and Enterprise versions) Create your own landing pages or use one of the templates to speed up the process.
• Bounce Management: Monitor soft and hard email bounces. Hard bounces are automatically removed from your lists.
• Reports and Analytics: Access all essential email marketing metrics, including email heatmaps, Google Analytics integration, and list growth analysis.
• Opt-in Forms: SendinBlue‘s subscription forms are dynamic and fully customizable to match your branding. Advanced features include captcha verification and pre-filled data (so subscribers don’t have to enter their name twice).
• List Management: Easily manage your mailing lists, including importing, exporting, and editing contacts.
• Email Segmentation: Segment your audience based on web and purchase behavior, lead scores, and subscriber demographic data.
• Email Marketing Automation: SendinBlue offers many email marketing automation features. The workflow editor allows you to target leads based on website actions, internet behavior, email engagement, and more.
• Transactional Emails: Through an SMTP relay, you can send transactional emails like receipt confirmations, order confirmations, password resets, etc.
• Email Templates: SendinBlue provides 65 email templates to help you get started quickly.
• Chat: Add a chat function to your website for direct one-on-one conversations with site visitors.
• CRM: SendinBlue includes a sales and marketing CRM to centralize customer information and set follow-up actions.
• Customer Service: In addition to live chat, you can contact their support team via email or phone. SendinBlue also has a knowledge base with tutorials and FAQs. Users often praise the speed and expertise of the support team.

SendinBlue Review: Creating and Sending Email Marketing Campaigns

When it comes to sending email marketing campaigns and email blasts, SendinBlue offers all the functionality you would expect. For this review, we created a new SendinBlue account and navigated through the entire process from scratch, simulating a typical user experience.

There are three options for editing emails:

1. The drag-and-drop editor
2. A rich-text editor
3. Pasting your own HTML code (You can import your own HTML email template and then edit it)

The drag-and-drop editor is the most commonly used option. Let’s explore its functionality.

Once you select the drag-and-drop editor, a canvas opens, allowing you to immediately start editing your email. SendinBlue‘s editor comes with ready-made blocks that you can drag into the email, as shown on the left side of the image. You can add all common email content elements such as images, text, headings, and more. All blocks and templates are mobile-friendly by default.

Users report that customizing their email designs requires minimal effort, a sentiment consistent with our findings – it is remarkably straightforward.

During testing, if a design change, such as altering the background color, resulted in an undesirable outcome, the auto-save function proved invaluable, allowing for easy reversion to a previous version.

Our experience with email editing revealed the following:

1. Text is edited in-line, providing a “What you see is what you get” experience where changes are visible as you type.
2. Hovering over a section with your mouse reveals editing options for that specific section, allowing you to add, copy, delete, and modify content, text, or images.
3. Clicking within a block displays options for that block on the right-hand side, such as adjusting the color and size of buttons.
4. Photos can be edited using SendinBlue‘s built-in image editor, which allows for resizing, cropping, adding text, and applying filters.

Other users confirm that the email editor is highly responsive, with no noticeable lag. Our experience with the SendinBlue email editor was excellent.

Preview Your Email in Various Inboxes

SendinBlue includes an extensive email test feature, providing real screenshots of how your email will appear in different inboxes, including Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and on smartphones. This eliminates the need for specialized render test tools like Litmus or Email on Acid.

Utilize Free Email Templates (and Reuse Them)

SendinBlue offers over 65 free email templates, which significantly speeds up the campaign creation process.

These email templates are categorized for various purposes, such as E-commerce, Lead Generation, Newsletters, Sales Emails, and Holidays.

For those without web design expertise, these professionally designed templates serve as an excellent starting point, optimized for both desktop and mobile viewing.

Every element of the templates is customizable, allowing you to tailor your emails just as you would with a custom design.

You can customize templates by:

• Adding your branding, logo, and color scheme.
• Changing the email footer.
• Modifying the text content.
• Inserting your own CTA buttons.

The platform also allows you to save your customized template under the ‘My Templates’ tab. This means you don’t have to start from scratch for each new campaign, saving considerable time. If you manage multiple brands or operate a digital marketing agency, you can also import templates from other SendinBlue environments.

Contact Management in SendinBlue

Effective contact management is crucial, and SendinBlue facilitates this through its ‘Contacts’ tab, where you can organize and manage your email lists. The platform allows for the addition of custom fields, such as ‘Favorite Animals’, to gather specific subscriber information.

In SendinBlue‘s contact management, you can perform the following actions:

• Create and segment your email lists.
• Edit individual contacts or entire lists.
• View statistics on contact engagement with your campaigns.
• Create unsubscribe and subscribe forms.
• Import new contacts (via CSV or copy/paste).
• Review individual contact histories and specific data, such as opens, clicks, and profile information.

Contact management generally performs well, although users may need a moment to adjust to clicking ‘save’ to update individual contacts. Importing and exporting contacts is a straightforward process.

SendinBlue Review: Email Marketing Automation

SendinBlue email automation enables you to trigger one-off emails and set up comprehensive automation flows and email funnels. Automated emails can be utilized in numerous ways.

Here are five examples of what you can achieve with SendinBlue email automation:

• First: When someone signs up for your email list, automatically send a welcome email, followed by a series or ‘funnel’ of subsequent communications.
• Second: If a prospect visits a specific webpage or link, send them an email with more information on that topic.
• Third: If a customer is shopping and abandons their cart, you can send a reminder email.
• Fourth: Send a follow-up email a week after their initial purchase.
• Fifth: On a customer’s birthday, send an email with a free gift or an exclusive offer.

SendinBlue conveniently provides pre-built templates for the most popular email flows.

These features are accessible under the ‘Automation’ tab. While not as extensive as ActiveCampaign, the interface is user-friendly, and a step-by-step wizard assists you in setting up your automations.

The core idea is to automate your marketing based on the personal and behavioral data of your contacts. Over time, as more data is collected, it can be leveraged to send increasingly targeted automated campaigns with SendinBlue.

How Does Email Automation Work in SendinBlue?

To initiate your automation flow, a ‘Trigger’ is required. The trigger is the event that starts the automation.

For example, a visitor signing up for your email list acts as a trigger, which then sends an email campaign.

When creating a new workflow, SendinBlue offers four possible starting points:

1. Email activity (Opens and clicks)
2. Contact data
3. When a contact fills out a form
4. Website activity

Setting up an email automation workflow is very easy. SendinBlue provides step-by-step instructions for creating your first workflow, and additional explanations are always available in the SendinBlue knowledge base.

SendinBlue Social Media Tools

SendinBlue also provides a suite of tools for social media marketing.

One of its most utilized features is the ability to launch Facebook ads directly from your SendinBlue account. You can retarget previous contacts or reach a new audience segment based on your email list, which is particularly useful if your target demographic is active on Facebook.

A Facebook ad created within SendinBlue includes text, an image, and a link to your website or landing page, displayed on both Facebook and mobile devices.

SendinBlue CRM

SendinBlue features a built-in sales CRM, which can be a valuable addition if you don’t already have a customer service system. The SendinBlue CRM serves as a central hub for storing all contact information and planning follow-up tasks.

For tasks, you can schedule:

• Sending an email
• A phone call
• A To-Do list item
• A meeting
• A deadline for a follow-up contact

You can store additional profile information such as notes and previous messages, and upload relevant documents directly to the contact profile.

Lists can be used to organize your contacts based on criteria you define, such as demographic data, lead source, their stage in the sales funnel, and more.

You can create deals and tasks within the SendinBlue CRM, then assign these tasks to other team members or a virtual assistant. Adding deadlines to these tasks helps ensure everyone stays on schedule. Notifications will alert you when a task is due. The deal stage can be set, providing an overview of your deal pipeline. Overall, the SendinBlue CRM is a valuable addition, especially since it’s included in the forever-free version of SendinBlue.

SendinBlue Review: Registration and Email Opt-in Forms

SendinBlue‘s templates for registration and subscription forms are quite advanced. You can edit forms using a drag-and-drop editor, allowing you to adjust color schemes, insert images, add text, and choose desired fonts within seconds. You can also add as many different fields as you wish to your forms, giving you full control over the information collected.

You can add all typical form fields:

• Text fields
• Radio buttons
• Multiple-choice selector

Once satisfied with your form, you can add it to your website by pasting the HTML code.

The forms include captcha verification to reduce fake sign-ups, and you can choose whether subscribers go through a single or double opt-in process.

If visitors arrive at your form via an email, you can pre-fill the form fields with existing data such as their name, email address, and phone number. This allows you to populate the form with data you already have and only ask for missing information, which is a powerful feature.

SendinBlue Review: Reporting and Analytics

When it comes to reporting and analytics, SendinBlue provides all the essential statistics you need, such as:

• Sent emails, bounces, email opens, and clicks
• Subscription and unsubscribe rates
• A/B test results
• Statistics for automation campaigns

To gain deeper insights into your subscribers, you get access to the following:

• A heatmap showing clicks within your email
• Geo-tracking
• Integration with Google Analytics: Sendinblue automatically adds tracking codes to your email campaign links, allowing you to use Google Analytics to analyze traffic from your emails and identify the best-performing campaigns.
• Engagement per email list

You can also track events outside of SendinBlue, such as website traffic, sales, and abandoned carts. After adding a small piece of JavaScript to your website, the platform:

• Uses cookies to track website visitors.
• Identifies individuals who clicked on links in your emails.
• Monitors pageviews.

Utilizing this additional tracking provides a more complete picture of your campaign success and subscriber behavior.

SendinBlue Review: Integrations and API

SendinBlue integrates with Zapier, enabling connections with hundreds of other applications, including WordPress, Drupal, e-commerce platforms, analytics tools, and CMS.

SendinBlue also offers a number of its own native integrations, including:

• WordPress
• Drupal
• SalesForce
• PrestaShop
• Magento
• Shopify
• Jimdo
• Wix

The SendinBlue WordPress plugin, for example, is highly popular, given that WordPress is the most widely used CMS globally. With the plugin, you can:

• Create brand-aligned subscription forms and easily embed them into your blog posts and pages.
• Design, set up, and program your transactional emails via the SendinBlue SMTP.
• Manage your contacts simply and efficiently directly in WordPress with the SendinBlue plugin.
• Conceive, create, and manage your email campaigns.
• View and analyze your campaign statistics to improve performance.

The SendinBlue team actively works on adding more native integrations.

SendinBlue Review: Landing Pages

Users report that SendinBlue‘s Landing Page editor is exceptionally sleek.

Landing pages can be utilized to streamline various processes, for example:

• Product-focused landing pages to drive conversions from your email campaign traffic.
• Using landing pages for advertising/social media campaigns to collect information that is directly fed into your email marketing account.
• Promoting content/lead magnets and collecting opt-ins and profile information upon download. This data can then be synchronized with the ESP, and marketing automation can be used to send the resource and follow up.

Landing pages are available in the Premium plan. Similar to email, SendinBlue offers landing page templates to help you create effective pages quickly, or you can start with a blank canvas to build your own designs.

How Much Does SendinBlue Email Marketing Cost?

Pricing is often a decisive factor. While SendinBlue could be considered one of the best email marketing software options, it must also be within your budget. Fortunately, SendinBlue stands out as particularly affordable compared to its competitors.

So, what does SendinBlue cost? There is a free and a paid plan. SendinBlue‘s pricing is based on email volume, not the size of your email list. This means it doesn’t matter if you have ten subscribers or a million; you won’t pay extra based on contact count alone.

SendinBlue Discount 💎

If you’re ready to try SendinBlue email marketing, an exclusive discount is available. Upon registering for a new account and starting your trial, you can receive a 10% discount when paying annually.

About the Free Email Marketing Software Plan

SendinBlue offers a forever-free plan, which is excellent for testing the platform before committing financially.

What you should know about the free plan:

• If you’re just starting to build your email list and have between 1 and 1,000 subscribers, the free SendinBlue plan should be sufficient for your needs.
• There are only a few limitations to the free plan; SMS campaigns and landing pages are not included.
• The free plan allows for 300 daily emails (9,000 per month). Email automation is free for up to 2,000 email subscribers.

For the first 60 days of your free subscription, you get access to phone support, which is beneficial when you’re initially getting started with the software.

For free email marketing software, this is an incredibly good deal. SendinBlue offers a plan that is free forever, and depending on your sending volume, it costs a maximum of 55 euros per month for 120,000 emails.

SendinBlue Reviews from Long-Term Users: Advantages 👍

To provide a comprehensive view, we interviewed long-term users about their experiences with SendinBlue. Generally, feedback is overwhelmingly positive, with users frequently praising its attractive pricing and ease of use.

Let’s examine some specific strengths highlighted by SendinBlue user reviews:

• The SendinBlue email editor is straightforward with a minimal learning curve.
• Automatic saving and email render checks are included.
• SendinBlue offers impressive and flexible email automation functionality.
• Over 65 email templates are available to quickly start your email design.
• SendinBlue customer service is responsive and knowledgeable, available via email, live chat, and phone.
• Compared to other email marketing tools, SendinBlue‘s pricing is highly competitive.
• SendinBlue has an excellent CRM.

User Reviews: Customer Support

SendinBlue offers a ‘Help’ button directly within its interface. Clicking this provides access to the SendinBlue knowledge base, live web chat, or the option to email a message.

Users report that live chat agents are responsive, helpful, and friendly. This positive feedback aligns with our own tests. Additionally, the knowledge base is comprehensive, ensuring a positive experience regarding customer service.

Interestingly, SendinBlue anticipates where users might need more assistance by automatically offering a ‘live’ assistant. For example, an option may appear when you start setting up your first automation workflow.

SendinBlue Reviews from Long-Term Users: Disadvantages 👎

Every email marketing tool has potential drawbacks, and SendinBlue may not be ideal for everyone. Here is a list of issues reported by users and found in online reviews:

• Multiple User Logins: This feature is exclusively part of the Premium plan. Unless you pay for a Premium or Enterprise plan, you cannot set up logins for different users. This can complicate team management for smaller senders. If you require multiple logins with varying access levels, you’ll need a version priced from €49 per month (with a 10% discount if paid annually).
• No Enterprise Automations: While SendinBlue offers many possibilities for email automation, it’s important to remember that it is not an enterprise marketing automation tool like SalesForce, Eloqua, or HubSpot if you require highly extensive automatic actions and complex automations.
• Dedicated IP Addresses: Dedicated IP addresses are only available with the Premium version. You will need to purchase the Premium version to have your own IP.
• Blocked Without Opt-ins: Some online reviews criticize SendinBlue for not allowing users without an opt-in list (these are primarily spammers). The platform’s policy of not admitting spammers is generally viewed as a positive measure.
• Limited A/B Testing for Campaigns: While there is an A/B test wizard for testing email subject lines, for A/B testing complete campaigns, users must manually split and send the emails.

Conclusion: Is SendinBlue Worth It?

Email marketing is a vital component for many online businesses, and for good reason. Thanks to SendinBlue‘s free plan, you can easily get started without any initial investment. Subsequently, if your needs grow, you can upgrade to a paid plan that offers additional features and increased sending volume.

Our scores for SendinBlue:
Usability: 4.5/5
Price: 5/5
Editor and Templates: 4.5/5
Features: 5/5
Email Automation: 4.25/5
Customer Service: 4.5/5

Total Score: 4.6/5

Considering its price-to-quality ratio, SendinBlue stands out as an excellent tool. The features provided for the cost are exceptional for email marketing software. It is highly likely to meet your email marketing needs effectively.