In this era, where every other person carries a smartphone in their pockets, new ways are emerging each day that are appealing to the customers. The more services get online, the more efforts they need to put in to retain and expand their customer base. These ways have proven to be a boon for businesses and content providers all over the globe. We all can agree that the traditional ways of procuring customers and publishing lucrative offers have long gone outdated now. Technology is to our aid and who doesn't like automation and saving up on time?
One such way of effectively engaging customers is email marketing. Email marketing is something every business, small or big, every YouTuber or any content provider is using to keep their audiences hooked on to their offerings. We'll be reviewing two of the big players in the Email Marketing world - ConvertKit Vs Drip; to offer an insight into what one should look for while purchasing one.
Convertkit Vs Drip 2020 | The Ultimate Comparison (Pros & Cons)
ConvertKit is a platform that is marketing oriented with its automation that is designed and created specifically for professional bloggers, content creators, and business professionals. It is used to create segments that automate easily & send emails to the right audience in the list. It creates a sequence of emails or maybe a single "broadcast" email that can help to easily communicate with people on the list.
ConvertKit is designed to avoid duplication of subscribers and with their marketing automation blueprints, this process becomes easier. Getting started in marketing automation has been easier than it was before. It is a platform that is ideal for bloggers, because of its easy to use, reliability, and its job precision.
Drip is the first email marketing tool that made autoresponders available to first-class citizens. It's grass-fed, organic software is handcrafted lovingly in California by the Numa Group. It is a platform majorly used for the business of selling products online. Drip is an email marketing software and also an automation software mostly for serious marketers, and also for people who intend to make money from content like coaching, e-books, and also online courses.
It focuses mainly on providing a built-in widget that can be added to every page of the existing website and email capture via embedded forms, email sequences, sending broadcasts, advanced email automation, lead scoring, and purchase tracking.
The integration of the system is a process that brings together all the subsystems including design, software, and so on, functioning as one whole system.
There are mainly three types of Integration, namely
- Vertical integration
- Star integration (spaghetti integration)
- Horizontal integration
Each of which functions differently according to the integrations.
- Leadformly integration
- Outlook integration
- Gmail integration
- Salesforce integration
- SugarCRM integration
- Microsoft Dynamics integration
- Zapier integration
- The number of integrations possible is 1000+
- The average rating for the app is about 3.5 out of 5.
- Leadformly integration
- Outlook integration
- Gmail integration
- Salesforce integration
- SugarCRM integration
- Microsoft Dynamics integration
- Zapier integration
- The number of integrations possible is 1000+
Convertkit Vs Drip- Features
ConvertKit
As your subscriber base grows, this would surely increase the chances of having duplicate subscribers. To save you paying double on the same subscriber, ConvertKit ensures that you'll not have to pay for such subscribers.
- No charges for duplicate subscribers
As the data grows, the amount of meaningful insights that can be extracted from this data also increases. These insights help in visualization and decision making. Analytics also provides help in planning strategies; it helps in analyzing the status of a business. ConvertKit provides analytics to help you effectively utilize the data in hand and derive actionable insights from them.
Depending on the systems you currently use, ConvertKit can provide you with the necessary integrations. They offer a variety of integrations like WooCommerce, Shopify, WordPress, Zapier to name a few. They provide over 20 integrations as well as custom integrations.
Drip
Drip provides a dedicated dashboard for analytics and performance tracking. You can see how your campaigns are performing, how the engagement metrics are performing, and plan ahead accordingly.
- Analytics and Performance Tracking
As you get more leads from various media, your mailing list will expand rapidly. Drip provides you with tools that let you make sure that your mailing list is clean and only the activation emails are retained in the list.
Similar to ConvertKit, Drip provides a variety of integrations. These include WooCommerce, PayPal, Shopify, Salesforce, PipeDrive, Magento among others, and custom. Over 94 integrations are provided by Drip. They also offer custom integrations as per your needs.
- Only active emails are retained in the list
Being in the same business, both the providers offer a set of common features. These features include the most important functionalities that you might look for to scale your business. Here's what they are and what they'll allow you to do.
This feature allows you to start and manage a campaign. For e.g. a festival is coming up and you wish to host a sale at your store. You can start a campaign and inform your customers about the sale. You can plug in your loyalty program strategies in this campaign. This mail will further be sent to your subscribers.
Templates are provided for you to design various forms, your emails, and landing pages. The templates are customizable and you'll be able to design a landing page without any knowledge about coding.
Once you design an email, you will be able to broadcast it to all your subscribers. You can even schedule the emails to be sent on a specific date and time.
You will be able to target specific subscriber groups and create campaigns for them.
With this, you can design your own workflows hassle-free. You will be able to decide what the user journey should be like. You can also decide where the subscriber will be listed after certain events.
A personalized touch never fails to impress; hence these platforms allow you to feed personalized data about the subscriber in the mails.
In case you are a coding geek and you wish to add in a code snippet to achieve a result of your choice, you will be able to do so easily.
Ever since GDPR came into effect, major providers have altered their platforms for compliance. Both ConvertKit and Drip assure GDPR compliance.
After discussing the common features, let's see the USPs of these two platforms. These are the deciding factors depending on your business. You may or may not require some of the features and after analyzing those things, you will be able to make an informed decision.
Convertkit Pricing
Drip Pricing
Convertkit Vs Drip-Facts
Now that we have acquired a decent amount of knowledge about these platforms, let's talk about the facts. Both these platforms having one thing in common that being " Email Marketing ", but still the features and working of both these platforms are widely different. The audience profile of these platforms also differ depending upon how much you pay for a certain number of subscribers or audience and both these platforms are used for different purposes.
ConvertKit was designed especially for bloggers and its algorithms are created from the beginning specifically for bloggers. Drip, on the other hand, is built for users who make heavy use of the API (application programming interface). API is a computer program that defines the interaction between other program software. It keeps track of calls, requests made, and the methods that can be followed to achieve the conventions. It also has features like purchase tracking (keeps a track for what your subscribers are looking for) and Leads scoring.
Both these platforms are being recommended by several users, because of their easy to work, reliability, and features that make them unique. ConvertKit and Drip are very close in terms that they both provide advanced email marketing and marketing automation features in a very accessible manner. ConvertKit is a platform widely used by Bloggers, to reach their respective audiences on a wider scale, and whereas Drip is a platform that is used to sell products online or any form of content.
Convertkit Vs Drip- Pros & Cons
Convertkit Cons-
Drip Pros-
- It builds a path for readers that can turn into subscribers.
- A person can create their landing pages and can get their work published online.
- The site also provides sign up forms that can easily help a person gain genuine subscribers.
- It has an email design feature that helps a person generate emails that are precise and up to the mark, with an easy email builder feature.
- It has integration tools that can help to create a catching landing page or tools to enhance the work.
- They provide live and on-demand video workshops that make the flow and understanding of the platform easier.
- If a person is new to the platform, there are tutorials provided on the website to help understand its working and functions better.
- There are up to 26 guides that can be used to brush up the skills of using the website.
- The platform provides a refund policy with the starting number of users to be 1.
- The cost with the specific number of contacts differs.
- Android, iPhone, iPad, Linux, Mac, Windows, Web-based are various devices and software that are compatible with the platform.
- ConvertKit's visual builder is as close to its initial core application being that it's simple and works great for bloggers.
Drip Cons-
Convertkit Vs Drip- My Honest Review - Which One Is Best?
Both the platforms have gained an equal fanbase and a decent amount of ratings, while there might be certain glitches but these platforms offer the best in what they've been created for. According to various reviews, drip and Convertkit have a lot in common.
- Drip has a "forever free" plan.
- It provides a genuine platform to sell your products to the appropriate audience.
- Drip has a full-featured visual builder, that makes the workflow easier.
- Drip has around 30+ app integrations, including JavaScript API, complete segmentation of subscribers along with the ad-hoc querying, and also tracking of your subscribers and their web actions.
- Drip is designed to handle almost every aspect of email marketing and automation, including marketing emails, which includes emails to trial users, and emails to customers as well.
- Add events with metadata to contacts for advanced email campaigns.
- Drip.js lets you show custom CTA to you, website visitors.
- Free plan for up to 100 subscribers.
- Android, iPhone, iPad, Linux, Mac, Windows, Web-based are various devices and software that are compatible with the platform.
If one is a blogger than Convertkit is the appropriate platform but if one prefers a more advanced platform then Drip might be the right choice. Many such reviews describe Drip as an easier and convenient platform over Convertkit. Since drip has made a lot of changes in its working and functioning over Convertkit. The workflow on drip is considered to be smooth, advanced, and beneficial.
Hence, if one has to be sure of exactly what they're looking for before judging any of these platforms. It is always better to check the tutorials, reviews, and most importantly to check the application first hand. it also differs from person to person of what they require. It will give a better insight into what works better to get maximum output and to make better use of the applications.
FAQs -
Convertkit-
Drip-
This was a quick review of the two Email Marketing giants. On one hand, Drip provides variety, but on the other hand, it has some significant cons. Likewise, ConvertKit might have an edge over Drip in some points but it offers limitations in functionality or variety. Based on the requirements of your business, you can decide which functionalities matter more to your business. You might have to overlook certain cons/limitations but you'll find a better fit.
Hence, in conclusion, depending upon the nature of your use, an appropriate platform can be chosen as both provide great service and opportunity for growth. Whether you are a blogger and you sell content online through ebooks or blogs, these applications are of better use than others available and the workflow is very easy.
So it is always better to make the correct choice by tallying the pro's and con's and finally giving it a go! Both platforms provide a free trial, which you can use to make a decision. I hope this review was helpful and it makes your choice of selection easier.
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