Campaign Monitor Review: Features, Pricing, & Alternatives

Do you find your email templates lacking in design when creating email campaigns? Start using email marketing software. Campaign Monitor excels at it, especially in design, segmentation, and hyper-personalization. 

However, its pricey plans and lackluster support are a red flag. So, how does it perform as an email marketing platform, and does it offer value for money?

Let’s find out in this Campaign Monitor review.

SMB Guide’s Verdict for Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor gets an 8.0 out of 10.

The platform delivers user-friendly software with a powerful email builder and extensive library of templates. Campaign Monitor also offers an extensive integration stack with e-commerce, CRMs, and more.

However, there are areas it can improve on. The support is lackluster, taking up to 6 hours for feedback, and the plans are pricey, especially for businesses with larger contact lists.

Overall, it is a decent email marketing software ideal for businesses struggling with segmentation and email content personalization.

Factor	Rating (out of 10)
Pricing & Plans	8
Marketing Automation Capabilities	7.5
Email Builder	9
Campaign Performance Tracking	8
User Interface and User Experience	8.5
Integrations and Compatibility	8
Customer Support	7
SMB Guide Rating	8

In this review of Campaign Monitor, I’ve followed SMB Guide’s detailed criteria for evaluating the email marketing software.

Pricing & Plans

Businesses can choose from three plans that rise with tiers. However, the platform lacks a freemium package, which is a bummer.

Signing up is free, and users can send emails to up to five subscribers. Businesses with larger subscriber lists require upgrading to the paid plans.

Here are the plans

Lite

It is an entry plan that supports up to 500 subscribers and offers basic email marketing features.

Price

• Monthly: $12

Features

• Unlimited users
• 2FA authentication
• Segmentation tools
• Drag and drop email editor
• A/B testing
• Real-time reporting analytics
• Campaign tags
• Email support

Who it’s for: Small businesses with a small subscriber list looking for standard email marketing functionality.

Essentials

It is a mid-level package offering more advanced email marketing capabilities.

Price

• Monthly: $29

Features

• Custom coded templates
• Mobile optimization tools
• Worldview reporting
• Campaign assistant
• Countdown timer
• API access
• In-app billing management
• Charge in local currency

Who it’s for: Businesses with growing subscriber bases looking for advanced segmentation and personalization tools.

Premier

It is the top plan offering advanced tools for hyper-personalization and automation.

Price

• Monthly: $159

Features

• Preference centers
• Unlimited automated emails
• Advanced engagement segments
• Pre-built journeys
• Time zone sending
• Advanced link tracking
• Email section locking

Who it’s for: Large enterprises with large email lists looking for advanced tools for tracking and automating email campaign processes.

Marketing Automation Capabilities

Campaign Monitor excels in marketing automation, providing a visual workflow builder to create complex journeys. Users can use conditional actions or branching logic to create multi-step automated workflows.

The platform allows marketers to set up sequences that automatically adjust based on set criteria, such as behavior. For example, marketers can create a welcome series or re-engagement campaign.

Campaign Monitor also provides various triggers to initiate the automated actions. These include:

• Time-based: Scheduled automation like welcome series.
• User behavior: Action-based triggers like link clicks, email opens, and more.
• External events: Integration with other platforms like CRMs and e-commerce platforms.

Campaign Monitor also supports cross-channel automation, which integrates SMS marketing. It helps provide a more comprehensive marketing strategy. However, marketers looking to use social media will have to use Zapier or API to integrate third-party apps.

Dynamic personalization is one of Campaign Monitor’s standout feature capabilities. It allows marketers to hyper-personalize email content within automated workflows. 

The platform provides advanced segmentation functionality, where marketers can tailor email content based on history, behavior, and more.

Email Builder

Campaign Monitor provides an extensive library of 250+ pre-made email templates for various marketing needs. The templates are in categories, such as newsletters, announcements, and more. The templates are professional and easily customizable to fit any brand.

The platform also offers an email editor with a drag-and-drop function that allows easy customization of template elements.

Users can add images, videos, and blocks or change fonts, buttons, and more. Other customization options include changing color schemes and overall design.

One thing Campaign Monitor excels at is optimizing the templates for mobile devices. It is a function that allows the email to render on different screens, enhancing the user experience.

Users who prefer custom code templates will find Campaign Monitor supports direct HTML editing. It allows tech-savvy users to control the design and functionality of their emails.

Once users have tweaked their email templates, they will find a preview and spam testing feature. Through these, marketers can view how the emails appear across clients and devices.

The spam testing feature also allows for the optimization of emails for better deliverability.

Campaign Performance Tracking

Campaign Monitor tracks essential email marketing metrics such as ROI, CTR, conversions, and open rates. These metrics help businesses understand the performance of their campaigns.  

The platform also provides a real-time reporting dashboard for monitoring the campaigns. The dashboard offers an overview of the campaign trends, allowing marketers to make timely adjustments.

The granular analytics are crucial in knowing what strategies are working.

Campaign Monitor allows marketers to set campaign goals and track their performance. The goal-setting features are integrated into the reporting tools, allowing for easy measurement of outcomes against benchmarks. 

Marketers will also find an A/B testing feature to run tests on the various email elements. The test results are in-depth, allowing marketers to know which variations are driving growth. 

Campaign Monitor also integrates with analytics tools such as Google Analytics. It is a plus for users who need granular tracking analysis beyond the basics.

User Interface and User Experience

Campaign Monitor’s interface is simple and well-organized, with a menu placed across at the top. Navigating through the features is simple, making it easy to create, send, and manage email campaigns. 

Campaign Monitor also has an extensive library of well-designed and professional templates. Users can customize them using a drag-and-drop editor to fit their brand.

The best part is that marketers with tech skills can use the HTML editor to tweak the emails to their liking.

After tweaking the email templates, marketers can optimize them using the preview and spam test tools. The preview allows users to see how the emails render across devices while the spam tool checks for deliverability.

Campaign Monitor also provides a customizable dashboard for displaying data that is most important to the user. It also includes custom shortcuts for accessing frequently used features.

Integrations and Compatibility

Campaign Monitor integrates with popular CRMs such as Salesforce, Zoho, and HubSpot. It allows marketers to sync customer data between the CRMs to create more targeted campaigns.

Integrating the platforms is straightforward with a few clicks. Marketers who need custom integrations will find a powerful API on Campaign Monitor.

The API adds flexibility when creating custom marketing solutions, and it also has comprehensive documentation on installing and maintaining it.

Campaign Monitor is also compatible with e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, and more. These integrations allow marketers to track purchases and create targeted campaigns based on customer behavior.

Campaign Monitor also integrates social media and analytics tools. It allows businesses to reach a wider audience through social posts and get granular analytics through analytics tools.

Unfortunately, Campaign Monitor lacks a dedicated mobile app. However, users can access the platform through the browser.

Customer Support

Campaign Monitor’s main support channels are a chatbot and email. However, users who subscribe to the Premier plan can access phone support, which is a nice touch. 

Feedback on the email and phone is slow, usually taking up to 6 hours. The chatbot only answers FAQs and doesn’t have a human rep interaction. 

The feedback from the agents is helpful, and they’re knowledgeable about technical issues.

Marketers looking for self-help resources will find Campaign Monitor, provides a blog, tutorials, a knowledge base, guides, and webinars.

The content offered is comprehensive and covers topics like the software’s inner workings.

Campaign Monitor – Unique Features

Campaign Monitor excels in segmentation and personalization. During our evaluation, we found two other features that made it stand out.

They are:

• Marigold Livecliker Express: It’s a newly added feature that helps marketers hyper-personalize their emails without adding integrations or tech. Through it, marketers can view real-time insights like device type, location, individual preferences, and more.
• SMS Marketing: Combining email and SMS marketing is a sure way to amplify your marketing strategies. SMS adds a different dynamic, making your messages stand out and impacting the overall campaign.

What Experts Say About Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor has received both positive and lukewarm reviews on sites like G2.com. Here is what some of the users said.

They have a wide range of features and the user interface is very intuitive and easy to use. The reporting features are also very useful and the customer service team is always available to offer assistance. I have also found their prices to be competitive and their customer service to be excellent.

Sunitha H, Program Facilitator – Verified Capterra review

Campaign monitor is great for small business’ who are not much on the technical side, it’s easy to use and easy to explain to your clients. It also has high deliverability and excellent compatibility with mobile and computer. The pricing also differs which is great if you have a range of clients from small to medium to large business’.

Stacy G., Web Developer – Verified Capterra review

Campaign Monitor Alternatives

At SMB Guide, we understand that not all businesses will find Campaign Monitor ideal for their needs. So, we took it upon ourselves to research and found these three suitable alternatives.

They include:

Brevo

Brevo’s main differentiator is its all-in-one marketing solution, which includes SMS, CRM, and chat. It makes it versatile for businesses looking to manage multiple aspects of their marketing in one platform.

Sign up to Brevo for free today!

MailerLite

One of the main differentiators is its user-friendly interface and affordable plans. MailerLite also shares similarities with Campaign Monitor in that it provides an extensive template library and an intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

Users can easily customize their templates to fit their brands.

Sign up to MailerLite for free

ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign shines in its powerful automation capability. It also offers a comprehensive suite of tools, such as an extensive integration stack, generative AI, and more.

Start your free trial of ActiveCampaign

Other options: Best Campaign Monitor alternatives

Get Started with Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor offers a decent tool, especially for SMBs looking for versatile email marketing software. The features provided tick all the boxes for new marketers looking to set up their first campaigns.

FAQs

Related reading:

• Campaign Monitor vs. Mailchimp