ConvertKit Review – Is Convertkit right for your business?

ConvertKit Review 2020

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Table of Contents

 

It’s a well known fact that having an email list is one of the key elements to running a successful business online.

An email list allows you to drive traffic to your website whenever you want without relying on search or social traffic.

It’s well established by many internet marketing professionals, ecommerce store owners and businesses that the money is in the list 💰

Your email list can be used to promote your latest content, sell your products or make commissions via affiliate links to recommended products.

I recently signed up for a free trial of Convertkit to see how it performs compared to Mailchimp.

 

There are many email marketing providers out there so what is the best email software for bloggers & content creators?

Well first you will want to consider, what do you want from your email provider?

What sort of email marketing do you plan to do? Is it just for newsletters, or do you want to build automated email flows to help guide your readers to a particular point along your sales funnel?

The gold with email automation is that once you set up the automations, it works over and over without your direct input and can generate revenue on autopilot once you have people sign up.

You will want something that is

👉 Easy to use.

👉 Fast to get set up

👉 Easy to migrate over to (if you already have a list somewhere else, like in Mailchimp, Constant Contact or Aweber)

Let’s skip the overwhelm and get straight into discussing why I think Convertkit is the best email tool for bloggers in 2020.

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What is Convertkit?

Convertkit is an email service provider for professional bloggers. It offers a robust solution for bloggers, podcasters & online business owners.

It was created by Nathan Barry, who is known to be extremely transparent about his road to success. From making just $30k per month in 2015 to earning almost $1.3 million per month in 2019, Barry has managed to gain over 22000 active customers at Convertkit.

ConvertKit Pricing

No matter what your business goals, you will want to know that you are spending your money wisely and on tools that increase revenue & efficiency. Convertkit does just that!

To be honest, it was not always the cheapest option and didn’t offer a free plan until 2019. You can now get started for free and if you’d like to build automations it begins at $29per month. Just click the image below to get started.

ConvertKit Review – Top Features

Email List Segmentation

Sending the same message to everyone, all the time is simply not smart marketing!

All good bloggers & eCommerce store owners know that segmentation is key to email marketing success.

This feature allows you to divide your email list using conditional tags. You can, essentially, segment subscribers depending on their behaviour or importance. For instance, you may target customers who have clicked open a specific email or link. As a result, you can individually tag them to help you in the future with other campaigns.

Since ConvertKit is a tag-based system, you can manage your subscribers and even run automation much more efficiently. Dividing your list by tags allows you to send emails to a specific group of people and not everyone. You can even send one email to everyone but add additional offers or options to your special customers.

 

Apart from this, if you run a WordPress site (like most of the interwebs), you can use the ConvertKit WordPress plugin feature to track visitors on your official site and then apply tags.

Email Automation

Instead of dealing with complicated editing tools like in other email editors, ConvertKit’s editor makes automating seamless. This tool is simple but also powerful, which helps you to send the right content to your audience without wasting your time or causing you to pull your hair out trying to figure out how to put it together!

This helps you stay focused on growing your business, building lead magnets to get people into the funnel and working on creating content that your readers will find and love.

This feature helps creators in the following ways.

 

• Creates compelling, automated funnels.

• Customizes each of your subscriber’s paths depending on their actions.

• Allows you to send well-timed, targeted content to your audience.

• Divides your subscribers based on their journey & allows you to set rules and then, let the software work for you.

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Convertkit Rules Builder

This is a traditional, easy-to-use feature that works as a basic trigger and action method. First of all, you get a list of each and every rule. It works as an ‘if this, then that’ function, which makes it very simple. You do not even need to create a whole funnel for this. Since automation is organized in a mixture of triggers and actions, it can be difficult to make changes in the future but possible. Although it is very easy to use, Rules Builder does not group automation into folders which is a bit of a pain. This is why ConvertKit released another feature called the visual automation builder.

Visual Automation Builder

The best part about this feature is that it is much faster and more efficient compared to other platforms like ActiveCampaign. It presents your workflows into the outcome that you want to get in your business and helps you visualise the journey you are taking your subscribers along. The workflow is nicer compared to rules builder, which is probably because I like the visual flow.

 

Another thing to notice is that all functions are available inline. This means that everything happens directly within the workflow, such as the addition of emails and forms.

Form Builder

In order to collect emails, you need to have sign up forms. ConvertKit allows you to build multiple types of forms according to your needs. These include inline, slide-in, and even modal forms.

Honestly, it’s so easy to edit and make a form that a child could put them together, Convertkit really did make it easy! 

You can have multiple signup forms depending on the blog post topic.

For instance, in my WordPress admin I have a few different sign up forms that are customised depending on the podcast episode topic. 

Landing Pages

ConvertKit gives you the option to build landing pages (even with the free plan).
The templates and the forms are responsive to all kinds of platforms. You can still customize them by changing the colors, imagery, and texts to fit your needs.
They add new ones occasionally but if you are looking for a fast, conversion focused sign up page – these are just what you need for your blog or business. 

Broadcasts

Typically used for newsletters and updating all your subscribers about something, like a new podcast! 

This feature is really for sending one-off broadcasts to your subscribers. With no lists in ConvertKit, you will have to use the filtering mechanism to decide on your target audience. You can also use the Subscribed to feature, which allows you to divide your broadcasts into sequences, forms, or tags.

 

Here, the HTML email editor acts as your standard email editor. Simply select the A/B function right beside the subject line and begin a split test among different headlines. Besides this, you can also enter merge tags in emails by just using the personalization button.

Email Sequences

This feature allows you to build auto-responders or a list of emails, which you can send automatically to your subscribers at scheduled times. They are like email funnels that lead your audience into taking action. You can even select different sequences for different areas of your business.

 

When you open the sequence dialogue box, you will find the order of email and their scheduled time on the left of the box. Here, you get the option to drag and drop them to customize the orders to your liking too.

Integrations

 

Even though ConvertKit is relatively new software, it still offers a number of third-party integrations. It integrates with more than 86 popular applications, making sure that they help you in all areas of your business. I personally like and use the ManyChat integration. I will cover that in a further blog post. 

Deliverability

 

Since ConvertKit focuses mainly on email marketing, it has reliable deliverability to ensure that your email reaches your subscriber’s inbox.

By using a simple email design, this platform almost always makes sure to reach the subscriber’s primary inbox. 

Pros

• Effective and simple automation builder

• Tag-based system

• Rules binder provides easy and basic automation

• Provides multiple form types

• Provides landing page builder

• Ability to create effective emails containing merged tags

Cons

 

• Limited reporting data

• Fewer customization options for templates and forms

• Little A/B testing function

Conclusion

 

If you really want to build your online business successfully, you definitely have to grow your email list. ConvertKit helps you out by giving you a platform for marketing automation, which helps to increase your sales as well as conversion.

 

Not only is it user-friendly but it also makes your experience headache-free. It’s my choice for email marketing in 2020.