Do you want to run a promising email marketing campaign that brings maximum success to your business? Well, every online business aims at doing so, but not all are aware of various efficient email marketing tools available.
But you need not worry as in this post we will review one of the top-notch email marketing tools – Drip!
Drip is recently purchased by Leadpages and is a robust tool for email marketing. It is a combination of robust marketing automation, which is easy to use and can benefit your email marketing campaign in one way or the other.
So, here check my Drip Review!
Drip Review: How is It Different??
Drip is an automated focused tool for email marketing, which has been recently brought by LeadPages. It entered the market in 2013 and since then has benefitted a large number of email marketers.
This tool is exclusively designed for small businesses and online marketers, and hence, includes numerous automated features that are really awesome.
Though it has many competitors that are well-funded and well-established, this tool has grown into popularity because of the ease of use, efficiency, and range of reliable features it offers.
A Brief of What Drip Can Do For Email Marketing
I am going to give a detailed review of what drip can do for your business and you.
- It offers high-quality assistance in designing personalized emails.
- It can enhance the experience of your users through email funnels.
- It tags users on the basis of different customized categories.
- Drip tracks categorized funnels and emails.
- It is useful for creating tailor-made point systems based on user’s actions for rating their strength, which can be a potential lead.
- Advanced segmentation
- Allows cross-platform marketing funnel through a tablet, mobile, desktop, and others.
- Feed content and send alerts to the users on the basis of their actions.
- Drip allows conversion tracking of the dashboard to monitor performance.
Features of Drip – Why It Stands Out:
Let’s glance at the remarkable features offered by Drip.
1. Segmentation & System:
Drip has done away with the list and is focused on events and tags. The tags can be applied to the subscribers manually or using automation workflows.
Drip makes it very easy to establish granular and tags based on the user’s behavior by swapping the trigger. For instance, to tag subscribers for a particular link in one email, you must look at the trigger menu.
Once drip is installed, its tracking code can let you place trigger links on pages of your website. Also, it enables tracking and tagging subscribers on the basis of pages visited and interacted with on the website.
2. Update Trigger:
This feature is useful for designing things such as campaigns for cart abandonment, timed based product delivery, and click-based emails. The capabilities of this tool are limitless.
The events work almost similar to tags with the only difference they are time-stamped and applicable multiple times. Also, they can be automatically used for subscribers through third-party integrations.
3. Automation:
Drip is focused on automated mechanisms and this is what attracts most of the people towards it. You can create automation in two ways using drip – Rules and Workflows.
The option for rules is almost similar to those offered by ConvertKit with a trigger and action functionality.
The option for workflow offers a visual automation builder, which branches off on the basis of various conditions.
In order to establish a quick, single-off, and simple automation rule, you can use the rule option. Otherwise, it is best to go for the workflow builder.
As far as speed is concerned, drip is much faster than its counterparts like ActiveCampaign. With a simple interface, it offers more actions and triggers that allowed building more efficient campaigns. Moreover, it can automatically resend broadcasts to those who didn’t open your email. Hence, it is a straightforward tool for email marketing.
4. Split Testing:
Drip allows performing split testing under its tab for Analytics. This feature allows testing various subject lines on the basis of delivery timing, name, and others.
Technically, it is possible to perform split testing for email by using the tags to break subscribers into different categories. But the process is quite complicated as compared to other similar tools.
Though it offers a good A/B testing scenario, if you want to test the actual content on email, it might get tricky.
5. Form Building:
The form builder of drip is better than those offered by others. In addition to design, it gives you control over various other aspects of the form such as orientation, redirect, visibility, triggers, behavior, sign-up copy, and others. Also, you can choose to install the form as a widget, hosted version, or embed code.
However, the design customizer in drip is basic, particularly when you compare it with other tools in the form builder. Though there are a few problems with managing and organizing the automation across platform, it is but possible to create customized automation rules.
Hence, the drip builder lacks design customization, but it still, is a good deal.
6. Email Templates:
The email templates in Drip are plain and do not offer much functionality of customization.
7. Integrations:
The integrations offered in drip are not much comprehensive as those offered by other tools. If you compare it with Zapier, you would find that it has more potential integrations through its Zap system.
The integrations offered in Drip are limited but they are popular.
Till you are using obscure applications, you don’t have to worry about these aspects.
8. Reporting & Tracking:
The drip dashboard is a complete breakdown of the website considering the email marketing scenario. It includes everything from form opens, page visits, conversions, and subscriptions.
Also, you can broadcast to see the various reports and get a sense of how the email performed in terms of clicks, unsubscribes, conversions, and opens.
There is a dedicated reports page, which breaks down the series of other aspects of email marketing. It includes things such as hard bounces, subscriber growth, and opens by the hour.
It is true that Drip goes beyond basics, but it is like a cake piece, you can use it for carving the exact data you wish. It is definitely a better tool for email marketing for reporting and tracking.
9. Documentation and Support:
For most of the email marketers, it is an important aspect to consider when considering any tool. Within the drip, there are various support channels available. You can always contact it through the contact form.
When I tested a series of emails for the response time, I found it to be anywhere from 48 hours, which is great. The responses received were excellent. Hence, there is no requirement for forth and back communication. However, the email support is offered on the limited plan.
Moreover, you can search the knowledge base, which is undoubtedly super.
Also, there is a Facebook community housing more than 16,000 members and it comes as a support option. But there is one limitation of this group that it is the LeadPages group and not the Drip group. Though the company is the same, it offers a broader discussion of scope amongst the members.
The last support option available in ‘Drip Live Coaching’ that basically lets you sign up for live webinars. These training sessions are based on different topics around marketing and you can also view past replays.
Most importantly, Drip offers the support option for live chat to pay customers. The live chat is on go-to for support and through it is difficult to catch them online at the correct time the support staff is well-trained and skilled.
There are a few loopholes within the support solutions offered by Drip on a free plan. But if you are taking the paid plan, you will never experience any problem.
10. Testing Deliverability:
Just like most other tools, I wanted to test Drip for its deliverability. Though it is a complex thing to test, after spending a lot of time, I can conclude that there are various ways to do the same.
But I personally liked two methods for it.
The first way is to run one campaign across all the tools and then estimate open rates. The second method is to use GlockApps, which delivers analytical, instant results.
11. Sending Emails:
Being an email marketing tool, Drip was expected to perform well when it comes to sending emails. Though the pre-made template is not much pleasing, it is possible to make its own design using different options and tools.
It offers fewer options than competitors. Hence, you have to solely decide that whether you want to go with pre-designed templates or you want to create a new one for your business.
It is good that you can always change the email, which is being sent on the basis of the receiver. For instance, if a person receives the email with a ‘customer’ tag, you may include a link for login rather than a link for signup.
12. Reporting Options:
Drip offers a few analytics. First, it is possible to generate reports on a range of metrics like:
- Email engagement
- Tag growth
- Subscriber count
- Return on investment
However, the most vital feature of Drip is that the reports show metrics on the basis of various actions linked to the kind of report generated. For instance, the conversion reports who the total number of visitors, the number of people who filled it, and those who checked the sign-up form.
Mostly, other platforms offer an overall rate of conversion and expect you to identify the steps playing that part.
13. Enhancing Click-Through Rates and Open Rates:
A click-through rate discloses the number of times a customer clicks on the links provided in your email campaign. It is an important indicator of how your email messages performed.
An open rate, on the other hand, is the rate at which the customer reads and accepts email. Drip is useful in increasing the open rate through split testing for things such as subject lines and sending times.
Also, Drip can be used for personalization to enhance click-through rates.
14. Double Opt-In:
With Drip, you can make sure that your customers develop the interest to receive email campaigns. Drip uses the double-opt-in function, which means once a customer selects to receive emails by clicking on your website link, they have to confirm the same through an email as well.
Drip ensures that businesses work in compliance with GDPR or General Data Protection Regulations and for this, it has developed a systematic process to obtain subscriber’s consent.
15. Increasing Subscriber Counts:
In order to add new subscribers to the list, there are two options available.
- You can design a form manually in the Drip account.
- You can programmatically use Drip API, which comes with good documentation and is a straightforward task for web developers.
It is possible to generate a new form with any fields of your choice. Then, you can split out HTML you require for pasting on the website. Just remember, it does not offer any CSS and hence you have to manage your own unique style for the sign-up forms. This is not a great deal, but still, you need to spend quite a time.
16. Pricing:
It would be wrong to say that Drip is the cheapest email marketing tool available. However, it is not too expensive as well. The additional money you spend over the basic plan is well-justified by offering numerous automation features.
I would suggest to start with the free account first and then move ahead to the paid plan if you like it.
Who Must Try Using Drip?
Drip may not cater to everyone’s requirements, but it is suitable for those
- who receive a bulk volume of traffic on a regular basis
- who have numerous distinct segments or categories of people in traffic
- who want to use advanced marketing solutions
But if you receive only hundreds of visits per month, or you simply want a tool that is good enough for sending basic emails, you may not find worth investing in Drip.
So, based on your monthly requirements, type of email marketing campaign you wish to run, and receivers, you can decide to use Drip or not