ConvertKit – Just Another Email Marketing Platform?

4Successful digital product marketing takes time. You have to catch a potential customer's attention, and then stay in touch until they finally decide to purchase your product.
To do that, you need to create a landing page or a form in your content where they can sign up so you can collect their contacts.
You also have to follow up with emails and hope that you would turn them into customers.
This workflow typically takes more than one software to:
- Publish your content,
- Create your forms,
- Send your emails -you might even need two email apps, one to send drip emails on a schedule and another to send newsletters and updates.
ConvertKit can handle it all from one app: forms, landing pages, drip emails, and newsletters. Typically, an all-round software can do many things but not in-depth.
I have tried it and learned about its standard and special features. I will completely discuss in this review about what it can and cannot do, and how well it does them.
I will also make comparisons with other popular email marketing softwares such as Aweber, MailChimp, and ActiveCampaign.
What is ConvertKit?
ConvertKit is a relatively new player in the email marketing software market. Their product targets professional bloggers as their goal is “to make email easier and more robust for professional bloggers like you”. Next to bloggers, they also target podcasters, course creators, and YouTubers.
This email marketing platform is more suitable for bloggers because it integrates with lots of other platforms and software like WordPress, LeadPages, Optinmonster, Gumroad, and more. You can do a lot with landing pages, forms, automating opt-in gifts, incentives, and more.
Beyond the automated email series, it utilizes many additional automated triggers and offers a flexible organization of and interaction with your subscribers.
Not to mention, the ability to Reusable, automated email series. This email platform allows you to write email series once and reuse them again and again.
VIDEO DEMO ( CLICK TO PLAY )
00:35 : How easy it is to use ?
01:28 : Creating and Editing your Opt in Form
02:36 : Settings your Optin Form ( Double / single optin , Success Message, incentive download , etc )
04:31 : Changing Form Style
05:06 : How to Embed your Optin form to WordPress / Website
06:38 : See Subscriber Data Report
07:03 : How to Create Email Sequences
09:55 : Excluding unwanted Subscriber to email sequences
11:20 : Subscriber Features
12:00 : Anti Duplicate And Tagging ( Unique Features )
13:20 : Segmenting Subscriber ( Unique Features )
16:20 : How to Broadcast your Email
17:21 : How to Create Email Automation Rules
18:45 : 3rd Party Integration w
19:22 : Conclusion & Pricing
Features
Using tags to personalize your email
Most email marketing services gather all your subscribers into one huge account list, where on the other hand, one of the features is to provide you with great flexibility allowing you to categorize and divide your subscribers.
ConvertKit uses tags based on interests to divide and categorize your subscribers. This feature will help make it easier for you to send different emails to different groups of subscribers within your list.
So instead of sending always sending email broadcasts to one huge list, you can send out more targeted broadcasts and/or courses that cater to a smaller subset of your subscribers.

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This feature, however, might be a little challenging as it uses syntax which is like programming, so it might look too complex for those with no skill.
Resend to unopens
One of the best features that ConvertKit has to offer is their resends to unopened feature. Some of your subscribers might not have the time or did not check the email you sent.
Perhaps your email headline wasn’t the best, or maybe they were too busy at the time to read, therefore it allows you to resend those emails again to those who have not opened it yet.

Automation
The visual automation editor is one of the best in the market, as it has higher automation capabilities than most service providers in the industry.
It will be easier for you to effectively use ConvertKit’s platform as it has a distraction-free interface providing you with unrestricted flexibility with making different workflows. Users can make simple two-step or more complex workflows for cart desertion or list lopping, offering more triggers and activities.
Automation is a game-changer with email marketing because you can use it to automatically segment your lists into subscribers with similar interests. It is also perfect for implementing content upgrades for your more loyal subscribers.
It currently offers these 8 different triggers and 7 different actions.

Here are some of their other features:
– Pretty form design

– Conversion percentage from each page
One thing that ConvertKit is lacking is its ability at reporting, but all running list of all the forms (landing pages and models) that you have created will be kept on the primary dashboard.
ConvertKit will show you the number of times each form has been loaded and the number of conversions, along with its specific conversion rate and a number of opt-ins.

– Suggested email sales funnel

– Free migration
ConvertKit will give you free concierge onboarding, meaning it will migrate you from your existing service for free if you have over 10,000 subscribers.
It can even host downloadable files so you can offer an incentive for readers to sign up.
Who’s ConvertKit for?

I think the perfect market is the blogger who wants more advanced email and marketing capabilities without sacrificing ease of use.
If you are primarily focused on writing, publishing and using simple approaches to selling your products, ConvertKit is a great fit.
Vs Aweber
ConvertKit works a little differently then Aweber. Aweber has all your subscribers grouped into separate lists, where ConvertKit has your subscribers in one big account list.
But what makes ConvertKit more flexible is giving you the ability to segment (filter) your subscribers. You can segment your subscribers to specific sequences, forms, or tags, you can also segment based on date.
There’s even a pre-made filter to solely target your cold subscribers.
Vs MailChimp
MailChimp is known for its sophisticated drag and drop editor, which unfortunately ConvertKit does not have.
So, ConvertKit wouldn’t be the best option for creating fancy email newsletters. However, for simple text and HTML emails are still perfectly capable and very simple to use.
The downside of MailChimp is that it has serious restrictions like limiting you to one option form per list, meaning that it will be a hustle if you want to add multiple content upgrades to your site.
MailChimp, as well as Aweber, both lack the automation capabilities that ConvertKit offers and is innovating slower than ConvertKit is able to.
Vs Infusionsoft
Big name bloggers and business who wants more advanced email automation were driven more towards Infusionsoft. But the problem with Infusionsoft is its very complicated system to learn.
Couple that with a hefty price tag and an initial setup cost put it out of reach for most bloggers.
Vs ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has one of the best visual automation editors and is packed full of features at an affordable price, which sounds like a good thing, but can be overwhelming for some.
The main power of ActiveCampaign is its automation, giving you almost unlimited flexibility with creating different workflows. It also has more triggers and actions than ConvertKit supports.
However, ConvertKit has a distraction-free interface making it easier for you to get the hang of. With it, you can still implement many common automation use cases with them.
Pricing
Price-wise, ConvertKit does come out more expensive than its most direct competitors. Both Aweber and ConvertKit start at $29 a month with a list of 1,000 subscribers.
However, it does get more expensive as your number of subscribers increases. Pricing comparison can be seen by the table below:
Subscribers | 1000 | 5000 | 10000 |
ConvertKit | $29 | $79 | $119 |
Aweber | $29 | $49 | $79 |
ActiveCampaign | $17 | $45 | $70 |
One thing to point out is that ConvertKit counts a subscriber who is on multiple courses as a single distinct subscriber. So you won’t get double or triple billed for the same subscriber on multiple lists like you would with Aweber or Mailchimp.
There is also no free trial available , but they do give you a full 30 day money back refund guarantee if it doesn’t work out for your business.
Where to Buy?
You can purchase ConvertKit by clicking the button below.
ConvertKit is available for $29 a month, there are no free trials, however, there is a 30-day full money back guarantee if you do not like the product.
The Verdict
ConvertKit is definitely an interesting newcomer to email service providers. You can see they are starting to build up their reputation as some big name bloggers like Pat Flynn and Kim Roach have started using their services.
What makes it stand out is its extremely polished UI design and it’s easy to use automation rules. They have done a really good job of keeping the app easy to use and understand for beginners and more minimalist users.
ConvertKit has a great blend of features and simplicity without letting you get distracted by things you’re not ready for yet.
You can consider it as more of a professional email service provider which would certainly help you achieve your email marketing goals and generate more leads for your business.
There’s a lot of potential with it and I expect to see even bigger and better features being added.
It might not be the cheapest option but, it certainly deserves all the applause for its features and functionalities it provides.
At $29 USD a month, it might be a little too much for new writers and bloggers when softwares like MailChimp is free. But once you get more than 2000 subscribers or when you’re ready to create an autoresponder series, ConvertKit is very useful for you.
But unfortunately it does not offer a free trial. However, they do give you a full 30-day money back guarantee so if it doesn’t work out for your business, you can always get a full refund.