A strong marketing strategy is the engine that drives awareness, fosters customer relationships, and ultimately converts interest into sales. This guide is designed to cut through the noise and simplify the decision-making process. We’ll explore seven of the best email marketing platforms built to help you scale your ecommerce business, enhance your client offerings, and achieve your most ambitious goals.
The Evolving Role of the Web Creator
The landscape for web professionals has undergone a dramatic shift. A few years ago, the primary request from a small business owner was straightforward: “Build me a website.” Today, the expectation is much higher. Clients don’t just want a digital storefront; they want a growth engine. The conversation has evolved from “Here are the keys to your new site” to “Here’s how we’re going to grow your business this month.”
This new reality presents a massive opportunity for web creators. By expanding your skillset to include strategic marketing services, you can transition from a one-time project provider to an indispensable long-term growth partner. This is where mastering the right tools becomes not just a technical skill, but a cornerstone of your business strategy.
The Core of Modern Ecommerce Communication
Successful ecommerce merchants recognize that a one-size-fits-all marketing approach is a relic of the past. Today, the key to growth lies in building a tailored marketing stack, carefully selecting specialized tools for each critical function. This is especially true for customer communication. At the heart of this modern strategy are two powerful channels: email and SMS marketing.
These owned channels are becoming more critical as privacy regulations evolve and customer acquisition costs continue to rise. They provide a direct line to your audience, allowing you to build relationships on your terms.
Why Owned Marketing Channels Are Your Greatest Asset
For years, the go-to strategy for many online stores has been to invest heavily in social media ads and search engine marketing. While these channels are still crucial for discovery, relying on them exclusively is a risky proposition. The digital ground is constantly shifting. Ad costs are rising, organic reach on social platforms is declining, and significant privacy changes, such as the phasing out of third-party cookies, are making it harder to target new customers.
This is why “owned” marketing channels like email and SMS are so valuable. These are assets you control completely. The contact list you build is yours, independent of any algorithm or platform’s changing policies. This direct line of communication is stable, reliable, and incredibly effective for creating the kind of long-term customer relationships that drive sustainable growth.
Why Email Marketing Still Dominates
Despite the rise of countless new communication channels, email remains a cornerstone of effective ecommerce marketing. With over 4.5 billion active users worldwide, its reach is undeniable. More importantly, it’s the channel customers prefer for brand communication. A staggering
60% of consumers prefer receiving product updates and promotions via email. The reason for its staying power is simple: it works. Marketers consistently report high engagement and strong returns on investment from their email campaigns. Email allows you to tell a story, showcase your products visually, and provide value through curated content, all while guiding customers through their buying journey.
The Immediate Impact of SMS Marketing
While email builds the foundation, SMS (Short Message Service) marketing delivers the immediate punch. It’s a conversational and direct channel that cuts through the digital noise. How immediate is it?
90% of all text messages are opened and read within just three minutes of being received. This makes SMS perfect for time-sensitive promotions, flash sales, shipping notifications, and quick customer service interactions. When used thoughtfully, it complements your email strategy by creating a sense of urgency and providing instant touchpoints that keep your brand at the forefront of your recipients’ minds.
The Power of Automation and Segmentation
The true magic happens when you combine these channels with automation and segmentation, mapping your efforts to the customer lifecycle.
- Marketing automation enables you to send the right message at the right time, triggered by a customer’s specific actions. Think of automated workflows like a welcome series for new subscribers (nurturing), reminders for abandoned carts (conversion), or a post-purchase follow-up to request a review (retention and advocacy). These “set-and-forget” campaigns work for you 24/7, nurturing leads and recovering sales.
- Audience Segmentation is the practice of dividing your contact list into smaller, more targeted groups based on shared characteristics. You can create segments based on purchase history, browsing behavior, or demographic data. This enables you to move away from generic “email blasts” and send highly personalized messages that resonate with each specific group, resulting in higher engagement and conversions.
For web creators building stores for clients, mastering these tools is no longer just a “nice-to-have”—it’s a core competency that transforms you from a website builder into a vital growth partner.
Top Email Marketing Platforms for Online Stores
Ready to find the right tool to grow your brand and delight your clients? Here are our top picks for the best email and SMS marketing platforms designed to help you understand your customers, execute effective strategies, and drive serious sales.
1. Send by Elementor
Send by Elementor is not just another email plugin; it’s a comprehensive communication toolkit specifically designed for the WordPress and WooCommerce ecosystems. It empowers web creators to elevate their services, moving beyond one-off website projects to provide clients with valuable, ongoing marketing support that generates tangible results. By seamlessly integrating email, SMS, advanced automation, and deep analytics directly within the WordPress dashboard, Send streamlines the essential marketing tasks that boost sales, improve customer retention, and forge stronger client relationships.
This unified approach provides a straightforward path for web creators to build recurring revenue streams while eliminating the everyday frustrations of juggling multiple, disconnected tools.
Why a WordPress-Native Platform Matters
For anyone who builds or manages websites on WordPress, the term “native” is a big deal. It means the tool was designed from the ground up to work flawlessly within that specific environment. This is Send by Elementor’s core strength.
- A Truly Seamless Workflow: You and your clients manage everything from a single, familiar interface—the WordPress dashboard. There’s no need to learn a new platform or constantly switch between browser tabs. This simplifies training and day-to-day management, overcoming the complexity of non-native platforms.
- No More Data Syncing Headaches: One of the biggest challenges with external marketing platforms is keeping data consistent. Send by Elementor leverages your site’s existing WooCommerce data (like customer profiles, order history, and product details) in real-time. This means no complex APIs to configure, no data lags, and no plugin conflicts caused by syncing issues.
- Optimized Site Performance: Relying on multiple external platforms can mean loading extra JavaScript files on your site, which can slow down page load times. Because Send is built for WordPress, it’s optimized to minimize performance impact, ensuring your client’s site remains fast and responsive.
An All-in-One Communication Hub
Send by Elementor consolidates the essential tools you need into one elegant package, reducing plugin bloat and simplifying your tech stack.
- Email Marketing & Automation: Design, send, and automate beautiful, responsive emails with an intuitive drag-and-drop builder. You can start from scratch or use professionally designed, ready-made templates to launch campaigns quickly.
- SMS Marketing for Instant Engagement: Connect with customers directly via text for flash sales, order confirmations, shipping updates, and urgent alerts. It’s the perfect channel for messages that can’t wait.
- Powerful Marketing Automation Flows: This is where Send truly shines. You can utilize pre-built automation workflows to automate critical marketing tasks.
- Abandoned Cart Recovery: This is a must-have for any ecommerce store. Send makes it easy to set up a multi-step, multi-channel flow. For example, you could trigger an email one hour after a cart is abandoned, followed by an SMS message with a small discount code 24 hours later. These automated reminders can recover a significant amount of lost revenue.
- Welcome Series: Make a great first impression by automatically sending a series of emails to new subscribers. You can introduce the brand, highlight its best-selling products, and offer a special discount for first-time purchases.
- Customer Win-Back Campaigns: Automatically identify customers who haven’t made a purchase in a while and send them a targeted re-engagement campaign with a compelling offer to bring them back.
- Intelligent Audience Segmentation: Go beyond one-size-fits-all messaging. Send allows you to create precise audience segments based on real WooCommerce data like behavior and purchase history. For instance, you could target customers who have purchased from a specific category, spent over a certain amount, or used a particular discount code. This enables you to send highly relevant offers that drive results.
- Analytics That Demonstrate ROI: One of the biggest challenges for a web creator is proving the value of their work. Send by Elementor’s real-time analytics solves this problem. You can track campaign performance, open rates, click-through rates, and, most importantly, revenue attribution. This allows you to show your clients exactly how much money your marketing efforts are generating for them, making your services indispensable.
Getting Started: A Quick Walkthrough for Web Creators
Making the move to offering marketing services can feel intimidating, but a WordPress-native tool like Send dramatically lowers the barrier to entry. Here’s a hypothetical look at how you might set it up for a new client:
- Installation and Setup: The process starts comfortably inside the WordPress repository. You install Send like any other plugin, and it immediately feels like a natural part of the WordPress admin area.
- Connect to WooCommerce: This is the moment of magic. With just a few clicks, Send integrates with WooCommerce. There’s no API key to generate or tricky settings to configure. All your client’s existing customer and order data becomes instantly available for segmentation and automation.
- Create a Lead Capture Form: Using the familiar Elementor interface, you can design and embed a stylish pop-up or form on the website to start collecting email and SMS subscribers.
- Activate the Abandoned Cart Flow: Navigate to the automation section and select the pre-built “Abandoned Cart” template. You can customize the content of the messages. For example:
- Email 1 (1 hour later): Subject: Did you forget something? – A gentle reminder showing the items left in their cart.
- SMS 1 (24 hours later): Hi [Customer Name], your items are ready for pickup! Complete your order now and get 10% off with code: COMEBACK10.
- Design a Welcome Email: Use the drag-and-drop builder to create a visually appealing welcome email. You can easily add the client’s logo, match their brand colors, and write a warm introductory message. Save this as a template for all new subscribers.
In just a short amount of time, you’ve set up a robust, automated marketing system that runs in the background, capturing leads and recovering sales for your client.
Empowering the Modern Web Creator
Send by Elementor is more than a tool; it’s a business model. It’s designed to transform the service offerings of freelancers and agencies.
- Become a Growth Partner: Stop being just a “website person.” With Send, you can offer strategic marketing services that directly contribute to your client’s bottom line. You become a long-term partner invested in their growth.
- Build Predictable, Recurring Revenue: Break free from the feast-or-famine cycle of one-off projects. Offer email and SMS marketing management as a monthly retainer service. This creates a stable, predictable income stream for your business.
- Strengthen Client Loyalty: When you drive sales and deliver measurable results every month, your clients have every reason to stay with you. You’re no longer easily replaceable; you’re a crucial part of their success.
2. Attentive Email Marketing & SMS
attentive provides a unified platform that enables the management of both email and SMS marketing efforts from a single location. The tool allows for brands to build their subscriber base through opt-in forms and create audience segments using over 180 different customer data points.
Its features support multichannel campaigns, performance analytics, and A/B testing to help users optimize their marketing engagement and return on investment. The platform aims to provide a data-driven solution for delivering personalized messaging across both email and text channels.
3. Subi Subscriptions App
The Subi Subscriptions App provides a focused solution for e-commerce businesses seeking to launch and manage subscription-based programs. It offers an intuitive customer portal and a streamlined, mobile-friendly design, making it easy for shoppers to subscribe and manage their recurring orders.
For merchants, the app includes tools to track key performance metrics and optimize the subscription experience. It is built to serve a variety of industries, including beauty, wellness, and food and beverage sectors.
4. AdRoll
AdRoll operates as a digital advertising platform with a strong focus on driving conversions through personalized advertisements and retargeting campaigns. The platform provides a suite of features designed to engage customers at various stages of the marketing funnel.
These tools include automated audience segmentation and different targeting options, such as contextual, look-alike, and demographic targeting. It also provides analytics to help users measure the performance of their ad campaigns.
5. Octane AI
Octane AI is an advanced quiz-making platform designed to help Shopify merchants create a more personalized shopping journey for their customers. By using interactive quizzes, online stores can gather significant amounts of zero-party data directly from their visitors.
This information can then be analyzed to better understand customer needs and preferences, allowing the brand to recommend the most suitable products. The primary goal is to use this data to build stronger customer relationships and improve sales metrics.
6. SalesPop
SalesPop is a tool that helps Shopify merchants display real-time sales notifications on their website to build trust and create a sense of urgency. It leverages psychological triggers like social proof and FOMO (fear of missing out) to influence shoppers’ purchase decisions without requiring any coding knowledge. Its key benefits include an easy setup process, options for branding customization, and the ability to simulate a busy store environment, which can help boost buyer confidence.
7. Shopify Inbox
Shopify Inbox is a free messaging application developed by Shopify that enables merchants to communicate with customers in real-time as they browse the online store. The tool provides valuable context during conversations, such as which products a customer is viewing or what’s in their shopping cart.
This allows merchants to deliver personalized support, offer targeted product recommendations, and provide timely discounts to encourage conversions. It also features some AI-powered quick replies to help manage conversations more efficiently.
How to Choose the Right Platform for Your Needs
Selecting the best email marketing platform is a strategic decision that goes beyond a simple feature comparison. For web creators building and managing websites for clients, the choice significantly impacts your workflow, efficiency, and ability to offer valuable, revenue-generating services.
Here are the key factors you should consider to make an informed decision.
Integration and Your Tech Stack
How well does the platform fit into the ecosystem you already live in? This is the most critical question for a WordPress professional. Juggling disconnected technologies can lead to hours of lost productivity every week.
Using a non-native platform often means dealing with data silos, where customer information is trapped in separate systems. This creates friction, requires constant maintenance of integrations, and can even cause your client’s site to slow down. A truly WordPress-native platform like
Send by Elementor eliminates these issues by functioning as a seamless extension of WordPress and WooCommerce.
Scalability and Pricing
Your client’s business is poised for growth, and their marketing platform should be able to scale with them without breaking the bank. Look for a platform with a transparent, usage-based pricing model that scales fairly.
This ensures that as your client’s contact list and sending volume increase, the costs remain manageable and predictable. Avoid platforms with complex pricing tiers or hidden fees that can surprise you down the road.
Core Features vs. Your Client’s Needs
Before you choose, map out what your client needs. Do they just want to send a monthly newsletter? Or do they need sophisticated automation for abandoned carts and customer win-back campaigns? Some platforms are ideal for simple tasks, while others provide a comprehensive suite of tools for advanced strategies.
An all-in-one toolkit like Send by Elementor gives you the flexibility to start simple—perhaps with just a welcome series—and then scale up to more complex automation flows as your client’s business matures. This ensures you have the power you need for the future without being overwhelmed in the present.
The Power of a Unified Platform
Efficiency is key when you’re managing multiple client projects. Relying on a collection of single-purpose “point solutions” for email, SMS, and analytics is often inefficient.
Consolidating these functions into a single, integrated platform saves you time and provides a much clearer, more holistic view of your customer data. When all your data is in one place, you can build smarter segments and more personalized campaigns, ultimately driving better results for your clients.
Final Thoughts
In the dynamic landscape of modern ecommerce, having the right tools is not just an advantage; it’s essential for survival and growth. While many platforms offer an impressive array of features, the best choice is always the one that aligns perfectly with your specific workflow, your business goals, and the needs of your clients.
For web creators who have built their businesses on the foundation of WordPress and WooCommerce, the strategic path forward is clear. Choosing a communication platform that is built for WordPress offers unmatched benefits in integration, efficiency, and ease of use. By consolidating email, SMS, and powerful automation into a single, native solution, you can dramatically simplify your marketing management, amplify the results you deliver for clients, and unlock powerful new opportunities for your business growth. This isn’t just a technical decision; it’s a strategic one that positions you for long-term success.
