Want to unlock the power of marketing automation without breaking the bank? Zoho Campaigns brings affordable pricing plans and robust functionality together in one platform.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore Zoho’s pricing tiers, included features, workflow builder, and tips to maximize your email marketing ROI. Let’s dive in!
Overview of Zoho Email Marketing Capabilities
When it comes to email marketing, Zoho has all the boxes checked to help businesses reach their audiences. Between Zoho Campaigns for external communications and Zoho Mail for internal team messaging, Zoho delivers a robust set of email tools.
Let’s start with Zoho Campaigns, the bread and butter for marketing emails. This platform lets you create and send bulk emails to contacts and subscriber lists for lead generation, promotions, newsletters and more. We’re talking high-volume email campaigns with all the conversion-focused features you need.
Some of the key capabilities in Zoho Campaigns include:
Customizable Templates
Zoho Campaigns makes it easy to create professional, polished emails with beautiful templates. You can start from hundreds of pre-designed templates across niches and use the drag-and-drop editor to customize them. Change colors, fonts, images and layouts to match your branding. Plus, easily insert dynamic content, video, GIFs and more to boost engagement.
Marketing Automation
This is where Zoho Campaigns really shines. Use the workflow builder to set up sequences of triggered emails based on customer behavior. For example, send automated follow-ups when someone clicks a link, visits certain pages on your site, attends a webinar or makes a purchase. You can get super targeted by integrating your email campaigns with a CRM system like Zoho CRM.
Insightful Analytics
Understanding your email marketing performance is crucial. Zoho Campaigns gives you real-time tracking of opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces and more. Slice and dice your data, see trends and find ways to optimize your campaigns. You can even compare A/B testing results to discover which email versions perform best.
When it comes to internal communication, Zoho Mail steps in as an email platform for teams. Think of it as a business inbox service for secure company email. Employees get professional branded email addresses through your domain along with team collaboration features like shared calendars, docs and more.
Now let’s explore some standout benefits of Zoho’s email marketing solutions:
Affordable Pricing
One of the biggest advantages of Zoho’s ecosystem is affordable pricing. Zoho Campaigns starts with a free plan then scales up at reasonable rates. Even small teams can benefit from professional email tools without breaking the bank.
Built-in Workflows
Forget complex setups. Zoho Campaigns has drag-and-drop workflow templates to automate common marketing scenarios. Use lead nurturing workflows to engage subscribers, trigger post-purchase follow-ups and more. Workflows make marketing automation accessible.
Unified Experience
Since Zoho Mail and Zoho Campaigns integrate seamlessly, you get a unified email experience. Shared contacts, calendars and docs enable easy collaboration. Sync email analytics with your CRM to align sales and marketing.
Deliverability and Compliance
No one wants their marketing emails sent straight to the spam folder. Zoho Campaigns helps your messages reach the inbox through validated domains, sender reputation monitoring and advanced deliverability tools. It also ensures your emails comply with privacy laws like GDPR and CASL.
Mobile Functionality
Managing email campaigns on the go is a breeze with Zoho Campaigns’ mobile apps for Android and iOS. View reports, author emails, update contacts and handle subscriptions whether you’re commuting or traveling.
With powerful features for designing, sending and automating marketing emails, Zoho Campaigns takes your email marketing efforts to the next level. Backed by Zoho Mail’s shared business inbox for teams, these solutions check all the boxes for scalable and affordable email marketing.
Let’s now dive into the pricing and plans to see how Zoho Campaigns fits within any budget.
Zoho Campaigns Pricing Plans Breakdown
One of the most common questions around Zoho Campaigns is “how much does it cost?” The answer is fortunately quite affordable thanks to tiered pricing plans designed for all business sizes.
In this section, we’ll break down the details around Zoho Campaigns’ pricing, features and capabilities included in each plan.
Forever Free
Zoho starts you off with a free forever plan containing the basics for email marketing. This allows you to test the software and run small campaigns without paying a dime.
The Forever Free plan includes:
- 1 user
- 1,000 total contacts
- 5 campaigns per month
- 2,000 emails per month
- Basic templates
- Basic reports
- 24/7 support
This free plan is best suited for startups, small business owners and freelancers who are just getting started with email marketing. It lets you organize basic contact lists, send promotional blasts, newsletters and more without worrying about costs.
Standard Plan
Once you’re ready to scale beyond the Forever Free basics, the Standard plan adds more advanced features at $3 per 500 contacts per month.
Here’s an overview of what’s included:
- Unlimited contacts
- Unlimited emails
- Unlimited campaigns
- Standard templates
- A/B testing
- Basic workflows
- Dedicated IP (extra fee)
- Advanced analytics
- API and JavaScript tracking
The Standard plan lifts most limits, which is great for growing businesses and mid-market teams. You gain tools like A/B testing, workflows, analytics and the option for a dedicated IP address to scale deliverability.
Professional Plan
Stepping up to the Professional plan unlocks additional capabilities for $4.50 per 500 contacts per month. Everything in the Standard plan is included, plus:
- Unlimited contacts
- Advanced workflows
- Lead scoring
- Surveys
- Extended analytics
- Litmus integration
- Priority support
Marketers who want maximum functionality will appreciate the advanced workflows for complex automations and lead scoring for identifying hot prospects. Litmus credits help preview campaign renders, while priority support access provides peace of mind.
Pay As You Go
For larger email volumes beyond the packs of 500 contacts, Zoho offers pay as you go custom pricing. This allows you to only pay for the number of contacts and emails you need.
Pay as you go rates are:
- $14 per 500 contacts
- $0.003 per email
- Volume discounts available
If you manage email marketing for an enterprise brand or have a contact database in the millions, this is the most cost-effective option.
Add-Ons and Upgrades
Beyond the core plans, Zoho Campaigns allows you to customize your account with add-ons and upgrades such as:
More Contacts: Add contacts in packs of 500 up to 100,000 contacts. Above 100,000 is custom quoted.
More Emails: Send additional emails beyond the monthly limit at $10 per 5,000 emails.
Webinar Attendees: Host larger webinars with add-on packages up to 250 attendees per webinar.
Dedicated IP: Get your own IP starting at $20/month to enhance deliverability.
Litmus Credits: Integrate Litmus email testing credits into your account.
Storage: Boost storage in 10GB packs as needed.
By mixing and matching plans with add-ons, you can closely match your Zoho Campaigns capabilities to your program size and needs.
What’s Included in Each Plan?
Now that we’ve outlined the plans, let’s take a deeper look at the features and functionality unlocked at each tier.
Forever Free
The free plan gets you started with basic email marketing capabilities:
- Max 1,000 contacts
- 2,000 emails per month
- 5 campaigns per month
- Basic templates
- Basic reports
- Drag and drop editor
- Signup forms
- Contact management
- Basic workflows
- 24/7 support
This covers creating and sending simple email newsletters, promotions and announcements. You can segment contacts, customize templates and view reports on opens, clicks and forwards. It’s a great starter plan, but lacks advanced features.
Standard
Upgrading to Standard removes limits and adds automation plus optimization functionality:
- Unlimited contacts
- Unlimited emails
- Unlimited campaigns
- Unlimited templates
- A/B testing
- Basic workflows
- Lead scoring
- Email scheduling
- Advanced analytics
- Dedicated IP (add-on)
- Reports and dashboards
- Facebook ads integration
- REST API and JS tracking
Marketers gain the ability to test and compare campaign performance, score leads based on engagement metrics, schedule sends at optimal times and integrate with platforms like social media and CRM systems.
Professional
The top-tier Professional plan stacks on advanced features for maximizing email marketing impact:
- Unlimited contacts
- Unlimited emails
- Unlimited campaigns
- Advanced workflows
- Surveys and polls
- Litmus integration
- SMTP relay
- Priority support
- Extended analytics
- Heatmaps
- Email appends
- Spam testing
- lane-based user management
- SLA and dedicated account manager
Everything required for sophisticated nurture tracks, complex automations, deliverability optimization and enterprise-level support is included. This makes Professional a great fit for established email marketing teams ready to scale.
The complete inclusion of features at each pricing tier enables you to get the exact email marketing capabilities your business needs without overspending. And with affordable rates for add-ons and custom quoting for large volumes, your Zoho Campaigns costs can grow as you grow.
Automation Capabilities in Zoho Campaigns
Where Zoho Campaigns really shines is the ability to set up automated, triggered email workflows. These take your campaigns to the next level by sending the right messages to the right people at the right time.
In this section, we’ll explore Zoho Campaigns’ workflow builder, lead scoring, email autoresponders and how to leverage personalization. Then we’ll look at some example automated workflows you can implement for common marketing scenarios.
Drag-and-Drop Workflows
The workflow builder in Zoho Campaigns makes creating automated email journeys a breeze. Simply drag-and-drop a pre-made workflow template or build your own workflows from scratch.
Using a visual diagram, you can map out triggers based on time delays, date ranges or contact actions that flow into emails, decisions, conditions and more. For instance, trigger an onboarding drip campaign when someone signs up for your newsletter. Or send a customized product recommendation email when an item is added to their cart.
Workflows help you create sophisticated lead nurturing tracks, post-purchase follow-up sequences, event promotions and drip campaigns without complex setups.
Lead Scoring for Identifying Hot Leads
To take your marketing automation further, Zoho Campaigns’ lead scoring helps you identify your hottest leads based on engagement and profile actions.
You can assign points to contact activities like:
- Downloading a gated resource
- Attending a webinar
- Clicking a link in an email
- Visiting certain pages on your site
Then build this scoring into workflows to automatically send high scoring leads into sales queues like CRM systems. This lets you follow up with hot prospects while they’re still engaged.
Email Autoresponders
Another way to automate campaigns is through email autoresponders triggered by contact actions. For example:
- Send an immediate follow-up to everyone who opens an email
- Trigger a reminder a week later for those who don’t open
- Re-engage dormant contacts who haven’t engaged recently
You can also base autoresponders on fields in a contact’s profile, like sending a discount on their birthday or when they hit a certain lifetime spend threshold.
Personalization with Merge Tags
Taking personalization further, Zoho Campaigns lets you incorporate dynamic merge tags in your emails. These pull in data from each contact’s profile to tailor content. Examples include:
- Inserting the contact’s first name
- Displaying their previous purchase information
- Showing the date they signed up
- Populating their location to recommend local events
Personalized subject lines, images, content and CTAs boost relevance and drive higher engagement.
Example Automated Workflows
Now let’s explore some specific examples of powerful marketing automation workflows you can create with Zoho Campaigns:
Abandoned Cart Reminders
Motivate customers to complete their purchase with a series like:
- Email 1: 15% off cart contents if purchased in 24 hours
- Email 2: Reminder their cart will expire soon
- Email 3: Final notice their cart has been cleared
This brings in sales you would have otherwise lost.
Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Ask for feedback to improve products and services:
- Email 1: Request for testimonial 2 weeks after purchase
- Email 2: Follow-up to non-respondents 1 week later
- Email 3: Second request focused on surveys
Post-Purchase Engagement Series
Continue nurturing customers after they buy:
- Email 1: Thank you and links to help resources
- Email 2: Tips, tricks and recommendations for getting the most value
- Email 3: Provide warrant information and incentives to re-engage
Review Requests and Testimonials
Proactively collect social proof:
- Email 1: Request for reviews on site/app store shortly after delivery
- Email 2: Follow-up focused on collecting testimonials for marketing use
- Email 3: Final reminder to submit reviews before offer expires
Event/Webinar Follow-Ups
Keep contacts engaged before and after events:
- Email 1: Promotion for an upcoming webinar
- Email 2: Reminder 1-2 days prior about the event
- Email 3: Post-webinar thank you with links to recording and resources
The options are endless when you combine Zoho’s powerful automation with creativity relevant to your business. Now let’s look at some optimization tips.
Tips for Designing Effective Automated Campaigns
Automating your email marketing through workflows and lead scoring provides immense opportunities to engage your audience. But how do you maximize the impact of your automated campaigns?
In this section, we’ll explore tips for planning and optimizing automated workflows as well as using A/B testing to improve campaign metrics.
Tailor Content to Lifecycle Stage
One of the biggest advantages of automating campaigns is the ability to create hyper-targeted content and messaging tailored to where each contact is in their journey.
Segment your contacts in workflows based on their:
- Lead stage (new, nurtured, sales qualified)
- Customer lifecycle (awareness, consideration, retention)
- Engagement level (active, passive, unengaged)
Then craft content that speaks directly to contacts at that specific milestone.
For example, send new subscribers educational ” ramp up” content to build awareness. Follow up recent purchasers with tips for getting the most value from your product. Remind loyal repeat customers about new releases and promotions.
When content aligns to their needs, contacts are more likely to take action.
Test Different Triggers and Time Delays
The keys to effective workflows are pulling the right triggers and setting optimal delays between emails. Take time to test variations to see what converts best.
If you trigger emails based on page visits, test sending follow-ups immediately versus waiting 24-48 hours. For cart abandonment workflows, try delays of 1 hour, 6 hours and 24 hours.
When requesting reviews, experiment with delays of 3, 5 and 7 days after delivery. There are no universally optimal timings – you need to test what works for your audience.
Monitor Performance and Continuously Optimize
Check your email automation reports frequently and tweak your workflows to improve results.
Look for drop-off points where contacts exit the workflow and enhance messages at those stages. If open rates decline from the first to second email, refresh your subject lines and content.
Leave optimization on autopilot and your automation becomes less effective over time as contacts’ needs change.
Integrate Workflows With Other Channels
While automated email works great on its own, you can amplify results by coordinating with other channels like social media, SMS and live chat.
Some examples:
- Sync email subscribers who clicked a product link to Facebook Custom Audiences for retargeting
- Trigger SMS reminders to contacts who didn’t open an email
- Include links to book product demos in post-purchase follow-up emails
This omnichannel approach enhances consistency across channels while maximizing touchpoints.
Combine Workflows With Lead Scoring
Pairing workflows with lead scoring rules supercharges the impact. Use lead scoring to continually assess subscriber engagement then route hot leads into sales queues.
For instance, trigger an immediate sales alert whenever:
- A lead reaches 50 website page views
- Someone clicks your pricing page link 3+ times
- A contact has 5+ email opens in 30 days
Sync these red hot leads into your CRM as sales qualified opportunities. Workflows and scoring unite to deliver results.
Use A/B Testing to Improve Campaign Metrics
For additional optimization, A/B split testing lets you refine your marketing emails by comparing variations side-by-side.
Some elements you can test include:
Subject lines have the biggest influence on open rates. Test variables like:
- Personalized vs. generic
- Emotional (fear, humor) vs. factual
- Long vs. short length
- Emojis vs. no emojis
- Urgency
Content Formats
Compare how different formats impact engagement:
- Long form articles vs. short tips
- Numbered lists vs paragraphs
- Text only vs. text + images
- Videos vs. images
CTAs
Since the CTA is key for conversions, test changing:
- CTA placement (top vs. bottom, embedded vs. standalone)
- CTA copy (active verb + benefit)
- Color, size, style
- Clarity on next steps
Email Copy
Test how re-writing copy and content affects metrics:
- Readability (Flesch-Kincaid score)
- Sentiment and tone (urgent, conversational, formal)
- Level of personalization
Timing
Try different campaign schedules to determine optimal send times. Compare:
- Day of week
- Time of day
- Date (beginning, middle or end of month)
- Seasonality
Audience Segmentation
Split test different segments to identify which groups engage best:
- Customer lifecycle stage
- Lead score
- Location
- Purchase history
- Demographics
Regularly testing elements like these compounds to significantly boost your emails’ impact over time.
Tips for Reliable A/B Testing
When running split tests, keep these tips in mind:
- Test one variable at a time
- Send to at least 1,000 contacts per variant
- Compare based on conversion rate, not open rate
- Let tests run 1-2 weeks before evaluating
- Calculate statistical significance
- Challenge assumptions and keep iterating
Following best practices for A/B testing ensures your results are valid.
By constantly designing, optimizing and evolving your automated campaigns, you’ll keep subscribers engaged and maximize the value of your email programs.
Now let’s summarize some of the top benefits of choosing Zoho Campaigns for your marketing automation needs.
Key Advantages of Zoho Email Marketing
Now that we’ve explored the pricing, features and use cases, let’s summarize some of the top benefits Zoho Campaigns and Zoho Mail provide for your email marketing stack:
Affordable Pricing Plans
From free forever plans to scalable pay-as-you-go options, Zoho offers email marketing at affordable rates. Unlimited contacts and emails in the Standard plan make growth easy. Volume discounts are available for large databases.
User-Friendly Automation
Sophisticated workflows are made simple through pre-built templates and a drag-and-drop builder. Lead scoring seamlessly integrates to identify hot prospects. Automation is accessible.
Helps Increase ROI
Features like templates, A/B testing and automation combine to drive higher engagement. This leads to improved conversions and tangible ROI from your email programs.
Deliverability and Compliance
Reaching the inbox is crucial, and Zoho Campaigns delivers the tools to make it happen. Dedicated IPs, domain authentication, and reputation monitoring help your emails get to the inbox. GDPR and other privacy compliance keeps your brand trusted.
Mobile Functionality
Zoho Campaigns’ iOS and Android apps enable managing your email campaigns on the go. Approve content, check reports and handle list growth from anywhere.
For most businesses, Zoho Campaigns offer the ideal combination of easy automation, deliverability and affordability to execute successful email marketing. And integration with Zoho CRM and other platforms creates an ecosystem to unify your martech stack.
FAQs Around Zoho Email Marketing
Let’s wrap up by addressing some frequently asked questions about capabilities and limitations of Zoho’s email tools:
What are the sending limits? Contacts? IP addresses?
Limits depend on your plan, but you can send unlimited emails to unlimited contacts on the Standard plan or above. For dedicated IPs, you can purchase additional IPs as needed.
Is Zoho Campaigns suitable for transactional emails?
No – for transactional emails, check out Zoho Campaigns’ sister platform ZeptoMail. Zoho Campaigns focuses solely on marketing emails.
What type of email marketing analytics and reporting does it offer?
Robust real-time stats are included like opens, clicks, unsubscribes, bounces, geolocation and more. Charts, graphs and dashboards allow drilling into campaign performance.
How does the Zoho Campaigns mobile app work?
The iOS and Android apps make managing emails easy on the go. View reports, author emails, update lists and handle subscriptions from any device.
From leveraging automation to maximizing deliverability and measuring results, Zoho Campaigns provides powerful email marketing capabilities to take your business to the next level.
Now that you understand features, pricing and use cases, you can determine if Zoho’s solutions are the right fit for your email marketing and communication needs.
Key Takeaways
To recap, here are the key points to understand about Zoho’s email marketing and automation capabilities:
- Zoho Campaigns handles high-volume marketing emails while Zoho Mail powers internal team communication.
- Campaigns pricing starts free and scales from $3 per 500 contacts/month up to enterprise-level custom quotes.
- Powerful drag-and-drop workflow automation makes complex multi-step campaigns achievable.
- Leverage lead scoring to identify hot prospects and sync them to your CRM as sales-ready.
- A/B test elements like subject lines, content and CTAs to optimize campaign performance.
- Affordable pricing, ease of use and robust feature set make Zoho Campaigns a leading email marketing platform.
- Deliverability tools, compliance and mobile apps check all the boxes for executing successful campaigns.
- Integrations with Zoho CRM and 500+ apps create an ecosystem to unify marketing data.
With the ability to create beautiful emails, automate sophisticated workflows and manage contacts at scale, Zoho Campaigns provides the capabilities to maximize your email marketing ROI.
Hopefully this guide has provided a comprehensive overview of how Zoho solutions can fit into your email marketing and communication stack.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about getting started with Zoho Campaigns for email marketing automation:
How do I create an account?
Signing up takes just minutes. Simply go to Zoho Campaigns and click “Sign Up Now”. Enter your email, name, company details and create your password.
What’s the maximum number of contacts allowed?
All paid plans allow unlimited contacts. On the free plan, you can have up to 1,000 contacts.
How many emails can I send each month?
The free plan includes 2,000 emails per month. Paid plans start with unlimited emails. Volume discounts are available.
How do I import my contact lists?
You can easily import contacts via CSV file upload or by connecting to sources like Zoho CRM, Mailchimp and your website forms. Contacts can also be added manually.
What type of support is included?
24/7 email support is provided on all plans. Live chat and phone support are included on Professional and enterprise plans.
Is there a way to see previews of my campaigns?
Yes, you can install the free Zoho Campaigns extension for Chrome to preview your emails before sending.
How can I track the performance of my emails?
Robust real-time analytics are included for opens, clicks, geolocation, unsubscribes, social sharing and more. Dashboards provide insights.
What deliverability tools does Zoho Campaigns offer?
Features like dedicated IPs, domain authentication, inbox placement tests, spam checks, and more help maximize email deliverability.
Is there a free trial I can try?
Yes, Zoho provides a 15 day free trial to test drive the system and experience key features first-hand.
Hopefully these answers help you get started! Let us know if you have any other questions.