As an email marketing expert who has used numerous platforms over the years, I can confidently say that Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) stands out as one of the most versatile and user-friendly digital marketing automation platforms I’ve encountered. Having personally used Brevo, I’ve seen firsthand how its all-in-one approach can transform a company’s marketing efforts.
What impresses me most about Brevo is its ability to seamlessly integrate email marketing, SMS, and automation into a single, intuitive platform. In my experience, this level of integration is rare, especially at Brevo’s price point. I’ve found it particularly powerful for creating sophisticated, multi-channel campaigns that respond to customer actions in real-time – something that used to require multiple tools and a lot more effort.
While Brevo has earned the trust of thousands of businesses worldwide, including some of my own clients, it’s important to evaluate whether it’s the right fit for your specific needs. I’ve put together this comprehensive guide to help you make an informed decision. If you’re short on time, you can jump to my in-depth Brevo review. Otherwise, let’s dive into the features, pros, and cons to determine if Brevo is the right choice for your business.
So, is Brevo truly as good as it claims to be?
Drawing from my years of experience in email marketing and having used Brevo extensively, I’ll walk you through its key features and share my honest assessment of its strengths and weaknesses. By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear understanding of whether Brevo is the right tool to power your marketing efforts.
What is Brevo?
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is a comprehensive digital marketing automation platform designed to help businesses of all sizes streamline their marketing efforts. At its core, Brevo enables you to create and manage automated marketing campaigns across multiple channels, including email, SMS, and WhatsApp.
As someone who has used Brevo extensively for various marketing campaigns, I can attest to its versatility and user-friendly interface. Here’s a breakdown of what Brevo offers:
- Email Marketing: Create visually appealing emails using drag-and-drop editors or HTML, segment your audience, and track campaign performance.
- SMS Marketing: Reach customers directly on their mobile devices with targeted text messages.
- Marketing Automation: Set up workflows to automatically send personalized messages based on user behavior or specific triggers.
- CRM: Manage your contacts and track customer interactions in one centralized database.
- Live Chat: Engage with website visitors in real-time to provide instant support or capture leads.
- Landing Page Builder: Create and optimize landing pages without needing coding skills.
- Transactional Emails: Send automated emails for order confirmations, password resets, and other transactional purposes.
In my experience, Brevo’s strength lies in its ability to integrate these various marketing tools into one cohesive platform. This integration allows for seamless data flow between different marketing activities, enabling more targeted and effective campaigns.
While Brevo is often associated primarily with email marketing, it’s important to understand that it’s a full-fledged marketing suite. Its diverse set of tools makes it suitable for businesses looking to consolidate their marketing efforts under one roof. For a deeper dive into Brevo’s capabilities and how they can benefit your specific marketing needs, check out our comprehensive guide on Brevo’s features and use cases.
Brevo Features
Brevo is a suite of tools. It offers dozens of incredible features that can supercharge your marketing strategy.
Live Chat
If you want to get more sales and improve customer satisfaction, adding a live chat widget to your website can help. It allows you to help out your customers without infuriating them with long waiting times. It also lets you quickly answer any questions a potential customer might have when visiting your website.
Many people who visit your website will leave if they have a question about your product and can’t quickly find an answer. Brevo’s Live Chat feature makes it really easy for your visitors to communicate with you.
The best part about this tool is that it allows you to communicate with your customers and answer their queries on messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.
CRM
A CRM helps you manage your sales pipeline. It allows you to keep track of all your leads and customers. You can double your sales team’s productivity with the right CRM. Unfortunately, CRM software can be expensive, especially when starting.
Brevo offers a free CRM tool. This tool allows you to add as many contacts as you want. You can then track where these contacts are in your sales pipeline. It also allows you to collaborate with your entire team.
Email Marketing Automation
Brevo’s email marketing automation tools allow you to create fully automated email sales funnels that convert your subscribers into customers. It’s a powerful tool that you can use to create complex automated email sequences.
If content marketing is integral to your business strategy, you must create automated email funnels. Getting a website visitor to sign up for your email list is only the first part.
If you can’t convert them into customers, it’s all for waste. Automated email sequences allow you to nudge your subscribers toward the sale.
Brevo makes it really easy to create emails that win customers. It offers lots of different templates you can use. You can also create your email designs using their drag-and-drop builder.
Landing Pages
You need a new landing page for every new marketing campaign. Working with a designer or a developer takes a lot of time and back and forth.
But what if you could create landing pages on your own? Brevo’s drag-and-drop landing page builder allows you to create landing pages without touching a single line of code.
You just need to pick a design and customize it to suit your needs. You can also create your designs from scratch.
The best part about Brevo’s landing page builder is that it allows you to create follow-up pages that you can send your users after they complete a step on a previous landing page. This lets you create thank you pages and welcome pages.
This tool allows you to empower your marketing team to create landing pages on their own.
Brevo Pricing
Brevo has different plans for the four tools that it offers. Here’s an overview of the pricing for all four tools:
Email & SMS Marketing Pricing
The Marketing Platform lets you send your customers automated emails, SMS, and WhatsApp messages. You can get started free and send up to 300 emails daily.
The pricing starts at $25/month and allows you to send 20,000 emails monthly.
Brevo doesn’t charge you based on your email list size. You have to pay for the emails you send. You can build your plan based on how many emails you want to send every month:
The starter plan is great for when you are just starting out, but if you want more features, you’ll want to go for the Business plan. It starts at $65/month and offers a lot more features. It allows you to create Landing Pages. It also allows you to send Push Notifications to your customers.
You can also buy email credits for the number of emails you want to send. These credits don’t expire and can also be used to send transactional emails.
Live Chat Pricing
Chat allows you to add a Live Chat widget to your website and mobile apps. It lets you stay in touch with your customers and answer their queries immediately. The best part?
You can get started for free. For free, you can add a live chat widget to your website and mobile apps.
You’ll need to get the $15 per month plan if you want all the features. You’ll also need the paid plan if you want to add more people to your account. The free plan only allows one user.
There’s only one paid plan, and you’re charged based on how many team members you want to add to your accounts. Brevo doesn’t charge you based on how many end users you have or how many chats you have with them.
CRM Pricing
The Brevo CRM allows you to keep track of all your leads and customers in your sales pipeline. It helps keep everyone on your sales team on the same page. It helps you make the right decisions when trying to close a sale with a customer
With Brevo’s CRM, your team gets to collaborate on all the emails you send and receive from your customers. You get a shared inbox that allows you to reply quickly and collaborate on your messages to your leads and customers.
The CRM is completely free to get started. You can track an unlimited number of contacts in it for free.
Transactional Email Pricing
Transactional emails are one-time emails you send to your customers programmatically. If you are building an application, you’ll need to send your customers and users many transactional emails every now and then.
These emails include password reset emails, order receipts, delivery updates, etc.
Brevo allows you to send 300 emails per day for free when you sign up. If you would like to send more emails than that, then you’ll need to sign up for one of their paid plans.
All their paid plans offer the exact same features. The only difference is how many emails you can send every month.
The starter plan is $15 per month and allows you to send 20,000 emails monthly. You can upgrade anytime when you want to start sending more emails every month.
Brevo Pros and Cons
Here’s a quick overview of the pros and cons of using Brevo.
Pros
- Allows you to create automated email marketing campaigns.
- An easy-to-use landing page builder you can use to create and publish new landing pages quickly.
- A Live Chat plugin you can add to your website. It allows you to respond to your customers when they need help quickly.
- A free CRM tool that you can use to track all your customers and leads. You can add as many team members as you want to your account.
- Powerful segmentation tools allow you to personalize your marketing campaigns.
- Send transactional emails to your customers. It offers an easy REST API you can use.
- Create Facebook Ads that target your contacts directly from your Brevo account.
- Doesn’t charge you based on the size of your email list.
Cons
- You have to pay an additional monthly fee to remove Brevo branding from your campaigns. You have to pay this fee even on the paid plans.
- The landing page and email builder are basic and don’t offer many advanced features.
Verdict
After thoroughly testing Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) for several months, I can confidently say it’s a powerful all-in-one marketing platform that can significantly boost your business growth.
Build better customer relationships with Brevo - the all-in-one marketing platform trusted by over 180,000 businesses worldwide. Features include AI-powered email campaigns, advanced automation, landing pages, SMS messages, and more.
Here’s why I believe it stands out:
- Robust Free CRM: Track leads and customers effortlessly without spending a dime.
- Versatile Automation: Create sophisticated email, SMS, and WhatsApp campaigns that run on autopilot.
- Unique Pricing Model: Unlike many competitors, Brevo doesn’t charge based on your email list size, making it cost-effective as you scale.
- User-Friendly Interface: Even as a marketing novice, I found the platform intuitive and easy to navigate.
- Comprehensive Features: From landing page creation to live chat integration, Brevo offers tools that typically require multiple subscriptions elsewhere.
While Brevo isn’t perfect (the email builder could use some improvements), its value proposition is hard to beat. For small businesses and startups looking to maximize their marketing efforts without breaking the bank, Brevo is definitely worth considering.
Ready to take your marketing to the next level? Try Brevo for free and see the difference for yourself.
