Email marketing service: what it can do

Email marketing services are more than just a platform for sending and automating emails. They help segment audiences, create email templates, and track the effectiveness of mailings. Modern solutions support not only mass sending but also automatic triggered emails and personalization through dynamic content. All of this makes email marketing services a key tool for building effective email marketing campaigns—from welcome letters to complex automated sequences.

Email marketing services are necessary for making email marketing operate systematically. They help not just to send emails but to do so consciously.

A good email marketing service addresses several tasks at once. It ensures high deliverability, reduces the risk of being marked as spam, provides tools for personalization, and integrates with CRMs and other systems. As a result, email newsletters become a channel that delivers real results, rather than a chaotic dispatch of messages.

Are Gmail and Outlook Email Marketing Services?

No, Gmail and Outlook are email services, not mailing platforms. They are not designed for mass email sending and do not provide the necessary tools: segmentation, automation, and analytics.

If you send emails through a regular email service, you will soon encounter problems. Firstly, there are limits on the number of emails sent per day. Secondly, there is a high likelihood of being marked as spam since such sendings appear suspicious to email providers.

For email marketing, specialized email marketing services or ESPs (Email Service Providers) are needed. They ensure good deliverability, help manage contact databases, and track campaign results.

What Can You Do With Email Marketing Services?

Collecting Contacts

Before sending emails, you need to gather your audience. Modern services simplify this process—they allow you to place subscription forms on websites, landing pages, or use pop-up windows. At the same time, good platforms provide flexibility—you can customize the form's design to match your brand's style, choose the necessary fields, and add your scripts to extend functionality.

With Altcraft, forms can be created in just a few minutes — no special knowledge required. Here you can learn more and try it out.

In Altcraft, you can make any form element mandatory—so the user will definitely fill in the necessary fields

But the most important part is what happens afterward. Instead of just adding a contact to a list, an email marketing service can automatically send a welcome email and initiate a series of emails for new subscribers.

Automation and Triggered Mailing

One of the key features of these services is launching automated sequences triggered by specified conditions.

Examples:

• A user subscribes to the newsletter — they receive a series of welcome emails.
• An abandoned cart in an online store — a reminder is sent, possibly with a bonus.
• A person hasn’t opened emails for a long time — they receive a reactivation campaign with a lucrative offer.

The more advanced the service, the more scenarios can be implemented. For example, complex sequences with various branches can be built where the subscriber's actions affect the further content of the mailing.

Creating Email Templates

With Altcraft, you can:

• build emails from ready-made blocks or in HTML,
• upload and search for images in the built-in repository,
• add interactive AMP elements,
• preview the template on different devices,
• save your own blocks for reuse.

A/B Testing

You can test:

• Subject lines — which ones get opened more often?
• Content — which text or design generates more clicks?
• Sending times — when does the audience respond more actively?
• Entire automation scenarios — which version of the sequence leads to better results?

Segmentation and Personalization

Mass mailings to the entire database are an ineffective approach. Advanced services allow you to group the audience and send each user relevant content.

Examples of Segmentation:

• A user clicks a link about discounts in an email — they fall into the "looking for good deals" segment.
• A person hasn’t opened emails for a long time — they receive reminders or other types of content.
• A buyer purchased a product — they receive recommendations or upsell offers.

What is upselling and how does it increase average order value? Read here.

Analytics and Optimization

What can be tracked:

• Open Rate (OR) — how many people opened the email.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR) — how many clicked on the links.
• Conversions — how many subscribers took a targeted action (e.g., a purchase).
• User behavior — who reads which emails, what they respond to.

How to Choose an Email Marketing Service

An email marketing service plays a key role in managing marketing efforts. To make the right choice, it's important to consider not only the cost but also the platform's functionality, ease of use, and scalability prospects.

What capabilities the business needs. Before choosing a service, you should define what tasks it must accomplish. Some may only need a simple editor for mass mailings, while others might require complex automated scenarios, integrations with CRM, and conversion analytics. If only regular email campaigns are sent now but automated funnels are planned for the future, it’s better to choose a platform with additional capabilities right away.

How easy it is to work with the service. Email marketing should not turn into an endless setup. A good service allows you to quickly create emails, set audience segments, and launch automated sequences without delving into technical details. An intuitive interface and clear settings are as important as functionality.

Automation and personalization. If automated scenarios can be launched through the mailing service, it simplifies work and makes marketing more effective. For example, you can set up email chains for new subscribers, reminders for abandoned carts, or personalized offers for clients. The more personalization options available, the better—people are more likely to respond to emails that feel like personal contacts, rather than mass email distributions.

How to properly utilize personalization? And where to get the data? Read here.

Working with audience segments. Not all subscribers are equally active, and not everyone is interested in the same offers. A good mailing service allows you to configure segments—for example, to highlight new subscribers, active buyers, or those who haven't opened emails in a while. This way, you send relevant offers and avoid overwhelming the audience with unnecessary emails.

What are the segmentation models? Read the article here.

Email deliverability. There’s no point in having beautiful emails and complex scenarios if the messages don’t reach the subscribers. Good mailing services improve deliverability, support sending from your own domain, and monitor sender reputation. Some services choose the optimal sending time for each subscriber to increase the likelihood that the email will be opened.

What Can Altcraft Do?

Altcraft is not just an email mailing service; it is a full-fledged platform for marketing automation that encompasses many communication channels and helps build personalized and highly effective campaigns. It is a valuable tool for anyone looking to increase engagement and reduce costs.

Omni-channel Mailings. With Altcraft, you can send mailings not only via email but also through SMS, push notifications, and messengers (Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp). Moreover, everything can be done in one interface. With the platform, you can reach clients through the channel that is most convenient for them. For example, if a client doesn't open an email, you can send them a reminder via SMS or push notification. All this happens automatically.

Example of an omni-channel scenario in the Altcraft Platform

Analytics. The platform provides detailed analytical reports. You can track email open rates, clicks on links, sales, and client engagement. For example, with A/B testing of templates, you can identify which messages are the most effective and continually optimize mailings for maximum return.

Analytics in Altcraft

Personalization and Marketing Automation. Altcraft simplifies the creation of effective automated communication scenarios. The platform analyzes client behavior and sends messages that correspond to their interests and actions. For example, if a client leaves items in a cart, Altcraft will automatically remind them about their order.

Integration with Business Systems. Altcraft supports integration with CRM systems, advertising accounts, and other external services—both through ready-made connections and via API and webhooks. This gives you the ability to work with customer data and launch advertising campaigns by segments and transmit data to external systems for further processing.

ML Module — Best Send Time. Altcraft uses machine learning to determine the optimal sending time. Algorithms analyze customer behavior and calculate the best moment for sending messages, which increases the likelihood that the email will be opened.

Forms and Surveys for Data Collection. With Altcraft, it is convenient to collect requests and client information through forms and surveys. Fresh data create a clear understanding of the audience's needs and enable timely responses to their requests. Regular surveys and NPS analysis contribute to service improvement and maintaining a high level of loyalty.

Survey statistics in Altcraft

On-premises Deployment for Security Assurance. If data security is important for your business, you can install Altcraft on your servers. An open technology stack reduces costs, and the architecture easily withstands heavy loads.

Conclusion

Email marketing services are a way to make communication with customers more effective and personalized.

Altcraft offers not just email sending but a comprehensive solution for omni-channel marketing. The platform integrates email, SMS, push notifications, and messengers, automates marketing processes, and analyzes results. All marketing channels and data are collected in one place, ensuring that campaigns are precise and yield maximum effect.

*Product of Meta, recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation.