Building and nurturing an email list is crucial for the success of any business.
However, building a comprehensive and accurate email list can take time and effort. Also, there’s no guarantee that the contacts in your list will convert.
So what can you do?
Well, this is where email list-building services can help you. These can help you build your email list and improve conversions from your email campaigns.
Luckily, we’ve done all the work and compiled 15 exceptional email list-building services to get you started.
But first, let’s discuss some key list-building tactics you can use to build your email list.
What are email list building services?
Email list-building services usually are online platforms that help businesses grow their email subscriber lists. These platforms use various methods and forms to attract potential subscribers and collect their email addresses, allowing businesses to reach out to them through email marketing campaigns.
The main list-building tactics
Here are some of the most effective ways to grow your email list and engage your audience.
1. Popups
Using popups on your website is a great way to capture leads and build your email list.
Popups are like small banners or windows appearing in a web page’s foreground. They’re strategically designed to deliver specific messages and get users to take particular actions.
This includes signing up for newsletters, making purchases, or accessing exclusive content. The users simply need to fill out a short form to provide their contact information to access the offer.
Popups allow you to collect email addresses of website visitors who might be interested in your products or services.
Here’s an example of a popup from Revolve.
Source: Revolve
2. Sticky bars
A sticky bar is a fixed, narrow banner often positioned at the top or bottom of a webpage.
You can use sticky bars to display important messages and promotional content to engage users. It encourages users to take specific actions without disrupting their browsing experience.
Here’s an example of a sticky bar.
Source: Omnisend
3. Landing pages
Landing pages play a pivotal role in email list building.
A well-designed landing page offers a targeted value proposition. It encourages site visitors to provide their email addresses in exchange for valuable content or an offer.
There are several main use cases when merchants use landing pages:
- Gated Content: These are used for resources like ebooks, reports, tutorials, etc. Visitors provide their email in exchange for access to the content.
- Event-Specific: A laser-focused landing page designed for a particular event’s visitors.
- Paid Advertising: Landing pages for paid ads and separate promotional campaigns often feature highly targeted copy and a call-to-action button.
Marketers typically create multiple landing pages to achieve the best results. Here’s an example of a landing page from Sunbasket.
Source: Sunbasket
4. Built-in forms
Built-in forms are a part of a website’s native functionality.
You can customize built-in forms to serve various purposes. This includes capturing user data, processing inquiries, collecting feedback, or facilitating user interactions.
Built-in forms make it convenient for visitors to subscribe as they don’t need to navigate away from the page they’re on. This frictionless experience increases the chances of capturing email addresses to grow your email list.
Here’s an example of a built-in form on na-kd.com
Source: na-kd.com
5. Surveys
Using surveys is a popular email list-building tactic.
You can simply add an option for respondents to provide their email addresses when they submit a survey response. This is a non-intrusive and straightforward way of building your email list.
Surveys work well when the questions align with the interests of the audience. It provides an incentive for users to willingly share their contact information.
Here’s an example of a survey.
Source: The Cord Cutter Life
6. Gamified forms
Gamified forms make the signup process interactive and enjoyable.
They include interactive elements, such as quizzes, polls, or challenges. This helps you capture users’ attention and encourage participation.
The element of fun motivates visitors to provide their email addresses willingly. That’s in exchange for a chance to win something, learn something new, or engage in an entertaining activity.
This dynamic approach boosts engagement and helps businesses gather valuable data. The data helps build a quality email list for targeted marketing efforts.
Here’s an example of the gamified form.
Source: Privy
How to choose the best email list-building services
There are key factors to consider when choosing an email list-building service. These include:
- Budget: Consider your financial constraints and select a service that fits your budget.
- Comprehensive analytic capabilities: Look for a tool that provides insights into the performance of your forms and landing pages.
- Ease of use: Choose a user-friendly and intuitive service to save time and effort in managing your email list-building campaigns.
- Template and design options: Look for customizable templates to create visually appealing forms and landing pages.
- Combination with email marketing platform: Consider selecting a service that combines email-building tools with email marketing. Using a single service for all your email marketing needs is highly convenient.
Our methodology for finding the best tools
We work hard to help you find the best email tools. Every day, we look at 11 important things and ask 39 questions to check each tool. Here’s what we do:
- We design email campaigns to see how intuitive the builder is.
- We test different parts of the tool like templates, how you can organize contacts, and track results.
- We set up automations to see how easy they are to use and how well they work.
- We create popups and landing pages to see how they look and perform.
- We look at the cost and see if it’s a good deal.
- We read what other people say about the tools to understand what they like and don’t like.
Our goal is to give you clear and helpful information so you can pick the best email tools for your needs.
Ten best WordPress and Shopify email list-building tools
These top ten email marketing tools can help you build high-quality email lists and grow your reach.
1. Omnisend
Source: Omnisend
Omnisend is an all-in-one marketing platform for ecommerce, which has a user-friendly interface suitable for both beginners and experts alike. It caters to both WordPress and Shopify users.
Omnisend provides an extended library of copy-ready popup and landing page templates that you can launch instantly.
The signup form builder offers immediate and exit intent popups, gamified forms, teasers, and even more. It also enables you to create multi-step forms that are getting increasingly popular among ecommerce marketers.
Want to know the best part?
You also get in-depth insights into the performance of your email list-building efforts. You can track your signup rates and get specific information for signups done via various devices.This information helps you understand where you’re getting most signups from so you can optimize your email list-building strategy.
It’s worth noting that Omnisend is explicitly designed for ecommerce businesses. It offers ecommerce-specific features like cart abandonment reminders, personalized product recommendations, and very powerful segmentation.
This platform is on top of our list because of reasonable pricing and extended functionality for ecommerce marketers.
2. Klaviyo
Source: Klaviyo
Klaviyo is an advanced email marketing platform primarily focused on Shopify users. If you have a well-established ecommerce business, look no further.
The tool empowers ecommerce businesses to create targeted and personalized email campaigns. Its robust features drive customer engagement and boost sales.
It offers customizable signup forms, popups, and landing pages. These features effectively capture email addresses and expand your subscriber base.
Klaviyo allows you to segment your email list based on specific shopping behaviors. These include recent purchases, product categories browsed, or abandoned carts. This enables you to create highly targeted and personalized email campaigns to re-engage customers effectively.
In addition, Klaviyo provides insights into the sources of list growth. This helps you identify which acquisition channels are most effective. You can also track the performance of various signup forms to refine your strategies.
Want to know the most exciting part?
Klaviyo enables signups through social media platforms, allowing users to subscribe using their social profiles easily. This makes it super easy to grow your email list.
3. PopupAlly
Source: PopupAlly
PopupAlly is a robust email list-building plugin for WordPress.
It has a user-friendly interface that simplifies popup creation and integration. Its customizable designs and strategic triggers encourage visitors to join your mailing list.
You can use it to design exit-intent or regular popups that offer incentives or content in exchange for user email addresses.
It allows you to conduct A/B tests to optimize opt-in forms by experimenting with different designs and incentives. This helps boost conversion rates and list growth.
It also provides form analytics for performance tracking.
4. Sleeknote
Source: Sleeknote
Sleeknote can help you create customizable, eye-catching lead capture forms, popups, and slide-ins. These features seamlessly integrate with your WordPress or Shopify website.
You can use it to create exit-intent forms that are triggered as a site visitor is about to leave your website. This allows you one last chance to engage with them and capture their email information.
Sleeknote offers an A/B testing feature, which allows you to test different variations of your signup forms. This helps you determine which designs and messages are most effective at converting visitors into subscribers.
Additionally, its form designs are user-friendly and responsive, allowing a seamless experience for users on smartphones and tablets.
Regarding analytics, Sleeknote offers pretty standard metrics like conversion rates, impressions, etc.
5. Interact
Source: Interact
Interact specializes in creating interactive quizzes and surveys to capture email addresses. It integrates well with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other platforms.
You can use it to design engaging quizzes and surveys that people can participate in by filling out a form or providing their email information.
It allows you to experiment with quiz designs, questions, and incentives. This helps determine which combinations yield the highest conversion rates regarding email signups.
The good thing is you can track the performance of your quizzes and assessments with the tool’s detailed analytics. You can track various metrics to help you assess the performance of your list-building efforts.
Source: Gravity forms
Gravity Forms is a versatile form builder plugin for WordPress. It streamlines the process of creating and embedding forms on your website.
It offers a user-friendly interface that allows you to create customized lead capture forms with ease.
Additionally, you can use conditional logic to show or hide specific form fields or elements based on user responses. This allows for a tailored signup experience.
Its lead capture forms are responsive and display correctly on mobile devices to capture subscribers across different platforms.
The downside of Gravity Forms and the further email-list-building platforms is that they don’t send emails, so you will have to look for another platform to integrate with for your email marketing campaigns.
7. OptinMonster
Source: OptinMonster
OptinMonster caters to various platforms, including WordPress, Shopify, and WooCommerce.
You can use it to create various types of opt-in forms, such as popups, floating bars, slide-ins, and inline forms. So you get lots of choices for designing forms for different purposes.
The best part is you can test different form designs, headlines, and messaging to identify which variations drive the most conversions and help most with list growth.
OptinMonster also offers comprehensive analytics on the performance of your forms. These insights can improve your form designs and email list-building efforts.
Also, this email list-building tool uses AI-driven recommendations to suggest the most effective form types and triggers for your website and audience. This further boosts your list-building efforts.
8. Wisepops
Source: Wisepops
Wisepops is one of the best email list-building tools for creating eye-catching and high-converting popups, bars, embedded forms, etc.
It uses advanced targeting rules to display popups based on user behavior. These include exit intent, time on the page, scroll depth, etc. Moreover, you can conduct A/B tests to experiment with different form variations and get detailed reports. This helps you determine which combinations yield the highest conversion rates.
This email list-building tool provides detailed analytics to help you gain insights into the performance of your popups.
9. LeadQuizzes
Source: LeadQuizzes
LeadQuizzes specializes in creating engaging quizzes to capture the email addresses of potential leads and grow your subscriber base. It provides direct integrations with both WordPress and Shopify, so you can easily embed quizzes on your website.
It offers a user-friendly interface to create interactive quizzes that captivate your audience. Users can provide their email addresses in exchange for accessing quiz results and personalized recommendations.
It also allows you to trigger exit-intent popups or forms at the end of quizzes or surveys. This encourages users to provide their email addresses in exchange for additional content or incentives.
In addition, you can gain insights into the performance of lead capture forms within quizzes and surveys. You can track conversion and lead capture metrics to optimize your list-building efforts.
10. Gleam
Source: Gleam
Gleam is an excellent platform that you can use to create and run engaging contests and giveaways. It integrates with various platforms, including Shopify and WooCommerce.
You can use it to run various contests and ask participants to provide their email addresses to participate. It allows you to create custom entry forms with additional fields. This can help capture more than just email addresses, such as user preferences or demographic information.
The best part is Gleam’s contests and giveaways can be embedded on various platforms, such as websites, landing pages, and social media. This extends their reach, helping you get more participants and capture more leads.
You can also measure the impact of your contest or giveaway on list growth and conversion rates. This helps you understand the effectiveness of your list-building efforts.
5 Free list building services
Here are free email list-building services if you want to avoid investing in paid tools.
1. Privy
Source: Privy
Privy is an SMS and email list-building service for ecommerce brands who want quick list growth. It integrates with several popular ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and more.
Privy offers both free and paid plans. It’s free for up to 100 contacts initially, but it can become relatively expensive compared to other email marketing platforms as your contact list grows.
However, Privy offers comprehensive tools to help you capture email addresses and widen your subscriber base. It also offers advanced targeting and personalization options. You can personalize your forms based on visitor behavior and referral sources.
Aside from that, Privy provides insightful reports on the performance of your forms and tacks metrics like impressions and conversion rates.
It also allows you to conduct A/B tests to experiment with different form designs, content, and incentives. This helps you determine which combinations yield the highest conversion rates.
2. OptiMonk
Source: OptiMonk
Optimonk is a partly free list-building service suitable for Shopify and WooCommerce users. In other words, you can use its free plan for up to 15,000 page views per month for one domain.
It provides various engaging form types to capture email addresses, including slide-ins and exit-intent popups. You can easily customize these to match your brand.
This email list-building tool uses advanced targeting rules to display popups based on user behavior. These include exit intent, time on site, scroll depth, and referral source.
As with all platforms on this list, OptinMonk offers comprehensive analytics and reporting features to track the performance of your forms and popups. You can access detailed insights and metrics that help you assess how well your email list-building efforts pay off.
3. Sumo
Source: Sumo
Sumo caters to both Shopify and WooCommerce platforms and offers quite a generous free plan.
It offers comprehensive features to help you effectively capture email addresses and expand your subscriber base.
It offers popups, slide-ins, welcome mats, and smart bars, so you can choose the right form type for your website and audience.
You can test different form designs, messaging, and triggers to determine which variations perform best regarding list growth.
You can trigger signup forms based on user behavior and actions, such as time spent on a page or exit intent. This ensures forms appear at the most relevant moments, driving more engagement.
Like all platforms on this list, Sumo offers forms analytics to inform you about their performance.
4. MailerLite
Source: MailerLite
MailerLite is a versatile email marketing and list-building tool offering a very generous free plan with signup forms and landing pages available.
It offers customizable popups, embedded forms, and other signup forms. These features can seamlessly integrate with your WordPress or Shopify website.
Its easy-to-use, drag-and-drop editor can help you design visually appealing forms.
What’s more interesting?
MailerLite offers good forms analytics. It can help you track conversion, click-through, and subscriber growth.
This allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your list-building efforts.
The email list-building tool allows you to run A/B tests on your signup forms to determine which variations perform best.
In addition, you can segment your email lists based on various criteria like location, engagement, and subscriber preferences. This ensures that you can send highly relevant emails to various audience segments, increasing engagement and conversions.
Compared to other email marketing platforms on this list, Mailerlite is more affordable but less focused on ecommerce needs than Omnisend or Klaviyo. However, if you don’t sell anything right now, Mailerlite is a perfect option.
5. Poptin
Source: Poptin
Poptin offers a wide range of customizable templates that you can use to create popups and embedded forms for your website. This email list-building service is compatible with Shopify and Woocommerce.
Its forms are mobile responsive and adapt to the screen size on which they’re viewed. This helps you engage mobile users as well as desktop users.
The tool uses advanced targeting strategies to display popups and forms based on user behavior. It helps you show the right forms at the right times to get maximum engagement and conversions.
What’s more?
You can also use it to send subscribers automated download links, coupons, and welcome emails based on various triggers.
The main principles on how to effectively collect email addresses
Collecting email addresses and building an email list is the first step toward running successful email marketing campaigns.
But how can you effectively collect email addresses?
Here are some tips for effectively collecting email addresses:
- Provide valuable incentives: Offer valuable content or incentives to encourage users to provide their email addresses. Offer discounts, access to premium content, or any other incentive to give them a reason to sign up.
- Optimize signup forms: Design your signup forms to be visually appealing and easy to fill out. Also, make sure you display them strategically on your website. Keep the form fields concise and ask only for essential information like name and email address.
- Include clear calls-to-action (CTAs): Use persuasive and action-oriented language to encourage visitors to join your email list. Place clear and prominent CTAs strategically on your website, blog, and social media platforms.
- Use popups and slide-ins: Utilize well-timed and strategically placed popups and slide-ins. This can help capture visitors’ attention and prompt them to subscribe. Consider implementing exit-intent popups when a user is about to leave your website and encourage them to sign up by offering an incentive.
- Optimize for mobile: Ensure that your signup forms and website are mobile-friendly, as most internet users access content through mobile devices.
- A/B testing: Experiment with different variations of form designs, CTAs, and incentives through A/B testing. This allows you to determine which elements most effectively capture email addresses so you can optimize your approach accordingly.
- Privacy and transparency: Assure visitors that their privacy is respected and their information is secure by clearly communicating your privacy policy. Also, allow your subscribers to manage their preferences or unsubscribe easily.
- Regularly engage subscribers: Remember to focus on nurturing your leads through regular and relevant email communication. You can provide valuable content and exclusive offers. You can also personalize experiences to keep them engaged and encourage ongoing interaction.
Final thoughts
Building an email list is undeniably vital for the success of your email marketing campaigns. However, the process can be challenging, especially if you don’t have the right tools to optimize your email list-building efforts.
The email list services listed above offer powerful solutions for capturing email addresses. They can help you create high-converting forms and landing pages to capture lead information and build your email list.
Each service has its strengths and weaknesses and is suitable for different types of businesses. Therefore, choosing the right one depends on your current and future business needs.
Consider the specific requirements of your business and then make an informed choice.
So, what are you waiting for? Choose the best email list-building service that’ll help you build accurate email lists and run successful email campaigns.
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