ConvertKit Review: Best Email Marketing for Creators (2023)
Are you looking for a better way to email your subscribers?
ConvertKit is the perfect tool for digital marketers and creators who want to create beautiful and effective email campaigns. With customizable templates and a wide range of integrations, you can create newsletters that will impact your audience.
You can also use ConvertKit to create visual automations based on subscriber behaviour. Automations will increase your conversion rate and keep your subscribers engaged.
ConvertKit is a unique product on the market today. We hope that you agree after reading this ConvertKit review.
Sign up for a free trial today and see how ConvertKit can help you take your business to the next level.
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What is ConvertKit?
Overview
ConvertKit is an email marketing service started in 2013, founded by Nathan Barry, and headquartered in Boise, Indiana. It is specifically designed for content creators.
It offers powerful tools to create beautiful landing pages, sign-up forms, eCommerce product pages, and more, allowing users to customize templates and integrate with other services.
ConvertKit also has features that allow users to set up automations based on subscriber behaviour, helping increase conversion rate while keeping subscribers engaged.
With ConvertKit, content creators can easily create beautiful emails without design skills.
It offers customizable email templates that look great on any device and are mobile-responsive, so readers have a great experience no matter where they open the email.
Users can also quickly set up automations based on subscriber behaviour to keep them engaged and increase their conversion rate.
Who uses ConvertKit?
ConvertKit is a go-to marketing hub specifically for content creators, such as:
- bloggers,
- YouTubers,
- authors,
- musicians,
- course creators,
- podcasters.
The ConvertKit creator marketing platform currently has more than 428,150 creators reaching over 565 million subscribers.
What are some benefits of using ConvertKit?
Most of ConvertKit’s features are easy to use, offering great support and making it an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes.
For a relatively new email platform, there are many benefits to using ConvertKit:
- Conversions: Easily add your PDF, cheat sheet, or checklist incentive directly to the confirmation email.
- eCommerce: Sell digital products using sales funnels, buy buttons, pricing options, and payment processing.
- Built for Creators: Focus on connecting with your fans, don’t drown in technical details.
- Increase your leads: Unlimited opt-ins per list.
- Flexible Subscriber Management: Tagging system allows you to segment your audience
- Automation: Autoresponder sequences are straightforward to build.
- Landing Pages: Highly customizable forms, pages and an advanced landing page editor.
- Reporting: Easy-to-understand metrics
- Reliability: High deliverability rates.
- Excellent User Experience: Simple and easy to use
ConvertKit Features
Email Marketing
Email campaigns are known as Broadcasts in the ConverKit platform.
- Email templates
- Simplified interface
- Easy download delivery
- Sign-up forms
- Add tags based on subscriber behaviour
- Customizable subscriber segments
- Automated email funnels
- Statistics on open and click rates
- A/B Testing
ConvertKit offers many tools to help you build a broadcast:
When you are ready to send out a broadcast, you can add a Filter to segment further the list of subscribers that will receive the email.
These are some of the more unique Filter attributes:
- Within a country or region
- Distance from a city or postal code
- Subscription date
- Custom Field
Landing Pages
With access to over 50 customizable landing page templates, you can create beautiful landing pages in minutes.
Choose a template, edit the content, colours, and fonts, and have an instant landing page to collect new subscribers. No code is necessary.
You also have access to 100,000+ images, including support for all devices.
Let’s see how this landing page turns out using this template…
It looks beautiful, and there is also a video and, as expected, an email form to collect names and email addresses.
As shown above, a bonus is creating the Thank You email with the same branding as the landing page template.
Email sign-up forms
ConvertKit offers many different templates for your sign-up form. These templates can be changed using your branding colours, images and messaging.
Once a template is chosen ConvertKit offers 4 different display formats for your form:
- Inline
- Modal
- Slide In
- Sticky Bar
Once you have published your form, ConvertKit provides several different ways to embed your form on your web page;
- Javascript: using code placed on your website
- HTML: using code placed on your website
- Share: using a link to a hosted version of the form
- WordPress: using a ConvertKit plugin
- Unbounce: using a URL and WebHook settings
Then place your Sign-up form on your web page to collect contacts, including names and email addresses.
Integrations
There are over 100 integrations on the ConvertKit platform, from eCommerce to Webinar services to CRM and more.
Here are a few examples of the integrations available on the ConvertKit platform:
- eCommerce: stripe, OrderDesk, WooCommerce, DPD, payhip, Gumroad
- Lead Capture: ZipMessage, GroupBoss, Outgrpw, unbounce, OptinMonster, Leadpages, Click Funnels, Bloom, ConvertFlow
- Webinar Services: Webinar, Crowdcast, demio, WebinarNinja, WebinarJam, easywebinar
- Affiliate Management: Rewardful
- Memberships & Courses: upcoach, memberful, Thinkific, teacher, MemberPress, Podia
- Surveys & Quizzes: Typeform, YesInsights, Lead Quizzes, Interact, Gravity Forms
- Website Platforms: JetFormBuilder, Hyperise, Carrd, WP Engine, Wix, Kayabi, WordPress
- Scheduling: Bandsintown, Acuity Scheduling
- Giveaways: ViralSweep, KingSumo, KickoffLabs, Gleam, Giveaway Boost
- CRM: monday.com, JetpackCRM
- Facebook Ads: LeadsTunnel, LeadsBridge
- List Tracking & Analytics: AgencyAnalytics, Fathom Analytics, GrowSurf, SegMetrics, ListGoal
- Workflows: Coda.io, Make, n8n, Zapier
- Email Verification: Emailable, DeBounce, Bouncer, mailfloss
Each of these integrations has an associated page that describes the integration with ConvertKit in detail. This is a convenient resource.
Email Designer
The WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) email designer is clutter-free, simple to use, and has access to thousands of images. There are clickable CTAs, and you can work with HTML or remain code-free.
ConvertKit has about 15 email templates. You can create more of your own and reuse them for new email broadcasts. The email templates are flexible in design. You can change fonts, colours, button styles, spacings, and more.
It is straightforward to send broadcasts to your email subscribers. ConvertKit’s ease of use is present throughout the platform.
Automations
Automations and Rules can sometimes be challenging to build in an email marketing platform.
ConvertKit has visual automation, making the process much easier.
ConvertKit offers 28 visual automation templates for creators, such as:
- Release a new album
- Run a paid newsletter
- Welcome subscribers to your podcast
- Grow your audience with SparkLoop
- Share your social media content
- Release a new podcast
- Release a new book
- Launch a fan club subscription
- Pitch your book with a free chapter
- Pitch your album with a free song
- Welcome subscribers to your newsletter
- Promote and upsell your other products
- Run an evergreen newsletter
- Pitch an evergreen newsletter
- Promote your album
- Raise money to record an album
- Pitch a paid podcast with a free episode
- Segment your audience
- Set up an abandoned cart automation
- Host a webinar
- Promote a digital product
- Promote a free 3-day course + Tip Jar
- Set up an abandoned cart for your course
- Pitch a paid newsletter for authors
- Surprise and delight with a subscriber discount
- Authors! Set up your evergreen newsletter
- Let your subscribers self-segment based on their interests
- Upsell a paid community for coaches
Once you have chosen an automation template, you can edit each step using their visual automation builder.
You can change the steps to do the following:
- create automated funnels
- customize a subscriber’s path based on their behaviour
- send targeted content
- set up rules and let the automation do all the work
- segment your audience based on their journey
- send targeted and automated drip content
Commerce
ConvertKit’s Commerce product enables you to create a product and set up payments.
As a creator, you can sell these types of products:
- Ebooks: upload a pdf or a.mobi and deliver to your buyer’s inbox automatically
- Paid newsletters: paid subscribers sign up for subscriptions and will get added to a segment
- Music: sell an album or a single to your fans
- Presets: sell photo, or video software presets
- Coaching: sell one-time or recurring coaching sessions
For example, the steps to create a paid newsletter subscription are pretty straightforward:
- Add product details, fulfillment, upsells, discounts, and domain name
- Customize your product page to match your brand
- Embed in your emails for your audience to purchase
Once buyers purchase your product, you can view your sales in one dashboard. And not just the product you have sold on ConvertKit Commerce, but you can also integrate with other platforms to see all the sales in one place.
Creator Pro
ConvertKit’s Creator Pro is an advanced product for creators.
Creator Pro has advanced features such as:
- Subscriber scoring: leverage a scoring system to find out your top subscribers
- Deliverability reporting: view opens and click trends on a chart over time
- Newsletter referral program: includes a free sparkloop account to reward subscriber referrals
- Facebook custom audiences: integrate with Facebook to ad segments
- Update wrong link: change a URL after an email is sent
- Priority support: Priority live chat & email support
Pricing
There are 3 pricing plans for the ConvertKit platform based on feature support and the number of email subscribers:
- Free Plan for up to 1,000 subscribers
- Creator Plan starting at USD $9/month for 300 subscribers (yearly plan)
- Creator Pro Plan starting at USD $25/month for 300 subscribers (yearly plan)
Free Plan
The Free Plan offers the following features:
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited forms
- Unlimited broadcasts
- Audience tagging and segmentation
- Selling digital products and subscriptions
- Community support
Creator Plan
The Creator Plan offers the following features:
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited forms
- Unlimited broadcasts
- Audience tagging and segmentation
- Selling digital products and subscriptions
- Live chat and email support
- Migration from another platform
- Automated email sequences
- Visual automation sequence builders
- 3rd-party integrations
- Access to +1 additional team member
Creator Pro Plan
The Creator Pro Plan offers the following features:
- Unlimited landing pages
- Unlimited forms
- Unlimited broadcasts
- Audience tagging and segmentation
- Selling digital products and subscriptions
- Live chat and email support
- Migration from another platform
- Automated email sequences
- Visual automation sequence builders
- 3rd-party integrations
- Unlimited team members
- Newsletter referral system
- Subscriber scoring
- Advanced reporting
Pros and Cons
Advantages
ConvertKit is ideal for email marketing since it’s simple to use and produces beautiful campaigns, landing pages, and newsletters.
Other features where ConvertKit shows strength are the following:
- Simple to use email broadcast (campaign) builder
- Simple yet powerful visual builder for automations
- Rules builder for automations
- Landing page builder
- Easy to understand reporting around new subscribers
- Excellent support channels, ie live chat + email
Once you try it out, you’ll see why so many people recommend ConvertKit.
Disadvantages
ConvertKit’s offers limited reporting and analytics that you see in rival email marketing platforms.
There is also limited A/B testing and fewer email and form templates than other email service software.
Conclusion
ConvertKit is a powerful email marketing service specifically designed for content creators.
With customizable templates and automated campaigns, ConvertKit makes it easy to stay connected with readers and keep them engaged.
After reading our ConvertKit review, we hope you try the free plan for 1 to 2 weeks. You can quickly create email campaigns, landing pages, automation, and products you can sell to your subscribers and fans.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is ConvertKit easy to use?
A: Yes! ConvertKit’s drag-and-drop visual automation sequence builder makes it easy to design custom automated campaigns. Plus, their intuitive user interface helps you get started in no time.
Q: What are the pricing plans for ConvertKit?
A: There are three pricing plans for the ConvertKit platform based on feature support and the number of email subscribers: Free Plan for up to 1,000 subscribers, Creator Plan starting at USD $9/month for 300 subscribers (yearly plan), Creator Pro Plan starting at USD $25/month for 300 subscribers (yearly plan).
Q: What features does ConvertKit offer?
A: ConvertKit offers a wide range of features, including unlimited landing pages, forms, broadcasts, and audience tagging and segmentation. They also provide automated email sequences, visual automation sequence builders, 3rd-party integrations, and priority live chat & email support.
Q: Does ConvertKit have good deliverability?
A: Yes, ConvertKit has a high deliverability rate. Plus, they have tools to help you manage email lists and ensure that your emails reach the right people.
Q: Does ConvertKit offer a free trial?
A: Yes, ConvertKit offers a 14-day free trial and provides access to some of the features available on their platform. You can get started with no credit card required.
Q: What are some alternatives to ConvertKit?
For a review of ConvertKit alternatives, please read our 7 Best Mass Email Marketing Platforms article.
Q: Can you recommend any ad-tracking tools?
Several popular tools are Cometly, SuperMetrics, and Triple Whale for ad tracking and marketing attribution. For a more comprehensive list; read our Best Marketing Attribution software article.
Q: How do I login to ConvertKit?
To login into the ConvertKit platform, go to the ConvertKit access page. To find out more about ConvertKit login and how to get a Free Account, find out more here.
