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The Best AI Email Marketing Tools for Growth and Sanity
5 Tools To Optimize Your Business From Marketing to Management
Jacob Bear
December 15th, 2024
What if you could save 1,000 hours a year by using AI email tools?
This isn’t a dream. In a recent study, 78% of customer service professionals strongly agreed that using AI freed up their time so they could focus on critical tasks.
Many applications of AI in customer service--such as personalization, automation, collecting and interpreting data--are similar to those relevant to marketing campaigns. So it’s reasonable to expect similar results by using AI in email marketing campaigns.
And don’t get me started on using AI email tools to streamline the tasks in your inbox.
We’re going to show you five email tools that will save you time and make you a more effective email marketer.
Table of Contents
Understanding AI Email Tools
What are AI Email Tools?
AI email tools are designed to make your life easier and maximize your time and your profits. They do this in two ways.
First, these tools can manage and improve the workflow for your inbox.
According to the Harvard Business Review, most professionals spend over 2 1/2 hours on email each day. Using AI email tools can reduce this drain on your time. AI can sort, process, organize, summarize, search, and even respond to emails for you.
AI email tools can also save you valuable time when it comes to email marketing.
Benefits of Using AI in Email Marketing
Remember the weird content generated by early versions of Bing, Bard, and Chat GPT?
Many email marketers are rightfully squeamish about trusting AI to write their marketing copy. But there's a lot more to AI email marketing tools than simply creating content. The latest AI email tools can:
Automatically send out marketing emails based on customer activity (such as offering a discount on a subscription or refill when they purchase a product that will be used up)
Reply to routine inquiries with elements of personalization
Control the timing and frequency of emails based on customer preferences or past activity
Determine which campaign is most likely to get a response from individual customers based on their browsing activities
Create detailed, advanced customer profiles based on their reading and clicking behavior
These tools can interpret data and anticipate a recipient's response to a message. These insights can help you determine which campaigns to send and the best time to send them.
At the enterprise level, some AI email tools can spontaneously create new, automated email funnels based on the activity and profiles of your customers.
Top AI Email Tools for 2024
The AI email tools that handle your inbox have several features in common.
In general, they can sort your email into folders, postpone the visibility or deliverability of certain emails, mark emails as read/unread, and possibly remove and delete unwanted emails.
These tools learn and follow detailed rules, such as what to do with an email that's from a no-reply return address. Over time, you can train these AI email tools to work more efficiently.
Given the similarities in function, the best tool for you depends on your own priorities, the cost of the tool, and personal preferences.
Here are some of our favorites.
SaneBox: The Best Way to Declutter Your Inbox
SaneBox organizes your email into folders. Your inbox will only show new emails that require action. Newsletters and similar content go to a separate folder called “SaneNews,” and information that is not timely will be saved in a “SaneLater” folder.
There are other folders for categories such as emails awaiting a response, and SaneBox gives you a daily digest that summarizes what has gone into each folder.
When you first start using the tool, you need to look carefully at all your SaneBox folders. Train the app by dragging any misplaced email into the correct folder.
Over time, Sanebox becomes more accurate. However I found it did a decent job of organizing my email from day one, and I only had to move a few emails to new folders each day for the first week.
Pricing: From $7/month or $59/year to $36/month or $299/year depending on features
Shortwave: A Powerful AI Assistant for Email
Initially, Shortwave just appears to be a more beefy version of SaneBox. However, the app does a lot more than clear out your inbox, thanks to its AI assistant.
In addition to sorting your emails so you can go through them at a glance, Shortwave provides a summary of both the email and the entire thread. This can save you a lot of time on a back-and-forth email thread with multiple participants.
You can ask the Shortwave AI assistant to do things such as, “Send a short and silly reply to Kelly to confirm the meeting.” The assistant will write a reply, which you can edit, approve, and send with a click.
You can also tell the assistant to set up a meeting with someone at a given date and time. The event will seamlessly appear on your Google Calendar.
But Shortwave’s real superpower comes from its research ability. Try asking the AI assistant to find obscure information in old emails with a simple prompt such as, “When was the exact date and time that Bryan agreed to have the SWOT analysis done?”
Pricing: Free version for small businesses and teams; otherwise from $7 to $24 per month (billed annually) depending on the features needed.
Drift Email: Best CRM AI Email Tool
Drift scans your inbox for human replies to your email, and forwards them to the right team member who can take action. As it does this, it is gathering data about every subscriber and customer.
Over time, Drift uses this data to update and refine your CRM database.
Whenever you send a marketing email, drift can personalize the next actions for every recipient.
If someone has a question or requests a demo, Drift will forward their reply and information to the proper sales or customer service representative.
If another recipient responds to your email by making a purchase, Drift can generate personalized messages to upsell or request a product review.
If a third recipient shows interest in the offer (by clicking a link, for example) but doesn’t buy, Drift can send follow-up messages to get a conversion.
It’s like having a hard-working assistant fielding your email 24/7.
Pricing: Drift Email is part of a suite of AI tools provided by SalesLoft. Their website has a “Request a Demo” link on their pricing page. Presumably, they’ll offer a customized plan that’s tailored to your specific needs.
MailMeteor AI Email Writer: Turn Your Gmail into an Agency
My first question about MailMeteor’s AI Email Writer was, “How is this different from Jasper or Chat GPT?” I was also put off by the tool being limited to Gmail.
However, precisely because MailMeteor is closely integrated with Gmail, it effectively turns your Gmail into an email marketing platform.
The language model is sensitive to Google’s restrictions and writes emails that are resistant to clipping and optimized for deliverability.
More importantly, when you use MailMeteor you’re no longer just sending Gmail. You can do things like send out a mass mailing in which each email is personalized, or schedule emails in advance with a specific time and date to be sent.
If your business leans heavily on email marketing and you’re dealing with a limited staff and budget, MailMeteor is an economical solution. You can start with the free version limited to 50 emails per day, and add features with a more generous sending limit at higher-cost plans.
Pricing: Free version with limited features; otherwise from $9.99/month to $49.99/month depending on the features you need.
beehiiv: The Best AI Email Tool for Newsletter Operators
Way back in early 2023, when AI was just taking off, beehiiv was the first newsletter platform to launch its own suite of AI tools to streamline content creation.
While beehiiv won’t help you organize your inbox, the AI text tools and writing assistant will save you hours creating relevant, engaging content that naturally plays well with the other features on the beehiiv platform.
beehiiv was founded by the creators of Morning Brew who wanted to provide a platform specifically for newsletter operators.
In addition to all of the features you would expect in such a platform—robust analytics, sophisticated automation and segmentation, no-code design tools, and a high subscriber allowance--beehiiv gives you capabilities that used to require multiple software tools, a large budget, and mad coding skills:
A personal blog where each newsletter is automatically archived
A suite of growth tools
Your own mobile app
An audio version of your newsletter
Several ways to monetize your newsletter through ad placement, boosting other newsletters, and selling a premium subscription--all with just a few clicks
Despite having some of the best AI email tools on the internet, beehiiv is such a powerful newsletter platform that the AI feels like icing on the cake.
If your business uses newsletters, or if you’ve ever wanted to explore the incredible potential of this growing phenomenon, then start a beehiiv newsletter and join our long list of success stories.
Why Trust Me? I’m the author of Chat GPT Wizardry, an early 2023 lead magnet for clueless muggles explaining how to use AI. I’ve won multiple LinkedIn badges for my contributions to AI/human collaborative articles, and using AI has freed up the time to launch my own beehiiv newsletter, Ithaka.
Key Features to Look for in AI Email Tools
Personalization and Segmentation
Wouldn’t you rather read an email that was written for you, speaks to you, and covers topics that interest you?
Segmentation and personalization are all about showing your readers that they matter and that your content is specifically for them.
Look for AI email tools that can identify segments and personal information. A good AI email marketing tool should be able to use this data to optimize and send personalized campaigns, preferably with little effort from you.
Automation Capabilities
Automation is built into most email apps and tools these days. The whole point of using AI is to save time and enhance your productivity.
With a little bit of training, a human being can design a funnel or a customer journey. The best AI email tools should be able to create or conceptualize new automation for you. The key to this process is analytics.
Advanced Analytics and Reporting
AI email tools are good at collecting and interpreting data. To make things easier on human minds and eyes, the best AI tools present this information in visual formats, such as charts and graphs.
Historically, it took a human being to make decisions based on this visually-represented data.
But now, many AI tools can recommend actions based on data, or even carry out low-consequence actions based on the app’s interpretation of the data. Look for tools that can spot patterns and save your team hours of deliberation.
Integration with Existing Platforms
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Just as MailMeteor, above, integrates specifically with Gmail, there are countless AI email tools that are likely to play well with the platforms you’re already using.
Assuming you’re happy with your current platforms, it just makes sense to use AI tools that integrate with what you already have.
How to Choose the Right AI Email Tool for Your Business
Assessing Your Needs and Goals
As we’ve shown, there are two broad categories of AI email tools. Depending on whether you’re looking to quickly generate marketing emails, optimize the timing and personalization of those emails, or simply clean up your inbox, different tools will be a better fit for your situation.
Every AI email tool we’ve covered either has a free plan or offers a free trial. Take advantage of these “freemiums” to test-drive the most promising tools and make sure they’re a good fit.
Comparing Pricing and Features
Here are a few steps to help you choose the right email tool:
Write down all the “must-have” features you want in an AI email tool
Get realistic and specific about how much you’re willing to spend
Eliminate any tools that don’t fit your budget or lack any of the features you need
Pick your top three choices among the remaining tools
Use a free version or free trial of your top 3 picks to get firsthand experience
Choose the tool that works best
Evaluating User Reviews and Case Studies
This is counterintuitive. You’ll often find some of the most useful reviews and case studies for an AI email tool on the company website.
This happens because many of the “reviews” that come up in a typical search were written by affiliates. The writers want you to click and buy the tool, and their reviews are usually biased.
On the tool’s own website, there’s a subtle but significant difference.
Naturally, the company website will only post positive reviews and case studies, but these insights are likely to be more authentic. They were written by real people who used the tool to satisfy a genuine need. These customers wouldn’t take the time to write a positive review if they weren’t happy with the tool.
Look for reviews that give details about the specific features you’re interested in.
For example, suppose you want to focus on action items in your inbox and eliminate everything else. When you find a review which says, “The AI is particularly good at weeding out emails that don’t require action,” then you may have found your tool.
Best Practices for Implementing AI Email Tools
Customizing AI-Generated Content
Over time, your particular AI tool will get better at writing the content you need from it.
But when you first start using a new AI tool, you need to train it through frequent use and feedback. This will help the tool to “learn” how to customize content to fit your wishes. The more time you spend on this at the beginning, the better off you’ll be in the long run.
Ultimately, you’ll have an AI email tool that can write copy that consistently matches your brand voice.
Maintaining Consistency With Your Brand Voice
A while back, we did a deep dive into branding for newsletter operators. Follow these three principles when you want AI to generate content that’s consistent with your brand.
First, train your AI platform of choice with your best brand content. Many tools can analyze this content and learn to write in the same voice.
Second, give prompts in your brand voice as well.
And finally, as always, continue to review and refine the results you get.
Ensuring Data Privacy and Security
Remember, you are trusting a program to read, organize, delete, and respond to emails on your behalf. Most AI email tools allow you to review the decisions made by the AI and approve them before they are carried out.
A greater danger arises if your service provider suffers a security breach. Not only does this compromise your privacy and security, but it exposes your subscribers’ data as well. You should be aware of the measures each AI tool is taking to protect your data.
For example, SaneBox claims their AI only reads your email headers to evaluate the purpose and importance of emails. Your email is never stored on their servers, and they have several layers of protection to keep your data safe. You can read more about SaneBox security here.
Shortwave, SalesLoft (Drift email), MailMeteor, and beehiiv also have strong measures in place to protect your privacy and that of your customers and subscribers.
To find out what the operators of other AI email tools are doing to protect you, simply search “[name of tool] security and privacy.” This is how I uncovered the policies and practices cited above.
Conclusion: Welcome to the Future of Email
It only took six months for an anonymous buyer to approach Ali Abassi about acquiring his newsletter, AI for Work. This story is a testament to the growing importance of email newsletters, AI, and the use of AI tools for email.
As AI tools become increasingly effective and sophisticated, anyone who doesn’t use them will fall further behind.
Whether you want to publish an AI-powered newsletter or just save time going through your inbox, AI tools are the future of email.
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