5 Tools All Email Marketers Need

If you want to save time on your email marketing and work smarter, you need the right tools. Here are five tools for email marketers to create high-performing campaigns without burning out.

This article was updated in June 2024.

Wondering how some email marketers manage to seemingly do so much in such little time? Experience will make you more productive, but so will the right tools.

Choosing the proper email marketer toolkit can not only help get your email from your imagination to your customers’ inboxes but also make every step along the way a little easier. 

What are the right tools for email marketers?

Email marketing isn’t just about generating revenue. It’s also the best way to keep your brand top of mind.

A ZeroBounce study found that 88% of people check their emails multiple times a day. What’s more, 40% of consumers say they go through the inbox specifically to look for deals from the companies they follow. 

It’s a gamble whether anyone sees your latest post on Facebook or Instagram, but a well-crafted email has boundless potential. Despite all of the fluctuations in the marketing world, email has the highest ROI. 

But if you want your email marketing to succeed, you need a strong martech stack. So, what are the tools that email marketers need to build winning emails?

Here are the five indispensable tools you can include in your stack today.

No. 1 tool for email marketers: a trustworthy email service provider 

Anyone who sends mass emails needs to do so with a reputable email service provider (ESP). ESPs allow you to send email campaigns to a list of subscribers. As you fill your email marketing toolbox, picking a suitable ESP is a non-negotiable. 

Back in the 1990s, primitive email lists involved the original sender CCing or BCCing several email addresses. This exposed many individual email addresses. The days of this being kosher are long gone. The email ecosystem has more guardrails than ever. 

There is a protocol for sending emails, and those who don’t pay attention face consequences. First of all, their emails don’t show up in the inbox, and even worse: their privilege of sending emails will be revoked.

Related: See how our customer got his ESP account reinstated after being blocked

Most email deliverability issues stem from the sender’s behavior. However, you can play by the rules, but if you don’t have a reliable ESP, your emails can go to the junk folder. 

How to pick the right email service provider

When you pick your ESP, the most important thing is to be sure that it has a good reputation with the internet service providers (ISPs). There may be services that offer cheap pricing, but what good is saving a few bucks if your emails don’t reach your subscribers? 

On top of that, you want to make sure that the pricing is a good deal for your company. Figure out:

• The number of contacts in your database and the pace at which you think it will grow
• How many emails you anticipate sending 

This way you can determine if the ESP fits the allotted budget. However, you shouldn’t solely make the decision based on price. You also want to have an intuitive experience so you can enjoy your work. Most reputable ESPs allow you to take a test run. You’re going to be using the ESP with every email you send, so make sure it’s not cumbersome.

You also want to select an ESP that allows you to automate tasks, manage your email list effectively, and get comprehensive analytics – so you can always improve your approach.

Finally, you want to choose an ESP with great customer support. If you run into a snag while trying to send a timely email, you need a way of getting assistance. An ESP is a fundamental tool for email marketers like you, so take your time and choose the right one.

Find a good graphic design software

Unless you plan on sending plain text emails, you’re going to use customized images in your emails. Today’s customers won’t relate to aesthetically poor emails, so a graphic design tool will come in handy.

Now, that doesn’t mean you need a university degree in design – you can learn much from watching a few design tutorials on YouTube. Plus, the right platform will simplify the process for you with premade templates you can customize.

The best part: there are many online graphic design tools to choose from, and some are available at no cost. 

“Try to keep in mind that people are getting up to ten dozen emails every day. So if your emails don’t look pleasing to the eye, everyone will naturally zoom in on those that do,” said Zach Nonnemacher, Content Manager at ZeroBounce.

The expert went on: “It’s just like a movie poster that misses the mark. Even if the movie is great, you probably won’t see it.”

What to look for in an online graphic design software

You can make your life infinitely easier if you pick the right graphic design tool. The templates should be easy to use so that creating an image for your email is a snap. 

Also, if you want to insert your logo onto a new design, you should be able to do so within seconds. You may even integrate with whatever email platform you use, which means you’ll save more time.

Depending on your needs, you may be able to get away with using the free version of whatever software you land on. Of course, if it’s in the budget, you may find that the premium version saves you a lot of time and makes your images that much more appealing.

Use an online grammar and spell checker

Even the best reputation can become undone in mere seconds. The impact of proper grammar and spelling on your brand’s image can’t be overstated. Sending out a grammatically correct mass email says a lot about your professionalism. 

If you send out emails with bad copy, it won’t matter how good they look. People will think of you as an amateur. Good writing maintains your credibility. We’re all human, but professional emails should be error-free. 

The marketing and newsletter emails you send are a reflection of your company. That’s why it pays to get a spelling and grammar checker to aid you in writing your emails.

The benefits of using online writing aids

It’s normal to make mistakes that you don’t detect. The problem is that your eyes acclimate to the typo. Online writing assistants provide real-time error checking so you can see the misspelled words or grammatical errors right away – and fix them. 

Then, there are other times these services help clean up your writing. You can improve readability when an online grammar checker shows you a better way to communicate your ideas. They’re some of the most useful tools for email marketers.

Of course, you can’t replace the feedback of a human being. That’s why I recommend you always allow at least one other person to proofread your emails and provide feedback. Human feedback is more valuable than any online grammar checker.

Choose a good email validation tool

Along with an ESP, an email validation service is a non-negotiable tool for email marketers. Email lists are more like freshly baked bread than wine. The emails on your list go bad – and it happens fast. On average, be ready to prune out around 25% of your database as it decays.

Sometimes people stop using an email address. In certain cases, they intentionally abandon an email because they’re switching inbox providers. Someone may toss that old Yahoo email in order to get a ProtonMail address. Or maybe they used their workplace email for everything and now they’ve changed jobs.

When someone changes their email, you’ll eventually get a bounce when you send them your email campaigns. This is only one of the reasons why you must have an email validation tool.

There are other types of emails that should never be on an email list, like:

• disposable email addresses, designed to deactivate within hours or days 
• spam traps, set up by anti-spam organizations in order to lure and block spammers
• abuse emails, belonging to users who habitually report messages as junk.

Bottom line: while you grow your email list, you also have to maintain its health. With so much poor-quality data out there, an email validator is the most reliable way to ensure you’re not sending emails that bounce or get reported as spam.

How does email validation work?

Your first line of defense is a periodic scrubbing of your entire list. This is called bulk email validation. You upload your list to the email validation platform in the dashboard and initiate the verification process. It will go to work, identifying any problematic emails so you can remove them.

Want to see how the ZeroBounce email validator works?

If you have any forms on your website, you should complement the bulk email validation service with an email validation API. Any form that can accept an email address is a vulnerability point. If you don’t have a way to check those emails as they’re being added, you’re allowing bad data to seep into your email list.

A high-quality email verification service will mitigate any risks and protect your list from bad data. It’s a great addition to your email marketing arsenal.

What happens when you use an email validator

The most obvious payoff to checking your email addresses is that you’ll reduce your bounce rate. When you reduce your bounce rate, you’ll increase your deliverability, meaning more of your emails will go to the inbox.  

Another benefit of using an email validation service is that it reduces the costs associated with your ESP. Many ESPs charge based on the number of contacts in your list and the volume of emails you send.

While not maintaining good email hygiene causes a variety of negative reactions, using email validation causes a lot of positive effects: a better sender reputation frequently leads to an increase in every marketing metric there is. And guess what? That helps your ROI. 

Pick reliable email authentication tools

At one point, email authentication tools were only on the radar of more advanced-level email marketers. Since February 1, 2024, bulk senders are now all compelled to set up email authentication.

Related: Read more about Google and Yahoo’s email sending rules 

Email authentication means you have a way of setting up protocols to verify that the emails you send from your domain are authentic. This means that email authentication tools safeguard your domain from any fraud or spoofing. 

Email authentication tells Google, Yahoo, and other email service providers that it’s really you sending those emails. Thus, inbox providers can allow your emails to get past spam filters and land in the inbox.

Why use email authentication tools?

If you don’t set up email authentication, you just won’t get very far with your email marketing. First of all: it’s no longer optional. You have to adhere to email authentication or you’ll run afoul. 

But there are benefits to using email authentication: it will improve your email security. Also, in our online world, anything you can do to enhance trustworthiness is a plus. Using email authentication will ensure that the emails you work hard on will continue to show up. 

How do you use email authentication?

The best way to start the process of email authentication is to find a platform that provides you with the necessary tools to monitor your domain. While authenticating your emails is critical, getting started can be challenging if you’re not savvy in this area.

The good news is there are experts out there and platforms that can make email authentication much easier. They will be able to help you get started, whether you have one or multiple domains. Having a monitor will alert you in case you fall out of compliance.

Need help authenticating your emails? Reach out to us – our experts are available 24/7 and will guide you through. 

Think of these services as the tools of your trade

Just as a plumber brings several tools to every job he does, you’ll do yourself a favor if you get comfortable with these tools for email marketers. 

Email marketing involves a lot of toggling. You may start out with a pen and a notebook and then find yourself applying the ideas you scrawled to one of the templates in your graphic design program.

The good news is that so many of these programs integrate. There are also plenty of plugins. By using a grammar checker plugin, you don’t have to copy and paste your writing. You simply sign into your account and the service checks your copy in real-time.

Moreover, your email validation service can integrate with your ESP.  And you can use the same organization for your email validation and your email authentication. 

It’s all about designing a workflow that works for you. It’s a cliche for a reason: work smarter, not harder. Fortunately for you, email marketing is a field that values efficiency. The more clever email marketers put these services to work for them – and so can you.