Retailers have to promote everything from a new arrival to a seasonal offer to a product launch. The challenge is finding an email marketing platform that makes those campaigns easy to create and manage without using several apps.
Ideally, the right platform should do more than send emails. It should help you design attractive campaigns, write the accompanying copy, automate communication and track results.
Below are five popular options that are worth considering.
1. PosterMyWall
The design of an email matters almost as much as the message – plain text won’t catch any attention while an attractive product layout is far more useful to retailers.
PosterMyWall offers an email editor with thousands of responsive templates for campaigns such as new arrivals, sales, product showcases, back-in-stock announcements, newsletters, as well as loyalty offers. You can customize them using a friendly drag-and-drop editor, then preview the email across devices. This is particularly useful for smaller retail teams that don’t have a designer on hand. With its email marketing platform, you can start with ready-made designs and add a mailing list, publish campaigns, and track performance.
You can browse email marketing services for small businesses through PosterMyWall’s email template gallery to find designs for different retail campaigns. It also offers AI features that can speed things up, such as the very helpful AI Writer which can generate email copy and subject lines, while its AI Email Redesign can transform an existing email with a simple prompt.
Pricing starts at $13/month for Premium, which includes 3,000 email sends per month. Premium Plus costs $30/month and includes 10,000 email sends per month.
Best for: Small retailers who are looking for attractive emails, easy editing and effective marketing tools without needing a dedicated design team.
2. Klaviyo
Klaviyo is specifically designed for ecommerce marketing – it combines email and SMS marketing with customer data, customer segmentation, automation as well as reporting.
Retailers can utilise it to create targeted campaigns based on customer behavior. For instance, they could build different campaigns for first-time buyers and different ones for repeat customers.
Klaviyo’s drag-and-drop email editor includes templates, while its other marketing tools support segmentation, automation and reporting.
It offers a free plan for up to 250 profiles and 500 email sends per month. Paid pricing increases according to the audience size and messaging requirements, so larger retailers need to calculate costs based on their contact list.
Best for: Ecommerce retailers who need detailed customer segmentation and automation according to customer behavior patterns.
3. Omnisend
Omnisend focuses heavily on ecommerce and combines email, SMS, push notifications, forms, segmentation as well as automation – all in one platform.
For retailers, this means they can build campaigns around customer journeys rather than sending the same message to everyone. The automation tools it offers can help with common retail campaigns such as welcome emails and promotional follow-ups.
Omnisend’s free plan allows up to 500 emails per month for 250 contacts. Its ‘Standard’ plan starts at $16/month, while Pro starts at $59/month and includes unlimited email sends. However, certain advanced features, including AI and dynamic-content capabilities are only included in paid plans.
Best for: Retailers that want email marketing alongside SMS and other ecommerce-focused communication channels.
4. Mailchimp
Mailchimp remains a reliable option for businesses that need email marketing templates, automation, segmentation, and analytics in one dashboard.
Its email tools include customizable templates, scheduling, automation, AI features and tools tailored to customer journeys. The ‘Standard’ plan starts at $20/month, while ‘Essentials’ plan starts at $13/month. The pricing changes according to contact volume.
Mailchimp can be particularly useful to retailers when they need to handle several types of campaigns without investing in an advanced specialized ecommerce platform. The downside however, is that it has contact limits and email-send limits which can make pricing harder to gauge as the audience grows over time.
Best for: Retailers who require an established email marketing platform with a broad selection of marketing features.
5. HubSpot
HubSpot offers more than just email marketing – it combines email with CRM, customer management, automation, reporting, and other marketing tools. Its free tools include email marketing, with paid ‘Marketing Hub’ plans adding more advanced automation and personalization. The Marketing Hub Starter is listed at $20/month for monthly billing, while the Professional plan starts at $890/month and Enterprise plan at $3,600/month.
This pricing makes HubSpot too expensive for a small retailer who is simply looking for effective designs and attractive promotional emails. But for a bigger, growing business with more complex customer-management needs, the broader ecosystem it offers can be rather valuable.
Best for: Retailers looking for email marketing alongside customer management and other marketing tools.
| Platform | Best for | Key strengths | Drawbacks |
| PosterMyWall | Small retailers focused on design | Email templates, drag-and-drop editor, AI tools, email campaigns | Advanced CRM functionality is not offered |
| Klaviyo | Ecommerce brands focused on personalization | Segmentation, automation, analytics | Can become expensive as contact lists grow |
| Omnisend | Retailers wanting email + SMS features | Automation, segmentation, ecommerce features | Some advanced features require expensive plans |
| Mailchimp | Businesses wanting a reliable all-rounder platform | Templates, automation, analytics | Pricing and contact/send limits are complex |
| HubSpot | Retailers needing broader CRM tools | CRM, automation, email, reporting | Advanced marketing features are expensive |
Which email marketing platform should retailers choose?
The best platform depends on what the retail business is looking for. If they want to generate fast campaigns using easy-to-use designs, PosterMyWall is a practical starting point. Its combination of diverse template libraries, friendly drag-and-drop editing, AI copywriting, email redesign features and direct email publishing keeps the creative process relatively simple.
Klaviyo and Omnisend are powerful choices if ecommerce automation and customer behavior are the biggest priorities for retailers. Mailchimp is a flexible general-purpose option, while HubSpot makes more sense when CRM functionality is equally important to email marketing.
For many small retailers, though, the biggest accomplishment is simply being able to create good-looking campaigns consistently without spending hours designing every email. That’s where a design-first platform like PosterMyWall makes most sense.
Key takeaway
There is no ‘one’ email marketing platform that works for every retailer. Klaviyo and Omnisend stand out for ecommerce automation, Mailchimp offers a broad marketing toolkit, and HubSpot is better suited to businesses that need a full CRM ecosystem and who are willing to pay the price for it.
If your priority is creating professional retail emails quickly while keeping the design and marketing workflow fairly simple, PosterMyWall is a powerful choice as it combines templates, email editing, AI tools, publishing – all in one dashboard.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What features should retailers look for in an email marketing platform?
Look for responsive email templates, an easy editor, audience segmentation, automation, analytics, personalization, and integrations with your ecommerce systems.
2. How can retailers create better promotional emails?
Always start with a clear offer with strong product images, focused copy and one very clear call to action. Using a ready-made retail email template can also reduce the time spent designing each campaign.
3. Can AI help retailers create email campaigns?
Yes. AI can help generate email copy, subject lines, product descriptions and even redesign the existing campaigns. PosterMyWall’s AI Writer and AI Email Redesign are examples of tools designed to speed up these tasks.
