SendGrid is a popular email marketing and automation platform used by over 80,000 businesses worldwide. In this in-depth SendGrid review, we assess the email marketing tool across several key criteria to help entrepreneurs determine if it’s the right solution for their needs:
Account setup and usability, email campaign creation capabilities, personalization, automation, analytics and insights, integrations, security, the quality and availability of customer support, pricing and value competitiveness, pros and cons, customer feedback, and alternative options.
SendGrid Summary
Ron’s Thoughts
SendGrid is one of the leading email marketing platforms when it comes to sender reputation and email deliverability. With over 98%, you can be sure that almost all of your marketing emails will reach the necessary inboxes. On top of that, its automation tools are very good and are relatively easy to use. Speaking of, the entire platform is perfect for beginners due to an intuitive drag-and-drop builder with hundreds of pre-made templates.
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Biggest Pro:
98%+ Email Deliverability Rate
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Biggest Con:
Somewhat Lacking in Terms of Analytics
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Annual Discount:
No
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Price:
Starts at $19.95/Month
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Promotion:
Summary of Key Takeaways
- Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor
- Powerful automation with over 50 pre-built workflows
- Real-time analytics and insights
Recommendations
- Mailchimp
- Constant Contact
- Campaign Monitor
1. Setup and User Interface
A. Dashboard and Navigation
Sendgrid’s dashboard features a clean, intuitive layout that makes key functions easy to access. The main menu uses icons to navigate between Home, Stats & Reporting, Campaigns Manager, Guest List, Contacts, Senders, Team Management, Account settings, and the Resources hub.
From the dynamic homepage, you can quickly compose emails, access account stats, see recent campaign results, and link to docs and tutorials.
The homepage also displays a message composer box, activity feed, storage usage gauge, top links, and account overview widgets.
These elements provide an at-a-glance view of account details and where to pick back up on projects. For anything you need, the thoughtful navigation design helps you find it fast without clutter.
B. Email Subscriber Migration
Transitioning your contacts is simple with Sendgrid. Just export your subscriber list from another provider or CRM platform like Mailchimp as a CSV file, then import directly on the Contacts page in Sendgrid.
Sendgrid automatically maps fields from your imported data to match the corresponding ones in Sendgrid, ensuring no subscriber details get lost.
The self-service migration wizard gives step-by-step guidance to upload your list, select matching fields, test results on a small batch of contacts, and schedule the migration.
2. Email Campaign Creation
A. Templates and Design
Sendgrid provides hundreds of professionally designed email templates to choose from for launching campaigns faster. Templates are mobile-optimized and organized by categories like Marketing, Newsletters, Promotions, Events, and Holidays to quickly find options relevant to your industry and goals.
Easy customization is available within the template editor to add images, update copy, insert buttons, and modify colors and fonts using the style panel.
You can also build emails from scratch using the flexible drag-and-drop editor with WYSIWYG formatting options. Images, content blocks, dividers, social sharing buttons, and more can be mixed and matched.
B. Personalization and Automation
Leveraging subscriber data to personalize and automate campaigns is easy with Sendgrid. Import contact details like first name, city, order histories, or engagement metrics to dynamically swap out placeholders within email templates at send-time.
Build segmented lists using filters to group contacts, then define the content each segment receives.
Further customize by setting up multi-email workflows to automate welcome series, win-backs for inactive users, event reminders, abandoned cart recovery, and more based on time delays or user actions.
With user-friendly tools to schedule sends in advance, A/B test email variants, and trigger campaigns via APIs, Sendgrid has robust options to set and forget effective emails.
3. Contact Management
A. Organizing Contacts
Sendgrid provides flexible tools to organize your subscriber data upon import or when adding new contacts manually. You can create unlimited custom fields to capture meaningful details like customer IDs, gender, date of birth, order history, business info, and more.
Pre-built segments allow you to automatically group contacts based on criteria like email engagement metrics (opens, clicks, date subscribed), recent site activity, e-commerce behaviors, demographic data, and other parameters.
Further organize your lists by tagging individual subscribers with labels like VIP, loyalty program status, and special interest groups. Alphabetize contact names or sort by join date, location, order total, and additional custom fields. Use simple or advanced search operators to build segment lists on the fly.
B. Cleaning up Email Lists
Maintaining email hygiene and list quality is critical for deliverability and inbox placement. Sendgrid automatically detects high-risk email addresses marked as spammers along with invalid accounts like those using syntax errors or disposable domains.
These get tagged upon import for easy cleanup. Soft and hard-bounced contacts also get auto-tagged so you can update details or remove them.
You can enable a daily email confirmation process to re-permission subscribers and avoid list decay. Additional tools help you manage compliance opt-outs at scale and schedule subscription reminder emails to inactive contacts so you keep engaged users without bothering others.
C. Segmentation and Targeting
The true power of Sendgrid’s platform lies within the dynamic segmentation capabilities enabling you to get to a segment of one for personalized messaging.
Import custom field data from your CRM or apps to group contacts by behaviors, order histories, business details, and demographics. Then define the exact content blocks each segment sees in a single campaign with the visual email builder.
For example, set up triggers to enroll cold contacts in a 7-day nurture track when they first subscribe, inactive users get win-back offers, e-commerce shoppers receive abandoned cart recovery emails, and high propensity targets see VIP promotions.
Schedule sends based on field values, user metrics, online events, or time delays. Sendgrid gives fine-tuned control for hyper-personalization.
4. Email Deliverability
Deliverability refers to how effectively an email provider can get messages into subscriber inboxes rather than blocked as spam. These impact reach, engagement, and ultimately conversion rates. As an email-focused platform, deliverability is a core competency for Sendgrid.
Across industries, Sendgrid customers enjoy exceptional inbox placement and above-average open rates compared to industry benchmarks. The platform has earned a strong sender reputation with major ISPs like Gmail thanks to advanced authentication protocols like DMARC and compliance with standards like CAN-SPAM.
Sendgrid prioritizes deliverability through continuous sender monitoring, list hygiene features, inbox testing tools, and dedicated IP addresses to maintain sender scores.
Having a dedicated IP address means that customers can expect a 98%+ average deliverability rate. Open and click rates are 2X higher than competitors. There is a 99.9% guaranteed uptime and delivery with failover infrastructure.
Advanced email validation, suppression lists, bounce handling, and granular analytics provide actionable insights to optimize further. For the best possible deliverability and inbox placement, Sendgrid has proven results.
5. Analytics and Reporting
A. Performance Metrics
Sendgrid provides detailed analytics, including comprehensive email performance metrics across opens, clicks, conversions, unsubscribes, spam reports, and non-deliverables.
Real-time tracking shows email rendering and engagement for different segments as your campaign is delivered. Metrics are further displayed visually in dashboard charts and graphs.
At the contact level, you can view historical engagement rates, recent interactions, the amount spent, and the number of purchases to better understand subscriber behavior.
Metrics like peer benchmark comparisons, email category averages, and predictive engagement scoring offer additional context for analyzing performance.
B. Visual Reports and Insights
An intuitive reporting dashboard offers at-a-glance visualization of critical email program metrics all in one place covering sends, deliveries, engagement, conversions, and revenue. Drag-and-drop report components to create custom reports or export raw data.
everage pre-built reports tailored to different use cases – send optimization, list growth, campaign ROI reporting, and more. Scheduled and on-demand exports automate data analysis.
Segmentation charts provide a graphic representation of list demographics and engagement levels for your marketing and transactional emails. Interactive visualizations make data insights fast and easy to uncover for driving strategic decision-making. The analytics toolset equips you with the metrics, reporting, and insights needed to continually refine and improve email performance.
6. Integrations
A. CRM Integrations
Seamlessly connecting Sendgrid to leading CRM platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, and Freshworks fuels more impactful engagement. Using bi-directional syncing, contacts, and interaction data flows between systems automatically.
CRM data can populate dynamic fields in Sendgrid email campaigns while opens/clicks writeback to contact records in the CRM. Workflows leverage subscriber activity driving actions like creating leads, updating fields, and triggering follow-ups.
With turnkey integrations requiring no complex coding of your own mail server, Sendgrid customers can build highly personalized cross-channel campaigns informed by a complete view of each contact within their CRM database.
B. E-Commerce Integrations
Sendgrid easily embeds into e-commerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento through plug-and-play apps. Merchants can leverage customer data like abandoned carts and purchase history to power effective remarketing. Automate post-purchase review requests, win-back emails to dormant customers, behavioral-triggered campaigns, and other revenue-driving initiatives.
The integrations auto-update contact records and product catalogs for always-on, dynamic personalization. Sendgrid gives online sellers the tools to turn one-time buyers into lifetime loyalists driving measurable business growth. With leading e-commerce integrations, marketers can make the most of rich platform data.
7. Compliance and Security Features
A. GDPR and Other Compliance Measures
SendGrid helps customers meet critical compliance requirements for sending transactional and marketing emails, including GDPR and CAN-SPAM with easy opt-out management tools. Check compliance risk against industry requirements with on-demand privacy and security assessments focused on GDPR readiness, ISO standards, and CCPA obligations among others.
Customers can enable 2FA verification for security administrators, configure password strength policies, restrict file downloads, and more to align with needed controls.
B. Data Security and Privacy
Robust security safeguards ensure data remains protected including mandatory SSL encryption transmitted over HTTPS using TLS 1.2+ connections exclusively and encrypting stored data. Physical security adheres to SOC 2 standards with restricted-access offices and data centers.
Routine third-party audits validate the effectiveness of all technical, physical, and administrative security controls protecting customer data end-to-end. Strict access controls, data activity audit logs for visibility, and advanced threat monitoring provide additional protection. Customers own campaign email data.
8. Customer Support
A. Availability
Sendgrid provides several channels for customer support including email, web-based ticketing, phone (for premium plans), community forums, and an online knowledge base.
Support hours cover extended weekdays (Monday to Friday from 7 am – 10 pm Mountain Time) and more limited weekend hours (Saturday and Sunday 9 am – 6 pm MT). Resources like community forums, documentation, and self-service tools are available 24/7.
B. Responsiveness and Effectiveness
Horrible customer service can impede your ability to run successful email campaigns. Customers give mixed reviews on SendGrid support, with some stating that responsiveness and satisfaction depend on the inquiry complexity.
Simple pre-sales questions and platform navigation assistance receive prompt, knowledgeable replies. However, some users experience slower response times, the need for follow-up prompting, and ticket escalation when dealing with trickier deliverability issues or complex use cases.
Self-service troubleshooting tools are praised for effectiveness, while direct support interactions score less favorably.
C. Resources
Sendgrid provides a suite of robust self-service support resources including thorough documentation and setup guides, user community forums to crowdsource advice from other customers, an online knowledge base with searchable FAQs and hundreds of tutorial videos that walk through core platform functionality, integrations guidance, and email marketing best practices.
Interactive tools help diagnose sending and deliverability errors. For further learning, Sendgrid offers live and on-demand webinars plus a customer success library with free professionally designed templates, ebooks, and infographics. Many users can find answers without needing to open support tickets.
9. Pricing
A. Advantages
Sendgrid’s core advantage lies in its deliverability and sender reputation. With over 98% inbox placement rates, customers can rely on industry-leading email reliability to reach subscriber inboxes while avoiding spam filters. This gives peace of mind that campaign spends are actively engaging the right people – even on the free plan.
Developers also praise the Sendgrid API and capacity for workflow automation using webhooks and custom apps with email woven directly in. Scalability is proven as well, with the existing infrastructure to smoothly handle customer growth from small businesses to major enterprises sending trillions of emails annually.
Users also find the drag-and-drop editor, pre-built templates, and intuitive interface quick and simple for getting started with email campaigns.
B. Limitations
In terms of limitations, Sendgrid garners mixed reviews regarding customer support responsiveness and satisfaction when addressing more complex technical issues or deliverability troubleshooting.
Some mid-market buyers also find better value from competing email marketing tools that offer more robust features at lower price points for higher email volumes.
While core metrics and campaign reporting are available, the analytics capabilities don’t provide the deeper segmentation, cross-channel attribution and predictive insights that dedicated marketing analytics platforms can offer.
Also, those wanting greater control over intricate subscriber list management may prefer the hands-on data tools of a CRM solution.
10. Pros and Cons
A. Advantages
Sendgrid’s core advantage lies in its deliverability and sender reputation. With over 98% inbox placement rates, customers can rely on industry-leading email reliability to reach subscriber inboxes while avoiding spam filters. This gives peace of mind that campaign spends are actively engaging the right people – even on the free plan.
Developers also praise the Sendgrid API and capacity for workflow automation using webhooks and custom apps with email woven directly in. Scalability is proven as well, with the existing infrastructure to smoothly handle customer growth from small businesses to major enterprises sending trillions of emails annually.
Users also find the drag-and-drop editor, pre-built templates, and intuitive interface quick and simple for getting started with email campaigns.
B. Limitations
In terms of limitations, Sendgrid garners mixed reviews regarding customer support responsiveness and satisfaction when addressing more complex technical issues or deliverability troubleshooting.
Some mid-market buyers also find better value from competing email marketing tools that offer more robust features at lower price points for higher email volumes.
While core metrics and campaign reporting are available, the analytics capabilities don’t provide the deeper segmentation, cross-channel attribution and predictive insights that dedicated marketing analytics platforms can offer.
Also, those wanting greater control over intricate subscriber list management may prefer the hands-on data tools of a CRM solution.
11. Customer Testimonials
This transactional email service earns mixed reviews from customer rating platforms regarding satisfaction levels across ease of use, feature set value, deliverability effectiveness, support experience, and likelihood to recommend.
On Trustera from 342 reviews, Sendgrid review rates 3.8 out of 5 stars praising platform reliability and deliverability while critiquing the complexity of getting configured to optimize unique use cases and support turnaround lagging on specialized inquiries.
Positive highlights include “extremely consistent deliverability” and “smart tools that help ensure our emails get to recipient inboxes.” Negative pain points feature “no phone support” and “canned responses that don’t solve niche problems.”
Across sites, pattern analysis reveals areas to weigh for your use case including time investment customizing for desired functionality vs out-of-box simplicity, optimizing deliverability given send volume constraints, and support channels meeting troubleshooting needs.
12. Alternatives
A. Comparison with Other Platforms
Sendgrid competes directly for email marketing share with tried solutions like Mailchimp along with similar enterprise-geared offerings from Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Oracle Responsys.
Mailchimp matches the ease of use with expanded automation for sophisticated email programs at lower price points. More CRM functionality plus goal and event tracking offer rounded small business value. However, volume discounts can disappear at higher tiers.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud ties into robust CRM data and analytics for a 360-degree customer view to leverage. Geared for established brands, service, support, and advanced email marketing features outrank competitors. Yet costs escalate with extensive toolset and customization needs.
Oracle Responsys positions as a high-volume B2C powerhouse blending scalability, personalization, an HTML code editor, and real-time message adaptation powered by AI. However, significant complexity limits mid-market appeal for more basic email needs.
In contrast, Sendgrid strikes an enterprise-lite balance with reliability, security, and support suited for developers, IT teams, and fast-growth brands needing a marketing layer built atop reliable infrastructure. The unique selling proposition hinges on “set it and forget it” email reassurance.
Final Thoughts
Sendgrid earns its reputation as a trusted email marketing software for developers, agencies, and high-growth brands needing reliable infrastructure to support business-critical communications at scale.
Core strengths in deliverability, email automation, and segmentation make sending email marketing campaigns and reaching the right inboxes easier across customer lifecycles easier while maintaining sender reputation integrity.
Saskwatch found Sendgrid “takes the guesswork out of keeping our emails out of the spam folder and into our customers’ inboxes with exceptional deliverability.”
For mid-market use cases, premium brand appeal can justify slightly higher costs for assurances like 99.9% guaranteed uptime, 2X competitive open rates, and platform agility to adapt workflows as needs evolve from startups to enterprises. As Contra Agency put it, “We never worry about our emails getting lost in spam folders or bouncing – it just works.”
Ideal customers needing those assurances include IT consultants, agencies, software firms, internet businesses, and professional services providers invested in customer retention who cannot afford to lose emails driving revenue.
For standard email needs, SMBs may find a better bang for their buck with another email service provider. But those relying on always-on communication put a premium on Sendgrid’s deliverability and reliability reputation.