With more and more channels added to the customer’s journey, people expect an omnichannel approach everywhere, including email marketing. Email marketing integrations are one of the key elements needed to adapt to the constant changes of the current digital environment. On the marketers’ side, integrations help optimize processes, unify different channels and data sources, and enhance personalization, automation, and other strategies. On the customers’ side, integrations make the experience more personal, consistent, and cohesive.
In this report, we will take a look at different types of email marketing integrations and explore integration platforms as a service (iPaaS) like Albato as they may be the ideal solution in the current circumstances.
Selzy sent out a brief questionnaire to our customers. Around a hundred people filled out the survey. Most of the respondents were based in Europe and some — in the US.
Integration functions like a bridge between two services allowing them to align and cooperate. These could be social media and e-commerce platforms, email marketing platforms like Selzy, CRMs, websites, analytics tools like Google Analytics, and endless other possibilities.
Sometimes companies and services create their own native integrations with popular services such as Google Sheets, Hubspot, Bitrix24, etc. Others choose to use integration platforms like Albato and Zapier that offer ready-made integrations with hundreds of different services in one place.
Recent research by Deployteq shows that 60% of marketing professionals seek integration functionalities in a marketing automation provider.
Source: Deployteq
The fact that product integration is critical for 84% of B2B SAAS is a huge indicator of the businesses’ needs. (PartnerStack et al.)
Selzy data indicates that between 25 to 30% of monthly active users leverage integrations, which allows the company to generate up to 15% of revenue monthly from just one cohort of users. Moreover, users who have implemented the integrations show remarkable loyalty, featuring:
Marketers are looking for new ways to automate processes, increase productivity, and navigate information streams.
According to Marigold’s 2024 report on consumer trends, 20% of Gen Z and Millennials find a consistent digital experience more important than price. The same study found that 51% of customers globally experienced frustration in the past 6 months caused by irrelevant content or offers.
Source: Marigold
In a world where people are overstimulated trying to make sense of brand communication and want more stability and consistency, marketing integrations appear to be the perfect solution.
Integrations play a big role in the omnichannel approach to marketing. User behavior is changing, and it is necessary to help customers navigate the increasing number of communication platforms. Omnichannel marketing empowers customers to interact with the company using a multitude of channels while providing a seamless experience. Integrations link different marketing channels and software, making it easy to increase brand awareness, share data between platforms, and analyze it. Email marketing integration with other channels and tools is the future and it becomes more apparent as time goes by.
Integrating different channels, tools, and platforms with an email marketing service makes data management easier and allows marketers to access everything they need in one place. Other major benefits of email integrations are:
Seamless integrations are necessary to maximize the effectiveness of email marketing efforts. Connecting your email marketing service with other tools and platforms can increase performance and ROI. As technology continues to evolve, innovative integrations will help you futureproof your email marketing strategy.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms are essential for handling customer interactions and data with 90% of marketers using them.
Integrating email marketing with CRM offers improvement of industry-standard strategies, such as:
All of these not only improve customer experience but can also increase profits and the number of customers and even lead to business expansion.
Source: Marigold
According to Merge, 42% of companies built product integration with CRM systems and 39% with marketing automation software. This is no surprise as 34% believe CRM software with automation capabilities adoption had the biggest positive impact on their work, automated lead generation was the most helpful for 33%, and email marketing automation for 27%. (Pipedrive)
Source: Pipedrive
Given how impactful marketing and CRM automations are, integrating them for even better results is logical. Integrating email marketing and CRMs such as Bitrix24, amoCRM, and Pipedrive can help companies not only increase customer satisfaction but also expand and evolve in other areas of business.
Another popular option is to integrate email marketing services with e-commerce platforms like Shopify or WooCommerce. The benefits of integrating email marketing and e-commerce platforms include:
Automated campaigns not only have high open rates and click rates, but according to Omnisend, they also bring 41% of all email orders while only accounting for 2% of email sends. Abandoned cart reminders, birthday offers, recommendations based on past purchases, and interest-specific messages all resonate with a strong majority of consumers. For example, 84% find personalized birthday offers “cool.” (Marigold)
Contrarily, more than 60% of consumers find ads based on indirect tracking tools and location-targeted ads from unknown brands as decidedly “creepy.” Comfort levels with the use of personal data vary from customer to customer, so it’s important to probe for consumer preferences early on in the relationships. A good practice is to offer a simple preference form that covers opt-ins and outs for data usage and a checklist for the types of messages contacts would like to receive.
Source: Marigold
Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are widely popular with 63.9% (5,24 billion people) of the total global population using it. Combining it with an email marketing platform allows marketers to:
It comes as no surprise that social media and email go hand in hand being the most popular purchase channels. 50% of people make purchases from email, while social media ads and posts are in second and third place with 48% and 43% respectively. The percentage is even higher among younger generations. 51% of Gen Zers and 56% of Millennials made purchases from social media ads, and 48% and 53% respectively bought something from social media posts. (Marigold)
Source: Marigold
Gen Z and Millennials use social media the most and they are the hardest audience to win over, at least in the US. A Morning Consult survey revealed that both groups trust social media platforms more than the total population does. YouTube is the third most trusted brand for Gen Zers and the fourth for Millenials.
Integrating email marketing with social media platforms is a crucial strategy, especially if your audience skews younger.
Source: Morning Consult
Source: Morning Consult
The iPaaS industry is booming, driven by the growing demand for seamless data integration across a variety of cloud and on-premises applications. Organizations are adopting iPaaS solutions to speed up operations and improve data accuracy and operational efficiency. In 2024, the integration platform as a service industry was valued at $6.68 billion, and it is expected to reach $61.67 billion by 2031. (Verified Market Research)
MasterCard and Retail Dive research suggests that 86% of consumer-facing companies surveyed have issues with their technology stacks. The most common pain points include limited integrations and compatibilities (25%), data challenges such as access, availability, and management (24%), and limited insights (15%).
IPaaS and automation platforms bring several advantages, including:
One of the examples of these software products is Albato — a powerful automation platform and iPaaS that allows marketers to connect email marketing services to other marketing channels and applications to automate workflows and streamline processes.
Albato and similar services not only offer a range of out-of-the-box solutions for common business and marketing tasks but also have flexibility, allowing users to create automation of any complexity with a variety of triggers, actions, and conditions to personalize workflows. Albato, for example, has a user-friendly interface, with complex workflows simplified, making automation and marketing integrations accessible to all.
Integration and automation platforms like Albato can be useful for companies of all sizes and for different teams. Marketing teams can use Albato to automate email marketing campaigns, manage social media, and optimize workflows to stay top of mind. Since all data is interconnected, it's easier to get insights, tailor marketing campaigns, explore customers’ needs without irritating them with unnecessary communication while saving resources, both human and financial.
Email marketing integration with other platforms is an essential component of any successful marketing strategy. This can help optimize workflows, improve data analysis, and ultimately increase conversion rates.
Astana Hub, the largest tech park in Central Asia, needed a way to onboard users to its mobile app, promote events, and attract partners. They pulled and segmented the contact list from their CRM into groups based on industries, events, and lead status. The marketing team at Astana Hub used Selzy to design newsletters and change their emailing schedule, with bi-weekly newsletters and a weekly digest. The results were impressive, with 28,000 people onboarded to the mobile app, an open rate of 63%, and a click-through rate of 26%.
Major e-commerce retailers like Amazon and ASOS have adopted account-based marketing and personalization, with the help of integrations and audience segmentation. For instance, they send emails to customers with personalized product recommendations based on their browsing and purchase history.
While audience segmentation may seem overwhelming, tagging helps to make the process less complex and time consuming. Tags are added to customers’ profiles based on their actions. By integrating e-commerce platforms with email marketing, you can not only send triggered emails but also build a relationship with customers. Add CRM to the equation and you are even better equipped.
The jewelry brand Nadaré Co. used TikTok to build a big email list before the company launch and kept adding to it with pop-ups. Then, they made targeted email ads and automated flows that worked well with the people they had found. After using an integrated email marketing solution, Nadaré Co. was getting 29% of its revenue from automations. One email sent after purchasing, for example, has brought in over $10,000 more in sales.
Personalization is great, but without further funneling the strategy soon loses its effectiveness. Here’s where integrations come in handy: an e-commerce platform allows to understand customer preferences, automated email sends at the right time with personalized content and leads the customer further to the website. AI also gives additional personalization opportunities.
Codeacademy brilliantly combines personalized marketing emails with corresponding landing pages. The landing pages build on the information and offers presented in the email and prompt conversions with a short form. This kind of coordination of email and website content drives sales through targeted content. This ensures a seamless and consistent customer journey.
Step 1: Start small. Combine email marketing with a single CRM, e-commerce platform, or automation tool. This will help you get comfortable with the process, educate yourself, and better understand what you need.
Step 2: Identify key goals. Clearly define your goals for integrating email marketing with other tools and channels. What do you want to achieve? Increase sales, increase engagement, or something else? Having a clear understanding of your goals will help to choose the right integrations and measure success.
Step 3: Pick the right integrations. Choose integrations that align with your specific business needs, target audience, and marketing goals. Think about the tools you're already using and how you can connect them to improve marketing performance.
Step 4: Prioritize automation. Focus on automating repetitive tasks such as sending welcome emails, abandoned basket reminders, or order confirmations. This will free up time and resources for other marketing activities and help you reach your goals more efficiently.
Step 5: Track effectiveness. Continually monitor the performance of your integrated marketing campaigns to find areas for improvement and optimize your strategies. Use the data to refine your approach and maximize the benefits and effects of integration.
Email marketing integration is a big stepping stone on the way to access email marketing’s full potential as a communication channel. On the business side, email integration allows marketers to get and interpret data more easily, segment campaigns more precisely, and make outreach more targeted. On the customers’ side, integrations result in a more seamless and personalized experience. Start with just one email integration, and you will see big results and futureproof your strategy.
