Drip Review 2023: Expert Rated 4.0/5

What Are the Pros and Cons of Drip?

Drip is a popular choice for e-commerce marketing growth, segmentation, and automation, allowing e-commerce business owners to scale their operations. It’s incredibly simple, offers in-service analytics and insights, and is a great way to connect with your consumer base. Plus, it has a full suite of integrations to help you refine and optimize your outreach on an (even more) automated basis.

Despite these benefits, there have been mixed customer reviews around the simplicity of the templates and the minimalist structure. This Drip email marketing review is here to help you evaluate the pros and cons of the tool and determine if it’s a good fit for your business needs.

Easily add and import with native record management

Drip makes it easy to onboard and take full advantage of the list segmentation and management tools located in the app. I was prompted to either import my list in CSV format or a simple copy-and-paste method. If you’re a smaller business or don’t have import methods set up yet, you can also use the per-member add tool.

From the “People” dashboard, you can take action on your list, segment, and more. Below are just a few of the perks that are included with Drip:

• Segmentation and sorting: List segmentation is an especially helpful perk that can boost your open rates and the efficiency of your emails. Drip makes this process effortless, no matter how large your list is, offering convenient filtered search and segment save capacities to optimize your list as much as you need. You’ll also be able to swap between view options to see key demographic information about your audiences at any time, such as birthdays, name, phone numbers, and more.
• Active vs. inactive dashboard view: Drip is known for its user-friendly dashboard and platform organization. In the “People” tab, you can easily see who is deemed active vs. inactive in alignment with sort parameters. You can then take action to prune or reactivate or edit the record directly.
• Tags and bulk action operations: As you build and launch your campaigns, you can easily track user actions under the “People” tab. Use tags to designate more nuanced and micro-scale segmentation for your customers, and apply using the bulk operations management tool.
• Pruning and management: Pruning is key to keeping your list as agile and useful as possible. If you’re dealing with a lack of engagement, you can address it in bulk — unsubscribing them from your marketing campaigns and offering additional opportunities to engage elsewhere.

Simple, block-based automation and support

Automation is notorious for being one of the largest learning curves you’ll have in business. However, Drip makes this process far easier across your marketing efforts – offering hundreds of platform-specific workflow templates and rule creation options to streamline your efforts.

Drip breaks down automation work into two main types: Rules and workflows. Rules in this application are simple automations set up around singular triggers. Implementing a rule with Drip gives you a similar experience to Zapier’s automation tool, as you’ll be able to quickly integrate and define your triggers and actions with drop-down menus and buttons. Workflows are more nuanced, offering you two options:

1. Building your automation from a template that is platform-specific (i.e., BigCommerce, Shopify, or Magneto).
2. Sandbox-style automation builder to optimize and create automations from the ground up.

Native text and email campaign creation and support

Whether you’re looking to launch a single email or a slew of promotional campaigns, Drip offers easy native building tools to make it happen. You’ll have the option to choose a visual builder or a text-based HTML builder, depending on how much back-end coding and optimization you want for a specific asset. I personally preferred the visual builder, as my business is visually driven — and the templates were simple enough for my needs.

Native pruning and list care options

The fact that the platform has native pruning features immediately caught my attention. This is a rare standalone feature, and it goes a long way to maintaining the health of your email list (and the accuracy of your reports). It’s incredibly easy to use and can be done in bulk — saving you hours spent diagnosing and manually removing those who are no longer active with your emails.

Advanced analytics and insights for faster business growth

Analytics are your key to strategically growing and engaging those on your email list. It tells you exactly what’s working (and what’s not), empowering you to deliver a truly optimized brand experience via email. Drip tracks key metrics in easy-to-reference dashboards in its native interface, and includes focuses on things like:

• Clicks by link
• Opens per hour
• Subscribers
• Activity
• Site traffic (via email)
• Revenue generation

While this isn’t the exhaustive list of what’s included, it is what I found to be most important and useful for e-commerce business owners. I’m confident that you’ll appreciate the comprehensive functionality of Drip’s analytics and reporting features.

Compare Drip Alternatives

Drip is a fantastic tool for SMBs, entrepreneurs, and quickly growing businesses. However, alternatives such as Hubspot, Sendinblue, and GetResponse may be better options depending on your business’s needs. In my analysis, I was able to dive deep into each service provider and look at the total benefits you’d gain from their product. I did firsthand evaluations to provide objective and relevant information as you choose your brand’s email marketing provider.

See how Drip compares to other top-tier email marketing tools.

How I Rated Drip

I test sales and marketing tools based on the following factors:

• Sale management: Does the platform offer sales tools to help with lead management and closing deals? What are its features?
• Ease of use: Is the platform simple to set up and use?
• Customization and automation: Can you tailor the software to your business needs?
• Integrations and analytics: Does this software integrate easily with other business tools, and will its reporting features fit your needs?
• The support provided: How easy is it to get help?
• Free trial: Is a no-cost trial or demo offered?

Learn more about our review methodology.