Smartlead Review: Best Cold Email Marketing Tool in 2024?

Cold emails are essential components of your digital marketing strategy, but executing one is easier said than done. At the same time, there are many cold emailing platforms, but not all provide excellent features. 

So, isn’t there an AI-powered tool that can cater to your cold email campaign needs? Introducing Smartlead – an excellent cold email marketing platform to automate your campaigns. 

But why is Smartlead better than any other platform? What are its distinctive features? In this Smartlead review, I will discuss the key features of Smartlead, along with its pricing, pros, and cons. 

By the end of this Smartlead review guide, you can decide if it’s the right choice. Let’s get started. 

What is Smartlead?

Smartlead is one of the best lead generation platforms on the market. With a user-friendly interface and catchy features, it’s better than many other cold email software. 

Smartlead lets you personalize your email outreach to make them more appropriate to your prospects. This will increase your chances of converting them into leads. 

Smartlead

• Unified master inbox
• Unlimited email warmups
• Customized white labelling
• Email follow-up automation

This tool also tracks opens, clicks, and replies, which can help you analyze and optimize your email outreach effectively. 

With a 4.8 rating on G2, Smartlead offers numerous options to maintain optimal email deliverability. Let’s examine Smartlead review features. 

Smartlead Features

Samrtlead.ai includes the complete set of features you need to send emails and set up your ultimate email campaigns with automated follow-up emails.

1. Email Campaigns

An email campaign is undoubtedly one of the most important processes of any cold outreach method. Smartlead's email campaign feature lets you schedule and automate multiple campaigns.

The best part about Smartlead? You can add a manual step in your email campaigns. It's like setting up a manual task between your campaigns.

Sounds intriguing, right? Let’s take a look at what Smartlead.ai offers in detail.

1.1. Leads Import 

Once you create a campaign in Smartlead, the process starts with importing the contacts list. You can either upload or drag and drop a CSV file here. You can also sync and upload directly from the CRM through integration.

Once you upload the contacts, you can map the fields. This includes first and last names according to the email sequence variables.

1.2. Email Templates

You can always write emails manually. But why put so much effort when Smartlead is here to free up your mundane tasks?

This email tool offers a few customizable cold email templates. You can use them according to your campaign requirements.

However, Smartlead only has a few email lead generation templates. But, there are a few backlink and web development agency templates. If they decide to add more templates in the future, this would help many people save time.

1.3. AB Testing

A/B testing plays a critical role in your campaign performance. It allows you to experiment with different email variations. The analytics will let you know which one is the most effective for your outreach campaigns.

You can do AB testing in Smartlead by adding multiple variations in your email steps. You can also check which variation is working best for your email campaigns. 

You can also configure your A/B testing settings and adjust the distribution size of variants. Additionally, you can select between manual and automatic configurations to enhance your A/B testing strategy.

1.4. Spintax 

This is a distinguishable feature of Smartlead. I really like this feature because I believe small details make campaigns more human-like. 

Spintax will help you send multiple variations of the same thing, such as CTAs and greetings. This helps trick ESPs (email service providers) into thinking you’re sending cold emails with genuine intentions. 

For Example: {Hi | Hello | Hey} and {Let's jump on a call | Are you free tomorrow? | Keen for a demo ?}

This feature ensures your emails land in the client’s inbox, not in the spam folder. Email services won't see it as a mass email, as you’re sending different versions of the same message. Instead, they’ll consider it a separate email to each person, ultimately avoiding spam filters.

1.5. Readability and Spam Check

Smartlead comes with Readability and Spam Checker. As the name suggests, the Readability will check the overall readability of your email. This way, you can understand how easy your email is to read.

Moreover, the Readability feature will highlight the hard sentences. If you’re familiar with Hemingway, you will find the dashboard quite similar. 

The second option is the Spam Checker. It will highlight if you’re using spammy words or sentences. I'm fond of this feature as it lets me cross-check my email campaigns thoroughly. 

You can either replace these words or remove them. This is a good feature that helps ensure your emails are not spammy in the eyes of email providers. 

It also helps ensure that the documents flow well and are easy to read. As a result, they will ultimately help you with your deliverability and engagement.

1.6. Scheduling

You may send emails to the right person, but are you sending them at the right time? Smartlead can schedule your campaigns according to your recipient's time zone.

This way, you can ensure your emails are delivered to your prospects at the right time and on the right day. 

To schedule campaigns, create a schedule and tell the smart sending algorithm when to send emails. You can select the time zone, specify the time of day, and set the intervals between emails. This helps you increase your email engagement rates.

1.7. Folders

If your email dashboard is cluttered, it won’t look good. Smartlead helps you declutter it to make it more navigational. 

Make sure you create folders. After naming them, group similar campaigns together within each folder. You can create multiple folders to manage and organize your campaigns flawlessly. 

2. Email Accounts

The email campaign features aren’t the end of it. Smartlead has something more to offer.  It gives you multiple beneficial email account features. These are extremely effective at managing the deliverability of your email accounts.

2.1. Unlimited email accounts

You can add unlimited email accounts with Smartlead.ai. Unlike other email outreach software, you don’t need to pay charges per email account. This feature allows you to expand your email campaigns effectively.

2.2. Inbox Rotation

Apart from creating multiple email accounts, you can also use them to send emails within a single campaign. This means you can use 5-10 emails to send many emails for your campaign. 

This way, you can maintain the deliverability of each email account. You can also avoid spam by not sending many emails from a single account. Instead, you rotate through your email inboxes.

2.3. Email Warmup

The AI email warmup feature helps maintain the deliverability of email accounts by gradually increasing the number of emails sent. This avoids spam filters and establishes a positive relationship with email service providers.

Smartlead simulates human-like sending behaviors with random patterns. It disguises warmup emails and bypasses automation detection systems.

If you already have an email account, I recommend warming up for at least two weeks. Warm up for at least 2-3 months for a new domain.

Additionally, Smartlead enables you to warm up multiple email accounts simultaneously. Its feature automatically matches your leads' mailbox provider with yours, eliminating the need for manual MX record matching and enhancing delivery rates.

3. Client Access

This feature of Smartlead is designed for service-providing agencies or individuals. With the white labelling feature, you can give your clients a branded and personalized email platform.

You can also create your own domain. Your clients can view reports and campaigns and even reply from the primary inbox. This is an excellent way to improve your brand image and stand out from competitors. 

With this feature, you can assign permission and control what your clients see and do not. You can also assign them credits so that they can manage the campaign themselves.

4. Master Inbox

If you handle multiple domains, Master Inbox will benefit you. Rather than managing mailboxes and wasting time searching for replies across different accounts, Smartlead simplifies the process. It consolidates all your emails into a single, centralized location.

Furthermore, you can establish custom categories and tag replies based on their purpose or content. This functionality streamlines the organization of your inbox. Hence, you can quickly filter and prioritize replies according to their intent. 

5. Integration

While Smartlead offers numerous advantages, it does lack native integrations with several useful tools. For now, Smartlead lacks a built-in Zapier integration, which is crucial for syncing multiple tools and creating an interconnected ecosystem. 

Nonetheless, you can still connect Smartlead with Zapier through its API. Smartlead does, however, provide native integrations with the following tools:

• HubSpot
• Clay
• Listkit

Smartlead Pricing

What makes Smartlead different is its flexibility. No matter which pricing plans you choose, you can use unlimited email and warmup accounts. This means you won't have to pay extra for each account like you do with other tools like Mailshake.

While Smartlead doesn't offer any free plan, it provides a free trial. The paid plans are more cost-effective than many of its competitors. Remember that you will get 17% off on yearly plans.

Smartlead Review: Pros and Cons

Let's explore some of the strengths and weaknesses of this robust outreach tool to help you determine if Smartlead is the right choice for your email outreach needs.

As you can see, the pros of Smartlead outweigh the cons. While it lacks native integration support, you won't face huge problems because of this.

Final Verdict

However, by now, you may have a clear idea of whether Smartlead is the right choice for your cold email outreach and campaign requirements or not. If you're still undecided and seeking further guidance, here are two perspectives to consider:

If you prioritize extensive integrations and require additional features like email finding and verification, as well as a CRM for comprehensive data management, Smartlead might not meet all your needs. 

However, if your primary focus is on conducting AB tests, maintaining deliverability, and managing responses in one place, Smartlead could be an excellent solution.

Ultimately, your decision should be based on your specific requirements. There are numerous tools available in the market, each offering unique features. Remember, while a tool can assist you with your outreach efforts, the real impact lies in the quality of your message and the solution you provide. Happy Emailing!

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