10 Killer Email Tracking Tools

The Dark Age of email sales where you would send your email (through a pigeon) and call your contact (across the hill) without ever knowing how they felt about your offer (and whether your pigeon ended up in Spam) are over. Thank God (and developers) for email tracking tools.

Not only will they provide you with useful email templates (especially if you are a beginner), but they will give you valuable information to see how successful your campaign was and what was the tipping point in your emails that made them reply, click or convert (you will discover this by A/B testing your emails).

However, no sales software will be of help if you don’t have the right contacts, don’t know who you’re targeting or if you’re buying scraped emails in bulk. If however you have chosen your prospects carefully (maybe by hiring an expert agency such as Market Republic to generate your leads), this software can additionally help you speed up the entire process.

By doing extensive research we collected some of the best ones out there that have proved their value to numerous users around the world.

They are Yesware, ToutApp, Contact Monkey, Sales Loft, Banana Tag,  SalesHandy, Cirrus Insight, Outreach, Reply.io, HubSpot Sales and GetResponse.

Now let’s take a more detailed approach to each and every one of them:

1. Yesware

We’ve written about our experience with Yesware before but like all good software it has improved since then.

With more than 600,000 users, Yesware is considered to be the best and easiest to use tool for tracking your emails in real-time  – if they got opened, who opened them, from which IP address, using which device and how many times the emails were opened. You can also track whether there has been any engagement regarding your CTAs and change your strategy according to data automatically.

Right after you’ve received the information about who was interested in your offer you can set reminders for a follow up email, with Yesware suggesting you the best time to reach out to your prospect for the second time.

The second best thing about Yesware is that it’s inexpensive, you can try it out for free and get Pro, Team or Enterprise package depending on your sales needs.

On your Yesware software you will find many features such as email templates or Touchpoint, campaign automation management option, which makes it easy for you to follow your tasks and and keep prospects on track. All the data is collected into a single visual making it simple for users to see how their campaign is performing.

You can even use Yesware tracking tool to make a call to the prospect right after they’ve opened an email.

If you are using the Enterprise plan, you can sync Yesware with Salesforce to build your email lists and make your sales efforts transparent for your management and supervisors. On the other hand, management can see which individuals and teams are performing best and what to focus on to improve their efficiency even more, as well as what needs to be improved with those who are not reaching their goals.

Source: Yesware

Of course, even the best have some setbacks. For example, links are redirecting your prospects to Yesware domain first and your webpage second, which shows to your prospects that they are being followed. Then again, if they know anything about modern sales, they are well aware of this already. Also, there is no way to see whether the email was forwarded to someone which could lead to a very useful data.

2. ToutApp

Similar to Yesware in many ways, ToutApp is praised most for streamlining repetitive tasks and getting the maximum out of your sales team, so that they can spend more time selling instead of sending emails. Its fast and smooth interface will speed up the time of your campaigns and improve their success.

The Command Center is especially valuable as well as Live Feed feature, which shows in real-time when people are reading your email, what they’re clicking on, and what page on the attachment they are reading.

Its email templates are quick to use, easy to create and edit and can be filled with additional tags, based on contact information or custom fields from the CRM. ToutApp allows you to create and utilize email templates and automation to save you time and makes it easier to schedule meetings with clients or coworkers.

Analytics can be improved, although they give valuable insights by rep, group or content over custom time frames.

Source: Tout

You can also use the A/B testing feature and organize the metric by email campaign and template.

However, there is a price to pay for these handy features – $49  per month for Self-Service option and $15K per year as the smallest amount for enterprise needs.

ToutApp downsides are that syncing with Salesforce sometimes takes over an hour or that its connection with Outlook must be constantly updated. Customer support can be very unsatisfying and taking days to reply with a generic answer which is, for this price, quite a setback.

3. Contact Monkey

According to Contact Monkey real-time tracking is so important that your sales reps are 27% more likely to close that deal if they call within 5 minutes of an open. We used it before and wrote about it on our blog.

Unlike other software, Contact Monkey, puts its analytics at the center, instead as a separate option so you never have to switch tabs or programs. It acts as a sidebar so you can watch at all times how your email campaign is performing and who and how many times opened your email, plus you get real-time desktop notifications. Contact Monkey analytics even go that far to show you your best subject lines, links, cities that are responding the most and so on.

Because it is made for email sales exclusively, Contact Monkey gives you data before you even send an email showing you how your prospects are usually behaving.

Source: Contact Monkey

You can try Professional plan for $10 or $15 per month for a single user, $15 per month for multiple users on Team plan or Salesforce plan for $25 per month.

You may also encounter problems with Contact Monkey’s tech support and it may take you a long time to learn how to use it, but if you follow the tutorials you should be able to manage it easily.

4. Banana Tag

Banana Tag email tracking plugin for Gmail and Outlook is described as one of the simplest, but equally useful tools for email tracking and more than 200,000 people are using it at the moment. Banana Tag is so uncomplicated it interferes with your Gmail interface so minimally you will notice it only in a form of a few new options.

Additionally, A/B testing is analyzed in detail so you will know exactly which emails performed better and why.

Except this, it has an option others don’t have – internal communication. You can track performance of emails and newsletter within your organization without jeopardising privacy of your employees. Based on the size of your sales team and their needs, Banana Tag determines the price of your plan for exchanging info among the colleagues.

Source: Bananatag

Price for tracking your email sales via Banana Tag is ranging from free for 5 email tags per day, to $10 for Pro plan and $20 per month per person for Teams.

The only bad thing about Banana Tag is that it doesn’t have a mobile version, so if you like to do your prospecting on the go you are limited to carrying your laptop around. And the fact that free plan will give you very few options.

5. Sales Loft

The best thing about Sales Loft is that you can track your emails AND your calls, social and chat interaction performance. Same goes for their A/B testing which is available for phone calls as well as email.

Personalisation is so thorough that you will know exactly how to interact with each and every prospect, no matter if you’re speaking or writing to them and what are the latest industry info that your prospects may be interested in. Their latest feature Live Call Studio even enables sales coaches to educate their team during a call with a prospect from any place just like being in the same room with them.

Source: Sales Loft

You can see if your email has been forwarded and customer support is always available and quick to respond.

Overall, it is easy to learn so when you add a new team member they will quickly figure it out and adapt.

However, should you try and upload a huge number of emails the system will most likely freeze and you will have to start all over again. Interface tends to change very often, so you will lose time getting used to a new one.

Their plans are divided into Group, Enterprise and Professional which is most popular among their clients, but the price depends on your team’s needs and will be given only after you’ve contacted them.

6. Sales Handy

Described as the most cost effective sales email tool, Sales Handy enables its users to see which emails from their colleagues are performing best through team email performance report.

With Sales Handy you can save your own email templates for later and even share them with your teammates or schedule your emails and follow ups according to time zones.

Source: Saleshandy 

You can use it for free to get unlimited mail tracking without any restriction, pay $7 per month to get document tracking and mail merge, $16 per month for live present and screen share or $40 per month for Salesforce integration.

Believe it or not, aside from not being able to integrate with a box, Sales Handy doesn’t have setbacks worth the mention.

7. Cirrus Insight

Cirrus Insight is made predominantly to be integrated with Salesforce, it’s pretty easy to set up and is available for Gmail, Outlook, iOS and Android, so that you can have your data available wherever you go.

One of the best features Cirrus Insight provides is ability to send your calendar openings to your contacts so they can decide when to schedule a meeting and it adds automatically in your calendar. So far it is only available for one on one meetings and multiple people cannot be added. Also, no matter how many Gmail accounts you use – Cirrus Insight will work on all of them. The only setback is that it loads all the data without separating it by account.

Source: Cirrus Insight

Intelligent Email Flow is available for Gmail only so far, while Email Template Effectiveness Dashboard gives you valuable insight you might need for A/B testing.

User interface could be a bit more friendly and speed could be improved, but we’re sure they’ll get better with each update.

This software provides numerous tutorials so that you can always find how to set up any feature that you might need.

Cirrus Insight has two plans – Starter for $19 per month and Closer for $29 per month with 30% discount if you subscribe annually.

8. Outreach

Outreach has been used by industry giants such as Ebay, Microsoft and Adobe.

Outreach’s strongest asset is the fact that it can be used by everyone, not just your sales team. You can include marketing to help you with content creation or CxOs so that they can have a direct insight into how the campaigns are performing. Also their interface is very easy to navigate once you learn how to use it which can take a while and customer service is always a click away.

Source: Outreach

Email automation enables Intelligent Follow-ups as well as Colleague Reply detection letting you know if your email has been forwarded and in segment named Sequence you can find your tools for A/B testing.

Pricing is not publicly available, so you have to request a demo in order to find out the cost of Outreach’s service.

On the bad side, there is no real social media support, conversations cannot be categorised and Chrome extension will import all your contacts including the private ones.

9. Reply.io

Reply enables you to search and import the necessary contacts right away from all your CRM platforms and after you received a reply, for example, it is automatically sent to “Interested” folder.

Reply is constantly updating its incredibly intuitive UX and customer service is impeccable. Also sending emails according to time zones has never been easier.

Organizing templates can be a bit tricky, especially since they cannot be renamed but only deleted and created again.

Source: Reply.io

Of course, Email Automation is available as well as A/B testing by simply clicking on the option Add New Variant.

Pricing is divided into three packages – Individual, Business and Market Leader. The price will depend on how many people you’re trying to reach. For example, in the Individual package reaching out to 100 people will cost you $20 monthly per user, while Business package is divided into three plans ($200, 300 and $500 per month) and Market Leader price will be given to you only after you’ve contacted the Reply.io.

10. HubSpot Sales

Believe it or not, sales giant HubSpot will allow you to use their Sales software for free. For $0 per month, you will receive a Gmail and Outlook integration, Hubspot CRM integration, Email Scheduling and Email Open notification. If you need more features, you can switch to Pro package by paying $50 per month and to get reports as well it costs $200 per month.

HubSpot Sales knows exactly what it is that salespeople need so they put email automation in focus, while the Sequence tool can give you data for your A/B testing.

Source: Hubspot Sales

Recognized for its amazing staff support and knowledge base, HubSpot will always provide help, but being such a large company you may have to wait for 24 hours or more. Also, even though it’s easy to use, sometimes software is updated without an announcement making you lose time trying to figure out the new place of the tool you’ve been using daily. Another setback is that tracking tool doesn’t work if you have multiple recipients and mobile app is not very well integrated.

Software we’re trying now – GetResponse

GetResponse is a software dedicated to marketers predominantly. You can use it for sales email automation, but avoid cold sales emails since the spam complaints threshold is very low. GetResponse will suggest the best time to send out your email campaign based on the industry you’re targeting, which is why it’s perfect for startups who are still gathering their marketing and sales data.

More importantly, GetResponse enables you to create and track success of your webinars as well as your downloadables (eBooks and whitepapers) with ready made templates for opt-ins and landing pages.

GetResponse blog is very informative and popular and they provide other vast knowledge with their whitepapers, infographics and courses.

Marketing automation is especially valuable since it lets you create your own customer journey and workflow with drop and drag system.

Source: GetResponse

Its biggest setback is lack of editing for email templates which is available with most other tracking tools.

Monthly prices range for $15 for Email marketing, $50 for their Pro most popular package, $165 for Max and $799 for Enterprise package.

TOOL FEATURES OVERVIEW

Deciding on a tool

All of the above mentioned software offer free trials and we suggest you try the ones which suit your needs and budget and see which one works best.

Also, make sure you take value for money into consideration, because maybe some of the more expensive ones can turn out to be worth the amount you’re paying.

And finally, don’t forget to carefully select your leads so you know exactly whom you’re targeting. Contact us if you need help with lead generation.