Inside this Article What We Look For in Email Marketing Services for Real Estate Agents1. ActiveCampaign – The Most Advanced Features2. GetResponse – Great Value for What You Get3. Benchmark – The Best Service for Beginners and A Great Free Plan4. Sendinblue – Solid Automation with SMS Marketing5. AWeber – Insightful Subscriber Reports6. Constant Contact – A Service with Realtors in Mind7. Mailchimp – A Great Option For Small RealtorsWhich Service Should You Choose for Realtors?FAQ
Real estate can be a tough game. In a highly competitive industry, you know you need to stand out from the crowd. But how? The simple answer is efficiency, industry knowledge – and a strong marketing game.
Engaging your online audience is key to setting yourself apart and drawing more clients to you. The more attention your email marketing nets, the more customers will remember you when the time comes for them (or someone they know) to buy or sell property.
That means you need the best email marketing service for real estate out there – a service that can provide you with all the tools you’ll need to flourish in the real estate industry. After extensive testing, I’ve compiled a list of 7 email marketing services that can help you send professional, personalized emails so you achieve success.
Short on Time? Here Are The Best Email Marketing Services for Real Estate Agents in 2022:
ActiveCampaign – A comprehensive service brimming with advanced features, such as a robust automation workflow.
GetResponse – A generously priced tool for small businesses that covers the basics and includes SMS text marketing.
Benchmark – Perfect for beginners and those looking for an easy-to-use service or a free plan, and providing all the essentials.
See ActiveCampaign’s Best Deals >>
See 4 More Great Options | Comparison Table | FAQ
What We Look For in Email Marketing Services for Real Estate Agents
To help you succeed as a real estate agent, you need a marketing service suited to your needs. All of the services I’ve recommended will give you the following features that compliment the real estate industry:
Professional templates: Eye-catching templates designed for property listings, newsletters, or information sharing will speed things up when creating an email campaign.
High-res images: A great real estate marketing service should support high-resolution pictures so you can show off properties with stunning photos.
Mobile-responsive emails: Since many of your clients will be viewing your emails on their phone, it’s an absolute must for a marketing service to support mobile-responsive emails.
Email list segmentation: The ability to separate clients by location, emails they’ve opened, and links they’ve clicked will help you to send targeted messages related to your clients’ interests.
Email personalization: Including a recipient’s name or location in your emails will help make your messages, referrals, and follow-up emails more memorable.
Automations: A good automation workflow should allow you to set up related messages that are sent automatically when people click links, open specific emails, or visit your website.
Comprehensive analytics: Insightful analytics help you learn valuable information from statistics, such as who’s responding to which strategies and where you need to up your game.
1. ActiveCampaign – The Most Advanced Features
With plans starting at $15 per month for 500 contacts ($9 per month if paid annually), ActiveCampaign is a bit pricier than other services – but it’s my top pick for email marketing because it knocks every feature out of the park (don’t take my word for it, read, and watch, my colleague’s ActiveCampaign review). Not only does it offer the essential features you need for real estate email marketing, it also provides extensive options that give you greater flexibility and control.
For example, its automation workflow is straightforward to use and highly comprehensive. By setting your own triggers for automated messages, you can easily send follow-up emails to people who visit specific property listings – or you could advertise houses (say, in Arizona) to contacts who clicked related links.
In-depth analytics allow you to examine and learn from your campaign’s stats. ActiveCampaign’s reports track purchases, visitors to your site, open rates, and more. These stats tell you what’s working and what isn’t, so you’ll know which emails are really resonating with your clients.
You can further target your marketing by segmenting your mailing list using tags you define yourself. This is great for real estate because it means you can organize your contacts by location, family size, budget, renters, buyers, and more.
How does this help hook customers? Well, it lets you send clients listings they’re more likely to be interested in. For example, you could advertise rental apartments in California to people on your list who are part of a small household and looking to rent. You could then send a different email about houses in the same area to those with larger households who are looking to buy.
Features
Mobile-responsive emails. By default, all emails built in the editor work on mobile. This is essential because many people access their email on their phones.
125+ stylish templates. You’ll find templates for product listings, blog posts, announcements, and more. All of them can showcase high-res images and full-blown backgrounds.
Email personalization. Clients’ names and locations can be added to the content of your emails to make them feel more personal.
Robust automation. Set up automated messages with an expansive list of trigger recipes, including custom variables set by you.
Mailing list segmentation. Organize your contacts using custom tags. This means you could, for example, set up two sublists of renters and buyers, then further segment those two lists by location, allowing you to send targeted emails to the subscribers who will most likely be interested.
Starting price$15 per month for 500 contactsFree plan?No, only a 14-day free trialSupports high resolution images?Yes, each image can be up to 10MBE-commerce tracking?Yes, purchases are reportedSupport channels24/7 email. Live chat available Monday-Thursday from 8 am to 11 pm CST and Friday 8 am to 6 pm CSTSee ActiveCampaign’s Latest Deals
2. GetResponse – Great Value for What You Get
GetResponse is generously priced for the number of contacts on its plans, with its Basic plan starting at $0 per month for up to 1,000 contacts (there’s also a free plan for up to 500 contacts). That’s pretty low compared to other services with comparable features and contacts. That makes GetResponse a great choice for real estate agents with smaller mailing lists.
However, you have to pay for the Plus plan to get automation workflows. And the Plus plan starts at $19.00 per month for 1,000 contacts, which is a lot pricier than other services that give you automation for cheaper (or even free).
If you decide to go with the Plus plan, automations are slick and easy to use. You first define a trigger based on a contact’s behavior, then automatically send a message when that trigger is met. It’s a great feature…even if the price is very high.
That said, the Basic plan does include autoresponders, which may still cover what you need. You can set up autoresponders to send follow-up emails, welcome new subscribers, and promote property listings.
GetResponse could be stronger when it comes to analytics and reporting, the only thing that it needs to improve on as you’ll see in our GetResponse review. Reports cover email open rates and which clients contacts use, but those kinds of statistics won’t help you very much with real estate. They won’t tell you which emails buyers have opened or the links they’ve clicked.
Features
Email chat. Add a chat button to your email, which allows contacts to initiate a live chat directly from the email. Great if you want to be on hand to answer quick questions about properties.
Autoresponders. Set up timed messages to send to subscribers. This allows you to set up a longer campaign without having to individually send each message.
Webinar hosting. Nurture client relationships by hosting online events to share buyer information, real estate tips, or even hold digital open houses.
Conversion funnels. Software that combines product catalogues, ad campaigns, and e-commerce to streamline your email marketing service with the business side of things. It’s a nice option if you’re looking for a service that will also handle your sales and help drive customers to your site.
Starting price$0 per monthFree plan?Free plan available, for up to 500 contactsSupports high resolution images?Yes, each image can be up to 50MBE-commerce tracking?Yes, you can enable tracking when visitors go to your siteSupport channels24/7 email and live chatSee GetResponse’s Latest Deals
3. Benchmark – The Best Service for Beginners and A Great Free Plan
While Benchmark lacks the standout features offered by the likes of ActiveCampaign and GetResponse it’s one of the easiest services to pick up (just read up on our Benchmark review). That makes it a great choice for beginners or those looking for something simple.
The biggest downside to using Benchmark is the extra charge it applies for image hosting. You have to pay an additional $5 per month once you exceed 10MB on free plans or 10GB on paid plans, which is very easy to do if you upload a lot of high-res images of properties!
On the other hand, Benchmark does offer a free plan, which includes 200+ templates and a lite version of its premium plans’ automation feature. Most importantly, you’re able to set up follow-up emails to nurture leads.
For example, if a contact opens an email about a 2-bedroom house in Colorado, you can arrange for a message to automatically send in three days’ time about similar listings. Tailoring your content to what your subscribers are looking for helps them stay engaged and think of your listings first.
On the downside, Benchmark’s simplicity, ease of use, and low cost come at the price of pretty underwhelming reporting. Its analytics will only give you basic email stats, such as open rates and links clicked.
This means you’ll miss out on e-commerce tracking and learning about how contacts behave on your website, which is really the information you need to up your real estate marketing game.
Features
Real estate templates. 200+ free templates to choose from – including a template designed specifically for real estate, which is a nice plus.
Polls and surveys. Build questionnaires to send to your customers. You can learn common trends, such as differences between buyers and renters, and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Free automation. Even with the free plan, you get basic automations to set up time-based campaigns.
A/B testing. You’re able to set up 2-3 tests for the following types: subject line, campaign vs. campaign, multiple variables, or delivery time. You can then examine which strategy secures the most clicks and opens.
Starting price$15.00 per monthFree plan?Free plan available, but with lighter featuresSupports high resolution images?Yes, but you have to pay for image hosting exceeding 10GB on paid plans.E-commerce tracking?NoSupport channels24/7 email. 24/7 live chat for paid plans. 24/7 phone support, as well as a sales number available Monday-Friday from 7am to 4pm PT.Try Benchmark’s Free Plan
4. Sendinblue – Solid Automation with SMS Marketing
Sendinblue is primarily suited to smaller businesses, so real estate agents with shorter mailing lists will benefit most from this service. You can store unlimited contacts with all Sendinblue’s plans, even on the free plan. The Lite plan starts at $25.00 per month, which isn’t terrible, even if it’s a bit steep compared to some competitors.
Sendinblue offers pretty solid marketing automation to boost client engagement. You can set up automatic messages when visitors to your website perform specific actions, such as viewing apartment listings in Seattle, or when contacts open specific campaigns, like sending mid-budget home listings to anyone who opens an email listing a moderately priced house.
Along with emails, you can also set up SMS for contacts who sign up on mobile. This is a great way to further engage with your clients and turn leads into customers. In fact, it’s not just SMS marketing and automation, Sendinblue scored impressively high for its features in our Sendinblue review.
For fine-tuning your marketing strategy, Sendinblue gives you basic statistics for campaigns, both email and SMS, and conversions. Reporting on conversion rate is especially great – this number tells you the percentage of subscribers who make a purchase after reading your email, helping you assign your emails a financial value.
Features
Group segmentation. Four types of segmentation – demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and geographic – allow you to organize your contacts.
If/else automation. You can build automations based on both the activity and inactivity of your subscribers, like whether or not they visit a page for a home listing on your site.
SMS marketing. By coupling Sendinblue’s extensive automation feature with SMS, you can really up your text marketing game.
Basic CRM. Track the activity of your contacts, such as clients you’ve had meetings or phone calls with. This helps you stay on top of your contacts and turn leads into deals.
Starting price$25.00 per monthFree plan?Free plan available, and with unlimited contactsSupports high resolution images?Yes, but image uploads are capped. Officially these are capped at 2MB, but I experienced a 5MB limit when I tested this.E-commerce tracking?Yes, conversations are reportedSupport channels24/7 emailTry Sendinblue’s Free Plan
5. AWeber – Insightful Subscriber Reports
AWeber is great for realtors – for starters, they’re aware of their real estate clients, and provide a 19-page sector toolkit to help you get started. I thought this was a really nice touch, especially for a service not outright branded as a tool for real estate.
AWeber’s reporting is particularly strong – even with the free plan you’ll get automation tools and reporting covering geographical stats and subscriber activity over time, so you can really observe your leads.
This is a powerful tool for real estate agents who mean business, although I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re looking for something lighter or beginner friendly – I’d redirect you to Benchmark for that.
The only potential issue I found is that AWeber’s automations only operate on time-based triggers or when a new contact first subscribes. You can’t set behavior triggers for when a contact clicks a link, opens an offer, or visits a certain page.
So while you could send house listings in Wyoming every three days to contacts who live there, for example, if someone opened an email about a property in Portland, you couldn’t send a follow-up email with additional properties available in the area.
Features
600+ templates. There are plenty of templates to choose from, more than most services offer – although many designs feel a little bit dated.
AMP emails. Add image carousels in your emails to showcase a rotating display of high-resolution pictures. This could be a neat way to show multiple properties or different views of the same house, although it can look a bit old-fashioned.
Sales tracking. View reports on which of your customers are making purchases and how they’re interacting with your site and campaigns. In fact, reporting is one of the things my colleague was most impressed with in our AWeber review.
Form builder. You can easily create sign-up forms to add your site to gather data and help grow your mailing list.
Starting price$19.99 per monthFree plan?Free plan available, with key features like automationSupports high resolution images?Yes, each image can be up to 10MBE-commerce tracking?Yes, you can track salesSupport channels24/7 email and live chat and phone support from 8 am to 8 pm ETTry AWeber’s Free Plan
6. Constant Contact – A Service with Realtors in Mind
Constant Contact offers more real estate support than I’ve seen from most other services – including design tips for sharing informative tips, community news, and property listings. I always appreciate it when a service is aware of their users, and love that Constant Contact includes features specifically for realtors.
Another useful feature for realtors is Constant Contact’s tagging system. It’s very easy to use and helpful for keeping track of your contacts. You can add custom tags to subscribers who have viewed a specific listing or visited one of your open houses. Then you can send people with those tags appropriate messages.
The downside of Constant Contact is that its analytics and reports only cover the bare minimum (the one thing that lets it down in our Constant Contact review): email stats, contact trends, and e-commerce sales. You won’t get the deep insights you’ll get with ActiveCampaign’s behavior and visitor tracking, although its analytics will help you determine which campaigns are (or aren’t) leading to sales.
Features
240+ templates. Many template options can easily be designed for information sharing and new listings.
Easy contact management. Tag and segment your subscribers with custom labels, making organization easy. Additionally, you can import lists from a file or spreadsheet, including Excel and Outlook.
Integrated social marketing. You can join your Constant Contact account with your Facebook and Instagram accounts. This allows you to monitor your ad analytics, as well as posts and direct messages, through Constant Contact.
Eventbrite integration. By integrating Eventbrite, you gain a pretty easy way to create and manage events, from conferences, to open houses, to virtual tours.
Starting price$9.99 per monthFree plan?No, but there’s a generous 60-day free trial if you’re in the US, 30 days everywhere elseSupports high resolution images?Yes, but image uploads are capped at 5MBE-commerce tracking?Yes, purchases are reportedSupport channelsLive chat Monday through Friday and phone support Monday through Thursday from 8 am to 10 pm ET, Friday from 9 am to 9 pm ET, and Saturday 10 am to 8 pm ETTry Constant Contact for Free
7. Mailchimp – A Great Option For Small Realtors
The free version of Mailchimp offers all the key features a realtor needs – as long as your contact list doesn’t exceed 2,000 (which is fairly generous for no cost!). You’ll get access to basic automations, reports, and marketing CRM. If you have a larger mailing list, want to send more emails, or want access to more features like A/B testing, you’ll need to go premium.
Email personalization is extremely flexible thanks to Mailchimp’s merge tag feature. Since you can define the tags however you want, you’re free to personalize subject lines and body content in unlimited ways – you could add in a contact’s name, location, or even a personal factoid like favorite color! Learn more about the tag feature in our Mailchimp review.
While such flexible personalization makes Mailchimp a pretty solid choice, it is unfortunately lacking in the image department. Image uploads are capped at 1MB, so you won’t be able to showcase large high-resolution pictures of properties you want to advertise.
If you want to flash big, high-res pics, I recommend ActiveCampaign or AWeber instead.
Features
100+ templates. Templates are well-designed, but none are pre-made for real estate.
Merge tags for email. Insert personalized content based on your contacts’ data in the corresponding tag.
Expansive automation options. Trigger options for sending follow-ups, sharing relevant information, contacting website visitors, recommending listings, and more.
Audience tracking. Reports offer insights into who is interacting with your marketing, such as when a contact clicks a link, makes a purchase, or downloads something.
Starting price$11.00 per monthFree plan?Free plan, for up to 2,000 subscribersSupports high resolution images?Only small images, as uploads are capped at 1MBE-ommerce tracking?Yes, campaign reports cover revenueSupport channels24/7 email support, weekday 24/7 live chat, and weekday phone support from 9 am to 5 pm ET (phone support only available with the Premium plan)Learn More About Mailchimp’s Free Plan
Which Service Should You Choose for Realtors?
There are a lot of powerful email marketing services out there, but which one is the best option for real estate marketing? Well, it depends on your needs.
If you need something easy-to-use and beginner friendly, Benchmark is a great choice. But if you want the in-depth reports it lacks, I’d direct you to something like AWeber. For the best free plan, I recommend Sendinblue.
However, if you plan to expand your business and subscriber count, or want advanced features, ActiveCampaign is the ultimate all-around choice. It offers the most robust tools to perfect your email marketing strategy.
See Benchmark’s Latest Deals
There is no one service that checks every box. It depends on the size of your real estate business, your budget, and the kind of campaign you want to build. Compare the major features and pricing of each service to help you decide:
Main FeaturesStarting price (monthly)Free plan or free trial?ActiveCampaignExpansive automation, insightful analytics, custom tag segmentationStarts at $9.00/month, no free plan14-day free trialSee Deals >>GetResponseAutoresponders, solid automation, lackluster analytics, group segmentationStarts at $0/month, no free planFree planSee Deals >>BenchmarkEase-of-use, basic automation, limited analytics, custom segmentationStarts at $15.00/month, free plan availableFree planSee Deals >>SendinblueSolid automation, SMS marketing, reports on conversion and more, group segmentationStarts at $25.00/month, free plan availableFree planSee Deals >>AWeberBasic automation, reports by geography and individual subscribers, custom segmentationStarts at $19.99/monthFree planSee Deals >>Constant ContactSolid automation, basic analytics, segmentation tags$9.99/month60-day free trial (if you’re in the US, 30-day free trial everywhere else)See Deals >>MailchimpExpansive automation, basic reports, merge tag personalizations, detailed segmentsStarts at $11.00/monthFree planSee Deals >>
FAQ
Does email marketing work for real estate?Email marketing can be a great way to up your real estate game, as long as you use the right service – such as any of the seven choices above. If an EMS is missing a key feature you want as a realtor, such as automation triggers, tags and segmentation, or high-res image support, there’s a good chance you won’t get the result you want!With the right service, a successful email marketing strategy can help you to encourage customers with online events, such as virtual open houses, or to follow up on leads by sending relevant messages and property listings to interested parties. To get started, look at the list of services I’ve recommended above, or our list of the best email marketing services in 2022.Which is the best EMS for real estate/realtors?Picking the best EMS for you really depends on your needs as a realtor. If you want the most advanced features, such as automation triggers and variable split testing, I recommend ActiveCampaign. If you’re a total beginner and looking for something quick and easy to jump into, Benchmark is a great service to get started with.If you’re on a budget, you’ll get a lot with Get Response at a reasonably low price. You can also check our deals and coupons page to help with the cost.What should I look for in an EMS for real estate?When building an email campaign for real estate marketing, be on the lookout for the following features: automation, mailing list segmentation, split testing, high-res image support, real estate templates, and CRM tracking.There’s no one EMS that checks every box. To help you decide what works best for you, I suggest you compare and contrast the best email marketing services here and see which one has the features you need as a realtor.Which EMS has the best free plan?Quite a few email marketing services offer free plans, but some of them are too limited for real estate. I recommend Sendinblue for the most complete free package. It gives you unlimited contacts and the ability to send up to 300 emails per month on its free plan, which is great for small businesses or realtors with fewer campaigns.