11 free and budget friendly tools that every email marketer should have in their arsenal

Organise work and collaborate better

1. Notion

An all-rounder with which you can replace Word, Trello, to-do lists, agendas and planners. The biggest advantage - and disadvantage - is that you can set up Notion completely yourself. We use it ourselves to write content (and especially to work on it together), plan blog articles and emails in statuses and calendars, keep track of meeting reports and to share research and projects with each other.

Do you want to experiment with it? Be sure to check out their handy templates. You can start for free, and as you collect more team members or content you can switch to the entry-level package.

Content and design help

2. Reallygoodemails

Looking for inspiration? For every new project, new template or new type of email you want to send, you should definitely visit this website. You will find tons of examples per type or sector. They have a library of over 10,000 strong examples. You will also find some good blog articles there.

3. Hemingway app

The Hemingway app is free and super useful for quickly scanning through your texts before you finish them. He emphasises long, complex sentences and common mistakes. If you see a yellow sentence, shorten or split it. Is your marker red? Then your sentence is so complicated that your readers get lost in your subordinate clauses. In English, you can also get suggestions for synonyms. Adverbs and passive sentence structures are also indicated.

4. Grammarly

An even better alternative is Grammarly. Only applicable to English texts. The app and browser extension are a great added value. Go straight for the paid version. It costs you more, but you do get lots of useful features in return. Wordtune is also a good alternative.

5. Canva

Unsure about design, is Photoshop too complicated or do you not want to have to call in a designer for everything? Then Canva is the solution. You can easily adjust images, infographics, Powerpoint designs, social media images and other materials. So you don't need excellent graphic skills for it.

6. Remove background

Thanks to AI, this handy app allows you to remove the background from an image in seconds. This way you can make every photo fit perfectly with the branding of your email.

7. Giphy

Giphy is an American online database in which you can easily download all kinds of short looped videos. Great to add some animation to your mail. Just make sure it fits your brand and keep in mind that some email clients don't support animated gifs.

Video and screen recording

8. Soapbox from Wistia

A free webcam and screen recorder from Wistia. You can record and edit in the same tool. Cut pieces you don't want to use and switch the view on specific moments between yourself, your screen or a combination of both. Ideal for short how-to videos.

Metrics for even more reporting

9. Google Analytics

Obvious, but it should not be missing from this list. It is free and “easy” to set up. Use Google Analytics to find the exact share of email contacts among your visitors. Also, look specifically at peaks around your shipping times. Even people who don't open your mail can still be triggered by your subject to surf directly to your website.

You can also track conversion goals, such as completed forms, purchases or downloads.

10. Hotjar

Through your email reporting, you already know how well your emails are succeeding in getting readers to your website. But what exactly are they doing on your landing page? How far do they scroll? What does the rest of their journey look like? It is worth gaining more insight into this as well.

Checking the deliverability of your emails

11. Mail-tester

Would you like to test your "spam level"? Then run your mail through Mail-tester. You send your campaign to an email address generated for you and click submit. You will receive a score out of 10, all elements that were tested and how you scored on them. They look at the content of your message, your mail server, sending IP address, … And give you a detailed report on what is set up correctly - and what is not. Your result remains available for free for 7 days.