Email service provider

Email service provider (ESP)

Email Marketing

An email service provider (ESP) is software that stores your contacts and sends, tracks and manages your marketing and automated emails.

What is Email service provider?

An ESP handles the parts of email you can't do from a normal inbox: sending to thousands of people at once, unsubscribes, bounces, authentication, templates, segments, automations and reports. Ecommerce ESPs connect to your store so they can use order and product data in segments and flows. Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend and SmartyTap are examples. What to compare: pricing by contacts or by sends, how deep the store data goes, flows included, deliverability tools, and whether texts live in the same tool.

Example

A store moves from a general newsletter tool to an ecommerce ESP so it can email people who bought a product 30 days ago and haven't reordered.

Why Email service provider Matters

Your ESP decides what you can target, what you can automate and how much each contact costs as your list grows.

Email service provider FAQ

What is the difference between an ESP and an email client?

An email client (Gmail, Outlook) is for one-to-one mail. An ESP sends to lists, handles unsubscribes and bounces, and reports on results.

Can I switch ESPs without losing my list?

Yes. Export contacts with their consent status and import them into the new tool. Warm up the new sending domain before you send to everyone.

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