Bonfire Rating: 4.3/5
Freshmarketer is a marketing platform with a ton of automation for tech-savvy folks.
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Marketing is the bread and butter of any small business, and it’s critical that you have the right tools for the job.
If you choose the wrong software for your marketing campaigns, you could waste time and money while losing potential customers.
I’m AJ, and I’ve spent the last decade growing a digital agency using all kinds of powerful marketing tools along the way.
After a successful exit with the agency, I started Small Business Bonfire to help fellow entrepreneurs get off the ground and achieve their goals.
In this review, I wanted to showcase a great marketing platform called Freshmarketer. The Small Business Bonfire team and I did a deep dive into the product to take the guesswork out of the equation for you.
Let’s nerd out a little!
FYI – we compiled a list of the best CRMs for small businesses. Be sure to check it out after you’re done reading!
You Can Trust Small Business Bonfire
Since 2009 Small Business Bonfire has been testing and rating thousands of business software to help you (our small business owners) start & scale your organizations. If you want to know more about how we test, please read this article here.
What is Freshmarketer?
Freshworks Freshmarketer is a multichannel customer relationship management (CRM) and all-in-one marketing platform built with small business owners in mind.
They offer plans for businesses of all sizes, including the following:
- Startups
- Businesses looking to scale
- Large enterprises
The Pro plan starts at $149/month and offers a wide range of powerful features to help you attract, engage, and retain customers.
Some Freshmarketer features include:
- Automated email marketing platform
- Lead scoring and segmentation
- Landing page customization
- Journey Builder
- Analytics and reporting
Overall we found Freshmarketer to be an affordable yet surprisingly robust marketing automation platform perfect for small businesses and startups.
The user interface isn’t always the easiest to navigate, but they make testing and tracking your campaigns fairly simple without much help from tech support.
Pros and Cons of the Freshmarketer
Here is an overview of the pros and cons of Freshmarketer based on our testing.
Freshmarketer Pros
- All-in-one marketing platform
- Powerful features such as automated email campaigns, lead scoring, and journey builder
- Affordable pricing plans starting at $19/month
- Free plan available
Freshmarketer Cons
- The user interface can be clunky for new users
- Lack of robust marketing integrations
Who is Freshmarketer Best Suited For?
Freshmarketer is great for marketing-focused small businesses that want to scale up their marketing efforts with the following:
- Powerful lead scoring and management
- Service, sales, and chat integration through Freshworks
- Journey building
- Customizable marketing automation
It’s great for those that want an all-in-one platform to manage multiple channels from one place.
In terms of both automation and analytics capabilities (for the price), Freshmarketer is one of the top contenders, in our opinion.
Who is Freshmarketer Not Suited For?
We’ve tested a ton of marketing software at this point, and honestly, Freshmarketer is one of the most confusing to navigate (at first).
There are a lot of complex features that can really benefit your business if you know what you’re doing, but it can be frustrating if not.
If you have years of experience with marketing automation platforms, then you’ll probably be okay.
But if you’re just starting out or aren’t very tech-savvy, we recommend spending some serious time with their free plan before committing to a higher pricing tier.
Freshmarketer Software Pricing
Freshmarket offers 3 paid plans and a free plan.
The paid plans include the following:
- Growth – $19/month, billed annually
- Pro – $149/month, billed annually
- Enterprise – $299/month, billed annually
We got started with the 21-day free trial and then went with the Enterprise plan to really get a sense of the features that are available.
It’s worth noting that the free plan offers a ton of great tools that can be utilized within the larger umbrella of Freshworks CRM. This can be great for startups that want to try out a few platforms before making a commitment with their wallet.
How Does CRM's Pricing Compare?
Freshmarketer offers a free plan which is great, in our opinion. This means that, at the very least, there’s no barrier to entry with using the service. You can try it out with no risk, all reward.
In terms of paid plans, Freshmarketer is similar in pricing to HubSpot’s Marketing Hub’s Starter plan at $20/month.
Freshmarket differs from HubSpot’s Marketing Hub when it comes to the higher-tiered plans, which can run as high as $3,600/month.
If you’re a small business that’s looking to build first and scale later, we think Freshmarketer could be a perfect fit.
Freshmarketer Pricing Tips
Freshmarketer Core Features
In terms of lead management, Freshmarketer has you covered. The platform offers a host of features designed to help you capture, nurture, and convert leads.
Their contact database allows you to store all of your contacts in one place for easy access. You can also use lead scoring (shown below) to prioritize leads based on their activity level.
We've tested a lot of CRMs, and in our opinion, Freshmarketer has some of the best lead management in the game.
This is because you are able to quantify each lead's activity level with the lead scoring system. This in-depth analysis of your leads ensures that you focus on the most engaged users first.
Creating an email campaign with Freshmarketer was super easy for the Small Business Bonfire Team.
There were a ton of great templates available on the email marketing platform to help us get started.
To get started with the email campaign builder, we simply selected a template, named the campaign, and customized it to own liking.
Here's the example email marketing campaign that we created.
From there, we simply filled in a few basic fields, such as:
- Subscription type
- Sender email
- Subject
- Footer details
You can customize subscription types from the Admin Settings tab. Freshmarketer makes it easy to add or edit subscription types so you can personalize your campaigns to your specific needs.
The amount of customization here feels awesome. If you know what you're doing, you can really automate the entire email marketing process with Freshmarketer.
However, as with some of their other features, we could see how the interface could be a bit overwhelming at times (especially for new users). Luckily, they offer a lot of helpful demo videos to walk you through all of the confusing parts.
Freshmarketer enables users to create custom landing pages without any coding experience.
Setting up landing pages is as simple as selecting a template or creating your own custom page and then using the drag-and-drop builder to customize it exactly how you want.
Freshmarketer also offers a ton of customization options for your forms, from the field types to the design. This means you can create forms that are tailored specifically to your needs and look great too! We liked that you can easily see the page in both a webpage and mobile device view.
Here's an example of our landing page that took less than 10 minutes to set up and get published.
Normally, I'd let someone who specializes in design handle this part (to maximize customer engagement), but for the purposes of our testing, I gave it a go.
It was super easy to add buttons, text, images, and more to the page without any coding knowledge. While it's easy to use the landing page creator, it's worth noting that someone with a lot of technical knowledge about coding and automation can get a lot more mileage out of this feature than a beginner might.
Freshmarketer's Journey Builder is like a Swiss Army Knife that seamlessly integrates all the tools you need to automate your marketing strategies.
With Journey Builder, users can create personalized experiences throughout each customer journey, leveraging their behaviors and actions to deliver highly effective, targeted campaigns.
The feature is versatile enough to be used for any marketing tactic, whether it's any of the following:
- Email campaigns
- Social media promotions
- Text messages
- WhatsApp messaging
- Chatbot queries
Freshmarketer's Journey Builder also provides actionable insights and real-time analytics to help you understand the impact of your campaigns and optimize your marketing workflows.
Here are some examples of some of the ready-to-use journey playbooks offered by Freshmarketer.
One of our favorite features of Freshmarketer has got to be its conversion optimization capabilities. Essentially, this tool helps you turn your website visitors into paying customers - and who doesn't love that?
With Freshmarketer's AI-powered engine, you can create targeted campaigns that track visitors' behavior and personalize their experience so that they're more likely to convert. It's like having a smooth-talking salesperson on your website 24/7.
So, if you're ready to turn your website into a money-making machine, give Freshmarketer's conversion optimization feature a try. Your wallet (and your website visitors) will thank you.
With Freshworks Freshmarketer, it's especially easy to see how customers interact with your website. In terms of marketing, that's a big deal.
With this data, you can calculate customer lifetime value (CLV) and start to optimize your marketing campaigns for more conversions.
We especially liked the Marketing Dashboard tool, where you can see an overview of the following:
- Email engagement
- Email opens
- Links clicked
- Email overview
Understanding how your customers engage with your email marketing campaigns is key to success. Freshmarketer's comprehensive tracking and dashboard features make it easy to do just that.
Here's an example of the interface to give you a better idea.
If you're in the market (no pun intended) for a marketing CRM that will help streamline your operations and boost your sales, you simply can't overlook Freshmarketer.
This intuitive and robust tool makes it easy (within reason) to build complex campaigns, nurture your leads through tracking contact lifecycle stages, and keep your audience engaged across different channels.
Here's an example of the "Manage Contact Lifecycle Stages" section to give you a better idea of how it looks.
Built-in features such as drip campaigns, lead scoring, and behavior-based triggers will take your marketing efforts to the next level, while the intelligent A/B testing and analytics tools will help you fine-tune your strategy and maximize your ROI.
Our only complaint is that it can be a bit difficult to navigate some of the more advanced features. Much like a Rubik's cube, the user interface can be challenging if you don't know what you're doing. But once you grasp the system, you'll be speeding through your campaigns with ease.
What are the Limitations of Freshmarketer?
While Freshmarketer is undoubtedly one of the best marketing CRMs for SMBs, it’s important to note that no product is without limitations.
One of the main drawbacks of Freshmarketer is its limited integration capabilities. While it does integrate seamlessly with a handful of popular tools, such as Google Analytics and Shopify, it may not sync as smoothly with lesser-known tools or proprietary software used by some businesses.
Additionally, we felt that the user interface was somewhat unintuitive at times. We foresee it being difficult for new users that are unfamiliar with this type of software to navigate.
What Sets Freshmarketer Apart from the Competition?
Freshmarketer may not have the most glamorous user interface on the market, but what sets it apart is its deep understanding of the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
Its powerful marketing automation capabilities can be seamlessly integrated with other tools in your tech stack, allowing you to create highly personalized campaigns and track your ROI with ease.
Plus, its in-depth analytics and reporting features give you a bird’s-eye view of your entire marketing funnel, enabling you to make data-driven decisions that drive growth.
How to Get Started with Freshmarketer
Getting started with Freshmarketer was as easy as filling out a few fields.
We signed up for the free trial (which we recommend all new users start with). Once our 21 days were up, we signed up for the Pro plan.
We were then taken to a simple onboarding page that walked us through the main features with helpful prompts (shown below).
Within minutes, we had set up our first campaign, uploaded our contacts list, and started tracking our leads.
Is Freshmarketer Easy to Use?
Freshmarketer is definitely a marketing CRM that can help SMBs achieve their marketing goals. However, let’s be honest; when it comes to ease of use, it’s not exactly a walk in the park.
While its interface is sleek and modern, it can take some time to get the hang of all its features and functionalities. But fear not; we think the learning curve is worth it.
Freshmarketer Customer Service Review
When it comes to customer service, Freshmarketer falls somewhere between good and great. Their support team is quite helpful and knowledgeable, but there’s room for improvement in terms of reponse times and overall efficiency.
We would have loved to see a live chat option, for instance. That being said, they do have a handy knowledge base and helpful how-to guides that can help you quickly find answers to most of the common issues you might face.
So, if you’re the kind of person that prefers self-service support, Freshmarketer has got you covered. If not, you might have to be a bit patient when waiting for a response from their limited customer support team.
We reached out for a quick question about Slack integration.
It took a few hours, but we ultimately received a helpful response.
Overall, when it comes to customer service, Freshmarketer could use a little work. We’d give it a solid 7/10 based on our experience.
Other Freshworks Products
Freshworks, the company behind Freshmarketer, offers a suite of other products designed to help businesses of all sizes streamline operations and enhance customer engagement.
These include the following:
- Freshservice
- Freshdesk
- Freshchat
- Freshsales
Freshservice
Freshservice is another exceptional product offered by Freshworks that provides advanced IT service management (ITSM) capabilities.
The solution simplifies IT operations, enhances productivity, and optimizes service delivery.
Thousands of businesses worldwide are currently using Freshservice to streamline their IT support and customer services operations.
Some of the product’s standout features include:
- Incident management
- Service catalog
- Problem management
- Change management
- Asset management
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is yet another impressive product from Freshworks CRM software, aimed at helping businesses manage their customer support processes with ease.
One of the standout features of Freshdesk is its ticketing system, which allows companies to efficiently manage and track customer inquiries.
We set up some tickets on Freshdesk to test it out. We were able to easily add notes, sort by priority, and track the progress of each ticket in real time, along with the rest of our team.
As you can see, the layout is straightforward and easy to read. The fact that Freshdesk integrates so well with the rest of what Freshworks offers is just a bonus.
There’s a lot more to cover. If you’re interested, here’s our comprehensive Freshdesk review.
Freshchat
Freshchat is essentially a branch of Freshworks designed around providing businesses with an efficient messaging platform that allows them to engage with their customers in real time.
Think of it like a smart and reliable customer support assistant that’s always there to help you out.
Some of the key features of Freshchat include:
- Customizable chat widgets
- Auto messaging
- Easy integration with other Freshworks products like Freshdesk
With Freshchat, users can build a chatbot with no coding experience at all. This is one feature that we found especially awesome. We created a chatbot using the FAQ template (shown below).
With it, we were able to automate conversations with customers, allowing our marketing professionals to focus on other aspects of the business.
Of all the chatbot tools we’ve used, Freshchat was both the most customizable and the easiest to use. We recommend integrating it into your website as soon as possible!
Freshsales
Freshsales is a powerful and comprehensive CRM designed specifically for sales teams and small businesses that want to take their customer relationships to the next level.
The product allows you to do the following:
- Organize your customer data
- Manage contacts across different channels
- Track leads through the sales funnel
- Measure ROI with ease
One feature that really stood out, in particular, was the Deals pipeline, which we found super customizable and straightforward with a drag-and-drop interface. Here’s an example of some deals we plugged into the pipeline.
It is worth noting that while easy to use, there was a bug that we noticed throughout our testing. The cards did not always update in real time, and we had to frequently “trick” them into updating by opening and closing them a few times.
Sometimes this worked. Other times the card wouldn’t update for as long as 5 minutes.
To learn more about the product, check out our in-depth Freshsales review.
Freshmarketer Alternative Comparison
Freshmarketer is a fantastic all-in-one marketing tool, but it’s not for everyone. Here are some alternatives that we think are great.
Is Freshmarketer Worth it for Small Business Owners?
Freshmarketer is absolutely worth it for small business owners.
The free version is great for small and midsize businesses that are just starting out, and the paid plans allow you to scale up as you grow your business.
If you’re looking for a powerful automated system that manages all your data in one place, Freshmarketer has you covered.
Frequently Asked Questions About CRM
Freshmarketer is an all-in-one marketing tool designed to help small and midsize businesses better manage their campaigns, track performance, and optimize their service delivery. It’s great for email marketing as well. Freshmarketer’s email marketing software allows marketing teams to streamline their marketing emails.
The free version available offers limited features. This includes basic customer journey management, analytics, and email marketing tools.
Yes! Freshmarketer integrates seamlessly with all of the other Freshworks products, such as Freshdesk and Freshchat. It also integrates with popular third-party services like Mailchimp and Google Analytics.
Yes! There is a free version of Freshmarketer that can help small businesses get started without having to invest in the paid plans. It includes basic features such as customizable forms, email marketing automation, and more. However, for larger organizations looking for more advanced features, there are several paid plans available.
Yes! Freshmarketer integrates with other Freshworks products and third-party services such as Mailchimp, Google Analytics, and many more. This means you can use the same system to manage your marketing campaigns across multiple platforms.
Freshmarketer is perfect for a content marketing agency or small businesses that needs advanced tools to manage their campaigns. It’s not necessarily the right choice for businesses seeking easy-to-use business technology or business software.
But it’s great if you want more comprehensive features and analytics capabilities for your business.
With Freshmarketer, you can track performance across multiple channels and optimize your service delivery with ease. Plus, its integration with other Freshworks products makes it an even better deal! So, if you’re a content marketer or a small business owner looking for a powerful automated system to help boost conversions and sales, then Freshmarketer is worth considering.