Apollo vs Mailchimp: Cold Outreach Tool Face-off 2024

Last Updated on
June 7, 2024
by
Jason Gong

Apollo vs Mailchimp - Cold Outreach Tool Comparison

This article compares Apollo and Mailchimp, focusing on their cold outreach capabilities to help you choose the right tool. We aim to offer a detailed breakdown of their features, even though both tools offer more than just cold outreach functionalities. Our motivation stems from Bardeen's commitment to helping you save time on repetitive tasks, ensuring you select the best tools for efficiency. Learn more about Bardeen, your task copilot.

ApolloMailchimp
Campaign CreationVersatile tool for varied outreachUser-friendly with drag-and-drop tools
DeliverabilitySupports multiple mailboxes, lacks warmingStrong reputation, lacks warming services
PersonalizationExtensive use of dynamic variablesUses merge tags, less flexible
AIDetailed customization in emailsGenerates content based on predefined types
Native EnrichmentRobust, enhances lead dataRelies on external tools for data
Social AutomationRobust, automates LinkedIn actionsFocuses on ads and cross-posting
PricingFlexible credits system, tiered plansSimple free tier, various paid options

Campaign Creation - Tailoring Multichannel Sales Outreach

Apollo offers a more versatile campaign creation tool for sales sequences, integrating emails, phone calls, and LinkedIn tasks, which is ideal for a varied outreach strategy.

Apollo integrates multiple communication formats in sequences.

Mailchimp, while traditionally used for marketing, provides an easy-to-use interface with drag-and-drop tools that are great for crafting well-designed marketing emails, but it lacks the direct sales tools like phone and LinkedIn messaging that Apollo offers.

Mailchimp's template selection aids in creating visually appealing emails.

For those looking to run multifaceted campaigns that require consistent messaging across various platforms, Apollo's comprehensive approach might be more advantageous. Additionally, using Bardeen's automation tools can streamline these processes, enhancing productivity and outreach effectiveness.

Apollo

Sequence steps in Apollo include emails, LinkedIn tasks, and phone calls.

Apollo's Sequences feature allows users to create campaigns that automate outreach to leads through a variety of channels. While it may not support complex branching or conditional paths, it provides a straightforward way to set up linear sequences of actions.

Key features of Apollo's Sequences:

  • Automatic emails: Emails can be delivered automatically as part of a sequence.
  • Manual emails: Users can create tasks to manually edit and send emails.
  • LinkedIn integration: Send connection requests and messages on LinkedIn.
  • Phone calls: Include tasks to call prospects as part of the sequence.
  • Custom actions: Create tasks to perform specific actions tailored to your workflow.

Reddit users express mixed opinions on Apollo's Sequences feature, with some finding it comprehensive enough for their needs while others suggest combining it with other tools for better results.

😐 "Apollo has its own email sequence function and they've recently added email warm up too." - r/Emailmarketing
😐 "Set up Apollo.io sequence to automate the flow" - r/Emailmarketing

Mailchimp

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Mailchimp offers a selection of pre-built email templates for various purposes and industries.

Mailchimp, originally an email marketing tool, provides a user-friendly interface for creating and formatting emails using simple drag-and-drop tools. While it was initially designed for marketing emails, some users have adapted it for cold outreach purposes.

Key features of campaign creation in Mailchimp:

  • Pre-built templates: Mailchimp offers a wide selection of pre-designed email templates categorized by purpose, industry, and style, making it easy to find a suitable starting point for your campaign.
  • Drag-and-drop editor: The intuitive drag-and-drop editor allows users to customize templates or build emails from scratch by adding and arranging various content blocks, such as text, images, and buttons.
  • Mobile responsiveness: Mailchimp's templates are designed to be mobile-responsive, ensuring that your emails look great on any device.
  • Branding options: Users can easily incorporate their brand elements, such as logos and colors, into their email designs to maintain a consistent brand identity.
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Deliverability - Boost Email Success Rates

When comparing Mailchimp and Apollo for email deliverability in sequence features, Mailchimp has a clear advantage for established subscriber outreach due to its compliance with best email practices and strong deliverability reputation.

Mailchimp's email performance dashboard showcases key engagement metrics.

However, it lacks email warming services, making it less ideal for cold outreach compared to platforms like lemlist that provide integrated warming solutions. Apollo, while supporting multiple mailboxes, also does not offer email warming, putting it at a similar disadvantage for users needing to build sender reputation from scratch.

To enhance your email campaigns on platforms like Apollo, consider integrating Bardeen to automate workflows and improve your deliverability metrics.

In summary, for users primarily engaged with warm outreach to existing subscribers, Mailchimp's robust deliverability tools and domain authentication features make it a superior choice, whereas Apollo might require additional strategies or tools to achieve similar deliverability outcomes.

Apollo

Apollo allows linking multiple mailboxes for email sequences

Apollo supports sending email sequences through multiple linked mailboxes, providing users flexibility in their outreach campaigns. However, it lacks some key deliverability features that may impact the success of these campaigns.

  • Multiple mailboxes supported: Users can connect and send from multiple email aliases, allowing them to scale their outreach efforts while maintaining a personal touch.
  • No built-in email warming: Apollo does not provide an email warming service to gradually build up sending reputation for new mailboxes, which can lead to deliverability issues if not managed carefully.
  • Lacks advanced deliverability tools: The platform does not appear to offer robust spam avoidance, intelligent rate limiting, or email validation features that can help ensure high deliverability rates.

To mitigate potential deliverability problems when using Apollo for email sequences, users may need to employ additional strategies and tools alongside the platform. This could include gradually warming up new mailboxes, closely monitoring key metrics like bounce rates, and using third-party email validation services.

Reddit users have reported mixed experiences with Apollo's email sequence deliverability:

😐 "Allowing link tracking adds some inherent risk when sending emails" - r/Emailmarketing
😐 "mediocre results...screw up your domain reputation and create deliverability issues" - r/sales

Mailchimp

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MailChimp's email performance dashboard showcasing key engagement metrics.

MailChimp is known for its strong reputation in email deliverability, thanks to its compliance with best email sending practices. The platform provides tools and features to help users maintain high deliverability rates and avoid spam filters.

Key features for maintaining deliverability:

  • Domain authentication: MailChimp requires users to verify and authenticate their sending domains, which helps establish trust and improves deliverability.
  • Engagement metrics: The email performance dashboard provides insights into key engagement metrics like open rates, click rates, and unsubscribe rates, allowing users to monitor and optimize their campaigns.
  • Compliance with best practices: MailChimp follows strict email marketing best practices and has a strong reputation with ISPs and email providers, reducing the likelihood of emails being flagged as spam.

However, it's important to note that MailChimp does not offer email warming services, making it less suitable for cold outreach campaigns. The platform is best used for engaging with existing subscribers and sending warm outreach to opted-in contacts.

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Personalization - Tailor Emails to Each Recipient

Apollo stands out with its extensive use of dynamic variables from a rich enrichment database, allowing users to create highly personalized and context-specific emails.

Apollo utilizes dynamic variables for deep personalization.

Mailchimp uses merge tags for personalization, which are straightforward but less flexible compared to Apollo's capabilities. Mailchimp's personalization relies heavily on the information collected through signup forms and predefined tags, limiting the personalization to the data explicitly captured during sign-up.

Mailchimp's merge tags for personalized content.

While Mailchimp provides a solid base for personalization through merge tags, Apollo's approach allows for a more tailored experience, leveraging a vast array of data points. This makes Apollo a better choice for scenarios requiring detailed customization based on extensive data attributes. For enhancing personalization and outreach, consider using Bardeen’s AI tools to further refine your messaging and engagement strategies.

Apollo

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Easily personalize emails with dynamic variables from Apollo's extensive database.

Apollo provides an intuitive way to personalize emails within sequences, allowing users to incorporate dynamic variables from their extensive enrichment database directly into the email body. This enables highly targeted and relevant messaging for each recipient.

Key personalization features:

  • Dynamic variables: Insert fields like {{first_name}}, {{company}}, and more using double curly brackets. Apollo offers a wide range of basic and advanced variables.
  • Natural language support: Many fields are normalized (e.g. {{company_unprocessed_name}}) to sound more natural when used inline in sentences.
  • Conditional logic: Show different text based on whether a variable exists for the contact, enabling further customization.
  • Live previews: Easily see how the email will look for a specific contact by selecting them or sending a test email to yourself.

In addition to dynamic text, Apollo also supports adding personalized meeting invites, Vidyard video recordings, and images to create engaging multimedia sequences. With Apollo's focus on data enrichment, users have access to an extensive set of fields to craft highly personalized emails at scale.

Mailchimp

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Mailchimp offers audience field management for signup form personalization.

Mailchimp provides robust personalization options through its audience fields and merge tags feature. This allows you to collect specific information about your subscribers via signup forms and use that data to create targeted, personalized email content.

  • Customizable audience fields: Mailchimp lets you manage the fields available on your signup forms. You can choose which fields are required or visible to subscribers, ensuring you gather the most relevant data for personalization.
  • Merge tags for dynamic content: With merge tags, you can insert personalized elements like a subscriber's name, email, or custom field values directly into your email content. Mailchimp provides straightforward merge tag syntax (e.g., *|FNAME|*) to make personalization simple.
  • Group-based personalization: In addition to individual-level personalization, you can create groups within your audience to show specific content to certain segments on your signup forms or in your emails.
  • Default merge tag values: If a subscriber doesn't have data for a particular merge field, you can set default values to avoid awkward blank spaces in your personalized content.
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AI Features - Crafting Personalized Emails and Content

Apollo has a more robust AI feature set for sequence creation compared to Mailchimp.

Apollo's AI assistant allows for detailed customization in email content creation.

Apollo allows users to generate fully personalized emails by providing detailed information about their company, product, and target persona. It offers granular control over the generation of one-liners, openers, subject lines, or complete emails, and even includes options to record and analyze video call meetings for further insights.

On the other hand, Mailchimp's AI capabilities focus mainly on generating content based on predefined types like paragraphs or headlines. While this is useful, it lacks the deeper customization and personalization features that Apollo offers.

For businesses looking to leverage AI for more personalized and context-rich email sequences, Apollo provides a superior solution. Additionally, integrating AI tools like Bardeen with Apollo can enhance your ability to automate and personalize at scale, making your outreach efforts more effective.

Apollo

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Apollo's AI assistant generates personalized emails based on company and prospect information.

Apollo's AI assistant empowers users to generate highly personalized emails at scale, saving time while maintaining a human touch in their outreach. By leveraging information about the user's company, product, and target persona, the AI can craft compelling subject lines, opening lines, and entire email bodies tailored to each prospect.

Key features of Apollo's AI email generation:

  • Customization: Steer the AI's output by providing details about your company, product, and target persona
  • Granular control: Choose to generate one-liners, openers, subject lines, or complete emails
  • Personalization at scale: Automatically incorporate prospect-specific information for a personalized touch
  • Meeting analysis: Option to record, transcribe, and analyze video call meetings for insights

Mailchimp

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Mailchimp's AI-powered content generator for creating emails

Mailchimp's email marketing platform includes an AI-powered content generator that can assist users in creating compelling email content. This feature leverages artificial intelligence to generate text based on a given topic or theme, helping users save time and effort in crafting effective email campaigns.

Key aspects of Mailchimp's AI content generation:

  • Paragraph generation: The AI can generate entire paragraphs of text based on a selected content type, such as a product description or promotional offer.
  • Customizable tone: Users can choose the desired tone for the generated content, ensuring that it aligns with their brand voice and target audience.
  • Time-saving: By automatically generating content suggestions, the AI tool helps users save time and effort in writing emails from scratch.

While the AI-generated content can provide a solid starting point, it's essential for users to review and refine the text to ensure it accurately reflects their intended message and brand identity. Mailchimp's AI content generator is a useful tool for streamlining the email creation process, but human oversight remains crucial for creating truly personalized and effective campaigns.

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Native Enrichment - Boosting Lead Knowledge and Personalization

Apollo clearly leads with its robust native enrichment features, significantly enhancing lead and company data directly within its platform.

Apollo's detailed data enrichment dashboard

Apollo allows users to access detailed insights about leads and companies, which can be seamlessly integrated into email personalization and sales strategies. This capability is essential for crafting targeted communications that resonate with recipients.

In contrast, Mailchimp does not offer native enrichment within its sequences feature, relying instead on integrations with external tools to gather additional lead data. While effective, this approach may require more setup and coordination, potentially complicating workflow for users who need streamlined operations.

To enhance your lead management process, consider integrating Bardeen's automation capabilities, which can augment the data enrichment process, saving time and improving the accuracy of your lead data.

Apollo

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Apollo provides detailed contact data enrichment, including work history and contact information.

Apollo's native data enrichment capabilities provide users with valuable insights and personalization options for their sales engagement campaigns. By leveraging Apollo's extensive database, users can access detailed information about their leads, enabling them to craft highly targeted and relevant outreach.

  • Comprehensive contact data: Apollo enriches lead profiles with accurate and up-to-date information, such as job title, work history, contact details, and more.
  • Company insights: Users can access key data points about a lead's company, including industry, size, revenue, and other relevant metrics.
  • Personalization at scale: With enriched data, users can easily insert personalized details into their email campaigns, allowing them to create tailored messages for each recipient.
  • Data health monitoring: Apollo provides an overview of the overall health and completeness of a user's contact data, helping them identify areas for improvement and enrichment.

By leveraging Apollo's native data enrichment features, users can create highly targeted and effective sales engagement campaigns that resonate with their leads, ultimately leading to better response rates and more successful outcomes.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp, as a marketing automation platform, does not offer native lead enrichment capabilities within its email sequences feature. To gather additional data on leads, such as buyer signals or other relevant information, users need to rely on integrations with external tools.

While this may be seen as a limitation, Mailchimp's focus on providing a robust email marketing solution allows it to excel in its core functionalities. Users who require lead enrichment can still achieve this by leveraging Mailchimp's extensive integration options with third-party services that specialize in data enrichment.

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Social Automation - Boosting lead engagement via social platforms

Apollo edges out Mailchimp in terms of social automation capabilities, particularly in lead engagement and enrichment through social platforms like LinkedIn.

Apollo supports automating LinkedIn actions like connection requests and messages.

Apollo allows users to automate personalized connection requests, direct messages, and interactions with posts on LinkedIn, which can be crucial for building relationships and enhancing lead engagement without manual effort. On the other hand, Mailchimp focuses primarily on managing social media ads and cross-posting content, without the capability to automate interactions or enrich leads directly from social platforms.

If you're looking to automate LinkedIn actions and enrich your sales strategies, Apollo provides a more robust solution. Additionally, Bardeen can further enhance your social media engagement by automating tasks across different platforms, offering a significant boost in productivity and effectiveness in your social media strategies.

Apollo

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Apollo supports automating LinkedIn actions like connection requests and messages.

Apollo's Sequences feature includes robust social automation capabilities, allowing users to engage with prospects across multiple channels without manual effort. The platform can automate tasks on social media platforms like LinkedIn, in addition to traditional channels like email and phone.

  • Automate LinkedIn actions: Apollo can send personalized connection requests, messages, and interact with prospect's posts on LinkedIn. This allows for multi-channel engagement to build relationships.
  • Customize task priority and timing: Users have control over the priority and due dates of automated social tasks, ensuring the sequence aligns with their strategy.
  • Gather key information: The LinkedIn - View profile task enables users to automatically view a prospect's LinkedIn profile to gather important context before engagement, leading to more effective messaging.

Mailchimp

While Mailchimp is a powerful email marketing and automation platform, it does not offer the same level of social media automation for lead enrichment as some other sales engagement tools. Mailchimp's social media capabilities are primarily focused on cross-posting content and managing social media ads rather than automating interactions or gathering lead information from social platforms.

Key aspects of Mailchimp's social media features:

  • Cross-posting content to social media channels
  • Managing social media ad campaigns
  • Lack of social media automation for lead enrichment
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Pricing Plans - Balancing Cost and Features

Apollo edges out Mailchimp with its more flexible credits system and tiered plans tailored for different usage levels.

Apollo Pricing: Offers a free plan with significant email credits and multiple paid plans starting at $49 per user per month when billed annually. These plans are structured to cater to varying needs, from basic usage in the free plan to advanced features in the Organization plan. Apollo's pricing includes unlimited email credits up to 10,000 per month to prevent abuse, and free trials are available for Basic and Professional plans.

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Apollo offers a range of pricing plans to suit different user needs and budgets.

Mailchimp Pricing: Provides a simple free tier and several paid options, the most affordable being $13 per month. Each tier offers more features, with the Premium plan at $350 per month including unlimited contacts and priority support. Mailchimp's plans are straightforward, focusing on the number of emails sent and the level of support available.

For businesses looking for a cost-effective solution with flexibility in email volume and additional features like AI-assisted email writing and advanced security, Apollo provides a more adaptable pricing structure. However, for those needing unlimited contacts and extensive support, Mailchimp's higher-tier plans may be appealing.

Apollo

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Apollo offers a range of pricing plans to suit different user needs and budgets.

Apollo provides a flexible pricing model that can accommodate various user requirements, from individual users to larger organizations. The platform offers a free plan as well as paid memberships with a 14-day trial period.

  • Billing model: Prices vary based on the plan chosen and are billed either annually or monthly.
  • Free plan: Includes unlimited email credits (capped at 10,000 per account per month to prevent abuse) and 60 mobile credits per year. Free accounts using non-corporate email domains are limited to 100 email credits per month.
  • Paid plans: Basic ($49/user/month), Professional ($79/user/month), and Organization ($119/user/month, minimum 3 users) plans offer increasing levels of mobile and export credits, as well as access to advanced features.
  • 14-day trial: Available for Basic and Professional plans, limited to 50 lead credits per user during the trial period.
  • Enterprise features: The Organization plan includes additional features such as AI-assisted email writing, advanced security configurations, and customizable reports.

Mailchimp

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Mailchimp's pricing plans offer value for businesses of all sizes.

Mailchimp provides a range of pricing options to suit various business needs, from a free plan for those just starting out to more advanced paid plans with additional features and higher sending limits.

  • Free Plan: Includes basic features for up to 1,000 contacts and a send limit of 1,000 emails per month.
  • Essentials Plan ($13/month): Offers testing and scheduling features, with support for up to 5,000 contacts and 3 users.
  • Standard Plan ($20/month): Includes personalization, optimization tools, and enhanced automations for up to 6,000 contacts and 5 users.
  • Premium Plan ($350/month): Designed for teams, with unlimited contacts, users, and priority support, as well as advanced onboarding sessions.

All paid plans are billed monthly and have the option to upgrade or downgrade as needed. Mailchimp also offers a free trial for users to test out the platform before committing to a paid plan.

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Apollo

Mailchimp

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Apollo

Mailchimp

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Apollo

Mailchimp

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The Verdict: Which is Best for Multichannel Outreach?

Apollo and Mailchimp both offer unique features for managing outreach campaigns, but they serve different needs. Apollo excels with its integration of emails, phone calls, and LinkedIn tasks, making it ideal for a dynamic, multichannel strategy. It's particularly suited for sales teams looking to engage prospects across multiple touchpoints.

Mailchimp, on the other hand, shines with its user-friendly design and strong email marketing features. It's best for teams that prioritize email campaigns and need a tool that's easy to use with beautiful design templates.

If your focus is on a robust, multichannel approach, Apollo is the way to go. For primarily email-driven campaigns with an emphasis on design and ease of use, Mailchimp is the better choice.

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