Salesforge vs Mailchimp: Best Tool for Cold Outreach 2024

Last Updated on
May 23, 2024
by
Jason Gong

This article provides a detailed comparison of Salesforge and Mailchimp as tools for cold outreach, helping you decide on the best tool for your needs, with a breakdown of their features and capabilities. While both tools offer more than just cold outreach functionalities, this comparison focuses specifically on their capabilities in that area. The motivation behind this comparison is to assist you in choosing efficient tools like Bardeen to save time on repetitive tasks, ultimately enhancing productivity with no-code solutions.

SalesforgeMailchimp
Campaign CreationAI-driven, multi-language, email validationUser-friendly, drag-and-drop, template library
DeliverabilityEmail warming, multiple mailboxes, rate limitingDomain authentication, compliance, engagement tracking
PersonalizationCustom variables, AI content, fallback templatesAudience fields, merge tags, custom default values
AICustomizable tonality, limited previews, personalization creditsCustomizable content types, personalized output, multi-channel support
Native EnrichmentRelies on third-party integrations, manual effort requiredLacks native capabilities, requires external integrations
Social AutomationUses LinkedIn, websites for personalized emailsLimited to cross-posting, ad management
PricingTwo plans: Pro and Growth, no free tierMultiple tiers, includes a free plan

Campaign Creation - Building Tailored Outreach with Salesforge vs. Mailchimp

Salesforge provides a more advanced, AI-driven approach to email campaign creation, focusing on sales engagement with features like AI email warm-up and multi-language support.

Salesforge's sequence builder interface for creating campaigns

Mailchimp, on the other hand, offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop email builder and a vast library of templates, making it ideal for marketing-focused emails rather than tailored sales outreach.

Mailchimp's template selection for various campaign purposes

For businesses needing tailored, high-deliverability email campaigns, particularly in sales, Salesforge might be the better choice. However, those looking for broad marketing reach with easy setup might find Mailchimp sufficient. For enhancing your sales email campaigns, consider using Bardeen to personalize your outreach emails.

Salesforge

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Salesforge's sequence builder interface for creating campaigns.

Salesforge is an AI-powered sales engagement platform that helps sales teams boost their email outreach efforts. Its sequence builder allows users to create personalized email campaigns at scale, with support for multiple languages.

Key features of the sequence builder:

  • AI-driven email warm-up: Improves email deliverability by gradually increasing the volume of emails sent from a new mailbox.
  • Email validation: Verifies email addresses to maintain a clean contact list and minimize bounces.
  • Multi-language support: Enables the creation of localized email campaigns for global audiences.
  • Centralized mailbox management: Allows users to manage multiple mailboxes from a single interface, streamlining campaign management.

Salesforge's unique capabilities, such as AI email warm-up and multi-language support, set it apart from other sales engagement tools. These features help users create effective email campaigns while ensuring high deliverability and low bounce rates.

Mailchimp

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Mailchimp provides a variety of email templates for different purposes and industries.

Mailchimp, a popular email marketing platform, offers a user-friendly interface for creating and sending email campaigns. While originally designed for marketing emails, some users have adapted it for cold outreach as well.

Key features of Mailchimp's campaign creation:

  • Drag-and-drop email builder: Easily create and format emails using simple drag-and-drop tools, making it accessible for users with limited design or coding experience.
  • Extensive template library: Choose from a wide range of pre-designed templates categorized by email purpose, industry, and style, saving time and effort in the email creation process.
  • Branded templates: Maintain brand consistency by creating and saving custom branded email templates for future use.
  • Responsive design: Mailchimp's templates are optimized for various devices and screen sizes, ensuring that emails look great on desktop, tablet, and mobile.
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Deliverability - Boosting Email Reach and Avoiding Spam Filters

Salesforge offers a more comprehensive solution for handling deliverability issues with built-in email warming and validation features, which Mailchimp lacks.

Salesforge interface showing email warming and validation options

While Mailchimp maintains a strong reputation for deliverability through compliance with best practices, it primarily serves users engaging with existing subscribers and does not support cold outreach effectively because it doesn't offer email warming. Salesforge, on the other hand, includes features like multiple mailboxes and rate limits tailored for users who need to manage multiple outreach campaigns simultaneously, making it suitable for both warm and cold outreach.

To further boost your email deliverability and streamline workflows, consider integrating Bardeen, which can automate tasks like sending personalized follow-ups or managing campaign responses, enhancing your overall email strategy.

If deliverability and managing multiple outreach campaigns are critical for your business, Salesforge is the better choice, thanks to its specialized features for handling cold outreach scenarios.

Salesforge

Salesforge supports multiple mailboxes and email warming for improved deliverability.

Salesforge provides features to help improve email deliverability and avoid spam filters, ensuring that your sales emails reach their intended recipients. The platform supports multiple mailboxes, email warming, and rate limiting to maintain a positive sender reputation.

  • Multiple mailboxes: Set up and manage multiple email accounts within Salesforge, allowing you to distribute your outreach across different domains and IP addresses. This helps avoid triggering spam filters due to high email volume from a single source.
  • Email warming: Gradually increase the volume of emails sent from new accounts over time, establishing a positive sender reputation with email providers. Salesforge automates this process, warming up your mailboxes to improve deliverability.
  • Rate limiting: Control the number of emails sent per mailbox within a given time frame to stay within the limits set by email providers. This prevents your accounts from being flagged as potential spam sources due to excessive sending.

Reddit users discuss various strategies for improving email deliverability, with some considering Salesforge as a solution:

😐 "You need ESP matching, which providers like Salesforge provide." - r/Emailmarketing
👍 "Don't use subdomains, use top-level domains as your secondary domains for best deliverability." - r/Entrepreneur

Mailchimp

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Mailchimp domain authentication options for improved email deliverability.

Mailchimp prioritizes email deliverability by adhering to best practices and offering tools to help users maintain a strong sender reputation. While it doesn't provide email warming services, Mailchimp focuses on ensuring that emails reach subscribers' inboxes through domain authentication and compliance with industry standards.

  • Domain authentication: Mailchimp allows users to verify and authenticate their custom email domains, which helps establish trust with email providers and improves deliverability.
  • Compliance with best practices: The platform follows strict guidelines to maintain its reputation as a trusted email service provider, reducing the risk of emails being flagged as spam.
  • Subscriber engagement tracking: Mailchimp provides detailed analytics on email performance, including open rates, click rates, and unsubscribe rates, enabling users to monitor engagement and maintain a healthy subscriber list.

It's important to note that Mailchimp is designed for sending emails to opted-in subscribers rather than cold outreach. The lack of email warming features underscores this focus on engaging with existing audiences who have consented to receive marketing communications.

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Personalization - Tailoring Emails for Greater Engagement

Salesforge leads when it comes to email personalization due to its AI-powered content generation and customizable variables.

Salesforge's step builder for personalized email sequences

Mailchimp also offers robust personalization tools, using merge tags to tailor content based on predefined audience fields. However, it lacks the AI-driven content capabilities that Salesforge provides, limiting its ability to dynamically generate email content based on real-time data insights.

For users who need advanced personalization and the ability to generate content on-the-fly, Salesforge provides a more powerful solution. If you're looking to further enhance your email personalization strategies, consider using Bardeen's AI-driven playbooks to create highly targeted emails that can significantly improve engagement.

Salesforge

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Personalize emails with variables and AI-generated content

Salesforge offers powerful personalization options for email sequences, allowing you to tailor your outreach to each lead. With a combination of custom variables and AI-generated content, you can create highly targeted and engaging emails that resonate with your prospects.

Key personalization features:

  • Custom variables: Easily insert lead-specific data like name, company, or other custom fields into your emails.
  • AI-powered content generation: Let Salesforge's AI assist in writing personalized email content based on your input.
  • Fallback templates: Create default content to use when AI generation fails or lead data is missing.
  • Preview emails: See how your personalized emails will look before sending them out.

Mailchimp

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Personalize emails with custom fields and merge tags in Mailchimp.

Mailchimp provides several options to personalize your email campaigns based on your audience's information. You can use custom fields and merge tags to tailor your content to each recipient.

  • Audience fields: Manage the fields available to your audience's signup forms, such as email address, name, phone number, and birthday. These fields can be set as required or optional.
  • Merge tags: Insert personalized content into your emails using merge tags. For example, *|FNAME|* or *|MERGE0|* can be used to include the recipient's first name.
  • Custom default values: Set default values for merge tags to avoid blank spaces in case the information is missing for some recipients.
  • Audience groups: Create groups within your audience to further segment and personalize your campaigns based on specific interests or preferences.
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AI Features - Crafting Personalized Emails Efficiently

Salesforge has a more advanced AI feature set for email personalization compared to Mailchimp. Salesforge not only allows you to choose the tonality of your emails but also provides options to preview and regenerate email content for the first few contacts without additional cost, using personalization credits.

Salesforge AI Preview Feature with Tonality Options

Mailchimp's AI capability focuses primarily on generating content based on set types, such as paragraphs or listicles, which assists in creating structured email content quickly. However, it lacks the nuanced control over tonality and does not offer previews or customization per contact as Salesforge does.

Mailchimp Generate Text Feature

For businesses seeking a more tailored approach to AI-driven email campaigns with options for tonality adjustments and cost-effective content generation, Salesforge's AI features provide a clear advantage. Enhance your email capabilities with AI-driven automation by Bardeen to further improve responsiveness and engagement in your campaigns.

Salesforge

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AI-generated email preview in Salesforge with customizable tonality.

Salesforge's AI-powered email generation feature allows users to create personalized emails at scale, with the ability to choose from a variety of tonalities to match their desired communication style. This powerful tool helps streamline the email creation process while maintaining a human touch.

Key aspects of Salesforge's AI email generation:

  • Customizable tonality: Choose from options like playful, hilarious, formal, curious, urgent, appreciative, and more to match your brand voice.
  • Personalization credits: Users start with 10 personalization credits, with new preview generation costing credits while regeneration is free.
  • Fallback template: A fallback template must be set to use the AI generation feature.
  • Limited preview: AI previews are only generated for the first 5 contacts in a sequence, with the rest generated once the sequence is started.

Mailchimp

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Mailchimp's AI-powered content generator for emails and social media posts.

Mailchimp's AI-powered content generation feature helps users create engaging email and social media content with ease. By providing a content type and brief description, the AI tool generates text tailored to your needs, saving time and effort in crafting effective messaging.

  • Customizable content types: Select from various content types like paragraphs, listicles, and stories to match your desired format.
  • Personalized output: Provide a short description of your topic or theme, and the AI will generate unique content aligned with your input.
  • Multi-channel support: Create content for both email campaigns and social media posts, streamlining your content creation process across multiple channels.
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Native Enrichment - Managing Data Gathering for Lead Profiling

Salesforge and Mailchimp both lack built-in lead enrichment capabilities, requiring users to rely on third-party integrations to gather additional data for lead profiling.

Salesforge relies on external integrations for contact enrichment.

Both platforms connect with various data sources such as LinkedIn, Apollo.io, and others to enhance contact lists, which can provide valuable insights but also requires additional management and potential costs.

To further optimize these workflows, consider using Bardeen which can automate the process of information gathering from different platforms, potentially saving time and increasing data accuracy.

While both tools offer robust email marketing and sales features, the absence of native enrichment capabilities might be a constraint for users who need an all-in-one solution for lead management and profiling.

Salesforge

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Salesforge relies on third-party integrations for contact enrichment.

Salesforge does not provide built-in lead enrichment capabilities, instead relying on integrations with third-party tools to gather additional data on contacts and accounts. This approach requires users to leverage external services to access buyer signals and other information that can help personalize outreach and prioritize leads.

Key aspects of Salesforge's contact enrichment:

  • Reliance on integrations: Salesforge connects with tools like Apollo.io, Findymail, and Builtwith to source enrichment data.
  • Manual effort required: Users must set up and manage these integrations themselves, adding extra steps to the workflow.
  • Potential for data inconsistencies: Relying on multiple external sources may lead to varying data quality and completeness across different tools.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp does not offer native data enrichment capabilities within its platform. To gather additional information about leads, such as buyer signals or other relevant data points, users must rely on integrations with external tools.

While Mailchimp provides a robust set of features for email marketing and automation, the lack of built-in data enrichment functionality may be a drawback for some users who require a more comprehensive view of their leads without the need for third-party integrations.

To access lead enrichment features, Mailchimp users can explore the platform's extensive library of integrations, which includes various data providers and sales intelligence tools. However, this approach may require additional setup and costs compared to platforms that offer native data enrichment capabilities.

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Social Automation - Boosting Lead Engagement and Personalization

Salesforge offers a more integrated approach to social automation compared to Mailchimp, particularly in its ability to utilize social media for enriching sales leads.

Salesforge's interface for selecting LinkedIn, website, or both as sources for AI email generation.

Salesforge allows users to generate personalized sales emails by leveraging data from LinkedIn profiles, websites, or both, directly within its platform. This capability is essential for creating highly targeted communications based on comprehensive lead data.

On the other hand, Mailchimp focuses mainly on the broader aspects of social media marketing, like ad management and cross-posting to platforms. It does not support direct lead enrichment through social media, which can limit its functionality for sales-specific engagements.

For businesses looking to maximize lead engagement through personalized outreach, Salesforge's ability to integrate social data into sales emails offers a significant advantage. If your sales strategy heavily relies on social media data, consider using Bardeen to automate and enhance your social media tasks for lead management and enrichment.

Salesforge

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Salesforge offers LinkedIn profile, website, or combined source for AI email generation.

Salesforge provides AI-powered email generation capabilities within its sequences, allowing users to automatically generate personalized emails based on prospect information from LinkedIn profiles, websites, or a combination of both.

  • LinkedIn profile: Salesforge can pull relevant data from a prospect's LinkedIn profile to generate tailored email content.
  • Website: The AI can also gather information from a prospect's website to craft personalized emails.
  • LinkedIn + website: For maximum personalization, Salesforge can combine data from both LinkedIn and the prospect's website to generate highly targeted email content.

By leveraging AI and prospect data from multiple sources, Salesforge enables users to create personalized email sequences at scale, saving time while still maintaining a high level of customization for each recipient.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp, primarily an email marketing and automation platform, offers limited social media functionality compared to dedicated sales engagement tools. While it does not provide lead enrichment capabilities through social media, it does allow for some basic social media integration and management.

Key aspects of Mailchimp's social media features:

  • Social media cross-posting: Share email campaigns across connected social media accounts for increased visibility
  • Ad management: Create and manage social media ads within the Mailchimp platform
  • No lead enrichment: Unable to gather additional lead information from social media profiles for sales purposes

While Mailchimp's social media capabilities may be suitable for businesses primarily focused on marketing efforts, its lack of lead enrichment features may limit its usefulness for sales teams looking to leverage social media data for prospecting and engagement.

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Pricing Plans - Comparing Salesforge and Mailchimp

Mailchimp offers a more flexible and accessible pricing structure compared to Salesforge, making it potentially more appealing for a wider range of business sizes and budgets.

Mailchimp offers a tiered pricing structure, including a free plan.

Mailchimp's pricing tiers start with a free plan, which supports up to 1,000 contacts and includes basic email support for the first 30 days. Their paid plans increase in features and limits, with the Essentials plan starting at $13/month and the Premium plan at $350/month, catering to large-scale needs with unlimited contacts and enhanced support.

Salesforge, on the other hand, provides two main plans: Pro at $48/month and Growth at $96/month, both with significant contact and email limits but lacking a free tier. While Salesforge includes advanced features like unlimited mailboxes and email warm-up even in its lower-cost plan, the lack of a free option and the higher starting price point could be a barrier for smaller businesses or those just starting out.

If you're looking to evaluate and choose the right platform without upfront investment, Mailchimp’s free plan provides an excellent opportunity to test features before committing financially. For those needing more robust capabilities, both platforms offer advanced options, but Mailchimp’s flexibility in pricing and the inclusion of a free tier gives it a notable advantage for new or scaling businesses. Additionally, if you're aiming to enhance your sales efforts, consider using Bardeen's automation tools to streamline your processes and improve efficiency.

Salesforge

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Salesforge offers two pricing plans billed monthly or annually with a 7-day free trial for Growth.

Salesforge provides straightforward pricing with two plans: Pro at $48/month and Growth at $96/month, both billed monthly. Annual billing is available with 2 months free. The key differences between the plans are:

  • Active Contacts: Pro includes 1,000 while Growth offers 10,000
  • Emails/Month: 5,000 for Pro and 50,000 for Growth
  • Email Personalization Credits/Month: 100 in Pro vs 1,000 in Growth
  • Users: Pro is limited to 1 user while Growth supports unlimited users

Both plans include core features like unlimited mailboxes, Primebox, unlimited email warm up, smart inbox rotation, and more. A 7-day free trial is available for the Growth plan, though it has limited inclusions compared to the full paid plan.

Getting started with either plan is simple, with the ability to sign up and get started directly from the pricing page without needing to contact sales. The transparent pricing model and ability to start a trial make it easy to evaluate Salesforge for your needs.

Mailchimp

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Mailchimp offers multiple pricing tiers with a free plan for getting started.

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

  • Free plan: Includes basic features for up to 1,000 contacts and 1 audience, with email support for the first 30 days.
  • Essentials plan: Starting at $13/month, this plan offers core email marketing features, testing, and scheduling for up to 5,000 contacts and 3 audiences.
  • Standard plan: At $20/month, this plan adds advanced audience insights, custom templates, and optimization tools for up to 6,000 contacts and 5 audiences.
  • Premium plan: The highest tier at $350/month includes unlimited contacts, advanced segmentation, multivariate testing, and priority support.

All paid plans are based on a monthly billing model, with the price increasing as contact or email sending limits are exceeded. Users can easily upgrade or downgrade their plan directly from their account dashboard without needing to contact sales.

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Salesforge

Mailchimp

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Salesforge

Mailchimp

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Salesforge

Mailchimp

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The Verdict: Which is Best for Boosting Sales Outreach?

Salesforge and Mailchimp serve distinct needs in the realm of email outreach. Salesforge excels with its AI-driven features and multi-language support, making it ideal for personalized, scalable email campaigns that require sophisticated targeting and automation. Mailchimp, however, offers an intuitive user experience with its drag-and-drop builder and extensive template library, suited for users who need simplicity and efficiency in campaign creation.

For complex sales strategies needing tailored outreach, Salesforge is the superior choice. It provides the tools to deeply customize communications and manage multiple campaigns efficiently. If your focus is on broad-reaching, marketing-driven campaigns with less customization, Mailchimp's straightforward, template-based approach will likely meet your needs better.

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