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When either starting your website from scratch or being online for many years, you have to consider many things when you are developing your website. One of the main problems developers encounter is optimizing for different devices.

Your traffic can come from several sources:

• Desktop
• Smartphone
• Tablet
• Smartwatch
• Etc.

It is cardinal that your website provides the same experience everywhere. Let’s see what cross-device friendliness is all about!

What is Cross-Device Friendliness?

When you are developing your website, you have to make sure that no matter where people come from, they receive the exact same experience (or almost), and that’s what cross-device friendliness is all about.

Of course, you have to take into account many various aspects because each has its own different parameters and functionalities, but if you can adjust your website to these criteria smartly, you can be sure that your site will be a multi-device success.

Factors to consider on different devices

Cross-device optimization has gained more and more significance when we talk about website development. The popularity of mobile devices has skyrocketed in the previous years – there are over 5 billion unique mobile phone users all around the world. But when we are talking about website optimization for both mobile and desktop, many different aspects should be taken into account. That could be:

• Traffic volume
• Screen size
• Cross-platform journeys
• Content placement & interactions
• Page load time

Traffic volume

Through the years, the age of desktop dominance has faded away. Of course, that doesn’t mean people are not searching the web from a PC, but since 2017 more than half of website traffic has come from mobile devices, and it’s constantly increasing.

Nowadays the linear “only desktop optimization” mindset is not enough. If you want to provide the ultimate experience for your visitors, mobile-friendliness is inevitable. On the other hand, you shouldn’t just head into making everything practical for mobile and ignore your desktop web development. Find the balance between these two mediums 

Screen size

When smartphones came into the spotlight, every website was only optimized for desktops and it caused a lot of inconvenience for mobile users – a full-size website was thrown to the mobile user’s tiny screen. Users had to constantly zoom in-zoom out to see the content they want, and because of the shortening attention span and patience, visitors leave way earlier with frustration (and might not return).

Another problem that might occur in these situations is related to images. If you optimize images to desktop monitor screens and mobile visitors load your page, they won’t be able to see the whole picture normally. They might zoom in to see the content normally, but then the whole image might not be visible, and that constant resizing could be really uncomfortable.

Cross-device journeys

Visitors arriving to your website from different sources don’t necessarily mean that they are all new, unique users. People tend to make cross-device journeys before reaching the desired action, e.g. buying a product from your site. They usually browse your site through their smartphone, and if they find something interesting or want to fill out a form, they usually swap to a laptop or desktop for easier completion.

So as you can see, dividing visitors into separate groups might be misleading when it comes to conversion. Synchronizing the different events (e.g. checkout process, newsletter signup) for either singular or cross-device could be a key point to making your website the most suitable for your audience.

Content placement & interactions

The available space differs from device to device, so having a well-structured website is a crucial point. To reflect on our previous “Screen size” point, how people can see what’s on the site is quintessential. For example, you might have an article that is perfectly readable from the desktop’s monitors, but on the phone scrolling, a lot and resizing constantly to make every detail readable could be annoying for users.

Another pain point comes from CTA interactions. If the interactive buttons are too small or it is not clear where to press them, it can be difficult to execute certain actions, like closing a popup or signing up for a newsletter. One more problem that might occur with buttons is placing them right next to each other – if you can’t clearly separate them with e.g. borders, that could result in rage clicks, hence missing out on customers.

Page load time

In today’s rushing world, everyone wants to get access to all kinds of information immediately, and if they have to wait more than a few seconds, they will just leave your website behind. As with many other things, page loading time also differs from device to device.

While desktops have direct internet access via ethernet cables, mobiles only have a remote connection. It is important to have each of your pages on top speed everywhere – you can imagine how slow content loading must be on mobile if it’s already slow on the desktop.

Solution – Optimize User Experience

If you want to achieve the ultimate customer satisfaction on every device, then you should focus on optimizing user experience.

User experience is the overall experience of a user on your website – that could mean how they can navigate through your pages, how they can complete certain events (like visiting a product, then putting the item to their cart and completing a checkout), or how they felt during their session on your site.

All of the previously mentioned points have an impact on the user experience of your site. If visitors don’t find it easy and clear to browse through your website, customers will leak out of your funnel. The good news is that with a few adjustments, you can make wonders on every medium.

Mobile-first perception

Kicking off your web development process with mobile development first could make your life much easier. It would be more time-consuming to figure out and then tailor all the functions that are not compatible with smartphones. Mobile designs usually require a more minimalist approach, so designing for a smaller screen and then filling up a bigger one with content can be a time-saver solution. 

In addition, mobile-friendly solutions usually turn out to be perfect for desktops. Take the famously used hamburger menu as an example – they worked out so well more websites started implementing it to desktop monitors, but minimalism has also started conquering the different types of computer screens too.

Accelerate page loading time

As we mentioned earlier, having a quick-loading page is a top priority factor when it comes to user experience. With a few clever tricks, you can save some extra seconds in your loading time.

Firstly, with CSS media queries you can set in what order your web page’s assets should load. This way, you can save up time by loading the text first so users can start reading the important content while images load later. Secondly, compressing images for mobiles can also save some quality time and you can also keep the same quality of your images. Also, optimizing your HTML-CSS-Javascript codes by tailoring the unnecessary part of your code out can decrease waiting time.

Lastly, keeping your website’s plugins, themes and other add-ons up-to-date is another way to keep up with the pace. These tools are constantly under development to provide a better, more user-friendly experience, so doing a regular update on them can also have a positive impact on your site.

Responsive web design

For the ultimate multi-device success, responsivity is a quintessential factor for your website. Responsive web design means that your website automatically adjusts to different screen sizes and platforms. That involves scaling images and fonts on your site, but you can influence whitespace between contents too.

You can use the earlier mentioned CSS media queries here as well to achieve overall device responsivity. With just a little knowledge, you can easily create a cross-device-friendly website. That not only means that it saves tons of time in your web development because you don’t have to optimize for every different screen one by one, but also keeps your website aesthetic on all platforms. 

Encourage cross-device usage

Sometimes having fewer functions on different devices isn’t necessarily a problem. We usually use different platforms for different purposes. We usually use our phones for browsing and accomplishing bigger tasks on desktops.

Finding how these different mediums can complement each other is the key to success. A well-optimized mobile interface can set up a later purchase when your visitor has more time to fill out the checkout form. Don’t compete for different devices against each other, ally the different forces!

Fitting your content on different devices

To provide nearly the same experience on both mobile and desktop, reorganizing the same content on different devices is a must. On desktops, the column-organized content placement works perfectly. For example, there’s a navigation bar on the top of the page, in the middle you can find the article, and on the right, there are related topics, articles, or other widgets. The main concept is to separate different contents clearly.

For mobiles, it’s a bit tricky because you have much smaller space to work with. Organizing your content to a well-centralized column and placing texts and images alternately rather than putting pictures and fonts next to each other is a much more pleasant view. Interactive buttons, such as the navigation bar or search field can be placed on each side of the screen to prevent misclicks. This way you can provide the nearly-same experience on different mediums.

Forms & popups are in the same shoes. Although they might feel annoying sometimes, optimizing them well causes less trouble for users. Fitting them side-to-side and placing easily accessible CTA-s for different interactions can prevent visitor frustration (like zooming out and looking for the close button) and create a more fluent user experience.

Conclusion

There are many factors to consider when it comes to cross-device development. It is a critical point to optimize your website for every medium – users come to your site from different sources, but a single visitor can find you in many ways. If there are bottlenecks on any of your interfaces, you may not reach one of your platform’s full potential. Stop traffic leakage now and make the best version of your website everywhere!

The post Why You Should Optimize for Both Mobile and Desktop When Developing Your Website appeared first on noupe.

Every business – successful or struggling – needs a social media crisis management plan. The best social media crisis management starts long before any issue arises. 

The best social media crisis management starts long before a problem occurs. Any kind of crisis can hit your brand at any time. The last few years have been a wake-up call for many brands. According to PwC’s 2021 Global Crisis Survey, only 23% of US companies reported having a dedicated crisis response team at the start of the pandemic. Still, 62% of companies used a crisis response plan during the pandemic.

Even the trolliest of trolls can be withstood if you plan for the worst before it happens. Have a well-thought-out plan in place, including a list of important players, their roles, and the chain of command. If worst comes to worst, you’ll be prepared to salvage the reputation of your company. Moreover, you can also take the help of social media tools to solve the crisis. 

In this article, we’ll discuss how to handle the consequences when your good reputation is damaged. Let’s first begin with what is social media crisis.

What does Social Media Crisis Mean?

Any activity on social media platforms that might negatively affect the reputation of your brand is considered a social media crisis. A social media crisis occurs when there is a significant shift in the discussion about your brand on social media as a result of an event that has stoked widespread resentment, disappointment, or mistrust.

Let’s have a look at social media crisis examples:

Burger King posted an insensitive tweet on Women’s day

Although their campaign was designed to draw attention to the underrepresentation of women in the restaurant industry, it failed badly.

Red Bull had to pay $13 million to settle a false advertising class action suit

Benefits of Social Media Crisis Management

Social media is a powerful tool that can help you in responding well to clients or detractors. It can help you manage the crisis by pursuing them. Let’s have a look at why crisis management is important:

• You can communicate with almost all of your customer base using social media on one or more platforms. Around 90% of business marketers believe that their business has experienced good exposure because of social media. When a crisis arises, your business can quickly broadcast a message and move ahead. 
• Using direct messaging or comments, you can communicate with customers on social media directly. Your customer service team can reply to a single customer’s concern instantly via a private or public message. An efficient response from your customer service team can serve as a good example of your team’s credibility if the customer posts publicly on your timeline.

How to Create an Effective Social Media Crisis Management Plan

A proper response strategy for your social media channels is essential for handling everything from backlashing comments to natural disasters. Let’s delve into the steps to create a crisis management plan:

Identify the source of the problem

Finding the issue and its source is the first step in creating a social media crisis response. Every social media crisis does not originate online. A social media uproar frequently follows a news event or popular culture phenomenon. Understanding the crisis’s root cause will help you choose the best course of action and distribution for your response.

Respond promptly 

Organizing your workflow is important. How you choose to respond makes all the difference. Quick social media responses help in creating long-lasting relationships. Impossibly, ignoring the issue won’t make it go away. And the better your reaction time, the faster. After all, even in the best of circumstances, over 75% of customers expect brands to respond to their complaints or negative comments within 24 hours. Being responsive is even more crucial when a crisis is present.

That might just entail promptly deleting the offending post, or it might entail making sincere repentance or apology. Whatever the solution, acting quickly is always preferable because delaying only gives the issue more time to worsen.

Burger king deleted its post within a few hours of posting it and issued an apology tweet.

Have a communication plan

Create a social media crisis communication plan if you don’t have one. This is something you should create when things are going well so you can respond rationally and practically in a social media emergency. Use the best social media marketing tools as a part of your communication strategy.

Practice social listening 

Know what to share and when to stop? We can’t carry on as if nothing is wrong during a crisis. As a social media professional, it’s essential that you are clued up about the operations, strategies, and policies of your organization so that you can communicate with your audience clearly and empathically even when circumstances change on an hourly basis.

Instead of debating how to handle things or waiting for senior managers to weigh in, you’ll be able to react quickly to any potential issue if you have this document ready to go.

Apologize if its the need of the hour 

It makes sense to want to return to “normal” as soon as possible if you find yourself in social media crisis management mode. An apology, however, is one aspect of a crisis that you should take your time with.

Many customers vowed to boycott Procter & Gamble (P&G) after the company shared a post saying that women’s feet smelled “five times worse than men’s.” P&G later deleted the message after issuing an apology for the remarks and admitting the consequences of their improper conduct.

Social Media Crisis Management Tips for Businesses and Brands

Social media crisis usually comes in the form of incessant customer Tweets over a service issue, or it could be a poorly timed or insensitive social media post from your brand. Use a small leadership team to triage the situation in the case of a crisis, carry out any necessary brand social media responses, and keep teams updated. Here are some tips that can cover you during the time of a crisis:

1. Get your team together

As each employee is vital, all of them can be on your crisis management team, depending upon your requirements. Yet, assemble a team of responsible first responders, each with a specific responsibility. To effectively implement decisions, management must coordinate, and content writers must carefully craft the desired message.

2. Keep the internal communication moving

Just like external communication, rumors and false information can spread quickly. Internal communication should be a part of your crisis communication strategy. This reduces stress and uncertainty and keeps everyone on the same page.

3. Put scheduled posts on pause

You must forget that you have a long social queue when a mad panic is breaking out all around you. You simply can’t afford to post “Happy #ThrowbackThursday — Have a beautiful day” accidentally after your product just generated a significant backlash.

4. Be sympathetic while speaking with commenters

Your initial response has been posted. You’re putting more thought into your messaging, and you plan to include a formal statement or video from the CEO. However, you must also work on this crisis’ front lines. and that entails reading through online mentions or entering the comment section. Don’t disregard the insults. Engaging the public is essential to demonstrate that you value their feedback and are attentive to their concerns. But keep it brief, and avoid arguing at all costs.

5. Monitor what people say about your company

You must head off every potential crisis before it grows and reaches entirely new audiences on social media. Take the help of social listening tools.

Start preparing now!

The good news is that a social media crisis may present an opportunity to strengthen your brand. You must be ready and maintain composure when a crisis arises in order to manage social media effectively.

Keep in mind the phase of crisis management before social media. You’ll gain some time in the initial stage if you’re ready for a social media crisis. This time can be used to get ready for the next stage of social media crisis management. Keep your composure during the crisis and interact with your supporters. Give your side of the story and make an effort to calm the tensest arguments in private communication.

The post How to Create a Social Media Crisis Management Plan appeared first on noupe.

People adore watching videos. A study claims that videos engage viewers 75% more than papers, articles, and other simple media. This is the reason an increasing number of businesses are using them for their operations. 

A video presentation is one of the most often used presentation formats. In this post, we’ll define video presentations, discuss their applications, and provide some tips and tricks to work with them.

Here’s what a video presentation is

A video presentation is a typical kind of multimedia material with a runtime of a few seconds to a few minutes. It uses compelling visual imagery, brief text, and suitable narration to demonstrate the advantages of a service, product, or concept. 

There are several formats available for video presentations. They may be PowerPoint slides with a talking head narration, fully animated explainer videos, cartoons, invitation videos, screencasts, tutorials, video advertising, promo videos, marketing videos, product demonstrations, etc. In the end, you decide on the format.

The purpose of a Video Presentation

Video presentations are not only more attractive than straight information, but they are also:

Persuasive

Video presentations are better equipped to convince their target audience through audio-visual design, narrative, and incorporating emotions, ideas, and noises into the mix.

Better for retaining knowledge

According to reports, people recall 95% of a message when presented in a video as opposed to 10% when presented in the text. As a result, educators often employ video presentations while introducing new instructional materials or as part of the digital storytelling idea. 

Everywhere and at any time accessible

People prefer to explore movies on their phones and tablets, where they like spending a lot of time. We discovered that 75% of all videos are seen on tablets and mobile devices. Hence video presentation is an efficient way to grab mass audiences’ attention and time.

Efficient with time

The purpose of video presentations is to allow the creator to divide the information into manageable, more digestible portions. This makes it faster and simpler for visitors to discover more information.

Essential tips for working with Video Presentations

Tell uplifting tales

Your video material should always have a purpose. Creating a story for your films may foster a genuine relationship with your viewers. An in-depth discussion of your topic should be included in it. It ought to demonstrate your subject-matter knowledge. 

Creating a clear video that utilizes your subject expertise will greatly benefit your viewers. Only then will your audience respond more favorably to the presentation’s substance and you. The correct PowerPoint templates or Google Slides templates will maintain the presentation’s consistency and enable audience interaction with your video.

Describe trends

Stories make up 70% of the most popular and creative presentations. You have to make a film on the most recent developments in your sector and add it. The video needs to provide novel perspectives on the current and future of the subject matter’s field. 

Your audience will know the present market scenario if you discuss the broad market trends. This increases engagement since it gives the audience a feeling of control and drives them. 

The industry-trends-focused film will nudge viewers to chat about where they are now and what opportunities they are looking for. After the patterns are analyzed, any operational gaps can be filled, and modifications can be made.

Videos should be brief

Including short films in your presentations is the secret to hitting the appropriate buttons. You have a unique chance to quick-pitch with short video material. It needs to be instantly understandable, hard-hitting, and relevant videos. 

Like nothing else, brief and exciting video clips may draw viewers to your content. Not only that, but short movies are simple to share, reuse, and recall across several marketing platforms. Your little film needs to be direct and to the point. Treat your viewers like kings and offer them snippets of an engaging tale while making a little video.

Utilize emotional stimuli

It is important to first comprehend what emotional triggers are. These are the characteristics of the activities or characteristics seen in films that stimulate an emotional reaction. Video creation should begin with the establishment of a relevant persona. This will elicit a feeling and keep your audience’s attention for the duration of the presentation. 

Videos provide you with the unique option to enlarge and focus on certain parts of the screen. Your viewers will be more attentive to the main points of your topic if you use close-ups in the video.

Pick the appropriate path

Music is the literature of the heart, as someone once stated. You should choose and incorporate the music based on the presentation’s subject. If the video is a motivating presentation for your staff, the music should be upbeat and energizing. Subtle music may be effective if you’re attempting to convince your audience to pay attention to a serious subject. 

The video should include dramatic music if it is intended for sales or marketing campaigns. One should be aware of the genre that would be ideal for their industry. The greatest choice for business presentation films is to use warm, engaging, and subtle songs.

To Sum Up

With PowerPoint, you can broadcast your presentation live. As a plug-and-play presentation, the whole presentation may be created as a video. Video material in your presentation may instantly capture your audience’s attention. It is common for presenters to begin with a video. The ultimate goal is to express more with less. Your video should evoke a certain feeling in your viewers. Today’s audience wants diversity; only then can engagement be assured.

The post How To Make A Presentation Video Stand Out appeared first on noupe.

Half of your leads are not even ready to make a purchase while filling out your lead form. Over 80% of these leads don’t even convert, but hey, don’t fret. These results can be dramatically improved by working on lead nurturing after lead generation. In fact, businesses that implement a well-defined lead nurturing strategy bring 50% more sales at significantly lower costs!

If you haven’t focused on lead nurturing, continue reading this guide, as we will cover all you need to know about it.

Why Does My Business Need a Lead Nurturing Tool?

Lead nurturing, itself, is the process of developing relationships with your prospective buyers at every step of their sales journey – starting from product awareness to purchase. The end goal is to turn leads into repeat customers.

This process is crucial for your business because it allows you to build credibility and trust with your audience. Through lead nurturing, you can make a lasting impression on your client – which convinces them to make the purchase.

This process is time-consuming as you need to interact with customers, gather their data, recognize patterns, and develop your marketing strategies accordingly. But thanks to the technological advancements, automation tools are available in this area too. Let’s talk about the top 5 of them!

Here are some of the must-have lead nurturing tools that will cater to your business requirements:

HubSpot

If you know SEO and Digital Marketing, it’s a safe bet you’ve heard about HubSpot. It has almost everything you need to run a cohesive campaign and ensure you convert your leads to hard cash. Their “Operations” software helps you acquire, curate, and store customer information. Their CRM is extremely mature and is backed by a long history of market-leading solutions. HubSpot has one of the most comprehensive suites of tools you can find for CRM and Lead Nurturing.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Good pedigree in the market
• Comprehensive suite of tools
• Cohesive Workflow

Cons:

• The Starter plan has very limited tools.
• Business and Enterprise plans are expensive.

Pricing:

• Pricing starts at $45 per month.

ProxyCrawl

ProxyCrawl is an all-in-one data crawling and scraping platform that helps businesses carry out data mining or SEO without worrying about worldwide infrastructure or proxies. This platform allows you to crawl and scrape websites in a matter of minutes. Even though it can be utilized differently through its range of products, we should stick to our motto: nurture leads.

Generating leads off any website can be as quick as toasting a bread. With the Leads API, you can get thousands of leads off anything on the internet.

With ProxyCrawl’s Crawler, you can put your mind at ease since you save costs and countless hours on system design and actual task processing. With close to zero failures at your end, you can be focused on getting enough leads in your pipeline.

This is why ProxyCrawl’s Crawler is popular amongst enterprises that want work done at scale, faster and better!

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Offers a free trial
• Does not charge for failed requests
• Supports enterprise-grade, large-scale data scraping projects
• Supports Cloud and On-site setup
• Offers asynchronous queries to be run on the cloud
• Allows to build data pipelines
• Very low failed requests

Cons:

• Limited video content for new users..

Pricing:

ProxyCrawl offers various packages for the tool suite it brings to boost your business. The pricing for ProxyCrawl starts as low as $29 per month for the Leads API.

Churnfree

Whether you have an already successful business, one falling apart or starting a new one, you need to know how you can help them draw maximum value out of your product or service at every stage. For that, you need to know if they are stuck, need some help with setting up, or have no idea what to do next.

You don’t want to lose customers by letting them use your product or service without getting enough value out of it. Plus, you need to educate them and notify them of new features. Churnfree is a marketing automation and customer retention tool that helps you build customized flows to retain customers by keeping them engaged through real-time analytics of all flows, thus reducing churn.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Comprehensive Tool
• Supports customized flows
• Detailed Analytics
• Quick Deployment

Cons:

• No free trial

EasySendy

With easy, drag and drop templates, an email campaign can be set up in a very short time. Grow your subscriber lists with customizable opt-in forms. With drip campaigns, you can keep your users and users engaged so that you give them the most value, make them make a life-changing decision and in turn, scale your business.

EasySendy can be integrated with Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon SES, Zapier, and 20 other tools.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Customizable Design
• Easy Integration
• Simple User Experience For New Users
• Email Verification
• Free Version

Cons:

• No A/B Testing

LeadBoxer

LeadBoxer comes with lead scoring technology that allows marketing teams to estimate how likely a prospect is to purchase a product. In addition, this tool also lets you identify and track anonymous leads.

LeadBoxer is another beneficial marketing and sales strategy tool that brings more than just campaign management to the table. This tool offers detailed behavioral analytics and campaign personalization, which are crucial in lead nurturing.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Comes with a user-friendly interface.
• Highly cost-efficient.

Cons:

• Brings low-quality leads.

Pricing:

The pricing for LeadBoxer starts at $195 per month.

Ortto

As one of the leading lead nurturing software, Ortto works with over 10,000 companies. Formerly known as Autopilot, this company allows businesses to segment their audience across the customer lifecycle. It also offers omnichannel experiences coupled with personalized communication automation.

The best part is that this tool works well for cross-channel campaign management by integrating multiple third-party apps such as Microsoft, Livechat, and Patreon.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• Easy workflow.
• Free 14-Day Trial
• Covers all the necessary tools for a cohesive marketing campaign.

Cons:

• Limited email customizations.
• Complicated UI.

Pricing:

The pricing for Ortto starts at $29. This tool also offers a free plan for businesses that may want to run a trial first.

4 Most Highly Effective Lead Nurturing Tactics

You got the tools. You got the concepts. But to effectively implement these tools, you need tactics that bring better customer retention, increased revenue, and enhanced customer loyalty. Here are some of the tried and tested tactics you can couple with your chosen lead nurturing tool to extract optimized results:

• Use multiple channels: You can reach a wider target audience through a multi-channel marketing approach. For this to work, you can use a combination of paid retargeting, marketing automation, and social media posting.
• Create Targeted Content: One size does not fit all in the lead nurturing world. So make sure every single content piece is written with a unique buyer persona, specifically targeting their goals, interests, and objectives.
• Focus on Personalized Emails: Again, a personalized email holds the power to trigger a response from the right people at the right time.
• Follow-Up Timely: Follow up on each one of your emails promptly while keeping them engaged and interested in your particular brand.

These tactics will surely get your desired customers in your store and retain them for longer than usual. Just make sure you are being compassionate and realistic. Nobody wants to be dealing with bots.

Final Words

So there you have it; the top 5 must-have lead nurturing tools that your business needs to survive the market in 2022. As a bonus, we have also added some highly effective lead nurturing tactics. So what are you waiting for?

Get these tools and implement these tactics to get the most leads for your business.

The post Top 5 Must-Have Lead Nurturing Tools In 2022 appeared first on noupe.

If you have a website, it’s probably on WordPress!

Currently powering 43% of the web, WordPress is primarily popular because of its wide range of built-in features and incredibly active community. However, a common issue with WordPress is that it isn’t reliable when it comes to sending emails.

If you want to ensure reliable email deliverability from WordPress, you need to use an SMTP plugin. And in this article, we’ll discuss the best SMTP plugins for WordPress.

But before that, let’s understand what is an SMTP plugin and why you must have an SMTP plugin installed on your website.

What is a WordPress SMTP plugin and why do you need one?

WordPress comes with a wide array of powerful built-in features. This CMS lets you build excellent websites with many functionalities, including email sending. The email-sending feature helps you send vital notifications and transactional emails such as:

• Sign-up confirmation emails
• Password reset emails
• Form submission notifications
• purchase notifications and invoices

These emails are often vital for a website’s security and reputation, and failing to deliver such emails can cause serious issues.

Unfortunately, the default emailing functionality of WordPress isn’t reliable. Since WordPress is built using PHP, its email functionality also depends on a PHP function called wp_mail(). Whenever an email is triggered from WordPress, WordPress uses the wp_mail() PHP function to package the email and send it to your hosting server for authentication and delivery.

Most hosting servers aren’t optimized for emailing, and some don’t even offer email sending. Moreover, PHP isn’t a reliable method for authenticating emails. As a result, most hosting servers blocks PHP emails from sending, and email clients filter them to the junk folder.

This is where a WordPress SMTP plugin comes in. A WordPress SMTP plugin replaces the default mailing functionality of WordPress and authenticates WordPress emails via SMTP. You can also integrate a reliable email-sending service of your choice to ensure inbox placement.

5 Best SMTP Plugins to Fix WordPress Email Deliverability

An SMTP plugin can help you solve most of your WordPress email deliverability issues. You can choose any SMTP plugin if it supports integration with your preferred email hosting service. However, it’s ideal to choose a plugin that offers easy configuration and email logging.

Here are the 5 best WordPress SMTP plugins we’ve chosen depending on the integrations and features they offer:

FluentSMTP

FluentSMTP is undoubtedly the most powerful SMTP plugin for WordPress at this moment. It comes with the highest number of email service integrations and features. Moreover, the configuration process is easy for most email service platforms because it supports API integration.

Currently, FluentSMTP supports Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Sendinblue, PepiPost, SparkPost, and Elastic Mail integration via API, and you can connect Gmail/Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 via OAuth. FluentSMTP also supports Zoho and other email services using SMTP credentials. 

The plugin comes with some of the most advanced features compared to any available SMTP plugin. Here’s what FluentSMTP is capable of:

• Email logging: View logs of all emails sent from WordPress
• Email test: Test email deliverability by sending a sample email
• Email resending: Resend failed emails in bulk
• Multiple SMTP connections: Use two or more email-sending services for different purposes
• Email fallback: Route emails via a different service if your primary
• Reporting dashboard: Get a visual report of all emails sent from WordPress
• Auto-delete email logs: Keep your WordPress database clean by auto-deleting old email logs
• Email Summary: Regular email summary notification to stay updated about WordPress email deliverability

Despite being a relatively new plugin, FluentSMTP offers way more features than any other plugin. And the best part? —FluentSMTP promises to remain free forever! No wonder why more than 100K users have adopted this plugin!

WP Mail SMTP

WP Mail SMTP is the most popular SMTP plugin for WordPress. More than 3 million websites are utilizing this plugin to send their WordPress emails. The plugin comes with all of the key SMTP features and has an excellent setup wizard to guide you through SMTP configuration.

WP Mail SMTP offers several built-in email service integrations, which include Gmail/Google Workspace, SMTP.com, SendLayer (#1 Recommended), Sendinblue, Mailgun SMTP, SendGrid SMTP, Postmark SMTP, SparkPost SMTP, Microsoft 365, Amazon SES, Zoho. And like FluentSMTP, WP Mail SMTP lets you connect many other email services via SMTP credentials.

Key features of WP Mail SMTP include:

• Email logging: This Lets you view a log of all emails sent from WordPress
• Email reporting: Get visual stats for WordPress emails
• Open and click tracking: Track email opens and clicks for WordPress emails
• Email failure alert: Instantly sends an email notification if a WordPress email fails to send
• Email Summary: Get weekly WordPress email sending statistics notification
• Notification control: Control which WordPress email notification to send and which not to send

As an Awesome Motive product, WP Mail SMTP is the most reliable SMTP solution available for WordPress. The base plugin is free however, crucial features such as email logging is only available in the premium version, which starts at $99/Year. You can also get hands-on assistance for setting up SMTP if you need it.

Post SMTP Mailer

Post SMTP Mailer is another reliable SMTP solution with excellent features and multiple email service integrations. With its intelligent setup assistant, you can set up any supported email-sending service and test email deliverability.

Unlike the aforementioned plugins, Post SMTP Mailer only supports API integrations. This means you can only integrate Post SMTP Mailer with the supported email-sending services. Post SMTP Mailer currently supports integration with Gmail or Google Workspace, Hotmail, Yahoo, Mandrill(MailChimp’s transactional email service), Mailgun, SendGrid, Sendinblue, Amazon SES, and Office 365.

Post SMTP Mailer offers better security for sending WordPress emails. Key features of this plugin are:

• Email debugging: Test WordPress email deliverability for sent emails
• Email logging: View logs for emails sent from WordPress
• Email notification control: Control email notifications sent from WordPress
• Email fallback: Use a secondary email service if the primary service fails to deliver WordPress emails
• Security: SMTPS and STARTTLS (SSL/TLS) support for secure email delivery

Like WP Mail SMTP, Post SMTP Mailer also provides hands-on assistance for configuring your email service. Post SMTP Mailer is a great solution if you’re using any of the supported email services. However, a vital feature like email logging is only available as an extension. Membership prices start at $39.

Mail Bank

Mail Bank is a WordPress SMTP plugin that offers fewer email service integrations and features however, it does what it says on the tin. This plugin supports OAuth 2.0 integration with Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo. Additionally, you can connect MailGun and SendGrid email services via API.

Feature-wise, Mail Bank is pretty basic. Here’s a feature overview:

• Email logging: View email delivery status on email logs
• Debug log: Shows which emails failed to deliver and why
• Connectivity test: Helps you check the connectivity of the email service you’re using
• Encryption: SSL, TSL, and no encryption
• Role management: Determine which users will get to access SMTP settings

Mail Bank is a good SMTP plugin if you’re looking for a free core plugin. However, some features are locked behind the pro, which starts at $29.99/Year.

Easy WP SMTP

If you’re looking for the simplest SMTP plugin for your WordPress site’s email deliverability, Easy WP SMTP is the right tool for you. This plugin has no built-in email service integration however, you can connect any email service that allows integration via SMTP credentials.

Since this plugin supports SMTP credential integration, practically, it’s possible to integrate with any email service that supports SMTP authentication. Easy WP SMTP offers some unique features such as:

• Email testing: Test and debug email deliverability
• Domain check: Prevents using SMTP settings for additional domains

Easy WP SMTP is pretty easy to set up and delivers WordPress emails securely. It’s an excellent free option if you’re not looking for too many SMTP features. However, since this plugin doesn’t have any notification or logging feature, it can be hard to determine whether your WordPress emails are getting delivered or not.

Start sending WordPress emails the right way!

Some emails are simply too important for an authoritative website. So WordPress email deliverability failure is an alarming issue for most website owners.

Every WordPress site needs an SMTP plugin to deliver WordPress email reliably, and our list of the best WordPress SMTP plugins offers reliable email deliverability. Hopefully, now you’ll be able to choose a quality SMTP plugin and solve your WordPress email deliverability issue once and for all!

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