It’s no secret that email list building is crucial for any business.
And anyone with any website knows the importance of list size when it comes to email marketing campaigns and outreach efforts.
The problem is that it can be time-consuming and difficult to grow your list in the first place – especially if you’re not already an established brand or company with a sizeable following on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Thankfully, there are some list building tools that can help.
Today, I’ll run you through 9+ email list building tools that your business can utilize to help grow your email address database, while also providing tips on how to make these tools work for you.
Let’s dive in.
How do you build a list?
List building is the process of growing your list of subscribers on an email list.
As your list grows, you are able to engage with a wider audience, increase conversions from email marketing campaigns, and grow your brand awareness in the process.
When it comes to list building – there are two main approaches: organic growth or paid acquisition.
Organic growth is all about ranking on Google and directing your audience to the list sign-up form on your website.
Paid Acquisition on the other hand involves using tools like Facebook Ads and Google Adwords to find potential subscribers and customers that fit into specific criteria around demographics, interests, etc.
Both have their own pros and cons, but they can be very powerful when combined together. Here are some list-building strategies and ways to optimize your landing page sign up forms:
Source: massmailsoftware.com
And there is a whole host of email list building tools available to help.
What are the best list building tools?
The best list building tools are:
- OptinMonster
- Get Site Control
- Hello Bar
- Picreel
- Thrive Leads
- Sleeknote
- Outgrow
- Optimonk
- Bloom
- Gravity Forms
1. OptinMonster (Best Overall)
Optinmonster is a powerful and versatile list-building software that helps website owners build an email list, yield more effective leads, and make more conversions.
This is a much more mature software compared against some of the other tools on this list, but it has stayed ahead of the competition by supplying a wide range of list-building tools like unique themes, A/B testing, geolocation targeting, and many others.
I recommend OptinMonster because it offers you the following benefits:
- Several types of list-building pop-ups in one tool. OptinMonster supplies all pop-up types, from slide-ins to lightboxes, inline forms, footer bars, full-screen forms, exit-intent pop-ups, and everything in-between.
- Integration with other tools. With OptinMonster, you can optimize your email outreach campaigns alongside other outreach and email marketing tools like MailChimp and Active Campaign.
- Loads of pre-loaded themes and templates. With numerous pre-loaded templates to ease your journey, OptinMonster gives you enough options to choose from.
- Much needed versatility for multiple projects. From setting up to automation and testing, OptinMonster lets you set pop-ups for receiving emails, target visitors based on location, refer others, trigger clicks, manage cookies information, automate processes, analyze each form, etc.
- Build everything easily and quickly. The OptinMonster plugin makes it easy to set up even for those without any knowledge of coding. Their drag and drop editor also makes it especially easy.
$ Pricing
The pricing on OptinMonster is also quite competitive, starting as low as $9 per month for the Basic plan.
However, you can get even richer features when you opt for the Plus plan ($19), Pro plan ($29), or Growth plan ($49).
2. GetSiteControl (Best Budget)
GetSiteControl is an all-in-one lead targeting platform that puts you in control. It lets you create several surveys, pop-up widgets, opt-in forms, contact forms, social media buttons, and even chatbot widgets.
There are many email list building tools out there but none that is so comprehensive. One of the features I find super helpful is being able to manage all these services from one simple dashboard – making it one of my top picks if you’re looking for email list-building tools that do it all.
I recommend this list building tool since it lets you:
- Use different targeting options. However, you want your forms to be displayed — upon clocks or behavioral triggers — GetSiteControl makes it possible.
- Get results on multiple platforms. Whether your audience uses mobile or desktop gadgets, GetSiteControl creates perfectly optimized pop-ups to display correctly on every device.
- Share services and results among multiple software. GetSiteControl integrates with thousands of marketing tools, allowing you to use your services on these apps or share your results with them.
- Track results as they happen. GetSiteControl gives real-time updates as your pages convert by notifying you of all views and clicks with its all-inclusive dashboard.
$ Pricing
GetSiteControl has some of the most affordable and simplest pricing plans.
The Small plan promises 20,000 widget views every month and comes at just $7/month.
The Medium plan goes for $14/month and gives 100,000 views, and the Large plan, which goes for $21/month, gives 500,000 widget views.
They also have a free trial, so you can test it 100% risk free.
3. Hello Bar (Best Conversions)
Hello Bar is a list-building tool dedicated to engaging your visitors in ways that make them join your mailing list and marketing campaigns. It is effective in directing visitors to specific pages, making announcements, and promoting giveaways and discounts.
This list-builder uses customizable templates to deliver pop-up bars, floating bars, slide-in, and full-screen pop-ups.
I trust Hello Bar because it offers the following:
- Use with any website and other marketing tools. Hello Bar integrates effectively with numerous other email marketing platforms, and its services are usable on any website, including Shopify, Wix, MailChimp, WordPress, etc.
- Target precisely and effectively. Its advanced targeting features let you deliver the most effective and precise messages based on a number of parameters like location, device, page visited, time, etc.
- Install without any coding knowledge. Hello Bar gets things up and running with a single click and without requiring any coding skills.
- Track changes and create reports. You can improve performance through features that allow you to track changes, get reports, and perform A/B tests.
$ Pricing
Hello Bar has a free Starter plan that gives as many as 5,000 sessions. It also offers basic support, design, and limited pop-ups.
The complete plan list also has the rich Elite plan, which gives up to 500,000 sessions at $99/month. Others are Premium ($49) and Growth ($29).
4. Picreel
Picreel is an exit-intent popup software that helps you capture the email addresses of your website visitors through highly targeted popups.
With the tool’s ability to track visitors’ digital footprint and click behavior, you can display popups at the perfect moment. This helps you turn casual browsers into valuable leads who are willing to share their contact information in exchange for discounts, promotions, or other benefits.
Thanks to Picreel’s robust integrations, visitor details can be automatically transferred to your CRM. Once the email list starts building in the CRM, you can nourish your leads and take them down the conversion funnel.
Picreel is a popular exit intent popup software that offers top-notch features and benefits such as:
- 100+ beautiful templates. The tool offers a huge library of ready-made templates for sign-up offers, discount offers, exit surveys, wheel of fortune, and many others. You can easily change the design to suit your brands’ needs without the fuss of designing a popup from scratch (although you are more than welcome to).
- Integrations with 700+ platforms. Picreel has the highest number of integrations with email marketing and CRM tools than any of its competitors. Such powerful integrations help you make the most of this popup tool and boost your outreach efforts.
- Advanced targeting. With features such as A/B testing and smart targeting options, you can personalize the popups to your audience’s taste and display them to the right visitors at the right time.
$ Pricing
All of Picreels’ plans have onsite retargeting, 10-second installation, statistics reports, email marketing, CRM integrations, and many more features.
Prices start at $14/month for their starter plan that accommodates up to 3000 monthly visitors
You also have:
- Basic Plan for $52/month for up to 10,000 monthly visitors
- Plus Plan for $112/month for up to 50,000 monthly visitors
- Pro plan for $299/month for up to 300,000 monthly visitors
- A custom enterprise plan for anything beyond 300,000 monthly visitors.
5. Thrive Leads
This list-building tool has all your lead generation needs covered as it allows you to create several types of opt-in forms on your website and eCommerce stores on the WordPress and WooCommerce platforms.
Using Thrive Leads gives you access to some of the most impressive technologies in terms of list building. You get to optimize conversions using any pop-up that matches your visitors, including slide-in, sticky bars, inline bars, screen fillers, content lock, etc.
Thrive Leads has my endorsement because it helps you to:
- Maximize email capture efforts. Thrive Leads takes care of all the technicalities involved and gives you abundant tools, like the A/B testing, to make your journey smooth.
- Setup easily and target smartly. Its drag-and-drop editor and no coding make setting up easy, while tools like advanced targeting are there to focus each visitor on the most efficient pop-ups for them at the right landing pages.
- Analyze forms to know what works. Thrive Leads also gives up-to-date reports and insights into how your forms are doing.
$ Pricing
Thrive Leads is a part of the Thrive Suite package, alongside other wonderful Thrive Themes applications and plugins.
Pricing for the entire package costs just $19/month if you pay for the entire year and $30/month when you opt for the quarterly plan.
Both plans give you unending updates, customer support, installation on 25 websites, and a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you end up unsatisfied.
6. Sleeknote
Sleeknote is a lead generation tool that lets you do more, including marketing automation and list building. With Sleeknote, you can guide visitors and enhance how you market, thereby leading to better sales.
Ideal for eCommerce and service websites, it allows you to create strategies that grow your email list effortlessly.
I love this list building software because it allows you to:
- Use powerful targeting features. Sleeknote believes that “no two visitors are alike.” Hence, its targeting is highly specialized, using parameters such as referral source, sales funnel route, and whether the user is new or returning. This will allow you to efficiently optimize your landing pages to convert.
- Customize templates in line with your brand and target. Its user-friendly pop-up builder lets you design pop-ups and slide-ins that appeal to visitors and suit your business needs.
- Optimize your website to stay compliant with Google policies. Sleeknote’s services comply with the interstitials policy from Google, and that means you stay on the right side of google while building your email list.
$ Pricing
All Sleeknote plans come with numerous features, unlimited domains and campaigns, customer support, and a success manager.
The plans include Lite (€49/month), Basic (€59/month), Plus (€114/month), Pro (€225/month), and Premium (€687/month).
All plans also come with a free trial period that allows you to test each service.
7. Outgrow
Outgrow is a content marketing tool that helps individuals and brands generate leads through interactive content.
Interactive content is an essential list-building tool, and this software allows you to create content using estimation calculators, interactive quizzes, assessment and giveaway creators, polls, survey forms, and chatbots.
This software has numerous templates that can help you get unique data about your list.
Outgrow has my vote of confidence because it enables you to:
- Build different list-building tools without coding. Outgrow has a rich platform that allows you to build simple and advanced marketing tools without coding skills.
- Design and customize modern style forms. With a wide range of templates, Outgrow lets you customize list building and data forms in modern ways that represent your brand and that your audience can easily relate with.
- Embed interactive experience in multiple platforms. Outgrow allows you to get your audience’s attention by setting up pop-ups and forms anywhere you want, including on websites, chatbots, emails, bars, etc.
- Analyze performance and leverage on data. The robust analytics panel helps to analyze performance and opens up ways to better the process.
$ Pricing
Outgrow has a flexible pricing plan, with the popular Freelancer Limited plan starting at $14/month.
The Freelancer plan is priced at $25/month, while Essentials and Business plans are $95 and $600, respectively.
8. Optimonk
An email list-building software already in use on more than 40,000 websites, Optimonk enhances lead generation and conversion on eCommerce websites like Shopify.
This revolutionary software that started in 2014 has since won accolades for allowing users to promote their products, share experiences with their list, and boost sales.
Some of the pop-ups in the library include lightbox pop-ups, slide-ins, and exit-intent pop-ups.
Optimonk has my approval because it enables you to:
- Deliver specific products to those who need them. Apart from being highly specialized for eCommerce websites, its robust targeting also allows you to generate leads more effectively by targeting and retargeting through behavioral patterns.
- Take advantage of a wide range of features. Optimonk has multiple tools designed to give you a smooth experience. They include A/B testing, advanced targeting, real-time analytics, and integration with email and eCommerce platforms.
- Generate leads and build lists for free. Optimonk gives you an unlimited number of campaigns on a domain with an opportunity of getting around 3000 views for free.
- Design without code. Its new popup drag and drop builder allows you to seamlessly design and collect contact details that are completely aligned with your brand and messaging without the hassle.
$ Pricing
The free trial gives you a way to test the services. However, you can get even more for very little from the other plans.
The Essential plan, which gives a massive 25,000 views, is only $29/month, and the Growth plan goes for $79. The Premium plan is a favorite that is priced at $199/month.
9. Bloom
Bloom is a powerful email list-building software that allows WordPress sites to target email contacts.
This list-building tool is a part of the popular group of plugins from Elegant Themes and is designed to create interactive forms anywhere on your website through special targeting techniques.
I like Bloom for offering the following benefits:
- Get multiple display and pop-up types. Bloom allows you to display pop-ups on your landing pages from several beautiful themes that come in 6 different styles, including fly-ins, inline, below content, widget area, and unlock required.
- Customize a pop-up that truly represents your brand. You can choose or use more than 100 templates as a model to create a unique pop-up or form to your taste. You can edit features like colors, orientation, borders, etc.
- An all-in-one panel for automation and management. Bloom makes it easy to modify settings, test processes, track changes, get statistics, and even import or export data.
$ Pricing
Bloom’s pricing plan is quite different from others.
There is a Yearly Access plan at $70/year and a Lifetime Access plan at $199.
Getting access to Bloom also gets you the services of other tools in the suite. That means you get all the elegant themes and plugins for life at only $199.
10. Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is a list-building software specially built for WordPress sites that makes it possible to build several interactive forms. Hence, it has never been easier to generate leads and manage finances professionally.
It integrates seamlessly into WordPress and can be customized from the dashboard.
This makes it easy to grow your contact list by embedding beautiful and interactive forms on your WordPress landing pages.
This tool has my vote of confidence because it allows you to:
- Get loads of form fields for every data point you need. With more than 30 different form fields, Gravity Forms allows you the freedom to collect as much data as you want from a single form.
- Integrate easily with marketing outreach tools. Gravity Forms works well with digital marketing services and third-party tools like Pitchbox, Voila Norbert, Campaign Monitor, PayPal, etc. It makes it possible to send and manage emails quickly.
- Use addons for a more enhanced experience. When you use Gravity Forms, you also get access to multiple addons that further increase functionality for surveys, polls, quizzes, etc.
$ Pricing
With just $59 per year, you can access the Basic License plan from Gravity Forms. However, there are even richer plans if you can afford to pay a little more.
That includes the pro License at $159 and the Elite License for $259, all per year.
Conclusion
There are several list-building tools to choose from for marketers and businesses. Each have features that make it stand out, especially when you compare the plans on offer.
One thing they have in common is their potential to help scale outreach efforts beyond expected levels.
I recommend OptinMonster as a great list-builder tool because of its ease of use with WordPress sites, integration with third-party services, multiple form fields/features available, etc., all at affordable prices.
I also like GetSiteControl’s ability to create custom forms and easily integrate email marketing services and eCommerce platforms so effortlessly along with other benefits mentioned above.
Finally, I give my vote of confidence for Optimonk as a fantastic list-building tool with its high-quality, high-performing forms and the ability to gather data from clients quickly.
Either way, you can’t go wrong with any of the tools mentioned in the list.
Good luck and happy list-building!
Jessica
