AI Features in 4 top email marketing platforms

ActiveCampaign has advanced AI capabilities built into it. Not sure where to start with an email or workflow? You don’t need to, just input a brief and AI will add a recommended template and content.

• Branding – when you are setting up a campaign, you can add your website URL and ActiveCampaign will pull your logo and brand colours. You can then use this brand kit for future email campaigns.
• Content – Similar to Hubspot, you can select a block in the email builder and AI will write the content for you or help you make edits and improvements. You can choose whether you accept these changes.
• Images – If you can’t find the right image for your campaign, you can generate one from within the email builder.
• Send‑time optimisation – ActiveCampaign looks at historical data to work out when a contact is most likely to open an email.

Dotdigital refers to it’s AI features as Winston AI. You can ask the AI assisstant to support with:

• Feedback – Not sure about your email? Ask AI! It will provide feedback and comment on areas of your email that might seem unclear and how the tone may be perceived. It won’t make these updates for you though.
• Predictive sending – Same as in ActiveCampaign, emails can be sent at a time most likely to be opened by the user.
• AI subject line optimisation- Write in your subject line and AI will make alternative suggestions. You can generate more suggestions if you don’t like what’s shown. Suggestions are based on data and best practices for email open rates.

Hubspot is a comprehensive CRM in it’s own right, but many organisations rely on Hubspot’s email marketing tool specifically. Here are 3 key features of AI for Hubspot emails:

• Automated content generation – Create a brief, including what you are selling and who you are selling to, and Hubspot’s AI will draft an email for you.
• Update copy – If you are unsure about the words you have chosen, you can select the text and AI will offer to rephrase, shorten, expand the copy or change the tone. You can either accept or reject suggestions.
• Subject lines – Click a button and AI will analyse the message of your email and create a subject line for you.

Intuit MailChimp is well known for it’s ability to help users design and send emails in a user-friendly way. Here are the AI features it includes:

• Prompt – Like with Hubspot, provide a short brief or select an option from the menu, and AI will draft your email copy for you.
• Predictive sending – As with the other tools, send when is best for the receiver is most likely to open your email.
• Copy – The built-in AI feature creates copy, rewrites sections or polishes messaging.
• Subject lines – AI will suggest a subject line based on analysis of subject lines that drove email opens.

AI is everywhere, so it’s no surprise email marketing platforms are using functionality driven by AI. All of the platforms have various similarities, particularly with subject lines and send time optimisation.

What differentiates the platforms is the actions the AI features can take. Some of the tools are using AI to guide and make suggestions to the user. Others have AI agents which can take actions, like writing copy and building out the campaign. (If you’d like to understand the differences between AI more, check out our post 5 levels of agentic maturity).

There are numerous factors that should be taken into account when choosing an email marketing platform, consider how important the use of AI is for your team when making this choice.