First things first

It needs to be said before we dig into the details: This blog post is not in any way a swipe at Kartra. The problem of proper email authentication with shared mailbox environments (where emails from multiple domains are all sent out through a single connection) is common to many marketing platforms on the market today. Kartra has acknowleged the difficulties and is working tirelessly to have the changes in place before the deadline. Other platforms are following suit as well. Regardless, the solution is not a quick fix, and we need to give Kartra and the other platforms the time they need to properly design, test, and implement the changes needed. In the meantime, because Kartra does give us multiple integration options, we don't have to panic.

What's changing, and why won't KartraMail be compatible?

Before you go down the rabbit hole...

We know there are some people who HATE tech. It drives them crazy and makes them feel inadequate. We get it. We all have our own specialties and one of ours happens to be tech. But maybe that's not you, and THAT'S OK. Maybe you would just rather have an expert take care of the heavy lifting so you can move on with your life and do what you love. This can be complicated stuff, and one wrong move can make things worse. A LOT worse. If this appeals to you, we have your back. Click the Do It For Me button below to set up a call to discuss your needs, no strings attached.

If you happen to be a DIYer who feels pretty confident about this process, we have a button for that too. Click the button below to receive priority access to our soon-to-be-released DIY guide on integrating Kartra with the mystery email gateway winner. Included with the DIY guide is an 11 page PDF with Bonus Content on the gateway face-off.

Still with us? Here we go!

Scoring criteria

We tested each email gateway platform using a variety of objective and subjective criteria. Some things, like cost and delivery results, are fairly easy to score. Other things, like ease of use and support friendliness, are a bit more difficult. With that said, I think we've done our best to present a fair, unbiased ranking of the services based on the needs and expectations of typical Kartra users.

We performed the testing as if we were an end-user signing up for the platform for the first time. For each gateway, we created an account, configured our DNS records, integrated with Kartra, sent a campaign email, and even interacted with their support team when possible. We documented our experiences every step of the way and broke scoring down using the following criteria:

Price/Value

Ease of Setup

Site Navigation

Reporting

Public Sender Reputation

Simulated Delivery Results

Customer Support

Target Customer 

RESULTS

The results of testing in each category are listed below after brief descriptions of the criterias used. As of 12/1/23, there is a major caveat regarding Postmark and its compatibility with Kartra. While Kartra does have an official integration in place with Postmark, there is currently a bug in Kartra's integration that negatively affects the connection between platforms. Because of this, Postmark will eventually pause a sending account until the issue can be resolved. Kartra is aware of the issue and is addressing it internally. There is no timeframe for when this issue might be resolved. Because of this, we've included the runner-up in each case where Postmark won the category. We'll come back and update this post once the fix is in place and tested by our team.

If you'd like to see the detailed scoring, including the weighting applied (because some categories are more critical than others), click the button below to request your copy along with getting priority access to our free DIY guide for integration between Kartra and our suggested gateway platform once the document is ready for release.

Value/Price

For VALUE, we considered that each platform on the list sells XX number of included emails per month for a set fee. While the number of included emails is not consistent across the group, we don't need a complicated math equation to figure out the answer. The result is a simple dollar per email comparison. But for many online marketers, especially those who are in the early stages of business, the minimum monthly cost is equally important, or maybe even more so. Recurring monthly fees can get out of hand quickly, so business owners who need to consider this number will appreciate the PRICE scoring category.

WINNER: SendGrid (Value)

WINNER: ElasticEmail (Price)

Ease of Setup

This category was more about which platform performed the worst, as 3 of the 4 were equally easy to set up. For some reason, ElasticEmail requires an SPF record format that will present issues when an SPF flattening service is used. This is becoming more common, and because we use such a service ourselves, it actually affected our ability to verify the account during setup.

WINNERS: All but ElasticEmail

Site Navigation

Finding your way around a web portal can be very frustrating and inefficient if it's not properly designed and organized. We looked at the visual layout of each gateway's site structure, as well as intuitive organization, breadcrumbs, and overall look and feel.

WINNER: Postmark

RUNNERS-UP: ElasticEmail & Mailgun

Reporting

While the bulk of analytics and reporting data will continue to be accessible in Kartra, can be helpful to look at deliverability data on the sending platform. In this category, we looked at the ease of finding and viewing reports, as well as the level of detail included

WINNER: Postmark

RUNNERS-UP: ElasticEmail & Mailgun

Public Sender Reputation

In this category, we looked at actual results from each of the spam scoring reporters listed below. These are all commercial entities in one form or another. IP Blocklists are considered by some experts to be slightly less relevant than they once were. But a higher number can sometimes be a sign of a provider has less focus on deliverability than others who monitor their status on various blocklists and make corrections to lower their exposure. These values and results will fluctuate over time as providers change subscriber policing practices and raise (or lower) standards.

WINNER: Postmark

RUNNER-UP: Mailgun

Simulated Delivery Results

For this criteria, we looked at delivery placement of the campaigns sent to the 65 test addresses across AOL, Outlook.com, Yahoo, Gmail, Exchange Online, and Google Workspace. It's important to note that these tests are considered "simulated". Yes, they are actual email accounts on these platforms, but there is no human interaction with the test messages once received. Because of this, there is no way to consider engagement statistics (and engagement tends to be more relevant to email content once in the Inbox). 

WINNER: Postmark

RUNNER-UP: SendGrid

Customer Support

The majority of our customer support interactions occurred over email, with one taking place over live chat (SendGrid). With any text-based communication, it can be difficult to glean friendliness or attitude. But you can look at the overall tone and effort put into the message to get a sense of the attitude and expectations of the support agent at the other end. Is this an over-generalization? Maybe. But I think we can all agree that an email interaction with a support agent can feel cold and sterile, warm and friendly, or somewhere in between. This score is VERY subjective based on the level of "warm and fuzzies" we felt from the support staff. We also included response times when calculating the ranking.

WINNER: SendGrid

Intended Customer Type

In the final category, we looked at what we thought the platform was targeting in terms of customer size, and then scored according to how those expectations might align with a Kartra-run businesses. In general terms, this includes things like a user's experience with complicated email settings and functions, available technical resources, and the level of detail provided in customer support interactions. As an example, if the platform targets larger companies with in-house IT, or assumes the user will be leveraging their platform for campaign management (and this is already handled in Kartra), the platform is probably not the best choice in our scenario.

WINNER: Postmark

RUNNER-UP: SendGrid

 And the winner is...

MailGun!

In all honesty, the winner was Postmark by a nose. But with the current bug in the Kartra integration, it would be irresponsible to encourage users to head to that platform right now, especially since Kartra hasn't actually announced the bug. (They've acknowledged it, but haven't announced it proactively or added a note to the integration portal). With that being said, we've been using Mailgun internally for a month or so and have been very happy. We've also helped a few clients migrate to Mailgun and the results have been equally positive. Is it the right choice for you? Maybe. Probably. We came up with our scores based on the importance we placed on each category. You might put more emphasis on different categories. Be sure to REQUEST a copy of the detailed results to make your own informed decision. And receive a free Kartra-Mailgun setup guide on us!

And remember, the results we encountered and used in our scoring will evolve and change over time. That's just the nature of technology, and especially email deliverability, as the Googles and Microsofts of the world continue to ramp up their attacks on spam. Email deliverability is not a "fix it and move on" sort of thing, you need to be continually watching, testing, and working to stay current on the latest trends. And if this is an overwhelming thought, or you'd just rather focus on your Zone of Genius, remember that we're here on the bleeding edge, testing out the latest and greatest (and experiencing whatever pain that might bring us) so you don't have to. ;-)