Wix Email Marketing: All You Need to Know About Ascend
Email marketing is one of the best ways to promote your business. Using a specialized email marketing tool will make it easier to plan campaigns, gather a great email list, and track the success of your marketing efforts.
But does Wix have email marketing? The Ascend Suite is a Wix solution for marketing and business and provides an email marketing service.
This article will provide everything you need to know about Ascend, including Wix email marketing pricing and how easy to use it is. You will also learn what third-party alternatives to Wix email marketing exist and how to set them up.
In This Article
What Is Ascend by Wix?
Ascend by Wix is a marketing and customer management suite provided by the popular website builder. It’s built into the Wix dashboard, making it easier to manage the marketing features together with other aspects of a Wix website.
The difference between a Wix plan and an Ascend plan is that while a Wix plan upgrades the website’s general capabilities, Ascend plans intend to add professional business functions.
Ascend features SEO tools, social posts, a video maker tool, integrations, live chat, forms, and an email marketing service.
The email marketing suite offers an email editor, marketing automation, and analytics.
Wix Ascend Pricing Plans
Limited plan – completely free, available for every Wix site. Offers limited functionality for forms, only two automations, the email marketing suite (with a monthly quota of three email campaigns and 5,000 emails), social posts, and invoices, but no payment forms, chat, VIP support, or multiple team members. Emails are sent with Ascend by Wix branding.
Basic plan – gives basic access to all the features except VIP support and multiple team members. Offers five email campaigns and 9,500 emails per month – $12 monthly ($10 if paid yearly).
Professional plan – all functions available with increased limits – $29 monthly ($24 if paid yearly).
Unlimited plan – 1,000,000 emails per month and ten actions per marketing automation. Other functions with no limits. $59 monthly ($49 if paid yearly).
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Wix Ascend Features
Following, we’ll closely examine some of the main Ascend features.
Drag-And-Drop Email Editor
The Wix email marketing editor is very similar to the website builder tool. One menu contains all the features required to create fantastic newsletters: from text and images to buttons, links, and videos. Colors, fonts, and backgrounds are fully customizable.
It’s a drag-and-drop editor, meaning that items are added by clicking on the menu and dragging them to the page. Items can also be inserted by positioning the cursor and clicking on the button, and they can be moved around.
However, there is less freedom of movement than in Wix Editor. The Editor is based on templates, and some features cannot be moved around depending on the template. The footer contains many useful features, such as social icons, but it’s not possible to completely customize it outside the predetermined options.
Templates
There are about two dozen templates for creating Wix email marketing campaigns and newsletters. Depending on the season and holiday, Wix adds or removes some templates.
Ascend offers templates for newsletters, product updates, sales announcements, events, or blog updates.
The suite integrates with other Wix features, so sales and products are connected to Wix stores.
The templates are clean and responsive, but compared to the Wix Editor, they are fewer.
Similarly to the Editor, you can change the themes after starting to design, although not the general template. Every email is written from a new one.
Email Automation
Automation is an action in response to an event trigger – for instance, a customer receives an email confirming purchases and informing the order status.
Ascend marketing automation connects to other website builder features like Wix Stores or Forms.
The complexity and number of actions per automation depend on the Ascend and Wix plans. Automations requiring advanced shipping features, for instance, will not work with the Wix Business Basic plan, requiring an upgrade.
Available automations include emailing customers with abandoned carts, setting email campaigns, asking for feedback after purchases, or welcoming new customers.
Basic email functions like auto-responses or informing on order status and purchases are available. Still, resources like advanced segmentation may require third-party tools like Mailchimp (see below).
Analytics
Wix email marketing analytics are available as part of the marketing integrations. Go to the Marketing & SEO menu and click Show more reports to access them.
Advanced reports require upgrading to the Wix Business VIP plan. However, Ascend Free integrates with several tools from the start, including Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and Google Tag Manager, providing a range of reports and data for all plans.
Specific Wix email marketing analytics is divided into three sections – “email campaign performance,” “email campaign engagement over time,” and “email campaign clicks.” You can select timeframes, use filters, and create custom views.
Support
Ascend doesn’t have dedicated customer service – its support is the same as Wix’s. There’s no chat support but a 24/7 email service. Phone support is available only through a callback system for customers requiring calls.
Customers opting for the Ascend Unlimited plan will receive VIP customer care. Meaning their emails will get priority support in the ticket and callback systems.
Most Wix and Ascend issues can be solved by consulting their well-documented Help Center. The Wix Status page displays service availability, outages, and any issues. It’s also possible to report the problems on that page.
Wix also provides free courses, tutorials, webinars, and certifications with Wix Learn. The system offers knowledge on many topics, not necessarily Wix-centric, and is considered part of Wix Support.
Is It Easy to Use Ascend by Wix?
Most of Ascend’s features are seamlessly integrated with Wix, being added during the initial steps of website building according to the information provided by the users.
If you have a Wix website with a blog or online stores, you probably already used Ascend features from the free plan, such as forms, without even noticing it.
Wix is well-known for having one of the most user-friendly editors in the market, and the Ascend Suite, including the email marketing tool, mirrors that.
- The email marketing editor is easily accessible from the Email Marketing dashboard under Marketing & SEO (see below). It works based on templates and is very intuitive. Every function is visible and at hand. The email editor’s workflow is quite similar to the Wix Editor – we recommend looking at our Wix tutorial to learn how to operate it.
- The SEO Wiz works similarly to a guide. Activate it in the Dashboard’s SEO tools by clicking Get found on Google. It will ask questions such as the website name, the nature of the business, and keywords. After that, it creates checklists and suggests changes to improve the website’s search engine optimization on every page created.
Other functions like automations are equally easy to find in the dashboard and to use.
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How to Create a Wix Email Campaign
Let’s see now how to create email campaigns with Ascend:
First, go to the Wix dashboard, and scroll down to Marketing & SEO. Then, click Email Marketing.
Next, pick a template, or start an email marketing campaign from scratch. If this is your first one, a window with a few options will appear. Clicking Start email from scratch gives access to various templates.
If you have already created email campaigns, start others from the email marketing dashboard:
Ascend offers templates for promoting products, sending a newsletter, or promoting collections. Choose the appropriate, then edit with text, images, and other elements. At any moment, it’s possible to return to the previous steps by clicking on the bar at the top.
For adding new items, click on the button with the item and drag it onto the desired area, or position the cursor in the place and click on the button.
Add the recipients or choose segments to send the emails:
Edit the fields with subject lines, sender, and reply to email. Finally, publish and send by clicking Send Now or Schedule. There is also the option of sending a test email first.
Look at the Wix tutorial on creating email marketing campaigns for additional insights.
Any Alternatives to Wix Email Marketing?
The Wix email marketing features may attend to the needs of many online stores. However, depending on the size of your business, other email marketing tools may be more beneficial.
External email marketing solutions with no native Wix integrations can still be integrated into it by adding HTML code. To access the Wix Editor, click the + button (“add”) in the upper left corner, then go to Embed Code.
In that section, choose the most appropriate form of embedding code. Enabling the editor Velo Dev Mode allows editing the page HTML quickly.
Alternatively, you can use Zapier to connect Wix with other platforms.
Also, don’t hesitate to contact our Printify Experts – that can save you a lot of time and money.
Check out the leading email marketing services below. All of them offer free plans.
Mailchimp is the most popular tool and the industry standard for email marketing. As such, it has the advantage from the beginning compared to any other email marketing platform but comes with a price tag.
Both Wix Ascend and Mailchimp share some features, such as a drag-and-drop editor, responsive templates, forms, reports, social media integration, and bounce management.
Some of its features are covered by the Wix Editor – Mailchimp creates landing pages and has advanced reports and automations (called the “customer journey builder”), which, although not accomplished directly by Ascend, are covered to some degree by Wix.
Exclusive Mailchimp features are AI analytics and optimization, advanced segmentation (from the standard plan only), plain text emails, and several testing capabilities – A/B testing, spam, and design.
Mailchimp integrates with Wix using more than one app, depending on the feature. The Mailchimp forms app, for instance, is provided by Mailmunch. At the same time, other features are added via the Mailchimp Email Marketing PoCo, provided by Presto-Changeo.
In addition, an external subscription to Mailchimp is needed (there is no separate Wix Mailchimp pricing), and the integration requires a Wix premium plan, as Mailchimp needs a site with a domain.
These requirements make the integration somewhat chaotic and too complicated for many users. Still, Mailchimp may be the right choice if you need to escalate your email campaigns.
Pricing
(All subscriptions are paid monthly. If a plan limit is exceeded, Mailchimp charges an additional $5.50 per 250 contacts, allowing additional 2,500 emails.)
- Free plan – 2,500 emails, 500 contacts, and email support for 30 days. No customer journey builder, segmentation, or A/B testing
- Essentials – 5,000 emails, 50,000 contacts. Basic automations. $11 per month.
- Standard – 6,000 emails, 100,000 contacts. Advanced segmentation. $17 per month.
- Premium – 150,000 emails, unlimited contacts. Advanced segmentation. $299 per month.
- Pay as you go – starts from 5,000 credits costing $175 – same features as the Essentials plan. Buy credits as required. Each email costs one credit; an email sent to 50 customers costs 50 credits.
ConvertKit is an alternate email marketing service packed with features targeting online creators. It offers unlimited landing pages, forms, broadcasts, audience segmentation, and selling products and subscriptions.
Paid plans add email and live chat support, automations, third-party integrations, and advanced reporting (Creator pro plan only).
ConvertKit promises to be easier to use than Mailchimp, especially when creating automations. However, it offers fewer functions than Mailchimp, except for its knowledge base, blog, and learning resources.
Its pricing is based on the number of subscribers and starts offering a minimum of 300 subscribers.
Paid monthly, ConvertKit is more expensive than Ascend or Mailchimp – it charges $15 per 300 subscribers, against Ascend’s 9,500 emails for $12 and Mailchimp’s 5,000 emails and 50,000 contacts per $11.
ConvertKit gets an advantage only when paid annually – the same amount diminishes to $9.
Pricing
(Paid every month)
- Free plan – general features and community support. No automations. Maximum of 1,000 subscribers.
- Creator – adds live chat and email support. $15 per month for 300 subscribers and $66 for 5,000 subscribers.
- Creator Pro – adds priority live chat, email support, and advanced reporting. $29 per month for 300 subscribers, $93 per 5,000.
GetResponse is more than an email marketing platform, offering a website builder and plenty of marketing features according to customer profiles like an entrepreneur or online marketer. In many aspects, it competes with Wix itself, with an edge in email marketing but fewer website capacities.
GetResponse offers many features in every free or paid plan: newsletters, unlimited email campaigns, custom domain keys identified mail (DKIM), visual and HTML editors, templates, spam checkers, and click tracking.
Other features like social media sharing, Google Analytics tracking, automation templates, A/B testing, birthday, welcome, and thank you emails are available for all paid plans.
Pricing increases according to the number of contacts, but the number of emails remains unlimited.
GetResponse generous unlimited emails from the free plan can be associated with Wix’s more advanced capacities, including analytics and automations.
Pricing
(Paid every month)
- Free plan – contains the most necessary features for basic email marketing and unlimited emails, but no advanced reports or automations.
- Essential – adds basic and intermediary features, including A/B testing. $19 per month (1,000 contacts), $54 (5,000 contacts).
- Pro – adds functions like several automations, building emails from scratch, or dynamic segmentation. $59 per month (1,000 contacts), $95 (5,000 contacts).
- Premium – adds eCommerce functions like abandoned cart triggers. $119 per month (1,000 contacts), $169 (5,000 contacts).
- Max – custom premium solutions for professionals, starting at $999 per month.
- Max2 – unlimited plan for enterprises. Fully customizable. It starts from $1,499 per month.
AWeber is one of the most understandable and user-friendly email marketing solutions available. Instead of complicated paid plans, the service offers a free and paid plan. It is by no means the more affordable alternative to Ascend.
The only downside is the absence of native Wix integration at the moment, which will require an HTML embed code.
The AWeber free plan supports 500 subscribers. You can create a landing page, email automations, newsletters, a drag-and-drop builder, templates, sign-up forms, basic eCommerce functionality, simple analytics, integrations (social media, WordPress and WooCommerce, Shopify, Etsy, and PayPal), phone, chat, and email support.
The AWeber Pro plan adds email split testing, abandoned cart, advanced analytics and tracking, and priority support. Up to 500 subscribers cost $19.99 monthly (paid monthly), while 5,000 contacts will cost $49.99.
Would you like to explore more options before making a decision? Compare Wix vs Shopify and pick the best platform for your business.
Ready for Email Marketing?
This article discussed the main Ascend features, how it can boost your reach, and how to use it to create email marketing campaigns. You’ve also learned about third-party alternatives to Ascend for email marketing.
By this point, you have all the information needed to make an informed decision. Pick the best tool, promote your business, and profit online.
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Written by
Andris Mucenieks
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