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LAST UPDATED: June 27th, 2019

BlueHornet is an enterprise email service provider specializing in lifecycle messaging for e-commerce marketers. They boast an "intuitive, all-inclusive email marketing software platform and services," and provide a cloud-based platform allowing you to build email campaigns, manage your email marketing, and analyze your success.

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The Good

  • Large clients
  • Number of features
  • Webinars
  • Analysis
  • Subscriber base expansion

BlueHornet clients include:

  • Allen Edmonds
  • KFC
  • PacSun
  • Slacker
  • CNet
  • Microsoft
  • Omni Hotels & Resorts
  • Participant Media
  • The Ladders
  • Xerox

What sets BlueHornet apart from its peers is the sheer number of features it offers. Just within their email deliverability management services, they offer several features including real-time monitoring, in-all reporting, and monthly email deliverability reviews. Their email marketing experts also monitor delivery metrics, identify issues, engage with ISPs on your behalf, and provide recommendations for improved email deliverability, among many other services. They also offer many features for segmentation management, asset management, email campaign automation, integrations and reporting and analytics. BlueHornet offers free live or on-demand webinars as well as slide presentations with tips and tricks to help you better capitalize on their services. They also provide 24/7 email technical support. Online and in-app education resources are also there to quickly guide you through their email marketing platform as you go. They also provide custom education sessions for your team or onsite or Web-Ex-based engagements. After creating and sending your email campaign, BlueHornet provides you with detailed analysis to see if your marketing is paying off. Analysis software tools include:

  • Active Clicker Segments
  • Social Response Targeting
  • Mobile Response Targeting
  • Progressive Profiling
  • Static and Dynamic Segments

BlueHornet is also committed to helping you expand your subscriber base. New customers can join your list through SocialLoop, Text-to-Join, webforms, and more.

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The Bad

  • Lack of information on website
  • Customer support
  • Reported interface issues

If you're hoping to get a thorough understanding of features from BlueHornet's website, you won't find it. The site gives an overview of their mission and a few looks into some of their features, but for the most part, you'll be directed to contact them for a "demo request." Approximate pricing isn't listed on their site either. Even though BlueHornet boasts about their "360" support where they're available 24/7/365, for technical support, you have to send an email and wait for a response. The phone number does not provide technical support and there is no option to live chat with a representative. There's also no online community-no frequently asked questions or forums. Some reviewers have found that they focus more on selling and not on current clients. Reviewers have found the interface "poor and clunky" and that reports are often inaccurate.

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The Bottom Line

BlueHornet has been in business for 15 years and has built up quite a reputation in that amount of time. They offer a robust list of features in all aspects of email marketing from email design, to subscriber signups, to list management, to automation, to integration, and reporting and analytics, among others; however, it can be difficult to determine exact features and prices since they don't list them on their site and require you to contact them for customized pricing. They also offer a free trial, but, again, you have to contact them to sign up rather than signing up directly from the site and beginning the trial immediately. This may be a turn off, particularly for smaller companies; however, most users, including many Fortune 500 companies, have felt positively about their experience with BlueHornet due to the advanced features.

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Amy New York, NY

I have been using BH for three years. In that time, I've learned to deal with its clunky UI. Searching and modifying subscribers is time-consuming and unnecessarily difficult. (Pro tip: export your data in an Excel file, perform whatever searched and mods you need to do, then re-import. You'll save hours.) The WYSIWIG template editing requires html skills if you want to change them in any way. The MS Word cut-and-paste feature helps a little, but double-check and triple-check your work, running frequent test mailings, as you're likely to find that the formatting in the preview is only an approximation of the finished product. Customer support is not at all helpful. I once spent literally half a workday trying to get a hold of tech support. Once I did, they weren't able to fix my problem and sent me elsewhere. There is no FAQ or help section available, and the tutorials they provide in place of help often don't address the problem the user is facing. To top it off, there's a "security feature" that automatically blocks all IP addresses from accessing the full platform and dashboard if more than one IP address is used to access it. Got more than one user? Prepare to be blocked at some point. The same thing happens if you don't log in for over 20 days (I'm told by one of the aforementioned "tech support" representatives). If you are able to log in, you access a partial dashboard, with no ability to create or edit messages or add or modify subscribers. This is not optimal. The pricing is moderate to high for the value received. BH does feature some powerful analytics and tracking features. It can also handle mass-scale mailings, which is great. Is it worth the effort and aggravation for the price? My firm ultimately decided it was not.

6 years ago