How to Create an Email Marketing Campaign With Brevo: Complete Step-by-Step Guide
Email marketing remains one of the most practical channels for businesses that want to communicate directly with customers, nurture leads, promote products, and build repeat engagement. The challenge is choosing a platform that combines campaign creation with automation, contact management, transactional messaging, and other customer-engagement tools without making the workflow unnecessarily complicated.
Brevo is designed around that broader approach. Formerly known as Sendinblue, the platform combines email marketing with automation, SMS, WhatsApp, transactional messaging, and sales CRM capabilities. Its current plans also provide a relatively straightforward way for businesses to start small and increase sending capacity as their needs grow. (Brevo Help)
This guide explains how to create an email marketing campaign with Brevo, from domain authentication and contact importing through campaign design, testing, and sending.
Quick verdict: Brevo is particularly suitable for small and midsize businesses, ecommerce operators, agencies, and growing brands that want email marketing alongside automation and customer-management tools. Businesses requiring highly specialized enterprise marketing orchestration or very advanced segmentation may want to compare it with platforms such as ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, or HubSpot before committing.
Editorial Scorecard
| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| Ease of Use | 4.5/5 |
| Deliverability Tools | 4.5/5 |
| Multi-Channel Features | 4.5/5 |
| Marketing Automation | 4/5 |
| Value for Money | 4.5/5 |
| Overall | 4.4/5 |
These ratings are editorial assessments based on the platform’s feature set, workflow, pricing structure, and suitability for small and midsize businesses—not guarantees of campaign performance.
What Is Brevo?
Brevo is a customer-engagement platform that brings several marketing and communication functions into one system. Its capabilities include email campaigns, transactional email, SMS, WhatsApp, automation, contact management, and sales CRM. Brevo also provides APIs covering areas such as email, contacts, events, ecommerce, and sales CRM. (Brevo Help)
For a business running a newsletter, promotional campaign, onboarding sequence, or ecommerce lifecycle workflow, this means fewer disconnected tools may be required.
The main attraction is not simply the email editor. Brevo is more useful when viewed as a platform for managing communication throughout the customer journey.
Core Brevo Features
Email Marketing and Drag-and-Drop Editor
Brevo provides a visual campaign builder that lets users construct emails using content blocks rather than requiring extensive HTML knowledge.
When creating a campaign, users can configure the sender, recipients, subject line, preview text, and email design. The drag-and-drop editor can then be used to arrange elements such as text, images, and buttons. (Brevo Help)
This approach works well for common marketing campaigns such as:
- Weekly newsletters
- Product announcements
- Promotional offers
- Educational content
- Customer onboarding
- Event invitations
- Ecommerce updates
Personalization can also make campaigns more relevant by using contact information and audience attributes. For more sophisticated campaigns, segmentation and automation can determine which message is delivered to which audience.
Multi-Channel Marketing
Email is only one part of Brevo’s broader communication platform.
Depending on the plan and configuration, businesses can use additional channels such as:
- SMS
- Conversational/live chat
- Transactional messaging
- Web and customer-engagement features
Brevo’s developer platform also provides APIs for transactional WhatsApp, email, SMS, CRM, contacts, events, and ecommerce functions. (Brevo API Documentation)
This can be useful for businesses that want promotional communication and operational messaging managed within a broader customer-engagement ecosystem.
Marketing Automation and Workflows
Automation allows businesses to trigger communication based on customer actions rather than sending every message manually.
Typical workflows can include:
New subscriber → Welcome email → Wait → Educational email → Product offer
or:
Product viewed → Customer qualifies → Follow-up message → Purchase → Post-purchase email
Ecommerce businesses can also build workflows around events such as purchases, customer activity, and abandoned-cart scenarios when the appropriate integrations and data are available.
Automation is particularly valuable once a contact list becomes large enough that manually managing every communication becomes inefficient.
Sales CRM and Pipeline Management
Brevo also includes sales CRM functionality for businesses that need more than newsletter management.
A CRM can help teams organize contacts, track deals, manage sales stages, and coordinate follow-up activities. This creates a useful connection between marketing activity and sales operations.
For smaller businesses, having email marketing and basic CRM functionality under one platform can reduce the need to immediately purchase several separate SaaS products.
Transactional Email and APIs
Marketing campaigns are different from transactional messages.
Marketing emails include newsletters, promotions, and campaigns sent to subscribers. Transactional messages are operational communications such as account notifications, order updates, and password-related emails.
Brevo provides transactional email capabilities alongside APIs for integrating communication into websites and applications. Its API documentation includes dedicated email, transactional SMS, transactional WhatsApp, contact-management, event, ecommerce, and CRM functionality. (Brevo API Documentation)
For ecommerce stores and SaaS companies, this separation between marketing and transactional communication can be particularly useful.
Brevo Pricing Model: What Makes It Different?
One of Brevo’s notable pricing characteristics is that its plans are structured around email-sending volume rather than simply charging according to the number of stored contacts.
According to Brevo’s current pricing documentation, the platform offers Free, Starter, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise plans. The Free plan starts at $0/month, Starter starts at $9/month, Standard starts at $18/month, Professional starts at $499/month, while Enterprise uses custom pricing. (Brevo Help)
The Free plan currently includes 300 daily email sends and storage for up to 100,000 contacts, along with features including email and SMS campaigns, transactional messaging, and the drag-and-drop editor. (Brevo Help)
Plan Overview
| Plan | Starting Price | General Positioning |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | Testing and small-scale sending |
| Starter | From $9/month | Growing send volumes |
| Standard | From $18/month | More advanced marketing needs |
| Professional | From $499/month | Larger-scale marketing operations |
| Enterprise | Custom | Organizations with advanced requirements |
Pricing and feature availability can change, so businesses should verify the current plan details before purchasing.
The important distinction is that a business with a large contact database does not necessarily have to pay solely because it stores more contacts. This can make the model attractive to organizations that maintain sizable lists but send relatively infrequently.
Pros and Cons of Brevo
Pros
1. Broad customer-engagement feature set
Brevo combines email, automation, transactional messaging, SMS, WhatsApp, and CRM capabilities rather than focusing exclusively on newsletters.
2. Accessible starting point
The Free plan provides a practical way to test the platform before committing to a paid subscription. (Brevo Help)
3. Large contact storage capacity
The current Free plan supports storage for up to 100,000 contacts, although the daily sending limit remains 300 emails. (Brevo Help)
4. Strong transactional capabilities
API access and transactional messaging make Brevo relevant to ecommerce stores, SaaS products, and websites that need automated operational communication. (Brevo API Documentation)
5. Useful combination of marketing and CRM
Businesses can combine campaign management with customer and sales information rather than maintaining completely separate systems.
Cons
1. Free sending capacity is limited
The Free plan’s 300-email daily limit makes it useful for experimentation but potentially restrictive for businesses with larger campaign requirements. (Brevo Help)
2. Advanced functionality may require higher plans
Some sophisticated marketing and business requirements may require upgrading beyond the entry-level plans.
3. Feature breadth can increase complexity
Because Brevo covers email, automation, CRM, transactional messaging, and multiple communication channels, first-time users may need time to understand how the different components fit together.
Brevo vs. Mailchimp vs. ActiveCampaign vs. Klaviyo
No single email platform is best for every business. The right choice depends on list size, sending volume, ecommerce requirements, automation depth, CRM needs, and budget.
| Platform | Pricing Structure | Contact Model | Multi-Channel | Built-in CRM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brevo | Primarily sending-volume based | Large contact storage | Email, SMS, WhatsApp and other channels | Yes |
| Mailchimp | Plan/contact and sending limits vary | Contact/list based | Email plus additional channels/features | Customer-management features |
| ActiveCampaign | Primarily contact/plan based | Contact-based | Email, SMS and other channels | Strong CRM |
| Klaviyo | Primarily profile/contact and usage based | Profile-based | Email, SMS and ecommerce-focused messaging | Customer profiles; CRM depth differs |
Brevo’s main differentiator is its combination of sending-based pricing with a broad customer-engagement feature set. However, ecommerce-heavy brands may prefer Klaviyo’s specialized ecosystem, while businesses focused heavily on advanced automation may find ActiveCampaign worth evaluating.
How to Create Your First Email Campaign With Brevo
Step 1: Create Your Account and Authenticate Your Domain
Start by creating your Brevo account and setting up a professional sender address.
Before sending campaigns, domain authentication is one of the most important technical steps. Brevo currently supports domain authentication using records such as its verification TXT record, DKIM, and DMARC. (Brevo Help)
In Brevo, go to your domain settings and add the domain you use for sending.
Brevo’s newer domain setup flow can guide eligible users through authentication, while manual configuration involves adding the DNS records supplied by Brevo to your domain provider. (Brevo Help)
Why authentication matters
Authentication helps email providers verify that your organization is authorized to send messages from the domain. It also helps protect your brand against spoofing and can improve the likelihood of legitimate messages reaching recipients’ inboxes. (Brevo Help)
Do not copy generic DNS values from another website. Use the exact records Brevo generates for your account and domain.
Step 2: Import and Organize Your Contacts
Before creating a campaign, import the contacts who have permission to receive your marketing emails.
Brevo’s campaign documentation specifically recommends having the required contacts imported before creating your first campaign. (Brevo Help)
Organize contacts using appropriate lists, attributes, or segments. For example, an ecommerce business could separate:
- New subscribers
- Existing customers
- Repeat buyers
- High-value customers
- Leads
- Inactive subscribers
Avoid purchasing email lists. Sending unsolicited marketing messages can damage sender reputation, increase complaints, and violate platform policies or applicable regulations.
Step 3: Create and Design the Campaign
In the Brevo dashboard, go to:
Marketing → Campaigns → Create Campaign → Email
Then select the appropriate campaign type and give the campaign an internal name. Brevo’s current campaign workflow allows you to configure the sender, recipients, subject line, preview text, and design. (Brevo Help)
Build the Email
Use the visual editor to arrange:
- Logo or brand header
- Main headline
- Supporting copy
- Relevant image or product content
- Primary call-to-action
- Supporting information
- Footer and unsubscribe information
Keep the design focused. A campaign does not need dozens of visual elements to be effective.
Write a Useful Subject Line
A good subject line should accurately represent the email.
Examples:
- New: Our Complete Email Marketing Guide
- Your September Product Update
- 3 Ways to Improve Your Email Campaigns
Avoid misleading claims, excessive punctuation, or tactics designed purely to manipulate opens.
Add Personalization Carefully
Personalization can make a message more relevant, but it should be used where the underlying customer data is reliable.
For example:
Hi {{first name}},
is useful when first-name data is consistently available. Poor-quality data can produce awkward messages, so always preview and test personalized fields before sending.
Step 4: Test, Schedule, and Send
Before launching the campaign, review the recipient list, sender information, subject line, links, images, personalization, and mobile appearance.
Send test emails to yourself and relevant colleagues.
Then review the campaign settings and select whether to send immediately or schedule it for a later time. Brevo’s campaign workflow supports regular campaigns as well as A/B testing options for comparing versions of a campaign. (Brevo Help)
After sending, monitor the campaign results and use the data to improve future messages.
Pay attention to metrics such as:
- Delivery rate
- Opens
- Clicks
- Unsubscribes
- Bounces
- Spam complaints
- Conversions
Do not judge campaign quality from open rate alone. Apple Mail privacy features and other changes in email measurement can make opens less precise than they once were. Clicks and downstream conversions are often more useful indicators of business value.
Email Deliverability Best Practices
Brevo provides the infrastructure, but successful deliverability is not guaranteed simply by choosing a particular email provider.
Your sending practices matter.
Authenticate your domain
Configure the authentication records supplied by Brevo and verify that your domain shows as authenticated. Brevo states that domain authentication is important for legitimate sending and protection against spoofing. (Brevo Help)
Send only to permission-based contacts
Use subscribers who have legitimately opted in to receive your marketing communication.
Keep your list clean
Remove or suppress repeatedly bouncing addresses and monitor inactive subscribers.
Start responsibly
New domains and sending identities should establish a positive reputation gradually rather than immediately attempting extremely high-volume campaigns.
Make unsubscribing easy
A clear unsubscribe mechanism is important for both user experience and responsible email marketing.
Final Verdict: Is Brevo Good for Email Marketing?
Brevo is a strong option for businesses looking for more than a basic newsletter platform.
Its combination of email campaigns, automation, transactional messaging, SMS, WhatsApp, CRM, and API capabilities gives it broader scope than a simple email-sending tool. The pricing structure can also be attractive for organizations that want to maintain a substantial contact database without having their costs determined solely by stored contacts. (Brevo Help)
For small businesses, ecommerce operators, agencies, startups, and budget-conscious growing brands, Brevo is worth considering.
However, it is not automatically the best choice for every organization. Businesses with highly specialized ecommerce requirements, extremely advanced automation needs, or complex enterprise marketing operations should compare Brevo against alternatives before making a decision.
The best approach is to start with your actual requirements: contact volume, monthly sending volume, automation complexity, CRM needs, ecommerce integrations, transactional email requirements, and budget.
Our Verdict
Brevo earns a 4.4/5 editorial rating for small and midsize businesses seeking an integrated email marketing and customer-engagement platform.
If the platform’s current features and pricing match your requirements, you can explore it further:
[Insert Affiliate Link / CTA Button — Try Brevo]
Disclosure: LedgCraft.com may earn a commission if you purchase or sign up for Brevo through certain links on this page. This does not affect our editorial assessment or the price you pay. Our goal is to provide independent, useful information so readers can make informed software decisions.