Learn how to use Sitecore for email marketing. Discover setup steps, personalization tactics, and best practices to boost campaign performance and ROI.
Learn how to use Sitecore for email marketing. Discover setup steps, personalization tactics, and best practices to boost campaign performance and ROI.
Sitecore offers two distinct email marketing tools: the Email Experience Manager (EXM), built into its legacy Experience Platform, and Sitecore Send, its cloud-native email automation platform. Choosing the right one, and using it well, directly affects whether your campaigns generate predictable revenue or disappear into spam folders. This guide covers both tools, explains how to set them up strategically, and shows you how to measure the ROI that makes the investment worthwhile.
Key Takeaways
For every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses see a return of $36, making it one of the highest-ROI channels available to any marketing team.
Sitecore offers two email tools: EXM for on-premise XP deployments and Sitecore Send for cloud-native, composable DXP setups. They serve different infrastructure needs.
Sitecore Send's Audience Discovery tool uses AI and machine learning to identify audiences based on behavior, automatically detecting signals like "purchase probability" and applying them to email lists for more relevant sends.
Segmented and personalized emails generate 58% of all revenue, which makes Sitecore's segmentation tools central to any serious email strategy.
Automated workflows generate 30x higher returns compared to one-off email campaigns, meaning that how you set up your automation logic matters as much as the content itself.
Understanding Sitecore's Two Email Marketing Tools
Before building any strategy, you need to understand which Sitecore email tool applies to your setup. They are not interchangeable.
Email Experience Manager (EXM)
The Email Experience Manager (EXM) helps you create and deliver bulk email campaigns or targeted email campaigns quickly and easily. EXM enables you to create highly personalized email campaigns and also provides the backend to optimize a campaign and track its success.
Email campaigns in EXM are an integrated part of the Experience Platform that relies heavily on the tracking, reporting, and segmentation functionality of the Experience Database (xDB).
EXM is a feature of the Sitecore Experience Platform that requires a license and installation on your own server. It integrates seamlessly with the Sitecore CMS and the Sitecore Experience Database (xDB), allowing you to use existing customer data and content for email personalization. With features like A/B testing, analytics, segmentation, and automation, EXM gives you greater control over your email infrastructure and increased scalability and performance.
Sitecore offers two distinct email marketing tools: the Email Experience Manager (EXM), built into its legacy Experience Platform, and Sitecore Send, its cloud-native email automation platform. Choosing the right one, and using it well, directly affects whether your campaigns generate predictable revenue or disappear into spam folders. This guide covers both tools, explains how to set them up strategically, and shows you how to measure the ROI that makes the investment worthwhile.
Key Takeaways
For every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses see a return of $36, making it one of the highest-ROI channels available to any marketing team.
Sitecore offers two email tools: EXM for on-premise XP deployments and Sitecore Send for cloud-native, composable DXP setups. They serve different infrastructure needs.
Sitecore Send's Audience Discovery tool uses AI and machine learning to identify audiences based on behavior, automatically detecting signals like "purchase probability" and applying them to email lists for more relevant sends.
Segmented and personalized emails generate 58% of all revenue, which makes Sitecore's segmentation tools central to any serious email strategy.
Automated workflows generate 30x higher returns compared to one-off email campaigns, meaning that how you set up your automation logic matters as much as the content itself.
Understanding Sitecore's Two Email Marketing Tools
Before building any strategy, you need to understand which Sitecore email tool applies to your setup. They are not interchangeable.
Email Experience Manager (EXM)
The Email Experience Manager (EXM) helps you create and deliver bulk email campaigns or targeted email campaigns quickly and easily. EXM enables you to create highly personalized email campaigns and also provides the backend to optimize a campaign and track its success.
Email campaigns in EXM are an integrated part of the Experience Platform that relies heavily on the tracking, reporting, and segmentation functionality of the Experience Database (xDB).
EXM is a feature of the Sitecore Experience Platform that requires a license and installation on your own server. It integrates seamlessly with the Sitecore CMS and the Sitecore Experience Database (xDB), allowing you to use existing customer data and content for email personalization. With features like A/B testing, analytics, segmentation, and automation, EXM gives you greater control over your email infrastructure and increased scalability and performance.
In the EXM dashboard there are two types of email campaigns to choose from: a regular email campaign with no predefined content or recipients, and an automated email campaign used in marketing automation workflows, where an automated email is sent when a contact triggers an event.
Sitecore Send
Sitecore Send is a cloud-native, microservices-based, API-first marketing platform that helps marketers make contextual and personalized commitments with the help of customer data. It makes generating and sending emails easier, and it allows marketers to execute omnichannel customer engagement without coding.
Sitecore has been shifting from its flagship integrated suite to a new SaaS-based platform, and as part of that move, acquired Moosend and rebranded it as Sitecore Send.
Sitecore Send serves thousands of customers in over 60 countries, including high-profile organizations like Hewlett Packard, Forbes, and NASA.
Which one should you use? If you have a large amount of customer data and content within Sitecore and are looking for advanced personalization and integration capabilities, EXM may be the better choice, though it requires higher upfront costs and more technical expertise to set up and maintain. If you are looking for a more cost-effective and user-friendly option that can be easily integrated with any CMS or CRM system, Sitecore Send may be the better choice.
Setting Up Sitecore Email Marketing: A Practical Overview
Whether you are configuring EXM or Sitecore Send, the core setup steps follow a similar structure.
Step 1: Configure Your Sending Infrastructure
For EXM, you require a separate EXM license to activate the EXM module on the Sitecore Launchpad and to dispatch emails. Sitecore offers two licenses: the EXM Delivery Cloud license and the EXM Custom SMTP license.
EXM Delivery Cloud handles the complexity of email delivery for you and provides the correct infrastructure for reliable email delivery. A custom SMTP is an unmanaged service that suits low-volume (under 10,000 sends per month), low-complexity, or internal deployments, and is ideal for SMTP-only setups like MailServer, Exchange Server, AWS Email, SendGrid, or custom Port 25 deployments.
For Sitecore Send, setup is faster. Sitecore Send is a cloud-based service that requires no license or installation on your own server, and you can use it with any CMS or CRM system via APIs or connectors.
Step 2: Build and Import Your Contact Lists
Mailing lists are the core principle of Sitecore Send. This is where a new contact enters the system, and all further operations are performed either against an email list or a segment extracted from that list by certain criteria. You can manually create an email list or bulk import lists from a text file or Excel/CSV, with a limit of 40 MB per file, and you can maintain an unlimited number of email lists.
For EXM, recipients are assigned to campaigns, and recipient lists are stored and managed in the List Manager.
Step 3: Create Campaigns
In the EXM dashboard there are two types of email campaigns to choose from: a regular email campaign with no predefined content or recipients, and an automated email campaign used in marketing automation workflows, where an automated email is sent when a contact triggers an event.
Sitecore Send
Sitecore Send is a cloud-native, microservices-based, API-first marketing platform that helps marketers make contextual and personalized commitments with the help of customer data. It makes generating and sending emails easier, and it allows marketers to execute omnichannel customer engagement without coding.
Sitecore has been shifting from its flagship integrated suite to a new SaaS-based platform, and as part of that move, acquired Moosend and rebranded it as Sitecore Send.
Sitecore Send serves thousands of customers in over 60 countries, including high-profile organizations like Hewlett Packard, Forbes, and NASA.
Which one should you use? If you have a large amount of customer data and content within Sitecore and are looking for advanced personalization and integration capabilities, EXM may be the better choice, though it requires higher upfront costs and more technical expertise to set up and maintain. If you are looking for a more cost-effective and user-friendly option that can be easily integrated with any CMS or CRM system, Sitecore Send may be the better choice.
Setting Up Sitecore Email Marketing: A Practical Overview
Whether you are configuring EXM or Sitecore Send, the core setup steps follow a similar structure.
Step 1: Configure Your Sending Infrastructure
For EXM, you require a separate EXM license to activate the EXM module on the Sitecore Launchpad and to dispatch emails. Sitecore offers two licenses: the EXM Delivery Cloud license and the EXM Custom SMTP license.
EXM Delivery Cloud handles the complexity of email delivery for you and provides the correct infrastructure for reliable email delivery. A custom SMTP is an unmanaged service that suits low-volume (under 10,000 sends per month), low-complexity, or internal deployments, and is ideal for SMTP-only setups like MailServer, Exchange Server, AWS Email, SendGrid, or custom Port 25 deployments.
For Sitecore Send, setup is faster. Sitecore Send is a cloud-based service that requires no license or installation on your own server, and you can use it with any CMS or CRM system via APIs or connectors.
Step 2: Build and Import Your Contact Lists
Mailing lists are the core principle of Sitecore Send. This is where a new contact enters the system, and all further operations are performed either against an email list or a segment extracted from that list by certain criteria. You can manually create an email list or bulk import lists from a text file or Excel/CSV, with a limit of 40 MB per file, and you can maintain an unlimited number of email lists.
For EXM, recipients are assigned to campaigns, and recipient lists are stored and managed in the List Manager.
Step 3: Create Campaigns
Sitecore Send is an email marketing platform that enables businesses to create, manage, and optimize email campaigns. It offers a visual editor, highly customizable templates, and segmentation capabilities, as well as no-code integrations enabling email marketers to create campaigns without developer support. The AI writer capability enables email marketers to create, optimize, and fine-tune email content. Additionally, the automation capabilities of Sitecore Send enable the delivery of personalized emails and transactional updates based on customer triggers.
Delivery options in EXM include: scheduling delivery now, scheduling it for a future time, or setting up a recurring delivery. You can also assign personalization at this stage to activate personalized components in the email.
Personalization: The Most Valuable Feature You May Be Under-Using
Sitecore email marketing's strongest differentiator is personalization depth. The data on why this matters is decisive.
Personalized emails have been shown to deliver six times more transactions than generic, non-personalized ones. Personalization in email messages improves open rates by 29% and click-through rates by 41%. Personalized subject lines increase email open rates by 26%.
Sitecore's tools make this kind of personalization achievable at scale:
EXM allows marketers to assign custom tokens via the client API, meaning dynamic, personalized content can be contained within emails that have the power to trigger more personalized messages.
Through dynamic content personalization, businesses can tailor their messages based on user preferences and behaviors.
Sitecore Send monitors site users' behaviors that show expected interest in a product, uses AI models and filters to assess visitor intent, and then applies consumer preference data to email lists.
For a deeper look at executing personalization across campaigns, see our guide on email personalization techniques that boost conversions.
Automation Strategy: Where Sitecore's ROI Impact Is Clearest
Automated emails account for just 2% of email sends, but drive 30% of revenue, earning 16 times more per send than scheduled campaigns. That ratio alone makes automation setup the highest-leverage activity in any Sitecore email marketing program.
Sitecore supports several automation types:
Triggered campaigns: Regular campaigns are sent to a list of contacts using the dispatch process, while automated campaigns are sent to individual contacts when they trigger goals or events on your website.
A/B testing: A/B testing allows marketers to send two different variations of a campaign to a small test group of subscribers. After a determined amount of time, the more popular campaign is automatically sent to the remainder of the email list, ensuring the more successful variation reaches the majority of your recipients.
RSS campaigns: RSS campaigns get updated content from a specific content URL, and the email is triggered to send automatically every time a new publication goes live.
With Sitecore Send, automation allows businesses to set up triggers based on specific user interactions. Campaigns can then respond to real-time user behavior, which maintains a high level of relevance and engagement.
Sitecore Send is an email marketing platform that enables businesses to create, manage, and optimize email campaigns. It offers a visual editor, highly customizable templates, and segmentation capabilities, as well as no-code integrations enabling email marketers to create campaigns without developer support. The AI writer capability enables email marketers to create, optimize, and fine-tune email content. Additionally, the automation capabilities of Sitecore Send enable the delivery of personalized emails and transactional updates based on customer triggers.
Delivery options in EXM include: scheduling delivery now, scheduling it for a future time, or setting up a recurring delivery. You can also assign personalization at this stage to activate personalized components in the email.
Personalization: The Most Valuable Feature You May Be Under-Using
Sitecore email marketing's strongest differentiator is personalization depth. The data on why this matters is decisive.
Personalized emails have been shown to deliver six times more transactions than generic, non-personalized ones. Personalization in email messages improves open rates by 29% and click-through rates by 41%. Personalized subject lines increase email open rates by 26%.
Sitecore's tools make this kind of personalization achievable at scale:
EXM allows marketers to assign custom tokens via the client API, meaning dynamic, personalized content can be contained within emails that have the power to trigger more personalized messages.
Through dynamic content personalization, businesses can tailor their messages based on user preferences and behaviors.
Sitecore Send monitors site users' behaviors that show expected interest in a product, uses AI models and filters to assess visitor intent, and then applies consumer preference data to email lists.
For a deeper look at executing personalization across campaigns, see our guide on email personalization techniques that boost conversions.
Automation Strategy: Where Sitecore's ROI Impact Is Clearest
Automated emails account for just 2% of email sends, but drive 30% of revenue, earning 16 times more per send than scheduled campaigns. That ratio alone makes automation setup the highest-leverage activity in any Sitecore email marketing program.
Sitecore supports several automation types:
Triggered campaigns: Regular campaigns are sent to a list of contacts using the dispatch process, while automated campaigns are sent to individual contacts when they trigger goals or events on your website.
A/B testing: A/B testing allows marketers to send two different variations of a campaign to a small test group of subscribers. After a determined amount of time, the more popular campaign is automatically sent to the remainder of the email list, ensuring the more successful variation reaches the majority of your recipients.
RSS campaigns: RSS campaigns get updated content from a specific content URL, and the email is triggered to send automatically every time a new publication goes live.
With Sitecore Send, automation allows businesses to set up triggers based on specific user interactions. Campaigns can then respond to real-time user behavior, which maintains a high level of relevance and engagement.
Strong automation starts with understanding your audience segments. Our article on email list segmentation strategies covers how to structure those segments before you build your automation flows.
Analytics and Reporting: Measuring What Actually Matters
Sitecore email marketing gives you detailed reporting across both platforms. Knowing which metrics to prioritize separates teams that iterate from teams that guess.
Sitecore Send comes with default reports that help you improve your campaigns, increase newsletter efficiency, and achieve your overall email marketing goals. Specifically:
The Performance Overview report informs you about the overall statistics of your campaign, including metrics such as unique opens, link clicks, unsubscribed recipients, and bounces. It also offers information about the top-performing aspects of your campaign with regard to recipients, custom fields, locations, links, and the clients or devices it is most viewed on.
The Track Link Clicks report offers a click-map displaying your newsletter with bubbles indicating how many times each link has been clicked, along with information on which recipients clicked which links.
The Track Email Clients and Devices report informs you about the different devices, email clients, browsers, and operating systems your recipients use. The Track Activity by Location report lets you view how your campaign performed on a global scale.
For EXM users, the EXM Dashboard gives you an overview of the performance of the whole email channel and lets you view engagement and deliverability metrics over time and across campaigns, geographies, browsers, and devices.
The key metrics to monitor regularly are open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate. For deeper guidance on building a reporting framework, see our guide on email marketing analytics best practices.
Pricing and Cost Considerations
Sitecore's pricing model is enterprise-oriented and varies significantly based on deployment type.
For the full Sitecore Experience Platform with EXM, Sitecore's licensing costs are customized based on factors including the specific edition, number of users, volume of website traffic, and deployment model. For SMBs, implementation costs can start around $75,000, while large enterprises might face costs exceeding $500,000. Licensing alone can range from $40,000 to several hundred thousand dollars annually for enterprise-level businesses.
One of the things that Sitecore often faces pressure on from analysts is a lack of transparency in pricing. There is not a straightforward monthly charge option; Sitecore uses an enterprise custom pricing model, and determining the right tier and packaging requires guidance from the vendor.
Strong automation starts with understanding your audience segments. Our article on email list segmentation strategies covers how to structure those segments before you build your automation flows.
Analytics and Reporting: Measuring What Actually Matters
Sitecore email marketing gives you detailed reporting across both platforms. Knowing which metrics to prioritize separates teams that iterate from teams that guess.
Sitecore Send comes with default reports that help you improve your campaigns, increase newsletter efficiency, and achieve your overall email marketing goals. Specifically:
The Performance Overview report informs you about the overall statistics of your campaign, including metrics such as unique opens, link clicks, unsubscribed recipients, and bounces. It also offers information about the top-performing aspects of your campaign with regard to recipients, custom fields, locations, links, and the clients or devices it is most viewed on.
The Track Link Clicks report offers a click-map displaying your newsletter with bubbles indicating how many times each link has been clicked, along with information on which recipients clicked which links.
The Track Email Clients and Devices report informs you about the different devices, email clients, browsers, and operating systems your recipients use. The Track Activity by Location report lets you view how your campaign performed on a global scale.
For EXM users, the EXM Dashboard gives you an overview of the performance of the whole email channel and lets you view engagement and deliverability metrics over time and across campaigns, geographies, browsers, and devices.
The key metrics to monitor regularly are open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, bounce rate, and unsubscribe rate. For deeper guidance on building a reporting framework, see our guide on email marketing analytics best practices.
Pricing and Cost Considerations
Sitecore's pricing model is enterprise-oriented and varies significantly based on deployment type.
For the full Sitecore Experience Platform with EXM, Sitecore's licensing costs are customized based on factors including the specific edition, number of users, volume of website traffic, and deployment model. For SMBs, implementation costs can start around $75,000, while large enterprises might face costs exceeding $500,000. Licensing alone can range from $40,000 to several hundred thousand dollars annually for enterprise-level businesses.
One of the things that Sitecore often faces pressure on from analysts is a lack of transparency in pricing. There is not a straightforward monthly charge option; Sitecore uses an enterprise custom pricing model, and determining the right tier and packaging requires guidance from the vendor.
Sitecore Send has more accessible entry-level pricing. Reviewers consistently highlight the affordability of Sitecore Send, noting that it offers competitive pricing compared to other email marketing services. Many users appreciate the low cost associated with sending a large volume of emails, positioning Sitecore Send as an attractive option for businesses looking to manage their marketing budgets effectively.
The potential for a strong return on investment is a recurring theme among users. Reviewers indicate that the pricing structure allows businesses to see a clear ROI, as even a minimal number of conversions can make a campaign financially worthwhile.
Strategy Tips to Maximize Sitecore Email Marketing ROI
Getting Sitecore set up is the starting point. Getting ROI from it requires deliberate strategic decisions.
1. Use Audience Discovery before you segment manually.
Sitecore Send automatically detects information such as "purchase probability" and "interest for product category" and applies this to email lists. The tool is designed to help businesses reward recent loyal customers, promote new arrivals, and attract customers by sending loyalty gifts, promoting specific items to those who have shown interest, and sending discounts to users who have expressed high intent on a specific category.
2. Prioritize welcome automation.
Welcome emails generate 320% more revenue per email than promotional ones. More than 8 out of 10 people open a welcome email, generating 4 times as many opens and 10 times as many clicks as other email types. See our guide on welcome email sequence best practices for sequence structure that works.
3. Test subject lines systematically.
Research indicates that emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. This simple change can enhance your ROI by ensuring your messages grab immediate attention in crowded inboxes.
4. Protect deliverability actively.
Sitecore Send follows best practices for email deliverability, ensuring your emails reach the inbox instead of getting caught in spam filters. For EXM, the CM role continuously processes bounced emails and spam complaints, then passes relevant contacts to the xConnect Collection Search role where they are added to the global opt-out list and removed from any marketing lists you have added them to.
5. Send at the right frequency.
Sending 1 to 4 emails per month results in an ROI of $39 to $1. Sending 5 to 8 emails per month delivers the highest ROI at $48 to $1. Sending 9 or more emails per month offers an ROI of $41 to $1, according to research from EmailTooltester. More is not always better.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Sitecore Email Experience Manager (EXM)?
The Email Experience Manager is part of the Sitecore platform and works with the List Manager, where you create contact lists and opt-out lists, and Marketing Automation, where you create the delivery plan. It is built for organizations already running Sitecore XP on-premise who want deep integration between their CMS, customer data, and email campaigns.
What is the difference between EXM and Sitecore Send?
Sitecore Send has more accessible entry-level pricing. Reviewers consistently highlight the affordability of Sitecore Send, noting that it offers competitive pricing compared to other email marketing services. Many users appreciate the low cost associated with sending a large volume of emails, positioning Sitecore Send as an attractive option for businesses looking to manage their marketing budgets effectively.
The potential for a strong return on investment is a recurring theme among users. Reviewers indicate that the pricing structure allows businesses to see a clear ROI, as even a minimal number of conversions can make a campaign financially worthwhile.
Strategy Tips to Maximize Sitecore Email Marketing ROI
Getting Sitecore set up is the starting point. Getting ROI from it requires deliberate strategic decisions.
1. Use Audience Discovery before you segment manually.
Sitecore Send automatically detects information such as "purchase probability" and "interest for product category" and applies this to email lists. The tool is designed to help businesses reward recent loyal customers, promote new arrivals, and attract customers by sending loyalty gifts, promoting specific items to those who have shown interest, and sending discounts to users who have expressed high intent on a specific category.
2. Prioritize welcome automation.
Welcome emails generate 320% more revenue per email than promotional ones. More than 8 out of 10 people open a welcome email, generating 4 times as many opens and 10 times as many clicks as other email types. See our guide on welcome email sequence best practices for sequence structure that works.
3. Test subject lines systematically.
Research indicates that emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened. This simple change can enhance your ROI by ensuring your messages grab immediate attention in crowded inboxes.
4. Protect deliverability actively.
Sitecore Send follows best practices for email deliverability, ensuring your emails reach the inbox instead of getting caught in spam filters. For EXM, the CM role continuously processes bounced emails and spam complaints, then passes relevant contacts to the xConnect Collection Search role where they are added to the global opt-out list and removed from any marketing lists you have added them to.
5. Send at the right frequency.
Sending 1 to 4 emails per month results in an ROI of $39 to $1. Sending 5 to 8 emails per month delivers the highest ROI at $48 to $1. Sending 9 or more emails per month offers an ROI of $41 to $1, according to research from EmailTooltester. More is not always better.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Sitecore Email Experience Manager (EXM)?
The Email Experience Manager is part of the Sitecore platform and works with the List Manager, where you create contact lists and opt-out lists, and Marketing Automation, where you create the delivery plan. It is built for organizations already running Sitecore XP on-premise who want deep integration between their CMS, customer data, and email campaigns.
What is the difference between EXM and Sitecore Send?
The key distinction is infrastructure and audience. EXM is a feature of the Sitecore Experience Platform that requires a license and installation on your own server, and it integrates with the Sitecore CMS and xDB for personalization using existing customer data. Sitecore Send is a cloud-based service that requires no license or server installation, and you can use it with any CMS or CRM system via APIs or connectors. Teams migrating from XP to XM Cloud should consider Sitecore Send as their email replacement.
Does Sitecore Send support email marketing automation?
Yes. Sitecore Send is an intelligent marketing automation platform that offers personalized customer experiences through email campaigns, workflows, and web personalization. The software allows users to set up automatic and drip email campaigns triggered by certain events, including purchases, sign-ups, page visits, and product interest signals.
What ROI can you expect from Sitecore email marketing?
A Forrester study indicated a 371% ROI over three years for customers using Sitecore. At the channel level, for every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses see a return of $36, equating to an email marketing ROI of 3,600%. Your actual results depend on list quality, segmentation depth, personalization execution, and how effectively you use automation triggers.
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The key distinction is infrastructure and audience. EXM is a feature of the Sitecore Experience Platform that requires a license and installation on your own server, and it integrates with the Sitecore CMS and xDB for personalization using existing customer data. Sitecore Send is a cloud-based service that requires no license or server installation, and you can use it with any CMS or CRM system via APIs or connectors. Teams migrating from XP to XM Cloud should consider Sitecore Send as their email replacement.
Does Sitecore Send support email marketing automation?
Yes. Sitecore Send is an intelligent marketing automation platform that offers personalized customer experiences through email campaigns, workflows, and web personalization. The software allows users to set up automatic and drip email campaigns triggered by certain events, including purchases, sign-ups, page visits, and product interest signals.
What ROI can you expect from Sitecore email marketing?
A Forrester study indicated a 371% ROI over three years for customers using Sitecore. At the channel level, for every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses see a return of $36, equating to an email marketing ROI of 3,600%. Your actual results depend on list quality, segmentation depth, personalization execution, and how effectively you use automation triggers.
