Does creating newsletters, email sequences, and, above all, advanced marketing automation without leaving your WordPress dashboard sound utopian?
Well, it’s a reality with FluentCRM, an email marketing and customer relationship managementplugin that’s generating a lot of talk (and all of it’s positive).
This plugin combines a number of assets, starting with its ease of use and almost unbeatable value for money.
Yes, it’s incredible.
But should you buy it right away? That’s what you’ll find out at the end of this test-tutorial, which presents this tool from every angle.
After reading this content, you’ll know all the little secrets of FluentCRM and will even have a detailed instruction manual to help you create your first emails and automations with ease.
Transparency: This page is sponsored. Some links to the FluentCRM plugin are affiliate links. If you purchase the premium version of this plugin, WPMarmite will receive a commission (at no extra cost to you).
Thanks to affiliation, WPMarmite is able to remunerate the research and writing work of the blog’s editors. But we remain impartial. If a product isn’t worth it, we say so (or we don’t tell you about it).
What is FluentCRM?
A plugin to manage your email marketing without leaving WordPress
FluentCRM is a freemium email marketing and CRM plugin that integrates natively with your WordPress dashboard.
It lets you manage your prospects and customers while automating numerous emailing tasks: newsletter creation, opt-in forms, email sequences, automations, list segmentation, etc.
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRM software allows you to centralize your customer data and automate multiple tasks: lead generation (sales contacts), reporting, sales management, etc.
An opt-in form allows you to capture the email addresses of visitors to your WordPress site.
FluentCRM is a self-hosted solution, meaning that all its functionalities are accessible from your administration interface, without the need to connect to an external server (unlike competitors like ActiveCampaign, for example).
Your contacts and the rest of your data are stored on your hosting server only, guaranteeing you 100% ownership, as well as GDPR compliance (provided, among other things, that your subscribers have given their consent to subscribe to your list beforehand).
One plugin, two versions
FluentCRM is available in two versions:
- A free version, available for download from the official directory or from your WordPress admin, in Plugins > Add New Plugin.
It boasts 50K+ active installations and excellent user feedback (overall rating of 4.8/5). - A premium version (FluentCRM Pro), with more comprehensive options. Available from $90/year for use on up to one site.
Who makes FluentCRM?
FluentCRM is developed and maintained by the experienced WP Manage Ninja team. Well-established in the WordPress ecosystem, the company is behind a number of popular tools/plugins, including:
- FluentBooking (2K+ active installations), to set up an online booking solution on WordPress
- Fluent Forms (400K+ active installations), to create all types of forms
- Fluent Support (8K+ active installations), to design a support system for your customers
- Paymattic (3K+ active installations), to implement a payment and donation system
- Ninja Tables (90K+ active installations), for creating tables
- Azon Press, to manage your affiliate links
Why was the FluentCRM plugin created?
The marketing automation plugin was launched in 2020 to solve an internal problem.
At the time, WP Manage Ninja members were looking for a CRM solution to make their daily tasks easier to manage.
Behind it all, the idea was to better manage relationships with their customers, while easily organizing their email marketing campaigns.
When they couldn’t find what they were looking for, they decided to develop their own tailor-made tool.
This would be a tool that would meet both their needs and those of WordPress users, because they had to monetize it while they could!
FluentCRM was born and has been growing ever since, totalling a solid base of 40,000 users at the time of writing.
The aim of its creators is “to make email marketing affordable for small businesses.”
As you’ll see in our section on pricing, FluentCRM’s affordable pricing sets it apart from many of its competitors (Groundhogg, FunnelKit, ActiveCampaign, etc.).
What are FluentCRM’s key features?
Want to know what you can do with FluentCRM? In this section, you’ll discover several major components of this marketing automation plugin.
Please note that most of the features presented below are available in the free version, which already makes the tool pretty complete without paying a cent.
We’ll come back to the differences between the free version and Fluent CRM Pro later in this article.
360° contact management
First and foremost, FluentCRM offers a comprehensive and practical interface for managing all your contacts individually.
By entering the profile of the contact of your choice, you have access to multiple pieces of information in a single place, thanks to several tabs.
First of all, you’ll find general information about the person: name, address, email, phone number, date of birth, and so on.
You can also see at a glance the list(s) in which the contact is included, as well as the tag(s) assigned to him or her.
Even more usefully, you can then retrieve precise information such as purchase history, click-through and open rates for your emails, and form submissions, to make it easier to follow up with each customer.
Finally, you can easily add and record precise information after each interaction with a lead or customer, in the “Notes and activities” tab.
Precise segmentation of your email list with FluentCRM
Like all good CRM and email marketing software, FluentCRM lets you segment your contacts.
To do this, you can create:
- Lists. For example, the “Newsletter” list.
- Tags. Here, you filter the contacts on your list according to certain characteristics. For example: “Customers,” “Beginners,” “Experts,” etc.
- Dynamic segments (with FluentCRM Pro). For example, you can automatically filter your contacts according to an action they have or haven’t performed, such as not having opened your emails in the last 30 days. Then all you have to do is send a short, well-targeted email to warm up this base of inactive users.
You can create an unlimited number of lists and labels, but you can also sort your contacts using super precise, advanced filters when you send your campaigns.
For example, if you have a WooCommerce store, you can target contacts who have spent at least $100 and live in a particular state.
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A wide variety of email campaigns
Campaigns, sequences, and automation
FluentCRM lets you design and send three different types of emails:
- A classic newsletter, called a “Campaign,” which you send to your list on the fly.
This is what you would use, for example, when you want to communicate a specific news item or share a recommendation, a piece of advice, or feedback. - A sequence of emails. These are several emails sent automatically at intervals of your choosing to a particular segment of your list.
You can use them to sell a product or service during a launch or promotion, for example. - Marketing automation emails. Here, you automate the sending of emails based on certain triggers. For example, you can trigger a contact to enter a workflow as soon as they fill in a form.
An example of automation to offer a promotion to a contact on her birthday.
Design and personalize your FluentCRM emails with Gutenberg blocks
Note that the design and writing of your emails takes place directly within the native WordPress editor (Gutenberg), just as when you’re writing a page or blog post.
FluentCRM is also functional if you use the classic WordPress editor (TinyMCE).
You can use native WordPress blocks, but also the fifteen or so blocks offered by FluentCRM.
Editing is drag-and-drop, and all your changes are visible in real time, directly on your screen.
You can start from a predefined template to save time, or even integrate your own personalized template by integrating your HTML code.
With FluentCRM Pro, you can also use a conditional content block to display or not display certain sections of your email based on particulartags.
It’s also possible to carry out A/B tests to try out different variants of your subject lines, as well as schedule your emails to be sent at the date and time of your choice.
Statistics and reports to analyze your emailing performance
Once you’ve sent your first emails, you’ll need to know whether they’re effective, so you can keep up the momentum or readjust your strategy.
To do this, you need access to analysis tools and key statistics on your various campaigns.
The designers of FluentCRM are well aware of this. That’s why they offer you detailed reports for each campaign, funnel, or email sequence in general, but also for each email on a case-by-case basis (even with the free version of the WordPress plugin).
The range of information to which you have access is very broad, and includes (but is not limited to):
- Number of emails sent, opened, clicked, bounced, or unsubscribed
- The ability to activate UTM parameters from Google Analytics to analyze your click-through rates in great detail
- The ability to check your active/inactive leads to monitor individual user activity
FluentCRM offers free integration with about forty third-party tools
To make managing your customer portfolio even easier, FluentCRM can connect free of charge to around forty third-party tools and applications — the vast majority of which are WordPress plugins — in various fields:
- E-commerce: WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, SureCart
- Lead generation: FluentForms, Convert Pro, MailOptin, FluentBooking
- LMS: LearnDash, LifterLMS, TutorLMS, LearnPress, Academy LMS
- Page builders: Elementor, Divi Builder, Beaver Builder, Oxygen, Thrive Architect
- Member area: MemberPress, Paid Membership Pro, BuddyBoss, WishList, Restrict Content Pro
- Automation: Zapier, Uncanny Automator, AutomatorWP, FlowMattic, SureTriggers, etc.
- Funnel creation: ThriveCart, OptimizePress, Upsell Plugin, etc.
How does integration with FluentCRM work?
In concrete terms, how can integration with a WordPress plugin make your life easier? Let’s take WooCommerce as an example.
Thanks to FluentCRM integration with the famous e-commerce plugin, you can, for example, track your customers’ purchase history (which WooCommerce already enables), but above all trigger marketing automations based on new purchases and order refunds (only with Fluent CRM Pro).
This will help you improve conversions and maximize sales.
Another example? Integration with tools for designing opt-in or contact forms. By default, FluentCRM does not offer this crucial option.
You can overcome this shortcoming by linking it to tools such as Fluent Forms or Elementor Forms. Thanks to the latter integration (only with FluentCRM Pro), you can, for example, “retrieve” your leads from within your CRM and access their respective profiles.
In the same vein, FluentCRM is linked to a small, in-house ecosystem of complementary tools developed by WP Manage Ninja, such as FluentBooking, Fluent Forms, Fluent Support, Fluent SMTP, and so on.
So much for this detailed presentation of the major options available to you. Without further ado, let’s get down to business.
In the next two parts, you’ll find out how to install and use the FluentCRM plugin, including how to create and send an email and how to design an automation.
How to create and send a newsletter with FluentCRM
Step 1: Activate the Fluent CRM plugin
First, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin on your WordPress dashboard.
Type “fluentcrm” in the search bar. Install, then activate the plugin:
Once the plugin has been activated, you’ll notice a new custom post type, logically called “FluentCRM,” in your sidebar.
It contains the sub-menus for settings offered by the plugin:
Click on FluentCRM > Dashboard to access a quick setup wizard to configure your basic settings.
You will then be asked to:
- Fill in basic information about your company: name, address, and logo, which will be displayed in the footer of your emails
- Set up lists to segment your contacts
- Filter your contacts by creating tags
Finally, FluentCRM recommends that you install its in-house Fluent Forms plugin, which will allow you to design opt-in forms, for example.
If all goes well, you’ll be redirected to your dashboard, where you’ll find a list of the steps you need to complete to create your first newsletter (FluentCRM calls this a “campaign”).
In order, you’ll notice that you’ll need to import (or obtain) your contacts. Logical: without recipients, your next newsletter has no chance of being read!
Click on the “Import contacts” link to continue.
If you’d like to install FluentCRM Pro, get the license of your choice from their official website. Continue by installing the zip file you received after your purchase (to do so, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin > Upload Plugin). Finish by activating your license in FluentCRM > Settings > License management.
Step 2: Import/Create a contact list
This brings you to the “Contacts” menu, where you can manage your contacts, lists, tags, and dynamic segments.
In particular, you can create each of these elements manually. As far as contacts are concerned, you can either:
- Add them manually by clicking on the “Add a contact” button. You can then enter basic information (email, first name, last name, phone number, date of birth, etc.), as well as assigning a contact to lists, tags, and a particular status.
- Import a contact from the source of your choice: CSV file, WordPress user, or transfer from email marketing software you already use (e.g., Mailchimp, ConvertKit, MailerLite, ActiveCampaign, or Drip).
- Export your subscribers.
If you don’t yet have any contacts in your database, you’ll need to roll up your sleeves.
The easiest way to collect your first email addresses is to create opt-in forms and place them in strategic locations on your WordPress site.
To do this, go to the “Forms” tab, then click on the “Create your first form” button. Finally, select the template called “Subscription Form” and start customizing it:
Your form will be created using Fluent Forms (provided you have activated this plugin). You’ll notice, for example, the handy option to activate double opt-in.
Thanks to this feature, you can limit spam, since a future subscriber will automatically have to click on a confirmation link sent by email after he fills in your subscription form.
Step 3: Configure an SMTP solution
So far so good. Your account is created. Your list is ready. You’ve imported your first contacts, or you’re about to get them thanks to your friendly, custom-designed subscription form.
Now all you have to do is create your first email campaign. Before you get started, let’s take a look at one very important element: the deliverability of your emails.
By default, FluentCRM does not offer a native email delivery service. This means that if you do nothing, the plugin will rely on the default WordPress sending system. Unfortunately, this is anything but optimal, because the system isn’t designed to send mass emails.
As a result, you run the risk of seeing many of your emails end up in your recipients’ spam folders and your deliverability rate falling. To avoid this, it’s best to use an SMTP server.
FluentCRM offers a free solution, FluentSMTP, which you can activate by clicking on the “Show email service settings” button on your dashboard.
Continue by clicking on the “Install FluentSMTP plugin (it’s free)” button. Then configure it to deliver your emails.
In particular, you’ll need to select the email service provider of your choice, such as AWS, SendGrid, Mailgun, or Brevo:
Step 4: Create your email campaign
This time, you’re all set. You’re ready to create your first newsletter. To do so, go to the FluentCRM > Campaign menu. Click on the “Create New Campaign” button:
Give your campaign a name, and you’re in the FluentCRM editor:
To help you, you can choose from several types of templates (Simple Box, Plain Center, Rough Left, Classic Editor, Rough HTML), or Visual Builder, to benefit from two ready-to-use templates: “Standard” or “Sales” (if you sell products/services):
Write the body of your email and add the blocks of your choice: Image, Heading, List, Buttons, Column, etc.:
Each block can then be customized in terms of its appearance (colors, typography, margins, etc.) in the block settings, exactly like when you write content (a post or page).
Remember to save as you go, then click on the blue “Continue [Subject and settings]” button.
You’ll then need to enter, among other things:
- A subject for your email
- Your recipients, whom you can select by list and label, dynamic segment, or advanced filter
- The date on which your emails will be sent: immediate or scheduled
Note: FluentCRM imposes no limits on the number of contacts you can have in your email list, nor on the number of emails you can send (sends are unlimited).
Step 5: Follow up your campaign
Once you’ve sent your first emails, all that’s left to do is track your performance. To do this, go to the “Reports” tab for a detailed overview of your statistics.
Now you know how to create a classic newsletter with FluentCRM. Sending out a newsletter is just the beginning. But you can go much further by automating the sending of your emails from A to Z, thanks to their famous automations.
How to create automations with FluentCRM
Two options for launching an automation
Sending classic campaigns is appropriate for one-off actions. Let’s say, for example, that you decide on the spur of the moment to launch a Black Friday promotion on one of your products. Bam: you write a short flash email (or even better, a sequence) and forward it to your list.
Now, if you have to knock yourself out manually writing and sending emails on a recurring basis, you’re liable to burn out pretty quickly.
To make things easier, FluentCRM lets you create automations, also known as “workflows” in webmarketing jargon.
What are automations? With an automation, you can automatically plan a series of marketing actions that will be triggered according to a specific action, event, or condition.
For example, you can automatically:
- Send a welcome email as soon as a visitor subscribes to your newsletter
- Forward a promotional offer to one of your contacts on their birthday
- Send a series of emails to contacts who haven’t opened your emails for X months/weeks
To do this very simply with FluentCRM, click on the “New automation” button in the “Automations” tab. The plugin then offers you two options:
- Create from scratch.
- Use a ready-to-use template.
For example, if you’d like to create a welcome workflow, select “Welcome Email Series” and click on the “Import” button:
This creates your automation funnel, which you can modify as you wish. The possibilities for customization are virtually unlimited, depending on your needs and objectives.
What elements make up a FluentCRM automation?
Basically, you can add the following elements to your automation:
- A trigger, to initiate the launch of the automation. Most of the time, this is an action that takes place on your WordPress site.
This could be, for example, when someone fills in a form, when a customer places a WooCommerce order, or when a visitor clicks on a specific link. - One or more personalized emails.
- One or more actions, such as waiting X days/hours to perform the next action in your automation. You can also specify FluentCRM to create a WordPress user and send a personalized email or sequence of emails (among others) after an automation is triggered.
- One or more goals. These are additional triggers that allow you to segment your automation funnel even more precisely.
FluentCRM offers several types of goals, which can also be used as triggers:
- One or more conditions. In concrete terms, if a certain condition is met, a designated action will be triggered (or not). For example, if your contact has clicked on a link in your email sent on a certain day, he or she will receive a specific email. If not, the automation will stop.
Editing and adding elements is relatively simple to understand. Simply click on the “+” icon to add an action, for example:
You can delete or clone an item by clicking on the icon with the 3 dots:
In the end, your workflow might look something like this:
Note: If you’re new to email marketing and/or marketing automation, creating automations can be a little complex and intimidating. And yes, a minimum of configuration is required. Automations are therefore best reserved for intermediate users with a bit of emailing experience. Nevertheless, you’ll get the hang of it with a minimum of practice and perseverance.
To help you create your workflows, feel free to draw inspiration from existing FluentCRM templates, then adapt them to your own needs.
You can also easily find examples on the Internet.
FluentCRM support and customer service
Different levels of support depending on your FluentCRM version
With all our explanations, you should already be well on your way to mastering this CRM and email marketing tool.
However, as you continue to use it, you may come across some bottlenecks or questions.
So how do you go about getting help from the FluentCRM team? To answer this question, we need to distinguish between two situations:
- If you’re only using the free version of the plugin, you won’t get direct support. You’ll have to go through the public forum on the page dedicated to the plugin on the official WordPress directory. Here you can see that all queries have been answered by a member of the FluentCRM support team, usually within 24 hours.
- If you are a FluentCRM Pro user, you will have access to direct personalized support by email.
To do this, open a support ticket via the FluentCRM > Help menu on your WordPress dashboard.
What resources are available to support you?
If you think you can figure it out and like to find the answers to your questions on your own, there are other options available to you.
FluentCRM offers a number of practical resources to help you find your way:
How much does FluentCRM cost?
The different plans available
Let’s move on to the pricing: how much does FluentCRM cost? Here again, it all depends on your usage and needs.
If you only use the free plugin, you won’t pay a penny for it.
Even if you only use the free version, we strongly recommend that you activate an SMTP service to improve the deliverability of your emails and avoid them being treated as spam by the various email clients (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.).
For example, Amazon SES charges $0.10 to send 1,000 emails. As explained above, you can easily link this SMTP service (or another Brevo type) to FluentCRM using the Fluent SMTP plugin.
FluentCRM offers three pricing packages, the most affordable of which starts at $90/year (for use on a maximum of one site):
Which license you choose will depend on one major criterion: the number of sites on which you wish to install the plugin.
Otherwise, each license includes all CRM plugin features, support, and updates for one year.
Please note that FluentCRM does not offer a money-back guarantee or a FluentCRM lifetime offer.
Nor can you pay monthly. Payment is annual and must be renewed each year to continue to benefit from updates and priority support.
Free or Pro version: Which should you choose?
If you’ve been paying attention since the beginning of this article, you’ll know that the free version of FluentCRM is already pretty comprehensive. Will it be enough for you? Depending on your needs, yes.
Specifically, if you want a tool for sending newsletters and other email sequences without the need to create advanced automations, the free plugin should do the trick.
On the other hand, if you need to create advanced automations and marketing funnels, the Pro version will be indispensable.
Without it:
- You’ll have a limited number of triggers, actions, goals, and other logical conditions offered by the tool.
- You won’t be able to trigger marketing automations based on new purchases and order refunds on WooCommerce.
- You won’t be able to integrate with Elementor Forms.
In addition, FluentCRM Pro offers other exclusive features, such as:
- Smartlinks, which allow you to automatically apply or remove a tag to a contact based on whether or not they click on a link. For example, if your contact clicks on a link on your sales page, you can assign them a tag and trigger an automation to persuade them to buy your product.
- Webhooks, used to connect FluentCRM to tools or applications that don’t integrate natively with it. A webhook, for example, can be used to connect FluentCRM to Gravity Forms.
- Advanced collaboration options: With the Pro version, you can restrict access to your CRM to the user roles of your choice.
You’ve almost reached the end of this FluentCRM presentation. All that remains is to summarize what you’ve read and give you our opinion of this tool.
Our final opinion on FluentCRM
Advantages of FluentCRM
- Native integration with your WordPress dashboard. You don’t need to leave your admin interface to create and send emails and other automations.
- Ease of use and intuitiveness.
- A well thought-out interface in terms of UI.
- The automation creation process is visually well thought-out.
- The option of a free version of the plugin that can already meet a number of needs.
- The email editor, which is based on the blocks of the WordPress content editor, just like when you’re writing an article or a page.
- The value for the money, which is very attractive, especially when compared to other email marketing and CRM solutions such as ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, or even FunnelKit.
- The “expandable” aspect of the plugin, which you can integrate with other third-party tools and WordPress plugins.
- The WPManageNinja team frequently adds new features and improvements. The team takes care to add new options based on the feedback it gathers from its users.
Plugin limitations
- FluentCRM does not offer a lifetime license. You need to renew your license every year to continue benefiting from support and updates.
- Only two ready-to-use templates to create a classic email campaign (newsletter type).
- Missing integrations with some popular plugins. Gravity Forms comes to mind, although you can link it to FluentCRM via the webhooks system included with FluentCRM Pro.
- We recommend installing an SMTP service to improve the deliverability of your emails. This adds a small (but not insurmountable) technical step when configuring the plugin.
- Setting up automations requires a minimum of configuration and knowledge.
Finally, pay attention to your site’s loading speed!
In itself, FluentCRM won’t technically slow down your site. Their team explains, for example, that all your data is stored in customized tables in your database, so it won’t be overloaded.
Even so, if your site is already slow, your CRM will be too. To improve all this, we recommend you read our guide to optimizing the loading speed of your WP site… without breaking the bank!
What does WPMarmite think?
Overall, we’ve been won over by the FluentCRM plugin, which we see as an excellent alternative to SaaS solutions such as ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit.
Its two main strengths are its native integration with WordPress and its unbeatable price. If you have a large number of subscribers, you’ll save a lot of money with FluentCRM.
FluentCRM is easy to get used to when it comes to creating classic, newsletter-type emails and is ideal for beginners. Advanced email marketing users will benefit from advanced marketing automation options.
In short, if you’re looking for a CRM and email marketing tool that integrates with WordPress to create advanced automations, go for it! FluentCRM is the solution for you, especially in its premium version.
About the author
WPMarmite Team
WPMarmite helps beginners get the best out of WordPress with in-depth tutorials and honest reviews. Meet the founder, Alex, and his team right here.
