Vocus.io

Vocus.io is a suite of Gmail tools for sales, growth and client success teams that sends personalized mass email campaigns and automated follow-ups from your own Gmail or G Suite account, with per-recipient tracking and logging to your CRM. It runs as a Chrome extension, so it works wherever you use Chrome, and the company's blog lists macOS, Windows 10, Linux and Chrome OS. The homepage calls it "Full Stack Email Outreach" and describes two products: Vocus.io Campaigns for mass mail merges, and Vocus.io Inbox for the individual emails a rep sends every day.

Campaigns: mail merge from Gmail

Vocus.io Campaigns sends personalized mass email campaigns, automates follow-ups, syncs with your CRM and reports on results. The homepage says you send the mass emails from your own domain and get detailed reports on email opens and link clicks, log them to your CRM, and automate follow-ups based on replies. Because each message goes out through your own Gmail account, a campaign arrives as ordinary email from you rather than as a newsletter from a bulk sending service.

The company's blog post on mail merge tools for Gmail describes the workflow in more detail. You build a template and personalize fields such as a contact's name, company name and job title, then send to the whole list in one go. With the Starter and Professional plans you can launch any number of campaigns per month, and each Gmail mail merge campaign comes with a report you can share with teammates on Vocus.io. The Pro plan lets you add file attachments to a mail merge, for example PDFs, slide decks and Word documents.

Automated follow-ups

Professional plan subscribers can configure multi-stage mail merge: the blog says you can add as many auto-followup email "stages" as you want to each campaign. The homepage ties follow-ups to replies, so the sequence stops for a recipient who has answered. This makes Vocus.io usable for simple cold outreach sequences, not only one-off merges, as long as you stay on the Professional plan.

Inbox: tracking and tools for everyday email

Vocus.io Inbox enhances Gmail and G Suite with tracking, follow-ups, CRM sync, templates and team collaboration. The homepage says you can track email opens and link clicks per recipient, automate follow-ups, set reminders, share templates with team members and log emails to your CRM. The blog calls the tracking "industry-leading" and adds that you can use branded URLs for tracking links. The homepage feature list names accurate tracking, auto follow-ups, mail merge, send later, slash commands, prospecting, reminders and teams, and the headline also mentions scheduling appointments. A Team and Collaboration page is linked from the menu.

The blog stresses that the tools work for individual emails as well as bulk campaigns, so the same extension covers a rep's one-to-one messages and their mass outreach.

Integrations

The homepage lists integrations with Salesforce, Pipedrive, other CRMs, and webhooks and Zapier. The blog describes the Salesforce connection as a native integration that lets Salesforce users launch and log advanced campaigns, and says Vocus.io works with other CRMs through auto-BCC. Every tracked email and campaign can be logged to the CRM, so pipeline records reflect what was sent.

Plans and pricing

The blog post gives the plan prices, all per user per month and charged monthly so you can cancel anytime:

• Basic, $5/mo. The note says this tier does not include Gmail mail merge, so it covers the Inbox side only.
• Starter, $10/mo. Subscription plans for bulk emails start here, with Gmail mail merge and any number of campaigns per month.
• Professional, $20/mo. Adds multi-stage campaigns (automated follow-ups for Gmail mail merge) and file attachments for mail merge.

Choosing a tier follows from what you send. A rep who only wants tracking, reminders and templates on individual emails can stay on Basic; anyone who sends mail merges needs Starter at least; and a team that wants follow-up stages to go out automatically, or to attach a brochure or deck to a merge, needs Professional. Because every price is per user, a team pays for each rep on the tier that rep needs, month by month. The blog describes Vocus.io as an industry-leading solution on features, positive reviews and cost-effectiveness, and argues that the price covers far more than bulk email because the Inbox tools come with it.

The homepage offers a free 30 days trial with no credit card required. There is no permanent free plan on the pages. The company says thousands of professionals use Vocus.io.

Security and compliance

The homepage says Vocus.io is in line with the GDPR and CCPA privacy regulations. Under the heading "Verified by Google" it says the company passed an external security assessment audit required by Google to keep user data safe.

Support

Questions go to the support email address on the homepage, and billing is handled through a billing portal. The site links to a knowledge base and a contact page. The blog also offers a 2-minute demo video.

How the pieces fit together

In practice a Vocus.io user works from Gmail throughout. A rep writes a campaign template in the Gmail compose window, pulls in the contact list, sets merge fields for name, company and job title, and, on the Professional plan, adds follow-up stages that go out to people who have not replied. Opens and link clicks come back per recipient, the campaign report can be shared with teammates, and the activity is logged to Salesforce, Pipedrive or another CRM. Between campaigns, the Inbox tools track the rep's individual emails, remind them to follow up, and let them schedule messages with send later or reach templates through slash commands. For a team, shared templates keep messaging consistent across reps.

Who Vocus.io suits

Vocus.io fits salespeople, business development and public relations professionals, and partnership or influencer outreach teams who work in Gmail and want to send personalized emails in bulk without moving to a separate email platform. The per-user monthly pricing and a Starter tier at $10/mo keep it inexpensive for individuals and small teams, and the native Salesforce integration suits teams that run their pipeline there. The limits follow from the design: it is built for Gmail through a Chrome extension, sending runs through each user's own account, and automated follow-up stages and attachments need the Professional plan. There is no drag-and-drop newsletter builder or subscriber list management on the pages, so it is an outreach tool rather than a newsletter platform.