WaveEvo

WaveEvo is the web-based email marketing software of Wave Evolution, a data and digital marketing company whose contact page names Wave Evolution (M) Sdn Bhd in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia, as its headquarters, with Wave Evolution Pte Ltd in Singapore and Wave Evolution Limited in Hong Kong. The software sends HTML and text newsletters and campaigns to the customer's own lists. The company sells it through waveevo.com and its country sites, blastmy.com for Malaysia and blastsg.com for Singapore, which carry the price list. Alongside the self-service tool, Wave Evolution runs campaigns for clients, designs HTML newsletters, verifies lists, builds dedicated sending servers and rents business email lists. The blastmy home page says its email marketing is for "government, non-profit, small to large private organizations of diverse industry sectors and backgrounds."

What the software does

The self-managed product runs in the browser. After purchase the company provides a URL, a username and a password, and you log in and start sending. The FAQ says you can log out while the software keeps sending, and that sending over 20,000 emails a day is possible. There is no limit on the number of campaigns, only on the credits you hold.

Emails are built in a drag-and-drop editor that needs no HTML knowledge, or in an HTML source editing mode for designers who want full control of their code. Pre-designed templates can be edited with your brand colors, images, links and text. Personalization fields insert values such as the subscriber's first name or title. Campaigns go out in UTF-8, so Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other character sets are supported.

Contact lists are imported, organized and sent to as lists or segments, and the import step removes duplicate addresses and badly formatted ones automatically. The features page cites a study that found segmented campaigns get a 14.31% higher open rate and a 100.95% higher click rate than unsegmented ones, and the application lets you group contacts however you like and narrow segments by criteria such as gender, geography or purchase history. After a send you can segment again by the content each contact clicked. Moving from another provider means exporting your contacts and importing them as a CSV file.

Automation covers two things on the features page. Lead nurturing sends a series of emails based on a lead's behavior to guide that lead through the buying process, and re-targeting resends a campaign to the contacts who did not open it; the page says marketers using the resend feature raised their open rate by almost 50%. Sign-up forms are copied and pasted into a website and add new subscribers to the database automatically, and an unsubscribe link deactivates a contact from future newsletters while keeping the record, marked as inactive.

Reports are generated automatically for every campaign and update in real time. They show which contacts opened and how many total opens the campaign received, who clicked and how many times each link was clicked, soft and hard bounces, desktop or mobile opens with the browser, device and email client, and geographic opens. Google Analytics UTM tags can be added to campaign templates to follow clicks into your website. For developers there is an API for third-party or custom apps, with a PHP SDK for quick PHP integration.

Delivery and data

The features page says Wave Evolution has its own delivery infrastructure and a team of delivery and network specialists, and that it sets up DKIM, SenderID, SPF and DomainKeys, ISP feedback loops and bounce management. The FAQ adds relationships with ISPs and blacklist providers around the globe, but it is candid that "there’s no 100% guarantee that your messages will be delivered to inboxes", since delivery depends on the sender's domain, list quality, sending frequency and IP reputation. On data, the FAQ says an imported list is private and used only to send your campaigns, and that the company uses multiple MTAs in data centers around Asia and Europe.

Spam is prohibited under the company's contract terms. The FAQ allows B2B cold email "to a certain extent", provided it complies with rules such as the Personal Data Protection Act of Singapore and Malaysia, the EU's GDPR, Hong Kong's Unsolicited Electronic Messages Ordinance and the US CAN-SPAM Act.

Prices

The Malaysian site lists prices in Malaysian ringgit excluding 8% SST, payable by card through PayPal or by bank transfer. The self-managed software is sold as Pay As You Use credit packs: you buy credits for the number of emails you plan to send, and they never expire. Every pack includes free email validations, one free HTML design, an unlimited subscribers list and local support.

• 25,000 credits for RM 1,599, with 2,500 validations
• 50,000 credits for RM 1,999
• 75,000 credits for RM 2,299
• 100,000 credits for RM 2,699, with 10,000 validations
• 300,000 credits for RM 3,399
• 600,000 credits for RM 5,399, marked Best Value, with 60,000 validations
• 1,200,000 credits for RM 8,399
• 2,400,000 credits for RM 11,999

Credits can be topped up when they run out. The Singapore site shows the same packs in Singapore dollars, from S$ 599 for 25,000 credits to S$ 2999 for 1,200,000.

Heavier senders have two enterprise routes. Type 1 connects the software to a third-party delivery platform, which the price page labels best for deliverability, with monthly tiers of 30,000, 60,000, 150,000 and 450,000 emails, a one-off setup of RM 2500, a domain fee of RM 50 a year and monthly fees from RM 259 to RM 2099. Type 2 builds a dedicated server with dedicated IPs and the company's own SMTP setup, for 5,000 to 100,000 emails a day with between 5 and 20 IP addresses, a one-off setup of RM 5000 and server rental from RM 399 to RM 999 a month. That setup covers Postfix, IP rotation, SPF and DKIM, DMARC, reverse DNS, feedback loop registration, throttling tuned to ISP limits and IP warm-up. If you already run your own server, the FAQ says you can buy the software for on-premise installation.

Payment is due before the service starts, and the terms say that after service begins "no refund shall be entertained, either in part or full."

Services around the software

Wave Evolution also sells the work around the tool. List verification tests each address "against 17+ factor test", from RFC format to an SMTP check, and returns valid, invalid or unknown; standalone packs run from RM 99 for 1,000 validations to RM 9,999 for 2,000,000. The managed campaign service costs RM 200 per campaign and covers list upload and segmentation, HTML newsletter conversion or editing, and reporting, and the solution page says each customer gets a dedicated account manager. A bespoke HTML newsletter design costs RM 400 and converting an existing design RM 100. Business email database rental sends in-house to a list of 100,000 Malaysian professionals, managers, executives and businessmen, from RM 899 for one campaign to RM 3,999 for ten. Outside email, the company offers WhatsApp and SMS marketing, SEO, Google Ads, social media, telemarketing, web data scraping and eStatement delivery.

Support

Support runs by phone, email and Skype, and the platform page promises you can "call us direct to solve your problem within minutes!" The FAQ says questions submitted from inside the account are answered within 1 business day, the contact page gives office hours of Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (GMT+8), and on-site training at your office costs extra. A demo account lets you try the interface without sending. The price page backs the offer with 1000 satisfied corporate clients, 1000000 emails sent daily and a presence in Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Who it suits

WaveEvo suits Malaysian and Singaporean organizations that send campaigns now and then, or in seasons, and would rather prepay credits that never expire than hold a monthly subscription. It also fits companies that want a local vendor to design, send or clean lists for them, and high-volume senders who want a dedicated server with their own IPs set up for them. It is a weaker match for teams that want a self-serve monthly plan with a free tier, or a catalog of ready-made integrations beyond the API, UTM tagging and the PHP SDK. Given the no-refund term, the demo account is worth a try before buying.