Cloud communications company Twilio Inc. wants to help email marketers optimize their campaigns with new automation and testing features in its SendGrid platform.

Twilio SendGrid was created following the firm’s $2 billion acquisition of SendGrid Inc. in October. The acquisition added cloud email support to complement Twilio’s existing communications software, including its popular voice-over-IP features. More important, it gave Twilio’s customers a single platform on which they can manage all of their important communication channels, including voice, messaging, video and email.

Today, Twilio is enhancing SendGrid with new features including onetime and automated marketing mail and transactional messages. The idea is to give customers more control and consistency over their email marketing campaigns, the company said.

“As the most-used medium for businesses to engage with current and potential customers and a proven ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, email is critical to meeting business goals,” said Steve Sloan, chief product and marketing officer at Twilio SendGrid. “But marketers are often so time-strapped that complicated, expensive options just don’t seem feasible to optimize their email results. Marketing Campaigns’ new approachable Automation and Email Testing solutions provide frustration-free workflows and integrated tools to build flawless emails across automated and recurring series, one-time campaigns and transactional email.”

The new automation features will enable marketers to deliver recurring emails or “drip series” marketing campaigns, allowing them to send messages automatically based on their behavior and responses to previous communications, the company said. For example, messages can be automatically delivered should a contact meet specific criteria for joining a designated mailing list.

As for the email testing features, these are designed to reduce customer unsubscribe rates and ensure that marketers’ messages aren’t automatically marked as spam, which would prevent them from being seen. Twilio said traditional email testing tools can be cumbersome because marketers have to leave their workflow and open a new tool to test each message then return to their workflow to fix any errors.

Twilio’s email testing tools however can be integrated directly within the email client, eliminating much of the legwork. One of the main features is it allows marketers to see how their emails are rendered in different inboxes, including the most popular ones such as Gmail and Outlook. The tools also help to ensure that messages will get through the spam filters employed by email service providers, Twilio said.

Image: Twilio SendGrid/Facebook