Once A Great Influential Marketing Platform. Is NinjaOutreach Worth It In 2021?

I love sharing my honest reviews of not only the tools I use in my blogging business but tools I think you could benefit from using too. Today, I take a closer look at the NinjaOutreach tool and explain what I like and what I dislike about it, and whether I think it's worth your time in 2021.

OK, so I'm always on the lookout for exciting new tools, apps, and technology that I think could be valuable in increasing productivity.

My time is precious, as is yours, I know. So I always appreciate the time YOU take to come over and read my blog and online reviews.

So, let me tell you how I came across NinjaOutreach. I was contacted by one of the founders of the application back in 2015. They offered me a free year plan to test-drive NinjaOutreach. NOT in exchange for this review. This review was my decision.

At first, I was quite impressed. And for the most part, it had everything it claimed to have. It was designed to save time and money doing email outreach and influencer marketing; that's it, nothing else. That's what it said on the box, and that's what you got.

Over the years, NinjaOutreach managed to improve its product and core features; however, some issues started to light regarding its services. Particularly how the company conducts itself. I'll explain later in this post.

What is all this blogger outreach about anyway?

Basically, blogger outreach is the process of reaching out and connecting with other bloggers and influencers in your niche or industry.

This can be either a hit or a miss. Connecting with influencers is a great way to harness the authority, credibility, and audience reach of reputable blogs to help promote your brand, content, products, or services.

You can do blogger outreach without using a software, service, or app like NinjaOutreach. However, it would be quite time-consuming and require a lot of resources.

That's where a website like Ninja Outreach comes into action.

The platform was originally designed to help you save time finding influencers in your industry.

Disclaimer: Before I continue, I want to remind you that I did NOT purchase Ninja Outreach for myself. I was, in fact, contacted by one of the founders of the software, Dave Schneider (at the time), and given a free account for one year.

I was able to test drive NinjaOutreach for a couple of months before making up my mind whether I thought the tool was useful or not - from a digital marketing perspective.

The decision to write this review was completely my own. The purpose of this review is to let you know whether I think NinjaOutreach is worth your time and money, or not.

OK, now that we're clear on this, let's continue...

How does Ninja Outreach work?

This is an outreach and prospecting software for bloggers and entrepreneurs or for anyone looking for a more efficient and rapid way to reach out and connect with bloggers, small business owners, freelancers, agencies, influencers, and more.

NinjaOutreach is an all-in-one online influencer marketing tool that provides users the ability to do the following fun stuff:

• Search for prospects and influencers. Currently, there are over 25 million added to their database.
• Build contacts/prospects lists.
• Create and manage email outreach templates.
• Get access to a ton of other unlimited features (See price list below).

Working with Ninja Outreach CRM tool

So, let me give you a quick demonstration of how I would personally use Ninja Outreach for my own project.

Let's suppose I was thinking about putting together an expert roundup list post about website conversion rate optimization to be published on my blog or on a guest blogging website.

I would simply use NinjaOutreach to first do a search for something like "website conversion tips" or "how to boost website conversions," or something along those lines.

The software would then do a live search and generate relevant websites, pages complete with social and SEO insights and metrics, contact details, traffic and engagement information, and more. See the image below.

Once I had this information, I could then start sifting through and adding any relevant sites, pages, etc., to my custom prospects list later on. See the image below.

I can also import URLs that I might want to research or export to CSV to view later on offline.

Video: There's a video on the homepage of NinjaOutreach that will show you how this is done in greater detail, so take some time to watch it.

Okay, so once I have my list of prospects created, I can begin constructing my outreach email template or use one of the ready-made templates provided in my NinjaOutreach dashboard. See the image below.

In the email body, I would simply introduce myself and explain that I'm putting together an expert roundup post where I would love them to answer a question or two.

So, that's just a quick demo of how I would use NinjaOutreach myself, however, it doesn't stop there.

I can also use the CRM to find targeted guest post-friendly blogs that might be interested in publishing my expert roundup post.

Other uses for Ninja Outreach include finding -

• Blogs that are hosting giveaways and contests.
• Blogs that publish product reviews.
• Blogs that accept infographics and videos.
• Blogs for advertising, and more...

Other notable features of Ninja Outreach

When you sign up to use Ninja Outreach, in addition to the software, you also get access to a host of tools and services, including -

• Chrome extension.
• Knowledge database.
• In-depth blog and video tutorial guides for using Ninja Outreach.
• Option to join Ninja Academy, which is a premium service. (No longer available.)
• 'Done for you' service, another premium option. (No longer available.)

So is this tool right for everyone?

Yes, it's right for everyone interested in saving time and resources when doing any influencer marketing or blogger outreach email campaigning, whether it's for themselves or a client.

Pricing

OK, so there are 4 plans to choose from with Ninja Outreach. See the image below for the pricing structure. These are obviously correct at press time but could change.

As you can see from the above, Ninja Outreach is not cheap. For example, for unlimited users, $74 per month amounts to $888 per year.

For big team players at $599 per month amounts to a skull-crushing!!! $7,188 per year... Really? You'd have to be some megastar blogger to afford that! After all, wasn't NinjaOutreach designed for bloggers?

What are the pros and cons

I've been using NinjaOutreach for a few years now, so I've concluded a list of pros and cons I've found since starting using it. And, at the time of updating this post in March 2021.

1. You get 7-days trial access. Used to be 14 days!
2. Easy to use, improved user interface.
3. Great assistance with practical video tutorials available in the knowledge database.
4. Huge time-saving tool, ultimately that's the biggest selling point here with Ninja Outreach.
5. Over 25 million influencers have already been added to their database.

And the cons?

1. Expensive. In fact, it's far out way too expensive... The cheapest plan will set you back a choking $624 per year, so be careful before you commit because NinjaOutreach has a no refund policy.
2. Possible email spamming. My other concern with Ninja Outreach is with regards to email spamming. Emails sent from the software could easily be flagged up. Email service providers are getting smarter. And I think that could cause some serious concerns for some bloggers and marketers, especially with GDPR in force. I'm not entirely sure how this is handled by NinjaOutreach; however, my only thought is that once the software has been established more, as more people within the industry know about it and are using it, this might not be so much of an issue. For the most part, I have stopped using NinjaOutreach for blogger outreach but continue to use it for doing content research. (Update in 2021, I've now stopped using the software completely.)
3. Poor customer support. I can't give praise to their customer support team either, personally, because each time I've attempted to contact one of their representatives, I've had zero response! Also, from the reviews that I've read of the customer support for NinjaOutreach on other websites, it would seem that this is another area that the company is lacking, sadly.
4. Broken management. OK... what? Well, here we are. Something has happened to the management team over at NinjaOutreach; I really don't know what though. I say this for several reasons. The number of complaints that I've read about the billing system on other websites is a concern. The reviews on TrustPilot are also a concern. It just feels as if the overall service has gone downhill with NinjaOutreach.

Do I "personally" recommend using Ninja Outreach in 2021?

It's a real tough one. If you'd asked me that question a few years ago, my answer would have been a Yes! Without hesitation.

But, I have to be 100% honest with you. I don't feel it's worth your time in 2021. Nope, especially when there are other CRM tools on offer.

Yes, I get that everything you need for doing influencer marketing is provided under one roof, one platform, so to speak.

However, the plans are quite expensive. There's the issue of possible email spamming when using the email tools, and the inadequate customer support with a zero refund policy makes them not as attractive as they were a few years ago. At least for me.

Another issue that I've not highlighted is that some parts of their website appear broken. There is considerable 'page not found' pages, and some have broken CSS! This indicates to me that the site is not being properly maintained.

So my final thoughts on NinjaOutreach is: The product is great! Can't really flaw it, the company behind it is becoming questionable.

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post, I have not purchased this software myself. I was simply given a free license by OutreachNinja to test drive the CRM software. To test out the features, customer support, and so on. My opinion is mine and only mine.