Constant Contact vs. Campaigner vs. Aweber Showdown

Welcome to the Constant Contact, Campaigner, and AWeber showdown! So many e-mail marketing services to choose from, but which one should I choose one might ask? CashSherpa is here to help!

So you’ve set up an awesome e-commerce website, but you still need an email marketing provider. Three of the biggest players in the market are Constant Connect, Campaigner and AWeber. All three takes care of sending automated email messages to your customers, whether it’s to build loyalty, lure new customers or simply follow up on a purchase.

AWeber, Constant Contact, Campaigner Review Video:

Constant Contact (www.constantcontact.com)

Constant Contact is one of the oldest email marketing services around; they’ve been in business since 1998. That’s a really long time in the Internet world. Constant Contact features over 400 free templates for newsletters and mailings, unlimited email lists, real-time monitoring and survey development tools (optional). For $15 a month (lowest plan), you can send out up to a maximum of 500 emails. Sending out 501 to 2,500 emails costs $30/mo and 2,501 to 5,000 emails costs $75/mo. You can get a discount if you’re a nonprofit, have a prepaid account or if you’re sending out bulk mailings.

Pros

• 60-day Free Trial, no credit card required
• Been in the business since 1998
• More than 400 templates
• User-friendly. You don’t need any HTML knowledge to design newsletters.
• Easy import/export lists. Import addresses from Outlook, Outlook Express and Act.
• Zero-tolerance for spam. Constant Connect monitor list activity to keep spammers away, and they do not allow illegal or purchased emailing lists to be used with their service.

Cons

• You pay a separate fee for each additional feature not included in the basic plan (including personal customer support and image storage).
• Limited customization. The WYSIWYG editor is not available for your own HTML designs.
• Limited storage
• User interface sometimes difficult to navigate
• Beginner level EMSP

Campaigner (www.campaigner.com/)

Campaigner started offering email marketing services in 2005. The company is owned by j2 Global Canada, Inc., makers of eVoice. Campaigner offers a 30-day free trial, 24/7 customer support, over 500 email templates and one of the largest library of creative content for customizing your mailings. The lowest plan costs $10 per month for a maximum of 1,000 subscribers. This price includes social media integration, auto responder and A/B testing.

Pros

• Customer service. Campaigner has one of the best reputations for its 24/7 tech support.
• Reasonable price. Other companies charge a fixed price for maximum number emails sent per month, but Campaigner uses contact pricing. You can send as many emails as you want to the subscribers in your contact list.
• More than 500 templates
• Excellent template builder and editor
• 10MB of image storage space
• Social networking integration
• Contact manager (import contacts via Outlook, Excel, CSV and major email providers)
• Auto-responder feature

Cons

• Online surveys not included in the monthly plan
• No spam checker
• No Google Analytics integration
• Limited reporting. Does not show clicks, forwards, spam statistics or best performing links.

AWeber (http://www.aweber.com)

Aweber is a streamlined email marketing service provider that offers the basics, plus social media integration and a 99 percent deliverability rate, one of the highest in the business. Aweber’s auto-responder tool is arguably the best, letting you customize your contact list and time delay. The lowest-priced AWeber plan starts at $19 per month for up to 500 subscribers.

Pros

• Uncluttered and easy to use interface
• Good WYSIWYG template editor
• Newsletter attachment feature
• Good reporting and tracking
• Good list management
• CAN-Spam compliant
• Good customer support
• Social media, shopping cart and web form integration
• Broadcast archive feature (turns newsletters into web pages)
• We use AWeber at CashSherpa and many of the top bloggers prefer AWeber to other services

Cons

• No image hosting
• No survey creation feature
• No Tell-A-Friend forms
• Manual removal of duplicate contacts

All three services offer basic email marketing functionalities. Campaigner on the surface wins for the best plan pricing at just $10 for 1,000 subscribers, plus a 30-day free trial to test the waters. It also offers excellent customer service and a solid template editor. Our next pick is AWeber, which is slightly more costly at $19/mo for 500 subscribers, but includes basics plus extras like the broadcast archive feature and integration with third-party functions. Last on our list is Constant Contact. It is also more expensive at $15/mo (basic plan), and you have to pay separately for each additional function (including social media integration). We recommend after signing up for any e-mail marketing service to test features and customer service right away. With e-mail marketing services you are in it for the long haul make sure the company you choose fits best with your long term goals. No matter which service you try, start with a free or reduced cost trial to see if you like their service. There is literally no risk to try!