• Hostwinds ($3.29/month)

  Disclaimer: This post contains references to products where I received commissions for purchases made through links. This is to help support my blog and does not have any impact on my recommendations.
  
  

  Web hosting service providers play a major part in deciding your website’s success and future. Websites being a worldwide phenomenon need to be attractive, user-friendly and superfast.

  Making that possible lies in the hands of all the companies that offer web hosting services.

  

  One of the many companies that are famous and really good at their job of web hosting and satisfying customers is Hostwinds. This company might not have a long history but it sure is a good one. Starting off back in 2010, Hostwinds has grown in size and customer base, owing mostly to its reasonable prices for the services they offer.

  With just a small amount of $3.29 per month you can start off with their Basic Shared package. In total they offer 7 different hosting plans and the prices vary according to those plans. This clearly gives the clients a lot to choose from, according to their need or business size.

  With an uptime offering of 99.9999% to be exact, as seen on their website, it offers great surety to the customers. Moreover, Hostwinds also provides various extras like, free website transfers, unlimited databases, free SSL certificate and many more.

  Unfortunately, backups are not free. Nightly backups come as an add-on service that you’ll have to pay for. But they do provide 24/7 monitoring of your website and given their high quality response system, a ticket will be automatically sent to the engineers, should a problem occur.

  The customer support team is very helpful and there for its clients at all times. Available 24/7/365, you can contact their team for anything through different channels like live chat, phone call or by sending a ticket, and they will respond to you almost instantly. They also have a Knowledge Base where they have published articles to answer all kinds of general questions that may arise.

  For their website control panel, they use the infamous cPanel that is trusted and used by most companies in the industry. Furthermore, Hostwinds has three different data centers located in Seattle, Dallas and Amsterdam. Now a drawback about this is that there are no data centers for the Asian clients. The data centers however, are state of the art.

  Hostwinds’ data centers come with 24/7 armed security and video surveillance to make sure that no data is compromised whatsoever. SSD drives are used to make sure that your website content is dealt with through speedy servers in order to give you a seamless experience.

  Free website migration is also offered by Hostwinds so you can just relax while their team of professionals complete the work for you.

  All in all, Hostwinds is an affordable, customer-friendly web hosting provider, that offers a really good value for your money.

  Pros

  ● A rare, 60 days money back guarantee.
  ● 24/7 highly responsive and helpful customer support available.
  ● An impressive uptime means greater stability for your websites.

  Cons

  ● Refunds are offered on conditional basis.
  ● Data server options are quite limited.
  ● Misinformation on website, according to some customers.

  Conclusion

  If you are looking for a hosting site that offers good stability then Hostwinds fits the bill.

  

  November 16, 2019

• 14 Best Email and Autoresponder Services

  

  Disclaimer: This post contains references to products where I received commissions for purchases made through links. This is to help support my blog and does not have any impact on my recommendations.
  
  Do you often not necessarily buy a product on 1st contact? Do you simply buy after getting a number of reminders? Have you been enthusiastic about robotizing your follow-up email messages?

  Most marketers try to sell their particular product based on site visitors reading their sales webpage. This is certainly a huge mistake since only a little percentage may actually buy on first contact. The majority associated with visitors will leave and never be viewed again. Autoresponders fix this issue by delivering out a series of follow-up emails automatically.

  Definition of an Autoresponder?

  An autoresponder is a computer program that automatically answers e-mail sent to it. They can be very simple or quite complex. Read More….

  Sequential Autoresponder

  This is application or a script that instantly gives a series regarding messages over several days and nights, weeks or months. Instead of a customer acquiring only one message they receive a new message every couple of days. The advantage of this method is of which you stay in touch with your customer.

  Top 7 Benefits of an Autoresponder

  1. Generate more revenue and/or subscribers

  If you send a series of emails containing valuable information every few days it is going to enhance your online sales due to the fact each message reminds your customer about the product you’re offering. Make sure you direct the person in order to your sales page at the ending of each and every message.

  2. Build Relationships

  Autoresponder application enables you to distribute a newsletter every week or 2. Simply produce a landing page containing typically the subscription box for visitors to opt-in. After they usually are on your list you can send them a series of follow-up messages (e-course), a newsletter or the free report.

  3. Send members to your weblog or even website

  By consistently building your listing of subscribers you could send them to your current blog site or website whenever you have written a new article. You can also provide them with new goods.

  4. Survey Subscribers

  Before creating and marketing a new product you need to understand if it is something individuals want. Use your autoresponder to survey your current list. if there is no need you’ll have saved oneself a lot of period and money.

  5. Track Outcomes

  Use the tracking tools in addition to reports of your email marketing in order to track the available rate of your communications. You can track exactly how many folks read your current email and clicked about your links.

  6. Email Deliverability

  Professional autoresponder companies make sure your email gets provided. They have established very good relationships with major Online sites Providers (ISPs) and Email Service Providers (ESPs).

  7. Eliminates Sending Messages Manually

  Instead of creating and sending each and every email message manually, write up a series associated with messages (or articles) after that deliver them automatically via your autoresponder. The application permits you to create unlimited messages for several niches. You can maintain everything organized from a single application. This will save you time and money.

  1. Aweber

  

  AWeber is a popular choice when opting for a nice digital marketing service. Being in the run since 1998, AWeber is equipped with superior ways to keep the customers engaged and boost e-marketing.

  In the review below, we’ll have a keen look at its pros, cons, payment plans, amazing features and much more.

  Overall Rating: 4.3 / 5

  Pricing

  AWeber offers the following payment plans:

  • Starts with $19 per month that can serve up to 500 subscribers.
  • 501 – 2,500 contacts: $29/month
  • 2,501 – 5,000 contacts: $49/month
  • 5,001 – 10,000 contacts: $69/month
  • 10,001 – 25,000 contacts: $149/month

  If your number of subscribers exceed 25000, then you will have to contact the customer care team at AWeber for assistance.

  Besides, providing email auto-responding services at a cheaper rate, AWeber also provides generous discounts on prepayments.

  You can avail a 14% discount on a quarterly payment; a 15% discount is available for an annual payment. Apart from this, AWeber also supports non-profit organizations and young students and offers them a further concession.

  In addition to all this, for AWeber subscription, no setup fee is charged. You can order your free 30 day trial period and can instantly get access to your campaign.

  The free trial gives you access over all the amazing features offered by AWeber, unlike some other competing services.

  Moreover, you can change your doesn’t bind you to any long term contracts and you can change or quit your plan anytime.

  Key Features

  Given below is an overview of the key features of AWeber:

  • A vast variety of templates.
  • Auto Responders.
  • Import an email’s data through CSV or an external application.
  • Regular Email Analytics.
  • Split Testing Functionality.
  • Secure and Customised Surveys.
  • Huge Stock image Library.
  • High volume email sending.
  • Interaction Tracking.
  • Website Visitor Tracking.
  • Third-party app integrated marketing.
  • Email Marketing Training.
  • Landing webpages easy and simple to customise.
  • Amazing email and live chat support option.

  Marketing Automation

  Marketing Automation feature is offered by almost all of the top-notch email auto-responding services available in the market.

  AWeber’s automation tools are easy to use and are really helpful in organising lists of subscribers. You can easily manage the subscriber’s data with the rules you create.

  AWeber works with a tag-based system hence subscribers can be segmented, allowing you to manage subscribers easily.

  Although AWeber’s automation tools are easy to use, they lack a lot of advanced features like sophisticated automation and design testing etc.

  Since AWeber is a little expensive when compared to its competitors, users expect better and more sophisticated features that would help them with managing their emails with lesser efforts.

  Report and Email Statistics

  Almost all of the email auto-responding services in market feature statistical report but, only a few reports up to the standard expected and AWeber is one of the few.

  With AWeber, you can track your sent emails. You can get the names of openers, link clickers, notification about website visits, spamming, forwarding, purchases, unsubscriptions, e-commerce tracking info and much more.

  Moreover, you also receive a detailed overall report guiding you on overtime clicking, subscriber growth, sales report and much more.

  On the downside, the service is not integrated with Google analytics and hence, can result in not a very deep insight into your website’s performance.

  Templates

  AWeber has an impressive range of e-newsletter templates available; there are over 700 in stock, one of the largest collections.

  AWeber’s good selection of templates can be used to create a successful and visually attractive campaign. Premade templates are available that can be edited and customised according to need, but there is, of course, an option for designing your own templates.

  Furthermore, the videos available by AWeber are an excellent guide to craft a professional looking logo, effortlessly.

  In addition to this, there is a huge library of images available that can be of great help. Unlike most of its competitors, AWeber provides you with unlimited storage space that can be used to store images and data.

  Though the template range is very vast, the quality seems to be compromised. With time, the templates get outdated and there is no significant updating by AWeber.

  Although you have the option to create from scratch, predesignated templates are of great help when considering time.

  Auto Responders

  Auto Responding is a very important aspect of digital marketing. Briefly, they are the emails that are automatically triggered with user’s actions or by time. For a growing business, it is an essential component.

  AWeber has been in one of the very first autoresponder inventors – back in 1998. With decades passing, they have made advancements but, I am very unsure to credit them as the best one.

  The auto responding feature is basic and simple to handle. After a subscriber signs up, a welcome email is automatically sent. You can adjust the feature to send out social media promotion emails, promo codes etc.

  You can create your own, personalised messages easily with the drag and drop tool. Auto responding is a breeze with AWeber.

  But, if you want to take the use of autoresponders to an advanced level, then this is certainly not the best option. In that case, you can look for GetResponse, it is capable of reaching out to the goals of your subscribers and help them in reaching out for their interests.

  Split Testing Functionality

  Split testing, also commonly referred to as A/B testing is a method of testing versions of a website to choose the best one. In the world of digital marketing, several versions of your website are sent to different subscribers and the activity is recorded.

  The best one is then chosen out of all the versions, according to their performance rate. The best one is then sent to the rest of your contact list.

  Unlike other digital marketing services, with AWeber, you don’t require a third-party application to handle split testing for you.

  AWeber automatically carries out split testing and ensures that the best version is presented to your subscribers.

  Conclusion

  AWeber is a great digital marketing service and is equipped with all the basics you need for a small business to flourish. It encourages beginners with their excellent customer care service, who are ready to help their customers 24/7.

  

  2. Constant Contact

  

  In the following review, we will look at the amazing features of one of the finest and oldest email marketing services, Constant Contact.

  The review below will give you insights into the capabilities and weaknesses of this service, along with its diverse pricing structure, awesome features, a vast range of templates and much more.

  So, let’s get started.

  Overall Rating: 4.3 / 5

  Constant Contact Pricing

  The price listed below is for the two plans that Constant Contact offers:

  Email Plan – Starts at $20 per month

  • The minimum fee is $20 per month, with which you are allowed to accommodate upto 500 contacts.
  • 501 – 2,500 contacts: $45/month
  • 2,501 – 5,000 contacts: $65/month
  • 5,001 – 10,000 contacts: $95/month
  • 10,001 – 15,000 contacts: $195/month
  • 15,001 – 25,000 contacts: $225/month
  • 25,001 – 30,000 contacts: $295/month
  • 30,001 – 35,000 contacts: $315/month
  • 35,001 – 50,000 contacts: $335/month

  Email Plus Plan- Starts at $45 per month

  • The minimum fee is $45 per month, with which you are allowed to accommodate up to 500 contacts.
  • 501 – 2,500 contacts: $70/month
  • 2,501 – 5,000 contacts: $95/month
  • 5,001 – 10,000 contacts: $125/month
  • 10,001 – 15,000 contacts: $195/month
  • 15,001 – 25,000 contacts: $225/month
  • 25,001 – 30,000 contacts: $295/month
  • 30,001 – 35,000 contacts: $315/month
  • 35,001 – 50,000 contacts: $335/month

  If your contacts exceed 50,000 then you will need to ring up the Constant Contact sales team for assistance.

  The Constant Contact team also offers a discount if your subscription is prepaid. For 6 months or an annual prepayment, you can get a 15% discount on your billing. Constant Contact offers generous discounts to non-profit organizations on their prepaid bills, who can save up to 30%.

  Besides, this awesome pricing and generous discount offers, the 60 day trial period is a striking feature for all the potential users. Unlike most competitors in the market, Constant Contact offers a double-length trial period, so you are satisfied with the functionality of the software.

  Key Features Of Constant Contact

  Constant Contact is capable of the following:

  • Import and maintain subscriber’s data.
  • High Volume distinctive, personalised email sending.
  • Automated Email Responses.
  • Multi-User Account.
  • Secure and personalised survey invites.
  • Comprehensive Template management.
  • Lead retrieval and generation.
  • Event Website Creation.
  • Contact list Management.
  • Excellent email tracking and processing time.
  • Social media integrations.
  • Event Attendee engagements.
  • E-commerce email marketing.

  Marketing Automation

  Marketing automation is an amazing feature that is offered by a great deal of email marketing softwares. You can avail this service from Constant Contact as well.

  With Constant Contact, you can set up customized welcome emails, auto-responding messages, birthday anniversary wish emails to be automatically sent to your contacts.

  In addition to this, the software sends secure and customized surveys to your contact list, that aids the user in engaging their customers.

  The software is equipped with all the necessary, advanced marketing tools that will aid you in growing your contact list. You can create new web pages, simple online surveys or manage events with custom invites, registration, online payment etc.

  On the downside, the automation is limited to only basic autoresponders. You can find the same automation levels with cheaper services like MailerLite and SendinBlue.

  E-Commerce Integration

  This amazing feature offers e-commerce capabilities that assist the user to turn their website into an online store. The awesome e-commerce tools can help you in converting leads into loyal customers.

  Constant Contact uses a tag-based system to segment subscribers. The automated responses help you in keeping your customers engaged and segmented. With this amazing service, you can import contacts via a CSV or some other external application.

  Despite this amazing tagging feature, you are not able to add contacts into your automation, which is a serious drawback.

  Email Statistics

  Like most of its competitors, Constant Contact offers detailed reports about email clicks, unsubscription, open, forward, spam and much more. The ‘Report’ tab on the dashboard, displays these reports graphically. This really benefits in planning your next steps wisely.

  With Constant Contact, you have the capability to compare one of your created events with the one you have executed already, and were done using the same application.

  The Refresh button helps you to get 100% original and updated results.

  Moreover, the statistics can be customised and exported, according to need and desire.

  Considering it a con, the application fails to deliver a more comprehensive and detailed report with deeper insights into your campaign, like other applications available in the market offers.

  Templates

  Constant Contact has a wide range of decent templates that can be used to make your work more appreciable, effortlessly.

  Within a span of few minutes, you can craft a professional-looking email, using the easy-to-use templates. In addition to all this, Constant Contact also has predesignated templates for marketing emails that can be easily edited and customised according to the users need.

  The huge library of stock images can be helpful during the website creation or making your emails more colourful and distinctive. Moreover, Constant Contact’s guide videos can be really helpful in creating a colourful, exclusive and appealing logo.

  Although Constant Contact aids you in creating a logo, the predesignated templates are outdated. With time, they become out of context and expire, and so they require regular updating.

  But, Constant Contact hasn’t been really addressing this issue and so has a limited template option compared to other similar email marketing services.

  Split Testing

  A/B Testing or more commonly known as Split Testing is a way of maintaining the quality of your website and its components. It involves sending different variations of a component like e-newsletters to a number of your contacts, monitoring their performance and hence, selecting the best with reference to their performance rate.

  Most E-commerce websites like Constant Contact are capable of doing this automatically and thus roll out the best version to the rest of your contact lists.

  Conclusion

  Constant Contact is one of the finest email autoresponder available in the market. The E-commerce integration makes it a very suitable website for all sorts of online business.

  Signup Here>

  3. GetResponse

  

  GetResponse was founded back in 1997, as an email marketing platform for helping entrepreneurs and marketers. Over the many great years that the company has seen, they’ve evolved from being a traditional email marketing provider to an all-in-one marketing platform.

  The services that GetResponse offers now include landing pages, marketing automation, analytical tools and some CRM facilities as well.

  With this diverse set of services that they offer, there’s no surprise in the fact that they have a large customer base of around 350,000 people.

  Overall Rating: 4/5

  Pricing

  GetResponse has divided their pricing into four different plans:

  • Basic – this plan starts at $15 per month and includes features like email marketing, unlimited landing pages and many more. Through the basic plan you can send unlimited emails to a maximum of 1000 subscribers.
  • Plus – starting at $49 per month, this plan contains all the features from basic and some more, like simple CRM, webinars, automation builder and several others.
  • Professional – this package starts at $99 per month, with all the features in Plus and many others like paid webinars, unlimited automation builder, unlimited sales funnels etc.
  • Enterprise – the most premium package, comes at a price of $1,199 per month. This package consists of all the features that the previous packages had and many additions like a dedicated IP address, email campaign consultation, account manager and many more features.

  The base number of subscribers for all the packages is 1000. The company offers you 6 different subscriber sizes, 1000, 2500, 5000, 25000, 50000 and 100000. The price of each package varies accordingly with the amount of subscribers you’re choosing.

  18% and 30% discounts are available, respectively, if you choose to pay upfront for a year or two years. Along with a free 30-day trial period for all the plans.

  Key Features

  Comparing it to other email marketing platforms, GetResponse has an array of features and services that makes it stand out and stand better than its competitors.

  One major reason for this is the fact that it isn’t just an email marketing platform anymore. As mentioned above, it has evolved into a complete, extensive, marketing service provider.

  Some of GetResponse’s key features include:

  • A highly responsive emailing design
  • Ability to conduct free and paid webinars with an audience of up to 500 people
  • A wide variety of high-quality tools for analytics and statistics
  • Attractive newsletter templates
  • User-friendly landing page creator
  • CRM tools and functionalities

  Responsive Email Designs

  GetResponse was one of the first if not the first of its competitors to come up with the responsive email design functionality.

  This feature basically changes your newsletter template in accordance with whichever type of device you’re accessing it from.

  For example, if you’re a mobile user, the layout and the fonts will automatically become optimized for the device you’re reading the newsletter from.

  Most of the other competitors are up to speed with this feature now, but there’s still some difference between GetResponse’s functionality compared to them.

  In order to access the feature, all you need to do is simply click on the ‘mobile preview’ button which will immediately give you a display of how your newsletter will look like, on a phone.

  Furthermore, you can also just flip your phone and it’ll show the newsletters in a landscape mode with an entirely different layout.

  There are however, some problems related to this feature where users are getting a non-responsive version or the thumbnails are not being presented clearly, and the company is working to fix this problem.

  Autoresponders

  The term autoresponders refers to the e-newsletters that are automatically sent out at predetermined intervals. Autoresponders are a key feature for GetResponse because they offer two different functionalities for them.

  Messages can either be time-based or action-based. If someone signs up for your newsletter, the get an automatic welcome email and then a week later, they might get an email related to discounts or any other news, that’s an example of time-based messages.

  Action-based messages are focused on your actions like clicks, completed transactions, birthdays etc., and will only be sent out if you perform a particular action.

  Analytics

  GetResponse offers great tools and functions for analytics. Other than the basics like, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates or open rates, there are some advanced features too that are being offered.

  One of these features include ‘one-click segmentation’ which points out the people who didn’t open your newsletter so that you can send them a different one, the next time.

  Another analytical feature is ‘metrics over time’, where you can get to know when exactly do your subscribers respond to your emails.

  E-newsletter Templates

  Getresponse offers you over 200 templates to choose from based on your taste and liking. The layout for choosing a template is pretty straightforward with categorical divisions and an easy to edit design.

  You can change the fonts, colors, layouts and the images to your preference or you can just design your personal HTML email template and import its code.

  Aesthetically, the template range falls a little short compared to its competitors like Campaign Monitor. But you can always use a third party app or design your own template and import it, without any problems.

  Landing Page Creator

  Landing pages help in creating far more leads compared to the generic automatic website direction.

  Luckily GetResponse offers an amazing, mobile-friendly, landing page creator for its users which they can use to create attractive squeeze pages and to test out and compare the conversion rates of all the designed pages to choose the best one.

  Most of the competitors like Campaign Monitor and Aweber, still make use of third party landing page creators. Mailchimp recently launched their landing page creation functionality but it’s still not as good as GetResponse.

  Conclusion

  All in all, GetResponse is probably the most extensive and sophisticated software out there which offers an all-round service for all your marketing, email and customer management needs.

  It provides great features at a very reasonable price, with a lot of interesting products and timely advancements, that surely keep its customers happy.

  

  4. MailChimp

  

  One of the most effective marketing strategies of the new era includes the email marketing campaigns, that allow consumers to stay in touch with the newest happenings of their favorite organizations.

  MailChimp is one of the leading email marketing services that claim to send over 600 million emails daily from their platform.

  For small and large businesses alike MailChimp offers an all in one solution that will help boost the sales of their company and the plans are designed to cater everyone accordingly.

  We have personally used it and listed down all the important factors that will help you decide if Mailchimp the best option for you.

  Our Overall Rating: 4/5

  Pricing

  Mailchimp’s pricing is divided into multiple plans.

  • The initial Plan starts free that offers 2000 subscribers and 10,000 emails
  • The next plan covers 2500 subscribers and costs $29.99
  • With 10,000 subscribers you need to pay $75.99
  • For 15,000 subscribers the price is $129
  • For 20,000 subscribers, the price is $159
  • For 25000 subscribers, the price is $189
  • For 30,000 subscribers, the price is $ 219
  • For 50,000 subscribers, the price is $259

  A commendable feature that helps Mailchimp.com stand out from the rest of the service providers is the free email marketing. The Mailchimp.com customers can enjoy free email marketing up to a certain limit. The free trial offers 2000 contacts and around 12000 emails per month.

  Even once the free trial period expires or the business grows to an extent that it has more needs, the price ranges for the service packages at Mailchimp.com are very competitive in comparison to the other service providers. Starting at merely $9.99 per month, it is obvious that the services are highly affordable and budget friendly.

  Key Features

  Few of the Key features of Mailchimp are listed below:

  • Mobile Application
  • Flexible Designs
  • Advanced Analytics
  • E-commerce Integration
  • Data Insights
  • A free plan
  • Documentation
  • Social Media Advertising
  • App Integration
  • Marketing Automation
  • Landing pages
  • Comparative Reports
  • Send Time Optimization
  • Delivery by Timezone

  Analytics

  Analytics and real time reports are very important, especially when it comes to smaller businesses who are trying to extend their customer base. With Mailchimp.com, one can view the analytics and reports regarding the emails sent in real time.

  The customers are updated about the number of people who have opened the email, how many emails bounced back and the number of clicks etc. The dashboard has all the analytics and statistics so the business owners can be aware of the performance.

  All of this information is presented in the form of graphs so that it is easy to read, understand and comprehend.

  Automation

  Being aware of your customer’s active hours and understanding their preferences is very important when it comes to email marketing campaigns. The Mailchimp.com is a tool that helps businesses by doing this task for them.

  Using the data of the customer’s preferences, likes and dislikes, active hours etc, the tool ensures that the emails hit their inboxes at the optimal time so that the campaign can get maximum response.

  All of this is automated so that the business owners do not have to jot down this information and send the emails separately. Mailchimp.com will take care of this tedious task for you.

  Ads And Landing Pages

  Mailchimp.com allows the customers to create ads for all major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Not only this but you can also create landing pages as per your likes and preferences.

  Two templates are provided for the landing pages which can be further customized as desired. This gives the customers freedom to build landing pages that they feel work best for them.

  Email Editor

  Starting an email campaign using Mailchimp.com is extremely simple and easy. There are basic templates available which can be edited to form a campaign as one likes.

  Other than the given themes and templates, the customers are also given the freedom to code their own if they want to. The templates are compatible with both the mobile as well as desktop devices. Even the To Field in the is also customizable and the business owners have the choice of adding the customer’s first name in the field.

  Easy Integration And A/B Testing

  Mailchimp.com not only offers easy integration but it also offers integration with a number of different tools. Mailchimp.com can be integrated with a number of different platforms.

  Even e-commerce such as Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop and BigCommerce also support Mailchimp.com integration. The integration of Mailchimp.com with the e-commerce store also helps the business owners capture order information and send customized notifications.

  The A/B testing feature of the Mailchimp.com allows users to see what type of content and keywords are the most effective as well as the time at which the email sent attains the maximum number of clicks and views from the customers.

  Ease Of Use

  Mailchimp.com is a very simple yet effective email marketing platform. It is the best for even beginners who have never used such a platform before. All the features, tools and analytics are mentioned on the dashboard and the step by step directions and mini tutorials always come in handy.

  The knowledge base and customer service platforms are also available for help. The customers can browse through them and find answers to any queries they may have.

  The mobile app of Mailchimp.com makes it even more accessible and easy to use. Most of the features come with a drag and drop option so the business owners can customize templates at the cost of a few clicks.

  Conclusion

  All in all, Mailchimp.com is a great choice when it comes to email marketing. It allows the business owners a lot of freedom. The cost of $9.99 a month is also very affordable compared to the other service providers. The services are commendable as well.

  Signup Here

  5. iContact

  

  In this review, we will be having a close look at the iContact email and autoresponder service. Since its founding in 2003, iContact has made its mark in the market and has emerged as one of the most acknowledged and relied upon service providers in the market.

  We will discuss the pros and cons of the service along with its pricing and features.

  Our Overall Rating: 4.0 / 5

  iContact Pricing

  Here’s how the pricing for iContact goes:

  • 500 subscribers: $14/month.
  • 2500 subscribers: $32/month.
  • 5000 subscribers: $52/month.
  • 1000 subscribers: $79/month.
  • 15,000 – 1 million subscribers (High Volume): Contact Sales for a quote.
  • No setup fee.
  • Free demo and trial available.

  The pricing of this service is affordable and will open up a bunch of amazing features. Moreover, it will also offer Gmail, Outlook and Salesforce integration. Hence, it’s a much recommended service.

  Key Features Of iContact

  Here are a few mentionable features provided by iContact:

• It offers a simple and easy to understand email campaign creation feature.
• One can easily make lists and emails.
• It is an easy to use service especially in case one has to repeat a certain format or content multiple times.
• Offers the freedom to import professional email templates.
• Amazing and affordable plans despite commendable services.
• Professional advisors can help customers create custom marketing plans that are tailored to suit their needs in the best manner possible.
• Customers can easily try out the services because iContact offers a 30-day free trial.
• The drag and drop feature makes designing very easy and efficient.
• The service is extremely easy and simple to use. It is best for beginners lacking any technical knowledge or experience.
• Customers can make use of multi-user access.
• Performance analytics and reports are a great medium for one to keep an eye on his business’s performance.

Drag And Drop Feature

One of the most commendable features of iContact is the fact that it allows the drag and drop option for email template creation. Email templates are one of the most time taking and tedious tasks involved in email and auto responding services.

This is made extremely quick and easy through the drag and drop option. The user can simply pick the items and drop them. Thus the email template can be created in no time.

Basic themes and templates are also available in case a businessowners feels they are more relevant. The message coder feature takes care of the HTML conversion of the email and the email delivery is also ensured via a number of measures.

Analytics And Segmentation

In order to keep an eye on the email campaign and assess the performance, analytics and statistical reports are generated which display everything from the number of clicks to the number of subscribers.

Email segmentation is another amazing feature offered by iContact through which the businessowners can create a number of variations of the same message.

These variations differ because they are custom made according to the targeted demographic. The iContact software assesses the customer’s likes and dislikes and this feature helps business owners generate an email message that is more than likely going to attract a particular group of people.

Easy To Manage Contact Lists

Contact List management is also automated via iContact. The customers are given four options to add new contacts in their email lists. The email addresses of the new contacts can be added via copying them and pasting them into the text block, a CSV or XLS/XLSX file can be uploaded, online signup groups can be used and the email addresses can also be added manually.

The customers and users are free to use any medium they like.

Autoresponder feature of iContact also takes away a lot of work because it helps people set up marketing and email plans based on user actions. This means that as soon as the user performs a certain action, for instance likes a post, an email with a thank you message or a coupon code is automatically sent to him.

Ease And Convenience Of Use

iContact is the perfect tool for business owners who have no experience in email marketing. The process of setting up the account is very simple and only requires a few fields of important information.

A dashboard is also provided that can help one keep an eye on the recent statistics, contact lists and other necessary information. The accounts performance along with a link to the latest iContact blogs is also provided here at the dashboard.

The user can browse through the account via tabs present on top of the screen. All of these features make it extremely easy to understand and even more simple to use.

Other than this, nearly eighteen add on and integrations are also available. Business owners can integrate their social media platforms and can also use iContact for salesforce, eCommerce and even Drupal.

Customer Service

iContact has to be commended and appreciated for their spectacular customer service. The customer service team is extremely vigilant as well as helpful. In most cases, queries are answered within an hour and more often than not, the response is in the form of a call.

In case of more complex issues, customers are immediately connected to a customer service representative which can then look into the problem and provide a comprehensive solution.

Even the representatives over the phone call are extremely polite and professional. The customer service has to be given five stars for the speed and dedication as well.

On top of everything, customers are given multiple channels such as live support, online help, video tutorials, iContact blogs, webinars, comprehensive guides as well as advisory services.

Security

Security is one of the main concerns of most of the people especially when it comes to email list management. iContact has privacy policies that are in accordance with the TRUSTe standards.

The customer data is also protected by a firewall and 128 bit SSL encryption as well. The anti spam policy is also implied.

Even the customers registering for a free trial only have to agree to the company’s End User Agreement which includes the anti spam policy.

It is recommended for the customers to go through the iContact definition of spam prior to agreeing to the company policy.

Conclusion

All in all, iContact is an amazing email and autoresponder service. It is easy to use and is a perfect option for people who are new to this service or have no background or technical knowledge about email marketing.

Signup Here

6. Campaign Monitor

In today’s review, we will be discussing Campaign Monitor. We will have a look at the features of the service provider, its pricing and the facilities that the customers are entitled to upon subscribing to Campaign Monitor.

This review will encompass the features and characteristics of Campaign Monitor along with its packages and their prices.

Our Overall Rating: 4.4/5

Pricing

The basic plan for CampaignMonitor starts at $9 per month. However, there are two other plans i.e. Unlimited and Premier which are priced at $29 and $149 per month respectively. The main difference between these plans is based on the level of customer support and the threshold of emails that can be sent.

Key Features Of Campaign Monitor

Here is a list of some key features of Campaign Monitor:

• Customers can avail a free trial prior to subscribing to the services to get an idea about the extent and quality of services offered.
• The user interface of Campaign Monitor is very intuitive and easy to adapt to.
• It is very simple to use and even beginners and newbies with no experience with such services can use it with ease and convenience.
• It is a powerful email building tool.
• Three plans i.e. Basic, Unlimited and Premier to choose from.
• The basic plan is only priced at $9 per month.
• The auto responders of Campaign Monitor are very powerful and helpful.
• It is a perfect basic tool for small businesses that are new to the use of email marketing tools.
• A professionally designed library of templates is also available for the business owners to use for building emails.
• Business owners can also connect their stores with the CampaignMonitor accounts to keep an eye on their revenues, orders and customer messages etc.

Aesthetic Template Library

Campaign Monitor stands out from the rest of the service providers because of a commendable template library. The template library includes nearly 50 templates,which may not seem like a huge number of templates. However, the templates so attractive and aesthetic that they can lead to an amazing email campaign.

The templates are highly professional and are compatible with both the desktops as well as websites. They are robust and efficient as well. Thus, the business owners are provided with a number of ways and opportunities in which they can utilize the templates.

Drag And Drop Technique

Another amazing aspect about these templates at CampaignMonitor is the fact that they are very easy to use. The business owners simply need to drag and drop the contents they want to include in the email.

Whether it is content or even pictures and images, everything can be set in place simply by picking it up and dropping it at the desired place on the template.

This is especially convenient for business owners who are in search of simplicity and ease of use. They require no prior knowledge of coding and template organization. And thus can adapt to the use of templates easily.

Data Import And Export

The means of importing and exporting data while using email campaign and marketing service providers can be very tiring and tedious. However, this is not the case when the business owners are using Campaign Monitor.

All database formats such as XLSX, CSC, TXT, vCard and compressed file formats are supported. Other than these formats, the users can also simply copy their data and paste them straight into Campaign Monitor.

Segmentation

At times, there are certain emails or contents that business owners want to send to a specific number or group of clients only. WHen managed manually it can take a lot of time. However, since Campaign Monitor provides the facility of segmentation, this becomes easy and very quick.

The business owners can make separate lists or groups of these customers and choose to send the mails to only them.

Automation

Campaign Monitor provides the users with the facility of auto responders and email automation. The business owners can make a mail and that will be sent to anyone who joins the subscription list.

The business owners simply need to set up the email and arrange its contents. The rest will be taken care of Campaign Monitor itself. The automated emails will be sent as soon as the new subscribers are added to the mailing list.

Other than this plain form of automation, Campaign Monitor also allows the users to opt for marketing automation. In this case, the emails are sent out in response to certain actions.

For instance, the customers can be mailed when they click on certain links or add certain products to the cart etc. This is a great way of establishing a customized and personal relationship with the clients.

Sign Up Forms

Campaign Monitor has a range of sign up forms that are already available and the customers simply have to enable them to implement them. The business owners can also create embedded forms and lightboxes.

These forms are already made and are available so the users do not have to worry about any type of coding. They can make any desired changes to the form at the cost of a few clicks and implement them as desired.

User Friendly Interface

There are many email campaign and auto responding service providers but one thing that makes them hard to use and adapt to is the fact that their interfaces are too complex.

This is very tiresome for the business owners. However, this is most certainly not the case with Campaign Monitor. The interface is extremely simple and clutter free. All the things and options that are frequently required are mentioned up front and the features and forms are easy to incorporate as well.

This makes it very easy to use. The intuitive and easily adaptable interface of Campaign Monitor makes it highly recommended for people who are not tech savvy and are looking for an easy way of handling email marketing and campaigns.

Analytics and Stats

Campaign Monitor will keep an eye on your performance in the form of stats and analytics. These stats are visible on the home page and are a great way of assessing how your email campaign has been performing.

Conclusion

It is very evident that Campaign Monitor is a good email marketing service providers. The different packages allow the business owners freedom and flexibility whereas the services offered too are highly acclaimed and commendable.

The ease of use and adaptability makes it very simple and easy to use.

7. Optin Monster

This review is centered around OptinMonster, which is an excellent email autoresponder service. It helps in generating leads, build an email list and convert visitors into subscribers. Let’s dive into the details and find out if OptinMonster is a reliable service or not.

Our Overall Rating: 4.0/5

Pricing

OptinMonster works on a monthly subscription plan and offers three kinds of price packages.

• Basic: $19 per month
• Plus: $29 per month
• Pro: $39 per month
• Growth Plan: $149 per month

If you have a single site and want to do nothing more than simply create lightbox popups then the basic package is for you.

For advanced features, opt for the Plus plan as it will Monsterlinks, inactivity sensor, exit-intent technology and more.

Finally, if you have a larger business with multiples sites then the pro plan is the most suitable for your needs. It offers all the advanced features that you can implement in 5 sites.

Lastly, if you are an enterprise with a vast business then go for the Growth Plan. It supports up to 50 sites and offers customization. With this plan, you can customize anything and everything.

Key Features Of OptinMonster

• Campaign types
• Campaign triggers
• Seamless integrations
• Targeted campaigns
• In-depth insights
• Offers its own Monster Links
• Page level targeting
• A/B testing
• Customizable forms
• Reporting
• Split testing
• Visual editor

Variety Of Campaigns

Sticking to lightbox popups might not bring you the leads that you desire, therefore, you need to up your campaign targeting game. To help you in this regard, OptinMonster offers plenty of campaign types.

You can opt between slide-ins, floating bars, sidebar form, inline post form etc.

It’s up to you if you wish to work with aggressive pop ups or full screen fillers.

Lastly, as we know that the number of mobile users are increasing day by day and people prefer to read emails on their phones, it can be a great opportunity to use mobile campaigns as well. Fortunately, OptinMonster offers mobile campaigning as well.

Targeting

One of the best features of OptinMonster is the multiple ways of targeting which it offers. You will have full control on your pages and it’s up to you to decide where the opt-ins will appear on the page. This makes it easier to target visitors by placing the opt-ins in places where visitors are most likely to reach.

– Timing: You can set a timer for the campaign to appear. For example, you can decide to display the campaign after 5 seconds when the user has landed on the page.

– Exit-Intent: Show the opt-in when the user is about to leave the site and hits the X button on the top right corner.

– Scrolling: You can also choose to show the campaign when the user has scrolled ‘X’ amount on the page.

– Specific Date/Time: Pop up a campaign on an exact date and time of your choosing.

These options are an excellent way of connecting with the users, especially when you combine them. For instance, you can set a condition of showing the campaign once the user has scrolled 30% of the site during a Black Friday.

Apart from that, you can also control where to show the opt-ins, on which devices etc.

This way, you can make plenty of users subscribe to your email list by showing them the opt-ins on the right time.

Monster Links

One of the highlights of OptinMonster is the MonsterLinks feature it offers. With this option, you can add a 2-step optin on any picture or link.

A monster link’s purpose is to serve a principle called the Zeigarnik effect. This effect says that a person who initiates any process, will eventually finish it. Hence, a monsterlink can be applied on images and links for users who click on them. It will most probably lead them to subscribe because they are clicking with a purpose in their mind.

In other words, since a user clicks on a link/image, he/she will eventually complete the entire process and convert.

Enhance Engagement With MonsterEffects

It’s essential to sprinkle creativity when it comes to encouraging users to subscribe to your email list or convert as a regular user. Here’s where OptinMonster offers Monster Effects to enhance the user engagement.

With Monster Effects, you can implement creative CSS effects on the pop ups. It’s an excellent way of making the opt-ins engaging and interactive.

There are 26 built in CSS animation effects that increase the rate of user conversion.

Visual Editor

You can choose from a variety of pre-made templates. Moreover, you can further decorate and customize them as it allows you to change the color, text, images etc.

If you want to build a form from scratch then that’s possible too. All you would require is to choose a blank canvas and choose components one by one to craft a form or an opt-in of your choosing.

Reporting

To increase and maintain leads, it is important to keep tabs on the analytics of your website. OptinMonster gives you this control and lets you know how many visitors and conversions are taking place on your site.

Thanks to these reporting capabilities, you can figure out if a running campaign is performing good or not. If it’s not, you can halt it and make a new one with better content and creativity.

Another amazing trait of OptinMonster is that it allows you to integrate Google Analytics and make things even better. Google Analytics is a free service and shows important site data.

Split Testing

Split testing allows you to check if the opt-ins you have made are showing promising results or not. You can test many elements such as bullets, images, links, headlines etc.

The process is very easy and all it requires is to go to the dashboard, select a campaign and choose split testing. Apply different strategies on the campaigns you have split and keep a tract on them to see which one is performing better.

Once you figure out a campaign that is performing better and brings results, you can stick to it and convert a lot of visitors.

Conclusion

OptinMonster is a good auto responding service that will help you create a long email list. It has a simple and easy to use interface and beginners will face no problems.

Make sure that you choose the right price plan so that you get to use the features fall under your requirement.

Signup Here

8. CovertKit

ConvertKit is a really great email marketing tool that offers high-quality, tailored services to its customers. The organization spans across 39 different cities, with their employees coming together to provide you seamless email marketing guidance and assistance.

ConvertKit envisions to help its creators (customers) create good money and that is what they consider their success to be. Their main aim is to make every client who comes to them, make a living off of their services.

This review will give you an in-depth idea of the services offered by ConvertKit, the features that come with their services and the pricing, should you choose to become their customer.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Pricing

The pricing for ConvertKit is divided into ‘Monthly’ and ‘Annual’ categories. The prices increase with the number of subscribers you have and an annual payment will give you the services for 12 months in the price of just 10. The detail pricing options are mentioned below.

Monthly

* 0 to 1,000 Subscribers – $29 per month
* 1000 to 3000 Subscribers – $49 per month
* 3000 to 5000 Subscribers – $79 per month
* Over 5000 Subscribers – Prices vary and can be calculated according to the number of subscribers

Annually

* 0 to 1,000 Subscribers – $25 per month
* 1000 to 3000 Subscribers – $41 per month
* 3000 to 5000 Subscribers – $66 per month
* Over 5000 Subscribers – Prices vary and can be calculated according to the number of subscribers

Key Features

* Attractive visual automations for automated email funnels
* Easily customizable and mobile-friendly forms
* No limit or extra charge for the number of emails sent
* Tag-based subscriber system with separate profiles for each subscriber
* Detailed reporting services
* Automation
* A/B Testing

Tag-Based System:

ConvertKit has decided to provide its services as a tag-based system and that, we all know, is a far better and efficient approach for subscriber management and automations.

This system lets you apply tags to your subscribers according to their behaviours, meaning you can individually tag a person if they click on a specific link present in your email so you can target them later as well, if you have to.

Tags can also be merged to make dynamic emails, which lets you send one email displaying tags assigned to each individual subscriber.

There’s also a new feature called the ConvertKit WordPress Plugin which makes it possible for you to tag your website’s visitors and assign them tags accordingly.

Overall, ConvertKit offers a really refined tag-based system that even allows tracking, so there isn’t much left that you can’t do.

Building Forms:

Emails cannot be collected if there are no forms, therefore every email marketing tool lets you design forms for that purpose.

The unique thing about ConvertKit is that it recognizes your need to have different types of forms and that’s why it lets you easily choose different forms like inline, modal, slide-in etc.

The only drawback however is the fact that there aren’t many design options, so you either have to use custom CSS or stick to the default design of the form.

You can also build landing pages through ConvertKit but you can’t really change anything more than the colors, if you’re looking for some customizations.

Templates For Emails:

When it comes to templates, ConvertKit doesn’t have much to offer when it comes to attractive templates. There are literally 5 different templates that you can choose from and there’s not much difference in any of them.

It’s true that ConvertKit is mostly focused towards bloggers and bloggers don’t really care much about attractive templates but having a little variety can never be a bad thing.

Fortunately, however, it does allow you to hard-code your own HTML templates in case you don’t like the ones available by default. But you will need to have some knowledge on HTML and CSS if you’re doing it yourself or you’ll have to invest a little in paying someone to do it for you.

However, one great thing about ConvertKit is that your templates can be made highly dynamic by inserting the variables provided by them.

Automation:

Almost all email marketing service providers provide the service of marketing automation, and so does ConvertKit. The only difference is that ConvertKit makes it extremely simple and easy.

Previously there was only one option for automations called the Rules builder, but recently ConvertKit launched its new, visual workflow builder and we’ll look into both of them.

First off, the super easy and user-friendly, Rules builder, is what we believe, made ConvertKit stand out and emerge in the market. The layout of this builder is really simple as all the rules are presented in the form of a list.

But, things get tough when you’re creating large combinations of rules and since you can’t even put the group animations into folders, it become a bigger nightmare.

However, the problem has now been addressed with the launch of the new Visual Automation Builder. The new builder is completely redefined, streamlined to its purpose and super-fast to use.

Viewing automations has now been completely transformed, thanks to this and you’re also now displayed with workflows that are in contrast with the outcomes you’re trying to achieve for your business.

Software Integrations:

The main thing to understand here is the fact that ConvertKit is still a relatively new company and that is why there isn’t a long list of integrations for it, yet. But still, however, it does support some software integrations including Zappier, which automatically makes its integration possible with many other software.

Obviously there’s a lot of room for improvement, but as a new entry in the market, ConvertKit is still doing amazing and has the ability to integrate will almost all the famous third party software, helping you with most of your tasks.

Conclusion

Looking at some of the features and services that ConvertKit is offering, there’s no doubt in the fact that the company has a long way to go in terms of improvements and growth. Still, this is an amazing and highly efficient tool for all beginner bloggers, who’re looking for quality at a mediocre price.

9. Mailigen

Mailigen has been there in the market for a shorter period compared to its other competitors and has been able to make a name for itself. Offering god functionality, ease of use and economical prices it has gained some notable clients including Forbes, Toyota, Honda and BMW.

Our Overall Rating: 4/5

Pricing

For Mailigen the prices vary as the number of email subscribers change. For a simple 500 subscribers, the prices start from $10 each month and for 150,000+ subscribers the price is $555 per month which is quite nominal compared to its competitors.

You can access every single feature in each and every plan despite the number of subscribers. Also, you can obtain another discount on the price if you sign up for annual billing.

Key Features of Mailigen

• Flexible and Scalable premium plans.
• Integration of SMS and Email marketing
• Create online surveys
• Duplicate emails on the list are deleted in order to improve performance and reduce redundancy.
• Emailing tools are quite easy to use and create responsive templates to edit their HTML codes.
• A/B split testing capabilities as well as Google Analytics in the same package.
• Social Media integration with more than 100 Customer Relationship Management or CRM applications.
• A 30-day trial period that requires no extra payment.
• Customers can easily take part in the affiliate program.

Simple Email Creation

This email marketing service provides about 130 templates and 5 basic layouts. You can even edit pre-existing templates using the drag and drop editors to customize your emails in the design as well as the HTML mode.

Compared to its competitors like iContact and Aweber are a bit less and quite simple. Mailigen also allows custom design templates in HTML or you can also import email templates into your account. However, designing templates in HTML can be difficult at first and there is not an option to go back as well. But, after some time, you get used to it.

The good part is that Mailigen creates an email that is optimized for mobile devices and this is a plus when most of your customer base in on phones. With Mailigen you can put pictures and social media buttons in your email.

It also allows a total of 10MB images free of charge and in order to increase that to 100MB, you will need to pay extra.

Even though this email marketing service is very user-friendly and convenient, I think it would have been better with some more third party integrations and templates. The pricing is better so it makes up for it. Other than that, it would have been better with an inbox preview, spam checking and demographics segmentation.

SMS Marketing

Mailigen offers another amazing feature that collects phone numbers in the forms that help the company send text messages to their clients. Text Messages are the most instantaneous form of communication these days and it is notable that they are taking advantage of it.

Mailigen allows the company to send text messages to more than 200 different countries. However, it’s a bummer that the SMS service is only available in a premium package. But apart from that everything about it is great from the SMS audience segmentation, email marketing and Google Analytics.

Tools for Reporting

In order to help people with no technical knowledge, the reporting tools are really basic. However, I think for professionals, this can be a bit of a led down.

With these reporting tools, you can measure past and present marketing by seeing bounce rates, opened emails, unsubscribers and link clicks.

Moreover, the reports can also be downloaded, either in Excel format or PDF. By operating along with Google Analytics, Mailigen can offer you more detailed reports and statistics.

By also offering real-time tracking of data like location, opens and much more small business can be more successful in finding their best email marketing strategy.

Contact Management

As an email marketing service, Mailigen makes it easier to manage your email list and make it grow. As more and more people subscribe, the email addresses are added to the list as collected from the sign-up forms and imported in .CSV, .TXT and .XLS files.

The best part I like about this feature is that it prevents any redundancies. Some email marketing platforms do not eliminate redundancies in the list, however, Mailigen identifies any repeated mails and deletes it from the list which helps when you are operating on a list based plan.

In Mailigen, the emails are segmented in a way that you can view the contact information as well as the activities like opened emails, click links and opt-ins.

Along with that, the Mailigen integrates with multiple CRM software that helps to keep in touch with or customers upon multiple platforms. This is especially beneficial for small businesses to help them stay organized.

Templates

Unlike many other email marketing platforms, Mailigen does not provide a predesigned template forms. In order to compensate it, the form generation is quite easy.

You can begin by choosing the design that fits your company and choose background colours, sign up labels and button position easily.

As I see it, the service provides a good dashboard and a user-friendly interface. It also offers a WYSIWYG or What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editor that allows you to generate a preview of what the form would look like.

Furthermore, Mailigen will give you a link and HTML code that can be put anywhere on a website or Facebook page so the users can access it easily.

I think WYSIWYG is a very important feature, especially for small businesses.

It provides basic level customization that anyone can easily do without much skill set. However, I also think that if you know little to none about HTML, try refraining from it otherwise entering the source code will make you want to pull your hair out.

Conclusion

Mailigen provides an economical and easy solution to your problems related to email marketing. It might be lacking some features compared to other services, but with the price, it is a very good package.

Signup Here

10. Horizon

For both small and large businesses, email marketing has become an effective and powerful tool to engage with the target audience of your business. These days, social media and electronic communication are the most effective where you can engage with multiple people from different localities at the same time.

For that an effective email marketing service is required. Horizon is another one in the long list of email marketing services available in the market.

Our Overall Rating 3.5/5

Pricing

The message horizon offers multiple packages so everyone can afford the email marketing service and choose a package according to their needs.

The starter pack consists of 1,000,000 emails per month with no list size and costs around $600.

Then there is the Pro Pack that allows you to send 2,000,000 emails per month and no limit on list size for $1000.

The priority Pack allows you to send an average of 5,000,000 emails per month in $3900.

Lastly, the Priority Plus pack allows an average of 10,000,000 emails in $6700.

Key Features of Horizon

* Automated field mapping.
* Drag and drop editor.
* Variety of Template designs.
* No limitation to email lists.
* Substantial subscriber limit.
* 1,000,000 per day emails.
* Test Message feature available.
* Effective Reporting.
* Upgrades available for high-end users.

The Design

One of the most important things that create a visual in the minds of the subscribers is the look of the email. It is important that the email looks exactly like it was designed so your idea can be transferred in the same way it was developed. The WYSIWYG or What You See Is What You Get design allows you to do that. The designs are developed keeping in mind their optimization on desktop and mobile phones as well as tablets.

It is not uncommon in email marketing services to make one thing and then get another. This ensures that the email design reaches the audience in the exact same way. Upon that Message Horizon also gives the option to edit the design once done and also preview it. It allows you to see how the email looks in a number of devices.

Designing Emails

An easier way to design emails for people new to this is the drag and drop interface. Many new businesses, especially small ones, use email marketing service. And due to lesser people with technical knowledge, it would have been difficult for them to use email marketing services.

The drag and drop email newsletter design interface makes this very easy and doesn’t require any technical knowledge to be used. It is very basic and easy. It allows you to turn your creative ideas into effective and profitable email marketing campaigns in just a few minutes.

The user interface for Message Horizon is developed in such a way that any king of businesses and enterprises can benefit and gain a loyal customer base using email marketing systems.

Clear and Effective Reporting and Analysis

Reporting is a very important part of the email marketing service. The email marketing is of no use if there isn’t a good analysis derived from them. Seeing the number of link clinks, subscribers and email open, the marketing service generates reports and analytics to understand how good your campaign is going.

This gives you a great overview of the campaign performance. The number of clicks, bounces, unsubscribes and real-time engagement help us determine the progress of the campaign.

You can view the details of all these things and interact with reporting tools to view any other things. With this, you can even download contacts who have engaged in the campaign and consider them as your loyal fan base. This will further support the marketing activity.

Scheduling and Testing

Before sending the emails out, it is very important to generate a test mail that allows you to see what the users will receive. Before sending the entire mails out, you will first have the option to send one to yourself and if you feel like making changes, you can edit it and then send it to the rest of the contacts.

Also with Message Horizon, you will be able to schedule an email within 7 weeks. Which means you don’t need to design an email and send it right away. You can schedule it and send it anytime within 7 days.

List Management

In Message Horizon, you have the ability to manage your email lists quite easily. If you have existing files of email lists, then you can import it with just a few clicks. As the list is assembled Message Horizon offers you automated field mapping to allow you to segment everything in fields accordingly.

Along with that, it has a substantial subscriber limit that allows you to add in a lot of people into the email lists without worrying about the number. There are no email list limitations too which means you can make as many lists as you want.

Easy-to-Use

Message Horizon praises itself in being one of the easiest to use email marketing systems. All of its functions can be easily done by non-technical staff. Companies do not have to hire a professional to do this for them.

Also, the reports and analytics are also quite easy to understand and anyone from the higher management with little knowledge of the subject can easily go through the reports. The drag and drop design allows anyone to design the email quickly.

The best part about Message Horizon is that anyone can manage it especially small companies that still don’t have any technical staff for marketing.

Conclusion

Message Horizon is a great email marketing service that offers many great features like a text message, drag and drop design, no limit to email lists and much more. One important factor that may seem out of place is the price which seems too much compared to its competitors.

The pricing is too high for a beginner company. However, for an established company message Horizon will work quite well.

11. Klaviyo Review

This review will be centered around the email marketing platform Klaviyo. We will explore all the features and characteristics of the service provider and see how it is better or worse than the rest of the service providers.

This review will include the features a1s well as pricing of Klaviyo.

Our Overall Rating: 4.0/5

Pricing:

Klaviyo does not have a fixed price for the plans. They offer only one plan that can range from $0 to $1700 per month depending upon factors like the number of emails sent and the types of services utilized. The sales team can be contacted to inquire about cost and expenses in this case.

Key Features Of Klaviyo

Here is a list of some key features of Klaviyo that are worth mentioning:

* Customers are offered a free trial to get an idea about the services of Klaviyo before subscribing to the service.
* One standard package that can range from $0 to $1700 per month depending upon use.
* Uses two main training platforms including business hours as well as online support.
* The platform is very simple and straightforward therefore it is easy to adapt to and use.
* Allows integration with multiple platforms.
* List segmentation is a feature that is commendable as it helps business owners customize mailing lists as required.
* The starting price of Klaviyo is only $20.00 per month.
* Klaviyo offers a wide range and a decent number of mailing templates for business owners to choose from.
* The drag and drop interface makes the use of templates easy and simple for the business owners.
* Image hosting services are also provided to the business owners so that they can upload images of their choice.
* The social media marketing aspect is also covered by Klaviyo in an impressive and efficient manner.

Contact Manager And Forms

Collecting data from customers and adding them to the mailing list is a huge responsibility and is especially important for e-commerce stores. Klaviyo makes it very simple and easy through its contact forms and form management.

Business owners are given the liberty to choose and create a contact form using the different templates that are available on the dashboard.

Other than form creation, form management is also automated. Klaviyo will take care of everything from sorting the contact information to data collection and management.

So, business owners do not have to worry about these things.

List Segmentation Feature:

Some times, there are certain emails that the business owners want to send to only a certain list of subscribers and customers. Klaviyo gives business owners the chance to customize email lists.

This way the emails will be sent to only a selection of the people. This grouping is automated and the business owners can send emails to this group with ease and convenience.

Template Library

Klaviyo has a wide range of templates for business owners can choose from. The templates are already pre created and the business owners can simply choose the one that they like and use it.

There is a wide range of templates available on the platform. The business owners can get templates for newsletters as well as for e-commerce. Some templates even incorporate both newsletters as well as e-commerce.

Reports And Analytics

In order to help the e-commerce stores keep an eye on their performance and get insights about their sales and customer statistics, the facility of A/B testing and report generation is also supported by Klaviyo.

Drag And Drop Interface

Adding content to the templates is very simple as well. The users of Klaviyo can simply drag the content and images etc. to the templates by simply picking them up and dropping them to the template where they want it to be.

Buttons, split columns, social media links, everything can be added to the templates through simple drag and drop. This makes the use of templates extremely simple and convenient.

Simple Interface

It can be rightfully stated that Klaviyo is amongst the simplest tools that are available in the market in terms of email marketing. The interface is extremely simple and convenient.

This makes it perfect to be used by people who have no technical background. The business owners are not expected to do any type of coding or handle anything manually.

The interface is simple and the tool is efficient. Thus Klaviyo is a perfect tool especially for business owners who are newer to the use of email marketing tools.

Autoresponders

One of the most commendable features of Klaviyo is the option of autoresponders. The business owners are given a chance to automate email responses.

These email responses are triggered by certain actions performed by the customers. For instance, when a customer adds a certain product to the cart or clicks on a specific link, he will receive an email that is automatically sent as soon as the action takes place.

This helps the e-commerce store managers and business owners to strengthen their connection with the customers.

Easy Integrations

Klaviyo is a platform that can be easily incorporated with a number of other platforms. Some of the popular platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce are also supported by Klaviyo.

This helps the business owners keep an eye on the performance of their e-commerce stores and handle sales and customer relationships well.

Customer Support

Despite the fact that the interface and platform of Klaviyo itself is very simple to use and interact with, there is always a need of customer support in case business owners need help with some specific issues.

Therefore a help center is made available for the clients and customers. There are frequently asked questions as well as in depth blogs and articles that can be found on the help center. Here the customers can find help related to any problem or issue that they may be facing.

The option of chat and email support is also available for some paid plans so that the business owners can get one on one support if needed. Tips and tutorials are also available to help the users in any way possible.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that the $20.00 per month price tag may seem expensive for some people, the features offered by Klaviyo are commendable and totally justify the high price tag.

The simple interface, amazing template library and features such as A/B Testing and Segmentation etc. surely make Klaviyo a highly recommended tool.

12. RocketResponder Review

Rocket Responder is one of the best options for marketing teams and officials who want a platform which satisfies all their needs under one single roof, and that too at a comparatively cheaper market price.

Rocket Responder possesses the power you will need to create attractive pages and forms for capturing leads as well as integrated email automation.

In this review, we’ll be diving deep into the features, the various pricing packages and the pros and cons of Rocket Responder, should you decide to give it a try.

Overall Rating: 4.1/5

Pricing

The pricing model of Rocket Responder is distributed in monthly, quarterly or yearly payments. Quarterly and Yearly payments automatically give you a 10% and a 20% discount, respectively.

Furthermore, the first month is a free trial period so there’s no fees whatsoever, but keep in mind that the free first month offer is only valid if you choose to make Monthly payments. Here’s what the price distribution looks like, for all the options you can choose from:

Monthly

● Individual – First month is free, and a monthly charge of $20 for every month after that
● White Label – A monthly charge of $99
● Agency – A monthly charge of $179

Quarterly (Save 10%)

● Individual – A quarterly charge of $54
● White Label – A quarterly charge of $267

Yearly (Save 20%)

● Individual – a yearly charge of $192
● White Label – a yearly charge of $950

Key Features of Rocket Responder

● Drag and Drop template system
● Automatically sends your blog posts
● Result tracking of emails
● Easy integration with other third party software
● White label option
● Automation of emails
● Capturing leads
● List segmentation

Autoresponders And Emails

Rocket Responder is a great tool for email automation and auto responding. When you’re sending out an email through Rocket Responder, you can either send it out immediately or you can choose a later time and the system will automatically send the email at the allotted time.

If your users didn’t open the first email you sent them, you can automatically set the system to send them an email the second time as well, so that they open it. This feature greatly increases your total open rate.

You can also manually send people, confirmation emails, to add them on your list in case they missed the confirmation emails the first time. However, this can only be done once so you don’t end up spamming them with confirmation emails.

Tracking Your Emails

Rocket Responder also offers a very refined, and easy to understand tracking service for all your emails. Keeping it extremely simple, the tracking system lets you choose who opened your email, who didn’t open your email, who clicked on the email, who unsubscribed and several other important insights.

Lead Capturing

Forms and pages can also be designed really easily to create leads. You can choose different templates, edit the font size, layout, colors and many other things.

They give you the freedom of building as many lead pages as you want and they take the responsibility of hosting them for you. This gives users a great way to collect and form their email database even if they don’t have a website.

There’s a little something for Facebook advertisers as well. Rocket Responder also allows you to use Facebook’s lead ads to capture email addresses of your audience, and these email addresses are directly imported to your Rocket Responder accounting and a confirmation email is sent to them automatically, saving you a great deal of time and effort.

You also have the ability to send a customized confirmation email to anyone who subscribes to your emails. You can also choose what page they land on, once they confirm their subscription, this offers a great service if you’re offering them something for joining the website.

Sharing

Rocket Responder also allows you to share autoresponder messages with your team, if you’re a part of network marketing. Rocket Responders comes with a built-in feature that lets you Import and Share all the series that you write.

Integration With Other Software

There’s no doubt that Rocket Responder has the ability to connect and integrate with any software out there, provided that the software developers make time to connect themselves to the Rocket Responder API.

Since Rocket Responder is still in its initial stages and more of a hidden gem, compared to its competitors like Aweber etc., software developers don’t really integrate with it by themselves until and unless they’re asked to do so.

The White Label Option

A part of building the company’s reputation is people getting email from their personal servers or at least people thinking that they are getting email from the company’s personal servers. This is where the white label service comes in to play.

The white label option sets up your own URL so the users believe and it looks like, that the emails are being sent from the company’s dedicated servers.

Furthermore, getting emails on your own URL rather than through the newsletter service’s email helps you bypass security and tackle the spamming problem.

This is also great from a branding point of view because your audience never gets to see the newsletter service provider’s email, since they get emails from your company’s URL. All the links and emails are connected to you and your business.

With the white label option, you can also archive and save older emails on your website and even make them available for your users to read. Typically, this is not the case in the absence of white label as all the archived emails are on the newsletter service’s website, and they end up getting all the website traffic instead of your business’s personal website.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Rocket Responder can quite possibly be the best choice for you if you’re focused more on emails.

With a small price, you get such amazing services and functionalities along with an unlimited list of subscribers and the ability to have your own, personal email URL to increase your brand’s reputation, recall, and ultimately your customer base.

13. Arpreach Email Marketing and Autoresponder

Long gone are the days of old fashioned business marketing. The flyers and banners etc have become an old school thing. In this modern era of technology, business run on computers.

From online stores to online customers, everything revolves around computers. But marketing through them is certainly not an easy task. It requires effort, time and dedication. You need to be responsive to customers to boost your sales.

With different time zones around the world, you can never be too responsive.

These auto-responding softwares have got you covered. They offer email marketing and auto-responding services. But, there are so many software options available. It is difficult to identify the scam and the good ones.

But no worries, here we have reviewed a really nice auto-responding software- ARP reach.

Arpreach is a pocket-friendly software with amazing tools that are pretty easy to use. It is a great application for beginners. So, without waiting anymore let us dig into the details of this amazing application.

Overall Rating: 3.5 / 5

Pricing

Arpreach offers two payment plans, Standard and Gold. The pricing for both is as follows:

* Standard: $195
* Gold: $395

The simple license pricing of Arpreach makes sure that no monthly fees are charged. An annual payment is charged which allows you to use the software and have access to upgrades and technical support.

Unlike many other auto-responding software, this one doesn’t charge additional charges, when your contacts increase a certain limit.

The standard and Gold plans differ slightly. Both allow you to have an unlimited contact list with limitless email auto-responding, third party integrations, broadcasts, contact tagging and much more.

But, with the standard plan, you are denied access to API and notifications about an active contact (events and actions). If you want to avail them, you need to switch to the Gold plan.

In addition to this, the number of third-party SMTP accounts you can add is limitless while it gets restricted to just two with the standard payment plan.

The administrators confined in the standard plan is just one but, with Gold plan, any number of administrators can control the software.

Choose the plan wisely because you cannot renew the upgrade and maintenance before the completion of 12 months.

Key Features

* Unlimited Auto Responders.

Contacts:

Unlike many other auto-responding software, Arpreach allows you to have a limitless contact list, with no additional charges. The once made annual price is the only payment you need to make.

Obviously, handling a huge list of subscribers is not an easy task. Arpreach has made that a breeze for you as well. You can divide the contacts into different lists where a certain contact can be added to one or more lists.

Features like advanced segmentation and action tracking allow you to run laser-focused campaigns smoothly.

Templates:

Arpreach has a wide range of templates that can be used according to the need. The tools can be used to bring you the hidden creativity in you. Even if you are awful at it, you can use the already designed templates that help in minimising the effort and hard work needed.

Features such as the attachment library and template library increase the options for you and make your emails and newsletters etc much more colourful and eye-catching.

Furthermore, Arpreach is compatible with every plain text or HTML email template. The designing and editing process is so easy that you can even copy and paste the content from your favourite editing application and use it.

You have complete freedom over the designing and everything else to make your business reach new heights of success.

Broadcasting Campaign:

Arpreach offers a campaign broadcasting feature like any other email auto-responding software. You can send newsletters, flyers, ezines, limited time offers, sale alerts and much more with the utmost ease. The campaigning system is very versatile. They don’t interfere with any scheduled follow-ups.

The broadcasts can be made on the spot or scheduled beforehand. The scheduled broadcasts will be delivered automatically.

To achieve the maximum response, the emails should target potential customers. The campaigns should be timely and should be very close to the customer’s needs, interests and dislikes.

Spot on and timely notifications to the subscribers is a great way of boosting your sales.

Integrations:

The response delivery rate is different with Arpreach then with other software providers. You can use a delivery expert either from the one Arpreach provides or from a third party application.

So in short, the delivery rate is in your control. You can compare the performance of each application and choose the one that is best for you.

Moreover, the third-party applications are a great benefit in social media marketing and increase your number of subscribers. It is a great way to know about people’s choices and advertise your work.

Affiliate Program:

With Arpreach, you can earn a generous amount of money apart from the business outputs. All that you need to do is to promote Arpreach among your followers, contacts and friends.

The software adds $20 to your account as a signup gift. Apart from that, they also pay 25% on every purchase that is generated.

Whereas if you are an Arpreach user, the bonuses you get are a little different. Here, the software will promote your affiliate link on autopilot to your subscribers.

Conclusion

Arpreach is a great software that is capable of everything a good software is intended to do. It is cheap but has an amazing list of features such as a huge range of tools to make your work easier and much less time-consuming.

Investing in an amazing software can definitely help in flourishing your business and enhancing your sales. Thoughtfully plan your budget and marketing technique to make a wise decision about the software.

14. Omnisend

In this advancing world, everything works on the word technology. With everything going online, online business has become a new thing. From newbies to white-collared professionals, everyone is experimenting with this new technique of running business.

One thing is certain, this work prefers attention and hard work over experience. Quick and efficient dealing with customers can help your business flourish to unimaginable heights.

To be very responsive towards the customers and all potential users, businessmen have left this duty on auto-responding softwares. These softwares, automatically notify you and initiate a response in a matter of seconds.

They aid in gaining popularity for your business by attracting customers. But being a businessman, I can totally imagine your pain of choosing a good email marketer and auto-responder.

There are so many options available, but we present one of the top-notch auto-responder – Omnisend. This one is an amazing software that can aid you according to the scale of your business. It has a huge range of templates and integration options, that assists you in attracting the customers.

So, without a delay let us discover some amazing details about this great auto-responder:

Pricing

Omnisend has three payment plans for you to select from:

* Standard: $16/ per month
* Pro: $199 / per month
* Enterprise: $2000/ per month

The plans are based on the number of subscribers and the type of business. The standard plan is ideal for newbies. While the seasoned marketers will find ‘pro’ the best possible plan. Marketing teams looking for amazing automation and professional support can opt for the enterprise package.

With pro and enterprise plans you’ll get an unlimited number of emails but it gets restricted to just 15000 with the standard package. Moreover, the standard plan doesn’t accommodate third-party application integrations, such as Whatsapp and Facebook.

To avoid any feelings of contriteness in future, Omnisend wants you to try the free trial before choosing any plans. The trial can be a great guide to the amazing features and tools offered by Omnisend. The trial is absolutely free and only offers the emailing option.

In addition to this free trial, you can also avail a discount of 22% on your payment. For that, an annual payment is required and you can get the same plan with just 78% of the total price.

Key Features

* Third-party app integrations.
* Easy to use templates.
* Powerful Automation.
* Contacts segmentation.
* Forms, pop-ups and landing lists.
* Sales performance tracking.
* Active Contact System.
* Personalised messages sent to subscribers.
* Integrations with e-commerce platforms.
* High deliverability rate.
* A/B testing.
* 24/7 technical support.

Email Automation: Omnisend’s email automation feature is very vast and also one of the best. You can target the visitors on your website and send them recommendations, according to the items they viewed.

This is a great way of changing random visitors into loyal customers. Moreover, Omnisend automatically reaches out to your new customers with a welcome message, as soon as they signup. With this versatile software, you can send an order confirmation, cancellation or abandoning messages.

You can subtly contact your inactive customers and encourage purchases. Reaching out to customers like this is a very effective way of generating revenue.

Sign Up Forms: Adding non-intrusive signup forms, makes more customers join the wagon of subscribers. A visible option for the form is also a great option. Apart from this, pop-ups are an excellent way of marketing. A pop-up ad or an invitation to a certain group of subscribers can end them scrolling your website.

Integrations: The software works amazingly with third-party apps like Facebook and Whatsapp Messenger. Several channels can be integrated into a similar automation workflow. Omnisend provides you with the option of 9 such channels that aid you in reaching customers more effectively.

What’s more, is that the software offers you more than 8 e-commerce integrations that are going to help in boosting sales. The developer-friendly API helps in connecting with these applications, smoothly.

Apart from these channels and e-commerce applications, Omnisend is also linked with 30+ apps that can provide a great marketing tool. Any lackingsin the Omisend’s functionality are fully covered by the presence of these apps.

Templates: Omsisend offers a wide range of templates that can make your work much easier and save you time. One of the templates can be customised or custom automation can be built. The templates are simple and quick to navigate through.

The user-friendly tools make this a leading software. You can easily customise them and create an out of the box design. Furthermore, the super accessible drag and drop visuals can help in making the emails and newsletters, look much more eye-catching and beautiful.

Campaigns: Omnisend allows you to run business campaigns effectively. Using templates and the content provided, you can create amazing newsletters, emails, SMS and much more.

The A/B testing scheme also improves the quality of your campaigns. Contact segmentation makes it much easier for you, to direct a specific email to a list of your subscribers.

To make campaigns a success, Omnisend is also equipped with a tracking feature. This tracks and manages your campaign. You are presented with an analysis of how good your campaign has been doing. You can even track the sales and make sure that Omnisend is giving you the best value of money.

A/B Testing: A/B testing or split testing is a way of ensuring quality. The software automatically sends a number of your subscribers, variants of your created newsletters and flyers.

The response is recorded on each of those variants and the best one is selected and sent to the rest of the subscribers. This is a great method of maintaining quality. Omnisend also features this and hence, only the best output is sent to your customers.

Conclusion

Omnisend is a great marketing software that is well equipped with features, ready to amaze you. For a newbie, the price can be a little-less pocket-friendly but the good part is that you can use it for free too.

The email automation tools have been doing a great job and that is a reason why Omnisend has landed itself in the top 100 auto-responding softwares. It is certainly a great but not a perfect software that is capable of giving you the best value for money.