Constant Contact Review 2012
This ConstactContact Review was written based on actual testing of their software by our staff. If you don’t agree with it or would like to provide further feedback about this ConstantContact Review, please provide your comments at the bottom of the page.
Constant Contact Rating
Features: 3 out of 5
Constant Contact offers most features that you will need for email marketing including autoresponders. Other than the basic features, Constant Contact also offers event marketing, online surveys and social campaigns for extra price.
An Example of Constant Contact Email Archive
There really aren’t any fancy templates offered for the sign up forms unlike GetResponse, they do however allow you to choose one of the three formats: Buttons, Forms and Text Links other than providing the option to upload your own image and make changes to colors/fonts etc. You can archive your emails online for additional price.
Image storage is for an extra $5 which allows you to access stock images also. Only 5 images are offered free. So this would be a downside because some other providers offer more image storage free of charge.
The reporting tool provides all the basic metrics, however the graphics are not really fancy as compared to, let’s say Benchmark Email. You have to stare a little hard at the graphs to figure them out, however it is easy to view them in the text format that is also available. Social media integration is also available with your emails, which is now a standard feature offered with almost all email marketing software.
At this point, Constant Contact does not offer Google Analytics integration and RSS to Email. If you need a custom template for your emails, Constant Contact can design it for you for extra charges. Autoresponders are easy to set up and you can pre-schedule your messages too.
Price: 4 out of 5
Constant Contact offers competitive price plans starting at $15 per month. Discounts are available if you pre-pay for six months in advance @ 10% or annually @ 15%. Additional discounts are available for Non-profit organizations. Make sure that you add an extra $5 to each plan if you intend to store more than 5 images. They offer a generous 60 day free trial.
Deliverability: 4 out of 5
This score will give you an idea about whether your messages will make it to the inbox if your subscribers. The higher the score, the better are the chances. We checked the deliverability score for a bunch of their IP addresses on a third part website. Constant Contact’s deliverability score of its IP addresses is surprisingly good. This means that they keep an active watch over subscribers who are trying to spam. While this is good for most users, for some who decide to send irrelevant emails (aka spam) to their subscribers sometimes, they should stay off. If Constant Contact can discipline you by ensuring that you follow email marketing industry’s best practices, it can’t get any better. It helps raise the deliverability rates for all of the users ensuring more ROI.
Deliverability Score for one of Constant Contact's IP Addresses
Newsletter Creation: 3 out of 5
Just like Benchmark Email, Constant Contact also offers highly flexible newsletter creation tool. Within the tool, you can spam check, spell check and preview your emails prior to sending them to your subscribers. You can also make changes to the text version only. The tool allows you to add blocks, images, change colors and fonts and even customize the style sheets.
Whether you are just a beginner with email marketing or an expert, Constant Contact makes it really easy for you to create your emails, customize them by uploading your logo, images to an existing template or your own. A huge choice of templates are available. The ease of using Newsletter Creation tool makes Constant Contact popular and helps retain its customers.
We did however find an issue with the webpage version of an email created in their system. If you select this feature before sending out your email/newsletter, the subscribers can click on “Having trouble viewing this email? Click here” in order to view the newsletter/email on a webpage. Unfortunately the webpage version and the actual email did not look the same. The main columns expanded and the colors overlapped. We didn’t have difficulty reading the content, but it didn’t look organized. We tested this in three browsers: Firefox, IE and Chrome and discovered the same problem. Constant Contact should work on fixing this problem. They would have received a perfect score from us in this category if this issue had not occurred.
Constant Contact Newsletter Creation Tool
Ease of Use: 5 out of 5
Constant Contact’s system is easy to use and we didn’t have any problem figuring it out within an hour’s time. If you are new, it may take you a couple of days to get used to its interface. There are helpful video tutorials available in case you find any difficulty using one if its features.
Support: 4 out of 5
Constant Contact boasts of providing a dedicated personal coach to you, other than offering live chat, phone support (available during business hours), email support and online tutorials. We did encounter issues with a couple of video tutorials when they froze while they were playing.
Overall Score: 4 out of 5
CONCLUSION
CONS:
- Pay extra for email archives and image storage.
- No fancy sign up forms.
- Report graphics look dull.
PROS:
- High deliverability rates.
- Easy to use drag and drop email editor.
- Customizable email archive page.
- No split testing available. Google Analytics integration not available currently, but will be available soon.
Overall, constant contact offers user friendly email marketing. They offer high deliverability rates of emails into inbox which ensures high conversion rates for senders. They can, however, create better looking reports and offer some extra image storage for which they charge an additional fee, however by paying an additional fee of $5, you also get access to 4000 free stock images.
They offer a generous 60 day free trial with no credit card requirements.