iContact was established in 2003 in USA and was acquired in 2019 by j2 Global, a leading Internet information and services company consisting of a portfolio of brands including IGN, Mashable, Humble Bundle, Speedtest, PCMag, Offers.com, Spiceworks, Everyday Health, BabyCenter and What To Expect in its Digital Media business and eFax, eVoice, iContact, Campaigner, VIPRE, IPVanish and KeepItSafe in its Cloud Services business. J2 reaches over 180 million people per month across its brands. Visit iContact website.

iContact has its headquarters in North Carolina (USA).

Features: 3 out of 5

iContact offers most features that you will need for your email markting campaigns: automation, tracking reports, social media integration, API, segmentation, split test, integration with several online applications via Zapier like Shopify, BigCommerce, SurveyMonkey, Ninja Forms etc., integration with Facebook or Twitter however you can only integrate only one social media account. Google Analytics integration is only available for certain plans. You will need to contact them directly and ask if you qualify for it. There are no iPhone or Android apps to manage your campaigns and no online archiving of your messages (email archives).

There aren’t any fancy templates available for sign up forms, but there are a few themes that use various color combinations to design your forms. There are no pop-up forms available. File library can store images or files up to 10MB. Additional storage may be available for additional price. The email editor offers free stock images, spam check and spell check with in built photo editor. Landing pages features is available with PRO plans, however you will need to design it yourself since there are no templates available. The drag and drop feature can help you easily create a landing page as long as you are being creative.

Pricing: 3 out of 5

iContact pricing is at par with most competitors, but is not the lowest. You can get price plans under two categories: Base and Pro. The major difference is that with Base you don’t get landing pages feature or full automation. You do get basic automation features with Base plans like follow-ups and welcome series. We used to call it “autoresponders” a few years ago. Pro plans offer all features, so you are not missing anything. However, Pro plan pricing is almost double compared to the lowest price competitor like Mailigen.

Custom quote is available for large senders. Annual pricing gets 15% discount. Non-profit organizations get 20% discount.

Deliverability: 5 out of 5

Overall iContact’s deliverability is excellent. This ensures that your messages will easily make it into the inbox of your subscribers. We analyzed 125 IP addresses that belong to iContact to assess their deliverability capabilities.

iContact Deliverability Our rating of some of iContact’s IP addresses’ deliverability

Email Editor: 4 out of 5

iContact offers four options to create an email newsletter:use their own email editor, plain text only, your own HTML code or based on your website – which imports the homepage of your website into the email editor.

iContact’s email editor is quite versatile and easy to use.
The email editor offers inbuilt spell check, spam check and preview. You can preview your message on a mobile device, desktop and also send out a test message to yourself. There isn’t a huge choice of templates, but theys can be configured in several ways so that you can create your perfect message. After choosing a specific templates, you can choose one of the several “layouts” i.e. different versions of the template. This is a unique feature that most other providers don’t offer.

iContact’s Editor

Within each template, choose a “layout” that you like

You can not only insert your own images, but also edit the images using their inbuilt photo editor. You also have a choice to insert free stock images from their image gallery in your message. Messages can be sent immediately or can be pre-scheduled to be sent out at a later time. Email archive feature is not available where your subscribers can view all of your previous messages online.

Ease of Use: 4 out of 5

We didn’t have any issues using iContact interface and found it easy to use. There is a pop up help screen at the top right corner which can be maximized so that you can instantly access useful information.

Support: 3 out of 5

According to iContact’s website, they offer phone and chat support Monday – Friday: 1:00 PM – 1:00 AM GMT. Most other providers offer 24/7 support, so iContact needs to improve in this area.

Overall Score (iContact): 3.6 out of 5 (Fair)

Conclusion:

CONs:

No templates for sign up forms. No pop up forms.
Landing pages feature only available with Pro plans
No live chat/phone support on weekends/overnights
No iPhone, Android apps to manage campaigns
Zapier account needed for integrations
No email archives

PROs:

Excellent deliverability
Versatile editor
In-line photo editor
Free stock images

iContact has been in business for several years and is a well known brand. Their email marketing software provides most of the basic features that are needed for your email marketing campaigns. Customer support agents are not available 24/7 unlike other competitors and they need to provide faster response to email inquiries. We like their email editor but they should offer more templates.

Features
Price
Deliverability
Email Editor
Ease of Use
Support
Average

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iContact Review 2021