Which is the best e-mail campaign service?
January 18, 2012 7:15 PM Subscribe
Which is better: MailChimp, Constant Contact, or [some other option]?
Mailing list size should be < 10,000 for the next year or two at least.
Mailing list size should be < 10,000 for the next year or two at least.
What criteria do you have for choosing a provider and is cost a factor in it?
Mailchip and Campaign Monitor are great, but I think both can be slightly more expensive than Constant Contact or Vertical Response.
From a designer's pov, I think Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor are both better. But, as an example: the non-profit where I work has a free account with Constant Contact. Constant Contact has terrible templates. So, I use a template from Mailchimp, rewrite the html each month for our newsletter, send the html through premailer to get the styles inline and then put it in Constant Contact.
Because we don't pay for the account, I don't mind handcoding the email, and doing all those steps, just to get a clean email that's compatible with most mail readers. If I used Mailchimp, I wouldn't have to do any of those things though since their online editor comes with solid, easy to use templates.
Your own level of skill and your knowledge of email best practices are important in deciding what tool to use. If you can provide any insights into your experience level, that would be super helpful.
posted by nerdcore at 8:25 PM on January 18, 2012 [2 favorites]
Mailchip and Campaign Monitor are great, but I think both can be slightly more expensive than Constant Contact or Vertical Response.
From a designer's pov, I think Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor are both better. But, as an example: the non-profit where I work has a free account with Constant Contact. Constant Contact has terrible templates. So, I use a template from Mailchimp, rewrite the html each month for our newsletter, send the html through premailer to get the styles inline and then put it in Constant Contact.
Because we don't pay for the account, I don't mind handcoding the email, and doing all those steps, just to get a clean email that's compatible with most mail readers. If I used Mailchimp, I wouldn't have to do any of those things though since their online editor comes with solid, easy to use templates.
Your own level of skill and your knowledge of email best practices are important in deciding what tool to use. If you can provide any insights into your experience level, that would be super helpful.
posted by nerdcore at 8:25 PM on January 18, 2012 [2 favorites]
MailChimp and Campaign Monitor are both good. If you're doing B2B, MailChimp has a rule against "non-human" email addresses like info@, sales@, etc which must be entered manually.
Stay away from Mad Mimi.
posted by dripdripdrop at 8:26 PM on January 18, 2012 [2 favorites]
Stay away from Mad Mimi.
posted by dripdripdrop at 8:26 PM on January 18, 2012 [2 favorites]
How important are analytics to you? We went with Campaign Monitor in part because they make tracking opens, unsubscribes, etcetera really easy to analyse. I also really like that I imported the HTML template once, and haven't really had to edit it much since then.
posted by OLechat at 8:41 PM on January 18, 2012
posted by OLechat at 8:41 PM on January 18, 2012
Had pretty good luck with Admail.net so far but you need to stay on top of blacklisting. It is probably a good idea to rotate around every now and then to see how your "delivers" look. They have some pretty attractive prices and pretty solid tech support when you need it.
posted by bkeene12 at 8:46 PM on January 18, 2012
posted by bkeene12 at 8:46 PM on January 18, 2012
Good point about the "non-human" email addresses for Mail Chimp. On the other hand, Mail Chimp's API is pretty powerful and (can be) easy to work with.
I've found Campaign Monitor itself easier to use than Mail Chimp, although I would imagine it's a little more expensive at the 10,000 email address scale.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:39 PM on January 18, 2012
I've found Campaign Monitor itself easier to use than Mail Chimp, although I would imagine it's a little more expensive at the 10,000 email address scale.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:39 PM on January 18, 2012
I use Vertical Response and love it cause it's FREEEEEE.
Used to use Constant Contact and pay for pretty much the same service - and their interface is a pain to use. Their image number limits are ridiculous.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 11:21 PM on January 18, 2012
Used to use Constant Contact and pay for pretty much the same service - and their interface is a pain to use. Their image number limits are ridiculous.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 11:21 PM on January 18, 2012
Response by poster: Analytics is probably the most important factor (that's the whole point, isn't it?).
Next would be an usable API so we can automate portions of it and integrate it into the site.
Ease of use and cost are important, but the other two trump them, I think.
posted by jsturgill at 8:02 AM on January 19, 2012
Next would be an usable API so we can automate portions of it and integrate it into the site.
Ease of use and cost are important, but the other two trump them, I think.
posted by jsturgill at 8:02 AM on January 19, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by missmobtown at 8:10 PM on January 18, 2012