Email marketing for small businesses (SMBs) and nonprofits.
4.2/5 (774 avis)Avantages
I do independent contracting for a nonprofit and have been using Constant Constant for about 4 years now for the electronic newsletters to our supporters and network. I love that the software and the many different template options to use for mailings. I also like that I am able to change fonts, color, backgrounds and layout with ease. It is VERY user friendly and if I need to stop in the middle of my work it, will be saved where I left off. This is actually an update because in the past if you didn't save the work manually you could lose it, but they have updated that and it now autosaves (which I am very grateful for). Also, I love that I can schedule mailings and campaigns in advance for when I want them to go out (I currently have 5 pending to go out on designated days within the next 5 weeks). This save me a lot of time and not having to wait til the day of to log on and send them out.
What I REALLY like is that we can track analytics. we know what emails (and topics) people are more interested in versus ones they barely open. This helps us in choosing more engaging content. I know what percent of our contacts have opened the emails. I can create different groups to send certain thing to (like Board members, parents, LSC), I am even able to see the time and date (and by whom) an email was opened and if the donate button was clicked or not (which is good for best practices and implementing measures of accountability within the org).
Inconvénients
I don't like that the only videos that I can embed into the mailings have to be a Youtube link. But other than that, there isn't much that I do not like about using this software.
Overall a great product, easy to use, and functional. its minor limitations are countered by functionality, reliability, and the features it offers. The price is sometimes a turnoff when compared to other marketing email providers. CC offers easy to use templates that are almost fully customizable. Lots of extra features including campaigns, events, registrations, sign up forms etc. There are plenty of HELP menu items and tutorials. Love that there is no limit on the number of emails sent monthly. Overall a great go to product!
Avantages
As an email marketing solution, CC fits most small to medium business owners needs with plenty of easy to edit templates, branded emails, newsletters, calendars, event apps, and website integrations. Additionally, business owners can set up events and registrations via the app. The templates are easy to use with varied options and designs. For more experienced handlers, HTML is available to set up templates. Emails offer clients and recipients the opportunity to opt out or stay tuned while landing the emails in their in box rather than their spam filters . Analytics are a plus and helpful to see what works and what doesn't in an email campaign. CC also integrates social media platforms. Overall it is a great all-in-one marketing tool.
Inconvénients
While the software is generally easy to use, it is not intuitive and does on occasion produce glitchy results from missing images to random changes in text, font, and email structure. I do like the tiered pricing structure, although find CC to be far more expensive than their competitors. One of my biggest complaints is the placement of images - it doesn't really allow flexibility in design - if you are ok with their more cookie cutter template designs then its a 5 star - but the ability to place images becomes tedious and reduces the functionality. Overall the program is a go and worth the expense even if the image placement issues are annoying.
The email analytics and reports are great.
Avantages
I use CC to to manage our large contact database and to send out email updates. It is great for segmenting our list -- from general interest to communications to fundraising. The automated features are great, especially that it will not allow the same email to appear in the same inbox twice. It also merges duplicate contacts. We use it across the entire organization. Constant contact is great for merging duplicate contacts, updating your address book, giving a reliable open rate and thorough reports, and allowing you to segment large email lists.
Inconvénients
When uploading additional contacts, CC wants to see how they actively subscribed. This can be problematic when uploading an older email list (i.e. you may just have a spreadsheet of The List and they want to see more evidence). Additionally, it is a little pricey compared to competitors such as MailChimp. It would be great to be able to export email campaigns as HTML.Be extremely careful when importing contacts. Constant Contact wants to see how they actively subscribed. Sometimes it is hard to prove this when you have entered information for people you have an established relationship with, or if they verbally requested to be added. Constant Contact wants to actually see the (paper) sign-up sheet. This is unachievable for businesses/groups that have been around long enough to have established an email list based on personal relationships or when importing business cards. As for the design, sizing images can be difficult when you are using a self-designed template. As for the contact management services, representatives have very little technical knowledge and don't seem to understand marketing techniques used within certain industries.
Constant Contact is the standard for email marketing, and you can see why! It allows you to quickly upload your email contacts and create professional email marketing. We've been able to see how many people open each of our email campaigns, and which campaigns are most successful, making future marketing more targeted.
Avantages
Love the ease of use - whether you want to send a quick email using a premade template, or customize every part of your message, Constant Contact gives you the tools. It's easy to find what you need, and you don't need to know anything about pixel size or the HTML color codes to create professional emails.
Constant Contact just introduced A/B testing, so you can better gauge the headings and send times that get your audience to open the emails.
Constant Contact is a very solid platform - I've yet to see any service outages, or experience any features that feel buggy, unstable, or like they're still in beta testing. If you have access to a feature on Constant Contact, you know that it will work.
Inconvénients
It's difficult to manage old campaigns. Want to see what your message was last time, what template you used, or how long ago you sent an email to a particular group? Good luck - you'll be scrolling through pages of old campaigns by hand.
At this time, you can't run reports to compare the percentage of opens/click-throughs per recipient group, or to compare how various keywords or send-times compare. To really analyze your marketing approach, you'll have to extract this data by hand.
Some of the updates (i.e. A/B testing, custom template options) have been available to users of free competitor services for years. It would be nice to see Constant Contact take a more proactive approach to innovation and updates.
Converting web site visitors to email marketing recipients has never been easier, as site visitors simply select which programs they are interested in and they are automatically added to the appropriate contact lists in Constant Contact. Constant Contact has made it painless to conduct email marketing campaigns that circumvent spam filters, something that Emma and MailChimp struggled with.
Avantages
Constant Contact makes it really easy to make attractive, functional emails and to conduct email campaigns with sequencing. Building emails is done via a drag-and-drop interface (WYSIWYG), so you don't have to have any coding experience with html or css. It's really easy to schedule your campaigns, too. If you can use Outlook and Word, you should be able to get comfortable with Constant Contact pretty quickly. It's also really easy to build and manage contact lists, including importing from csv files. And Constant Contact does a good job of tracking bad email addresses and removing them from your lists, which is important because you are charged by the number of contacts you have. I also like that you can send yourself previews so you can try the messages out on different mail programs and tweak them to your liking. Once you've sent out the messages, Constant Contact offers reporting to let you know how successful your campaign was, including the click-through rate. It also sends you reports about who is being added to and removed from your contact lists. Its integration with several WordPress form plugins means it's easy to convert web traffic to email marketing recipients.
Inconvénients
Permissions. There are basically two levels of permissions besides the account owner: campaign creator and account manager. It would be nice to have more granular control over what users can do, because account manager gives users a lot of freedom, but is necessary to work with contacts, schedule a send, etc. The other thing I don't like is how quickly the cost ramps up. Having used Emma and MailChimp, I feel like Constant Contact is the most robust platform. But it is expensive.
Avantages
It is very simple to use! The navigation is simple :) It really couldn't be any easier for a first-time user to figure out. A kid could definitely use it without any guidance (provided that they can read). I really enjoy using it, so that's a plus. I also love that you can view how many emails were opened , even who opened them and what they clicked on! As a marketing person, that's the greatest gift ever. Real data you can see, use and understand. Sadly, not all marketing products offer that. But Constant Contact does! And they do it well.
Inconvénients
Most of the templates end up looking sort of outdated. I describe it as "an early 2000s vibe." They could really use a face-lift to make them more attractive. That's honestly the only thing I don't like about it. Everything else is super great! Wish they'd adapted a more Mailchimp-esque look for all of their products. I think they would crush the competition if they changed up the look a bit.
Constant Contact allows me to easily send professional emails to my clients and readers without worrying about leaking their data out or delivering viruses to their inboxes.
Avantages
The email design features are awesome, and adding pictures is pretty easy. You can build your own library of photos to use. Designing and changing email templates is quite straightforward, and fully customizable with colours, fonts and 'blocks' of type such as main feature, coupon, etc. I have only used customer support twice and they were cheerful and helpful. Almost every email brings one or more bookings so I feel using this service is worth the price. It's also easy to manage your email lists and CC helps guard against repeated bounces by sort of quarantining those email addresses to protect you from a poor sender reputation, which is important with ever-tightening SPAM regulations. There are upgrades available, should you want to send out forms or questionnaires to your list too.
Inconvénients
It is an expense for a small business, and the bigger your list the more it costs. Every once in a while the formatting goofs up and can be frustrating, and copy/paste formatting is sometimes a bit challenging. But the folks at CC work at that all the time and it's improved greatly over the years.
The customer service is pretty good and they are very reliable. Despite a few issues and missing features, I say it's a great way to learn and advance new skills in email marketing due to it's great user integrate
e and easy to use system with beautifully designed templates to choose from which will help give your company or product the right image easily with a few clicks of the mouse. It's very easy to get an email campaign up in minutes time which saves a significant amount of time and money otherwise wasted with a non functional email marketing platform.
Avantages
The user interface is designed in was that is easy to understand and use for the non-tech savvy to the intermediate marketer with a modern, clean and functional experience which made it most appealing due to the fact that first impression means everything and this gave us the confidence that not only is Constant Contact setting the industry standard, but they're built in templates must look just as great which will allow our company to give the right impression which we were searching for.
Inconvénients
Email lists have very little control options and feel it should have the capability to scan email lists and clean or remove no-longer working email addresses, however it does not. Due to a bad email in our list, our account was once suspended costing us thousands of dollars in lost business while we were unable to send out our scheduled weekend email campaigns. We ended up having to speak with a representative over the phone, all to be scolded on a few bad emails in our list. I feel their fail/bounce/bad email percentage scale needs to be recalculated because it is very easy to have your account come to a stop due to just a couple emails that are no longer valid.
With this software I didn't run into the normal problems of implementing changes in the physical appearance of the content of my mailer and it seemed to not get caught up in spam filters like other programs that offer the same thing this company offers it and actually follows through with it. I would recommend this.
Avantages
The automation of this software is beyond intuitive it's closer to artificial intelligence than anything. Providing crucial analytical data back to myself and my team we could reconfigure our approach to different demographics which ultimately LED in huge surges and increases in business.
Inconvénients
For some reason with most of these automated mail programs the same issues tended to plague them. The double opt out feature is what I'm really talking about which is also known as the unsubscriber list. Often clunky and the only part of the whole package that wasn't intuitive as it required individual attention which raised costs in man hours. That was easily negated by the large number of business it brought in due to its strong analytics though. This is a important tool for a smaller business looking to take the next step.
Avantages
Contant Contact makes it easy for us to send a quick e-mail out to our members. They have everything set up for you, so that you can upload a document, image, and/or video. I love that they give you the option to change the background colors and schedule days and times for the e-mails to be sent out. I love how reliable this software is when it comes to importing contacts and making sure our clients receive the emails on time, I love the statistics it provides us. That has definitely helped our organization improve. Constant Contact is the way to go!
Inconvénients
The new update is a little more time consuming. I have been using Constant Contact for 2 years and getting used to the new update has been a bit frustrating. I also wish there were more templates for the buttons. Such as "click here for more", "register here" and etc. I think that would be a great addition.
Constant Contact allows us to easily manage our email contacts and lists. It has saved us time by providing email templates that we can customize to our brand.
The reporting the tool provides also gives us the intelligence we need to see if our list is growing or shrinking.
Avantages
Great tool for a small business or organization to communicate with supporters and customers. Very easy to manage contacts and lists. Countless email templates provided, plus it is easy to create your own templates.
Out of the box reporting on opens, click-thrus, opt-outs, and more are highly intuitive.
Inconvénients
Tool does not offer marketing automation functionality, as in -- if an email is opened, but the desired action is not taken, automatically send a follow-up email in two days or if the email is not opened, automatically send a follow-up email with a different subject line and different customized content in a week.
Avantages
Constant Contact offers marketing tools via email for both users and administration. Constant Contact supplies users and administrators customization of emails. Constant Contact provides various options such as reporting, registering, campaigning, and customer feedback. Constant Contact has integration of software applications such as Word Press, Formstack, Facebook, MindBody, Outlook, HootSuite, and Salesforce. Constant Contact offers email marketing templates.
Inconvénients
Plans of services not provided on the Constant Contact site. Variations of information may not appear as clearly in the mobile application as oppose to the windows application. Within the editor tool, inserting inline images may not appear depending on the file type. As an administrator or user, attempting to cancel services may not transpire as quickly but the Constant Contact team is working towards a resolution. Constant Contact displays a limited number of archived reports as it relates to email analytics.
I've used CC to create and track event and orientation registrations, send out email blasts, reminders, and/or updated messages and flyers. I've also used CC to gather new and old leads, create and maintain lists of interested applicants, as well as track applicants who move to admitted students. It is also a great tool for marketing new programs and gathering and testing different message and design styles to see which ones gather more interest. I especially use it to email large groups without being blocked as a spammer. I really don't spam targeted leads, but with some email providers all it takes is like 5 users with the same @.... address and you can get blocked, so being able to use CC for larger emails is a big plus!
Avantages
What I like most about Constant Contact (CC) is the ability to import and export contact lists so I can save and re-use particular lists as needed. I often have to run update reports to add newer applicants (or new "interested" leads) and/or change the message text to target a specific audience and then send it to those who need to be contacted; not having to create a brand new list or try and merge two different files is so helpful. Being able to preview email messages when you need to tweak something is a real time saver too! And I love the "reminders" feature so I know when it's time to reconnect with certain interested contacts.
Inconvénients
Honestly there isn't much I don't like about CC...? Oh, right now it will not seamlessly import into the CSM tool our front desk team is using (they end up having to do a little work-around), but that will soon be fixed as they are switching another program that easily works with CC.
Excellent product that integrates well with overall marketing workflow. The support is prompt and it is solid technically.
Avantages
It is easy to use and provides templates to make your emails easy to create and have built in mobile design. There is help with expanded hours that will assist you with creating emails, list management and any other issue you have. I consider this a major plus because there can always be questions and with support, saves you time.
The reporting features are outstanding. You can see who is opening what and what links they are clicking on, to name just a few reporting features. Also, you can now personalize subject line and add emojis. New features are always being added.
Inconvénients
More templates are always being added, but could use a few more for holidays.
Avantages
I used ConstantContact for more than just e-mail; I used it for events management and online surveys as well. So the fact that it was kind of an all-in-one tool for us was very beneficial versus having to swap between a different program for CRM, for event management, for reviews, and email updates. The platform was easy to use and you could get things set up in a matter of minutes. It also had great analytics and tracking reports.
Inconvénients
The customer service was pretty dreadful. While they tout "customizable" templates, they are extremely restrictive in what you CAN do. Essentially you can piddle around with some basic HTML and change colors, otherwise, you're pretty stuck with the templates they provide you. The price is also high for what is offered.
For the price, this program provides an excellent tool for organizations that focus on email marketing campaigns. If your needs are focused around email marketing, this is certainly the program to consider.
Avantages
This software worked well for our email campaigns, but it lacked some features that were specific to the growing needs of our organization. We definitely would have stayed with this software if it would have met all the needs of our organization as we grew in size and function. The templates were easy to customize, and the emails always looked very professional. I also liked how the emails were tied into the registration page and the final reports.
Inconvénients
This is not an easy program to learn how to use. It's easy to make mistakes, especially when learning the program. Thank goodness for the excellent tech support provided. Their skilled and friendly tech support makes up for the difficulty learning the software. Their tech support is the main reason I would encourage others to consider using this software because of the steep learning curve. They fixed many problems for me, and they were always eager to help!
Overall the Constant Contact tools are easy to use and very professional. We are a mid-sized financial institution that sends around 14 to 28 thousand emails per week. When I came into my role we had been using Constant Contact for a number of years. However, I felt that we had outgrown its capabilities. The platform is primarily for small businesses and some of the features were lacking for what we needed. Specifically, the ability to create separate subscription lists. That said, the customer service is amazing and if you live/work in the Boston area then there are always training seminars going on.
Avantages
Great customer service. Whenever we encountered problems with data uploads/downloads or other situations, the phone support was quick to answer and very knowledgeable. Inexpensive for the quality of email platform. Great for small businesses.
Inconvénients
Not catered towards mid to large organizations selling multiple products and services. Unable to created multiple lists for product or services with the option for recipients to unsubscribe from just the one list (unsubscribes from all).
I have had great success with Constant Contact over the years. This tool will make you money to pay for the cost and your clients will appreciate the consistency in your business.
Avantages
I have used this software program for years in my real estate business. This is a great way to stay in front of your clients and potential clients. I can schedule this software to contact clients as little or as often as I like. I love the customizable newsletters and mailers to keep things interesting and fun.
Inconvénients
I would like to be able to integrate other programs to cooperate with this software, sending my clients updated listings, things like that. Otherwise, this is a powerful marketing tool and one of the best products for the money out there.
Avantages
Constant Contact does a great job of managing multiple groups/list and lots of contacts. I've worked with clients who have a large customer base and Constant Contact allows managing large amounts of group/lists and allows you to manual remove unsubscribers and errors. They are rolling out a new version of their email builder, but the older version does allow custom css coding per block which really allows customizing their templates.
Inconvénients
There are a lot of quirks within Constant Contact that I haven't seen in Mailchimp, specifically with using external links for photos and links. The actual editing of text and links within the email builder is quirky and has some issues. Also, the new search feature for previous emails is really slow and takes a long time to find previous emails unless you create folders for all your emails.
Avantages
Constant contact makes it easy for the marketing team to stay in regular touch with our customers and clients via email.Email marketing is the cheapest form of marketing available to us at the marketing department and Constant contact has helped in maximizing the potentials of this marketing genre.
Constant contact is user friendly ,its templates are very easy to customize to fit our taste , and as users we are provided with vital analytical info. which assist us measure how effective every of our email marketing campaigns have been.
Inconvénients
The templates provided by Constant contact are customizable ,however some of the design templates are outdated.
There's a little something for everyone here, and not just for email marketing. You can use their templates, design your own, or use their social media integration to tie your marketing into your Facebook or Twitter profiles.
Avantages
I love that I can take a flyer from my art department and import a PDF of it directly into Constant Contact. This is a recently added feature and makes my job much easier. I can send the flyer out to our mailing lists, and print the same document for my sales reps to hand out to their customers. This enables us to design 1 flyer rather than 2. If you're the type to build your email campaigns from scratch then they have you covered there with a great content layout system that is flexible and easy to use. If you're one of those really fancy people who likes to get all nerdy and mess with CSS then you can do that, too.
Inconvénients
There's not much to dislike honestly. I suppose I'd like it to be easier to find old email campaigns and resend them to new lists or contacts, but that's about it.
Email marketing tool for top of mind & conversion.
Avantages
Constant Contact is really easy to use - it's features of templates, integrations and customizability for automation and sequences is a real boom for businesses to maintain customer contact - to stay on top of mind and influence their behaviour - while not taking too much time doing it - is awesome. The list management features of tags help you slice & dice your lists to ensure that they are catered to with great customized message.
Inconvénients
It can get really expensive for very large lists, especially when compared to various newer alternatives. The editor can at times be frustrating as you cant fix a small niggle like a space between elements and the test email looks different from the actual broadcast email. List management features like a dashboard with data & analysis of the list of the number of people who are frequent viewers, frequent clicks, non-openers, etc are really useful to take a look at what is happening to the list & its health.
We use Constant Contact on a regular basis. Once we had created several templates, it's simple creating an email! We also utilize design programs like Canva to increase our creativity.
Avantages
Once your templates are created it makes it easier. You can send to lots of people at one time - making 10,000 emails to go out super simple. In addition, they can remove themselves and CC doesn't send again without their permission. We love seeing who viewed, clicked through the email or even forwarded it on!
Inconvénients
You can't attach a name to several emails - this is an inconvenience. I feel as though there are random glitches quite often and that can be time-consuming.
I was able to cheaply design a custom program for a website that tracked client progress, sent weekly accountability reminders and instructions. One person doing the work of 3? Constant Contact was able to make that happen.
Avantages
The drag and drop format for building an email template is perfect for non-web design/developers. No HTML needed here. Also you are able to resize photos just by dragging the corner. I like how simple it is to design an email and see just how it looks as you go. New social media management - I haven't tried it yet but I'm excited about this great feature!
Inconvénients
Limited (or only one choice) of how the sign up form looks and what options are included on sign-up. Unable to create custom triggers. Need more options on how to view data received by surveys, and how those surveys are linked back to contacts.
Answered in my review.
Avantages
I love that I can set a template and just keep going back to it over and over and just make the changes I need to make.
The send time it relatively short so I am able to get a message to my customers pretty quickly.
I use Constant Contact several times a week.
Adding in new emails is quick and easy too!
Inconvénients
There is no way to set an email to send as a recurring email. So every month I have to re-create my Monday/Tuesday eblasts separately, one for each Monday and Tuesday, sometimes up to 10 separate emails. While I don't have to re-do the actual emails I have to copy them and schedule them separately. Long, pain in the back process.
I have trouble with spacing sometimes. As in, I set the spacing between words, then hit enter and it changes. No way to get it to stay where I want it.
Not a lot of cool fonts to work with but it is possible to create a document in Word using cool fonts and then copy and paste that in.
I do independent contracting for a nonprofit and have been using Constant Contact for about 4 years now for the electronic newsletters to our supporters and network. I love that the software and the many different template options to use for mailings. I also like that I am able to change fonts, color, backgrounds and layout with ease. It is VERY user friendly and if I need to stop in the middle of my work it, will be saved where I left off. This is actually an update because in the past if you didn't save the work manually you could lose it, but they have updated that and it now autosaves (which I am very grateful for). Also, I love that I can schedule mailings and campaigns in advance for when I want them to go out (I currently have 5 pending to go out on designated days within the next 5 weeks). This save me a lot of time and not having to wait til the day of to log on and send them out.
What I REALLY like is that we can track analytics. we know what emails (and topics) people are more interested in versus ones they barely open. This helps us in choosing more engaging content. I know what percent of our contacts have opened the emails. I can create different groups to send certain thing to (like Board members, parents, LSC), I am even able to see the time and date (and by whom) an email was opened and if the donate button was clicked or not (which is good for best practices and implementing measures of accountability within the org).