Mailchimp

Avantages

First-time users of MailChimp will enjoy the editor which is fast and simple to use, as it also supports the use of drag & drop interface to prepare your message. The support for auto-responders, A/B testing, recurring emails and RSS to newsletter has made my job easier. MailChimp analytics can tell you exactly what you need to know about the emails you sent. The analytics also helps me know what and what not to adjust in my email campaign and because I use MailChimp for the creation of Facebook, Instagram and google ads is another useful reason I have stuck to it. I regularly use Mailchimp to integrate with applications like WordPress to create subscription form and create ordering pages for e-commerce software like Shopify and woo commerce. It has been flawless so far. I will say they have a lot of features in the paid plan that makes email marketing enjoyable and subscribers spoilt for choice

Inconvénients

Mail chimp does not encourage using their service for affiliate marketing even after you pay for their product. I learnt this the hard way when my defaulting account was blacklisted. I also observed that emails sent to Gmail landed in the promotion tab while some company internal servers blacklisted emails sent from my Mailchimp account. You should do well to beware of the forever free plan because they don’t provide customer service for it after 30 days and it does not support autoresponders. The pricing plan is not very straightforward to understand. Over the years, they have included some changes which are not great from a customer perspective (like the need to verify that your contact was gotten from a subscription page) and the reduction of contact allowed on the free forever plan to just 2000.

Avantages

1) Template Compatibility: The templates that you choose in MailChimp are optimized to fit on all screen sizes. Whether the recipient has a smartphone, a desktop, a laptop or even a tablet, your content will be delivered to him/her the way you want it to be.
2) Scope for better future campaigns: What I mean by this is - MailChimp gives you an edge or an insight into how your campaigns are doing. Based on the statistic report, you can refine and optimize your campaigns and make them more effective.
3) Engendering Interaction: Creating a Survey or a User Form has never been easier.
4) No HTML knowledge required: As I mentioned earlier, MailChimp has a myriad of optimized templates to choose from which helps you become much more creative with your campaigns. There is no need for a separate Design Team unless you don't already like the templates that are available.

Inconvénients

1) User Interface: MailChimp does have a user-friendly interface(s). However, the problem is that they change the User Interface every time they roll in a new update. Yes, this will be easy to master in a short while, but that still requires a NewsLetter team to get accustomed to the new interface. This wastes a lot of time.
2) Zero Tolerance to Affiliate Marketers: If you're an affiliate marketer and you've just stumbled upon MailChimp, turn the other way. I'm not sure what the penalties are but I know they're quite severe.
3) Expensive: Though the Freemium version of MailChimp is rather generous, the paid subscriptions can surely burn a hole in your pocket when you find yourself wanting to send more emails and build your subscription list.

Avantages

Mailchimp has a robust and user friendly dashboard that makes it easy for a novice to get started with an email campaign. That being said, hidden below the surface of templates and cookie cutter designs are fully customizable features and the ability to code your own emails. I believe it serves as the best of both worlds for the unassuming small business owner who really does't have time to learn or the the money to hire a professional to handle their email marketing; it also allows large corporations with a scantly lit room full of code loving nerds to have full control of their email design. Mailchimp doesn't discriminate between these two worlds when it comes the analytics and reporting , they have a terrific suite of tools to measure success. To top it all off, Mailchimp is constantly updating their technology to improve their product and help businesses communicate with their customers.

Inconvénients

The worst thing about Mailchimp is their pricing, they can get pretty steep when you start trying to expand your reach and communicate with a larger audience. The pricing isn't outrageous, but it also isn't competitive. The other cons in my opinion are personal annoyances and probably aren't shared among a whole lot of other users. Their automation tools are a bit limited, my expectations were set high based on all the features that Mailchimp has, automation is one that is still a work in progress. My other annoyance is the branded copy all over the site, it's like being instructed by two dudebros who are constantly making inside references as they show you around. Some probably find this very charming, I find it kind of irritating.

Avantages

Mailchimp is absolutely ideal for corresponding with customers/clientele, especially, (and from my experience), for small businesses and non-profits. Not only is Mailchimp very affordable for businesses with limited budgets, it is a great way to manage and store the likely smaller customer lists those businesses have. In my personal experience, I have loved the way the "unsubscribe" feature works with Mailchimp. It notifies you as the user when and why someone requests to be unsubscribed from future correspondence, and ensures they are actually removed from your Mailchimp list. I have found that this is so much more foolproof than keeping up with your own list in a simple spreadsheet. Along those same lines, mailing out to a list on a spreadsheet and/or directly from an email account often results in the message being flagged as spam/junk for recipients. You also often have limits as to how many addresses you can send a message to at one time, creating additional time and work for the user. Mailchip does it all for you with one click of the button. Not only that, you can review analytics including how many people have opened the email, how many additional clicks links within the email have gotten, how many emails were undeliverable, and more. It is just so user-friendly, and I have never come across anything comparable that gives you more bang for your buck.

Inconvénients

Sometimes the formatting of an email newsletter-type communication can be tricky for a novice on Mailchimp, but after doing it once or twice, you get the hang of it and it becomes much easier. The "test email" feature also eases my own mind, knowing that I can see exactly what it will look like in my customers' inboxes before I actually send it out for real. I generally send it to my personal and business email addresses, read them on my desktop and phone, to make sure the formatting looks correct on all before sending. Although that is a bit tedious, I have peace of mind knowing what I send out looks professional and readable.

Avantages

Mailchimp has a truly professional feel to it. The interface is responsive and well designed. The platform makes it easy to start for free and offers flexible plans, perfect for a startup. Mailchimp has many tutorials available that came in handy more than once. They also use a good sense of humor, making for a less boring experience when reading technical material. There are many options to customize the service and I found it easy to make all the necessary changes in order to set my account for a Spanish audience in Mexico.

Once a campaign has been sent, reports are automatically built. I could even see the stats being updated live just a few minutes after sending everything! There is detailed information about open rates, click rates and statistics about the general industry to see clearly if the audience is being reached as expected. One can also see the reaction of every customer in each campaign: unsubscribes, bounces, number of clicks, etc. All this information is accessible and can be exported to CSV.

Another aspect that I really liked is how well the template editor works. You basically insert "blocks" of text, dividers, images or other types of blocks on the right side of the page and you can see in real-time the template being rendered on the left side. I haven't found any issue when viewing an email sent through Mailchimp based on a template, both on mobile and desktop clients. On the contrary, it made for a consistent design and branding.

Inconvénients

Mailchimp works wonderfully well, but it isn't for the faint of heart when it comes to the initial customization. Sure, the documentation is great, but it does take a while to setup everything. It wasn't clear to me how to use templates inside campaigns, for instance, but even without reading all the documentation, one can deduce much of the functioning by simple trial and error, which ended up being my preferred way to learn my way around.

I didn't find the File Manager as intuitive as the rest of the interface when I started using the product. Sometimes, I would want to resize pictures or apply filters and would get confused as to where the image has been saved or if it were indeed saved. However, it does seem to be getting easier to use in recent versions, as it contains a "revision history" for each uploaded file and an impressive list of adjustments in the image editor, which is a great addition when working on a different computer where the usual software might not be present. I still prefer using external applications when modifying pictures, but Mailchimp does allow to make pretty much any modification you might need and having access to a revision history makes it easy to go back to an earlier version of a file even without first making a backup of it.