Acquisio vs. iContact

Acquisio is ideal for marketing agencies, especially those that focus on serving a specific market. If your Agency has access to client data, depending on the data, Acquisio's software could be a powerful way to deliver that data in the form of online ads. Acquisio might be too powerful for a small business looking to manage campaigns in-house.

Incentivized

I would only recommend it if someone was a small business. I think they are the best suited for companies who will send out a coupon or offer here and there. The most recent updates made it more complicated to use for more complicated processes. It is easy to train someone on the program, and so quick to learn. But I would also only stick to the simpler things. I also think the colorful templates are great, and show great creativity. But again, it is hard to justify recommending the program when it isn't WYSIWYG.

Incentivized

• Provides multiple methods of viewing and sharing campaign data. It is definitely an upgrade from the basic PPC reports. Fully customizable and new features are being added regularly.
• Acquisio now provides support for the importation of the video campaign data. This saves her company lots of time as we used to have to do this process manually.
• Aquisio now has instant chat support in the platform which saves a lot of time as you can get quick answers to any problems you may be having.

• Contact management. iContact is really great for entering all your contact. You are able to put them onto different lists, and let them choose which lists they would like to be a part of as well. There are many data fields provided to fill in information.
• Emailing. We use the email feature at least once a month. They are always improving and adding new features, which is very helpful in presenting content in a new and exciting way to our readers. There are many options with remade templates and themes, or you can add your own.
• Insights. It is really helpful being able to have the data to see what is working and what isn't. It is nice to be able to go back and see how things went in the past compared to now. Opens, clicks, shares, etc.

Incentivized

• Facebook management: You cannot manage Facebook directly through Acquisio. You can only see the data in the platform.
• Campaign automation: The rules and algorithms takes a lot of time to be applied if you managed them manually.
• LinkedIn: No LinkedIn integration available

• We also would like to send transactional messages which don't require an opt-out, this is a challenge with iContact. (May be a feature with pro?)
• The regular version of iContact doesn't support event management or logic flows for automated messaging.
• Custom form fields have limited field type options (can't build a drop-down).

Incentivized

I think the platform, with the latest release updates has a lot of great potential. The main decision, currently, is price and how that gets passed on to our clients. There has to be a conscious decision made on platform cost vs client spend and overall budget vs revenue.

Incentivized

iContact has been a quick and easy way to send any announcements and news directly to email and social media subscribers. Its tracking and reporting capabilities turn a simple email into a marketing campaign that can be used as a tool to efficiently gauge reader response and customer satisfaction, and ultimately to reach potential customers. The consistency and excellent customer service is what makes this program a pleasant experience.

The updates they have recently made have been time consuming to keep up with

Incentivized

I rate iContact as an easy to use program due to its user friendly dashboard and user interface. Most companies of small to medium size do not have a dedicated marketer, therefore it is someone multitasking who may or may not have this kind of experience. iContact makes it relatively simple and can actually expand one's knowledge in the area of business promotion.

Incentivized

iContact is regularly up and running. Only once has it been unavailable for maintenance, which is to be expected and even desired for optimal performance when needed.

Within the interface there is an instant chat support feature that you can use to get help right away without having to pick up the phone or look for an email address. We have have an account manager who responds to emails quickly and is always helpful. Anytime issues require further tech support we are kept up to date on the progress of the issue and they are usually resolved the same day.

They have always been responsive to any issues or concerns that have arisen with our account. Our customer account manager participates in our monthly county-wide communicators meetings via telephone to ensure that we are getting the most from the service. He also analyzes our lists to help us weed out inactive contacts.

Incentivized

The templates are difficult to customize, and they don't render well in email platforms

They handled it well.

Incentivized

i wouldn't be using it if i wasn't satisfied. time is money

We have started using Domo since we began using Acquisio and are extremely happy with Domo. We will continue to use Acquisio though because of the ability to directly manage paid search ads and the ability to create simple reports quickly. Also considering the cost of Domo, unless you specifically need reports with more sources of data, Acquisio is all you really need.

Incentivized

I didn't have a say in the decision because I wasn't with the company at the time. I listed HubSpot here because I know we used it in conjunction with iContact for email automation, but HubSpot Email was only recently built-out to the point where it is today. Now, iContact and HubSpot are no longer integrated.

iContact stays the same with the number of users added or taken away. It certainly remains reliable despite increased usage, and so, can be considered scaleable in that aspect.

• Acquisio let us create reports on the fly, saving us lots of time; time that was better spend optimizing client campaigns.
• Acqusio's Bid and Budget Management tool (BBM) helped a struggling client achieve desired traffic and conversion results with little to no work from our agency.
• Acquisio's quick customer service responsiveness let us get our questions answered quickly.

Incentivized

• We have a template for webinars that we send every month. We just edit it and send. This couldn't be easier (once you know where to find it).
• We like the breakdown of statistics in the dashboard. They're easy to read.
• iContact isn't a comprehensive solution, so it is only one of a few products we use for marketing.

Incentivized