Email automation software with optimized personalization to drive engagement.
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Mailigen
Score 7.1 out of 10
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Mailigen is a web based integrated marketing provider offering email, mobile and social marketing. In the SaaS platform, you can gather subscribers, prepare, send or schedule email campaigns and receive real time reports. One can leverage statistics for behavioral segmentation and lifecycle email marketing. Mailigen offers several integration points including online surveys that you can use to segment your audience and send personalized emails.
Small businesses with even smaller marketing budgets and no email marketing experience would be better off selecting a lower-end email marketing provider. However, Adestra will provide a growing company with every email marketing tool along the way.
Mailigen is great for designing and scheduling campaigns that do not require expert knowledge in the field. Creating specific lists, segmentation, & scheduling campaigns are very straightforward and user-friendly. Do not use Mailigen for email marketing blasts! If you are unable to provide documented evidence that the user 'Opt-in' to receive your campaigns, then expect the campaign to be flagged or contacted by your Mailigen Account Manager. You must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act ... no ifs, ands, or buts!
Adestra's "dynamic" list allows users to consolidate multiple lists in combination with data filters and exclusion lists. This implements segmentation and is a powerful marketing tool.
Adestra's MessageFocus API integration provides developer-tools for list, campaign or transactional automated requirements.
Campaigns can be sorted into project folders. This allows marketers to group campaigns together for management or reporting requirements. Moving or copying campaigns from one project to another is a simple process.
Data downloads via Reporting is available at every level, from overview to individual KPI.
Creating "core" tables helps marketers develop lists with similar attributes. Whether a list has many fields or simply the one required email address field, a "core" table helps to quickly map data labels from spreadsheet to online database. Creating data labels on the fly is a simple process, as well. The "core" table also groups similar contacts into one core database.
Any list can be quickly "emptied" for to manage refreshed data. The contacts within the "emptied" list would still be members of the "core" table and so the process does not negatively impact reporting.
Unsubscribes can be managed in one list (as a default) or individual lists. Creating individual unsubscribe lists -- dependent on business requirements -- would allow for a preference center, whereby recipients could be given a choice as to which campaigns they receive.
The Form tool creates signup forms, simple surveys and landing pages. These can be hosted via Adestra or otherwise on the web. The tool provides for branding and proprietary cascading stylesheets, with a number of actions available through a drag-and-drop interface.
Mail deliverability. MailiGen gets the mail delivered. We have our own data centre hosting and servers but struggled to get our bulk mails reliably delivered. Since we switched to MailiGen delivery rates have more than tripled.
Template editor and tools. There is a rich assortment of tools for preparation of mailers. They are easy to use and we often train customers is a single 2 hour session.
Mail List security and manageability. Cloud based mail lists are important best practices for some of our corporate customers, who often store mail address lists in Excel. These lists get lost, damaged and stolen. The MailiGen list management tools centralize list storage and provide tools for segmentation, importing and exporting.
Stats!! The mail campaign stats that MailiGen provides are world class. They are simple to understand and rich in depth. Our customers love the stats.
As of this writing, there are at least 3 different editors available (a drag-and-drop, a WYSIWYG and HTML). However, only a small template library is available if requested through support. Those expecting to find ready-built templates for re-branding would find them through the third-party EDM Designer drag-and-drop editor.
Segment creating could be more functional and may include statistics from previous mails. Time to time I need to use more advanced functions like "send information to people who clicked on link A".
It does not allow the user to choose mobile/tablet friendly templates. I'd like to decide myself.
We are satisfied with this cooperation and we don't see why we should change email marketing service provider at this point. Excellent service and rapid new feature development keeps us very satisfied.
I have been self-trained on different ESPs for over 10 years, so my experience isn't comparable to most users. However, I've trained people on various email marketing platforms, and with some training, clients have a positive user-experience with Adestra.
Although it is easy to use for basic users and people with no experience in e-mail marketing, but for more advanced users it still lacks functionality - really advanced filtering - on it's web interface. However everything is possible once you use API.
I have had campaign related issues solved very quickly. When there are technical issues, that involve more than one departmental, it may involve a longer turn-around and management.
Although time to time I send a support ticket, but more frequently I use the live support option on their website. I get instant feedback and feel that my problem is addressed immediately.
For medium and large sized businesses, Adestra competes well with dotMailer. While many of the functions are available through either provider, creating campaigns, managing lists and reviewing metrics are somewhat different. As of this writing, dotMailer's drag-and-drop editor dominates that platform and performs well for low-end users with little-to-no HTML experience. Even high-end users will appreciate how quickly campaigns can be built via the drag-and-drop editor. While Adestra utilizes the EDM Designer drag-and-drop, the third-party functionality is not completely cohesive and lack of a template library gives dotMailer a bit of an advantage.
Mailigen falls short to Listrak due to Listrak's far superior contact, conversion, and message analytics. Some features are unavailable or not easily integrated with the Mailigen platform compared to its competition, but features such as model acquisition & shopping cart abandonment are available. The ability to integrate such features into your website may be easier when using a competitors platform, but easy usability comes with a price. Extra perks such Coupon managers & etc. are useful features that allow you to generate Barcodes & QR codes, as well as track various data analytics when implementing this feature. Small items as such are what Mailigen lacks in comparison to its competitors, but their price point kicks the rest out of the water if you can live without some of the bells and whistles.
