Email automation software with optimized personalization to drive engagement.
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SwiftERM
Score 10.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
SwiftERM is an ecommerce plugin that typically delivers an additional 10% to turnover. According to the vendor, it is totally automatic; requiring no human input, no hours of time and effort every month, and no staff cost. It uses each consumer’s historic purchases and impressions captured from each visit to your site; then identifies which products that consumer is most likely to buy next; populates a style-sheet and sends them a unique email – no two are ever the same. It also triggers on…
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.
SwiftERM only works on specific ecommerce platforms including Magento, Shopify, Woo Commerce, and OpenCart. It is intended for regular communication with consumers who visit that retailers site more often. so it works well for food and drink, fashion and pet food etc. People selling beds or something which you buy less frequently would get lower returns.
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.
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.
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.
It is the only system we have able to find in the world that is 100% automatic. There is an element of automation in many email products, but these always require some input, if only setting the distribution time. No other analyses down to individual consumer level. No other system in the world is authorized to send Trustpilot product ratings in outbound emails. This really is superb.
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.
Setting up is a simple plugin. I did my own in three minutes including the registration. As it is automatic, there is no need for training or paying for users, etc. In six years we have never needed any support, but I know there is a team of developers there if that day ever arrives.
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.
Mailchimp, DotMailer, Emarsys. But none of these does exactly what SwiftERM does, leaving us in a situation where we now run both SwiftERM and Mailchimp.
