Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review How big is your email list? For the money WhatCounts allows us to manage a large list and gives us great tools. If you have a small list this product might be more than you need. How many emails do you want to send? WhatCounts charges by the email and of course you get a better price per email the more emails you send. If you will not be sending many emails or are sending to a small list WhatCounts might not be the right tool for you.
Holli Drewry Assistant Director, Division of Student Affairs Communications and Innovative Technologies
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Email marketing with customized templates Sending Catchy SMS to the existing customer base Integrating with company's CRM to manage data Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Some of the list management tools were hard to find at first but now I use them every month. If I could change one thing I would allow the account details filter window to show all the available slots with no scrolling and I would add a feature to set / reset all selections on the dropdowns. Holli Drewry Assistant Director, Division of Student Affairs Communications and Innovative Technologies
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review We have a great representative. She schedules regular calls with our team and helps us learn new ways to use the tool. We get great personal support. I know she has many other clients but I always feel like she has time for me and genuinely enjoys working with our team.
Holli Drewry Assistant Director, Division of Student Affairs Communications and Innovative Technologies
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review Whatscount have always provided data to evaluate about the campaigns and its responses. More customization are present to add create campaigns that resonates customer needs. The reports provided us insights about the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and decide the areas to improve customer attraction.
Read full review Return on Investment For companies that focus on goals and analytics, Adestra provides all the necessary tools. Read full review Customer reach was increased and that generated more responses The ratio of Emails opened and sign-ups through hyperlink on Email gave us an idea about the effectiveness of the campaigns Read full review ScreenShots