Amazon Route 53 vs. iContact

- Routing users to the closest or best-performing resources: Route 53 allows you to use geolocation and latency-based routing to route users to the resources that will give them the best performance. - Load balancing: Route 53 can be used to distribute incoming traffic across multiple resources, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances or Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) tasks, to improve the availability and scalability of your application. - Managing domain names: Route 53 can be used to register domain names and manage DNS records, making it a one-stop solution for managing your domain name and routing traffic to your resources. Scenarios where Route 53 is less appropriate include:Applications with very high query rates: Route 53 is designed to handle millions of queries per second, but if your application generates an extremely high query rate, you may need to use a specialized DNS service.Applications that require very low latency: Route 53 is designed to provide low-latency DNS service, but if your application requires ultra-low latency, you may need to use a specialized DNS service or a self-hosted DNS solution.Applications that require advanced security features: Route 53 provides basic security features such as DNSSEC, but if your application requires advanced security features such as DDoS protection, you may need to use a specialized DNS service.

Incentivized

iContact is a great option for small businesses. It doesn't have enough features to create the demands of a large corporation. Of course the price goes up exponentially with more subscribers, which would also make it beneficial for small businesses. If you have too many lists to add people to it can get a little crazy too.

Incentivized

• We can purchase our domain through Route 53 and can be hosted for cheaper prices in AWS.
• There are many number of routing policies you can go ahead with and this will come into picture when the customer satisfaction is required at most, so choose routing policy accordingly.
• As usual health checks are part of DNS systems, this is also provided at cheaper rates when total process is done in Route 53 service.
• It can be used as standalone application from AWS

Incentivized

• Customer service is wonderful! They are always helpful, guiding and available for any odd question, even if those questions are training for a newbie to the email world.
• Building forms for data collection and the code generator the for the site is very easy.
• Ensuring double opt-in is extremely straightforward.
• Including unsubscribe on every message automatically means we never have to worry about CAN-SPAM.

Incentivized

• Price, it is not expensive ... but you can find some cheaper and even free DNS solutions.
• If you use non-AWS infrastructure, Route 53 doesn't have significant advantages on other services.
• AWS Route 53 does not support forwarding or conditional forwarding options for domains used on an on-premise network.

Incentivized

• Every time you edit or sometimes open an email it brings it to the top of the list. I would prefer my email to go to the top only after I send it out to my subscribers.
• When I add a new contact I sometimes copy and paste the email. This is not allowed sometimes and I have to manually type the email in.
• LinkedIn will not allow you to add pictures anymore when sending emails out.

Incentivized

After 4 years of using iContact we finally cut the cord. It was hard to justify staying with them when it seemed like they had some of the most outdated software in the industry, some of the worst deliverability, and were in general extremely lacking in customization. They are a decent ESP for a great price point, so if that is your main concern it may be worth it, but if you want to have your emails you are paying for hit inboxes (not spam folders) then look into someone else that guarantees great deliverability.

Incentivized

You need to know what DNS is; this is a tool built for developers who already know the technology and are just looking for a DNS management tool. The tool is very usable given that. If you're not familiar with DNS, Route53 isn't really for you and you won't find it to be very usable-- you'll need to go read the documentation, and that will start with learning what DNS is

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.

Until today, I have never needed support to Route53 because the documentation is great. But, I have needed it for other services. And they're near perfect always. Except that they don't have Portuguese support yet and they're sometimes slow to answer (48 hours in non-critical ones, in two tickets). But usually, they're amazing!

Incentivized

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

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

Cloudflare is also similar in the features to Route 53. However, since we are completely hosted on the AWS cloud, we can't use Cloudflare for configuring our internal networks, and integrating with the other services. The API based integration of AWS via Terraform is another factor that allows us to automate most of our deployments and manage them programmatically

Incentivized

We selected iContact because it was available at the time, and in our price range. I inherited it at the school. If it had been the program it is now back then, I would not have chosen it. At the moment, we are too busy to fully vet another program, so we are stuck with this one. It does get the job done. It is great for a small business with small needs, but once you start expanding and having more intricate needs, it does not compete with others like MailChimp

Incentivized

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.

• All of our brand domain names (about 80 brands) are managed in there
• Many non marketing or brand domains are also in there
• There isn't any defined ROI because it's such a trivial and necessary service with impacts all business operations

Incentivized

• Increased Employee Efficiency - once a template is created, it is very easy to edit the content within the template with minimal or no assistance from developers.
• Domain Reputation - if you aren't careful, it is very easy to hurt your domain reputation when using iContact. Make sure the person in charge of email marketing knows the risks of email marketing or is willing to closely work with iContact's customer service to follow best practices.
• Increased Lead Conversion - through the use of automated email functionality, you can stay in the forefront of your customer's minds. This increases conversions by reminding customers that you are there to provide the goods or services that they may need periodically or in the future.