Benchmark Email vs. iContact vs. Privy

For low volume non-profits, Benchmark Email provides a respectable free service. Ease of use is high and customization of the email is good. The discount for 501(c)(3) organizations and fully free use for non-profits that help children is commendable. Although the GUI editor is flexible and easy to learn, it does have some issues with certain detailed formatting concerns, like properly showing the newlines between paragraphs. Image/photo processing and presentation is similarly both easy to use, but frustrating due to some capability gaps and quirks, like specifying image sizes and display on hi-resolution devices.

Overall, Benchmark Email provides a good service that is easy to learn to expand your communication reach; however, the ROI and satisfaction may not be as high if paying fees comparable to other offerings.

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

Adding Privy to your ecommerce store is a no brainer. You can very quickly increase your on-site email acquisition conversion rate through the Spin To Win wheel and other templates that Privy offers. You can also use it for additional on-site messaging like announcement bars and landing pages

Incentivized

• 2,000 contact list space available with no time limit to those who can't upgrade.
• The AB Testing feature helps to improve the performance of your emails by experimenting with different content and send times to determine what works best. Thus great emailing objectives are easier to achieve.
• There is a feature where website and email engagement trigger an automatic email series. For example, the automatic flow of a subscriber from a leads list to a customer list upon making a purchase is awesome.

• 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

• Segments website visitors to your site: It can recognize who has been to your website once or many times. It allows you to present an offer to different user groups, present an offer, and then capture their email address.
• Provides flexible opt-in form options: Embedded opt-in forms, pop-ups. bars at the top of your site. You can redirect to a landing page or a thank you window, create a form that takes up the entire screen, provide an offer at the end, or simply thank users for their information.
• Easy user experience: Different options for designs, easy drag + drop builder. Easy installation, trackable results.
• Support their users: Holy cricket. Their support is so helpful. Privy was one of the first software companies that I've encountered that has really gone above and beyond for my team.
• Measurability: Privy understands that digital marketers want to track - They want to be able to split-test their options, track their results - not only views but conversions and $ conversions. Privy gives its users this ability.

Incentivized

• List maintenance -- navigating multiple lists is a cumbersome activity.
• Analytics about user engagement could be better. It's not super robust, especially if you're used to Google Analytics.
• Customer support is kind of slow to get back to us.

Incentivized

• 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

• It gets some getting used to setting up emails with pictures.
• Service isn't cheap but you get what you pay for.

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.

• Flexible options: The software allows so many different kinds of opt-in form solutions: Full-page, pop-up, bar at the top of the page, embedded, etc.
• Easy UX: This software is easy to use for just about anyone on my team. It's easy to implement and work with. Design, form field determination, and integration is all relatively very easy to perform.
• Great support: We've had in-person calls with their support team, and they've been answer specific questions and offer relevant strategies. They've been willing to get on the phone with me and my clients to help us solve problems.
• Multiple integrations - No matter what CRM you're using, there's likely a way to integrate Privy forms into it.
• Easy installation on sites: Just a strip of code.
• Visible, measurable results: Tracking and data with visits, conversion events, and conversion $ tracked to the forms.

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

Privy is very easy to use and is intuitive to new users. The templates they provide give you a head start on campaign builds and their customer success team is approachable and knowledgable about the product. You do not have to be a tech wizard to get rolling with Privy, but the results will make you feel that way.

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.

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 customer support team from Privy is incredible (shout out to Simone). Every person I have worked with has been knowledgable, helpful, polite, and responsive. They have a live chat feature and all CSRs do a great job.

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

I stated this plenty of times in my previous responses but we moved to Benchmark from Mad Mimi. Mad Mimi's feature set is extremely basic and only suited for start-ups or very small businesses. Benchmark provides enough customization to take the next step in your email marketing program. It's also fairly affordable

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.

After having used quite a few email marketing platforms, I can say out of all of them we like Privy the best. Privy's integration with the BigCommerce platform makes it much easier to use than the others we tried in the past and we are happy with the results we have gotten and their excellent customer support which is superior especially to Mailchimp which can only be reached by email.

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.

• If we think particularly on the ROI then benchmark email gives you a definite amount of ROI. But it takes time, you will see the results after a six month span of time. Because sending an email itself is a slow and steady process to follow.

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

• Positive impact for our clients - Our clients can see exactly how many views each opt-in has seen, how it has converted, and how much revenue has been generated from that opt-in and email sequence that it is linked to. (We have used this tool + paid traffic + email to generate more than $15k for some of our clients. And that's just one part of their marketing systems...That's about 150x ROI).
• Positive impact for us - We only want to recommend and use tools that have proven use cases and conversions. This is true here - and it means that we can reliably recommend and use it as a tool to grow revenue for our clients in combination with paid traffic and email marketing. They also support their partners - that means we're more efficient. Time is money - so that's a win here, too.

Incentivized