Benchmark Email vs. Listrak

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

It is definitely a contender if you run an e-commerce website. It connects with a host of different e-comm platforms (we use Magento) which makes product recommendations, purchase history/amounts, website behavior, etc. a lot easier to segment on and set trigger campaigns or targeted sends. If you're a B2B company, you probably won't want to use Listrak. The tools they have don't accommodate that segment as well as B2C, as many features would go unused since they simply don't make sense. I'm sure there are instances where Listrak would work just fine, but coming from that area previously, it is definitely a B2C tool.

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.

• Segmentation is one of my favorite features. We love being able to pull specific audiences and tailor our marketing to the individual customer.
• Importing and exporting lists is very self explanatory and easy to manage.
• The main dash has a great overview of your most recent messages and metrics.

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

• It is rare that I have issues or feel like Listrak has an area to improve in. The company is constantly ahead of the market and making additions/improvements on a monthly basis. That being said ... I have one area to suggest improvements: COMPOSER
• Composer - Drag & Drop editor: Although their design software with the new 'Composer' is better than your average WYSIWYG editor, their drag & drop editor lacks some basic design tools that stunt your ability to design out-of-the-box email campaigns. I typically write all my email code, so this doesn’t necessarily affect me in a negative manner. But ... if coding emails isn't your strong point, then the lack of design features and limited template selection could be bothersome. (*disclaimer - I do not believe Listrak's drag & drop editor is garbage, but it does fall short when compared to some of its competition.)

Incentivized

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

The Bronto platform is so similar to Listrak in that it made no sense for us to move unless there were significant cost savings (there weren't). We are so intertwined with Listrak that it would be painful to move for the sake of moving. Klaviyo is very DIY which can be great. We find that we do our best work with hand-holding and account support.

Incentivized

• 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

• Increasing our awareness of effective marketing email campaigns
• Reducing the effectiveness of our campaigns due to the complexity of software and inability to cancel our contract despite being LOYAL customers for 2 years.