Campaign Monitor by Marigold vs. Campaigner

Campaign Monitor by Marigold is great at both scaling up as you grow (i.e. for a startup or if you're starting fresh on building a subscriber list) and providing more than just basic templates and tooling. We vetted across a lot of different options to account for where we were starting and where we hope to grow into with our opt-in email marketing, and Campaign Monitor stood out.

Incentivized

Workflow feature makes this best suited for those who want to send a series of emails over time based on contact attributes and behavior. Ability to add custom fields and define segments makes this tool valuable for very targeted email campaigns. Lack of communication about releases and poor technical support means your users will need to be fairly skilled in critical thinking and more technical than average. Our knowledge of system came from lots of trial and error.

Incentivized

• Campaign Monitor’s support is great. They have a great help page built out to help answer all your questions, and if you do have a question or issue that needs extra support, their support team responds within a couple hours to help resolve the issue.
• The email builder is very clean and easy to use. It makes A/B testing, personalization, and dynamic content easy to implement.
• I appreciate the insights reporting that Campaign Monitor provides. We use that regularly for our quarterly reporting to track list growth, as well as campaign performance from a high level.
• The automation is very straight forward and has truly transformed our marketing. The learning curve is pretty low, so my entire team knows how to use it to create and edit automated email journeys.

Incentivized

• Number 1, is it's ease of use. We have not run into any problems where someone finds Campaigner difficult to use and this comes in handy every day. The more people that know how to use it the better because it reduces stress/buildup on others.
• We love the reporting system here. We use the clicks and opens to follow up with people all the time so to have all that detailed information is very beneficial.
• Customization is great. You can really make all your emails look exactly like they're pictured in your head.

• I'd prefer a central contact list with tags, rather than multiple lists. I can have one person on 5 lists and that counts as 5 subscribers.
• While the email builder is very good, I'd prefer more customisation options.
• Updates they make are good, but are perhaps a little slow.
• I'd like better mobile compatibility. I get that might not be possible for the email builder (although aiming for that would be great) but for lists, reports etc there's no reason that shouldn't be mobile-compatible or have a mobile app.

Incentivized

• Campaigner is just too bare-bones. When we first started using Campaigner close to a decade ago it was perfect for what it was. But nowadays Campaigner is missing several features that their competitors offer like exit intent and cart abandonment emails.
• Campaigner has an astonishingly bad unsubscribe option. We have had many customers complain to us over the years that when they try to unsubscribe through the emails Campaigner sends, their unsubscribe does not go through.
• Hard to change account settings such as changing our subscription plan. We had to call and were told to wait 24 hours just to make a small change to our account.

Incentivized

It flexes with us both because of the tiered pricing, and due to the comprehensive tools available. We're able to go from one newsletter to many, and few automations to many very easily while not paying for a Cadillac when what we need is a sturdy crossover.

Incentivized

I can't see us not renewing unless we find something better. This is highly unlikely because there was a thorough research done for use to chose the best marketing client and it always came back to campaigner.

It's a very user friendly tool and a highly intuitive interface. It's really clearly thought out, so from a users perspective it feels very simple. By comparison, we've also used Mailchimp, and when comparing one to the other, the Mailchimp dashboard is far less logical and intuitive.

Incentivized

Great features but awful tech support experiences over five years of use. Some releases broke our workflows and Campaigner could never explain why. Our initial plan provided a designed client support contact. This individual changed frequently without notice and at one point they decided our plan no longer included a designated contact. Of course this was never communicated to us until we tried to reach out to the person. If you are tech savy this system might be for you but you'll be on your own.

Incentivized

There have only been a couple of instances where it's been down and this has typically been middle of the night type situations that were planned downtime so they could work on maintenance. They provide notice well ahead of these instances. I've never noticed a surprise outage.

Incentivized

I have noticed no slow page loads within the design interface or reports. It's all quick, even with list uploads which are notorious for being clunky in other systems. It's all been quick and easy for us.

Incentivized

We haven't had to use support yet.

Incentivized

Everything takes a minimum of 24 hours to solve and after being with campaigner for several years we were just told for the first time we have an account rep which we never even spoke to.

Incentivized

The ability to track the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns in real-time is what makes Campaign Monitor interesting to use. All the vital features that we need to run professionally designed email campaigns that look wonderful on any device so that we boost our business are included in this platform.

Incentivized

MailChimp is far more customizable and User-Friendly, although Campaigner gets the job done. Campaigner could benefit from a design upgrade to bring their look into the modern realm. The drag and drop features and email customization of MailChimp, Campaigner is lacking. However, MailChimp is pricier. So you are definitely getting what you pay for.

Incentivized

It is so easy to use, and the things you'd want to have as you scale and get to a more complex email marketing approach are all there. From automations to lots of mobile responsive templates, it's easy to set up what you need and then customize for your brand.

Incentivized

I did not use the professional services

Incentivized

• Private-label reports that are visually appealing and easy for clients to understand
• The 'Worldview' map feature is a MAJOR setting point and hit with clients, as they can watch a realtime map of their emails being opened in specific locations across the world, and instantly see when a recipient clicks a link in their email.

Incentivized

• We are able to sell Campaigner as a premium feature
• The plans can be a bit pricey
• We do cover cost by using their flexible "bucket" model.

Incentivized