Constant Contact vs. Improvado

Constant Contact is an excellent tool for sending out flyers and newsletters. However, I feel the content's appearance is typically all the same. When I receive an email from Constant Contact, I can immediately identify it - the templates usually all look the same. When sending out communications with images, it is easy to use Constant Contact and link webpages. However, the email layout is always vertical and can get very lengthy. I prefer a more flip-book approach with options to flip the page.

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This solution helped us when we were stuck trying to explore data deeper and didn’t have enough resources to prepare data for further analysis. The software solves data integrity problems bringing more granularity to all insights. Integration with data visualization tools and well-arranged insights shows how each of the company’s marketing channels performs in real-time. Improvado is also useful for risk mitigation when launching or adjusting marketing strategies. It may also become a valuable tool for businesses, who are aiming at automation and the elimination of routine processes. ETL processes automation unleashes marketing analysts’ potential granting them more time for research of marketing reports.

• Market segmentation is great: my main segmentation is by region because that's how our sales team is divided.
• Lists: making customized email lists is easy and intuitive; the custom fields allow some flexibility in case our fields don't exactly line up with Constant Contact's.
• Campaigns: creating campaigns is quick and simple. I especially appreciate the 'resend to non-openers' option. I am constantly using this feature.
• Subject line generator: I like using the recommended subject lines. I'm able to plug in their recommended ideas, or sometimes, this feature helps me generate my own ideas.

• ETL processes. Once adjusted, Improvado never fails to streamline data from our advertisement platforms to the data warehouse.
• Variety of data sources. Improvado extracts data from over 200 sources, including both well-established platforms and the ones that are rapidly gaining momentum.
• Full-cycle support. Improvado provided us with a dedicated manager available 24/7. Any issues that arose during the product integration were settled in a matter of minutes.
• Flexibility and client-focused approach. After the integration, we adjusted our marketing campaign and needed new ad platforms to be integrated. The vendor allocated the development team ASAP to add new connectors to our existing network.
• Professional services package. The company doesn't provide dashboard views by default. However, we had no time to figure out how to do it ourselves, so we hired a team of Improvado's analysts that set everything up for us.

• It would be nice if we had more customizable options for emails - like moving around pictures and text boxes, rather than a set spot for everything to go.
• I would like it if multiple people could work on a document at one time. So if I'm in charge of graphics, I can get those updated while someone else is entering content, etc.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

• Improvado didn’t have all the integrations that we needed. However, they offered full coverage and quickly found ways to extract data from the sources we required.
• The user interface for BI tools may be confusing to inexperienced users. Personally, I didn't have any problems. However, some of the junior marketing specialists from my department needed more time to adapt to the UI. Otherwise, the interface is great.

There is no doubt that we are going to renew Constant Contact. We have not just invested a lot of time in learning and creating a great looking product but we have developed a strong database of information that allows us to track how we are doing for each newsletter. This supports our goals of creating products that residents desire and are excited to receive.

There is always room for improvement. I don't know how they test their systems, but they should invite not-so computer savvy people to test it. If I, as an expert have problems, they need to think like the technophobe. Since I've used Constant Contact in the past as part of my former employment, I have not viewed any of the tutorials and just jumped in to work on my client's newsletter. With that said, I found some areas easy and some a bit cumbersome

No major problems in sending out the email campaigns and accessing the analytics

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Invited by TrustRadius (TR) on Vendor's Behalf

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info

The system seemed quite slow sometimes. Specifically, there was sometimes a delay in sends if it was during a high traffic period. There were time-outs when uploading new code for an email, and a lag in reporting analytics which was sometimes as long as 72 hours

I think the overall support for Constant Contact has always been incredible; I have nothing negative to say. Our customer support representative was attentive, easy to understand, and very knowledgeable. I never felt like I wasn't a priority of his and my issues, while very small, were fixed in a very short time frame.

Implementation is very easy for someone who wants to send out the “batch and blast” type newsletters. If you want to use their templates with no customizations, the product works fine. However, the more customizations you get into involving link color, etc, that’s where things can get tricky for someone who may not be familiar with coding

Constant Contact is much more intuitive for people who are not tech-savvy. Also, while sendgrid offered more options in it's drag and drop interface, it displayed differently across different email clients, which made it very cumbersome to use. It also took much longer to upload contact lists and it was harder to manage existing contacts. Performance in sendgrid was much slower as well, and the Preview feature was quite buggy. Our team initially chose sendgrid because of the integration options that it's API offered, but we ultimately switched to Constant Contact because it was much easier to build campaigns and better suited our requirements.

We chose Improvado for the following reasons:

• Their data transformation framework cleans, normalizes and prepares data for loading into our data visualization tool;
• We connected our CRM to our analytics tool and as ad account;
• Extensive social media reports - the marketing team can view our ads, posts, comments right from the dashboard.
• Scheduled reports and immediate data sync options help us to get the reports with the most accurate data at the time we need them;
• Google Ads auto-connect new ad accounts.

Our marketing team evaluated Funnel.io and has opted for Improvado because of the following drawbacks:

• With Funnel we’d have to set up an extraction process for each campaign and account manually;
• The more accounts you need to connect or integrations to use, the more you’ll pay;
• Limited data storage options;
• Complicated account export. We had to filter accounts to export through the custom filter rules.

Very reliable in sending email campaigns and controlling the recipients so that no contact is sent the same email more than once, even if they are on a resent list

Incentivized

Invited by TrustRadius (TR) on Vendor's Behalf

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. TR verified that a representative sample of customers was invited. More Info

• I have had nothing but positive impacts from using Constant Contact.
• The church is large, and there are many subgroups and axillary groups within the church. Setting up specific groups based on responsibility, interest, member goals, and service needs allows me to send information quickly, saving valuable time for other tasks.
• Constant Contact allows leadership to stay personally engaged with the members I work with, without over-taxing my time. It feels so seamless.

Incentivized

Independently Invited by TrustRadius

A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info

• Increased ROI
• Improved cost of acquisition analysis
• Improved CPA, CPI, CPL report drawing process