Constant Contact vs. Ipsos Synthesio vs. Planable

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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It's a very good tool. It covers every need we have for social media listening & monitoring. Bad thing is that those who were selling us the software were not much concerned about costs and were not reducing although there are a lot of market leaders like Sprinklr who are really good with compensation & value addition

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It needs the ability to save hashtags. Some of the other tools offer this, so I emailed Planable and asked them to consider adding it.

• 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.

• Synthesio has an unlimited volume, which helps us to not worry about going over budget. This helps us focus on refining our search to pull in the mentions that have the most value.
• Synthesio has an excellent support team. They are always available to answer any questions we have.

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• Plan posts on multiple platforms at once
• Approval workflow

• 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.

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• I’d love better graphics when I pull reports.
• The sentiment data is still inaccurate.
• We are unable to weed out all mentions of the arena associated with the bank.

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• Add hashtags in the tool so you can save them for future use

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.

Ben Farkas was the representative that worked with us on this project, while we have been very excited with the work he provided, especially the customer service, we just did not have enough time with the product hands on to be comfortable giving it the 10 we think it deserves. As the Data tracking was done beyond our expectations and the finished product (infographic) were all excellent, we used this service to fill our need in being shorthanded to cover the data ourselves. Synthesio provided outstanding customer service, their data tracking and materials where top notch, just we lacked the hands on experience to speak to everyday use.

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

It does what you need, but could have a bit more features for the price. $30 a month just to post things on Facebook or Instagram is a bit steep, given that that's all you can do.

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

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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.

Everything we needed was handled, in many cases during the first time we used Synthesio the representative made adjustments and explained them to us, some things we did not even consider when setting up the service.

Emailed them a month ago to add hashtags, but they didn't add the functionality yet. Given that the product has stayed exactly the same since, I'm guessing the developers don't want to add this feature so I give the support a rating of 1.

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.

I have used Meltwater, Hootsuite for the same tracking purpose. Every tool has it own pros and cons. The best way to decide is go by the reviews of the people who have actually used it. Budget is yet another factor to consider.

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Cheaper, however, Kontentino does have the ability to save hashtags.

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

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• 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.

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• It has helped us understanding the on going topics on our social page quite well.
• Really helped us in community management in due time for social accounts. Saved a lot of clicks and time as well as resources.
• Employees feel really happy with the tool because it lets them do the work fast and securely.

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• Ability to post on any social media platform with 1 click. It adjusts the layout for you, pictures, adding action buttons, etc.