Constant Contact vs. Mailigen

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.

Incentivized

Mailigen is great for designing and scheduling campaigns that do not require expert knowledge in the field. Creating specific lists, segmentation, & scheduling campaigns are very straightforward and user-friendly. Do not use Mailigen for email marketing blasts! If you are unable to provide documented evidence that the user 'Opt-in' to receive your campaigns, then expect the campaign to be flagged or contacted by your Mailigen Account Manager. You must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act ... no ifs, ands, or buts!

Incentivized

• 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.

• Mail deliverability. MailiGen gets the mail delivered. We have our own data centre hosting and servers but struggled to get our bulk mails reliably delivered. Since we switched to MailiGen delivery rates have more than tripled.
• Template editor and tools. There is a rich assortment of tools for preparation of mailers. They are easy to use and we often train customers is a single 2 hour session.
• Mail List security and manageability. Cloud based mail lists are important best practices for some of our corporate customers, who often store mail address lists in Excel. These lists get lost, damaged and stolen. The MailiGen list management tools centralize list storage and provide tools for segmentation, importing and exporting.
• Stats!! The mail campaign stats that MailiGen provides are world class. They are simple to understand and rich in depth. Our customers love the stats.

• 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

• Segment creating could be more functional and may include statistics from previous mails. Time to time I need to use more advanced functions like "send information to people who clicked on link A".
• It does not allow the user to choose mobile/tablet friendly templates. I'd like to decide myself.

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.

We are satisfied with this cooperation and we don't see why we should change email marketing service provider at this point. Excellent service and rapid new feature development keeps us very satisfied.

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

Although it is easy to use for basic users and people with no experience in e-mail marketing, but for more advanced users it still lacks functionality - really advanced filtering - on it's web interface. However everything is possible once you use API.

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

Incentivized

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.

Although time to time I send a support ticket, but more frequently I use the live support option on their website. I get instant feedback and feel that my problem is addressed immediately.

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

With most systems it is faily easy. It offers CSV import so transferring contacts should be easy.

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.

Mailigen falls short to Listrak due to Listrak's far superior contact, conversion, and message analytics. Some features are unavailable or not easily integrated with the Mailigen platform compared to its competition, but features such as model acquisition & shopping cart abandonment are available. The ability to integrate such features into your website may be easier when using a competitors platform, but easy usability comes with a price. Extra perks such Coupon managers & etc. are useful features that allow you to generate Barcodes & QR codes, as well as track various data analytics when implementing this feature. Small items as such are what Mailigen lacks in comparison to its competitors, but their price point kicks the rest out of the water if you can live without some of the bells and whistles.

Incentivized

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

• 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

• Better delivery of mail campaigns giving better ROI numbers
• Better stats so that we can assess what works and what does not.