Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review In my use of [NetBase] Quid, I found the tool particularly suitable for curating pertinent content. It allowed me to develop more comprehensive analysis at a larger scale, all while substantially reducing the amount of research time needed. It is also a plus that [NetBase] Quid is delivered as a web app. I did some of my [NetBase] Quid work on a low-end Chromebook without issues.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Their NLP is very strong with the ability to distinguish subject in sentences and then apply analysis based on either the subject or sentence. Competitors lack strong NLP and often have lower degrees of accuracy. The platform is highly flexible with dozens of ways to filter and cut the data. It is great for an analyst that really wants to deep dive into the data. However, the analysis done automatically by NetBase is also strong enough that less experienced users would still be able to gain insight with ease. The customizable dashboards are perfect for client reporting and drastically reduce the amount of time spent preparing recurring reports and decks. These are also very flexible depending on reporting needs. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Dashboards can only currently be exported as PDFs. It would be helpful to have a more read/writable format (eg. PPT) that enables us to combine Netbase's outputs with other sources, or to make them more consistent with our own branding (colours, fonts etc.) The business model revolves around a limited number of login seats. I would like to be able to roll out the tool to make it available/accessible to more people in the business, but the pricing model makes this impractical/uneconomical. Logging out users after a period of inactivity can be frustrating when multitasking/task switching and unsaved work is lost. While Netbase's focus on language processing is its key strength, additional functionality around social analysis (eg. people who follow a brand account, users who talk about X are also likely to talk about Y) is somewhat limited. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review We've had a good experience using the tool and have invested quite a bit of time training the internal team on how to get the most benefit out of it. There would need to be a compelling reason or business case to port over all of our existing topics and tool know-how to another platform.
Read full review Usability 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
Read full review Very simple to use, quick to pick up on the key principles, and a task-centric design (ie. Topics to set up what you want to analyze, Analysis to do the exploration/analysis, and Dashboards to pull results and findings together to generate reports.) All intuitive, drag & drop etc.
Read full review Reliability and Availability No major problems in sending out the email campaigns and accessing the analytics
Read full review Performance 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
Read full review NetBase constantly updates the platform with features. The platforms ability to analyze complex social listening topics is exceptional. Its fast and gives you the ability to create standardized reports for a quick topic analysis. Additionally, the standard overview tab provides the topic at a glance and assists in quickly identifying areas to further analyze. Great product with excellent support behind it!
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Our support contact is always available and will spend all of the time required to make sure our questions are answered.
Read full review Implementation Rating 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
Read full review We had an internal implementation meeting with the NetBase team as well as a business seat implementation for one of our clients. I would highly recommend having all stakeholders attend an implementation meeting as they can understand the power of this platform.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review Meltwater took too long to load whenever you had to change keywords, their customer service was not very responsive, and their interface was not very customizeable. We decided to search for a new software company and we invited many companies to present. We selected Netbase after a free trial for reasons stated earlier.
Read full review Scalability 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
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Positive - NetBase allows us to quickly gather a high level over view of a topic, which helps for new business pitch and being able to inform the account teams of basic information. Negative - We have to use other tools to gather news, which affects our budget. Read full review ScreenShots Constant Contact Screenshots