Constant Contact vs. Oktopost

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

Oktopost is great if you have several Social Media profiles you want to manage and want to schedule and post all your things in a simple interface. They have a great calendar view that shows everything that is coming up and you can easily move or change postings with a few clicks. It is also good for managing a single account. It has all the features I need for our single account markets, like campaigns, tracking, scheduling, etc. I think if you are trying to manage a very large number of social media profiles it might get a bit difficult. There are tools more suited for that than Oktopost that may be easier, but Oktopost would still work.

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.

• Auto-poster feature that allows scheduling of posts to be made in relatively short time.
• Calendar view has a great UI with easy to use drag and drop and editing features.
• Message assets can be saved per campaign without having to re-draft them for repeated promotions.
• Good reporting via excel export and dashboard overview
• Great customer service and support! Including response rate and implementation of requested features

• 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

• Sometimes there were bugs in the user experience, but they seemed to be quickly addressed.
• They didn't seem to have experience dealing with large-scale company use when integrating with Eloqua information. We had a lot of issues with false data or form submits showing up.

Incentivized

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.

I give Oktopost a 9, as a 10 means NO improvement is needed, but all platforms must iterate and improve. Hands down Oktopost is the B2B marketing leader in the social and content marketing world. They are also very quick to work on things and make the experience better for users. I would say I was a very early adopter of Oktopost and have seen them grow into a very useful tool and also a great company! I am VERY excited to see what they will do next to make our B2B marketing jobs more efficient and results producing! Thanks for helping our business close 10 accounts from LinkedIn in the last year! And that is up from ZERO the year before NOT using Oktopost.

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

Because in general is very good, the support team is always happy to help and you can ask them anything. They always have the solution. I also like the new functionalities that they are implementing; each month, we have something new. The end user platform is very easy to be used by the sales people.

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.

When I have sent in questions to support, I have received answers pretty quickly and they were helpful. However, I would like to see more information on the support page rather than having to contact them directly.

There is a lack of online training videos or documentation. They have a long list of FAQ's but I would prefer a quick YouTube video instead.

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

As I stated earlier, I would suggest doing a quick session with the Oktopost team in order to properly set up the account and make sure you are getting the full experience.

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.

The integration with SalesForce and Marketo was the number one reason we went with Oktopost. It wasn't until after I got inside and got my hands dirty that I saw how great Oktopost was. The analytics reporting is sensational. It allowed me to easily pull reports to organize for my marketing department.

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

• Ability to quickly and comprehensively provide metrics on all activities to internal users and external clients helps inform and direct immediate and long term posting decisions.
• Ability to integrate with websites and marketing platforms allows for an understanding of user interest beyond the awareness arena and into the conversion arena.
• Ability to quickly post allows for immediate input during time sensitive social discussions.