Constant Contact is a full-featured email marketing solution with capabilities such as social media integration, drag-and-drop editing, and real-time reporting. It is a bulk email tool designed for SMB customers. Since 2019, Constant Contact also offers marketing automation features, a website and landing page builder, and other tools to support midsize businesses.
$12
per month
Orderwave
Score8 out of 10
N/A
Orderwave is a web-based hosted application that is designed to automate and streamline operations for e-commerce, catalog, and direct marketing sales channels. Key features include: Subscription and Continuity Management Inventory and Warehouse Management Payment Processing Shopping Cart Robust Reporting Shipping Solutions Partial Order…
N/A
Pricing
Constant Contact
Orderwave
Editions & Modules
Lite
Starting at $12.00
per month
Standard
Starting at $35.00
per month
Premium
Starting at $80.00
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Constant Contact
Orderwave
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
The SMS Marketing tool can be added to any Standard or Premium Constant Contact account. SMS is only available in the US for Standard and Premium paid plans. SMS can be added when logged in to an account after purchase. Plans start at $10/month for up to 500 messages.
We have custom pricing available based on features needed, number of users, order volume and currencies supported.
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.
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
If you manage orders of physical goods, Orderwave works just fine! They integrate with many e-comm platforms and are generally well-suited to those who sell products on their site, who want to send automated order receipts and confirmation emails, and for accounting purposes to tally up total sales (including taxes, shipping costs, etc.). The fact that they also integrate with our email platform makes it extra useful so I can really hone in on segmentation and order history. That's pretty invaluable to me, as an email marketer. If you don't sell goods, I can't see it being appropriate
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
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.
Order management is clearly important when you run an e-commerce platform. As I can only speak from a marketing perspective (not business intelligence or finance), please know I may be limited in what I know/share. It's seriously a ridiculously useful piece of software. Anyhow. Orderwave allows me to pull in order information into Listrak, our ESP (email service provider). With this information, I can segment on SO many levels such as order total, number of orders, date of last (or all) purchase(s), what was purchased, over what period of time X items were purchased.... the options are limitless.
Because I do a lot of testing with my emails - testing the whole customer experience from receiving an email to completing an order - I need the ability to review order information (name, address, items purchased, S&H info, tax info, etc. etc.). While our admin manages all the customization of that order receipt, I'm able to quickly make any changes necessary in the back end, like if I'm seeing a pricing discrepancy between what is advertised on our site and what the final order purchase was (usually due to the way we set up a bundle product and not an issue with the platform).
It's really, really easy to see if we have available inventory of select SKUs that we are about to promote. It also gives me an idea if there is an issue with syncing between SAP and Orderwave, or Orderwave and Magento (our e-comm platform).
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
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.
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
I'm not the biggest fan of their email platform, but it does exactly what it needs to do... I just like drag & drop email builders. In addition, I've found that at times the code editor doesn't expand very large, so I often have to copy & paste into a separate code editor (such as Sublime Text) to edit a few lines of code. While the WYSIWYG editor opens in a new window allowing it to more easily expand, I don't get that with the code editor (at least not in Chrome on Mac).
Support documentation is still a little difficult to manage, but I have noticed truly significant improvements and am more easily able to find the things I need. Our AM is able to help me when I can't find something, which is a big help. I'm sure in time it will improve more.
The overall look and feel feels old. Like the email platform, it does exactly what it needs to do and it does it well without issue. But the innards feel like Windows XP in 2018. The walls are sturdy and supportive; it just needs a new coat of paint. :)
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
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
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.
I wasn't involved in the purchasing decision of Orderwave, but I am familiar with IBM Order Management (used in the past) and much prefer Orderwave. It's cleaner and the information I need is more direct an apparent. Despite it's 'old' look, it's far more effective and far easier to use. I need easy. My day is spent between 10+ applications and if something isn't easy to use, I just won't use it. Orderwave lets me do my job well
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
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
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.
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
It has really helped us with business intelligence and gathering more information on who our customers are, what they have (or haven't) purchased, and how we can more effectively market to them. The BI has also helped our telemarketing side (with the call center) better understand what products are most frequently ordered over the phone vs online.
Managing stock levels is super easy and allows our marketing team to more effectively merchandise and promote products. Without this, we would just be guessing what we should promote.
I think one of the biggest ROI pieces has been the customizability of the Order Confirmation email. We have a dynamic tool that our email provider offers that serves up products based on what the customer has ordered, viewed, and abandoned, so we can dynamically populate those products in the Order Confirmation email. Orderwave helped us create a custom variable that we could use with our ESP's dynamic code, and we've seen an increase (~3-4%) in sales from the Confirmation email.
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
