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
OutboundEngine
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
OutboundEngine provides a hands-off way for small business owners to market and grow their business. The product aims to provide small businesses with what big companies have achieved with marketing automation. The service aims to help users keep in touch with clients and prospects with professionally designed, branded campaigns. Benefits include: driving engagement, surfacing warm leads from current contacts, generating referrals and repeat business from their existing contacts, social…
$199
per user
Pricing
Constant Contact
OutboundEngine
Editions & Modules
Lite
Starting at $12.00
per month
Standard
Starting at $35.00
per month
Premium
Starting at $80.00
per month
Essential
$199
per user
Value
$299
per user
Premium
$499
per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Constant Contact
OutboundEngine
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
$99 per user
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.
More information is available on the vendor's website.
OutboundEngine does the work for me so that emails are actually going out. Constant Contact has a ton of flexibility and is a great platform, but I was never using it because I rarely found time to create my own content.
OBE has automated emails, that are industry-specific, so I don't have to create them. On the surface, this is a plus, but my lead generation results have been very poor. Started writing my own emails, now the advantage from OBE is gone. OBE has social media posts, this is a …
Features
Constant Contact
OutboundEngine
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Constant Contact
8.1
118 Ratings
2% above category average
OutboundEngine
8.4
49 Ratings
13% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor
8.4101 Ratings
00 Ratings
Dynamic content
7.7102 Ratings
00 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content
8.582 Ratings
00 Ratings
Landing pages
7.876 Ratings
00 Ratings
A/B testing
7.171 Ratings
00 Ratings
Mobile optimization
8.686 Ratings
8.643 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting
9.0114 Ratings
8.649 Ratings
List management
8.3116 Ratings
7.943 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences
7.260 Ratings
00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Constant Contact
8.1
115 Ratings
5% above category average
OutboundEngine
-
Ratings
Dashboards
8.488 Ratings
00 Ratings
Standard reports
8.3113 Ratings
00 Ratings
Custom reports
7.558 Ratings
00 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
Constant Contact
8.1
67 Ratings
1% above category average
OutboundEngine
-
Ratings
URL Validation
8.231 Ratings
00 Ratings
Link Tracking
7.934 Ratings
00 Ratings
Image Validation
8.932 Ratings
00 Ratings
Inbox Display
8.635 Ratings
00 Ratings
Email Accessibility Tools
7.928 Ratings
00 Ratings
Spelling and Grammar Check
8.154 Ratings
00 Ratings
Spam Testing
6.026 Ratings
00 Ratings
Email Previews
9.366 Ratings
00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Constant Contact
-
Ratings
OutboundEngine
7.9
38 Ratings
14% above category average
Automated sales alerts and tasks
00 Ratings
7.938 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
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.
OutboundEngine does a referral campaign and I've been able to close a couple of deals based on getting in touch with people who engage with this campaign and state they could use my services in the next 6 months. This is a great follow up tool for those you may or may not know are going to be needing your services.
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.
The content that they generate to send to our clients is relevant and the clients want to engage with us. It makes us appear more professional and consistent, even though we are a smaller company.
It helps us stay in touch with clients and helps us stay top of mind. We are able to generate more new business leads if we are in consistent contact with current, former, and potential clients.
Their customer service and support is outstanding. All my questions were answered and I went into the program feeling confident and knowledgeable.
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.
I do not like the use of drawings to attract new customers, and they have ignored my requests to eliminate that for my personal emails.
I do not like it when a competitor in my immediate market has the same posts. It cheapens the service or makes it appear that I am simply sharing another's post.
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.
The biggest issue is poor ROI. The second biggest issue is rigid customer service process, lack of a sense of urgency, and inability to reach out to upper management with issues.
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
Overall, OutboundEngine is very user friendly. It is simple to set up and explore, and if there are any issues or questions, the customer service team and account managers are always available to help. They are very knowledgeable and were able to explain everything in detail to me. The program is easy to navigate and helps me stay organized, and an uncomplicated and straightforward solution was exactly what I was looking for
I haven't had to contact Outbound Engine because I haven't had any application errors or unplanned outages. I basically have had such a trouble free experience with them that I haven't had to call. Everything is automated and I get a notice to review every isse. I suppose if I personalized the newsletter a bit more and added some of my own articles, I would need to contact them, (which I should really start to do) but so far things have been so on point, I haven't felt the need.
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.
The customer service was excellent! Everyone I spoke to was kind and knowledgeable. My account manager was easily reachable. Setup of the OutboundEngine program was explained really thoroughly, and we knew how we could best use the product to meet the needs of our clients and get our online and social media presence off the ground.
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 selected it for the ability to have an automated system do 3 things all at once, social media posts, emails and the instant communication with the chat box. I have never seen a chat come through that lead to a helpful client touchpoint. I have never used another product but have since begun to weigh some of the less expensive options.
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
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.
It has provided a consistent email message to my clients
It has provided a consistent social media presence for my past clients
It has helped me obtain and correlate customer reviews
Unfortunately I cannot say that I have any direct information that a sale was generated directly as a result of OutboundEngine. I feel that it has but I have no measurable proof of this