DreamHost is a website hosting service with features such as managed VPS hosting, public cloud computing, and dedicated servers. Managed options include WordPress with the DreamPress upgraded service with staging and coaching, WooCommerce hosting, as well as dedicated server hosting.
$3.95
per month
Mailchimp
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Mailchimp is the email marketing and marketing automation platform. Most email marketing platforms tell you how your campaigns perform, but Mailchimp goes a step beyond and tells you why by analyzing the data from half a billion emails sent through the platform every day to offer personalized recommendations for improving content, targeting, automations, and driving revenue using emails
We've tried a few other WordPress-specific hosts, as well as other shared hosting providers (Rackspace, WPEngine, and others). We have found that DreamHost gives the best balance of cost, performance, and features, for our needs. All vendors have their own pitfalls and …
Dreamhost was previously a great web host with reliable service and top-notch features, but I can no longer recommend them. If you're looking for web hosting on a Linux platform (such as running PHP or platforms like Wordpress, Jooma, or Drupal), with simple pricing services, then this is the great service for you. One big downside is lack of phone customer support. This is especially frustrating because of their many issues the last few weeks, which aren't easily resolved or addressed by their team.
Mailchimp is well suited to companies / individuals who want to capture emails via form on their website or a link in an email. Mailchimp is relatively easy to set up and manage. They also have decent reporting tools and segregation tools. The email visual builder is fairly decent as well. Overall, it's a great 'first' lead capture tool while you're still figuring out what you really need.
Super easy integration to Pipedrive via Zapier, and I'm guessing it integrates seamlessly with hundreds of other CRMs.
Intuitive UI when designing the email templates, you don't have to be a designer to use the templates that Mailchimp provides (although using a graphic designer to create newsletters etc. is always a good idea IMO...)
Simple functionality when it comes to creating an email marketing funnel - no redundant complications that make your life harder when building the funnel
Not a fan of some of the font choices, it would be nice to have more.
How campaigns are organized I would like to see this organized differently so older campaigns are easier to find if you need to refer back to an old one.
It would be nice if the reporting gave a little more info on if your email performance with not just open rates but clicks, etc.
We have every intention of staying with Dreamhost, but we are a tad concerned with the company's recent involvement in high profile litigation and controversial topics. While we don't take a position one way or another on what type of content they should host, one concern we have is that repeated attacks on their infrastructure have caused significant downtime during business hours for us, and that's something we'll have to take into consideration going forward.
We've had Mailchimp for about ten years, I want to say. I started with the company about four years ago, and I don't see us ever diverting to another source. It's easy for us to use, and we have all our clients already built into the database. I imagine we'll use them for as long as we have the company.
The user experience, the design, and the simple-to-follow instructions make MailChimp one of the easiest email solutions. The drag-and-drop builder makes it quick to set up, and if you do know some code, there are options to do a bit more customizations.
I have, in the 4+ years that I've used Mailchimp, never seen an issue that restricted the use of their software/tools. I don't know of a single time when they're system crashed or went down. I could be wrong, but I honestly haven't experienced any issues with outages, errors or unplanned downtime
I haven't noticed any slow speeds from Mailchimp or their tools. I think the landing pages load quickly and look nice. The email reports and editing operates smoothly and doesn't take time to load. Additionally, when I use Mailchimp in conjunction with Zapier + Hubspot I don't notice any drag between any of these tools
Whether we're calling in on the phone, live chatting or emailing, we get immediate high-quality, native English-speaking support. This cannot be overstated when it comes to hosting, because support tickets are usually time sensitive and high stress. I've always had great experiences with the limited times we've needed to use DreamHost support. We've dealt with support for many other providers and no one comes close to DreamHost.
Website tools were easy to use and understand so a novice can easily meet or exceed their client's expectations! Loved that we were able to totally customize so that the e-mail we created conveyed our client's overall messaging consistent with their branding! Client love that we can provide turnkey services to support their sales and marketing teams!
It's pretty easy to get up and running! There's a slight learning curve on a few things, but once you find where everything is located, you can import your list and send your first email. It really makes our clients feel great to see how quickly they can get that first email out.
We've tried a few other WordPress-specific hosts, as well as other shared hosting providers (Rackspace, WPEngine, and others). We have found that DreamHost gives the best balance of cost, performance, and features, for our needs. All vendors have their own pitfalls and shortcomings, and DreamHost isn't without its own, but it works for us.
Mailchimp is pretty comparable to other email marketing software I have used, but I had a better experience designing templates and emails using Campaign Monitor compared to Mailchimp. Mailchimp always seemed to have small little glitches with the design, and my emails never looked exactly like they did when I designed them.
Mailchimp over the years I've used it has grown in leaps and bounds. They have added so many additional features than were previously available. They are truly an all-in-one marketing platform now. If you're a small operation and just want to add email to your marketing efforts, they're there for you. If you're a larger operation and want to start sending postcard advertisements, they can do that. If you'd good with that and want to kick up your marketing by going social, you can do that on their platform. They are truly able to be as small as you need, but also get quite large in whatever it is you'd like to do through their system.
The service can really be a positive value with its very solid performance and lack of downtime issues found with other services.
For those with limited hosting or web development knowledge, the service can be a challenge to fully utilize. Sometimes this may mean additional training.
The service also provides a number of expansion opportunities for growing with greater functionalities.
Mailchimp has helped us promote events and fundraisers, providing signups and donations from more than 60% of attendees at an event or online fundraiser.
Mailchimp has given us the ability to more easily stay in contact with our volunteers and specific groups of people by messaging using segmentation.
Mailchimp is a great tool for testing the effectiveness of emails using A/B testing.
