Emma by Marigold is an email marketing solution. Its key features include mobile-ready design templates, email automation, audience segmentation, and dynamic content. The software includes integration with third-party CRM solutions, ecommerce platforms, and social networks.
$500
per year per user
Iterable
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Iterable is an AI-powered customer communication platform that activates customers across channels in real-time. With intelligent personalization, dynamic content, and a cross-channel suite, Iterable helps brands create seamless, data-driven experiences across email, SMS, push, and in-app notifications.
N/A
Intuit Mailchimp
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Mailchimp is an email marketing and marketing automation platform. Beyond just tracking how campaigns perform, Mailchimp takes it a step further by analyzing data from over half a billion emails to show why campaigns perform, driving informed decisions.
Why I chose Emma over Constant Contact: I felt like I got lost in the sea of people/customers at Constant Contact... plus I felt like their own email marketing messages that they sent weren't very good... in an essence they weren't practicing what they preached well.
We chose Emma in addition to Sendgrid to protect the integrity of our transactional email deliverability. Emma's delivery rates were good. We later found MailChimp a bit cheaper and easier to work with in our specific use case but I still think it's worth testing Emma if you're …
Our internal competitors are the individual email platforms our stores have signed up for. In general, they need to take our HTML and upload it themselves, making Constant Contact and MailChimp very cumbersome. Emma, on the other hand, allows us to take charge of that. Users …
At the time we made the decision to move to Emma, my organization was using both MailChimp and Constant Contact. Emma's drag-and-drop template editor surpassed both, and even editing the pre-made template HTML in Emma was easier. List management was much smoother than the …
Mail Chimp: the price was better, but the platform was not predictable. You did not get the same support with MailChimp. Constant Contact: This is an outdated system that does not make it easy to design modern, clean emails and I consider it a dinosaur.
MailChimp seems to offer more customizable options than Emma, but Emma is far less buggy. I used Constant Contact while working with another nonprofit organization and did not anything about it.
Emma is a good alternative, but I think MailChimp may be a better and more affordable alternative. Especially since MailChimp is continuously releasing new features and improving their product.
I use MailChimp a lot, and while I like it, at the end of the day Emma simply is the most cost-effective. There's not a HUGE learning curve, compared to MailChimp, which is nice, since our non-designers can take a proverbial 'whack' at an email and we can trust that it will get …
I like Emma much better than MailChimp because of the flexibility and ease of the user interface. I used MailChimp for a previous position and I felt like the home page was definitely more cluttered and it had a clumsier navigation portal. I also think Emma's email design …
Emma is a step up from Constant Contact and two steps up from Mailchimp. Emma is affordable and easy to use for all types of companies, but especially for smaller firms and startups. It’s in compliance with SPAM laws, but has an advanced platform to keep your emails from going …
Emma had a more robust multi-level account structure which empowered individual locations to participate at the ground-level. Additionally corporate was able to maintain oversight, template creation, marketing automation, and data reporting. The goal is to provide the locations …
Emma is the easiest to use platform I've tried so far. It was easy to setup and send the first enewsletter. The functionality is very user friendly and it "makes sense" as you go through to add content and users. It's made being a marketing team of one very efficient.
Emma was the perfect solution for what we were looking for due to its easy to use interface, relatively low cost and basic functionality. We were not looking for expensive, complex tools to send out multiple campaigns with various controls and tests. We also were impressed with …
None of those platform were good for an agency and their clients. Managing multiple email clients in one system isn't something you find everywhere. It's also not easy to pay for the other platforms since they are built for the enterprise and not SMB.
Constant Contact and MailChimp do not offer a white label option so they were out of the running early on for us. Campaigner does offer white labeling but their pricing is outrageously higher than Emma, their customer service isn't nearly as good and their tool isn't as …
Verified User
Professional
Chose Emma by Marigold
We chose Emma because at the time we didn't need a full marketing automation platform like Pardot or Marketo and just wanted an easy to use, well priced email communications tool that integrated with our CRM Salesforce.
Mailchimp was complicated to use compared to Iterable. With Mailchimp, everything had to be built by our engineers, from the triggering event to the template's layout. It significantly slowed down our high-velocity work environment. When we migrated to Iterable, we were able to …
Besides Klaviyo which has native integration, and plugins with eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Iterable's integration capability is more robust compared to other platforms such as Campaign Monitor, Mailchimp, and Mailjet when a business is using Shopify. Iterable supports …
I've used Mailchimp for projects that were significantly smaller in scale, so it's difficult to compare the two. I've also heard that Mailchimp has improved quite a bit since I've used it. However, in my current experience that is one area where Iterable is better is the …
Iterable had the most robust personalisation features (handlebars, data catalog, snippets, robust segmentation) and multi-language support. Additionally, security features were higher than those of other alternatives. Close follow-up was Braze, and other platforms were compared …
As mentioned previously, I was hired to do a migration from ActiveCampaign, and I stayed for 2 years as a power user of Itearble. Since leaving OneVision Resources, I have continued to volunteer my time in a regional user group, which I would not do if the platform, product, …
Iterable has plug-in capabilities with Movable Ink, in which Movable allows for dynamic content to plug into HTML, text, messages, and utilizes data within Iterable to send dynamic personalized content to customers, great tool in addition to Iterable!
Iterable has an easier UI, with a great educational center to be up to date on the product. Iterable also helps manage different locales in one template and create different projects to manage different databases. Lately, with the integration with Snowflake, will allow an easy …
Iterable is leagues and bounds ahead of Mailchimp. While they definitely have room for improvement, I'm thoroughly pleased with the creative builder upgrade.
Iterable has much more flexibility than other platforms I explored. Personalization in particular is something Iterable does better than the competition.
Verified User
Employee
Chose Iterable
Moving from a company that used Mailchimp to one that leverages Iterable was a huge step up. Iterable provides a plethora of additional tools to customize and reach our users in a strategic way. We're also able to automate a lot more in Iterable which saves time and resources. …
Verified User
Manager
Chose Iterable
We did not use Braze specifically however when we were deciding between Braze and Iterable about 6 years ago we decided to go with Iterable because it was able to provide the data security requirements we needed to function as a business.
Compared to other email products i've used, Iterable's good and simplifying everything and making it easy to use for any type of marketing. They also have a great UI for all their products.
The reason why I enjoy Iterable is that (1) they have an easy-to-use email builder, (2) their folder system makes finding campaigns more efficient, (3) their built on data which allows us to create highly dynamic and segmented campaigns, (4) they have a great journey builder …
Based on the way that we send emails, we decided to go with Iterable. We loved the different features that they had. The main decision for us was the option of the catalog. We saw great potential for this feature and it has definitely helped us tremendously with our email …
Amazon Pinpoint has the same functionality with no lock-in pricing. Really should have gone that direction. Iterable is a ripoff.
Intuit Mailchimp
Verified User
Professional
Chose Intuit Mailchimp
I have used a lot of email marketing tools over the years and Intuit Mailchimp is one that I keep going back to, it simple and easy to use, no messing around and it does what it says one tin.
Emma might be better if you need personal account management, custom made emails, etc. Mailchimp works great for a DIY team or project with less complex needs. Not a fan of Mad Mimi.
Using Emma for weekly templated email use with minimal changes is awesome. If you want you can create a master and make minor graphic edits quickly and easily from your smartphone. Any edit is possible as long as the artwork is on the online server. Only time I hit a bump in the road is when I was asked to change the style sheet and did not know that the pricing plan I was on did not include this feature. Client had to wait to send new format until Emma performed the requested changes.
Iterable is a highly robust platform for omnichannel management with advanced personalisation capabilities, and it is among the best in the industry. It does it without being technically overcomplicated, thereby surpassing older industry standards that require developer-level knowledge for advanced personalisation or targeting setups. One thing where Iterable shines is the CSM programs they assign to clients that truly nurture them to reach the full potential of the platform and achieve business goals. There are a few shortcomings here and there, but I haven't seen any platform without them, and overall, the enablement that Iterable allows far surpasses other alternatives.
For any E-commerce related needs, like you need to see a list of customers who have added products to cart but did not purchase, this can be done really easily, but if your e-commerce provider provides integration, then it is best suited. Most of the systems in the Market provide out-of-the-box integration. Their API is also very easy it can be integrated to any language. You can integrate it into your custom developed system and use the features, like adding customers to specific lists. Also, if your lists become really big, then their system can get a bit slow to respond via API, so you might need a strategy for how you are gonna fetch the data using API.
Enterprise-level email marketing with multi-level account structure allowing for multiple users at different levels to send campaigns
Easy-to-use WYSIWYG email template editors to create dynamic emails with enhanced personalization through merge-fields
A large API index that connects to many different platforms and the ability to work with Emma support to create new connections to new platforms as needed
Customer Journey creation - the platform easily creates a visual path for the marketing team to curate messaging based around timing, channel, behavior as well as add split testing logic and exit criteria so we target only the audiences we want.
Customer Success - one of the best teams I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I'm able to move so much quicker because they really create a helpful partnership.
Audience segmentation, the platform is easy to work with even if you're a first time user, they do a great job of visually showing the logic and the and/or/none type rules.
Mailchimp allows you to manage your mailing list really well. You can subscribe people, unsubscribe people manage the mailing list directly into segments, and what not.
Mailchimp has features where you can create campaigns based on your mailing lists and send out newsletters to your subscribers based on a multitude of parameters that you can setup. Such as send email daily, weekly, monthly and they also have event based mails that you can send out.
Mailchimp also has a feature where you can design your emails. The look and aesthetics are very important when sending emails to your subscribers and all those needs are addressed here.
Their customer service leaves something to be desired. We ran into an issue with one of our campaigns, and we decided to reach out to support, but they didn't get back with us until 3 hours later! Time is money!!
We don't like that their photo editing capabilities are limited, you can only choose small, medium or large photos with no way to resize to exact dimensions. Makes emails a bit of a pain
The upgraded premium tools are buggy and leave something to be desired as well – it's a shame.
Insights. I think this is the biggest downfall of Iterable, the insights and analytics area is really not good at all. We have almost stopped using it all together in favour of just using Mixpanel (but now we're paying for 2 platforms). Things we can do in Mixpanel that we can't do in Iterable:
- custom conversion windows
- more scalable reports
- comparing multiple events
- setting up alerts that trigger to slack
Segmentation - building segments and organizing lists that are already built.
- relative dates can be confusing but are a critical piece of building lists
- unable to compare multiple events
- we have a pretty good naming structure for our lists but with so many daily users, no good way to organize them (with labels or folders) and searching for a list requires you to find the exact word we end up re creating dynamic lists each time
- static lists don't show you what rules were used to create the list
- no way to see changes over time
Improved ways of collaborating. There's no way of knowing if other people are editing a list, template, campaign or journey. easy to overwrite each other's work
I've been an Iterable user for about 4 years, at 2 different companies. SinceI started using Iterable I think the number of bugs has increased.
I wish Iterable did a better job testing releases so we're not the ones discovering issues so frequently.
In app message. We've had issues with this tool/channel starting at implementation. It feels like it never made it's way out of beta, despite us paying for it now.
The app team offered to do working sessions with us to understand how we use it day to day and never followed up on that. There have been no improvements to the tool and any time we run into another issue with it (although Jena in support is great) it takes forever to diagnose or we are told the issue cannot be replicated. It just feels like we have constant issues with this tool.
We've actually onboarded to another tool (not ideal for omni channel) for some in app messages because this one has so many downfalls and is so buggy.
Self serve documentation is great when you have an idea of what you're doing but not entirely sure. It is not easy to understand for people who are newer or less well versed in the platform.
Emma has been a great tool for our marketing. It's easy to use and I've had no issues in the almost two years we've been with them. It's really been a great way for us to stay connected with customers that takes no time to setup and send
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.
While every WYSIWYG software will experience glitches, Emma handles them well. Keep in mind they rarely happen, but they do, it can be of annoyance. Regardless, Emma allows my organization to create seamless email campaigns using fresh data. Emma makes coming up with strategic decisions very easy. The list segmentation that Emma feature allows us to easily manage a large list without issues. Overall, Emma is extremely usable with nearly no learning curve!
The interface is a bit complicated, and I need to spend some time to learn new functions and understanding how it works. I don't like working with email templates because of the limited customization options. However, functions like AI for generating emails, segmentation, and analytics still work well and are very useful.
Iterable is there like 99.9% of the time. However, when it goes down, it grinds us to a halt. Most of the time, outages are an hour or less, but if that's at a peak time, it can be a nightmare. That said, when the worst does happen, there are frequent updates and an easy situation tracker that give you an estimate of how much longer you'll have to wait for the issue to be resolved.
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
The API is super quick. The UI can be a little sluggish depending on what you're loading, but overall Iterable performs great. Iterable appears to do a good job of making processes async so that one action isn't blocking another.
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
I hate that to get support I have to submit a question to a public forum and wait for a response. I just want the ability for a quick live chat to answer my simple help questions quickly or at the very least submit a ticket via email and get a status update.
I've never experienced any issues with Iterable. As I and my colleagues have learnt the system and it's features, response to questions and advice from our account manager is always quick. Kevin knows the product well, and with the few tricky questions has hasn't been able to answer he's been quick to get back to us.
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.
At the time we made the decision to move to Emma, my organization was using both MailChimp and Constant Contact. Emma's drag-and-drop template editor surpassed both, and even editing the pre-made template HTML in Emma was easier. List management was much smoother than the clunky Constant Contact and MailChimp lists we had. From a design perspective, we chose Emma for its ease of use in creating templates and modifying existing ones, as well as the ability to push out branded templates and brand assets through its master admin/subaccount capabilities. Emma's analytics and reporting were much less frustrating to navigate and understand, such that, rather than spending all of our time trying to make sense of the metrics from a campaign (which we were definitely doing), we were attracted to being able to report easily and then move on to determining how to make real improvements
As mentioned previously, I was hired to do a migration from ActiveCampaign, and I stayed for 2 years as a power user of Itearble. Since leaving OneVision Resources, I have continued to volunteer my time in a regional user group, which I would not do if the platform, product, and company were not so strong and so marketer-forward.
I don't think they are comparable; we use Google Ads to put our website at the top of the list when someone googles certain words. We use meta business to manage our social media. Google aims to gain customers, while Mailchimp is used to interact with both existing and new customers.
We've definitely tested scalability, and it's no line - it works. The process is pretty easy. Most of the times it goes off without a hitch. Any time we do encounter issues, our support team is quick to get on the job and very communicative as they work us through a successful launch.
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.
Stores using the platform have seen good deliverability stats. Open rates and click-through rates are high with the templates that Emma creates. We still face the challenge of getting more users on the platform.
User satisfaction is high for our users who are regularly using the platform.
I do not have hard numbers, as I am not in the department that deals with those kinds of quantifications of impact. However, I do believe the use of Iterable has been a positive thing for us in providing more comprehensive data that is useful when dealing with customer tickets.
One of my retail web store clients was sending out email specials and notices about once a month. After clicking the send button, we would watch Google Analytics and the current site users would light up immediately. Often, the current site visitors would pop up to 20, 30 or more after the email was sent. On a normal day, seeing 1 or 2 online users would be OK.
Pretty much in all cases, we could see an uptick in positive activity after sending out a Intuit Mailchimp email to a list.
