GetResponse vs. iContact vs. Robly

GetResponse is perfect for small to medium businesses. For a large business, it certainly could be used in some areas. One example would be for clients that are looking to get started with email marketing. I would not expect it to run a business as Salesforce or Keep. However, GetResponse is robust enough and has a solid suite of tools that would serve a medium or small business quite well. And of course, if a company is just looking for an email marketing solution GetResponse would be ideal. And to go even further, depending on the level of service you use, GetResponse has the potential to do things you might have been using separate tools for. Building funnels, the ability to host webinars, building landing pages. It's all there and it is priced very well.

Incentivized

I would only recommend it if someone was a small business. I think they are the best suited for companies who will send out a coupon or offer here and there. The most recent updates made it more complicated to use for more complicated processes. It is easy to train someone on the program, and so quick to learn. But I would also only stick to the simpler things. I also think the colorful templates are great, and show great creativity. But again, it is hard to justify recommending the program when it isn't WYSIWYG.

Incentivized

I would absolutely recommend Robly to my colleagues. I have used Robly for over six years now and have found so many positives over my years of using it! It provides an easy way for us to keep our contacts organized, and we can easily embed forms into our website. When comparing Robly's pricing options with other email platforms, it won by a landslide. Some small aspects of the program may seem a little outdated, but I have everything I need and more!

Incentivized

• Email creation—A simple interface and a variety of tools make it easy to create very attractive emails quickly.
• List building—GetResponse is ideal for setting-up and using any number of segmented lists/
• Forms and landing pages—These tools are also fairly strong, however, GetResponse (ironically) does not provide responsive forms for mobile, which I would think would be an urgent problem. They have so far not addressed it.
• Customer support—Customer support via chat and email is strong. It's disappointing the company has pulled the plug on live phone-in support.

Incentivized

• Contact management. iContact is really great for entering all your contact. You are able to put them onto different lists, and let them choose which lists they would like to be a part of as well. There are many data fields provided to fill in information.
• Emailing. We use the email feature at least once a month. They are always improving and adding new features, which is very helpful in presenting content in a new and exciting way to our readers. There are many options with remade templates and themes, or you can add your own.
• Insights. It is really helpful being able to have the data to see what is working and what isn't. It is nice to be able to go back and see how things went in the past compared to now. Opens, clicks, shares, etc.

Incentivized

• Robly constantly updates the status information of each email that is sent from its platform, which helps to ensure that there are no problems reviewing the number of people among the targets that could be interested in our service or product, and become customers, when it is necessary to identify them from those who are not, and that otherwise would cause high error margins in the reports.
• The software has a visual power that is very easy to extend through third-party platforms, allowing us to create content in services such as Photoshop, which we can then include in mailings, although it is also feasible to import the content in the traditional way, through image formats. Among these, the best one to work with is PNG, which allows us to remove the background content so that the important section of the image fits better with the format of the e-mails.
• Robly works with services based on the optimization of group projects, whose integration serves to send emails to all participants equally, and that these are kept constantly notified about updates to the work, and can be coupled well in advance to these updates, so that no confusion arises at the time of unifying the work sent and points within the same should not be exposed.
• In reality, Robly's technical support is something we have never had the opportunity to interact with, as the platform is not so buggy that we would need to contact them for advice. In any case, they are likely to show promising results considering the quality of the service.
• It has been very easy to get familiar with the functions Robly has to work with advanced email address database configurations without losing track of the progress of each campaign, and this is thanks to the well-optimized structure of the platform.

Incentivized

• The email editor is kind of a nightmare. Elements don't move or behave how you'd expect, the font choices are limited and pretty lame, adding new elements is difficult or often impossible... the whole thing feels 5+ years outdated. Buggy, slow, and extremely limited in functionality.
• The entire UI feels similarly outdated and slow--just seems like GetResponse hasn't kept up with the curve of the market in terms of performance or aesthetics.

Incentivized

• We also would like to send transactional messages which don't require an opt-out, this is a challenge with iContact. (May be a feature with pro?)
• The regular version of iContact doesn't support event management or logic flows for automated messaging.
• Custom form fields have limited field type options (can't build a drop-down).

Incentivized

• I don't have many cons for Robly. One thing that would be helpful is concerning adding a set of emails to the contact list. It would be nice to receive a list of emails that are not added and a reason why (e.g., duplicate, etc.).
• I have noticed that when I am editing an email campaign, at times it will unexpectedly stop showing me the text editing menu bar, and there doesn't seem to be a way to call it back up. This can be resolved by saving and exiting the campaign and then reopening, but it breaks into my work flow and is an inconvenience. I have not been able to find a pattern for the occurrence of the glitch.

Incentivized

As I mentioned before. I believe that the platform is easy to use. Simple and easy process from start to finish. Email efficient and get to the client quickly. Catch errors that would prevent getting to where i need it to go. Overall great experience and would renew without question

iContact has been a quick and easy way to send any announcements and news directly to email and social media subscribers. Its tracking and reporting capabilities turn a simple email into a marketing campaign that can be used as a tool to efficiently gauge reader response and customer satisfaction, and ultimately to reach potential customers. The consistency and excellent customer service is what makes this program a pleasant experience.

Because we like the price and value. The annual subscription model allows us to maximize usage without worrying too much about cost, being a small mom and pop outfit.

I rate iContact as an easy to use program due to its user friendly dashboard and user interface. Most companies of small to medium size do not have a dedicated marketer, therefore it is someone multitasking who may or may not have this kind of experience. iContact makes it relatively simple and can actually expand one's knowledge in the area of business promotion.

Incentivized

Overall Robly's usability can be considered easy and intuitive. For experienced marketing professionals this program would not be challenging to navigate even on the first uses. There may be a slight learning curve for amateur users but overall it is fairly simple and easy to use and creates professional results.

Incentivized

iContact is regularly up and running. Only once has it been unavailable for maintenance, which is to be expected and even desired for optimal performance when needed.

Excellent general support. However, in case of an escalation, their turnaround time over email (follow through) can go higher

Incentivized

They have always been responsive to any issues or concerns that have arisen with our account. Our customer account manager participates in our monthly county-wide communicators meetings via telephone to ensure that we are getting the most from the service. He also analyzes our lists to help us weed out inactive contacts.

Incentivized

We sometimes got through to a message taking service but they were not able to resolve our issue with a one-call solution necessarily always.

The templates are difficult to customize, and they don't render well in email platforms

i wouldn't be using it if i wasn't satisfied. time is money

We should have been granted a MOBILE RESPONSIVE email template from the get-go. We were never offered any alternatives.

Not the top of the heap and certainly far from the bottom. GR is arguably one of the best solutions for Home based or small shops. It is out of the box whereas some of the others are not as complete or more difficult to unpack. It lacks some features but over-delivers on others.

Incentivized

I didn't have a say in the decision because I wasn't with the company at the time. I listed HubSpot here because I know we used it in conjunction with iContact for email automation, but HubSpot Email was only recently built-out to the point where it is today. Now, iContact and HubSpot are no longer integrated.

Robly has much of the same functionality as Constant Contact. I find Robly's interface to be more intuitive. Robly allows us to upload as many images and documents as we want, without charging us extra. Robly's subscription price is lower than Constant Contact. Their newsletter archiving is also more robust. With Constant Contact, I felt "nickled and dimed." Not only is Robly's base price lower, it's the price! You can upgrade to unlock more sophisticated features.

iContact stays the same with the number of users added or taken away. It certainly remains reliable despite increased usage, and so, can be considered scaleable in that aspect.

• Only negative. They cleaned our entire contact list.
• We had to start over with Get Response. Now that they have forcefully freed us, we'll be redownloading our actual customer and prospect list from our CRM.
• They will not refund us. We paid for a year and they gave us 5 months. So we are also out $5,000.

• We have a template for webinars that we send every month. We just edit it and send. This couldn't be easier (once you know where to find it).
• We like the breakdown of statistics in the dashboard. They're easy to read.
• iContact isn't a comprehensive solution, so it is only one of a few products we use for marketing.

Incentivized

• There has been an increase in revenue in the last month, which is reflected in our ROI of 300%.
• Results are shown quickly, although this depends directly on the investment made in the platform (the $15 price is only for the base plan).

Incentivized