iContact vs. Instapage

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

Well-suited for simple landing pages which don't have any complex functionality. Great for creating landing pages for lead generation campaigns - as it comes with tons of excellent templates and a variety of forms. Not great for pages that contain a lot of information and can potentially be very long. We found that Instapage is not a great fit for building pages that need to be updated frequently, like a blog page.

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

• Instapage makes it easy to frame out a landing page really quickly. They provide template blocks for various components of a landing page (header, features, testimonials, etc.) that you can easily modify for your own needs. Other tools provide whole-page templates, but I much prefer the section-level templating. It's more convenient to assemble a page this way and add the details on top of that versus taking a finished template and peeling away design and functional elements to get what I want.
• Instapage's mobile auto-resizer works better than other platforms I've used. I found that I had many fewer adjustments on their auto-resizing of the full page than I've experienced with other tools. I still had to work with text size a bit, but they generally did a better job of ordering elements for mobile the way I would want and maintain proportionality of page elements better.
• Instapage has a lot of integrations that marketers will love. I don't know if they particularly stand out in this respect, but this is a particularly important aspect of their tool that most marketers will care about.

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

• There are only a couple of minor issues that I dislike. One is offering a Drupal community-approved update to their module. We are using a slightly older version of Drupal and it appears they don't have plans to offer a Drupal-approved update to their module for that version.
• There are also random bugs when trying to format text. For example, sometimes a sans serif font appears as a serif and doesn't seem to want to change.
• If you work with a template and some code, it can be challenging to edit the default coding.
• The built-in forms can be a bit limiting.
• The program will try to automatically reformat for mobile, but it may not always be exactly the way you want it to look, so there is a bit of redesigning required when going to mobile.

Incentivized

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.

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

I've tried all of the other landing page services on the market, and this is literally the easiest to use. I am not a designer or software developer, just a simple guy and if I can learn how to use it, anyone can. That's what won me over. Their support and pre-made templates are awesome, but the usability is what I love!

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.

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

Again, support is just awesome. I've never had any issues go over 24 hours and the people are friendly and speak English really well.

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

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.

HubSpot was terrible because it required a lot of coding experience if you wanted to work outside the given 4-5 templates. If you wanted a new template built, or to rebrand existing templates, they charged you. Very inflexible program and was very challenged by it. Our main website was built using WordPress, which is great for building webpages, but more difficult to build a landing page without the distraction of the top navigation menu. Instapage literally answered all the problems we were seeking to address: simplicity, customization, ease of use.

Incentivized

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.

• 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

• We've not had much of a conversion rate on some of our landing pages -- but this could be because we are relatively green with the marketing side of things and forget to send people to it. It's not easy for people to find on their own -- so I highly recommend you use some of the "hidden" SEO tools to increase the ROI. Without it, you're not going to be happy with your investment.

Incentivized