iContact vs. Intellimize

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

Intellimize has done a great job of targeting our highest trafficked pages. For a demand generation organization it helps provide a lot value for places like the homepage or various high value funnels. Where Intellimize falls short is where we have a specific technology stack that often causes issues for us being able to run tests at scale because some experiments break or fail to run. Please do yourself a favor and evaluate this tool with your development team before purchasing. Single Page Applications do have re-rendering issues given some experiments which lead to run-time issues that need to be heavily QA'd before launch. For teams that are ecommerce or have a typical technology stack (e.g. wordpress and static pages), then Intellimize will probably work without any issues.

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

• CSM and Engineering resources are available with Intellimize and allows us to spend more time thinking about new ideas to implement.
• AI/Machine Learning allows winning personalizations to continually run or switch between variants for users that may convert better based on firmographic data
• The CSM is a wonderful collaborator and acts as a liaison between Intellimize's engineering team. With their help, I am able to better refine my own testing roadmap.

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

• No WYSIWIG Editor
• Limited to only 5 tests a week
• QA of larger tests that require heavier engineering effort can often run longer than a week and can block the already limited number of tests you can run

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

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

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.

Intellimize is a league above products like VWO and Google Optimize. Simply having the support from an external engineering team gives your web team the freedom and bandwidth to do more. The level of support for Google Optimize is entirely limited, especially if you're using the free version of that product, and I am skeptical of paying Google for the paid version of it since the largest value of the paid version of Optimize, is to simply run more tests. VWO has amazing heatmap and reporting, but severely lacks any Machine Learning or firmographic data. While their support is exceptional, it's not the same as having a dedicated CSM to help plan a roadmap. It's also helpful to note that VWO, Google Optimize, and Intellimize have issues with single page applications. Static websites are likely to run entirely fine without issue.

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

• Increased revenue
• Helped us build out many tests that had the impact of many years of learnings
• Contributed to more MQLs influenced

Incentivized