iContact is an email marketing solution that was acquired by Vocus in 2012. The product is integrated with Facebook and Twitter and is aimed at SMBs with unlimited sending as a key feature.
$14
per month
SparkPost
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
The SparkPost Email Delivery Platform is built to help businesses deliver more value. Its features include real-time analysis of email delivery and customer engagement as well as personalized email templates. Users can also pick from any of the numerous APIs to integrate into communication. SparkPost is designed to provide all users need to power businesses for greater growth.
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.
Our early experiences with SparkPost were great; we were looking for a low-cost (or no-cost) solution to our email messaging needs, and SparkPost had the best low-cost option: 100,000 messages per month for free, guaranteed for life. Even though our team has experience with other APIs, we chose SparkPost because it felt like the best value. Our experience with it was great. Two years ago, they discontinued their free option but sent the existing users the following message: "When you signed up, we promised that if we ever changed the terms of our 100K free plan, we would continue to honor the original plan for the life of the account. I would like to reaffirm this promise: while this plan is no longer available to new customers, you are grandfathered into this level of free sending volume." The following year, apparently following a change in leadership, they decided to "deprecate" existing free plans, dropping us down from 100,000 messages per month to 500, the lowest of any email API service I'm aware of. No recognition of the broken promise, the reneged guarantee, just a 20% off coupon. This atrocious behavior that reeks of a new culture of squeezing as much money as possible out of its users and has coincided with a steady deterioration of functionality and customer service. At this point, I have no idea why anyone would pay more for a worse service that treats its users so poorly when you could use SendGrid or a similar competitor for a lower price and way more features.
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.
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.
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.
Would give it a zero if I could. Their customer service used to be incredible; fast response times, really hands-on with their users, and a pretty regular feedback process. They sent me an awesome t-shirt that became part of my go-to climbing gear. But for the past year, their response times went way down, their customer service was less helpful and generally a lot more rude, and they haven't asked for customer input once since their leadership change
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.
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.
