Constant Contact vs. Omnisend

Constant Contact is an excellent tool for sending out flyers and newsletters. However, I feel the content's appearance is typically all the same. When I receive an email from Constant Contact, I can immediately identify it - the templates usually all look the same. When sending out communications with images, it is easy to use Constant Contact and link webpages. However, the email layout is always vertical and can get very lengthy. I prefer a more flip-book approach with options to flip the page.

Incentivized

It's kind of an automation workflow, but for example you can set up a popup to appear at a specific time on a specific product page and offer the visitor something. The visitor then signs up and then (after you've set up your automation sequence) that visitor gets a specific welcome page based on the popup they signed up through, and then a specific order confirmation email and everything else flows from that specific popup. That's great because it's allowed us to sort of fine-tune our offerings to get our visitors' emails in the first place and offer, for example, someone browsing a product page for 3 minutes something different than someone staying 20 seconds on the homepage and then leaving.

• Market segmentation is great: my main segmentation is by region because that's how our sales team is divided.
• Lists: making customized email lists is easy and intuitive; the custom fields allow some flexibility in case our fields don't exactly line up with Constant Contact's.
• Campaigns: creating campaigns is quick and simple. I especially appreciate the 'resend to non-openers' option. I am constantly using this feature.
• Subject line generator: I like using the recommended subject lines. I'm able to plug in their recommended ideas, or sometimes, this feature helps me generate my own ideas.

• Provides a campaign booster to improve open and click rates
• Gathering of post-sale customer feedback
• Integrated SMS automation
• Reduces manual tasks by use of pre-built marketing automation workflows.

Incentivized

• It would be nice if we had more customizable options for emails - like moving around pictures and text boxes, rather than a set spot for everything to go.
• I would like it if multiple people could work on a document at one time. So if I'm in charge of graphics, I can get those updated while someone else is entering content, etc.

Incentivized

• Initial setup wasn't firing right, support issue was handled pretty quickly and easily.
• It does not go back and put previous orders/customers into the automation. It will only work with go-forward customers from the time you install the product. (At least that's what the outcome of our support inquiry told us...).
• Would like to see more sample templates and campaigns.

Incentivized

There is no doubt that we are going to renew Constant Contact. We have not just invested a lot of time in learning and creating a great looking product but we have developed a strong database of information that allows us to track how we are doing for each newsletter. This supports our goals of creating products that residents desire and are excited to receive.

There is always room for improvement. I don't know how they test their systems, but they should invite not-so computer savvy people to test it. If I, as an expert have problems, they need to think like the technophobe. Since I've used Constant Contact in the past as part of my former employment, I have not viewed any of the tutorials and just jumped in to work on my client's newsletter. With that said, I found some areas easy and some a bit cumbersome

No major problems in sending out the email campaigns and accessing the analytics

Incentivized

The system seemed quite slow sometimes. Specifically, there was sometimes a delay in sends if it was during a high traffic period. There were time-outs when uploading new code for an email, and a lag in reporting analytics which was sometimes as long as 72 hours

I think the overall support for Constant Contact has always been incredible; I have nothing negative to say. Our customer support representative was attentive, easy to understand, and very knowledgeable. I never felt like I wasn't a priority of his and my issues, while very small, were fixed in a very short time frame.

Support is weird. They ask you to keep everything in one thread, but they can't see your replies if they forward it to tech, and things easily get lost. Also tech support is HORRIBLE, they just seem snobby, and give horrible advice liek to test things on a live version vs staging

Implementation is very easy for someone who wants to send out the “batch and blast” type newsletters. If you want to use their templates with no customizations, the product works fine. However, the more customizations you get into involving link color, etc, that’s where things can get tricky for someone who may not be familiar with coding

Constant Contact is much more intuitive for people who are not tech-savvy. Also, while sendgrid offered more options in it's drag and drop interface, it displayed differently across different email clients, which made it very cumbersome to use. It also took much longer to upload contact lists and it was harder to manage existing contacts. Performance in sendgrid was much slower as well, and the Preview feature was quite buggy. Our team initially chose sendgrid because of the integration options that it's API offered, but we ultimately switched to Constant Contact because it was much easier to build campaigns and better suited our requirements.

I would say Omnisend is fairly similar in UX, usability, pre-built content templates, and customizable features. I chose Omnisend because it seemed simple to start and the price was within budget. The list segmentation and contact import features feel superior to the other competitors.

Incentivized

Very reliable in sending email campaigns and controlling the recipients so that no contact is sent the same email more than once, even if they are on a resent list

Incentivized

• I have had nothing but positive impacts from using Constant Contact.
• The church is large, and there are many subgroups and axillary groups within the church. Setting up specific groups based on responsibility, interest, member goals, and service needs allows me to send information quickly, saving valuable time for other tasks.
• Constant Contact allows leadership to stay personally engaged with the members I work with, without over-taxing my time. It feels so seamless.

Incentivized

• ROI has gone up when compared to other email marketing. Our open rates have increased and naturally also our conversion rates. Both in absolute and percentage terms. I don't have hard figures with me, but I'd say we've almost doubled what we've done with other email marketing apps.