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iContact, inexpensive, but in need of some serious improvement.
Updated July 07, 2015

iContact, inexpensive, but in need of some serious improvement.

Mark Tuttle | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with iContact

We used iContact on a daily basis to send a high volume of emails, either through broadcast sends or and autoresponder email series. Email is our main source of communication with customers. We have various different strategies from early lead conversion, to reoccurring purchasers to inform them of new product releases. Without email we would not be able to spread the word of our business or acquire new customers.
  • They are inexpensive
  • Their HTML editing software is great for new users
  • Easy to manage various lists for large number of broadcast sends
  • Testing emails is quick and easy
  • They are not in a hurry to improve their platform. Their software is the same today as it was 3 years ago when we first signed up with them (an eternity in internet years)
  • Their analytics are sparse, if you want to know more than just general open and click rates then look somewhere else.
  • Deliverability is terrible. If you use iContact expect to be sent in the spam folder for all your Gmail and Hotmail clients.
  • Email in general has astounding ROI. For the cost there is NOTHING that comes even close to generating the same numbers.
  • iContact is in expensive, so that leads to high ROI.
  • iContact has terrible deliverability, so we are paying for emails that are not making it to their inbox. It is worth more to us now to pay for the more expensive ESP with better deliverability, that way more of our customers get our emails, which in turn leads to more purchases and even higher ROI.
  • Once you are able to afford a better email service provider (ESP), I would recommend using someone with a custom IP address so that you can manage your own deliverability.
We are no longer using iContact, but if you were comparing them to Constant contact, Mail Chimp, etc. then go with one of those, their software is more current and they have better analytics, but will still be in the cheaper price bracket. Currently, we are using our ESP, WhatCounts. They focus on high deliverability, in depth analytics, complex autoresponder generation, etc.
iContact is great for anyone with less than 10,000 leads; any more than that - look elsewhere. You will want to make sure that you have well-engaged users that like to open and click your emails. If you do then your reputation may be good enough to avoid the spam folder. But the main problem is iContact uses a shared IP address for all their users, so if your emails land on the same IP as someone with a terrible reputation, you will be forced to send with them and your mail to inbox ratio will take a massive hit.

iContact Feature Ratings

Email & Online Marketing
3.0
WYSIWYG email editor
5
A/B testing
1
Email deliverability reporting
1
List management
5
Reporting & Analytics
1.0
Dashboards
1
Standard reports
1
Pre-Send Testing ()
Not Rated

Using iContact

After 4 years of using iContact we finally cut the cord. It was hard to justify staying with them when it seemed like they had some of the most outdated software in the industry, some of the worst deliverability, and were in general extremely lacking in customization. They are a decent ESP for a great price point, so if that is your main concern it may be worth it, but if you want to have your emails you are paying for hit inboxes (not spam folders) then look into someone else that guarantees great deliverability.