MailChimp is agile but limited
October 13, 2016
MailChimp is agile but limited
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with MailChimp
We use MailChimp for targeted mailings to select customer/user groups, batched by region and product. It's effective in this narrow range - targeted mailings. We also store email lists in MailChimp because in part we do not have an integration with Salesforce, though that's on the horizon for us. As a basic email marketing solution, MailChimp is easy to use, straightforward and simple requiring little training for our regional marketing managers, corporate administrator and others who use the solution.
Pros
- Page templates are easy to design and implement.
- Subscribe forms are likewise simple to modify and implement.
- Support is ok. MailChimp is very responsive on simple use questions submitted through the online help desk.
Cons
- MailChimp's double opt-in procedure is annoying and often creates extra work for developers. Furthermore, you cannot turn this off. On the backend you are constantly seeing notifications from MailChimp advising that your email might be 'spammy'. There is no spam check feature so you are really guessing as to whether MailChimp will flag a message as spammy.
- MailChimp's biggest disappointment thus far is its mobile webform builder. Dubbed MailChimp Subscribe, it's a downloadable app for tablets and smartphones. Sadly, it has the same problems as MailChimp's desktop version - double opt-in rules are annoying and time-consuming from a user or especially admin perspective.
- MailChimp does not address the multitude of webform uses that are out there. The system assumes that you are sending out an email, newsletter or other broadside blast. Embedding a form into a web page is limiting, annoying and time consuming especially if you use their native Embedded Form feature. This limits out of the box design features (unless you want to hardcode the whole thing).
- We can't say that MailChimp has had a positive impact on the business. The limitations on form design really limit what we can say and do with webforms and landing pages
This was a corporate recommendation that has been used in other countries. The corporation, globally, is moving toward a true marketing automation solution at present as our needs for strong social integration and content management outstrip MailChimp's abilities. It's an ok place to start out especially for small marketers with small lists and simple needs, although you will find the constant harassment about double opt-in features to be annoying. And MailChimp cannot, will not turn off this feature even for mobile webforms for tradeshow applications.
They really should spend more time with their users to understand how MailChimp is being used today. I doubt they really know.
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