Savicom

Overall Rating
Ease of Use
Price/Value
Deliverability
Technical Support

Savicom email marketing software has been around since 1996 and developed the first web-based email marketing software solution in 1998. They started as MindShare Design, and morphed into a top class hosted email software provider.

User Interface

Savicom just recently upgraded their UI in Jan 2009 to a more user-friendly layout. They make adding recipients, setting up send preferences, creating campaigns relatively easy, however there is a bit of a learning curve before you are able to set up a new campaign. The menus for importing emails and setting up sublists and fields are relatively straight-forward. Setting up a new campaign and loading creative also goes quite smoothly. It does take a bit of trial and error though to begin to target an imported sublist, or field. Be sure to use the “Preview” list function to ensure you are mailing only your sublist, and not the entire database in your account. Click the image to the right for a full size shot of the opening welcome menu.

Features

Opt-in email recipients can be added in a single batch via csv file upload, or manually. After each upload, a detailed upload summary report is sent showing duplicate, unsubscribed and blocked emails. You can easily set filters for future retargeting of sublists by adding custom fields to each file uploaded. You can import first names or other data for personalization, or setting up mail-merges of information.

When you are ready to create a campaign, it’s as simple as choosing a name, and then selecting the recipients. There is a very easy to use HTML editor that even automatically checks your email for SPAM filter effectiveness (using SPAM Assassin open source software by rating it from 1 to 5) and suggesting coding changes needed to better optimize it. You can manually create a text backup email version (for sending multipart HTML/text emails) or have Savicom auto-magically create one based on your uploaded HTML file. Options for personalization, and A/B splits are all available as well. Previewing and testing your emails prior it sending is easily done. There do fall short, however, on any RSS to email functionality, optin sign up form integration with WordPress or Facebook.

Delivery

Savicom has lots of experienced in the industry, and this shows by the fact that they are white-listed with all the major ISPs. In short,  their delivery rates are the best I’ve ever seen in the industry. They maintain a restricted block list of spammers, and apply it to all campaigns. They will also work with you to whitelist specific domains such as your corporate URL, or other domains that make up a large portion of your list.

Reporting

Very extensive reporting for opens, clicks and deliveries. Nicely formatted HTML emails provide details on delivery stats (bounces, bads, unsubscribers) as well as response. These are sent 24 hours after a mailing. It would be nice to be able to customize the timing of the reports, however, so that you can send them to clients for example if you are an agency or consultant managing an account. Also, they don’t go so far as some other email software vendors with reporting by location (via map) or any RSS subscriber data.

Support

Savicom’s support is nothing short of excellent. Fast turn-around, usually only a few hours, personal service and even a phone call if something needs any explanation. Well done! They also have an extensive Help function resource for FAQs and other technical support issues.

Price

Starting at free for a trial account of up to 10 emails, and under $40 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers (30kb per month max), these guys are one of the cheapest email marketing software providers on the market on a per email basis. This is especially true if you want to send larger volumes of emails, up to 1 million or more. Any import over 50,000 does require a signed contract ensuring that emails are legitimate and optin in nature as per the US CAN SPAM Act. Click here to visit Savicom’s website.

AWeber

Overall Rating
Ease of Use
Price/Value
Deliverability
Technical Support

AWeber is based out East in Huntington Valley Pennsylvania and was started in 1998. They pride themselves on having great relationships with ISPs to ensure high delivery rates through whitelisting where possible, and also appear to be on the leading edge of RSS to email and web 2.0 technologies. They are very blog friendly, and even have a WordPress optin email form plugin which allows you to sign up subscribers directly to your AWeber account. They also have an optin form coding setup for Facebook.

User Interface

OK, let’s start with the usability. AWeber has one of the most simple and straigthforward UIs I’ve ever seen for an email marketing campaign. It’s very minimalist, and allows you to jump straight to customizing your list preferences, to editing a large selections of predefined HTML email templates. They also have an outstanding help wizard to guide you through the steps of setting up your opt-in confirmation email, your optin sign up and unsubscribe forms, list import and your actual HTML and text backup emails. There is a preview and test option for your email, and lots of handy help videos, PDFs and FAQs if you get stuck. Click the image to the right to view.

Features

Privacy and US CAN SPAM Law compliance are strongly reinforced throughout their features. Mandatory double optin of all imported emails is a great feature to reduce SPAM complaints as well as increase deliverables. The plethora of HTML email templates allows you to hit the ground running with fancy graphic emails. They tell you simply where to insert text and your logo and allow you to preview and test your design easily. I love the Blog Broadcast option which allows you to simply paste in an RSS feed from your blog and set it to send out by email whenever X number of posts are new, or on a regular schedule. Setting up customized branded optin and unsubscribe forms is also streamlined very well.

Delivery

These guys have been around 10 years, and it shows. They are white-listed with all the major ISPs, and their delivery rates are excellent. They maintain a restricted block list of spammers, and apply it to all campaigns and with their thorough double optin process for imported emails, pretty much guarantee that lists are kept clean, and relationships with ISPs are in good standing.

Reporting

AWeber rivals Google Analytics with the depth and breadth of their reporting. Beautifully formatted maps showing visitor traffic allows you to quickly interpret data.

Support

Top notch support is available in almost every online or offline method possible. My email request for support was answered within 1 hour, despite them promising a 24 hour turn around. They also offer live chat and phone support during long East to West coast business hours. Their help videos really set them apart, with detailed screencasts on importing emails, setting up an optin form customized to your brand and more. And I love their blog articles – highly timely and well written articles on anything from optimizing HTML emails with Gmail to adding an optin form to your Facebook fan page.

Price

Starting at $1 for the 1st month, then $19 per month for up to 500 email subscribers this is a very good value. Although they have very competitive rates for low volume monthly sends, when you get up to 5,000 to 10,000 subscribers, then costs climb significantly to $69 per month. Savicom, by contrast, charges $39 per month for up to 10,000 recipients, which is significantly lower. What you are paying for with AWeber is higher overhead by means of more employees, and support staff, so if you are new to email marketing and need to be guided through the process, then it is well worth the spend. Also, their high delivery rates may more than pay for this slightly more expensive service. Visit AWeber’s website for more or fill out the form below for their Free Test Drive.

Constant Contact

Overall Rating
Ease of Use
Price/Value
Deliverability
Technical Support

Constant Contact has been around since 1998 and is focussed mostly on the small business market.  They offer a great no credit card required 60 day free trial account which lets you send to up to 100 emails before you have to get a paid account.  Pricing is about average, at $10 per thousand emails at the 5,000 email range.  Discounts exist for prepaying 6 months (10%  off) or 12 months (15% off) in advance.

Ease Of Use

The setup for sending your first email is a bit time consuming.  You must use their setup wizard to name your email and choose a template (they have over 400 pretty great looking predesigned HTML email templates). Templates can be found based on industry, type (e.g. seasonal) or even color preferences. You can also use your own HTML template code.  There are also options for setting up events and surveys. For an extra $5/month, you can include documents up to 50 MB in size in your emails (MyLibrary Plus).

Functionality

There are options for a permission reminder header (why people opted in), and also a tell a friend function at the end of your email. There is an easy to use email editor, as well as a SPAM check function to predict the likelihood of your message being filtered.  You also are required to input your physical mailing address as per US CAN SPAM act laws. You can select and save a list of recipients and then schedule it for a time to send, or send immediately.  One surprise was that you could only schedule an email to send out within an hour of a specified time.  Other vendors offer more exact time scheduling.

Reporting is standard, offering sent, bounces, spam reports, opt-outs, opens, clicks and even forwards.  It would be nice to see an option for conversion tracking to record leads on a landing page or sales activity page.  There is an auto-responder option as well when someone is added to your list.

Social Network Integration

Integration with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter is almost instant, which is great.  You just need to input your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter pages and logins, and Constant Contact takes care of the rest. Constant Contact then adds a social media sharebar with icons for each, as well as a “Like” facebook button.

Campaigner

Campaigner is a very reasonably priced email marketing software solution for beginners, with features that professionals would like.  At only $10/month for sending up to 1,000 recipients an unlimited number of emails, their trial is very attractive.  They offer a step by step email setup wizard, to help walk beginners through the process. They have over 500 HTML email templates, and very detailed resporting – probably the best we have seen.

One great feature is a tool that allows you to edit and resize images on the fly, when creating your HTML emails.  There is a forward to a friend feature as well as integration with Google Analytics.  I did notice however, some server outages, and I was shut down a few times during my account/message creation which caused me to lose some edits.  Overall, these guys have a solid platform, and quite straightforward user interface.

iContact

iContact offers one of the most simple interfaces we’ve seen.  They have great social media integration as well, and adding Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  They are not the cheapest at the low end of email volume, however, but do cost under $10 per thousand as you get up into volumes over 10,000 emails.

The nice thing about iContact, is that they not only offer email sending services, but also offer surveys, RSS feeds, image hosting and auto-responders for the more advanced marketer.  They have live support, and very nice and visual campaign response tracking.  That said, I didn’t see any refer a friend option. It’s still no Google Analytics, but your basic delivery and response open/click metrics are all there.  They offer over 500 HTML email newsletter templates which is standard, and even a very basic blog interface for making posts to which allow you to offer an RSS feed.