Compare Four Autoresponders

There are quite a few companies that offer an autoresponder service.  For this report,  I have selected four of these services to research and compare.  These services are Aweber, Constant Contact, iContact, and MailChimp.  The following are excerpts from a longer article on my website (link at the bottom of this article).

Cost:

The typical cost structure is a monthly charge based on the number of confirmed contacts stored in your lists. Presumably, since the number of contacts will grow as your business grows, it is useful to think ahead.  In choosing the "best deal" the first fact is that the pricing advantage changes as the number of contacts grows: For under 100 contacts, MailChimp is the winner because it is free. If you are not going to have more than 1,000 contacts, iContact and MailChimp are nicely priced. Above 1000 contacts, the monthly cost for all four services is very close- not worth fussing over.

However, three of the companies offer various types of discounts based on an  annual pre-paid account (MailChimp is the exception).  The way in which those discounts are calculated differ considerably.  After studying the details of all the plans, I found that when your total contacts are in the 2,500 to 10,000 range, the lowest annual pre-paid cost is provided by Constant Contact.  This is very different than paying by the month.

MailChimp alone offers a monthly plan and an optional plan for an account that does not require any monthly fee.   You simply buy credits which carry over from month to month and use the credits like stamps: one credit = one emailed message in any campaign.

All of the companies offer different ways to try out their service with the MailChimp offer being the most generous.  Of course the services assume that once you have gotten familiar with their system you will resist trying to learn another system.  In some cases, as I will explain later, once you have built a list of 25+ names, it can be a challenge to move the names to another service.

Permission-Based

All quality email services are permission-based. They strictly insist that all of their clients have lists that contain only contacts that gave their permission to receive email.  Such strict enforcement can convince email delivery companies (like Yahoo, Hotmail, Verizon, Comcast, AOL, Earthlink, etc) that they do not send unwanted email (spam). Because they can give that assurance, any email sent from the four companies in this review are widely white listed; that means the chances of your email being rejected for delivery are greatly reduced.

However, the four companies differ in the way that they insist on your contacts giving you permission to send them email.  Aweber’s insistence is the strictest as they require everyone on your list to “double opt-in.” This contributes to Aweber’s reputation for highest deliverability rates.

All four services in this review support the use of double opt-in.  However, only Aweber requires it for every contact.  Mail chimp requires it for sign ups from your forms. 

Also, all four services allow you to manually add names to your list or import a list of names to your list with the understanding that these are individuals who have specifically indicated to you that they would like to receive your emails.  The ability to add and remove names to your autoresponder manually is vital. Often, people will contact you without going through your autoresponder. These people need to be put on the autoresponder’s mailing list. 

In the case of Aweber, however, you can only import a list of names if: 

1.  That list was created on another service where you chose to use the double opt-in method for every name and you can prove it.  In that case, an Aweber customer service rep will step you through the process. Otherwise,
2. You must use their program to send your list a request to re-confirm their interest in receiving email from you.  Aweber provides advice on the best way to do this.

In the case of the services that allow you to use a single opt-in process, you must “sign” (click or initial) a statement swearing that the names you are entering have requested to receive email from you.  None of the services allow you to load contacts or lists of contacts unless you have personally been given permission to put them on your email list.  So that means –

• No contacts from a purchased list.
• No contacts from someone else’s list.
• No contacts from a list you have put together by scraping together email addresses from web sites and the CC on emails received from others.
• No contacts from your own customer list if you haven’t communicated with them for 6 months.

Perhaps you can see why it is critical to create your own list.  As many would say, if you do not have your own list, you do not have a business at all.  In the beginning of internet marketing, you might earn an affiliate commission by attracting people to the squeeze page of other internet marketers (Mike Dillard, the Renengade University, Charlie Page, the 90 Day Marketer, and others).  However, the prospects that you have attracted did not sign up on your list, they signed up on someone else’s list.  In order to add them to your list, you will have to send them an invitation to sign up in a personal email.

This is why the wise marketer will first attract prospects to her own list using her own lead capture pages, and then direct them to affiliate sign up forms.

Tracking

Not having the ability to track responses can cost you business. If you can’t track response rates, you won’t have any way of knowing whether your messages are doing you any good. A good autoresponder will provide the ability to track responses.

The most important things to check include: Who is opening the email?  Who is clicking on the links? Which links are receiving clicks? All of the four services reviewed allow you to track those responses. 

In general, Aweber as the best tracking and analytics with MailChimp a close second.

Conclusion

I invite you to read my full report along with 6 tables of comparative points about the four autoresponders (see my website link below).  You can also download the whole report as an e-book if you want.

I have deliberately avoided making a recommendation.  I have instead tried to show the "facts."  Even then, I caution all would be autoresponder seekers to check out and test for yourself. These companies are adding features and changing their prices all the time.  The prices listed in my tables were good as of July 2009.

Another reason I avoided a recommendation is that there are "usability" factors which are harder to be objective about. Sometimes usability increases as the user takes the time to learn the features of his autoresponder!

One thing not in my report or on my website:  Affiliate Relationships.  I deliberately did not select an MLM structured business. However, every company looks for new business and this is how they stack up:

• Aweber - Pays 30% on initial and recurring sales You do NOT have to have your own user account.  Pays directly.
• iContact - Pays 25% on initial and recurring sales if you have your own user account.  Otherwise, there is a “bounty” ($50) paid for new business and this is paid through Commission Junction. (Commission Junction is a separate entity with fairly strict guidelines of their own.)
• Constant Contact - Pays a bounty on “free trials” ($2) and on “new paying customers” ($50) and this is paid through Commission Junction. 
• MailChimp - No affiliate program. Instead, if you refer a friend you get a $30 credit if you have your own user account.

 Full report is here on my website.