Upload Password Protected File to Constant Contact

Since we last tested it, Abiding Contact has grown its e-mail marketing solution to embrace east-commerce-focused marketing in add-on to straight brand marketing. You'll find a good mix of starter features, a nice listing of 3rd-party integrations, and a generous 60-day costless trial. But while it'due south like shooting fish in a barrel to use and integrate with other spider web services, its characteristic ready is definitely aimed at pocket-sized businesses, which means it's necessarily behind our more flexible and well-rounded Editors' Choice winners, Campaigner and Mailchimp.

Constant Contact offers a wider range of plans since we concluding reviewed it. For one thing, there's a Website Builder Simply Plan for $10 a month. This is for businesses only looking to build a website and landing page for which Constant Contact throws in free hosting equally part of the price. You'll too have admission to listing-building tools, an eastward-commerce store, and the social media marketing features available with the other plans (see below).

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For email marketing, the starting tier is the Email plan, which starts at $20 per calendar month for upwards to three users with unlimited monthly email sends, and basic marketing automation (listing building tools, automatic email resend to non-openers, and bailiwick line A/B testing). Those features will tick all the boxes that near small to midsized businesses (SMBs) volition need, though with an emphasis on smaller organizations.

Next is the Email Plus plan which will run you lot $45 a month for upward to 10 users with all the features of the Email plan but also adding automation, e-commerce partition, customizable pop-up forms, online surveys, coupons, and online consultation for new customers--another very prissy feature for those just getting their feet wet in digital marketing.

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Up from Email Plus is the new Ecommerce Pro Programme. This tier starts at $195 per month and is based on the number of contacts you've got with a minimum of 2,500. As the name implies, this programme is meant for businesses who want to sell online in addition to marketing, which is why the pricing is based on the number of contacts. If y'all fit that clarification, you'll find a well-featured platform with lots of integrations to tertiary-party store sites. It also has artificial intelligence-powered personalization, skilful automation workflows, and an due east-commerce-focused set of analytics.

The upper tiers are dainty, but the Electronic mail plan offers all the features that virtually small businesses demand to start an email marketing campaign. That includes list management, template building and customization, and audience sectionalisation. Email Plus is for companies with more sophisticated needs, offering A/B testing, automatic electronic mail serial, outcome marketing and registration, online donations, online surveys, and more than.

Ranking it against the competition, Constant Contact is simply on the edge of being competitive. At $45 per calendar month for 2,500 contacts at its basic tier, it'due south really a piffling better than Campaign Monitor, which will accuse you lot $49 per month for the aforementioned number. However, it's well short of Editors' Option winner, Campaigner, which charges merely $59 per month for v,000 contacts.

What really makes Constant Contact competitive is the 60-solar day free trial. That's well beyond what the contest offers and it's also got virtually of the service'south features also as an easy path to upgrading to a paid tier. The free trial doesn't automatically whorl over and you tin still access your data without signing up. There is also a 60-day money-back guarantee, which is also generous compared to most of the other players we reviewed.

Creating a Subscriber List

There are several ways to become your subscriber lists into Constant Contact: copy and paste, manually typing addresses into a grade, uploading a file (CSV, TXT, XLS, or XLSX), direct importing them from a Gmail or Microsoft Outlook address book, or importing them from several compatible client relationship management (CRM) tools, including HubSpot CRM, Nutshell, and Pipedrive.

We uploaded four Microsoft Excel and CSV documents with overlapping contacts and the uploads were fast and by and large accurate. Constant Contact recognized well-nigh of our data fields and even merged indistinguishable contacts. We had to map a few fields and add together a new custom field, which was like shooting fish in a barrel and on par with about of our pocket-size business-focused competitors, like Campaign Monitor.

Our just quibble with Constant Contact here is that it'southward a hurting to edit user records. If you lot desire to add together more detail to several contacts, and so you take to load each record individually and update the fields. We would adopt doing a quick edit from the master contact list, equally you lot can with Editors' Choice winner, Sendinblue, since it would brand the process much less tedious. Of course, the all-time manner to avoid this is to have a spreadsheet with complete information in the first place, merely that's rarely the case.

Another manner yous tin can grow your subscriber list is by creating web forms that permit your customers sign upwards for newsletters and other promotional emails. Constant Contact also offers landing pages and it integrates with OptinMonster, Facebook Lead Ads, and the Facebook Join My List app. You can segment new contacts based on which of these methods they used for opting in, which is also useful when segmenting your lists.

Like its competitors, Constant Contact requires you to verify that you already have consent from your entire listing—no bought lists allowed! You also cannot employ grouping addresses such as [electronic mail protected] or [e-mail protected] addresses or distribution lists since at that place is no way to verify y'all accept consent from every person receiving messages sent to such addresses.

However, since nosotros last tested it, Constant Contact has improved its ability to monitor fraudulent activeness. You want this considering it keeps your emails from dropping into your customers' spam folders. It also contributes to Constant Contact'southward claim of a 90 percent email commitment charge per unit. The company'south updated Spaminator algorithm now detects and prevents fraudulent behavior, and the company says that'due south resulted in 77% drop in malicious emails from March to December, 2020.

Campaign Creation

Creating a entrada is equally easy as choosing among the Email, Email Automation, Issue, and Survey buttons. If you lot want to revisit a campaign or copy it, you can search for campaigns by engagement or keywords or view the Recents tab. Constant Contact also has an integrated marketing calendar so you tin can schedule emails based on holidays or other events.

For an email campaign, y'all can employ a template to get started. Constant Contact has redesigned its drag-and-drop editor from the terminal fourth dimension nosotros looked at it, such that information technology now provides a variety of layout options and fewer restrictions. The editing tool lets you tweak text with access to Google fonts as well as images and colors. You lot tin can add a blog post teaser and import PDFs that transform into interactive emails. Constant Contact besides has a branded template builder that can take hold of your visitor'south logo, color scheme, and social media links, and incorporate it all into your emails.

Constant Contact'due south mobile options are a footling weak. It has mobile-aware templates, but non all templates have this characteristic. The preview adequacy for mobile-oriented emails too isn't as flexible as it is in other packages, especially tiptop-tier players similar Editors' Choice winner, Mailchimp. On the other manus, if you really can't find annihilation that works for y'all in Constant Contact'southward arranged library, the company offers a custom e-mail template design service that'll craft anything you demand, though this is an added price option.

Y'all'll take a media library available for storing your company's assets, such as logos and other images. The paradigm library at present has 2GB of space but with a maximum file size of 5MB. Also like to Campaign Monitor, you'll have i-click access to free and paid stock photos.

Once a newsletter is set to go, you can send it right away or schedule it for later (in five-minute intervals, such every bit 3:05 a.one thousand., iii:ten a.1000., and and then on). You can also transport recurring emails for birthdays and anniversaries, though in that location's no option to send messages on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis like Campaigner offers or to transport messages based on the local time at the recipient's location, as GetResponse does.

Improved Integrations

1 of Abiding Contact's draws is that it has a wide diversity of integration options for a production aimed at smaller businesses. This includes e-commerce partnerships with Etsy, Ebay, Shopify, and Vimeo too as Eventbrite. The Eventbrite integration lets subscribers RSVP, answer to polls, download coupons, and make donations correct from the email rather than having to go to a landing page. The same goes for product descriptions and purchase buttons. There'south likewise the ability to create Abandoned Shopping Cart emails that you can utilize to follow upward with potential customers, a feature that's of import for direct-to-consumer (DTC) retailers and e-sellers.

Constant Contact has an array of other integrations focused on things like SEO and social media marketing. In that location'south in-app Facebook and Instagram advertizing creation and a decent selection of social media monitoring tools, though not equally total-featured as tools dedicated to that purpose. There's also access to Google My Business and an SEO tool for optimizing things like keyword usage. Once more, for a tool aimed at smaller companies, that's a lot of ability under the hood.

Campaign Tracking

Once you lot've sent your electronic mail, you can rails its success by using the redesigned Reporting tab. The dashboard displays the basics, including opens, click-throughs, bounces, and unsubscribe requests. You can too see your about engaged subject line as well as opens on desktop versus mobile.

Constant Contact has video tutorials that walk you through what all your reports mean, and a wealth of information nearly things like crafting effective subject lines and other ways to improve your open charge per unit. The mobile application is handy if yous need to run into how your campaign is performing while you're on the go.

The Report page is also where you tin encounter the results of subject line A/B tests, which comes upward equally a oestrus map that shows where subscribers are interacting. Yet, just equally with Campaign Monitor, what you won't observe here is the ability to build custom reports. The canned reports, while useful, are all y'all'll get unless you consign your data to another reporting tool.

E-mail Automation

To create an automated series (previously called an "autoresponder"), select Email Automation from the Campaign options view. Start by selecting an email trigger. These are subscriber actions, like opening the email, clicking any link, clicking a specific link, or having a new contact join a list. Then you can create a new email or use one from an existing entrada and this will be sent automatically in response to the action. You've got flexibility when it comes to how long you want to wait until the follow-up e-mail is sent and you can add together as many of these automatic emails every bit y'all'd like to a particular campaign.

Where Constant Contact comes up a fiddling brusk in automation is that it'southward focused solely on email marketing. Other players, like Mailchimp and the HubSpot Marketing Hub, have multi-channel automation features that tin can create workflows for not just emails but as well social media and SMS activity.

Customer Back up Options

Constant Contact is easy to use and has enough of help options, beginning with the Information icons that are located next to the Options tab in most dashboard views. You can also admission an extensive collection of Cognition Base of operations (KB) manufactures and there are fifty-fifty coaches available at a cost-free number.

A small downside is that phone back up isn't available 24/vii, but the hours are yet generous. It's available from 8 a.k. to 10 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 8 a.k. to 9 p.m. on Fridays, and 10 a.thou. to 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. If the telephone doesn't adjust, you tin can utilize live conversation and yous can also interact with customer support via Twitter.

An Ideal Marketing Solution for SMBs

For small-scale and even most midsized businesses, Constant Contact is a solid e-mail marketing choice that's especially friendly to companies merely getting started as due east-commerce retailers. The wide range of templates volition hands satisfy well-nigh beginners, though more advanced creative designers might notice them lacking a scrap when it comes to customization. It's definitely edging closer to what's available in our e-mail marketing Editors' Option winners, Apostle, Mailchimp, and Sendinblue.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/constant-contact

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