Autoresponder Review

Everyone knows that a good email marketing campaign can make the difference between success and failure for an Internet marketer and that means you need an autoresponder review that can help you choose the best service for your fledgling business. There are dozens out there and with monthly fees and massive potential income to consider, you’ll want to have a clear idea of which one performs the best.

What to Look for in Your Autoresponder

An Autoresponder review will point out many things, but there are some features that need to top your list. First, delivery rate is vital. Those emails need to get through to your prospects and they need to be read. That means not only should the service provide top notch technology to reach the prospects, but they should help you reduce spam in the process.

Autoresponders are emails sent automatically to your subscribers when triggered by a series of events you determine. They can be used to greet new subscribers, alert them about new products or services, or even wish them a happy birthday. All you have to do is set up the rules, write the message, and let the autoresponder take care of the rest.

Additionally, the service needs to make list management and analysis as easy as possible. You want to be able to review subscribers, read messages, link clicks and historical open rates so you can adjust and tweak your messages over time.

When looking for a good email autoresponder, it’s important to focus on which product offers relevant features for your business at the best possible price. You should also consider the email marketing software program’s usability and which additional tools it provides to help improve your email campaigns.

Based off this criteria, the four companies listed below stand apart from the rest.

Aweber

The first autoresponder review is Aweber.

Aweber is probably the most used and very easy to use when it comes to setting up a new campaign, inserting video or audio, and managing your subscribers across multiple lists.

AWeber offers one of the best autoresponder tools in the industry. They give you access to over 600 available templates so you can pick one that best matches your company’s branding.

AWeber autoresponders have been tested in all major email clients, such as Gmail and Hotmail, to ensure your email appears correctly in your subscribers’ inboxes.

Once your autoresponders are sent out, you can use AWeber Communications’ powerful reporting tools to keep track of who opened your messages, who clicked on the links, how much revenue the message generated, and more. You can even schedule the specific time you’d like the email autoresponder to send the message.

All of these tools enable you to reach out to your subscribers, both new and old, and keep them informed without creating a lot of extra work. Just decide what you want your message to say, set up the autoresponder, and let AWeber take care of the rest.

The scheduling and sequencing is very simple and straightforward and allows for any number of custom options, including easy broadcasting. The tracking is also very useful.

Most autoresponder review sites will cite the tracking and monitoring of your lists as one of the premiere reasons to consider Aweber.

Aweber Pros include easy to use step by step wizards, very reliable email delivery and integrates with the majority of third party tools.

Aweber Cons include not a lot of advanced autoresponder options, basic split testing options and no built in automation.

If you would like to check out their free 30 day trial click HERE.

ConvertKit

The second autoresponder review is ConvertKit. ConvertKit came on strong in 2015 and is poised to become one of the top email service providers in 2016.

A big reason why is that Pat Flynn switched over to ConvertKit from InfusionSoft and has been touting the ease of use of ConvertKit‘s marketing automation capabilities.

This allows Pat to easily segment his massive subscriber base, and publish more targeted emails to grow his business.

ConvertKit specifically caters to professional bloggers. So it includes all your standard autoresponder features like creating web forms, sending email broadcasts and reports.

What I like the most about ConvertKit is that it is a joy to use. The interface is wonderfully designed and it is easy to navigate around to find what you need.

Take ConvertKit‘s drip courses for example. Everything is layed out beautifully on a single page which allows you to visualize and edit your email sequences.

But the power of ConvertKit is it’s automation features. While not as flexible and powerful as ActiveCampaign, you can still accomplish a lot with its set of Triggers and Actions.

These automations allow you to do things like

• Tag customers who bought your product
• Segment subscribers by who clicks specific links in your emails
• Automatically transition people from one email course to another

Marketing automation is really the next level of email marketing, and ConvertKit is one of the few email service providers that includes this.

Price wise, ConvertKit is slightly more expensive than the other email service providers on this list. For up to 1,000 subscribers, the price starts out at $29 a month and it increases up from there.

There’s also no free trial, but it does include a full 30 day money back guarantee.

ConvertKit has been adding new features at a rapid pace and I’m very interested in seeing how it evolves in 2016.

ConverKit pros include intuitive, beautifully designed interface, not charged for unsubscribs to your list and easily segments your lists with marketing automation.

ConvertKit cons include slightly higher pricing structure, currently no conditional and branching abilities for automation and no free trial.

To learn all about ConvertKit click HERE.

Get Response

The third autoresponder review I want to touch on is Get Response, the current industry leader and a very comparable service to Aweber.

GetResponse touts itself as the “Worlds Easiest Email Marketing”.

With its new Autoresponder 2.0 features, I’d have to agree. I really like what GetResponse has done to update itself recently, and I now consider it the most well rounded autoresponder in this whole roundup.

Getting started with GetResponse is dead simple. There is a free 30 day trial and you don’t even need to pull out your credit card. Just sign up and go.

The first thing you will notice is that the interface is very friendly to use. Lots of big buttons and the site is easy to navigate.

GetResponse‘s web form editor is quite powerful, and on par with Aweber’s. Everything is fully customizable and there are plenty of templates to choose from as a starting point.

Get Response allows the same easy level of customization as Aweber, allowing you to attach documents, audio, or video, copy in messages from any format without extra formatting needed, and ensure delivery on any day of the week, through any email filters.

The tracking system is often compared to Google Analytics, which is a good thing, providing a wide array of details about message open rates, subscriptions and more. It can get a bit complicated, but the tutorials are designed to help there.

Where GetResponse really stands out though is its autoresponder capabilities.

You can choose from 6 different autoresponder types: time based, clicked, opened, subscribed, goal-reach and data-changed. Time based is the one you are used to but the other types can be used in other special situations as well.

For example, lets say send out an email blast that includes a link to your latest blog post that talks about your upcoming product launch. By choosing a click based autoresponder, you can automatically have GetResponse send out a followup email to only the people who clicked the link in your email.

Since you are emailing only your subscribers who have shown interest, you are sure to see higher conversions. And conversely you are not bothering the rest of your list who hasn’t indicated an interest in your new product launch.

GetResponse also has the best management for your standard time based autoresponders. You are presented with a graphical calendar view of all your follow-ups so you can see exactly when and where each follow up will be sent. I really like the email previews which are a nice touch.

You can drag emails around and you can see the current stats for each email. It’s all very intuitive and makes setting up your followup series very easy to deal with.

We also really like how GetResponse bakes split testing right in. You can enable it for each email and choose to split test your Subject Line, From Field, Content, or Delivery Time.

Lets say you choose to split test your subject line. You can set it so that 25% of your list will see your first headline and 25% will see your 2nd headline. Thenwhichever variation is statistically declared the winner will get shown to the remaining 50% of your list. This is a great way to make sure you are maximizing the value of each email you send.

Price wise, GetResponse is very good, and it is cheaper than every autoresponder service in our roundup. You can also get an additional 18% GetResponse discount if you purchase a yearly subscription (instead of monthly).

GetResponse pros include powerful and flexible autoresponder features, easy to use split testing, customizable form and message builders and best value to price ratio.

GetResponse con is that there are no automation capabilities.

Click HERE to check out their free trial without needing a credit card and discounts.

iContact

The last autoresponder review that I want to mention is iContact.  What really sets iContact apart is their premier services. Very few services offer personal advisors who are dedicated not only to helping create a marketing plan, but who are also dedicated to troubleshooting problems.

iContact offers two tiers of email marketing services, basic and premier. Their basic services offer a wide variety of features, but a few key features that other email service providers include in their basic pricing are only available with iContact’s premier plan.

iContact’s excellent social media marketing tools are integrated right into the campaign design process so you can automatically post your content to your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts, enabling your customers to easily share your campaigns with their friends.

Whether you’re new to email marketing or a seasoned veteran, you’re sure to appreciate iContact’s straightforward account dashboard and intuitive campaign design tools. Navigating around the iContact system is as easy as can be.

Integration with other online business services can really add efficiency and power to an email marketing platform, providing access to data across different business functions and simplifying common tasks. iContact excels in this area, offering a variety of tools to integrate your email campaigns with popular customer management, ecommerce, and analytics services.

If you decide to join iContact as a premier account customer, you get access to a great assistance program that pairs you with an email marketing expert whose job is to help you take full advantage of your marketing opportunities. This is a great service for customers that don’t have the time to research the finer points of email marketing or to sit down and develop a strategic marketing plan themselves. Your iContact strategic advisor researches your business in advance in order to come prepared with ideas and strategies you can use to promote your business effectively. You also get personalized training on virtually every aspect of the iContact system. If you want to branch out into email marketing but aren’t sure you can do it alone, this program is well worth considering.

iContact pros include good advising support with premier level, competitive pricing for basic service, social media management tools and good data tracking.

iContact cons include Google Analytics integration and split A/B testing are only available for premier level service vs. other services that include this as a standard feature, resources, such as tutorials, FAQs, webinars are limited compared to many other services and integration of software/apps is fairly limited.

Click HERE if you want more information about iContact and try their free trial offer.

 Conclusion

Autoreponders are one of the three services every business owner needs – right after hosting and right before outsourcing. If you’re not yet signed up for one of the four autoresponders above, reread this autoresponder review carefully and choose one that fits your business’s needs.

Each of the email service providers we have looked at, have their own strengths and weaknesses.

I originally started off with Aweber and I still have an account with them and it is still quite reliable. However, it lacks a lot of the advanced features that you’d like to see now. Although, it looks like they will be adding their own automation capabilities soon with their campaign feature.

GetResponse has been my top pick in the past. It’s the most affordable email service provider on this list, and it’s pack full of features. However, it too lacks any automation features which limits it somewhat.

For someone who is new to email marketing, I do recommend giving ConverKit a try. It has a very low learning curve, yet has the marketing features that will help you grow as your business does.

iContact is still a reliable service provider and if you have a big list their premier services can’t be beat.

Still, a lot of this is personal preference. That is why I always suggest that you at least give two or more of these autoresponders a try. Most of them have free trials so you can easily test them out before you commit.

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