Benchmark Email vs. Constant Contact

Their free option has no time limit and accepts an email list of 2,000 contacts. That's generous considering that some similar software have free trials limited to a month or less and will allow only about 1,000 contact lists, if not less. With that 2,000 contact space available for free on Benchmark email, I can gather 2,000 leads or buyers into my email program without paying. Thus, Benchmark Email is suited for profitability, especially for a start-up business.

Constant Contact is great when trying to target specific market segments. We typically like to segment our master list by region, but also have product segments, as well. They do provide pre-made segments to start you off too. We don't usually use their email builder, we find others to be more flexible, intuitive, and have more variety. We do prefer emailing from Constant Contact, however.

• They have the option to incorporate email automation.
• HTML is available if you want to use your own templates.
• They give you the ability to edit some HTML on their drag and drop version.

Incentivized

• Constant Contact allows the users to send unlimited emails and just pay per list size.
• The software does welcome emails pretty well and allows you to set up all sorts of automation.
• The branded templates and starter templates are very useful and look good.

Incentivized

• Glitchy editor - powerful drag and drop features, but precise formatting can have issues.
• Stagnant platform - few notable features or fixes over the past two years.
• Delivery Success - anecdotal customer reports suggest high percent of emails are diverted by spam filters.

Incentivized

• Sometimes some software provides outdated and useless features and functions, but this email marketing tool gives advanced kinds of functionalities with modern features.
• I like the ease of use of this platform also appreciate its professional customer support team.
• I am no longer desperate after getting this tool at my work.

Incentivized

There is no doubt that we are going to renew Constant Contact. We have not just invested a lot of time in learning and creating a great looking product but we have developed a strong database of information that allows us to track how we are doing for each newsletter. This supports our goals of creating products that residents desire and are excited to receive.

There is always room for improvement. I don't know how they test their systems, but they should invite not-so computer savvy people to test it. If I, as an expert have problems, they need to think like the technophobe. Since I've used Constant Contact in the past as part of my former employment, I have not viewed any of the tutorials and just jumped in to work on my client's newsletter. With that said, I found some areas easy and some a bit cumbersome

No major problems in sending out the email campaigns and accessing the analytics

Incentivized

The system seemed quite slow sometimes. Specifically, there was sometimes a delay in sends if it was during a high traffic period. There were time-outs when uploading new code for an email, and a lag in reporting analytics which was sometimes as long as 72 hours

I think the overall support for Constant Contact has always been incredible; I have nothing negative to say. Our customer support representative was attentive, easy to understand, and very knowledgeable. I never felt like I wasn't a priority of his and my issues, while very small, were fixed in a very short time frame.

Implementation is very easy for someone who wants to send out the “batch and blast” type newsletters. If you want to use their templates with no customizations, the product works fine. However, the more customizations you get into involving link color, etc, that’s where things can get tricky for someone who may not be familiar with coding

At the time of the decision, we anticipated a larger audience and a high potential cost of MailChimp. We also believed that Benchmark Email would be less complex and therefore quicker to implement and learn. Given the current needs and pricing, I believe MailChimp may be competitive and provide a more refined UI

Incentivized

We selected Constant Contact due to pricing constraints. However, if the pricing were to increase, we may look at alternative products that offer more features. We are looking for a product that will allow us to stand out from other organizations like ours that are appealing to the same customers—a product that will set our company apart from the others.

Incentivized

Very reliable in sending email campaigns and controlling the recipients so that no contact is sent the same email more than once, even if they are on a resent list

Incentivized

• We were able to reduce recurring costs by 20% per year by buying an extended contract plan.
• Benchmark is more robust than our previous software, and we've been able to increase newsletter sales by about 10% per year.
• We were able to introduce split a/b testing into our newsletter mix, as it's a native feature of Benchmark.

Incentivized

• I can't report hard numbers, however, being able to execute sales and marketing campaigns led to a noticeable increase in brand awareness in our industry.
• We were able to offer white-labeled email communication services to clients, which is not something that other administrators typically offer. This helped us win and retain business.