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It’s tough for email marketing companies to separate themselves from the pack. iContact offers a strong set of features at a highly competitive price, but so do several other services. What does iContact provide that you may not find with other email marketing services?
Article Overview
- Pros & Cons
- Key Features
- iContact Price (With Promo Code)
- Customer Feedback
- What Is Split A/B Testing? (Video)
- Should I Get iContact?
iContact
Pros
- Good strategic advising support with premier level
- Competitive pricing
- Unlimited users with every account
- Offers flexible options for subscriber sign-up forms
- Seamless integration with Salesforce for stronger CRM programs
- List segmentation by demographics, interests, and subscriber behaviors
- Free Getty Images photo stock library
- Supports 5mb for online image storage
- Comprehensive contact manager with bounceback handling & history reports
- 97% delivery success rate
Cons
- No weekend customer support
- Could have more varied email templates
- RSS to email is limited and hard to use
- Integration of software/apps is fairly limited (no Google Analytics integration)
Other Pros
- Spam checking
- HTML editor for email newsletter templates
- Data tracking, see who opens, clicks and unsubscribes from your emails
- Developer portal and API
- iPhone and Android mobile apps
- No credit card required for free trial
Key Features
- Message Builder – easy drag and drop features in WYSIWYG templates
- Message Coder – for users who like to get their hands dirty with HTML code
- Subscriber and list management
- List segmentation
- Social media sharing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
- Multiple message and social media analytics and real-time tracking tools
- Autoresponders
- Split A/B testing
- Advanced segmentation
Premier Services
Here’s where iContact sets itself apart from the pack. iContact’s premier services include all of their basic features plus some additional bells and whistles targeted for larger volume and more advanced needs.
- Strategic Advisors: A dedicated strategic advisor researches your competitors and industry, sets you up with a marketing plan and educational resources, and digs deep into your message analytics to boost your business’s ROI.
- High-Volume Sending Services: iContact gives you what you need to reach a broader audience, including a reliable sending infrastructure, support from a strategic advisor, comprehensive tracking, custom reports, advanced segmentation and more.
- Custom Design Services: iContact designers assist your design needs. You get access to footers, sign-up forms, subscription pages and more. Quick message services get iContact professionals to send emails for you whenever you are running short on time.
- Deliverability Services: iContact’s specialists will evaluate your previous email campaigns to improve their performance. They help you manage your large email lists, effectively targeting for optimal inbox placement and open rates.
- Social Media & Content Marketing Consulting: iContact’s content writing team produces a fresh stream of engaging, brand-specific content for any of your platforms.
It’s unclear, however, how much more you’ll pay for these services since you’re required to contact customer service for pricing.
Price
iContact offers two email marketing platforms — their basic services and XE services, which includes advanced marketing automation and email personalization as well as advanced ecommerce features.
Their fees are very competitive compared to other providers. Its pricing is based on the number of contacts per month, and you can pay monthly — no long-term contract is required. You receive a 15% discount on monthly pricing if you purchase the annual plan. It also provides a 20% discount for nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organizations (free account for North Carolina based nonprofits). iContact has a 30-day free trial.
iContact Basic
| Number of Contacts | Price Per Month for Base | Price Per Month for Pro |
|---|---|---|
| 1,500 | $15 | $30 |
| 2,500 | $25 | $50 |
| 5,000 | $45 | $90 |
iContact XE
You can customize the following plans by contacting iContact.
Coupon Code
Is iContact Good?
Here’s a sampling of user reviews we found for iContact.
Positive Reviews
A sleek system that is easy to use and also easily accessible. In addition, what I like the best is that I can use a previous email as a template which makes the process a lot faster and time-saving. It is very impactful on the communication for the business. It…offers plenty of flexibility to send rapid messages. In addition, this program exceeded the expectations of many of my coworkers. – Administrator in Higher Education, G2 Crowd 2/25/2019
Negative Reviews
Though I can definitely track some activity and leverage contact data for other business purposes, there aren’t as many built-in analytics features as I’d like. For the price, I’d expect to see a little bit more from iContact so that I can have a more complete understanding of how are emails are doing and the improvements we can make.- Mason L., G2 Crowd 3/7/2019
What’s Split A/B All About?
If you’re wondering what split A/B testing involves, iContact demonstrates the basics for you. If you want to learn more, Amazon’s Developer Console has a great nuts and bolts explanation of just how A/B testing works.
Is iContact The Email Marketing Service For Me?
What 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 are also committed to troubleshooting problems.
iContact was among Deloitte’s Fast 500 up-and-coming companies back in 2011, but they don’t seem to be growing at the same rate these days. But bigger isn’t always better. It’s worth checking out how iContact compares in our email marketing providers review.
Do you think it’s worth paying more for a professional email advisor?
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If iContact couldn’t get any worse, they have taken it to a new level moving their customer support area to Salvador and try getting anyone to help you there. Seriously one pathetic company, save yourself the headache, go somewhere else.
iContact is getting a well-deserved reputation for shady billing practices, and my recent experience trying to get a refund for months of being overcharged bears this out. I’m very disappointed in iContact’s customer service, which is long on words and extremely short on results.
So sorry to hear about your poor iContact experience. Have you switched to a new email marketing service yet?
Bad service. Since week one I like to send emails and created a list. Immediately after paying, they disabled my auto responder and my list because I
need permission to use my contact list after I collected them through a free high value book. I have to write on the free download book button that I will send them another free offer after I send the free book, even though they can cancel at any time. I disagreed with this option and they offered another option to send a request to them if they’d like to continue. But this never worked, instead nothing is working. And to cancel the contract is not possible. No service and you have to pay. Easy money making machine.
Sorry to hear about your terrible experience with iContact. Thank you for sharing it with us. Have you found a better service since iContact?
I’d like to change to Mailchamp or Aweber.
If you end up having any questions between the two feel free to ask. We want to make sure you choose a company you’ll be happy with. Best of luck!
Having used several email marketing platforms over the years, I am setting up a new client on an email marketing program. I’ve spent a little time comparing features and was pretty intrigued by the features of iContact. Their site is full of useful information. Their templates seem to be first class and generally better than some of the other cookie-cutter ones out there – even if not, their design services and their HTML capabilities make them seem a bit ahead of the pack. Couple that with their Advisory Premium service, and free trial and I’m going give them a try. This review sealed the deal. Thanks for going into such depth on their product.