Adestra vs. ReachMail

Small businesses with even smaller marketing budgets and no email marketing experience would be better off selecting a lower-end email marketing provider. However, Adestra will provide a growing company with every email marketing tool along the way.

Incentivized

I think it is well suited for running a series of campaigns that have variations in subject lines and content. The interface is easy to utilize when making copies and variations of previously built email blasts, as well as organizing them into proper folders and determining metrics of each campaign. The reporting tool delivers very useful metrics, but the lack of options for pulling reports hurts the overall experience. It would be great if ReachMail were to give the user more options in determining reporting, such as a range of dates, a range of campaigns, all campaigns sent that contain "X and Y" assets, and so forth, all while giving the user the ability to download reports individually, or by group

Incentivized

• Adestra's "dynamic" list allows users to consolidate multiple lists in combination with data filters and exclusion lists. This implements segmentation and is a powerful marketing tool.
• Adestra's MessageFocus API integration provides developer-tools for list, campaign or transactional automated requirements.
• Campaigns can be sorted into project folders. This allows marketers to group campaigns together for management or reporting requirements. Moving or copying campaigns from one project to another is a simple process.
• Data downloads via Reporting is available at every level, from overview to individual KPI.
• Creating "core" tables helps marketers develop lists with similar attributes. Whether a list has many fields or simply the one required email address field, a "core" table helps to quickly map data labels from spreadsheet to online database. Creating data labels on the fly is a simple process, as well. The "core" table also groups similar contacts into one core database.
• Any list can be quickly "emptied" for to manage refreshed data. The contacts within the "emptied" list would still be members of the "core" table and so the process does not negatively impact reporting.
• Unsubscribes can be managed in one list (as a default) or individual lists. Creating individual unsubscribe lists -- dependent on business requirements -- would allow for a preference center, whereby recipients could be given a choice as to which campaigns they receive.
• The Form tool creates signup forms, simple surveys and landing pages. These can be hosted via Adestra or otherwise on the web. The tool provides for branding and proprietary cascading stylesheets, with a number of actions available through a drag-and-drop interface.

Incentivized

• I have a $10 account, but customer support treat me like a princess. They even added a feature to one page to remedy a problem I was having with that page. They care about their customers.
• ReachMail Features (or at least, these are the ones I know they have): WYSIWYG Email Editor, Template Management, Mobile Optimized Emails, Dynamic Content, Subscribe/Unsubscribe, Mailing List Management, Drip Campaigns, Auto-Responders, Image Library, A/B Testing, Customer Surveys, CAN SPAM Compliance, Reporting/Analytics.
• These folks know what they’re doing. I can’t speak highly enough about ReachMail.

Incentivized

• As of this writing, there are at least 3 different editors available (a drag-and-drop, a WYSIWYG and HTML). However, only a small template library is available if requested through support. Those expecting to find ready-built templates for re-branding would find them through the third-party EDM Designer drag-and-drop editor.

Incentivized

• I like the tutorials they have helped figure most of my issues out
• The formatting text gave me lots of issues before I saw the tutorial it was a little complicated
• Not to many bad things to say really, even customer service is fast, maybe it could be faster?

Incentivized

I have been self-trained on different ESPs for over 10 years, so my experience isn't comparable to most users. However, I've trained people on various email marketing platforms, and with some training, clients have a positive user-experience with Adestra.

Incentivized

Their team is knowledgable and willing to help offer insight and support to build out the right campaigns to fit our business needs and goals

Incentivized

I have had campaign related issues solved very quickly. When there are technical issues, that involve more than one departmental, it may involve a longer turn-around and management.

Incentivized

For medium and large sized businesses, Adestra competes well with dotMailer. While many of the functions are available through either provider, creating campaigns, managing lists and reviewing metrics are somewhat different. As of this writing, dotMailer's drag-and-drop editor dominates that platform and performs well for low-end users with little-to-no HTML experience. Even high-end users will appreciate how quickly campaigns can be built via the drag-and-drop editor. While Adestra utilizes the EDM Designer drag-and-drop, the third-party functionality is not completely cohesive and lack of a template library gives dotMailer a bit of an advantage.

Incentivized

Constant Contact:
Program marketing dollars disallowed when organization was absorbed by another entity, so Reachmail's free account was chosen to replace for localized target audiences. Constant Contact is visually more appealing and has more ready-to-use templates, but Reachmail has larger contact base, bigger graphic and doc storage capacity than did the paid Constant Contact account.
MailChimp:
MailChimp's drag and drop template designer is easier to use than Reachmail's formatting tools. Reachmail was not selected by this client in lieu of MailChimp.

Incentivized

• For companies that focus on goals and analytics, Adestra provides all the necessary tools.

Incentivized

• Enhanced target audience reach for fundraising events, a definite positive.
• Detailed metrics reporting on opens and click-throughs, for refining target audiences, a definite positive.
• Increased Facebook audience as a result of Reachmail campaigns, a definite positive.
• No negative impacts on business objectives.

Incentivized