AWeber vs. Everest (Return Path + 250ok)

AWeber is an excellent email marketing solution for small to mid-sized businesses, especially those that are just starting with email marketing campaigns. AWeber is also good for bloggers. But it's not perfect for an affiliate marketer who wants to make a landing page on AWeber. Businesses that require advanced segmentation options may need to consider other email marketing platforms.

Every new or established brand should be using Everest. It doesn't matter what you're trying to say in your emails—if they're not reaching the inbox, no one is listening or reading. Everest gives you the insight you need to understand your inbox placement, reputation and so much more.

• Aweber's email deliverability is among the best in the industry. I have used other email services and Aweber is superior in deliverability.
• It is easy to setup an autoresponder sequence, a series of time delayed emails delivered over a period of time. This makes it super easy to follow up with leads and customers.
• Aweber's blog broadcast features makes it easy to notify subscribers of new content on your blog. It can be setup to broadcast when ever you make a new post or summarize posts on a periodic basis.

Incentivized

• Inbox placement data using seed list: It tells you about your inbox placements, spam, missing, and complaints. Very useful data that tells you that you are on the road!
• Sender score for all I.Ps: Tells you quickly about your I.P score, helps you work fast as you know everything is fine, saves a lot of time.
• Online support: Support from specialist, have an expert to guide in tough times to suggest options or to support your action strategy.

Incentivized

• Double opt-in requirements. While I understand the rationale for double opt-in, I wish Aweber did not require double opt-in when importing email addresses from the client's existing client database as I feel we end up losing a good number of people who are existing customers and have given the business permission to email them but who either don't notice or don't take the extra step to confirm their subscription to the Aweber list.
• The user interface when designing and setting up html newsletters is not as clearcut and obvious as Constant Contact; it takes more time to get the newsletters to "look right" using Aweber's existing templates.
• I wish Aweber made it easier to embed a video message simply by inserting the video link or embed code into the email body. The process it seems to require (the last time I tried) was to create a screenshot of the video or insert the video thumbnail image and then link to the video in the right column link section .. it's a 2 step process and would be nice if it were a one click process. Not a deal breaker but I just feel like it could be faster and more efficient to embed video messages in an email.

Incentivized

• A good tutorial on how to leverage it would be helpful. Navigating is easy, but there's a lot of information and it takes a while to understand what everything means.
• The reporting feature is intimidating, creating anew one isn't as user-friendly as the rest of the interface.
• I understand what seeds are, but for new users, a very basic tutorial on what they are and why they are used would be helpful. Right now you have to have a baseline understanding of them before using it.

Incentivized

AWeber is easy and intuitive for me use. I really like the simplicity and the structure of the work flow as it saves me time. AWeber also integrates with all the other programs, systems and gateways that I use on a daily basis (WordPress, Paypal, LeadPages, Facebook and more) and if I have any questions or have trouble the AWeber customer service technicians are very helpful.

Return Path helps us stay ahead of the curve and are a partner in helping us optimize our email program. They also keep us up-to-date on email laws and the changing ecosystem so that we are prepared and ready for changes, whether they're behavioral, legal or technology-driven. I definitely consider Return Path a necessary ingredient to sustaining a healthy email program.

Incentivized

See previous answers ... the design / customization interface could be more intuitive and elegant .. for example, for me it has been difficult to easily figure out how to place pictures / images to the right, left or center of text.

Incentivized

I find it fairly easy to use, though the interface is a bit clunky and I may be missing some revolutionary use because it's lost in the clutter.

Incentivized

I have always received prompt phone or live chat support that has resolved my issues on the first call in a competent, knowledgeable and friendly manner. By contrast MailChimp offers no live chat or phone support; they only offer email support and the response time for MailChimp is slow by comparison to AWeber.

Incentivized

Absolutely fantastic support. It runs circles around the competition. They regularly reach out and chat, even if it's just to see if there's any issues we need to discuss. They clearly want the business and don't forget you once you sign the contract which is an issue with other similar services.

Incentivized

I joined my company after the implementation was nearly complete. We used the Return Path tool as we slowly increased our send volume in Marketing Cloud to monitor IP reputation and inbox placement.

Incentivized

MailChimp is a great "starter" email service, especially for consumer businesses. AWeber offers a bit more power and sophistication, especially for B2B companies, while still being easy to use and price competitive. Constant Contact had seemed to lag in features for a while though it has now largely caught up. However, it's got a more complex pricing model and is less attractive for users who send multiple messages per month to a smaller list.

Incentivized

Like I said before, Return Path is really the budget bundle. You get a lot of service for how much you pay. Since I am currently at an early stage startup, we could not afford Litmus, so having Return Path is crucial. The partnership with Salesforce also allowed us to get it at pretty low cost.

Incentivized

• Aweber has been a great way to introduce clients to the process of online marketing and publishing. Many of them have never used the web or email to truly nurture their customer relationships. The combination of dependable features and low price make Aweber a good "toe in the water" of internet marketing.
• Aweber has helped my clients raise awareness of their products and services through targeted email campaigns and regular publishing. It's a great way to deliver coupons and special offers directly to a customer's inbox.
• Awber has helped me teach my clients that a collection of names and email addresses is only worthwhile if you use it to communicate what matters to your customers. Many businesses collect contact information at live events or through other means, but rarely do they actually do anything with it. By using Aweber to reach out to their customer base, they are able to see through the analytics how valuable that conversation can be.

Incentivized

• Return Path has helped me enable better email delivery for our global partners e.g. some of our applications that send email to consumers in Australia or Europe.
• Some of the functions that we utilized with Return Path were proving to be costly based on what the business needs were for us. That is why we cut back on some of the services we utilized.

Incentivized