Constant Contact vs. Wishpond Propel IQ

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.

I would never recommend Wishpond to anyone. They provide a fancy marketing plan that is promptly ignored. You're far better off managing everything yourself as the things which are done are done against your instructions, or so badly it takes more time to fix them than just do them yourself. You'll have to ask for any reporting and when it is given it will be worthless as all campaigns are combined (across all advertising channels). You'll never be told what tweaks are made, keywords you specifically say not to use will be used, you won't be told how to check anything, and will have to chase up anything that is meant to be delivered. The first meeting was rescheduled, but I wasn't told, and things didn't improve from there. After 2 months I still had not received much and wasn't getting replies so had to take things up the chain. Things were then put in place, but no one ever checked if they solved anything. They didn't. One of my big problems is the only meeting times offered were between 3 and 4am my time. When the customer support person finally got in touch they also only offered between 3 and 4 am on a Sat morning. Nothing had been paid attention to at any stage. My manager's manager who is meant to solve problems has not replied to my emails from a week ago. The contract also auto renews, but there is no information on how to get out of it. I don't trust that the folks I have told I don't want to renew will pass that information on and will soon be looking into doing chargebacks on my card due to not being supplied with the services promised.

• 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

• Very small learning curve, thanks to wonderful real-time tutorials and help, and drag-and-drop editors.
• Easy to navigate - there are only 3 main sections of the site (content, lists, and emails).
• Excellent customer service. I've always gotten prompt answers to any questions I've had.

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

• The marketing tool is still not very intuitive
• We still don’t know how to use the contest feature
• We wish we could have more elements to add to our landing pages

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.

There is no support at Wishpond. I contacted my project manager's manager over a week ago without a reply. When I responded to the automated 'How is your experience' email saying how awful it was there was no follow-up. When I had trouble and had to escalate things it resulted in some new procedures being put in place that changed nothing and they never checked in to see if things were fixed.

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

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

I actually ended up using AgoraPulse AFTER Wishpond because my company was looking for ways to cut down our marketing budget and Agora had the contest capabilities, lead management, along with social media platform scheduling and management. I ended up loving Agora more and not only using it while at Clarion UX/Urban Expositions but bringing it over when I worked at Yale University as well.

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

• 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.

• Negative google ROI.
• A few conversions in September on paid social then none - negative ROI.
• Between ad spend and Wishpond fees every month is negative ROI. Can’t wait until I can get out of this contract.
• Emails don’t perform as well as my own for open rates or clicks.