iContact vs. Springbot

iContact is a great option for small businesses. It doesn't have enough features to create the demands of a large corporation. Of course the price goes up exponentially with more subscribers, which would also make it beneficial for small businesses. If you have too many lists to add people to it can get a little crazy too.

Incentivized

If you have a small marketing team with a small budget and you use Mailchimp & Adroll, Springbot might work for you. Otherwise, there are other more robust tools out there to accomplish the same goals. They need to work on more integrations with other ESPs and retargeting providers. And they need to work on making sure the data being sent to their customers is accurate.

Incentivized

• Customer service is wonderful! They are always helpful, guiding and available for any odd question, even if those questions are training for a newbie to the email world.
• Building forms for data collection and the code generator the for the site is very easy.
• Ensuring double opt-in is extremely straightforward.
• Including unsubscribe on every message automatically means we never have to worry about CAN-SPAM.

Incentivized

• One of the things that impressed me the most early on was their dedication to email deliverability and growing my "engaged" list of customers. Through this, they taught me the value of quality subscribers vs. quantity of subscribers, while still sharing new ways to grow my email list in a healthy and sustainable manner. For so long, my main focus was always having the biggest email list - and while that's good to have a lot of subscribers, the most important thing is to make sure they are ENGAGED with your brand. So together we've come up with fun ways to do that, and we've seen that reflected in our list growth and open rate.
• One of the other things I was looking to do when I partnered with Springbot was to increase my site traffic. The original sales rep had a few recommendations on how we could do this, and our team was most excited about their Facebook Services offering. We were paired with a Facebook expert who did a discovery call with us, and then presented a strategic plan for us to follow for the first 90 days, until we could fully optimize. Their Facebook team narrowed down my target audience and has helped strategically grow my site traffic.
• Finally, and maybe the part that I value the most, is the partnership that I've developed with Springbot. Out of the gate, there is absolutely work to do to get things set up and they don't sugar coat that. While much of the onboarding was smooth - we had a few obstacles to work through, and I'm thankful my Success Manager kept me up to date as we resolved anything that came up, and was proactive with her outreach and recommendations to get the most out of the platform. I find myself learning something new each time I chat with her, whether it be optimizations to my automations, new marketing ideas, or ways to increase engagement as I go into the holidays.
• After being with them for a year, I feel this is more than a vendor + customer relationship, and think of it as a strategic and valuable partnership.

• Every time you edit or sometimes open an email it brings it to the top of the list. I would prefer my email to go to the top only after I send it out to my subscribers.
• When I add a new contact I sometimes copy and paste the email. This is not allowed sometimes and I have to manually type the email in.
• LinkedIn will not allow you to add pictures anymore when sending emails out.

Incentivized

• They don't keep any of their promises
• They don't listen

After 4 years of using iContact we finally cut the cord. It was hard to justify staying with them when it seemed like they had some of the most outdated software in the industry, some of the worst deliverability, and were in general extremely lacking in customization. They are a decent ESP for a great price point, so if that is your main concern it may be worth it, but if you want to have your emails you are paying for hit inboxes (not spam folders) then look into someone else that guarantees great deliverability.

Incentivized

I rate iContact as an easy to use program due to its user friendly dashboard and user interface. Most companies of small to medium size do not have a dedicated marketer, therefore it is someone multitasking who may or may not have this kind of experience. iContact makes it relatively simple and can actually expand one's knowledge in the area of business promotion.

Incentivized

I think Springbot is pretty user-friendly overall. The only down-side is that the website is often updated, leaving the customer to hunt certain features down that are now in a different spot. So I think it would be helpful if every so often they sent an email that let customers know what changes were made and where to access everything

iContact is regularly up and running. Only once has it been unavailable for maintenance, which is to be expected and even desired for optimal performance when needed.

They have always been responsive to any issues or concerns that have arisen with our account. Our customer account manager participates in our monthly county-wide communicators meetings via telephone to ensure that we are getting the most from the service. He also analyzes our lists to help us weed out inactive contacts.

Incentivized

They only cared about referencing the user agreement to get out of any common sense discussion I tried to have. They have one goal take your money and don't care if the system is working for you or not.

The templates are difficult to customize, and they don't render well in email platforms

i wouldn't be using it if i wasn't satisfied. time is money

We selected iContact because it was available at the time, and in our price range. I inherited it at the school. If it had been the program it is now back then, I would not have chosen it. At the moment, we are too busy to fully vet another program, so we are stuck with this one. It does get the job done. It is great for a small business with small needs, but once you start expanding and having more intricate needs, it does not compete with others like MailChimp

Incentivized

We were choosing between a few different options when considering a new email marketing program. Previously we were using Constant Contact, but wanted a program that offered more. We looked into Klaviyo as well, but after comparing the two we decided to go with Springbot as they offered a wide variety of insights and had wonderful customer service.

iContact stays the same with the number of users added or taken away. It certainly remains reliable despite increased usage, and so, can be considered scaleable in that aspect.

• Increased Employee Efficiency - once a template is created, it is very easy to edit the content within the template with minimal or no assistance from developers.
• Domain Reputation - if you aren't careful, it is very easy to hurt your domain reputation when using iContact. Make sure the person in charge of email marketing knows the risks of email marketing or is willing to closely work with iContact's customer service to follow best practices.
• Increased Lead Conversion - through the use of automated email functionality, you can stay in the forefront of your customer's minds. This increases conversions by reminding customers that you are there to provide the goods or services that they may need periodically or in the future.

• Money spent with zero return. We got nothing from this investment.