Constant Contact Reviews

There’s plenty to do with Constant Contact. From automating extensive email arrays to scheduling social media posts, this platform provides almost everything you need to manage all your marketing tactics. Surprisingly, the software remains easy to navigate and intuitive to use. It’s not uncommon to see companies that provide a comprehensive set of features having interfaces with too much information, so we’re glad that Constant Contact was able to keep it simple.

Automating messages with Constant Contact is a breeze. However, we would prefer to have it displayed as a decision tree instead of a conditional list, as it allows a more straightforward visualization of each step of the process. That being said, there are plenty of options you can choose from, including behavioral ones, ensuring that you can come up with complex automated email strings. Of course, this email marketing service also includes transactional emails, which are the perfect way to automize messages that need to arrive in your customers’ inboxes immediately, such as password resets or order confirmations.

By far the company shines the most when it comes to its offer of unique features that not many other email campaign services provide. One of them is the website builder, which is so intuitive and user-friendly that it can easily compete with providers that offer this service as the main core of their business.

Not only does Constant Contact offer over 100 templates, but it updates the list regularly to include relevant themes for what’s happening in the world. From summer sales to graduation day deals, every vital date is in there. What’s more, the designs are modern and attractive. There’s only one thing we would change – adding the ability to filter templates by industry or topic.

You can come up with your own designs either via HTML coding or by using the drag-and-drop builder. The latter is one of the best in the industry, as it gives you the freedom to add blocks wherever you want instead of forcing you to use specific layouts. Unfortunately, the builder for sign-up forms and landing pages is not as remarkable. There’s only one template, and the configuration is heavily limited unless you upgrade to the company’s higher-tier subscription.

Even though segmenting and testing are straightforward, this is where Constant Contact lacks the most. First, the platform only allows two types of custom fields: text strings or numbers. This means that you can’t force your subscribers to choose from an options’ list set by you. For example: you’ve created a custom field for people to insert the country where they reside. Since you can only select between text or numbers, if someone writes ‘the Moon’ or misspells the country’s name, Constant Contact won’t be able to understand the problem. As you can imagine, this translates into having subscribers not being segmented correctly due to typos or just plain trolling.

Despite this, segmenting your contacts is both comprehensive and intuitive. By breaking segmentation into three sections – contact activity, list membership, and subscriber details – Constant Contact makes it easy for you to go over the various options and target subscribers in detail. There’s also the option to add and/or conditions to each one. These segments can then be later used to send dynamic newsletters, where you can tailor your messages’ content to diverse target audiences.

The A/B testing options are also extremely basic, as the software only allows you to test emails with two different subject lines, and that’s it. Although this is an excellent way to find ways to increase your open rate, it would be nice to send newsletters with content displayed in distinct ways to discover what provides a higher click rate.

With around 500 integrations and add-ons, you can get everything that Constant Contact doesn’t offer itself through third-party software. There are options for CRM, content management, contact growth, ecommerce, web design, and more. Some plugins do cost money, but you can quickly discover which ones are free by using the company’s helpful filter.

With so many options available, you might think that there’s an answer to anything you may need. While this is probably true, Constant Contact still ensures you can fill any gaps by providing its API and therefore allowing you to create custom integrations. There’s even a community specially created for designers.

Constant Contact’s pricing structure is straightforward, offering two different plan tiers – Email and Email Plus. Both start at 500 subscribers, though the platform supports up to 25,000 contacts in total. The company will consider the number of contacts you have on your account and, if you pass the threshold, it will automatically adjust your plan to the next subscribers’ level. Regardless of how many contacts you get, the platform allows you to send an unlimited number of emails.

The lowest tier, Email, already comes with most features discussed so far. It costs $17 per month with yearly installments, and it allows you to create unlimited newsletters, landing pages, sign-up forms, and social posts. However, to use all features regarding marketing automation and other advanced tools, an Email Plus subscription is necessary, which costs at least $38.25 per month.

Finding the option to get a longer billing cycle, which saves you up to 15% on your subscription, is much harder than it should be. Instead of displaying the discounted prices on the website, the company opted by only allowing you to choose such an option in the account’s billing section. Despite this, if you start your account by using the 30-day free trial, you’ll be able to notice this when you’re in the process of choosing your paid plan.

If this wasn’t enough, you can also find Constant Contact on all popular social media platforms, including Instagram and Pinterest. Here you’ll find interesting posts sending you to the company’s insightful blog posts, and you can also contact the customer service team directly. Last but not least, you can also subscribe to the company’s YouTube channel and watch all of their video tutorials.