Constant Contact Review: Is It the Right Email Marketing Service for You?

If you’re looking for an email marketing service that is easy to use and has a wide range of features, Constant Contact may be the right choice for you.

In this Constant Contact review, we’ll take a look at what this service offers and see how it compares to other options on the market.

Constant Contact is one of the most popular email marketing platforms available, and it’s no wonder why – with its user-friendly interface and wide range of features, it’s perfect for businesses of all sizes.

Let’s dive deep into it to understand more:

Who is Constant Contact for?

Obviously, not all people can find the tool helpful. Here are some of the people who can find Constant Contact highly useful;

Constant Contact features

Let’s check out what the software can do;

List building

Constant Contact allows you to build an email list with ease. Even though I found it challenging to edit the user records, you can apply a quick fix and do it as an individual record.

For a start, you will need to verify that you have the consent of the email list. You can’t buy an email list and send it without user consent.

I know sometimes marketers follow the short path of purchasing emails from the internet. Sorry, that won’t work here.

And if you have addresses from different departments, such as [email protected], you may not be able to use it on your list since it’s hard to ascertain user consent.

But if you have your list on a spreadsheet such as Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel CSV, you can easily upload it into Constant Contact. Even if there are several data fields, the tool will take care of that for you.

And to help you grow your list, Constant Contact allows you to create simple yet highly compelling squeeze pages and opt-in forms. You can also integrate with tools such as Facebook Join My List App and OptinMonster to collect and store website visitors’ email addresses.

Landing pages and email Builder

If you want to build visually compelling email or landing pages, you can do it with the help of an in-built email builder. And to make it easy for you, they have hundreds of templates from all niches to pick from. You can also edit and customize based on your brand voice and email needs.

The drag-and-drop editor and page builder helps save time and adds essential elements to improve your email marketing game. You can also add a custom template if you want since some templates have limited editing capabilities.

The email builder has some limitations, though. It doesn’t have many advanced features, or elements, and lacks various block layouts. And since you can’t code the already existing templates to fit your unique needs, you will be forced to create a custom template.

The cool thing about the email builder is its AI capabilities in the email marketing space. You can give it access to your website and let it give a custom template based on your brand colors and other features. Isn’t that awesome?

Email automation

Automation can save you time and gives a high return on investment than merely sending broadcasts now and then. An automated sequence cultivates a stronger bond with your subscribers and increases their customer lifetime value.

Guess what?

Constant Contact has a really great way of automating your email sequence. Even though some marketing tools such as MailChimp have multi-channel automation features, Constant Contact works fine for new email clients in the digital marketing space.

It is also flexible and helps you to determine aspects, such as the number of email campaigns to automating and the time interval between emails. You can also tag and place a subscriber to a segment based on their website actions.  

Integrations

Constant Contact integrates with many integrations to help you maximize the software potential. Each integration is geared toward a goal such as SEO, CRM, or list building.

For example, you can integrate Canva or Vimeo into the platform to create visually appealing emails. These two are graphic design and video marketing platforms. Canva allows you to create logos, posters, or even an electronic signature.

To grow your list, Constant Contact allows integration with Facebook and Google Ads or connects it with a WordPress website. You can also engage on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to collect customer data.

In addition, if you want to manage your contacts effectively, you can integrate a CRM tool like SalesForce or Eventbrite for events. You can also integrate Gmail right into the platform. In fact, you can integrate over 300 tools right into the platform.

Creating an email campaign

It is super easy to craft a winning campaign when using Constant Contact. If you want to start from scratch, you can. However, it would be better if you can’t go the long way because it wastes time. There are templates that you can pick and customize to suit your campaign needs.

You can integrate your campaign to send emails based on the time set on the calendar. It may not allow you to send them based on local recipients’ time like other email tools, but you can schedule them to send later.  

Constant Contact has improved its campaign templates. The mobile optimization option is still not at par with its competitors like GetResponse.

If you have a previous campaign, you can copy and edit it to suit your new campaign needs. Search the campaign based on the dates you run it, and it will appear in the search bar.

And if you want, you can integrate your campaign with a calendar to send emails on subscribers’ important days such as birthdays, national events, and others. Such segmentation brings about personalization and increases sales.

Social marketing

Do you know that 90% of customers buy from brands they follow on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter? Well, now you know. Hence, it is time to alleviate your social media presence if it has been dormant for a while.

As a result, Constant Contact helps to enhance your social media presence by allowing you to post products and services to Facebook or Instagram on autopilot. You can decide to create social media posts for both platforms or create two separate posts to attract potential customers.

In addition, they recently upgraded to an all-in-one social media marketing platform. Once inside, you can create post variations and reply to comments and messages in your inbox.

Website builder

Gone are the days when someone had to pay for hosting, log into the c-panel section of the website, and install WordPress to create your website. In the next few years, we might not be having that long and tedious process because AI is taking over most of the daily processes.

In fact, with Constant Contact, you will have a website in less than two minutes. I know you are used to hiring website developers and designers on Fiverr for more than $1000, but this is not the case here.

Split testing (A/B test)

Split testing is basically sending two or more versions of your emails to a segment of subscribers to see which gives the best open and click-through rates. The best subject line gives the best open rates, while the best email copy enhances a higher click-through rate.

Constant Contact does this automatically. You just need to create two variations of subject lines and emails and send them to a list before the tool chooses the one performing better and shares it with the rest of the subscribers.

For example, if you had two subject lines such as;

Constant Contact will merely send this to some subscribers and decide on which one is doing better after a while. It will then go with it.

Reporting

I bet one of the most important features regarding marketing is what the platform reports. You will need the reports to measure your marketing efforts and optimize accordingly.

When it comes to reporting, Constant Contact does just fine. It reports almost what any other marketing software reports and a little more.

The reporting tab reports the number of emails opened, clicks, click-through rate, unsubscribe rates, and whether the opens are from mobile or desktop. In addition, the platform tells you the subject line with the highest open rate so that you can optimize and increase your opens.

Are you an A/B testing fan? Well, you can’t fail to use this tool since it allows you to find the most performing email, subject line, and call-to-action button. You will find all these reports in the reporting tap once logged into the Constant Contact platform.

For a beginner, the reporting platform is super friendly. It has a ton of tutorials to walk you through what every report means and how you can use it to improve your campaigns. The tool even has a mobile app to monitor your email marketing results as you travel.     

Some of the features missing in Constant Contact

After using a few email marketing tools, it becomes easy to gauge what’s missing when you begin using the software.

So, in my testing, I found out that the following essential aspects are missing from the Constant Contact platform;

Lacks suppression lists

A suppression list is simply a segment of subscribers who have opted out of your email list. As a result, sending emails to people on your suppression list is unlawful.

Some email software has a suppression list to ensure you don’t end up sending such emails, but Constant Contact seems to lack this essential feature.

Instead, they have a manual blocking method, which can be tiring – especially if you block about 1000 subscribers. Hence, without manually blocking them, you might be mistakenly sending emails to them.

Limited split testing

One of the things top email marketers do is test their email design and readability since it affects the overall results. That’s why A/B testing is such an important element of marketing.

I didn’t say Constant Contact doesn’t have this feature. However, it is limited compared to other tools like ActiveCampaign. In fact, the only A/B testing they allow is on your subject lines.

That means you can’t test the email copy or the call-to-action buttons. I wish they could introduce an option where you can test all these.  

Limited automation workflows

When automating your emails to different segments, the process should be flexible to ensure you are targeting different segments of subscribers. That’s the best way to maximize email marketing potential.

However, Constant Contact has limited workflow rules. It only allows you to automate your lead-nurturing sequence, send a welcome email for the day someone opted into your email list (it’s highly effective in boosting trust and customer loyalty), and send birthday emails.

These are pretty what any new email marketer could want, but for someone with a huge email list, these three basics can’t allow him to boost sales for an online store.

No email autoresponder  

If you send an email to a Constant Contact user, there won’t be an automatic reply or something to let you know someone has received the email.

The feature is really important in cultivating a strong relationship with your audience. I bet you would also feel okay if someone acknowledged that they received your email and are planning to reply soon.

Awesome support team

You will need responsive support if you are ever investing in a tool. They will help you handle most things such as account limitations, payments, email deliverability, and general knowledge.

I must say the Constant Contact support team is awesome. They are highly responsive and always willing to help whenever you are stuck.

Here are the available support options;

Live chat

The feature is right on their website after you log in. Here you can ask general questions and pressing issues.

Phone support

If you like phone support, they have their number on the website. Most of the time, it might not take more than a few minutes for someone to pick up and talk to you.

For convenience, they have three numbers; one for the USA and Canada customers, another for the UK, and another for international clients. Each number has its availability.   

Emails

The email option is for the least urgent matters since they can sometimes reply after a few hours. Go with the two above if you have issues that need immediate attention. 

Social media

You can also use their social media handles. They have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram handles. I found out that they reply faster on Facebook and Twitter.

In addition, they have a knowledgeable base that covers most of the questions related to how to set up campaigns, email automation, segmentation, and testing. You can visit this even if you are not their client yet; it is resourceful.

And if you want, you can set up a meeting with a marketing expert to learn more about starting out. They will just ask you to call them and set you up with a 1-on-1 meeting with several email experts.

Ease of use

If you hover around the platform, you will notice that everything seems to be in place. The menu is clean and visible, with well-described features, compelling sales pages, and a ton of other elements.

Honestly, the design is clean and responsive as well. It’s not too salesy but communicates the solution it brings to your business.

And once you sign up, all the elements are also in place. It’s easy to create a campaign with 300 plus responsive templates, a drag-and-drop page editor, and a workflow editor.

Constant Contact Pricing

Most customers have complained about how Constant Contact is priced. Do you know why? It doesn’t give them a wide range of choices and doesn’t have a free version.

Constant Contact prices are only; the core and the plus plan. These two might not work with different segments of customers even though they are pretty affordable.

Let’s see the bottom line Constant Contact features in the two plans;

The Core plan at $9.99 per month

It is the best plan for starting out in the email marketing world. It may be the least expensive plan, but it has most of the features you would expect in top-tier plans.

Here is what you will find here;

However, the plan lacks features such as basic marketing automation, Google ads integration, dynamic content, and conversion reporting, and is limited to just 5 users. You also can’t build a website.  

The Plus plan at $45 per month (all the features)

The plan is geared toward people who have been in the game for some time and want to increase sales. It has all the basic features in the core plan and other advanced features;

If you want to try out the tool, they have a 30-day free trial. That means you can go with the core plan and make a sale within 30 days before purchasing. They don’t even ask for billing information during the trial period.

In addition, they have a huge discount if you sign up for their annual Constant Contact cost instead of paying monthly.

Pros and Cons of using Constant Contact

Every tool online has pros and cons. And the moment you know them, it becomes easier for you to make a purchase decision.

Pros

Cons

The tool might have more than one disadvantage, but it’s a great email tool. In fact, I would highly recommend it to beginners since it is easy to use and has a short learning curve.

Topics & Questions

Let’s answer some common questions related to Constant Contact;

Conclusion

If you want to start building an email list, Constant Contact is a great option. The software makes it easy to create simple yet highly compelling squeeze pages and opt-in forms, and the email builder has some limitations but doesn’t have many advanced features or elements.

Plus, there are many integrations available to help you maximize the potential of the software. And if you need any help getting started, Constant Contact provides access to hundreds of templates from all niches that can be easily edited and customized based on your brand voice and email needs. They have a 30-day free trial.

So what are you waiting for?

Try Constant Contact today!