10-second breakdown:
Not everyone is an email marketing rockstar, and Campaigner gets that. Their email marketing software is designed to have the lowest barrier of entry, helping you to understand not only what you’re doing but why.
Campaigner is used in small (0-50 employees), and medium companies (51-1,000 employees).
The good:
Campaigner is loaded with features such as CRM and Salesforce contact uploads, auto-responders, multiple reporting capabilities, customizable workflows, and real-time display ads.
Campaigner offers a 30 day free trial of their service so you can get a feel for what you’re buying. A credit card is still needed for the free trial however.
Customer support is always available with 24/7 live chat, phone and email support. If you want to try to figure things out yourself there is also an extensive help section.
The bad:
Campaigner does not have a Spam Checking tool on any of it’s plans which means you may have a few emails with deliverability issues.
There also isn’t an option to send campaigns based on a recipient’s location at a specific local time. Scheduled emails are sent based on your time zone.
How it works:
Founded all the way back in 1999, Campaigner has made a name for itself by providing a polished, easy to use system designed with total beginners in mind. While email services aren’t as complicated as say CRM software, they still require some time to get used to.
Campaigner includes quite a few features to help get you aquatinted to the system and email marketing in general. The system is intentionally kept as clean as possible and there’s access to a pop-up user manual you can reference as you go through the processes.
The product’s dashboard includes links to activities you’re most likely going to use over and over again, and it comes with a list of past campaigns and recent subscriber activity. If you don’t like messing with settings, it’s likely the dashboard will have everything you need right from the get-go. That’s not to say you can’t customize it though, there are plenty of settings and reports you can tweak to make the dashboard uniquely yours.
Campaigner adds the same user-centric mentality behind their email building functionality as well. They offer hundred of ‘smart templates’ that are mobile optimized for you to use as a base, and then to customize. Customizing them is as easy as changing the text and plopping your own pictures in the same place as their placeholder pics.
If you’re a power user or you want to get creative, there’s a full-featured editor waiting for you. The stripped down one does cut a few features, it’s good for users that don’t want to get in over their head but will frustrate people already familiar with email marketing.
All of the reports are intelligently laid out and easy to read. It’s similar to the email builder in that you could take it as it is, likely it has everything you already need, or you can switch over to a more advanced editor to customize the report just the way you like it.
If you need a little help, Campaigner offers world class support to get you what you need. Feeling anti-social? There’s a help button on every page that will redirect you to the relevant page in their help section. If you still can’t figure it out, both email and phone support are available 24/7.
One notable feature that Campaigner is missing is a spam checker. Most competitors offer a functionality to check that your email won’t be detected as spam from popular email providers such as Gmail. There’s none of that here, the best workaround you have is to go around and make a few emails, then test it by sending a copy to yourself first.
Campaigner does have a 30-day free trial for you to try before you buy, but be careful. A credit card is required for you to sign up and users have complained that there’s no way to cancel the trial from the product, you have to call them up to stop them from automatically charging your card. If you do decide to take the plunge, the free trial is very gracious with full functionality, infinite emails and up to 1,000 contacts.
The actual pricing page is a little more complicated then it has to be. They throw plans all over the page and none of them have names. Campaigner’s cheapest plan starts at $19.95 a month, for under 1,000 contacts and goes up to $99.95 for up to 15,000. This plan doesn’t come with all the features though, and has a limiting 50MB of storage space. That will hold your logo and your signature, but if you were planning on including pictures from that golf outing you hosted last weekend, you’re out of luck.
The next tier is $149.95 for up to 25,000 contacts and $299.95 for up to 50,000. They include everything the smaller tier does and add in a full 1GB of photo storage, the ability to add your own customer footer and the ability to organize your email campaigns into projects.
For lists of up to 100,000, the last tier costs $549.95 per month. They add in quite a few utilities like custom workflows, API support, single opt-in forms and contact scoring.
If you have a list that’s larger than 100,000 or you’re interested in some of the functionality from the more expensive tiers for a smaller list, you won’t find the options online. Instead, Campaigner recommends giving them a call so they can give you a custom quote.
Not everyone needs a feature loaded complicated system, if you aren’t interested in needing a college course to understand all of the marketing jargon but still want to be competent, Campaigner is a great choice. It’s designed to help small and medium companies get off the ground, the marketing equivalent of training wheels or a college 101 course.
http://authority.org/email-marketing/campaigner/ http://authorityorg.tumblr.com/post/150021973802
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