Email marketing is becoming bigger and better, and many marketers believe it’s the optimal channel to increase your brand awareness and build a strong relationship with your audience; thus, an email marketing software is crucial for this exact reason.
Constant Contact and Mailchimp are two popular options in the email marketing world, but which one is ideal for your business goals and aspirations? In this article, we will compare the two tools and will come down to decide, based on data which one is the best for each of the categories.
Constant Contact vs. Mailchimp: Email Marketing Features
Mailchimp and Constant Contact have similar features for automating workflows, creating forms, and sending email campaigns. With a simple UI, both offer a great user experience but let’s find out who is the overall winner.
Email editor & Templates
The ideal email builder should be simple, have a vast library of templates, and have a professional user interface. Let’s see how the platforms do, keeping these in mind.
Constant Contact
The email designer is simple to use, making it ideal for beginners who don’t have coding or design skills. However, the lack of multiple styles will make it challenging for more advanced users to create intricate email designs.
The builder’s drag-and-drop functionality allows you to add visuals and videos and edit text, font, and images to match your brand voice. With a vast library of over 300 templates, you can quickly create a newsletter, whether a welcome email, an announcement, or a special offer.
A great feature of the platform is that it enables you to design emails based on the elements and colors of your website, which can help you have harmony across all your channels.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp’s new builder enables you to add elements by clicking on your email design with drag and drop functionality. Additionally, you can quickly and easily edit everything by simply clicking on any content block and customizing accordingly to suit your brand better.
You may also access various templates in Mailchimp’s email library, and you can leverage your development skills by using the “Code” option.
You’ll discover more than 100 pre-made designs you can edit to meet your identity, and you may start using them to improve your email marketing campaigns.
The Winner: Mailchimp, but…
The email builder from Mailchimp is easier and more sophisticated than Constant Contact’s. When it comes to templates, the truth is that’s a tie. However, Constant Constant is the one for you if you’re looking for a lot of diversity.
Email List Management
Constant Contact and Mailchimp are two popular choices for email list management, with great features to help you organize your email lists. There are slight differences, though, that will help you choose which is best for your business.
Constant Contact:
Constant Contact is a great list management tool that enables you to add contacts from other sources like Gmail or Excel. It has a simple list segmentation feature that helps you classify your contacts in specific groups based on behavioral information or other lead scoring metrics.
Mailchimp:
Mailchimp has a more concrete list management system, but it can be challenging to set it up. For improved contact management, you may import and export your subscriber lists, just like Constant Contact.
You may manage your audience using sophisticated segmentation features in the email marketing software, and you can track results using analytics.
The Winner: Constant Contact
Simple list management choices from Constant Contact will help you keep your lists structured without overwhelming you. With list management, less is more; that’s why Constant Contact is a clear winner for this test.
However, if you are the type of business that needs sophisticated segmentation, Mailchimp is for you.
Automation features
Automating processes is the easiest way to put your email marketing campaigns on autopilot. An email marketing service with such features will help you increase sales and brand recognition, especially if you are an eCommerce business.
Constant Contact:
Constant Contact offers marketing automation features once you pay for the Plus plan. Using the platform, you can craft automated sequences depending on subscriber behaviors, enabling you to target your subscribers at the appropriate time.
Constant Contact has automated workflows such as auto-responders for new subscribers, reminders for abandoned carts, and customer follow-up emails.
Mailchimp:
The distinction between the two platforms is that Mailchimp’s Standard plan enables the creation of workflows. Users can design welcome and abandoned cart workflows, behavior-based automation, and more using Mailchimp’s workflow editor.
You can send product recommendations or thank-you notes for new client purchases based on their prior purchases. Additionally, you can use Mailchimp to reactivate inactive clients or automatically contact your customers on noteworthy occasions like birthdays to strengthen your relationship with them.
The Winner: Mailchimp
Mailchimp provides more automation options to meet your business goals and put your marketing efforts on autopilot. Another winning point for Mailchimp is that Constant Contact lacks versatility and doesn’t let you create custom automation, limiting experienced marketers who want to get ahead of the game.
Analytics Feature
You can’t improve your campaigns if you can’t understand what is effective and what is a waste of time. Having the necessary metrics and KPIs enables you to carry out successful business strategies and make necessary modifications whereas bad data can cost a lot of money in the long run.
Constant Contact:
Constant Contact will offer statistics on how many emails were opened, clicked on (click-through rate), or forwarded. You can get information on the most compelling subject lines by accessing data based on the device the subscriber used to open emails.
The platform will first display your most critical emailing statistics from the previous week or month. In addition, you can customize your reporting dashboard and display the data that help you monitor your business goals and objectives.
Mailchimp:
The number of emails opened, the clicks, and the bounce rate are just a few valuable metrics MailChimp provides. These metrics enable you to evaluate the effectiveness of your emails using interactive graphs.
The click map overlay can help you determine which part of your email most appeals to your recipients.
You may also compare your campaign’s data with industry benchmarks, which can be huge for improving your email marketing efforts. MailChimp will also display the regions where emails are opened most frequently so you can constantly see where your campaign is successful.
The Winner: Mailchimp
Mailchimp has a more robust reporting tool, making it more efficient for monitoring your email marketing campaigns.
Pricing Comparison
Before spending any money, it is prudent to become familiar with the platform. In addition to its various subscription plans, MailChimp offers a free plan that includes the essential features needed to begin your email marketing path.
Constant Contact offers a one-month free trial of the package you want to use. The big difference appears when it comes to the cost.
For Constant Contact, there are two price tiers:
- Core, which starts at $20 per month
- Plus, which starts at $45 per month
The number of contacts will determine the exact price.
MailChimp offers three price options.
- The Essentials, which starts at $9.99 a month, is an upgraded version of the free plan.
- The Standard plan, which starts at $14.99 monthly, is the next tier.
- The Premium package, which costs $ 299, is the most enterprise.
The Winner: Mailchimp
For small businesses seeking a simple email marketing solution, Mailchimp’s free plan is the best choice. If you are a larger organization testing each software will help you determine which one is the best for you for the current price.
The Takeaway
The best approach to entering the world of email marketing is to select the right software. Your marketing objectives, however, will develop as you expand. Therefore, it’s crucial for your brand that you pick a tool that will grow with you without costing a fortune.
Constant Contact and Mailchimp are two of the most popular choices among the 9 best email marketing software but there is plenty of room to pivot if you feel like another tool better fits your needs.
Testing a tool can be time-consuming so leveraging free trials or free accounts can save you some money from your marketing budget. Selecting the right tool comes down to your personal preference and your business goals. Until the next one, pick wisely!
Alex works at Moosend as a content writer. He took a chance and moved from his professional architectural career to the field of digital marketing and hasn’t looked back. He enjoys traveling to new areas throughout the world in his spare time.
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