GetResponse vs Aweber vs MailChimp

Ask any email marketer and they could easily explain the importance of email marketing. To facilitate strategic email marketing and increase deliverability and conversions, a handful of companies provide highly customizable and powerful email solutions ideal for most types of organizations. GetResponse, Aweber and MailChimp are among the top 3 email marketing service providers in the world today. They have extensive features suitable for all kinds of businesses and are ideal for any number of subscribers to a website. You can scale easily and also migrate from existing email providers to ease your campaign monitoring and end user experience.

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Over the years I have used a number of email marketing solutions to test the ideal one for me. I started with MailChimp and then moved to GetResponse and then to Aweber and other like Mad Mimi. There was a time I have tried Mandrill and Sendgrid to reduce costs while maintaining deliverability. Word to the wise: Mandrill, Sendgrid and others like it are not worth the effort.

After enough research about the numerous email marketing services out there, I finally settled down with GetResponse. I settled at it not because it is better than the others but it suited my requirements. Your requirements may well be fulfilled by any other solutions. But to find which one might be ideal for you read through this guide and decide for yourself.

GetResponse Vs Aweber Vs MailChimp

Deliverability

Deliverability of your email to your clients is of utmost importance. Prices and other features come only later. If you choose an email service provider that charges less but doesn’t deliver your emails, the little amount you pay is also wasted. With the current statistics stating that more than 24% of all emails sent are undelivered due to one or the other reason, it is highly important to focus on this aspect at first.

All three services, MailChimp, Aweber and GetResponse offer high rates of deliverability. Even though their prices are quite high when it comes to high volume subscriptions, their network and server never falter or keep emails undelivered. Historically however, Aweber has maintained a reputation for high rates of deliverability. Even when compared to MailChimp that works on the Mandrill engine, Aweber stands out. But that doesn’t mean that MailChimp and GetResponse are bad ones. They just don’t have the historical record that Aweber has. Their services have gone through numerous improvements to increase deliverability and stability across geographies that they are now able to compete with anyone.

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Forms and Templates

Prebuilt forms and templates are the primary reason why email service providers have gained significant popularity over the years. All the three service come with hundreds and thousands of email templates and signup forms ideal for all kinds of websites and blogs.

GetResponse provides an email creator that is every bit advanced and full of features like any top notch application. It’s a web based interface that provides 500+ prebuilt newsletter templates along with more than a thousand stock photos. You can also create your own email designs if you know how to code with HTML and CSS. Numerous other features along with sign up form builders and landing pages make it a favourable solution in comparison to other email marketing services.

Aweber is no less either. It provides more than 700 free to use newsletter templates along with more than 6000 stock photos. It also provides a code editor that is ideal for creating any type of custom email design. It also allows you to A/B test your forms to provide the highest impact possible. The drag and drop editor is a breeze to use and can be used to build any type of complex email designs as per user requirements.

MailChimp introduced the idea of prebuilt templates and took it to the next level by allowing users to crease flexible forms ideal for any screen or device. Each email that you create is automatically converted into different responsive options allowing your users to easily read with any mobile or lower resolutions device. It works on the basis of established workflows and is ideal for beginners who are new to email marketing and want to stick to an established workflow to optimize their conversions.

Pricing Comparision

All three services, Aweber, MailChimp and GetResponse provide a free option that would be ideal for most beginners. MailChimp allows its users to send up to 12,000 emails to up to 2000 subscribers for free along with all kinds of standard options. You can try the services of GetResponse for 30days and then choose to either buy or discard their services. After the first month, you have to pay $15 for the 1000 subscribers and the prices go up with increasing number of subscribers. Aweber starts with $19 per month for up to 5000 subscribers and then goes up with higher rates. Aweber is the most costly option but it is only meant for already established business. If you are a newbie, you should always go with MailChip and then move onto better services as per your requirements.

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Auto responders

When it comes to email marketing, Automation of the basic workflows is highly important to increase the impact on your audience. Without marketing automation, you’ll have to stay up late at night only to target the people in some other time zone. However powerful automation features allow you to target any type of customer with any type of requirements with prebuilt mechanisms that can easily increase your ROI.

MailChimp provides a powerful automation dashboard that allows you to create personalized responders ideal for each type of client. It also allows you to target your customers based on their web activity and behaviour. In this way you can easily target any customer and their behavioural patterns to increase conversion rate and therefore business ROI.

Aweber comes with all similar functionalities but also has additional features with powerful analytical tools to track your visitors and also target them depending on their behavioural patterns. According to some surveys, Aweber is said to fare better in terms of customer engagement while also

Ease of Integration

Ease of integration with external services like Hoot Suite and the availability of applications for various devices and operating systems is highly important to be able to manage your email subscribers engagement better. MailChimp comes with the best integration options and also provides aps for various social media tracking suites. It also provides app for mobile devices that allow you to control and manage your campaign from literally anywhere.

If you are into affiliate marketing, then MailChimp is not going to tolerate your actions. Although Aweber and GetResponse would tolerate up to some extent, you’ll always have to face problems marketing your affiliates through any of these email service providers.

Customer Service

Even the expert email marketers tend to face some unexpected problems when dealing with high volume subscription accounts and managing multiple email campaigns. Therefore this is one of the major features that differentiates the three competitors. Aweber is the most active and the best customer oriented email service provider while GetResponse stands second. Although MailChimp also provides excellent customer service, there are often complaints by numerous users about unresolved problems on various blogging forums.

My Recommendation

If you are a newbie, then you should always start with MailChimp. This provides you an introduction in to the world of email marketing and takes your knowledge to the next level. You’ll also learns a lot which you won’t if you go with any other solutions. Moreover, it provides free services up to a limit which would ideal for most of your requirements. If you directly skip to GetResponse or Aweber, you’ll find yourself browsing through their docs every now and then. After you have spent enough time on MailChimp and want a more powerful service for your website, you can either upgrade your plan or move on to GetResponse. This provides you utmost flexibility in terms of the services and features that you can use to increase your conversion rate. Then you may choose to either increase your marketing campaign costs while opting for more powerful and stable features with Aweber. Without this structure you’ll often face a number of problems while running your campaign.