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How good or bad is iContact? (not Aweber!)

by SoundsGood
11 replies
Stop! Before someone starts talking about how great Aweber is, I already know.

The thing is, I'm thinking about MAYBE doing some offline stuff, and I want the ability to add these (potential) clients to a list -- without them needing to double-opt-in. iContact allows this. Aweber doesn't.

So... for those of you that have actually used iContact, could you please share some comments on how you like them? Good, bad or indifferent?

Thanks!
#aweber #bad #good #icontact
  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Brock
    I know my first experiences with them have been poor so far - it could have partially been my fault, but still...

    They froze my account during prelaunch for too much activity and made me reconfirm everyone. Lost about 40% of my opt-in leads because of that - definitely crippled my pre-launch, and significantly lowered EPCs for people who mailed during pre-launch.

    I say its partially my fault because I should have called them to give them advance notice.
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    • Profile picture of the author secrets2010
      Originally Posted by Daniel Brock View Post

      I know my first experiences with them have been poor so far - it could have partially been my fault, but still...

      They froze my account during prelaunch for too much activity and made me reconfirm everyone. Lost about 40% of my opt-in leads because of that - definitely crippled my pre-launch, and significantly lowered EPCs for people who mailed during pre-launch.

      I say its partially my fault because I should have called them to give them advance notice.
      May I ask how many leads were you getting during prelaunch?
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  • Profile picture of the author fiero
    Originally Posted by SoundsGood View Post

    Stop!
    :
    :
    iContact allows this. Aweber doesn't.
    :
    :
    Probably not the reply you're looking for. But, this is possible in your Aweber account, you can turn off the "Confirmed Opt-in Status". Though advise using caution when disabling confirmation.
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    • Profile picture of the author neil_patmore
      They froze my account due to an apparently high unsubscribe rate, which was not high at all.

      They then demanded I made some pedantic changes to the opt in form before I could continue.

      Needless to say, I don't use them anymore.

      They have a great control panel, but their priorities seem to be about protecting their deliverability rate over and above providing a flexible service for their customers.
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      • Profile picture of the author Krieger
        Originally Posted by SoundsGood View Post

        Stop! Before someone starts talking about how great Aweber is, I already know.
        Except that it isn't:
        AWeber Database Hacked, Email Addresses Stolen. Again. | BustSpammers.com

        As an ex-AWeber user, I was appalled at not just the fact that they let that happen twice already, but especially about how incredibly poorly they handled the situation.

        I am trying out iContact right now.

        Originally Posted by neil_patmore View Post

        They have a great control panel, but their priorities seem to be about protecting their deliverability rate over and above providing a flexible service for their customers.
        I for one am glad about that priority. Deliverability is what I use such service for, otherwise I could just set up my own scripts. And I'd rather not have my inbox rates impacted because someone else on their service uses a dirty list or other less than spotless methods to acquire subscribers or in their mailings. The suggestions they made are probably for the better even for you. If you have a high unsubscribe rate, there's a reason for that.
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        • Profile picture of the author neil_patmore
          It was literally 3 unsubscribes in a row, that was it. Within the first 100 of a 10k list. All double opt in during the customer account creation process from our website.
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  • Profile picture of the author SoundsGood
    Okay, thanks guys...
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  • Profile picture of the author Ridgway
    I inherited a 65,000 list that was hosted on iContact. Since moving larger lists to other providers is a major pain, we decided to stay with it and give it a try.

    Not recommended. Seemed like a steady stream of issues, deliverability was low, and the cherry on top was they wanted to us to re opt-in the entire list since we weren't the original owners.

    That was the wrong answer. Moved to SendPepper / Office Autopilot. Not perfect, but has worked out well. They helped us migrate the list without issue.
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  • Profile picture of the author TopKat22
    I helped a client and set up the campaign in icontact for the same reason you state.

    We did the first email and with all the spam reports (all these people HAD indeed double opted in but it had been a while since this client had sent out an email).

    icontact closed the account immediately because they only gave us 3 days to prove the double opt ins and his records were not readily available.

    Even before the account was closed, a lot of the emails bounced.

    I have also tried several other autoresponder services and the same thing happened.

    Basically, no one will keep you as a customer with a high spam rate. The company you didn't want to mention, just stops it before the first email.

    If you do not think you will get a lot of spam reports, try it yourself and see how it works for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author SimpleSchooling
    I used iContact a while back but was very unhappy with customer support. They were never open on weekends...specifically, I really don't remember much more than I was REALLY pissed off and yanked my list over to Constant Contact and canceled my iContact account in one day. I'm still at CC and it's been over a year. CC takes your word for it that your list is your list too...at least they did when I transferred mine over, and they don't make you send another opt in, you just click a disclaimer that says the list was gained legally and with permission. In fact, you don't even have to do a double opt-in at CC if you don't want, but I do anyway. Hell, if I'm paying for each name on the list I want to make sure they at least want to be on my list.
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