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Mail Chimp vs Imnica Mail?

by Josh MacDonald
18 replies
How are your experiences with either of these in 2014? Aweber and other have been acting up recently and was wondering if these are too. Looking to compare these 2. Please no alternate recommendations.
#chimp #imnica #mail
  • Profile picture of the author cypherslock
    Imnica. Mail Chimp "doesn't support the Internet Marketing industry." No affiliate links, no nothing.
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    • Profile picture of the author test11223344
      Originally Posted by cypherslock View Post

      Imnica. Mail Chimp "doesn't support the Internet Marketing industry." No affiliate links, no nothing.
      How so? I've been using mailchimp for affiliate marketing and my own products with no issues at all.

      Granted, if you're just scraping emails then importing them into mailchimp to spam them, of course you'll have issues. But no mail service allows this anymore if you're caught because it's illegal.
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      • Profile picture of the author James Campbell
        Originally Posted by coreyvf View Post

        How so? I've been using mailchimp for affiliate marketing and my own products with no issues at all.

        Granted, if you're just scraping emails then importing them into mailchimp to spam them, of course you'll have issues. But no mail service allows this anymore if you're caught because it's illegal.
        Then you're lucky you haven't been shutdown yet. My advice would be to back-up your list and start searching for an alternative. MailChimp has shutdown accounts for having affiliate links on the page that the link in the email goes to (example: blog post promoting a product), they've also shutdown multiple accounts for sending promotional offers for products that aren't owned by the account holder.

        Just because you've gotten away with it so far does not mean it isn't a violation.

        Trust me, get your ducks in a row before crap hits the fan for you. By the time that happens, you'll be really upset if you haven't.
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      • Profile picture of the author James Campbell
        Originally Posted by coreyvf View Post

        . But no mail service allows this anymore if you're caught because it's illegal.
        Also, that is incorrect.

        It isn't illegal.
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  • Profile picture of the author cypherslock
    From their Acceptable Use Policy:

    "Some industries have higher-than-normal abuse complaints, which can in turn jeopardize the deliverability of our entire system. Nothing personal, but in order to maintain the highest delivery rates possible for all our customers, we can’t allow businesses that offer these types of services, products, or content:
    • Escort and dating services
    • Pharmaceutical products
    • Work from home, make money on online, and lead generation opportunities
    • Online trading, day trading tips, or stock market-related content
    • Gambling services or products
    • Multi-level marketing
    • Affiliate marketing
    • Credit repair and get out of debt opportunities
    • Mortgages and loans
    • Nutritional, herbal, and vitamin supplements
    • Adult novelty items or references
    • List brokers or list rental services"
    Because apparently showing folks how to make money online, or tools to help do so, is bad. *shrugs* makes no diff to me, I've got my own solution rolled into Amazon SES.
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  • Profile picture of the author cypherslock
    Josh, maybe take a look at www.imscrapidmailer.com. No more restrictions on what you can do with your list, and no monthly fees. True once you hit a certain level with a third party (like Amazon - 10k emails) you pay a dollar, but this is the best way to have total control without having a self-hosted option (though you can, but it's really more trouble than it's worth).
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    • Profile picture of the author mushmush
      Originally Posted by cypherslock View Post

      Josh, maybe take a look at www.imscrapidmailer.com. No more restrictions on what you can do with your list, and no monthly fees. True once you hit a certain level with a third party (like Amazon - 10k emails) you pay a dollar, but this is the best way to have total control without having a self-hosted option (though you can, but it's really more trouble than it's worth).
      Many people don't have the skills to use many networks for one service. Using this network and adding it amazon or another is so much hassle.
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      • Profile picture of the author cypherslock
        Originally Posted by mushmush View Post

        Many people don't have the skills to use many networks for one service. Using this network and adding it amazon or another is so much hassle.
        Most people don't want to learn. There are training videos and a knowledgebase. Setting up Amazon was "fun" but that wasn't the fault of the software, that's how Amazon works. SendGrid was easy.

        Yeah there are a lot of options, but getting the basics up is not hard or time consuming. It's a trade off: if you don't want to pay monthly and potentially have your list yanked out from under you or have to pay a ton when it gets big, you go with a self-hosted option.

        If that's too much hassle, you pay, just be aware that you have a lot less control.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeAmbrosio
          Originally Posted by cypherslock View Post

          Most people don't want to learn. There are training videos and a knowledgebase. Setting up Amazon was "fun" but that wasn't the fault of the software, that's how Amazon works. SendGrid was easy.
          One thing I learned over the years as a webhost, webmaster, script installer, and trainer etc. is that one man's "easy" is another man's "WTF!" I have made COUNTLESS how to videos over the past 12 years and as easy as I thought they were to follow, well, others didn't think so

          Originally Posted by cypherslock View Post

          Yeah there are a lot of options, but getting the basics up is not hard or time consuming. It's a trade off: if you don't want to pay monthly and potentially have your list yanked out from under you or have to pay a ton when it gets big, you go with a self-hosted option.

          If that's too much hassle, you pay, just be aware that you have a lot less control.
          Maybe I'm missing something, but in my research, both Amazon and SendGrid cost money, so I don't know what you mean "don't want to pay monthly". Do these services have free options?

          For the benefit of those who are not familiar with self-hosting an autoresponder/emailer...

          MAN, there are so many things you have to be careful of. Even if you are not the spamming type, you WILL get spam complaints. People are just like that. If you self host and you are on a shared hosting account, let me save you some time. Don't bother. I was a webhost way back. I hated those who emailed from my server.

          Webhosts will suspend your account with just one complaint.

          If you have a dedicated server, it's a little better, but then you have to worry about keeping your IP address clean and white listed. That's no fun. Some of the first who will not accept your emails are GMail and Yahoo, etc. This can be a constant battle. And even though it's a dedicated server, you can still get shut down.

          Amazon and SendGrid (and any similar service) also have spam rules and can/will shut you down with too many complaints.

          Self hosting email/autoresponder is not a "set and forget" proposition. Aweber, GetResponse, etc. may get expensive, but frankly not until you have a decent sized list. By that time, you should be making MORE than enough to pay for a service.

          And THEY worry about all the crap I mentioned above.

          Sometimes, paying those monthly fees is well worth the aggravation it saves
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  • Profile picture of the author Coyotex
    I have been using Mailchimp for a couple of years and have had ZERO issues with them. I'll admit, my list isn't anywhere near the big dogs, but for my purposes it has served me just fine.

    This is straight from Mailchimp, the last two sentences are the key, IMHO:

    "MailChimp doesn't stop campaigns that contain any affiliate links, just campaigns that contain URLs that are on blacklists. If you send an email that links to a blacklisted URL, spam filters may block your message completely. This can hurt our network's reputation with internet service providers and spam filters, subsequently jeopardizing deliverability for all our users"

    "If you're an author or professional blogger or business owner that sends permission-based emails full of content that your recipients are expecting, and the content isn't prohibited under our Terms of Use, and you don’t violate any spam laws, you will likely never experience any problems using MailChimp, even if you include affiliate marketing links. If you're someone who calls yourself an affiliate marketer whose content is strictly to gain a commission, MailChimp isn't for you."
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  • Profile picture of the author ddev
    Imnica? Really?

    You can't reach Gmail, Yahoo and tons more with it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Roberts
    Was happy with Imnica for several years until they shut down my account without warning. When I appealed they cited too many spam complaints, which was odd because all my email addresses were from legit signups, with optout links in every mail. When I checked my dashboard (having been granted access again) there had been ONE spam complaint that I could see. To be fair to them, Raymond, their tech support guy, was v good and helped me get my account back, but the whole thing put me off.
    Perhaps the lesson is that you get what you pay for...
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce NewMedia
    I can't comment on MailChimp, but Imnica has the worst delivery of any service I've tried over the last 4 years.

    You can expect almost 100% of your emails to go to spam. Their reputation with the major email providers like Gmail, Yahoo etc is awful. It is so damaged that no matter what you send, how you format it, how many spam filters you run, how careful you are, it does not matter. I tested this thoroughly and consider them not a service for serious marketers.

    My open rate and the sales that followed, TRIPLED overnite when I switched to Aweber.
    ______
    Bruce
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  • Profile picture of the author cypherslock
    Amazon and SendGrid do, only once you get past around 12000 emails a month. Then it is $0.10 per "thousand" so yes there's a cost...but negligible.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeAmbrosio
      Originally Posted by cypherslock View Post

      Amazon and SendGrid do, only once you get past around 12000 emails a month. Then it is $0.10 per "thousand" so yes there's a cost...but negligible.
      I've had my Aweber account since 2006 so I still pay 2006 prices. And interestingly, they just upgraded my account to include all those tracking tools they added when they tripled their prices back then - at no additional cost. So I only pay like $35 a month.

      And FWIW, in the nearly 10 years I have been with them, I have never had any issues with them. Deliverability can be sketchy at times, but when it seems to get bad they deal with it.
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      Are you protecting your on line business? If you have a website, blog, ecommerce store you NEED to back it up regularly. Your webhost will only protect you so much. Check out Quirkel. Protect yourself.

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  • Profile picture of the author cypherslock
    That's it: Use whatever works right? I think what most look for is not to pay anything at all ever, which is the wrong way to run a business.
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  • Profile picture of the author luciesmazanska
    Definitely Amnica, you can use Affiliate links, clickbank and others, in MailChimp you cant do that,
    on the other hand MailChimp has a better delivering of emails like Amnica
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  • Profile picture of the author ddev
    Yes, with Imnica you can add affiliate links...talk about life in Mars etc...

    the problem is that (as many warriors agree).... its reputation is so damaged,

    that you won't be able to reach most of your recipients (no Gmail, No Yahoo
    No nothing).

    This is a fact. And you can manually test this (or use online services).
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