Is Aweber just THAT much better?

by 34 replies
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Hey Warriors,

I just started a new service with a different autoresponder company with the plans to swap my entire aweber account over to this new company.

This NEW company is great! They have so many features and cool stuff and it's very customizable. They compare to aweber in that department and I'm really happy with this aspect. However, with my testing I've noticed all of the emails are going to the spam folder (this is a yahoo mail account that Im testing with).

I use both plain text and html and always provide a version of each. However, I never had a problem with the same emails going to the spam folder using aweber. In fact, that has only happened a handful of times when testing with Aweber.

This new company had lots of great reviews from other warriors and some even said the deliverability rate was better. . .

So, any thoughts on why this is happening with this new company and not with aweber? Is Aweber just that much better?

I'm strongly thinking of NOT switching over now . . .

Any thoughts/suggestions/comments?

Oh, I almost forgot the reason I am switching . . . This new company will save me over 20 dollars a month and even more once my list grows more and hits the next aweber price bump (which is coming up fast).
#main internet marketing discussion forum #autoresponder #aweber #spam
  • Aweber is the grandaddy of 'em all and I think is whitelisted in more places. I sat on the fence for years before I finally got going with them. One of the main reasons I picked them was their longevity/experience in the industry.

    Saving money is always a good thing but if deliverability drops too much then you're losing money on the other end???

    If your list grows and costs more then with a bigger list you should be making more (hopefully) so it's just a cost of doing business.
    • [1] reply
    • I don't see that deliverability on Aweber is better than any others (other than that the emails they send don't seem to end up in the spam box as often.)
      • [1] reply
  • You might also want to consider using Profollow, which is the "white label" version of Aweber at a much lower rate ($19.95 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers, and it's even cheaper if you pay in advance for several months or even a year at a time).

    You had better hurry though, as I think they're going to switch over to the same pricing plan as Aweber in about a week.

    Paul
    • [1] reply
    • You make a good point, but what comes to mind with this thought, how big of a difference is the white-listing? Cause if Aweber can dominate Profollow, and gets 10x better results, it could be worth it to bite the bullet and churn out the extra few bucks for the best.
      • [1] reply

  • Don't switch stick with Aweber. Their "deliverability" rate has no competition. That's the most important thing. At the same time it's so easy to use. It's makes everything run smoothly
    • [2] replies
    • How did you go about verifying this information before making such a statement?
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • Autoresponder threads are some of the most entertaining to read because of inaccurate statements made like the one above. I'm a mostly happy Aweber user myself and have been with them almost since their inception, but after testing and tracking millions of e-mails through their system (among other services like Getresponse, Constant Contact, etc.) among a wide variety of ISPs and domain names I've learned that "deliverability" rates are a moving target. No one ever stays "#1" permanently since it probably changes every nanosecond (I'm not kidding either). I've always been suspect of Aweber's own findings and studies over the years so I began doing my testing at the turn of the millennium.

      It's completely untrue that Aweber's delivery rates have no competition. Have you tested this versus other services or higher end self-hosted scripts where the company does have a staff to work on establishing relationships with large ISPs and the 101 other things one has to do to keep delivery rates high?

      I've only met a small handful of marketers who have tested delivery rates to the extent that we have and if any of them are being straight up honest with you they would never say XYZ company has the best delivery rates. For example, we sent out an e-mail broadcast a couple of days ago and in it there were over 1,000 test e-mails. We compared the data from those e-mails with our autoresponder test e-mails across a wide spectrum of niches.

      In SOME of the e-mails Aweber had better delivery rates. In SOME of the e-mails Getresponse performed better. In SOME of the e-mails Email Aces performed better (yep, still got my test account there baby!).

      While the preceding paragraph is a gross oversimplification of what goes into the testing we do, it does point out that there are MANY factors that are outside of the control of ANY autoresponder company you use or self-hosted software.

      Bottom line: if you ever want to find out which autoresponder service suits your business needs and budget, go out and TEST out a couple of services. Call / e-mail their customer service department (or sales depending on the company) and ask them questions. READ their entire website to find out what functionality they provide and their pricing structure.

      Does the company count unverified leads as a count in their database? What is their stance / policies regarding spam complaints?

      I could go on and on, but hopefully you get the point I'm trying to make. This is a great forum and you'll find some good advice here, but over the years I've learned that when it comes to autoresponder threads, hardly anyone has the facts because most marketers just don't do exhaustive testing of systems like Aweber and the like. You're better off asking people what company they are happy with and WHY and then do your own diligence.

      Happy Freaking Holidays!

      RoD "Too-much-coffee-and-Baileys-Makes-My-DNS-Go-Faster" Cortez
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • What is the website address of the new service? I could,'t see this in your post?
  • Banned
    Very typical story.

    Yes.

    Just what Paul is saying above, about Profollow - which is a white label version of Aweber. And the fact that there are only 2 or 3 days left, for the current pricing model, I think.

    Switching autoresponder companies is a nightmare, with enormous downside and very little upside. I can understand people wanting to switch from some dodgepot company to Aweber, just for the deliverability, but to do the reverse is really hard to imagine.
    • [1] reply
    • I know, it's just not worth the hassle of switching and losing subscribers in the process, especially if it's just to save a few dollars per month. In my opinion, your autoresponder is the last thing you'd want to skimp on with your IM resources/tools.
  • I've used aweber for over a year and I'm 100% satisfied. I wouldn't trade it with other companies, thats for sure!
  • automateyourlist.com is another white label Aweber (by Michael Rasmussen) - with the good old price and the upgrade to more advanced analytics is optional...
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Although aweber is one of the biggest, it isn't the best IMHO. Of course running my own growing autoresponder service makes me a bit bias, but we have spent the past 2 years and thousands of dollars building the same relationships with ISP's as aweber and getresponse and still provide our service for much less.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi, I was following this thread and spotted your post in ref to your own autoresponder service.

      We have an autoresponder service, but it is just one part of the list building tools we provide.

      We have a partnership program why by we can block off our own autoresponder and in place have yours.

      Advantage is that we provide the tools to build the lists so your customer remain customers foir longer.

      This is only a brief off the cuff introduction, if you want to see what we do PM me and i'll set you up with an account.
  • In my opinion Aweber is by far the best, for price, tracking, everything. Don't bother switching, even if there is a better auto responder service out there, the differences will be minimal.
  • Banned
    It'll be tough to dethrone Aweber in my view. For one, it's perceived to be a total hassle to switch (no idea if that's correct).

    But for two, I think I spend $50-ish per month based on my list size with Aweber. I KNOW aweber has great delivery rates, but I have no clue about anyone else. So even if someone tells me that ABC company has really good delivery and only charges $1/month....it's simply not worth it. The upside of saving $49/month is not worth the downside of emails not getting to where they should be going.

    If you're starting out, maybe it's a different story though.
  • Hey Warriors,

    Thanks for the replies. I actually figured out what I was doing wrong . . .

    I was using the template options and not correcting the "hard returns", after I corrected this all of the emails went to the inbox like normal.

    And I didn't mention the company in the OP because I did not want to "bad mouth" a particular company before I knew the facts . . .

    This company is Imnica (http://www.imnicamail.com) and they had a WSO going and my Aweber list is only about 1500 so I am paying $29 a month and will increase another $10 when I hit 2500. With the WSO I was able to get it for a little less than $7 a month for up to 5000 subscribers. I think the normal rate (non-wso) is $9.

    As for switching and losing subscribers, this was not a problem. I swapped my biggest list first (little over 700, so about half my total list) and it was super simple and hassle free. All I had to do was make a support ticket and send them my subscriber list in a spreadsheet and they did all the rest.

    The subscribers are not required to reconfirm like they are when you import them into aweber. However, if you wanted to they also offer you the option to have them reconfirm. When I woke up this morning I had an email saying my import was complete. It was less than 24 hours turnaround.

    I know all the reasons not to switch from Aweber, believe me I'm a huge believer in them. They just aren't fitting in with my budget at the moment (I am still a college student, keep this in mind ) and I am really happy to have found Imnica.

    Thanks for the help warriors!
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Aweber is a good service. I just started out with Getresponse and I have no problems with them at all.
  • Just curious, how many e-mails did you test and was it only on Yahoo?

    Did you also test different subject headings?

    RoD
  • Well, I think aweber is very nice. I used it before.
  • Pay your advisers and pay them well. That is an old saying and it applies to business. If you pay for a service and it costs you x per month, but it earns you 2x per month, then it is a worthwhile expense.

    You swap over to company B because they are cheaper and you now start earning 1.3x per month, then your cheap deal is costing you money.

    It is the old saying ... spend a dollar to save a cent.

    Are you in business or what?
  • Darren From Graphics Genie, and highimpactmarketing.uk (little plug for my firend there) told me aweber is what to go with, and If the Genie says it, I believe it!

    So anyway, he's also crazy about something called infusionsoft that I need to understand more.
  • If you setup your own internal systems properly, include captcha, double-opt in, can spam policies the whole nine yards, you shouldn't have any deliver-ability problems unless you have poor list building practices, or people clicking spam because you haven't made things super clear.
    I've tested out Aweber, MailChimp, GetResponse and many others. I will not use any of them. I will use self hosted stuff thanks.
    • [1] reply
    • Hmmmmm, something is not adding up here. You've "tested" many services and you came to the conclusion that it's better to self host? Were your self-hosted delivery rates really that much better than, lets say, Getresponse's?

      Another point, you've only mentioned about 2-5% of what goes into ensuring high delivery rates. Do you have your business / domain name white listed with major ISPs? Do you attend industry seminars and conferences to ensure you're on top of any changes in technology or even politics that might impact delivery? What system do you have in place to deal with bounce backs and undeliverables?

      By the way, doing all these things requires staff and expertise, something most marketers don't have. I've heard very good arguments on both sides, but for most of our online endeavors we use a service.

      RoD
      • [1] reply
  • I've only ever used Aweber so I can't compare to anyone else. However, I can say that I have always liked them a lot and highly recommend them. Never had any problems. I doubt I will ever switch unless for some reason they start going down the drain.
  • Aweber is most famous autoresponder I think. But its cost is too high. Why don't use private label of aweber? It has same features with low cost
    • [1] reply
    • Actually, there are companies out there, like Constant Contact or Getresponse who have far more users than Aweber does, so it's far from the "most famous".

      Also the private labels of Aweber do not have the EXACT same features of the actual Aweber. But if you want the same BASIC features and are on a tight budget, it's not a bad idea.

      Another private label of Aweber is Prosender.com.

      RoD
      • [1] reply
  • For any business the marketing leader provides comprehensive facility to equal charges. Still I satisfy with aweber service. Can you tell us your suggested one?
  • [DELETED]
  • I use Aweber and I love the newsletter features and the widgets making the blogs into newsletters. It rocks
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