If you’re looking for a reliable email marketing platform for your company, you’ve got plenty of tools to choose from. To make your choice easier, we’ve put together this quick comparison that focuses on two of the best options: MailChimp vs Constant Contact. Discover their pros, cons, and main features.
Written By Henry Walden - Digital Marketing Expert Updated: 09/02/2021 |
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Score | 8.3/10 | 8.1/10 |
Summary | This user-friendly platform can be used both by newbies and experienced marketers and offers multiple advanced features. | This platform provides an intuitive interface, advanced list management features, and great customer support. |
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Pros |
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Cons |
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Key Features |
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Pricing |
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Support |
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Ease of Use |
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Best fit for | Both beginner and advanced marketers | Medium and advanced marketers |
Email building features are extremely important when you create campaigns. Let’s see what MailChimp vs Constant Contact offer.
MailChimp offers a straightforward email-building process thanks to its drag-and-drop builder. The platform also features beautiful email templates that help you create responsive campaigns. More than 100 themes are available, and the range of templates cover different areas such as eCommerce, newsletters, or follow-up emails. However, only basic templates are available with the basic plan.
Constant Contact also offers pretty good autoresponders. The email builder is also easy to use thanks to its drag-and-drop functionality. You can customize your email campaigns based on your brand by using the company’s website URL to make your emails match your brand’s style and color. The platform also offers customizable email templates (around 500) and dynamic content functionality.
Winner
It’s a tie, both platforms offer good features.
To improve your campaigns’ performance, you should be able to test with different email versions.
MailChimp allows you to A/B test your campaigns, set specific goals, and choose the winning criteria that is the most relevant for your business. Moreover, with MailChimp, you can also test preview your email for different devices by using the integration with Inbox Preview. To get more previews, you can buy tokens.
Constant Contact also has spam testing. This feature is based on a content-filtering tool and aims to help you increase your email deliverability. It’s easy to use this tool by clicking on the emails tab and, from the email layout page, selecting the Anti-Spam Check button. The tool will show you an overall score that can range from 0 to 10+
Winner
We choose MailChimp as it offers more complex testing capabilities.
Segmenting your audience based on their interests allows you to target your campaigns better and achieve higher open rates.
MailChimp features an advanced segmentation tool that accurately divides your contacts into different groups based on their behavior by leveraging machine learning capabilities. The segments are also dynamic, which means changes occur in real-time as contacts take different actions.
Constant Contact also offers segmentation options, although they are more limited compared to MailChimp’s. You can use different basic conditions to create segments, for example, if a client opened an email. Since you can integrate the platform with Shopify or other online stores, you can also segment your audience based on their purchases.
Winner
MailChimp wins for its advanced and powerful segmentation tool.
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Automation features allow you to send emails based on your contact’s actions, with minimum effort. Once an automated workflow is configured, it needs no further intervention.
MailChimp provides numerous automation options. The automation builder is intuitive. To create an email sequence, you can choose from a wide array of triggers such as a new subscriber joining your list, opening an email, or completing a purchase. You also get ready-made workflows for different purposes: newsletter sign-up, abandoned cart, transactional emails.
Constant Contact also features powerful automation capabilities. Besides regular email sequences, this platform also offers social media automation. You can configure autoresponders for different occasions such as a new contact joining your list, an anniversary, or reminders to complete certain actions. The integrations with Shopify, Facebook, or MindBody help you easily send automated emails at the best time based on your contacts’ behavior.
Winner
Constant Contact’s automation seems to be more advanced and flexible.
Let’s take a quick look at the forms you can build with MailChimp vs Constant Contact.
You can convert leads with MailChimp’s forms by connecting them to your marketing CRM. The platform allows you to easily embed forms on your website, on any part of your page and choose when you want them to appear. The drag-and-drop editor makes form-building easy to customize by adding fields, changing colors, etc.
You can easily create and customize your sign-up forms from an intuitive builder. The content will be mobile-optimized and dynamic. You can also install a one-time code that will enable the forms to update on your website whenever necessary.
Winner
MailChimp wins this round too as it offers more customization options.
The price you have to pay for your email marketing platform will probably influence your purchase. Here are the different options these tools offer.
MailChimp offers a free plan you can use to send up to 10,000 emails per month. The paid plans start at $9,99/month for a maximum of 500 contacts. The Standard plan costs $14.99/month and it also includes customized templates and dynamic content. With the Premium plan, you can enjoy the full range of features MailChimp offers such as multivariate testing, advanced segmentation, or unlimited seats, and role-based access. This plan costs $299 per month.
Unfortunately, this platform doesn’t offer a free plan. However, there is a 60-days trial. The starting price is $29/month for 500 contacts and for a contact list of 501 - 2,500 contacts, you have to pay $45 per month. The second plan also grants access to advanced social media tools.
Winner
MailChimp is more affordable.
Both these platforms are quite easy to use. Let’s see why.
MailChimp features a modern and clean user interface that works quite fast. When you create campaigns, you can easily move back and forth to check your content. The form builder is also user-friendly. The platform features a checklist-style interface which makes it easy to use for beginners as it shows the steps you have to take at each stage.
Constant Contact features a straightforward interface where all the main functions are easy to access. Moreover, given that it has fewer options, the interface seems more intuitive than MailChimp’s. One of Constant Contact’s advantages is the fact that it automatically tailors the dashboard based on each user’s experience level.
Winner
We choose Constant Contact for its simplicity.
Integrations refer to connections to third-party services.
MailChimp offers more than 800 integrations for different purposes such as content management, social media, or customer management. PayPal, Facebook, ShopSync, WooCommerce, Canva, Drupal, Stripe are some of the existing integrations.
You can connect Constant Contact to approximately 350 third-party services. Shopify, BigCommerce, Facebook, Etsy, Eventribe, Genbook are some of its integrations.
Winner
MailChimp offers more integrations. However, keep in mind it no longer integrates with Shopify.
Reports are essential for a robust, data-driven email marketing strategy.
MailChimp allows you to monitor all the essential aspects related to your campaigns’ performance such as opened emails, clicked links, bounces, new subscribers, etc. Besides these, you can also benefit from social media reports, click maps, location reports, or get insights into how many emails were sent per email provider. For eCommerce, the platform offers a useful conversion tracking feature.
Constant Contact also provides you with several real-time metrics. You can analyze how well your campaigns are performing in terms of open rates, unsubscribes, spam, clicked links, or bounces, but also visitor activity on your website. The average time visitors spend on your page, the highest traffic sources and plenty more insights are available. Store reports are also available for eCommerce: top-selling products, total revenue, conversion rates.
Winner
Both platforms offer many reporting features, however, we choose MailChimp again because it centers more on campaign insights.
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Customer support is an essential factor to consider before purchasing new software. Here is an overview of MailChimp vs Constant Contact’s support opinions.
MailChimp offers multiple customer support options, but the possibilities are rather limited for the lower tiers. With the free plan, you can only rely on the platform’s knowledge base. However, you can really find everything you need there, including step-by-step guides or useful videos. Email and live chat support are available 24/7 as soon as you get a paid subscription. To enjoy phone support, you need to get the highest plan.
Constant Contact offers support through different channels: email, live chat, phone, community, or knowledge base. You can easily access email support by clicking on the Contact Us drop-down menu. However, the agents don’t offer 24/7 support. The live chat function, on the other hand, is harder to find, you have to browse for a bit through the support pages to come across it. As an extra, the platform offers the possibility to reach out via Twitter too.
Winner
Both platforms have their pros and cons in terms of customer support. However, we choose MailChimp because it offers help 24/7.
Each one of these tools is more suitable for a particular audience.
MailChimp is suitable for marketers of any level. Whether you’re a newbie or you’ve been working in this field for a while and you are looking for advanced segmentation and automations, you can rely on this platform. The easy configuration and guided approach make it suitable for everyone, especially small companies since this is an affordable tool.
Constant Contact can also be a great choice for beginner or medium marketers as it is extremely easy to use. It provides a personalized dashboard that will help you save time and make sure all the tools you need are easy to access. However, this platform is a bit pricier, which might not make it suitable for small companies or freelancers.
Each platform has its pros and cons. Here’s a summary.
MailChimp is an affordable and intuitive platform. It offers advanced segmentation and great email and form design options. Nonetheless, its segmentation is a bit rigid and there is no support for the free plan.
Constant Contact provides an intuitive customizable dashboard. It offers numerous useful reports as well as robust integrations, however, it lags behind MailChimp in terms of segmentation and design options.
If you are still looking for alternatives for these two tools. Here are two reliable options:
ActiveCampaign: offers advanced automation capabilities, numerous email design options, flexibility in creating landing pages, and different campaign testing options.
GetResponse: offers outstanding tagging and list segmentation capabilities, accurate and diversified A/B testing, ROI tracking, and myriad form-building options.
In this MailChimp vs Constant Contact comparison, MaiChimp came out as the winner in most rounds such as segmentation, reporting, or integrations, so it is fair to consider it the final winner.
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