Weighing up Constant Contact vs Mailchimp for your business? Here’s what you need to know to choose the best email marketing tool for you.
About Mailchimp
Starting as a bootstrapped side project in 2001,Mailchimphas now evolved to service 11 million active customers and a massive total audience of4 billion users.
Although it's best known as the most popular email marketing platform on the market, in the past couple of years Mailchimp has been expanding to a full marketing platform offering landing pages, automation, social media scheduling and much more.
About Constant Contact
Founded in 1995, Constant Contact is a popular marketing tool made to help small businesses craft effective marketing strategies.
With more than 600,000 customers, Constant Contact helps its users create websites, online stores, branded email marketing campaigns, and more.
Although Mailchimp is simple to use, it isn’t always straightforward to keep your lists organized. You’rerecommended to have one master listand use segments to determine which campaigns to send to a contact.
There’s also the difference between segments and tags to keep in mind: segments can be ready-made, custom or automated based on certain criteria, while tags are labels for contacts (for instance, "social media influencer").
With Constant Contact, organizing contacts tends to be cleaner and more intuitive.
See AlsoÖffnungszeiten im Supermarkt an Neujahr und Silvester: So haben Geschäfte geöffnet9 Different Types of Marketing Campaigns Ultimate Guide (2022) – Woorise BlogCover Letter for Internal Position: 09 Examples ideas |Snapchat For Business: The Ultimate Beginner's GuideEmail pro tip: Make sure you record the original source of a subscriber, such as signing up on your website, at a tradeshow or by downloading a resource. You need this record for data protection purposes – and it also helps you send the most personalized content.
The verdict on Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact for list management:Constant Contact keeps things simple when you need to manage lists of contacts.
(Video) Mailchimp vs Constant Contact - Which Is The Better Email Marketing Software?Constant Contact customers often praise their easy-to-use templates and design features. It’s especially easy to drag and drop blocks from integrated tools like Eventbrite, Shopify, MINDBODY, or Contact Contact’s survey tool.
Constant Contact offers a lot of ready-made templates and designs for you to choose from. If you’re happy with something cookie-cutter rather than perfectly matched to your brand, that can be a real time-saver:
Mailchimp also has user-friendly design features, as well as a range of templates for you to browse. These tend to bea bit more polishedthan Constant Contact’s. They also offer great block-based templates for you to drag your own content in to keep things on-brand.
Email pro tip: Once you have a customized template or two you’re happy with, it’s simple to clone those emails and edit the copy in the future to send your emails faster.
The verdict on Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact for templates and design:It’s a tie - both tools offer great templates.
Both Mailchimp and Constant Contact offer reporting and analytics dashboards, but they each have different strengths to consider here.
Constant Contact gives you all the key insights you need – including sends, bounces, open rates and click rates – on one simple graph.
With Mailchimp, it’s easy to see open rates, click rates and even an industry average open rates (although it’s debatable how useful or accurate this is) all in one chart.
(Video) Mailchimp vs Constant Contact: The Big Head to HeadUnlike Constant Contact, you can’t hide certain metrics on Mailchimp reports. That might be annoying if you wanted to screenshot your reporting for a company slide deck, for instance.
There’s a tab called “Revenue” on Mailchimp reports – this enables you to enhance your data with stats about the traffic and revenue generated by a campaign by integrating with Google Analytics.
The verdict on Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact for reporting and analytics:Mailchimp offers a more extensive reporting suite.
Your email marketing tool isn’t just for newsletters – to get the best value from it, you should be sending automated emails such as nurturing workflows too. This is possible with both Mailchimp and Constant Contact.
Automation is one area where Mailchimp edges ahead of Constant Contact. They offer the fullest automation suite at the lowest price point – you can access many of their automation features on theirfree plan(and yes, it’s really free).
Constant Contact gates their automation features (other than resends to “non-openers”) behind theirEmail Plus plan (from $45/month).
Here are some of the automation features you might want to use, with a comparison of what you’ll get from each tool:
- Welcome emails: Send these with Mailchimp’s Free plan or Constant Contact’s Email Plus plan (from $45/month).
- Nurturing workflow: You can automatically enroll new subscribers in workflows via Constant Contact’sAutomated Email Seriesfeature, or Mailchimp’sSubscriber Activity emails.
- Post-purchase emails: Mailchimp enables First Purchase and Product Follow-up emails.
- Abandoned basket emails:Mailchimp enables abandoned cart emailsfor stores they integrate with (no longer Shopify). Alternatively, Constant Contact offerscart reminder emails for Shopify.
- Retargeting emails: Mailchimp makes it easy tocombine email marketing with retargetingand remind website visitors of the great things they saw on your site.
- Re-engagement emails: Mailchimp offersCustomer Re-engagement Emails, while Constant Contact allows you to identify andtarget unengaged contacts with segmentation.
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Both Mailchimp and Constant Contact allow you to carry out A/B tests to experiment with different variations of your email and send the best option to subscribers.
With Constant Contact, you can only run tests on your subject line. Mailchimp offers a lot more scope for experimentation.
With Mailchimp's A/B testing, you can test up to three variations of your campaign – be it changes to subject line, body content, “from” field, send time, or any combination of the above. Before sending, you can specify how many people will receive the test version.
Mailchimp also offers multivariate testing, although this is only available on their Pro plan. What is multivariate testing? Simply put, it allows you to send up to 8 variations of your campaign.
The verdict on Mailchimp vs Constant Contact for A/B testing:Mailchimp offers more options.
Both Mailchimp and Constant Contact have some additional features beyond just email marketing and automation.
(Video) BEST Email Marketing Software 2022 (My TOP Recommendation)- Survey tool:Constant Contact makes it easy to send surveysto your email list, giving you a choice between hosting online or embedding in an email. Mailchimp does enableuse of merge tags for surveys, but otherwise you’ll need to integrate with SurveyMonkey. We recommend the Constant Contact survey tool if you’ll be sending them often.
- Postcards:Mailchimp offers an unconventionally old-school tactic with theirpostcards feature. It’s not the most ecological, but you might prefer sending a fun postcard over more traditional direct mail advertising.
- Donations:With Constant Contact, you can collect online donations securely and track donations on a custom landing page.
- Facebook, Google, and Instagram Ads:Mailchimp data shows thatcombining email with Google remarketing adscan boost your sales by an average of 107%. They also offer handy integrations for your Facebook and Instagram ads, so Mailchimp is better than Constant Contact if you’re looking for a holistic solution for a marketing team with a paid ads budget.
The verdict on Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact for extra features:It’s a tie, depending on what your business needs - each of these additional features might provide a specific added value that works for your niche.
When you’re choosing the best email marketing tool for your business, you need to be sure that your emails are actually going to be received by your contacts.
On the Constant Contact website, they claim that on average98% of Constant Contact emails hit customers' inboxes– compared to 77% of regular emails (data from Return Path 2017 Deliverability Benchmark Report). Constant Contact accepts that youmight see a much lower delivery rate, especially in the beginning.
InEmail Tool Tester’s recent research into email deliverability, Constant Contact was shown to have deliverability rates between 88 and 90.4. It’s hard to measure this accurately, though, as it can fluctuate so much.
However, based on these stats,Constant Contact has a higher average deliverability rate than Mailchimp.
Provider Deliverability % Jan 2019 Deliverability % July 2019 Deliverability % Feb 2020 Constant Contact 90.4 88 89.4 Mailchimp 81.6 90.6 81.6 *Email pro tip: improve your email deliverability by cleaning up old or incorrect emails that result in hard bounces.
The verdict on Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact for deliverability:Constant Contact has a higher average deliverability rate than Mailchimp as of February 2020.
Your email marketing tool is just one of the apps in your software stack. For the best results,it needs to be integrated with your other tools, such as your CRM, ecommerce tools, and other marketing apps.
Both Mailchimp and Constant Contact have native integrations with hundreds of other software applications.
If you run an ecommerce business, you will likely want to sync your email marketing tool with your ecommerce software, like Shopify or WooCommerce.
Mailchimp no longer has a direct connection to Shopify, as announced in a March 2019 statement. Constant Contact has built-in integration with Shopify, so ecommerce businesses might be more inclined to choose it over Mailchimp as their email tool.
In addition,Constant Contact has a great partnership with MINDBODYthat thousands of their customers in the wellness sector benefit from. If you host events,they also have an Eventbrite connection, enabling you to drag event blocks directly into emails.
The verdict on Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact for integrations:It’s a draw. Mailchimp is a great all-rounder - but if you’re using Shopify, Eventbrite or MINDBODY, you might prefer Constant Contact. Both Mailchimp and Constant Contact are supported by PieSync for two-way, real-time syncs.
If support and customer service are important to you, Constant Contact is our top choice. Whenever you’re using the tool, you’ll see a contact number and “Contact Us” button in the top navigation, so you can easily give them a call or open a ticket:
If you choose Mailchimp, getting hold of their support team can be more of a struggle.Mailchimp only offers phone support on Premium plans, which helps them keep their prices down. As a free user, you only have access to a support email address for the first 30 days, while paid users can contact customer service 24/7 via their support chat or email.
(Video) Mailchimp vs Constant Contact - Who Is The Winner?As Mailchimp is such a popular tool, you’re likely to find the answer to most queries with a quick Google search. However, if phone support is important to you, opt for Constant Contact – their phone support is often cited as a pro on review sites like Capterra.
The verdict on Mailchimp vs Constant Contact for customer service?Constant Contact offers more accessible customer service.
Mailchimp’s pricing page advertises “Tools for pros. Prices for everyone.” Mailchimp’s most popular plan is their Free plan, which allows you to store up to 2,000 subscribers and send 12,000 emails per month.
Constant Contact, on the other hand, doesn’t have a free plan. It does have a30-day free trial, but that’s not a long-term solution for your business – your minimum monthly spend afterward will be $20/month.
When comparing the basic plans of Mailchimp and Constant Contact, Mailchimp wins on every metric other than the number of emails you can send per month (12,000 versus no limit with Constant Contact).
While you can get started with the Mailchimp Free plan, you’ll eventually need to upgrade to the Essentials plan (from $9.99/month) if you have more than 2,000 subscribers on your list or you want to remove Mailchimp branding from your emails. You can also optimize your send time, deliver by time zone, get insights into audience demographics, and access email and chat support.
Mailchimp starts getting expensive as your list gets bigger, especially if you need premium support, advanced segmentation and multivariate testing. These features are all gated behind their Pro plan, starting at $199/month based on your list size.
To access all of Constant Contact’s features with the Email Plus plan, you’ll be paying upwards of $45/month depending on your list size. If you have 2,000 contacts, you’re looking at $70/month.
Pricing comparison of Mailchimp vs Constant Contact per number of contacts (paid monthly)
Constant Contact pricing Mailchimp pricing For 0-500 contacts $20/mo Free For 501-2,000 contacts $45/mo Free For 2,001-5,000 contacts $45 - $65/mo $29.99 - $49.99/mo For 5,001-10,000 contacts $95/mo $49.99 - $74.99/mo For 10,001-25,000 contacts $195 - $225/mo $74.99 - $189/mo For 25,000 + contacts From $295/mo From $189/mo The verdict on Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact for value for money:Mailchimp.
When to choose Mailchimp
- You want a fantastic brand experience
- You're looking for an extensive reporting suite
- You want a range of automation features to fit your price point
- You want the most value at the lowest price point (or free)
When to choose Constant Contact
- You want simple list management
- Top-performing deliverability is essential to you
- You want the most accessible customer support on lower price plans
- You're looking for a very easy-to-use platform
FAQs
What is easier to use Mailchimp or Constant Contact? ›
Mailchimp tends to be a better choice than Constant Contact if you're cost-conscious, need advanced reporting features, and want more extensive automation and A/B testing. However, if deliverability rates, ease of use, and customer service really matter to you, Constant Contact may be the best choice for you.
Which one is better Constant Contact or Mailchimp? ›In terms of A/B testing, automation, and reporting, Mailchimp will provide you with more advanced features. On the other hand, if you look for simplicity, better deliverability, and ease of use, Constant Contact may be a better choice.
Is Constant Contact outdated? ›It looks outdated and rather clunky. Because of this, we strongly recommend ignoring Constant Contact's premade designs and starting from scratch with a blank template instead. This will give you more control over your email's design, and help you create the look you want.
What are the cons of using Mailchimp? ›However, there are some downsides to using Mailchimp. First, it can be expensive if you have a large list. Second, the deliverability rates are not always great, which means your emails may end up in the spam folder.
What do you dislike about Mailchimp? ›You can not associate video to play within your email in Mailchimp, and it would be nice if they provided additional guidelines and explained what they are giving this time with the new function. All rights reserved.
Which is cheaper Mailchimp or Constant Contact? ›Mailchimp offers more affordable pricing—especially if you have smaller lists. Constant Contact and Mailchimp offer fairly different pricing structures. For starters, Constant Contact doesn't have a free plan (it offers a 60-day free trial, regardless of the number of subscribers or emails sent).
Can Mailchimp do Rsvps? ›Adding an RSVP button to your Mailchimp emails lets you take advantage of the following great features: Keep track of who's coming to your event. Collect the attendee's name, email address, and any other custom information that you want. Each event has a unique RSVP event page.
Why is Mailchimp so popular? ›Mailchimp offers simple marketing automation features
You have the option to split your audience with if/else rules, send different emails to different audiences, use time delays, tag and group your audience members, or even make subscribers repeat a journey.
- Best Overall: Mailchimp.
- Best for Automation: ActiveCampaign.
- Easiest to Use: MailerLite.
- Best All-in-One Marketing Suite: Hubspot.
- Best Affordable Option: Moosend.
- Best for E-commerce: Drip.
Moosend, MailerLite, and SendinBlue could be the smarter (and cheaper) choice. If we are going to compare, Mailchimp is a Constant Contact alternative that's more intuitive to use. It also has more modern email templates design.
What are alternatives to Constant Contact? ›
- Mailchimp.
- Adobe Marketo Engage.
- HubSpot Marketing Hub.
- Netcore Customer Engagement & Experience.
- Campaign Monitor.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
- Emma.
- Zeta Marketing Platform.
Constant Contact is our pick for the best email marketing service for small businesses. It has everything a small business needs to create effective campaigns, including affordable plans and easy-to-use tools.
What is Mailchimp abuse rate? ›The maximum allowed abuse rate is 0.1% (one in a thousand).
Is Mailchimp good for cold emails? ›Mailchimp is a great tool for email marketing, but not cold emailing. You can use it to send visual content to your newsletter subscribers, to someone who downloaded your ebook or filled out an order form.
Is Mailchimp good for beginners? ›Mailchimp is an easy to use tool with pretty intuitive UI. The more you'll use it, the more familiar you'll get. There's one key thing, though, you need to learn right from the beginning because they're super important: it's Merge Tags.
Why is Mailchimp unsubscribing people? ›The reason that people are unsubscribed without their knowledge is due to certain spam filters; some spam filters click all links in a message to check that the none of the links contain malware. An issue is that these spam filters even click the unsubscribe link in messages.
Can you get blacklisted using Mailchimp? ›The truth is that anyone can end up blacklisted, and some providers blacklist emails MailChimp sends.
Why are Mailchimp emails going to junk? ›Spam filters adapt to users' preferences, so several people marking your emails as spam can lead to your emails ending up in the spam folder. You can take steps to avoid people marking your emails as spam, including making sure you're not sending too many marketing emails to people on your mailing list.
What are the limitations of MailChimp free? ›The Free plan includes up to 500 contacts and 2,500 sends per month, with a daily send limit of 500. Note: Accounts on a Free plan that were created before August 29, 2022 include up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 sends per month, with a daily send limit of 2,000.
Is MailChimp worth using? ›MailChimp is a perfectly good tool for most English-speaking users, with its ease of use and range of features, as well as their free and pay-as-you-go plans. Keep in mind, though, that their subscription plans are relatively expensive compared to similar newsletter tools.
How many emails a day can I send with MailChimp for free? ›
You can upgrade to a new paid plan at any time. The Free plan includes up to 500 contacts across all audiences in your account, and up to 2,500 email sends per month. In any 24-hour period, you can send up to 500 emails. Subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts count toward your contact limit.
Does Constant Contact have an RSVP function? ›Once you send your email, you can see the reporting for your RSVP from the Email Details page in your account. From there you can drill down to see the individual contacts who clicked on the different button options in your RSVP and export a CSV file for each response type.
What is the easiest way to RSVP? ›The most traditional and common way to secure RSVPs for your wedding is with a response card. The response card (or RSVP card) is typically a small square or rectangular card that is sent along with your invitation.
How much does it cost to RSVP? ›The average cost per RSVP card — if ordering 100 invitations — is about $1.38 per RSVP card. If you're ordering less than 100 invitations, this cost is likely to go up by 20% or more. The fancier the RSVP card, the more expensive, of course. Premium RSVP cards can cost upwards of $5+ a piece.
Do big companies use Mailchimp? ›Some of the biggest companies that use Mailchimp include Vimeo, TED and New Belgium Brewing.
Does Amazon use Mailchimp? ›MailChimp integrates with Amazon Seller Central for email marketing purposes.
What large companies use Mailchimp? ›| Company | Website | Company Size |
|---|---|---|
| Search Engine Optimization, Inc. | seoinc.com | 500-1000 |
| Dailymotion SA | dailymotion.com | 500-1000 |
| NetSuite Inc | netsuite.com | >10000 |
| Acrelec SAS | acrelec.com | 500-1000 |
We all know that content marketing can help build your brand, drive customer engagement and increase revenue. But in order to be truly effective, follow the “5 Ts”: Tease, Target, Teach, Test and Track.
What do professionals use for email? ›The most professional way to setup an email address is to use your first name and last name without numbers. For example, john.smith@domain.com. You can also use just your first initial or last initial such as johns@domain.com or jsmith@domain.com.
What is the best email builder? ›- Constant Contact.
- Sendinblue.
- Moosend.
- Omnisend.
- SharpSpring.
- MailerLite.
- GetResponse.
- Zoho Campaigns.
Can you use Constant Contact as a CRM? ›
But let's be clear: Constant Contact is not a CRM system. A CRM system is a shared database. It is where you keep information about everyone that touches your business.
Why should I use Constant Contact? ›Benefits of Constant Contact include high rates of deliverability, and the ability to integrate social media and other features such as live events. Some drawbacks of the service include the high price point, as well as limited customization of automation and templates.
Does Constant Contact allow texting? ›Connect with your contacts through targeted text messaging using our integration with EZ Texting. Our integration with EZ Texting allows you to seamlessly sync, sort, and segment your Constant Contact email list. You can start sending group texts and direct messages to your list in no time.
What is the best contact method? ›Although texting and emailing someone is easy or more convenient, a phone call is typically the best way to build a genuine relationship, gather information, and truly understand the person you're working with.
Does Constant Contact use AWS? ›Moving from private to public. The next major initiative for Constant Contact is to migrate its applications from its private OpenStack-based cloud to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud.
Will Constant Contact remove duplicates? ›Thank you for reaching out to us through the Community. Our system will automatically dedupe the lists if the same contacts are spread over multiple lists. Also, any contact that unsubscribes will automatically be removed from all lists and will be placed within the Unsubscribed status.
Is email marketing still worth it in 2022? ›So, is email marketing still relevant in 2022? Yes, without a doubt. As you can see, the relevance of email marketing strategy shouldn't be a question at all. It is still the most direct line to internet users today, and it's effective too.
What is the 80/20 rule in email marketing? ›The 80/20 rule states that 80% of your opens, clicks and will come from 20% of your emails. When seeking new subscribers, you need to know which ones will fall into the 20%.
Is email marketing going away? ›Email marketing isn't dead. This marketing method is still a highly effective tool to use in 2022. However, many businesses are making mistakes with their marketing emails — and this means you might not see good results from your efforts.
How many newsletters is too much? ›On average, the best frequency for newsletters are no more than twice a week and at least once a month. In fact, more and more consumers want to receive emails from brands. 61% of consumers want to see at least one email a week from brands they follow. So sending out a weekly newsletter is what most audiences want.
What is the most commonly reported abuse? ›
Neglect is the most common form of child abuse.
How do I stop MailChimp spam? ›- Check SPF & DKIM Settings. ...
- Check with Mail-Tester. ...
- Search for domain in Spam Databases. ...
- Cleanup Your Lists. ...
- Check email body. ...
- Use Merge-tags. ...
- Subscriber outreach. ...
- Change sending domain.
You're not going to get in trouble. Will some contacts request that you stop sending them emails? Absolutely, and you do have to honor those requests. But in the U.S., cold emails are legal—and cold email campaigns work.
What is easier to use than Mailchimp? ›Some of the best Mailchimp alternatives for email marketing are Moosend, Hubspot, Omnisend, GetResponse, Constant Contact, MailerLite, AWeber, and Mailjet.
Can Mailchimp get hacked? ›"We recently experienced a security incident in which unauthorized actors targeted Mailchimp's crypto-related users by employing sophisticated phishing and social engineering tactics. Based on our investigation to date, it appears that 214 Mailchimp accounts were affected by the incident." - MailChimp.
What are the disadvantages of Mailchimp? ›However, there are some downsides to using Mailchimp. First, it can be expensive if you have a large list. Second, the deliverability rates are not always great, which means your emails may end up in the spam folder.
Is Mailchimp or get response better? ›GetResponse vs MailChimp at its core
Unlike Mailchimp, GetResponse is more user-friendly. Meaning that if both platforms have the same feature, it's easier to use in GetResponse.
Mailchimp is an easy to use tool with pretty intuitive UI. The more you'll use it, the more familiar you'll get. There's one key thing, though, you need to learn right from the beginning because they're super important: it's Merge Tags.
Is Constant Contact Easy? ›Constant Contact is definitely user-friendly OG solution for email newsletters, email list management, marketing emails and more. The user-interface and templates are good for beginners who don't want to have to hire a designer to build specialized software for sending emails.
What is Mailchimp's competitive advantage? ›Email Automation for Better Customer Experience
Well-thought-out and intuitive automation features are one of the biggest reasons behind the success of Mailchimp as an email marketing platform. They let you map out the entire customer journey (more on that later) through its automation triggers.
Why is Constant Contact The Best? ›
What Constant Contact Is Good At. Constant Contact eases beginners into the world of email, text, and social media marketing with a super user-friendly interface. It's a solid tool for small businesses that need easy list management, drag-and-drop templates, and time-saving automations.
What are the limitations of Mailchimp free? ›The Free plan includes up to 500 contacts and 2,500 sends per month, with a daily send limit of 500. Note: Accounts on a Free plan that were created before August 29, 2022 include up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 sends per month, with a daily send limit of 2,000.
Why should I use Mailchimp instead of Gmail? ›MailChimp has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1667 company stacks & 670 developers stacks; compared to Gmail, which is listed in 16 company stacks and 11 developer stacks.