Sep 18
iContact Review
A lot of us bloggers are serious about what we do. As such, we treat our blogs like our business and need tools to help our business run effortlessly, smoothly, and professionally.
iContact is a website (and probably more to the point) a set of tools that gives webmasters and business professionals the ability to easily take care of common marketing tasks such as newsletters and mass e-mailings.
First Impressions
As I start with most of my reviews, I had to take a look at the website. Most of the sites I’ve been reviewing lately have that “fresh and clean” look and iContact Email Marketing Software is no exception.
Everything that you want to find in regards to the product is right at the top, so finding what you need is a breeze.
Features That You’ll Smile About
Depending on your level of computer proficiency, you may find some of their tools beneath you, but for regular business folk who are still getting up to speed with computers and the net, a lot of these are sure to peak their interest. Check out a few of them:
* WYSIWYG Newsletter Editor
* Mass E-Mailings take the load off of YOUR server!
* Contact Management System and Follow-up System
* Make surveys, web signup forms and more…
Is This Right for You?
If you’re a business professional who does a lot of salesperson like tasks, I could see iContact being gold. Especially considering you can use it for as little as $9.99 per month and you have the ability to access it from any computer. For others, you may not immediately see the need for something like iContact but then again, sometimes you need a set of tools to remind you that you should be reaching out to customers (and not just the first time) but months down the line. Sure, with a little elbow grease and knno how, a few of us could create a set of tools like iContact Email Marketing Software for personal use, but as they say – “Time is Money” and it looks like iContact could’ve already put in all the time for us. *nod*
April 15th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
@Thomas – You may want to verify that the code that was “given” to your client, did indeed come from iContact. The existing signup form code options allows for your choice of javascript or standard HTML versions. I am assuming that your client opted for the HTML version, which is easily manipulated to meet the form-fit and functional characteristics of your client’s website/application. Our standard Signup Forms are not wrapped in any type of anchor, nor are the subscribers forwarded to a page with a submit image. When subscriber click on the submit button to authorize their subscription, they are forwarded to a success landing page of the Client’s choosing. I would suggest signing up for a FREE 15-day Trial of our product, and verify for yourself how our signup forms truly function, and also check out some of our various features and services included as part of all subscription packages: BLOGs, Newsletter Archives, Surveys, List Organization, List Segmentation, Custom Fields, Auto-Responders, Full Statistical Tracking of Published Content, Campaign Management, Signup Form Management, Viral Marketing Tools (Forward-to-a-Friend), Image Library, RSS Feeds, and especially our newest product enhancement, the iContact Community (http://Community.iContact.com).
April 15th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Hi – I use iContact for one of my client sites, and to be honest – although there is a lot I can say that is good, I wish I had gone for a different provider. I have had one problem since starting to use their service that will not go away. It’s complicated, but put simply, sometimes, the system refuses to send a confirmation message out to people who sign up for the newsletter. This means I have to manually monitor the list and manually invite each person so affected. I have contacted iContact lots of times, but they do nothing to address the problem. They say they will escalate it, but never do.
What is worse is that they seem to staffed by a bunch of people who have been trained to say stock phrases, rather than actually think. I despair – I am on the point of tearing my hair out. It does not matter what you say to them they just repeat the same answer. It is like they don’t know how to problem solve – like they are aliens from another planet where they think a customer is happy if you manage to get rid of him without addressing his problem. I end up having to make suggestions to them on what could be wrong with their software.
I am thinking of moving to another provider before our list grows any bigger, but I am afraid the next lot will be worse.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Hey Liz,
In case, you check back try Constant Contact they have a free version so you can try it out to see whether you like it. This is the software I used in the corporate and nonprofit setting, and with my own business. In the corporate setting we used the paid version and the non profit we used the free version. I never had an issue, and our list (for corporate and my business) had/have hundreds of subscribers. http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp
April 15th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
@Liz -
Wow. Well first, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been having so many problems with iContact. I’m not apologizing of course because I’m in anyway affiliated with the company, but just because from your comment, I can feel your anguish.
So is that the only complaint you’ve had with the service? (Just curious)
April 15th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Look Bush – I don’t have anything against aliens from another planet, I used the term to mean – it’s like they operate via a set of rules with which I am not familiar.
I can’t believe I am not a typical customer – although I do have a very technical background and worked in customer support myself for a few years, I can’t be the only one who can code a form without having to point and click to do it.
When I was in support, my experience of how we dealt with software problems was completely different. We took them seriously and fixed them. When I call iContact I have to re-explain the problem each time, and each time I am asked to send in the urls of the page where my signup forms are. What have I learned? I’ve learned that a) the problem has not been fixed (it keeps happening)
b) The support person does not have or does not read the history of my calls or they would not repeatedly ask me for the same information
c) Their escalation people do not have a telephone (that is a direct quote from iContact) so I can’t *ever* speak to someone with any real knowledge of the software as they have told me I cannot be put through
d) I did once get through to real support via email, and they said the problem would not happen again, but it did a couple of days later, and continues until now.
e) The level of my frustration is such that I rant about it on my blog and now, here I am doing it in public again.
iContact do have some good features – many actually – which is why when I evaluated a number of service providers, I chose them. But this issue of customer service not having the tenacity to come back and actually deal with a problem, is utterly frustrating. It is like they are reading a script and if the problem means they have to deviate from the script, their support DNA prevents them.
It’s like they suddenly lose the power of reason.
I have just been told the problem has been escalated again. That was after I emailed to say I had heard nothing for days (meanwhile people sit in my list unconfirmed, because if I manually confirm them, I destroy the evidence of the problem). So why are they not in a hurry to resolve it? Why do I hear nothing for days and then when I email am told she will now escalate. That means she sat on it for days doing nothing. Then she asks me why I email her directly instead of the general support email address – don’t I realise she may be out of the office? Oh my god! It’s because I AM DESPERATE NOT TO HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF TO YET ANOTHER CARDBOARD CUT-OUT SUPPORT PERSON. Am I making myself clear yet???
April 15th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
@Liz – When I said “Wow” in my previous comment, I should’ve added ha ha ha ’cause you really had me laughing with that alien statement of yours. That’s not to say that I don’t understand what you’re saying ’cause I certainly do. And I also think that these things are worse when you yourself come from a customer service background (as I have) because you know problems like these shouldn’t be a lasting as apparently yours is.
I can only hope someone from iContact sees this and does something about it, but hearing your experiences, it sounds like that’s a desperate hope. (#):(
April 15th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Oh! OK – I should have realised you were laughing! I am feeling a bit better now – thanks for the opportunity to get that off my chest. Liz
April 15th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
@Liz – …That’s what I’m here for. (#):)
April 15th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Icontact sucks. I honestly find it hard to believe they are a million dollar company and yet manufacture such a mediocre product with terrible customer support. I heard all the hype on tv and gave it a shot– my goodness, I was bamboozled and taken for a fool. Take this as a warning– you get what you pay for >:(
April 15th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Just to update you all. I am now with aweber in general, but still have one account to move away from iContact. And the reasons why I can’t move away form them easily are tied up n their incompetence. The previous commenter (Peter) is correct. They totally suck. At best their support staff are sympathetic, at worst moronic. As my mum says, sympathy without help, is no help at all.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
@Peter – Yikes! I wonder if there’s anyone out there who actually LIKED their services.
@Liz – I hate it when that happens… When you’re basically held for hostage because customer support sucks so much you can’t get them to let you go. (#):(
April 15th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
@Bush – Well, I’m not with iContact any more but while I was there, I was working on user experience and graphic design. I have to say I wish I’d had these comments while I was there because I really could have helped. But that era is well past for me. I’ll make sure someone over there sees it, but it looks like they already have. James Wong was a CSR when I was there but I believe he’s moved over to marketing since then.
@James – Your comment is correct. iContact added standards compliant HTML just as I was leaving (so roughly last September).
@Thomas – When that feature request was originally submitted, it had my name on it. I got so tired of fixing that invalid, nested table, mess of HTML I literally got on the floor of the lead developer’s office and begged. Just sayin’….
@ALL – Anybody that wants to talk can email me: alan-NOSPAM-underwood@gmail.com. Obviously remove the bit you’re supposed to remove.
But since I don’t work there anymore, all I can really do is let you vent, but I’m _really_ curious to hear people’s experiences with the current product and the community features they’ve added.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
@Everyone – Wow. It’s really amazing to see how this post continues to live on. Good stuff and keep the comments coming everyone!
April 15th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Hi guys. I have to let you know I went with Icontact b/c I really liked the demo of how their email marketing interface worked… but since having bought it I want to WARN EVERYONE that if you have a serious reason for using this type of software(for me it’s my music career and a fan list that I need to stay in touch with) .. DO NOT get Icontact and here is why.
1. Their tech support/customer support are RUDE and Clueless individuals who do not even know how the software is supposed to work.
2. The very reason you get something like Icontact is for tracking capability right? Well after having purchased the full account I have sent out 11 emails and in all 11 emails, their tracking is less than 10% good in it’s data…. so I have NO IDEA if the other 90% have even gotten my emails, read them or what…. you can imagine that the very reason you pay for such software is for tracking purposes, anyone can send out an HTML Email manually by themselves…..
just my 2 cents..
if anyone knows any other online marketing email software that actually works, please let me know!
April 15th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Having read all of the bad reviews about iContact, can anyone recommend a good email marketing service for a nonprofit organization? User base is around 2500 people and event emails are sent out about twice a year.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
After reading a lot of postings across the Internet I was just about to go ahead and sign-up with iContact.
However, after readin gthe above, it sounds like that is a bad idea. Of most concern is that they only allow a 15 day trial, which is pretty short compared with Constant Contacts 60 days.
I’ll continue my quest and thnaks to everyone that posted for the info . . .
PS – Nothing is worse (and less excuseable) in todays business world than bad customer support!!!!
April 15th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
WARNING: Do not join iContact.
1. Very unfriendly customer service.
2. If you go over the 100k the next quote they give you is almost double the cost per email.
3. I was told I should have two accounts as they would give a price better than what they have posted on their site.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Interesting…I’m currently shopping around for a new e-mail vendor, and I decided to test iContact using their free account. I sent emails to five email addresses ten minutes ago, but none have received the test email.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
ok, so after 14 minutes, one email came through to a test aol account… :-/
April 15th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
It’s a shame that the strongly negative opinions (which I fully share) about this company aren’t reflected in the reviewer’s prominent review.
I figured out how to make their website work to get my contacts in – and they wouldn’t even comp me. I spent hours, and hours. I spoke only with increasingly defensive people who knew less about their product and how it functions than did I.
For instance, there’s a bug (they know about) that prohibits importing vcards. THEN WHY NOT POST THAT ON THE WEBSITE, IDIOTS?
I spent about an hour trying to import them. Tech support? Spare me. Even when I documented problems, I got no response.
I could go on and on and on….but I’ll say Mr. Mackel that if you’re going to strongly endorse a technology, you should rigorously test it.
Cheers,
k
April 15th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Forget iContact and ConstantContact. Email Marketer by Interspire BLOWS them out of the water: http://www.interspire.com/emailmarketer/ – they have a hosted OR download edition. I run the hosted and it works flawlessly.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
I just wanted to report that finally, I am moving the last icontact account to aweber. I have to re-opt everyone in because icontact’s rubbish opt in system has a serious bug. But now I don’t care. They are gone from my life.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Thought I would let you know that I was with SmartAutoresponder.com
I loved the system, but couldn’t track click-throughs or ‘opened’, but I could send out as many emails as I wanted to as many people with different opt-in lists etc as you could dream of for a low price….
Yes, the BUT is coming.
Just before Christmas they had a system crash and lost the lot… Contacts, forms, autoresponder messages etc. and still billed me!
I complained, they refunded, and couldn’t be bothered to let me know how long the problem would take to fix, or whether they could fix it, for another week. Then, they said, we have partially fixed it, but you will have to reload everything.
I’m thinking, no way, got a refund, and sent an email to say what are you going to do to prevent this reoccurrence, as I might come back. No answer and still no answer and now it is Feb 2009. So, I went in and downloaded the little that was recovered, (lost the last 3 years worth of contact data) and deleted everything and sent another email to close the account.
Enter some research into which one to go with, and finally settled on GetResponse.com
Ugghhhhh!!! They say they do forms… no they don’t, you are limited to one extra field, you cannot have a multivariable response, there system is complicated, time consuming, and the number of questions in the email forum shows that their manuals are lousy.
Last night I went to add a test email address, and the caption said, Remaining Subscribers 50. Huh?? Still have not been able to find out if you can only manually add 50 contacts.
Please let me know if there is a decent autoresponder system that doesn’t limit the number of emails, or charge the earth for the ones you send, plus can have forms (with different fields as well as the ability to select one or two options from a menu), oh, and doesn’t limit the size of attachments either.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Stay away from iContact at all costs. Their support is half assed. They will shut you down for any minor reason. I sent 20k emails, got 30 complaints from aol and they shut me down. I like the tool but the company needs to get it together. Buyer beware.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
All, if you are interested in good service, you might want to try Contactology. We provide you with a dedicated account manager, so you can speak to the same person each time you call. As a smaller company, we emphasize good service, so you never go into a call queue. And of course, we offer powerful features that exceed those of many competitors. The site is at http://www.contactology.com.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I know this is nit-picky, but bad grammar damages credibility, even if one is very credible, as you seem to be. Check out the usuage on ‘peak’ vs. ‘pique’. Cheers
http://www.writing.com/main/books/action/view/entry_id/352725
April 15th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
iContact does not work. I tried uploading image to the image manager and it kept giving me error saying its not a JPEG image even though it was a JPEG image. There support guy said I should use Firefox and not Internet Explorer. I asked them to cancel my account and they charged me 14 dollars even when I did not use their service at all. They are into cheating customers and use their terms and conditions as a safety net. Nobody should ever use them.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
@Alex – That IS nit-picky! But you know what, I’m always trying to better myself so I’ll tuck that one away. (#):)
@Manish – “Nobody should ever use them”. You know, I’m hearing that a lot.
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I thought icontact was great for the first year. We sent ONE email blast each month to 40,000 email addresses on their $379/month plan. Out of the blue they notified us that we were spamming (which we were not), shut out account off, and said they’d work with us for an additional $1200 a month and would turn our account back on. I think this is a case for the BBB to look into. Its been a long time since Ive been this mad, so I’d say if you want to get upset, get an account with icontact.com and enjoy yourself.
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
@Rob – Thanks Rob but DAMN! Obviously I don’t know all the details of your story but I mean… Why did they say or think you were sending SPAM? Did they say someone reported it as such?
May 9th, 2009 at 4:27 am
http://www.benchmarkemail.com seems to be the best Email Marketing service around. I tried iContact and ConstantContact, both of them are below average.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:28 am
http://www.benchmarkemail.com is far better
May 31st, 2009 at 9:27 am
Here’s one for ya. If you happen to stop using them and change credit card numbers. They try and make you pay for the service as if you entered into a contract with them. Under terms of the license agreement you have to go through their special process to quit. As if anyone reads those things. All I’m saying is what kind of modern company does that? IF you make it easy for someone to sign up then it should be easy to quit. Why spend all this money trying to squeeze a customer… These people are really poor business people.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for the great review points on iContact. We just submitted our company RatePoint for you to review. RatePoint’s easy-to-use, Web-based communication services include feedback tools, email marketing, survey and dispute resolution capabilities to provide small- and medium-sized businesses with the ability to collect, manage and promote customer feedback directly. Would love to hear your feedback.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
@Mark – Thanks for all the comments on this Mark. I really hope it helps someone out there.
June 21st, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Is anyone having problems with iContact not being able to deliver emails to yahoo accounts? iContact told me a story that it was because of new iContact servers not coordinating with Yahoo. I have resent a new email blast and 99% of yahoo emails “bounced”. I am sure that eventually thes names will automatically be removed from iContact database after 5 bounces. Then I will have lost customers who want to receive our communications. Any ideas, comments, experiences, thoughts?
August 11th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Just checking in on this thread for follow up posts
August 11th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
mhh very busy people
August 28th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Wow – I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for sharing their experiences. I am looking for a provider and was quite close to signing up with these guys but will try out the other links suggested.
My main surprise is that iContact themselves have not come into this thread and done a bit of a PR work.
Thanks everyone!
September 14th, 2009 at 11:56 am
I reviewed several EMSP’s for clients and decided that iContact was one of the easiest to use, with powerful deliverability.
However, they DO shut folks down at the drop of a pin, and then fail to get back to them when they try to close the account – resulting in months of bills for an account that’s not active anyway . . . very bad business practice.
February 13th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I am quite computer-proficient and have found iContact to be anything but user-friendly and easy to use. Once you manage to work your way through it a few times, it is OK, but it still has some shortcomings and leaves out some features that I think any good email service should provide. Customer service is spotty: sometimes you get answer and other times you get an excuse or are told “that’s the way it is.” I also had one incident where they claimed to have sent my message to my contacts, but I verified maybe 60% were not sent. This wasn’t deliberate – some kind of system error happened, and their system could not detect that the messages were not sent. I also had problems with them not returning phone calls and slow system response. Overall, their performance makes me feel like they started business last week and are learning as they go.