In a Nutshell
pros
- Multiple automated email series
- Solid analytics built-in
- Excellent email editor
cons
- SEO tools are still growing
- Expensive, if you have thousands of contacts
Constant Contact Marketing Tools at a Glance
Best for: SMBs, gig workers, freelancers
Key uses: Email marketing
Price: Starting from $20 a month
Free trial: First month free
SEO
While there’s no doubt that Constant Contact is king of email, the ambitious marketing agency is slowly broadening its horizons in terms of additional marketing tools it can offer its customers. Today, you can find several SEO tools (albeit not as extensive as many of the bigger marketing tool providers like GoDaddy or HubSpot), including keyword implementation, tags, and other on-page elements to boost your search rankings. Constant Contact also lets you incorporate analytics to improve your marketing efforts and gain the approval of the ever-elusive search engine gods.
One tool that we really enjoyed using was the Google Ads feature. Working off of artificial intelligence technology, Constant Contact’s ads tool lets you set up parameters and leave the rest to the machines. The tool is meant to optimize your keyword usage constantly, and tweak according to performance-based data.
Email Marketing
Now, email marketing is where Constant Contact has put the lion's share of its marketing efforts. To begin with, Constant Contact has an efficient drag-and-drop editor that makes customizing your emails extremely fast and simple. We liked how quickly we were able to change up elements of the template design like background images, text, and positioning. By the way, Constant Contact has more than 100 ready-made email templates to choose from. So, you can find a good starting point, even if you want to tweak the design elements later on. Email templates are all mobile-responsive, and Constant Contact hires professional designers, so the choices are all attractive too.
Next up is email automation. Constant Contact covers the spectrum when it comes to email responses you can automate. Some of the popular ones include:
- Welcome messages for new subscribers
- Click-activated messages
- Non-openers repeat sending
- Follow-ups for abandoned carts
And a lot more. Constant Contact really lets you automate anything that you could email to your contacts. This is a big deal as it saves countless hours and resources tracking, drafting, and sending various emails. This way, your marketing team can create and send the appropriate message based on user interactions for optimized results.
You can also create segmented lists of contacts to streamline bulk messaging.
Finally, no marketing toolset would be complete without a matrix to help measure and analyze the efficacy of your efforts. Constant Contact covers that base as well, providing email tracking on several levels. Get real-time input about your emails, including opening, clicking, and sharing rates. And what's really cool is that Constant Contact will let you create new segment lists based on the data from your analytics reports. So, it's a circuit loop that keeps getting more efficient as you go!
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is another really important aspect of any marketing campaign. Constant Contact includes social media profile integration, so you can automatically upload your social account contacts to your CRM.
There’s also an in-app tool for Facebook and Instagram that allows you to post directly to your social media accounts. You can turn these posts into emails with a few clicks. Constant Contact has recently included more social media profile monitoring to help boost lead capture and retention. You can also create a My Google Business post directly from your Constant Contact account.
Website Design
Constant Contact also has a good website builder. The tool has the right mix of features, including customizable layouts and pages, mobile-responsive designs, fast load times, built-in SEO features, and an SSL certificate. There's also a logo maker, form builder, and the ability to connect both social media pages and online stores. We have to say, we were impressed with all of the website design options available from Constant Contact.
Digital Marketing
Constant Contact has recently expanded its marketing solutions to include even more than email marketing. Today, it has things like segmentation and automation that we already mentioned, and customization features to make your marketing campaigns more personalized. What’s more, Constant Contact integrates with a lot of other business tools for a more holistic and comprehensive marketing strategy. Some big apps include Shopify and Eventbrite.
Lead Generation
Constant Contact lets you upload your contact lists from several sources, including Excel, Salesforce, and Outlook. Plus, as a bonus feature, Constant Contact will handle annoying things like unsubscribes, inactive email accounts, and bounce emails for you. This not only saves time, but it keeps you out of trouble from the search engines as well.
Pricing
Constant Contact keeps pricing pretty simple for an email service. There are two plans you can choose from with customization possibilities for each. Here are the two plans and most of the features available for each one:
Prices are based on how many contacts you have in your contact list, so you can get the Email plan for anywhere from 500 up to 50,000 subscribers. Constant Contact will create a custom plan for you if you have more than 50k. Both plans are capped at $335, so even if you have up to 50k subscribers, you'll only ever pay that much at most.
The Email plan has a lot for a basic service, with all of the email tools like customizable templates, e-commerce basics, and list building tools. It also has some good marketing features like social posting, Facebook insights, and a marketing calendar. Other features include Google Ads, contact list import, access to a sizeable image library, and loads of apps and integrations to work with directly in the software.
The Email Plus package takes things one step further, offering advanced marketing tools to really seal the deal on leads. That plan offers features like:
- Events creation
- Donation pages
- Online coupons
- Customer surveys
- Dynamic sign up forms
Customer Service
Constant Contact has customer service options in spades. You can reach out to a rep via phone, email, or live chat support. But Constant Contact offers a lot more than the standard customer service options. You can watch professional video tutorials, hop on the community forum to ask questions and interact with other users, sign up for educational events, or schedule a one-on-one with a marketing expert. We like a company that puts a large emphasis on customer support because it means their focus is on the users.
Bottom Line
Constant Contact is a solid email marketing service with all of the features you need to set up and maintain an advanced email marketing campaign. With the addition of other marketing tools like SEO, social media postings, and analytics, Constant Contact is establishing itself as a viable option that can stand up to even some of the big-name competitors. We're looking forward to seeing more features and surprises coming out of Constant Contact's lineup in the future.
