Aweber Review

COMPLETE REVIEW

While most email services make different feature plans or make included features dependand on the list size, Aweber simply includes all that is able to offer in any plan regardless the list, and there are no addon features. Aweber is one of the best services when it comes to freedom of customizing campaigns,  messages, newsletters appearances and other aspects of email marketing.

Simple plans that include everything regardless the mailing list length is a great idea, though it has its cons: is not quite great for small businesses with little subscribers, but is great for those who believe in high yields from email marketing services. Full automation with autoresponders, bundled with segmentation and plenty of customizable templates with free image stock photos make a good ground for running effective and distinctive campaigns. All plans are with unlimited sending.

Now it offers all automation and list segmentation options, so you can design a great ruleset for the list and its segments. Autoresponder setup console is extremely easy to use, intuitive and effective, while segmentation manager allows for every possible criterion for division.

The template library is extremely rich, it offers more than 700 distinctive features, some of which are industry-defined. All templates are responsive, and the library is frequently enriched with new templates. However, if no template from it appeals to you, Aweber can offer you services of their design studio. Additionally, you can pick among more than 3,000 stock photos to make your copies pretty different from anything you’ve seen before. You can also upload your own images which will be hosted on the Aweber’s server.

Once you’ve done building and segmenting your mailing list and done creating messages and newsletters, you go to the Campaigns Manager which offers a drag-and-drop tool for making comprehensive campaign schedules. This includes actions, slack/wait times, and tags to mark milestones of the campaign projects, replacing the need for bulky and expensive project management software to be used with your campaigns.

Aweber analytics and stats enable you to keep track of your deliverability success, response success, click-through rates, new subscribers or unbsubscribers, follow-ups and more. There is a mobile app for stats and analytics, available for iOS and Android devices.

Integration capabilities of Aweber are among the best on the market: users can instantly share their newsletters over Facebook or CMS websites built in WordPress and Drupal. Also, there is an integration with all major E-commerce and CRM platforms, as well as plenty other business applications enabling you to track your subscribers’ customer behavior, and let prospects subscribe to your email list and spend more. If you don’t find the right integration among the 150 from the showcase, you can make your own integration using the Aweber API.

Email Creation And Sending

The emails can be created from one of 700 templates that can be edited, or you can create your own. Both are done onsite using the Aweber Template Editor. Alternatively, you can use template editing services from the platform’s development studio. 

Messages and newsletters can be made in a drag-and-drop WYSIWIG email editor where you use a menu of elements and have access to plenty of color schemes. You can also make your own HTML code in the editor and use your own templates.

Delivery success rates are not perfect, though, but with unlimited sending from any plan, you can try with different content and forms until you find a way onto most inboxes.

List Options

Contacts can be manually added or mass imported from another service and contact list files. By default, your contacts will not be notified on the event of adding them to your Aweber list, but you can also enable that option. Importing more than 10,000 contacts within a month requires a manual review from Aweber’s team in otder to maintain both this service’s and your reputation as sender. In some cases, the support team would remove such limits upon a client’s request.

Subscribers can be added by copy/paste and drag-and-drop, and you can make more people willingly subscribe through various sign-up forms and landing pages. Once long enough, the list can be segmented by means of subscriber location, activity, and consumer habits.

Bottom Line

For years, Aweber was seen as an outdated service which doesn’t follow new industry standards set by other players in email marketing. Recently, these guys did a great job and made many improvements to be at par with the latest marketing trends. Until recently, it was known that Aweber lacks many basic features and integrations, but now it is a highly competitive service with little issues, plenty of strong features for automation and customization, as well as a strong, praised customer support. An ideal Aweber user is a medium sized company experienced in email marketing, able to produce a compelling email copy or newsletter.