A Little Bit About Autoresponders
If you read our guide or followed any of our advice in our e-mails, you probably heard about autoresponders. For those of you who don't know what one is, an autoresponder is a system or script that automatically sends several follow-up messages to individuals who sign up for your mailing list or newsletter. You can have a sign-up for and then have several e-mails spread out over the course of a week to several weeks, or you can have it only send out one or two e-mails and then e-mail out your own newsletters to everyone using your program.
It's essential to have one if you are selling anything on the website, or even if you are just using affiliate links to promote other products. It has been proven that the majority of sales take place after you contact them several times (for bigger purchases, it usually requires at least 7 follow-ups). So now that I convinced (hopefully) you that you need an autoresponder, your next question might be "which one?"
First, you have three basic options: either purchase a professional one hosted at another site for a monthly fee (usually $10 to $20 a month), pay a one-time fee for your own autoresponder that you can run from your own server using a script, or use a free hosted autoresponder (which almost always have ads and not as many features or reliability).
Let me say now that free ones with ads might be okay to start with, but don't expect to make a fortune off of them. Not only does it look unprofessional to have other ads on them, but some of those ads might even be from companies that are competing against you! On top of that, due to it being free, the company usually doesn't have the resources to make sure that your e-mails are getting where they need to go or to support you with any problems. I don't recommend them unless your running a small site for fun and not expecting to make money (for instance, if you're running a fan site of a game, famous person, etc.). But even then, you can turn any opportunity into a money making opportunity.
Now as to hosting your own using a script that you pay a one time fee for versus paying a monthly fee, the answer as to which is better isn't as easy as you might think. Obviously most people would want to pay less and might lean towards the autoresponder script, which typically cost anywhere from $80 to $300 or more (I sell a good script for $9.95, click here to see it among other products). The advantages to this are that you only have to pay this fee once and that everything looks like it's coming directly from you (because it is). The disadvantages are that because everything is coming from you, you have to deal with all of your own problems -- ranging from e-mails not getting delivered to problems with the script and setting it up. Also, because it's mailed out using your hosting provider, there might be extra restrictions with how many you can e-mail each day, bandwidth problems, and problems with e-mails not getting delivered (and your host won't care because that's not their expertise and they don't make sure that their e-mails don't get blacklisted). This along might force you to pay more or it might cost you several sales if more of your e-mails get blocked or end up undelivered (or even in spam folders). In addition, any complaint about you spamming people (even if you did it legally and they requested it) you'd have to deal with yourself, and your host might drop you just to remain safe.
Basically, I'd only recommend this method, despite a few advantages and the cheaper price, if you had a much smaller mailing list and if your subscribers were always expecting your e-mails and not likely to accuse you of spamming. Having said that, there is one script that I'd recommend. It's by Kalptaru and sells for just under $80 as a one-time payment, but it also comes with 90 days of free support. They also have a free one that has a few features disabled and has their own ad in it. You can get the entire script here or the free one here. This script has all the top features, including ways to automatically generate pop-ups, pop-overs, web forms, broadcasting, etc. This is by far one of the cheapest ones with the best support of desktop or your own server scripts for the price.
Now if you're more serious about autoresponders, plan on having a list of several hundred to several thousand (even tens of thousands), or if you want to avoid all of the hassle, worries, and problems with hosting your own script, then an autoresponder hosted on another server and run by another company is your best bet. Again, I wouldn't get a free one if you were serious about it, as not only does it look bad with other ads, but the service and rates of deliverability will be far lower than what you'd get with a premium autoresponder. They might be a good choice for starting out, though.
It basically comes down to two companies when you deal with high end autoresponders -- Aweber and GetResponse. Both companies have great programs, great support staff, great features, great deliverability rates, and constantly deal with issues ranging from getting better deliverability (they actually call up places to make sure your e-mails don't get blocked by certain e-mail providors) to taking care of spam problems for you (you are no longer at risk). Both have many positive reviews (be careful of negative reviews, as many come from people working for either company -- kind of a shady thing), and I haven't really seen any major complaints from either.
Both offer all the features you'll need plus tons more from easy message editors (do it yourself html or with their editors or plain text) to direct RSS feeds (so your mailing list knows when you update your blog, for instance). All types of pop-ups and forms are also as easy as a cut and paste (you can customize everything too) and offered at both. Both have great customer support as well. There really is very little difference between the two. Aweber is just under $20 a month and GetResponse is just under $18 a month. I'd say that the layout of GetResponse is a little easier for the novice compared to Aweber, but you can learn both of them fairly easily if you just take a little time.
Aweber also seemed to be a little ahead of the game several years ago, but GetResponse has more than caught up now. GetResponse is not only a little cheaper, but if you deal with huge lists (of over 10,000 subscribers), you'll also save a little there too (just over $4 per extra 5,000 subscribers compared to about $10 per 10,000 new subscribers). So if you have a mailing list of 11,000 to 15,000 subscribers, you'll save about $8 a month with GetResponse. Both allow you to have up to 10,000 subscribers for within their normal price without any extra fees, and they allow you to e-mail as many times to that entire list as you want. Both also allow you to have an unlimited number of campaigns too (so you can have a dozen different sites with a dozen different e-mail campaigns for the same price without paying extra).
Old reviews show Aweber being a little cheaper with larger lists only because GetResponse was priced differently a year ago when they didn't offer unlimited broadcasts (e-mails to your entire list) and the like, but now GetResponse is actually a little more affordable.
The one thing that Aweber has that stands out a bit is that they seemed to be on top of things a little more in the past, but GetResponse seems to have everything more than together now and seems to be on top of things as well. This, however, almost made me go with Aweber at first. On the other hand, though, it was GetResponse who first had a much better backup system than Aweber (now both are good), so that kind of neutralized it again for me. But both are well established companies with constant updates.
It's very hard for me to suggest one over the other, as it really comes down mostly to personal preferences. I actually eventually went with GetResponse and I'm very satisfied, but I'm sure I'd also be just as happy with Aweber as well (except the $2 extra dollars a month).
There are cheaper places, but be careful of their reliability. On a side note, Aweber sometimes claims to have the highest reliability, but it's based on their own tests and what they claim to have is simply impossible to really achieve -- and proven. It basically comes down to the fact that both have top notch deliverability rates and the differences seem to be negligible.
I'm also very happy that I switched to a monthly fee autoresponder over from a one time fee script. Not only are things a little easier, but it has saved me lots of time and worries. The customer support along saves me more time and money than the monthly fee. I have also noticed better deliverability rates. In fact, that's one of the things that convinced me to switch. In the not so distant past, I e-mailed a very select and specific group a special promotion that was only going on for a week. Off of one e-mail, I made over $700 dollars in a matter of hours (no joke). Sounds exciting, right? It was! BUT after the promotion ended, I checked my message and realized that it only e-mailed 36 of the nearly 300 subscribers it was suppose to due to a bug that had to be dealt with. If I didn't have that bug and used the service that I have now, I probably could have made several thousands of dollars in a matter of a day with that one e-mail. Luckily I switched and I'm off to a good start.
As always, any feedback or opinions on autoresponders are more than welcome!
Brian
www.iwantpennies.com
P.S. I realize that I basically didn't promote the autoresponder that we sell for $9.95 (and which is included in our $24.95 package) much at all. It's a very good program and has tons of great features, but I'd still recommend Aweber or GetResponse for more serious individuals and to avoid a lot of the hassles ($15 to $20 a month is definitely worth it to me, especially after the increased sales it will achieve for you). So if you're real serious, don't buy this one from me! :)
It's essential to have one if you are selling anything on the website, or even if you are just using affiliate links to promote other products. It has been proven that the majority of sales take place after you contact them several times (for bigger purchases, it usually requires at least 7 follow-ups). So now that I convinced (hopefully) you that you need an autoresponder, your next question might be "which one?"
First, you have three basic options: either purchase a professional one hosted at another site for a monthly fee (usually $10 to $20 a month), pay a one-time fee for your own autoresponder that you can run from your own server using a script, or use a free hosted autoresponder (which almost always have ads and not as many features or reliability).
Let me say now that free ones with ads might be okay to start with, but don't expect to make a fortune off of them. Not only does it look unprofessional to have other ads on them, but some of those ads might even be from companies that are competing against you! On top of that, due to it being free, the company usually doesn't have the resources to make sure that your e-mails are getting where they need to go or to support you with any problems. I don't recommend them unless your running a small site for fun and not expecting to make money (for instance, if you're running a fan site of a game, famous person, etc.). But even then, you can turn any opportunity into a money making opportunity.
Now as to hosting your own using a script that you pay a one time fee for versus paying a monthly fee, the answer as to which is better isn't as easy as you might think. Obviously most people would want to pay less and might lean towards the autoresponder script, which typically cost anywhere from $80 to $300 or more (I sell a good script for $9.95, click here to see it among other products). The advantages to this are that you only have to pay this fee once and that everything looks like it's coming directly from you (because it is). The disadvantages are that because everything is coming from you, you have to deal with all of your own problems -- ranging from e-mails not getting delivered to problems with the script and setting it up. Also, because it's mailed out using your hosting provider, there might be extra restrictions with how many you can e-mail each day, bandwidth problems, and problems with e-mails not getting delivered (and your host won't care because that's not their expertise and they don't make sure that their e-mails don't get blacklisted). This along might force you to pay more or it might cost you several sales if more of your e-mails get blocked or end up undelivered (or even in spam folders). In addition, any complaint about you spamming people (even if you did it legally and they requested it) you'd have to deal with yourself, and your host might drop you just to remain safe.
Basically, I'd only recommend this method, despite a few advantages and the cheaper price, if you had a much smaller mailing list and if your subscribers were always expecting your e-mails and not likely to accuse you of spamming. Having said that, there is one script that I'd recommend. It's by Kalptaru and sells for just under $80 as a one-time payment, but it also comes with 90 days of free support. They also have a free one that has a few features disabled and has their own ad in it. You can get the entire script here or the free one here. This script has all the top features, including ways to automatically generate pop-ups, pop-overs, web forms, broadcasting, etc. This is by far one of the cheapest ones with the best support of desktop or your own server scripts for the price.
Now if you're more serious about autoresponders, plan on having a list of several hundred to several thousand (even tens of thousands), or if you want to avoid all of the hassle, worries, and problems with hosting your own script, then an autoresponder hosted on another server and run by another company is your best bet. Again, I wouldn't get a free one if you were serious about it, as not only does it look bad with other ads, but the service and rates of deliverability will be far lower than what you'd get with a premium autoresponder. They might be a good choice for starting out, though.
It basically comes down to two companies when you deal with high end autoresponders -- Aweber and GetResponse. Both companies have great programs, great support staff, great features, great deliverability rates, and constantly deal with issues ranging from getting better deliverability (they actually call up places to make sure your e-mails don't get blocked by certain e-mail providors) to taking care of spam problems for you (you are no longer at risk). Both have many positive reviews (be careful of negative reviews, as many come from people working for either company -- kind of a shady thing), and I haven't really seen any major complaints from either.
Both offer all the features you'll need plus tons more from easy message editors (do it yourself html or with their editors or plain text) to direct RSS feeds (so your mailing list knows when you update your blog, for instance). All types of pop-ups and forms are also as easy as a cut and paste (you can customize everything too) and offered at both. Both have great customer support as well. There really is very little difference between the two. Aweber is just under $20 a month and GetResponse is just under $18 a month. I'd say that the layout of GetResponse is a little easier for the novice compared to Aweber, but you can learn both of them fairly easily if you just take a little time.
Aweber also seemed to be a little ahead of the game several years ago, but GetResponse has more than caught up now. GetResponse is not only a little cheaper, but if you deal with huge lists (of over 10,000 subscribers), you'll also save a little there too (just over $4 per extra 5,000 subscribers compared to about $10 per 10,000 new subscribers). So if you have a mailing list of 11,000 to 15,000 subscribers, you'll save about $8 a month with GetResponse. Both allow you to have up to 10,000 subscribers for within their normal price without any extra fees, and they allow you to e-mail as many times to that entire list as you want. Both also allow you to have an unlimited number of campaigns too (so you can have a dozen different sites with a dozen different e-mail campaigns for the same price without paying extra).
Old reviews show Aweber being a little cheaper with larger lists only because GetResponse was priced differently a year ago when they didn't offer unlimited broadcasts (e-mails to your entire list) and the like, but now GetResponse is actually a little more affordable.
The one thing that Aweber has that stands out a bit is that they seemed to be on top of things a little more in the past, but GetResponse seems to have everything more than together now and seems to be on top of things as well. This, however, almost made me go with Aweber at first. On the other hand, though, it was GetResponse who first had a much better backup system than Aweber (now both are good), so that kind of neutralized it again for me. But both are well established companies with constant updates.
It's very hard for me to suggest one over the other, as it really comes down mostly to personal preferences. I actually eventually went with GetResponse and I'm very satisfied, but I'm sure I'd also be just as happy with Aweber as well (except the $2 extra dollars a month).
There are cheaper places, but be careful of their reliability. On a side note, Aweber sometimes claims to have the highest reliability, but it's based on their own tests and what they claim to have is simply impossible to really achieve -- and proven. It basically comes down to the fact that both have top notch deliverability rates and the differences seem to be negligible.
I'm also very happy that I switched to a monthly fee autoresponder over from a one time fee script. Not only are things a little easier, but it has saved me lots of time and worries. The customer support along saves me more time and money than the monthly fee. I have also noticed better deliverability rates. In fact, that's one of the things that convinced me to switch. In the not so distant past, I e-mailed a very select and specific group a special promotion that was only going on for a week. Off of one e-mail, I made over $700 dollars in a matter of hours (no joke). Sounds exciting, right? It was! BUT after the promotion ended, I checked my message and realized that it only e-mailed 36 of the nearly 300 subscribers it was suppose to due to a bug that had to be dealt with. If I didn't have that bug and used the service that I have now, I probably could have made several thousands of dollars in a matter of a day with that one e-mail. Luckily I switched and I'm off to a good start.
As always, any feedback or opinions on autoresponders are more than welcome!
Brian
www.iwantpennies.com
P.S. I realize that I basically didn't promote the autoresponder that we sell for $9.95 (and which is included in our $24.95 package) much at all. It's a very good program and has tons of great features, but I'd still recommend Aweber or GetResponse for more serious individuals and to avoid a lot of the hassles ($15 to $20 a month is definitely worth it to me, especially after the increased sales it will achieve for you). So if you're real serious, don't buy this one from me! :)
posted by LeadEvolution Team at
7:53 PM
8 Comments:
Great review! I'm glad to see that there is at least one unbias reviewer that isn't bashing one company over the other. I searched the net and found tons of reviews only to realize later that someone funded by one of these two companies wrote it! Glad to hear that they are almost identical. Keep up the good work Bri!
Thanks for the kind words. And again, I found Aweber and GetResponse to be almost identical with only a few minor differences. You'd probably be happy with either, but I personally like GetResponse a bit more and it's a bit cheaper. On top of that, for larger lists, the savings are even more with GetResponse now (although Aweber used to be cheaper with larger lists until GetResponse changed their pricing).
You'll like either, though. I'd be careful of any other autoresponder out there, though, as you really need a large, well established company who can deal with such issues as deliverability so you know your e-mails are actually getting through.
Take care,
Brian
I also use GetResponse and have been quite happy with it. I tried out Aweber and also agree with you that there really isn't much difference. I was so afraid at first, as tons of reviews out there either say one is way better than the other, or the other is way better. I think a lot of them are somehow tied to the companies themselves, so I'm glad to hear that an independant person agrees that they are the same.
For anyone in the same sticky situation I was, don't be afraid! Aweber or GetResponse are both great sites. I only went with GetResponse because I found it SLIGHTLY more easier to use and it was a bit cheaper. Disregard old reviews about it costing so much with large lists, as they've completely redid the pricing.
I've used both Aweber and GetResponse, and I have to say that I haven't noticed much of a difference at all. Both are fairly easy .... but GetResponse might be a little easier for novices just starting out, but both aren't difficult to use at all.
The deliverability of both are great (Aweber's claim is not really that high -- that's almost impossible to obtain such a high deliverability, but they do still have good deliverability rates). I can't say that one has an advantage over the other there.
I continue to use both due to having multiple large lists and not wanting to go through the hassle of transferring one over to the other.
However, if someone forced me to pick one or asked me to pick one for them, I'd say GetResponse JUST because they are a few bucks cheaper.
But really, don't listen to anyone that says one is way better than the other because that's simply not true. You'll be happy with either.
Thanks for the great unbias review Brian!
John
Thank you for the very good review.
If anyone is thinking about going with Aweber a note of caution: Read their terms of service very carefully. I lost my list of subscribers and the autoresponder campaign messages I had written when they abruptly closed my account for violating their terms.
They don't issue you any warnings, even if you didn't realize you violated their terms and even if you were very open and detailed about what you were doing. And they will not give you your subscriber list or copies of your autoresponder campaigns, even though they could easily retrieve them if they wished.
Mark
P.S. I don't work for GetResponse. ;-)
EXCELLENT REVIEW!!
I can NOT TELL YOU how many hours i have wasted on playing with the two systems (aweber and getresponse) over the past few weeks. I have wrangled and wrangled over the decision and now it appears i was right! Cos you can't split the two either.
I already use aweber and have done for some time, but i have to say (to be TOTALLY honest) that i am unhappy with aweber and have been for some time, and wish to god i had gone with getresponse in the first place, but i hadn't heard of them then. I used aweber to set up a free stop smoking audio course at www.easilystopsmoking.com as i was told (wrongly i now realise) that theirs was the only service which could support that kind of thing. I now have quite a large list in that account, and it will be a total pain in the neck to change all my leads, messages etcetera over to a new account with getreponse, however for reasons i shall explain, i still came very close to doing so.
A new project i have been planning for years is finally underway, and we are employing the world leaders in SEO (who shall remain anonymous so i dont plug anyone here!) at a hefty cost in order to ensure our site is optimised, coded cleanly, and all the right things done to enable ranking as best as possible over the coming year or two. After we set up the site, we needed an ezine sign up box and a list manager software to handle the dog training newsletter. As part of the SEO advice, we were strongly advised to get W3C compliance on our code throughout our website, and although i slightly doubt the importance of this, for the amount we are paying for this guidance, we decided it would be crazy not to follow it. So we ran the complaince checker, and fixed the tiny errors here and there, and found only ONE error left. It was within the Aweber code. So i would caution anyone who wants a W3C html compliant website NOT to use Aweber unless you will ONLY use the two standard fields they offer in their sign up form (Name and Email). As you will see on our site at www.K9Obedience.co.uk , we have a form which has custom data (dog's name) so that we can really personalise messages in the future which we thought would be really nice, i.e. "Hi Jack, how is Rover getting on these days?" (you get the idea!). BUT... we were disappointed to find that if you use Custom fields in Aweber opt in forms, it codes it as Custom Dogs_Name with a SPACE between Custom and Dogs. This ONE DARN SPACE caused W3C to fail our entire website! And now we can't say we are compliant!! ONE FLAMING SPACE!!!! So i contacted aweber on their live chat service (useful service that, even for me in the UK on Uk time!) and to be really honest, their attitude was one of "Well nobody else cares about W3C so we won't help". I wasn't funny with them or anything like that. i was really polite and asked if they could suggest a work around because i really need to have W3C compliant code. Their answer was "No." point blank! I explained that i HAD to find a solution otherwise i would have no choice but to move to another service (like GetResponse) and their answer was then... "No." :)
I was not too happy about that, but i had also found their support to be a little sarcastic and unhelpful on several issues prior to that, and so i didn't need much to look at changing. The only MAJOR problem for me, is i don't have time to mess around and transfer tons of leads and messages all to a new system, JUST to get compliant code. So i have had to drop the W3C thing altogether, or spend HOURS playing with two email systems.
On another note, the interface at Aweber is not good at all. I am being really honest, and out of all the autoresponder services out there, i find Aweber's to be the least helpful, the most complex and the hardest to understand. Nothing seems to flow with logic at all, so i totally agree with the review that although the two services are VERY closely matched, the interface at getresponse will definitely be easier to understand for newbies.
I certainly don't work for either company (and i have also seen a lot of shady commenting on blogs by both parties too, it is SO obvious!!) but i am merely trying to give my honest experience of Aweber. In their favour i would say that they have nearly 10 years in the business, they have LIVE CHAT which getresponse don't and that REALLY IS EXCELLENT to have someone INSTANTLY onhand (7am til 7pm eastern time at Aweber). Though i would say the support could be a little more helpful, but i would probably choose unhelpful but THERE for you, than helpful but being forced to wait for emails to hear back to questions.
Aweber is a very reliable system, i just feel they are probably a litle more advanced, they certainly feel that way. In my experience over the past 2 days (contacting both companies a lot) i found getresponse to be SUPERB as far as customer service and valuing ME goes.
So....i have aweber, i can't face changing, so i am staying put, but they REALLY could improve their interface by totally scrapping the old one and then building a new one from a total newbie point of view, they seem to be reluctant to totally build from scratch and the system which was good 4 or 5 years ago really isn't what people want these days.
Aweber for me (cos i am not paying two different service providers) but if i ever find the time to transfer my list data to getresponse, i will definitely do so, and with a BIG SMILE!! :):)
Once again, THANK YOU for your superb, honest and intelligent review, it is the FIRST i have found which compared the two leading companies (in my view) who can do follow up AND broadcasts.
Best wishes
Martin
Hey Martin,
Thanks for your comments on this. I think that there's far too much bashing of one over the other. As I said in my review, both are good choices with only minor differences.
What advantages one had in the past over the other are now caught up. Both are constantly updating with new features, so most old reviews on them are horrible.
The big gurus will mostly back Aweber because they were once cheaper for larger lists -- now the opposite is true and GetResponse is cheaper for both smaller and larger lists.
I personally picked GetResponse just because they're not only a bit cheaper, but their user interface is a bit easier in my opinion.
But again, I wouldn't think it's a bad choice to have Aweber if that's what you ended up with.
If you look outside of those two autoresponders, it can be a risk in my opinion.
Brian
Hey thanks Brian. Yes i agree that you can go too far, but i am a stickler for the details!!
I have stuck with aweber for my new project ( http://www.K9Obedience.co.uk ) though i do prefer get response as i have now had a chance to look over my friend's shoulder (he has GR) and i totally agree, the interface is a whole lot more logical, at least to my brain!!
Thanks again for providing some VERY useful information here, every other site i visited just threw out the same features list as you can get on either providers site. What you wrote was personal and very accurate, and it totally helped me to decide where i am going. As soon as i can face it, i will be switching away from aweber, but for now i need to ensure that my list gets a reliable newsletter so aweber will stay for a little while, but as soon as i can spare the time to transfer my contacts etcetera, i will be doing so.
Thanks again, most helpful.
Martin
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