Ask HN: Who to use for email marketing?
I am looking for a new company to use for email marketing as MailChimp had said I am no longer welcome. I have used iContact and ConstantContact with other employers in the past and have no problems with them, I was just curious if there is something better.
Some background on why MailChimp asked me to leave. I run an online store that launched in late October. We have done four campaigns in that time each with a list size of 500, 1000, 3000, and 90,000. Due to our rapid rate of growth every mailing has essentially been a first time send to the list. Unsubscribes and bounces are removed right away. I also understand the laws and that the rates the list saw were just too high. All of our lists track the date/time and IP address to have a proof of signup that they recommend. I even checked with them before the last send knowing I had issues, the person I spoke with said he understood and I should be okay even with the proof. Well I wasn't and I have been asked to leave. I will give props to MailChimp for not billing me this month to help with my transition.
So... with that being said I need a new home for my email marketing need.. what does everyone recommend? Aweber is really easy to use, has good deliverability and back end metrics. Prices are ok. I've used them on a number of projects. That's too bad about MailChimp. We experienced something similar when using MailChimp for Page99Test.com: our pre-launch signup list was not quite as clean as MailChimp (or we) would've liked. It was dirty. Like, pornographic dirty. ;) Not good. Too many bounces, unsubscribes and complaints. But they accepted our excuses and let us stick around. And we're good now. Our list is clean as a whistle. That said, we've also tried Campaign Monitor. Although CM isn't quite as straightforward or pretty as MailChimp, it has served our needs well. LESSON (we learned the hard way) FOR PRE-LAUNCH SIGNUP LISTS:
Always be sure to confirm email addresses (i.e., use double opt-in). The trouble single opt-in can cause -- specifically re: dirty email lists -- is just not worth the time savings of not doing double opt-in. I've tried to talk with them and sadly it just didn't work. I am kind of disappointed as I got different answers more than a few times. I even asked if I could call someone there and talk to them.. they didn't even bother replying to the email. Our list isn't even a prelaunch, just the newsletter signup on the right side of our site (thepaws.com - shameless plug..). It's just new customers signing up. But you're right it does make for very dirty lists. After the 1st send the list got cleaned up so hopefully moving forward it won't be as dirty, unless we hit a huge growth spurt again, and I wouldn't mind that!