Mailchimp vs SharpSpring vs Vbout: Email Marketing Automation Showdown

Have you considered email automation for your business? Email automation isn’t only for the big boys, small and medium sized businesses can greatly benefit from marketing automation – it’s like having an assistant to handle your simplest tasks and it lets you send out professional and engaging emails without breaking a sweat… or your budget!

With email automation, you can set up smart workflows to send the right emails to the right people at the right time, nurturing your audience and keeping them engaged without you needing to lift a finger. What’s more, you can track how your email campaigns are doing, so you’ll know what’s hitting the bullseye and what needs adjustment. This data-driven approach is like having a compass for your marketing efforts.

Here’s why you should invest in email automation:

1. Personalised Features

Email builders often have advanced automation features, such as drip campaigns, autoresponders, and personalised triggers. These features enable you to send targeted and timely messages, nurturing your subscribers and increasing conversions.

2. Send Professional Looking Communication

Built-in email builders provide user-friendly interfaces with a wide range of pre-designed templates and customisation options. You can design visually appealing emails that reflect your brand, attract attention, and increase click-through rates. Most email software offers drag-and-drop editors and pre-built email templates, allowing you to create and send campaigns quickly without the need for coding skills.

3. Analytics and Reporting

Providing insights into key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. This data helps you track the effectiveness of your email campaigns and make informed decisions for future optimisations.

4. Deliverability and Compliance

Built-in features to improve deliverability rates and ensure compliance with email regulations. They handle technical aspects like clean formatting, spam checkers, and reliable delivery infrastructure and reputation, minimising the risk of your emails being marked as spam and affecting your ability to send future emails.

Which Provider?

When deciding on an email service to use, one of the primary factors is determining how it stacks up against other services. Is it best to use a provider that has some automation tools included, or a full marketing automation suite that includes email as one of many tools?

Mailchimp and Constant Contact are two of the most popular options available for a comprehensive email marketing suite, along with newcomers to the market like vBout. Comparing features can be daunting, so let’s take a closer look at Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact vs. vBout to help you decide which one is the best fit for your needs.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp while an entry-level tool is still a well-regarded email service provider that offers a plethora of features and tools in its email builder. With its user-friendly drag-and-drop editor, email campaign creation becomes seamless, even for beginners. Mailchimp provides a wide range of professionally designed email templates that can be customised to match your brand and achieve a polished appearance.

Based in Atlanta, the company was acquired by financial technology giant Inuit in November 2021 and currently has 13 million users with over 2.4 million staying engaged month after month with the service. With features like campaign creation, A/B testing, automated email sequence delivery, analytics tracking and more, Mailchimp is trusted by 800,000 paying customers to make their campaigns successful.

MailChimp’s email builder is a versatile and user-friendly tool packed with features to enhance your email marketing campaigns. Its intuitive drag-and-drop editor and extensive template library simplify email creation, while responsive design ensures your emails look great on any device. You can personalise content, conduct A/B tests, and leverage automation for drip campaigns and triggered emails. MailChimp’s analytics provide valuable insights, and it integrates seamlessly with various apps. Plus, it prioritises compliance and deliverability, ensuring your emails reach inboxes. Collaborative features make team efforts efficient, making MailChimp an excellent choice for marketers at all levels looking to engage their audience effectively.

The interface was designed with ease of use in mind to help manage emails by creating campaigns and automating workflows easily and quickly. Additionally, it provides real-time tracking and insights into customer behaviour enabling marketers to be ready for changes accordingly. It also integrates with a variety of popular services that businesses use every day like e-commerce stores, CRMs, Digital Ads, Surveys and feedback tools which help to maximise reach & visibility using its extensive user base. And offers support via guides, tutorials or webinars making it accessible to both newbies & experienced professionals alike.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is an email marketing platform that was launched in 1995 to help small businesses and nonprofits reach their customers more effectively. It has grown significantly over the years, surpassing 600,000 paid users and becoming the second-largest email service provider after Mailchimp. With its easy-to-use interface and intuitive features, Constant Contact lets you create campaigns from professional-looking templates with drag-and-drop controls. Scheduling delivery of newsletters and automated emails is a breeze, and integration with one of your existing websites is simple thanks to their API system.

Constant Contact’s email builder is a robust tool designed to streamline and elevate your email marketing efforts. With an easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, you can effortlessly craft visually appealing emails without the need for technical expertise. The platform offers an extensive collection of customisable templates, ensuring that your emails are both professional and tailored to your brand.

Constant Contact’s responsive design feature ensures that your emails look impeccable on various devices, guaranteeing a seamless viewing experience for your subscribers. Personalisation options allow you to connect with your audience on a personal level, while A/B testing empowers you to optimise your campaigns for maximum engagement and effectiveness. The platform’s automation capabilities enable you to set up drip campaigns and trigger emails based on subscriber actions, improving efficiency and nurturing leads.

The tools provided by Constant Contact are meant to not just send out emails but also get feedback about them from your intended audience so that your campaigns can be improved over time. You can track open rates, campaign effectiveness, and conversions from clicks or impressions to engagement or purchases thereby giving you valuable insights into how people interact with your email campaigns. Constant Contact acquired SharpSpring – a leading CRM, Automation and Lead Generation platform in September 2021, adding to its list of features on offer – albeit at a much higher price point.

All of these features make Constant Contact a great tool for any kind of business looking to strengthen its online presence through email marketing.

vBout

vBout is a marketing automation platform that offers a wide range of features and tools to help businesses create effective email campaigns. With vBout, users have access to advanced automation features to streamline their email marketing efforts. They can easily create email lists, send transactional emails, and customise subject lines to increase open rates.

One of the key advantages of vBout is its advanced segmentation capabilities. Users can easily segment their contact lists based on criteria such as demographics, purchase history, or engagement level to deliver highly targeted email campaigns. Additionally, vBout’s drag-and-drop editor allows for the customisation of emails, ensuring that businesses can create visually appealing emails without any coding skills.

vBout boasts an impressive array of features that cater to both beginners and experienced marketers. It provides a few customisable templates as well as pre-built blocks you can insert into your email campaigns, A/B testing, list management, and integration with popular CRM systems. Its intuitive drag-and-drop editor simplifies the email creation process, making it accessible to users of all skill levels. It also has a very handy ‘spam word detector’ that can warn you about the deliverability of your content. While vBout offers a comprehensive feature set, some users may find that certain advanced functionalities are available only in higher-tier plans, which could limit their options.

However, it’s worth noting that vBout’s pricing plans might be a drawback for some businesses. While they do offer a 60-day free trial, their premium plans can be expensive compared to other email marketing platforms in the market. Additionally, some users have reported that the user interface can be a bit complex, requiring a learning curve to navigate effectively.

Overall, vBout offers a robust set of features and tools for businesses looking to enhance their email marketing campaigns. With advanced automation features and advanced segmentation capabilities, vBout provides businesses with the tools they need to create engaging and targeted email campaigns.

Pricing

MailChimp

While Mailchimp offers a free plan, it limits the number of emails you can send per month. The pricing plans for larger subscriber lists or those needing more emails per month can be pricey. Another aspect to consider is Mailchimp’s deliverability rates, which have been known to vary and could potentially impact the effectiveness of your email campaigns. Mailchimp stands out from its competitors by offering a free service that includes several key features. The free option allows you to send 10,000 emails each month and is suitable for mailing lists that hold up to 2,000 people. However, if your list grows beyond 500 contacts or you want to send more than 6,000 emails a month, then you’ll need to upgrade to one of their paid plans. Prices can vary depending on the number of contacts and emails sent per month; the Standard plan starts at $14.99 for 6,000 emails and up to 500 contacts while the same plan jumps to $79.99 per month for 60,000 emails and 5,000 contacts. Ultimately it pays off to evaluate how much you’ll be sending before signing up for any plan in order to get the most affordable solution for your business needs.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is one of the leading email marketing platforms that offer flexible and affordable pricing plans. Their pricing starts with a free, 60-day trial for any plan, except Pro, which provides you with up to 100 contacts. This makes it easier to test drive all the features included in their platform such as A/B testing subject lines and email tracking at no cost.

Additionally, Constant Contact’s pricing model changes according to your list size which means the higher the volume, the lower the cost. Every plan includes unlimited emails; this ensures that businesses are not limited when it comes to their growth potential by tying them down to specific amounts of emails per month. So if you want an email marketing software that will have the best price advantage for your business, Constant Contact might be the right choice for you.

vBout

One of the significant advantages of vBout is its flexible pricing structure. It offers a variety of plans tailored to different needs and budgets. Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, you can find a plan that suits you. This flexibility allows you to scale your email marketing efforts without breaking the bank. However, it’s important to note that some advanced features may require an additional fee, so users should carefully assess their requirements to avoid unexpected costs.

All 3 email builders offer competitive pricing plans, making them accessible for businesses of all sizes. With their advanced features, customisable templates, and dedication to customer satisfaction, Vbout and Constant Contact are the top choices for businesses looking to invest in their email marketing and attract new leads.

Reporting

MailChimp

With the ever-increasing complexity of executing email campaigns effectively and consistently, the need for comprehensive reporting becomes even more important. Mailchimp makes it easy to get a complete overview of how your campaigns are performing with their reports and interactive graphs that detail click-through rates, open rates, bounce rates, and other pertinent metrics. Not only can you have access to these metrics, but with their click map overlay feature, you can gain insights into which email elements are the most engaging by seeing exactly where contacts scroll on or click within your messages. Furthermore, Mailchimp provides email marketing statistics and benchmarks so that your campaigns can easily be compared against average MailChimp performance.

Constant Contact

Similarly, Constant Contact allows you insight into how effective your emails have been by providing detailed user engagement info such as the number of opens, clicks, forwards and consumer behaviour regarding when they subscribed and interacted with campaigns. This type of data is essential for a better understanding of customer engagement and optimising future emails for maximum effectiveness. However, this type of reporting on its own is simply the basics; in order to gain greater insight into user behaviour additional 3rd party resources may need to be utilised in order to gain a comprehensive comprehension of consumer behaviour.

vBout

Effective email marketing hinges on understanding how your campaigns are performing. vBout offers robust reporting and analytics tools that provide insights into open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and more. Users can track their campaigns in real-time, enabling them to make data-driven decisions for optimisation. However, some users have reported that the reporting interface can be overwhelming, especially for newcomers to email marketing.

Customer Service

MailChimp

Mailchimp is a great marketing platform, but it falls short in one major area: customer support. For those with the free plan, there is no way to contact the company directly; all you’re able to do is access the knowledge base of videos. Though these are helpful, sometimes people need individualised help that can only be obtained through direct contact. With a paid subscription, email and chat support become available, but unfortunately, there is still no way to get assistance over the phone.

Constant Contact

In comparison, Constant Contact has a leg up on Mailchimp when it comes to customer service. Their 24/7 access by phone, email, and chat means their customers never have to wait too long for help in times of need. Constant Contact also offers tailored advice from knowledgeable professionals who are familiar with both the product and industry standards. In this sense, they truly stand out versus their competitors who lack personalised assistance options.

vBout

When issues arise or questions need answering, responsive customer service is crucial. vBout offers various customer support options, including live chat, email support, and a knowledge base. Users generally appreciate the availability of multiple support channels. However, a few have expressed concerns about occasional delays in response time during peak periods.

Usability

MailChimp

Upon registering on MailChimp, users have the option of creating a new email list or importing an existing one. It is important that any addresses being imported have provided explicit consent for receiving marketing emails. Failure to obtain permission may result in sending spam, which could lead MailChimp penalising the user.

MailChimp enables the creation and embedding of forms on websites or social media pages for the purpose of building a new email list. Any address entered into the form will be automatically added to the email list. Additionally, this platform offers analytical tools to provide insights about your email audience and identify areas for improvement.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is similar to MailChimp, as it is a web-based platform. It helps you expand your email list and provides analytical tools to understand your email audience. However, Constant Contact offers more than just email services. It allows you to send messages to customers and market through SMS. It also includes a website builder that lets you create visually attractive websites for your business. The website builder even has an e-commerce tool for accepting payments and selling goods online.

vBout

vBout’s old email builder was quite difficult to work with and often required a bit of knowledge to jump into the back-end code to fix simple layout and typographic issues. However since the launch of their new email builder in 2022, vBout is as easy to use as MailChimp’s, and its user-friendly interface makes it accessible to marketers of all skill levels. The drag-and-drop email builder simplifies the design process, and its intuitive workflow ensures that even beginners can create engaging emails without a steep learning curve.

Automation

MailChimp

Email marketing automation is an invaluable tool that enables marketers to send personalised product recommendations and purchase follow-ups. Platforms like Mailchimp offer excellent automation features, which allow users to establish triggers that cause email sequences to be sent out. These triggers can be defined around user behaviour such as clicking on particular links or making purchases. Keep in mind however that the automation features of MailChimp are only available for paid accounts and are capped at differing levels depending on your subscription.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact also allows users to set up automated emails and autoresponders based on how their contacts interact with their emails. It is possible for businesses to segment contacts so they can resend messages automatically only to people who haven’t opened an initial message. This way, campaigns are more targeted and efficient, leading to higher engagement rates from customers. All in all, email marketing automation is a valuable technique for improving the effectiveness of email campaigns and should not be overlooked when businesses consider their marketing strategies.

vBout

Automation is a key component of successful email marketing, and it is core to vBout’s function so doesn’t disappoint in this regard. It offers automation features such as drip campaigns, segmentation, and behavior-triggered emails. This allows users to send targeted, relevant messages to their subscribers automatically. However, the full potential of vBouts’ automation features may require more advanced technical skills, potentially limiting their accessibility to some users.

Delivery rates

The delivery rate of emails to recipients is an important metric when it comes to email marketing and can be the difference between success and failure. Many email service providers have similar delivery rates, but this does not mean they are necessarily equal. It is important to keep in mind that the number of sent emails may be different from those delivered as some could bounce for a variety of reasons such as invalid addresses, full mailboxes or considered spam.

The most recently available data shows that Constant Contact had a higher 91.5% delivery rate compared to Mailchimp’s 86.9%. Although the difference may seem insignificant, depending on ROI values and list sizes, it can add up to lost revenues over time and should be taken into consideration when selecting an email service provider. vBout employs various techniques to maximise delivery rates, including email authentication, compliance with email regulations, and dedicated IP addresses. However, some users have reported occasional issues with emails ending up in spam folders, emphasising the importance of maintaining list hygiene and following best practices.

Which Should You Choose?

In conclusion, when it comes to choosing the best email builder among Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and vBout, it’s essential to consider your specific needs and priorities. Each of these platforms offers distinct advantages and may cater better to certain businesses or marketing strategies.

Constant Contact stands out for its user-friendly interface, excellent customer support, and high delivery rates, making it an attractive option for businesses looking for reliability and ease of use. vBout offers a comprehensive set of features, including advanced segmentation and automation, making it a strong choice for marketers who require more advanced capabilities and are willing to invest in their email marketing efforts. Mailchimp, while popular and versatile, has some considerations to keep in mind. It provides a free plan with limited features, but as your list grows or your email volume increases, pricing can become less competitive. Mailchimp’s deliverability rates can also vary, impacting the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Ultimately, the choice between these email builders should be based on your specific business requirements, budget constraints, and the level of expertise you have in email marketing.