Roundup: Email List Management Services

It's not hard to see why email is such a popular marketing solution. It's fast, cheap, and easy. Anyone can write an email; only the mass-mailing and personalization steps are a bit difficult. Most organizations don't have the extra server capacity or expertise to handle mass email blasts, or to gauge the ROI on their marketing dollars.

Fortunately, hosted email list service providers abound, as well as higher-end CRM and direct marketing solutions (see the "Personalize" sidebar). They're all geared for the business user, require no special HTML knowledge, and are easy to set up—you just register online, get your lists and content posted, and schedule mailings. Most support both plain text and HTML email formats, and many offer HTML templates, complete with previews and test mailing options.

Constant Contact 6

Roving Software's Constant Contact is unique in that it offers unlimited 24/7 support. Its tracking features are also good. And in addition to your own click-through rates, you're given the aggregate statistics for for the last three months from all clients using the service for the last three months.

You can choose from about forty email templates based on popular content types, such as Promotions, Newsletters, or Seasonal announcements. You can also add your own templates and store them in specific categories. Unfortunately, the templates are fairly inflexible. Once you choose a format—say, the newsletter—you'll have to enter just the right number of articles. If you have want to send an article email with just one article, it's probably easier to simply enter the HTML directly.

Scheduling is also less flexible than it could be. You can choose the date of the mailing, but not the time. (Roving says that it generally sends email in the early morning.)

Constant Contact lets you break down your email subscriber list by interest categories. Optionally, you can have your email recipients select their own categories from an online sign-up form. Another useful management feature is permanent removal, which prevents email addresses from being re-added accidentally by a new list import. You can't search for an address without exporting the entire list, however. Constant Contact also features Advanced Editor to let you manipulate each template's HTML.

The bounce management pane lets you determine how each bounced email is handled. A soft bounce is resent several times over a three-day period. If these tactics are unsuccessful, the message appears in the bounce manager, where you have the option to delete it. All hard bounces arrive in the bounce manager immediately. Strangely, however, there's no way to distinguish between a soft and a hard bounce; the service doesn't tell you.

For obtaining new subscribers, Roving Software provides sample HTML for a detailed sign-up form, as well as a simpler sign-up box that only requires an email address.

Campaigner

GotMarketing's Campaigner offers the most handholding of any service, including detailed Flash tutorials with sound and animation. It's necessary: Although the interface is simple and uncluttered, the wizard-centric UI makes some features tough to navigate.

Your email will be limited by the templates. Although you can compose mailings based on a predefined template, or upload one of your own in-house templates, the overall selection isn't as good as the templates in Roving's Constant Contact. You can't edit the HTML for a predefined template directly, either. And your content is often difficult to customize. For example, though you can choose from four different unsubscribe messages, you can't create your own. You can, however, use wildcards in the subject line and from fields to send personalized email.

Like Constant Contact, Campaigner will generate the HTML for a sign-up box or link for your Web site for gathering new subscribers. Making up for the templates, perhaps, Campaigner lets you choose from fifteen different signup boxes.

Another strength is the Campaigner's list management features. You can search lists for subscribers by domain, address, mail type, and contact status, so it's easy to manage bounces. You can add an unlimited number of address lists. Also, Campaigner distinguishes between hard and soft bounces; soft bounces are retried up to five times over five days. You can choose to delete either all hard or soft bounces, or both.

Email Publisher

Email Publisher, from Topica, is available in two forms: a free self-service version, and the commercial Pro version. (Full disclosure: New Architect currently sends its weekly newsletter via Topica.)

Topica's colorful tab-based interface is one of the easiest to work with, and all features are accessible with only one or two clicks. It uses unique HTML templates that let you edit only the content fields that you want to change. There's no need to delete any sections that you don't want to use; those sections simply won't appear in the final email. In addition to text and HTML previews, a special preview for the AOL interface is available.

For management, Topica offers automatic URL tracking, and detailed reporting features. Topica distinguishes between hard and soft bounces, and will delete soft bounces automatically after five attempts. Another strength is its sophisticated audience segmentation capability. You can create multiple audiences by segmenting your subscriber list with demographics and interests, and send targeted campaigns. Like GotMarketing Campaigner, you can add as many lists as you want. Topica also offers list rental and lead generation services at additional cost.

Topica adds value through its technology partnerships. For example, Topica partners with eBay and PayPal for e-commerce integration. You can easily add "Buy Now" buttons to your email newsletters and promotions, pointing to any items in your eBay store. Selling ad space in your Topica mailings is also easy, thanks to a partnership with Advertising.com.

iBuilder

Unlike many of its competitors, Vertical Response's iBuilder lets you schedule email to be mailed every five minutes, which is useful for extremely time sensitive materials. Your reports list the actual time the campaign was sent, which is essential for determining what time of the day is most effective for click-throughs.

When you set up your profile, you specify your time zone for easier scheduling. Unfortunately, iBuilder's interface is rather cluttered and difficult to follow. One oddity is the Advanced Campaign Features tab, which has only one feature: the ability to add forwarding options to your email (which ought to be in the authoring area).

iBuilder offers rudimentary templates, or you can upload your own. Once you choose a template, if you want to include images, you specify the layout for each content cell. The integrated spell check is useful for adding content. And like Topica, you get an AOL preview pane.

iBuilder's management capabilities are good. It distinguishes between bounce types, but a bit differently than Topica. If iBuilder receives a response from a remote server that the recipient's inbox is full, or that the address is invalid, it's a bounce. If the server appears to be down, iBuilder will try to resend several times within the first three days after the campaign launch. For search, iBuilder is cumbersome—you have to match your data to the database fields within iBuilder using drop-down menus, unlike Topica or Campaigner.

Listserv Maestro

L-Soft's Listserv Maestro is unique in that you can specify the exact minute to send your mailings. Its best feature is its UI; of all the services I examined, it was the most elegant. The workflow is easy to understand once you get used to the icons. And all features are one or two clicks away.

In addition to importing CSV files, Listserv Maestro lets you connect with databases, including Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, and MySQL. Another noteworthy feature is Anonymous Tracking, which tracks demographic information without identifying any particular list recipient. This feature is useful for companies constrained by a privacy policy, or by legislation such as COPPA and HIPAA.

Email List Management At a Glance
	Campaigner	Constant Contact	Email Publisher	iBuilder	Listserv Maestro
Rating
Vendor	GotMarketing	Roving	Topica	Vertical Response	L-Soft
URL	www.got marketing.com	www.roving.com	www.email- publisher.com	www.vertical response.com	www.lsoft.com
Pricing	Variable, starts at $25 for 2,500 emails, with $0.01 cost per additional email.	Pay by the number of subscribers to your opt-in list; starts at $10 for 51-250 names.	Variable, pay per message: starts at $24.95 for up to 10,000 emails.	Variable, depends on list size and frequency. For a list of 1,000 names, you must buy 1,000 email credits at $0.015 each.	Complicated: set-up charge starts at $1,000, pending training fees; minimum quarterly delivery charges start at $750-$1,000, and some packages have fixed list-maintenance costs.
Trial available?	Yes, to send up to twelve contacts.	Yes, fully functional trial for sixty days.	Yes, to send up to 10,000 email deliveries within the first thirty days.	Although you can set up campaigns without paying, you can only send a test email campaign to yourself and a seed list of ten people.	Only available through a sales representative.
Scheduling	By the quarter hour.	By the day.	By the quarter hour.	In five-minute increments.	In one-minute increments.
Subscriber search?	Yes.	No, you have to export the list first.	Yes.	Yes, but only by pre-defined fields.	Yes, but only by full email address.
Double opt-in?	Yes.	No.	Yes.	No.	No.
Image storage?	No.	No.	Yes.	Yes.	No.
Support	Live online assistance and phone support, weekdays, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Eastern time.	24/7; unlimited.	Via email Monday through Saturday, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time.	Email and phone support, weekdays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time.	Varying levels of maintenance available, starting from free email.
Pros	Good templates and marketing tips; good documentation.	Excellent support; rich selection and full control of templates.	Excellent audience segmentation features and reporting.	Good templates; granular scheduling appealing for time-sensitive mailings.	Database support; excellent UI.
Cons	URL tracking not automatic; per-additional email-cost unpredictable.	Templates inflexible unless you edit HTML directly.	Downtime unpredictable; no regularly scheduled maintenance.	Search cumbersome; hard to freely test the service.	Pricing complex; set-up fees apply.

Mana Tominaga is associate editor of New Architect. Email her at [email protected]m.