Email marketing & social media marketing software
4.52/5 (461 reviews)iContact offers a straightforward way for users to design stylish emails without having to know any HTML. The software’s email templates are professional looking and completely modifiable. Templates are all designed in a way that maximizes personal branding.
To design your first email, check out the template selection and choose the option that best meets your needs. You can quickly modify any template to change the layout, color palette, or overall styling. Individual sections, or blocks, each have their own formatting. You can save any message that you design to reuse at a later time, as well.
It doesn’t matter how nicely a message is designed without a list of subscribers to send it to. iContact provides a robust list management feature with various tools to help users manage their growing subscriber lists.
To keep your list of subscribers organized, make sure to include the correct recipient name and company name for each contact. (This is especially true if you’re collecting email addresses at trade shows or networking events.) iContact will remove duplicates or invalid email addresses for you, and it will give you the option of whether to remove email addresses after the first bounce, or delivery failure notice.
With iContact, businesses can schedule automated emails to be delivered over time, rather than all at once. Autoresponders, or triggered emails, help to deepen customer relationships by providing subscribers with more relevant content. The autoresponder feature comes most frequently into play when users want to set up “Welcome” campaigns, abandoned cart emails, or transaction messages.
Autoresponders are most commonly used in “Welcome” campaigns. When someone subscribes to your list, automatically send a message introducing your company. At that point, you can set up a drip campaign to continue sending emails at regular intervals in order to familiarize the new subscriber with your company or your products.
Segmentation can make any email list stronger. The more a business knows about its subscribers, the deeper it can go with list segmentation. For example, instead of sending blanket emails to every subscriber, a business could segment its list and send a certain email newsletter only to those customers who had indicated that they were interested in a particular product or service.
Go beyond demographics when segmenting your campaigns. Although iContact gives you the ability to segment by gender or age, you can also use past purchasing behavior to improve the results of your campaigns. Custom entries ensure that your segmentation is unique, based on your company’s goals. For example, with iContact you can segment your lists by general interest, which is useful if you know that a certain subset of your customers are interested in a sport like golf or basketball.
Most popular features of all Marketing apps
25 reviewers had the following to say about iContact Email Marketing's features:
We could also manage a lot of email marketing campaign with a large number of people with personalized content, and the ROI was huge.
Pros
It's really cheap, easy to use and it works with no problems at all.
Cons
Also, the new interface was really delayed in comparison to its competition that already had drag an drop customization and a large number of quality templates.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Hi Barbara. Thank you for your review! We're happy to hear that we've delivered value with our reliability and ease-of use. Our team takes a lot of pride in helping customers succeed. We also appreciate your suggestions around analytics and CRM integrations. We're constantly looking for ways to evolve our platform, so we will keep your feedback top of mind. Thanks!
Excellent analytics suite enables me to fine tune campaigns.
Pros
The recently introduced dashboard feature is great for obtaining vital information at a glance.
Cons
I'd like to see an easier to use, more modular editor with the templates. Some other services I also use have automated this process more.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
The software has grown with us over the years as demands for automation and integration with third party systems have increased.
Pros
For those looking for API support, according to a large client of ours the API is very robust and easy to use.
Cons
There are UI areas in the software that can be improved.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Hi Dave! Thank you so much for your review. We're so happy to hear that we're continuing to meet your business needs after all of these years. Customer happiness is our top priority! Also, thank you for the suggestions for improving the segments UI. We will definitely take these into consideration as we continue to evolve the platform. Thanks for being such a loyal customer over the last decade!
I'm also able to create promotions for my clients and run email marketing campaigns on their behalf.
Pros
It has a clever UI thus very easy to set up a widget on your site to capture visitors.
Cons
The dashboard hasn't been upgraded in a few years now, could use a bit of a revamp to be more within the lines of modern design.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Thanks so much for your feedback!
We appreciate you taking the time to let us know how we're doing. It's good to hear you've been finding our application easy to work with and that you're enjoying several of our features.
As you mentioned, some portions of our application could use a refresh which is one of our big focuses in 2018 - so be sure to keep an eye out for the updates.
Pros
iContact is a low cost solution for basic email marketing. You have access to a strategic advisor.
Cons
I'm not able to download user profile information when exporting email send statistics - this is important for me when I want to do a quick analysis on my data.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Thank you very much for being a long time iContact customer! We are happy to hear that you have been able to quickly and easily design automations with workflows using your iContact Pro account. We like this feature so much we plan to make it available to all iContact accounts. Thank you as well for your feedback, particularly about adding a post unsubscribe survey. This is being shared with our Product Management team so that it can be reviewed for possible updates in a future release.
Once fully set up, it's all you really need to create and manage branded sales/marketing/communication plans all in one place.
Pros
While there are plenty of great email templates, their WYSIWYG editor allows anyone to create beautiful messaging in line with their brand.
Cons
Campaign reporting leaves a lot to be desired, and syncing with Salesforce has not been as quick/easy as I expected.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
CRM, email distribution, social media management, etc.
Pros
I love the stats to be able to judge the success of my campaigns.
Cons
I have a designer who will help me spice up emails but needs more room to design.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
Easy sectioning of customer lists for fine tuning and A/B testing.
Cons
Some processes can be clunky (adding social media buttons & links to emails)
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Hello Sue, We are thrilled to hear that you find our interface and contact management options easy to use. As you pointed out we also offer very competitive pricing in our field. We are working on making some additions to our file library to allow you to do more and host more images. We'd love to hear more about the experiences you find clucky as we're always looking to improve. Our support team would be happy to walk you through anything you need help with or pass along any feedback you may have. You can contact them here https://www.icontact.com/support. Thank you for continuing to use iContact!
The software performed well considering that e-mail marketing is not as popular as social media marketing.
Pros
There is a template designer. iContact also provides support and consultancy calls.
Cons
It is difficult to match contacts with lists as well as no telephone numbers for follow up in the open and clicks report. The pros far outweigh the cons.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Monthly
Likelihood to recommend
Hi Chandra! We are so glad to hear that iContact is adding value to your business. Thank you for taking the time to review your message clicks and opens. Reporting allows you to see what contacts are most engaged in your content. We also thank you for your feedback about telephone numbers not appearing in the open and clicks report. We will certainly take this into consideration as we continue to improve our product. In the meantime our recommendation is to save these contacts as a segment directly from the reporting page. You can then export the segment containing the phone numbers and all other available information. Hopefully this helps speed up your process!
Pros
List segmenting. Social media integration
Cons
Can't be integrated with PPC. Lacking some basic capabilities overall. Image upload quality isn't great.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Thank you so much for sharing your feedback!
It sounds like you are signed up for one of our iContact Pro accounts. We are happy to hear that you're easily able to set up automated workflows. We like this feature so much that we are bringing automation to our iContact accounts as well!
We are always looking for new ways to improve our product, and we would love to hear some of your ideas. Please let our helpful support team know what capabilities you would like to see incorporated, so that we can ensure they are taken into account while we plan future releases.
Pros
Easy to use, Fun to create, simple analytics and nice reporting, incredible import/export abilities.
Cons
Wish it integrated with google analytics a bit more and had better analytics on screen for each email.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Hi Catherine. Thank you for being a loyal iContact customer! We love hearing that message creation has been fun for you. If we can make any aspect of your daily routine more fun, we count that as a win. We appreciate your feedback about Google Analytics as well. We are in the process of evaluating new and current integrations to see where we can best focus our efforts for our customers. We will certainly take your feedback into account during this process.
Pros
With iContact Pro you are also able to get help with email creation and copy writing, customized templates, testing, landing page and microsite design and copy writing, advanced reporting, analytics and performance reviews, workflow creation, and social medial analysis, branding and image creation.
Cons
Once I got the hang of things it became very easy to design and send emails and check the analytics. This software has really helped my company save a lot of time.
Rating breakdown
Time used: Less than 6 months
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Complaints have gone done and our open rates have gone up. iContact provides great advice whether you're just starting out in e-marketing or have been doing this a long time. We're able to fine tune our emails and get valuable insight from them.
Pros
There's also the option to integrate via their API and automatically upload leads in real time which is a great feature.
Cons
The new iContact dashboard is very nice and responsive but since it is new, you can find some bugs in the system.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
They updated the email designer this past year with a responsive drag and drop format that makes our emails easier to view on mobile devices and easier for the less digital-savvy members of the team to use.
Cons
Creating list segments is tough without planning ahead Bullets don't center with the text Not 100% customizable, but hey, it's responsive!
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Thank you for taking the time to leave such a detailed review. We're happy to hear that you're enjoying the drag-and-drop editor and that you're finding our customer service so helpful. We also appreciate the suggestions you mentioned and will keep them in mind as we continue to enhance our offering. Thanks for being such a loyal customer.
- everything you need from ESP / basic marketing automation platform - ability to easily preview email across devices - easy templates / drag and drop editor - user friendly - easy admin functionalities
Pros
- Support when transitioning from previous ESP - User friendly templates and editors - Ease of admin functionalities - Ability to view across devices
Cons
-Headache to send first deployment - getting contacts verified even though they're not purchased. iContact using an email data validation tool to check credibility would be easier for us and quicker.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Other
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
I like how it integrates with twitter and other social media. The click and drag email creation tool is also very helpful
Cons
The only real issue i have is that the integration with linkedIn often does not work.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
iContact helps me reach the audience I need and create and grow awareness of my brand.
Pros
It's simple to put together a marketing email that looks great, and gets results.
Cons
I find the automations integration difficult to follow.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Daily
Likelihood to recommend
Pros
I like the fact that this software is easy to use and is very versatile.
Cons
I wish this software had better social media integration available.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Monthly
Likelihood to recommend
Hi Kirsten. Thank you for being a dedicated iContact user! Once you've customized a template and made it your own, we think it should be as easy as possible to access it again. By saving your own customized templates you can easily select them for use over and over again. Thank you for your feedback about social media as well. We'd love to get your thoughts on what you would like to see us include in the future. Please let our support team know any further details so that they can be passed along, or fill out a ticket in our Help Portal here: https://app.icontact.com/icp/core/help/en-us
Pros
What's not to love? A-B testing, Google analytics plug-in, and a user-friendly interface makes sending emails fun!
Cons
The price associated with larger accounts can get costly but there are discounts that you can tap into.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Hi Gillian! We're so happy to hear that iContact makes email marketing fun! At iContact we recognize that marketers use many tools daily, so integrating Google Analytics was one platform we knew we had to incorporate. We aim to be a cost-effective email marketing solution for businesses of all sizes, and we truly appreciate your loyalty. Thanks again and have a great day!
Easy to email customers with a small marketing team.
Pros
Easy to move items around, Easy to drag and drop, easy to create an email and modify it for multiple senders.
Cons
Sometimes have funky font issues, but if you test it's easily fixable.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 1-2 years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
The biggest problem we're solving is time spent on producing emails.
Pros
The drag & drop editor makes shuffling around content easy and better yet, the templates automatically reformat for optimized mobile consumption.
Cons
The only thing I wish we had was direct 2-way communication between our business website member databases and the iContact lists for synchronized newsletter opt-in status. Subscriptions get communicated from our website to iContact, but unsubscribes from the emails sent by iContact do not get communicated back to the member profile on our website.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
iContact has helped up get consistent branding across the organization.
Pros
As we move to a more focused content marketing plan, we saw the need to transition from a free service to one with more support and tools.
Cons
I wish that I had more time to set up drip campaigns prior to purchase.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 6-12 months
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
Thanks for the comments, Ebony. We love helping nonprofits with their email marketing. Sounds like using iContact has really gotten everyone on the same page, and list segmentation has allowed for more personalization¿that¿s great. We¿ll be sure to let your Strategic Advisor know that her guidance is appreciated; next time, ask her for any tricks she may know to speed up your email creation. Take care!
Pros
Emails get delivered and social media integration is Great.
Cons
Needs more created templates for quick editing and use.
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Hi Jeff. We appreciate you being a loyal customer for over 7 years! It is excellent to hear that you are getting such great feedback from our tracking tool. It is so important not only to communicate with your contacts, but to actually see how effective that communication was. Thank you for the feedback about how subscribers are counted. Hopefully we can clear up any confusion related to this number. Our standard iContact plans charge based on the number of subscribers in your account. Contacts who have opted out of your messages are still listed on your Contacts page, and even counted in your total number of contacts. However, only the contacts who can actually receive emails (subscribers) are counted for pricing purposes. Thank you so much for choosing iContact!
Pros
Integration with social media. I have been using iContact for almost 7 years and have found it to be a solid system for my email marketing and campaigns for my clients.
Cons
Can be quirky when using internet security software
Rating breakdown
Time used: 2+ years
Frequency of use: Weekly
Likelihood to recommend
