We have a rigorous policy of being completely honest. We do, however, to fund our work, We use affiliate advertising connections on this blog.
Aweber HONEST REVIEW 2021 |
Continue reading for a detailed breakdown of Aweber's benefits and drawbacks, as well as a look at its pricing, features, templates, and user interface.
By the end of this article, you'll know whether Aweber is the best email marketing solution for your business and what the alternatives are.
Let's get this bash going.
What exactly is Aweber?
Aweber is an email marketing tool that lets you do things like:
- Make a mailing list and add information to it.
- Create newsletters that can be emailed to your list's subscribers.
- Use 'autoresponders' to automate your email marketing.
- look at and analyze data from your email marketing efforts
Aweber was formed in 1998, and the company claims that 120,000 people and businesses have used the platform for email marketing.
Although it is smaller than some of its competitors (most notably Mailchimp and Getresponse), it is nonetheless a well-known brand with a significant user base.
Price of Aweber
Aweber comes in two flavors: professional and free.
The following is the pricing breakdown for the Pro plans:
- $19 per month for hosting and emailing to a list of up to 500 people.
- $29.99 per month for 501-2,500 members
- $49.99 per month for 2,501-5,000 subscribers
- $69.99 per month for 5,001 to 10,000 members
- $109.99 a month for a group of 10,000 to 25,000 subscribers
Aweber pricing |
The number of subscribers is something to keep an eye on.
The fact that both subscribed and unsubscribed contacts count as ‘billable' subscribers are important to remember when it comes to Aweber pricing.This implies you'll be paid for maintaining someone's information in your Aweber account even if they unsubscribe from your list.You can prevent this fee by periodically deleting unsubscribed contacts from your account, but you must remember to do so.Aweber isn't the only email marketing service that charges this way (Mailchimp does too), but the approach isn't ideal because it adds needless costs or administrative labor to clients (or both!).
How does Aweber's pricing stack up against its rivals?
Aweber is, in general, a good service.
- Campaign Monitor is substantially more expensive.
- a lot less expensive than iContact
- Approximately the same cost as Mailchimp
- Getresponse is slightly more expensive.
- Quite a bit more pricey than Mad Mimi (but Mad Mimi's feature set is far more basic).
Aweber's main characteristics
- Importing and hosting a mailing list is possible.
- a large number of options
- autoresponders
- Automated marketing features
- email templates that are adaptable
- reporting
- testing in two groups
- Feed-to-email (RSS) and blog-to-email (Blog-to-e
- Options for segmentation are listed here.
- a page builder for landing pages
- Support is available over the phone, by email, and through live chat.
- third-party app integration
Importing data into Aweber and hosting your list
XLS
XLSX
TSV
CSV
TXT
The ability to add subscribers to autoresponder cycles is a powerful feature of the Aweber import process. |
Templates
Example of an Aweber template |
Responsive email designs
Aweber templates using web fonts
- Arvo
- Lato
- Lora
- Merriweather
- Merriweather sans
- Noticia Text
- Open Sans
- Playfair Display
- Roboto
- Source Sans Pro
- Permanent Marker
RSS to email templates
Autoresponders
- When someone joins your email list, they are greeted with a greeting from your company.
- They get a coupon code for a purchase a week later.
- They get an invitation to follow you on social media three weeks later...
…and so on.
They are usually a significant component of any e-marketing strategy because they may help you save time and money.
Because Aweber claims to have created autoresponders in 1998, you'd expect its autoresponder capabilities to be phenomenal.
Surprisingly, it's merely 'okay'.
On the bright side, setting up follow-up emails in Aweber based on time intervals is incredibly simple — for example, sending subscribers an onboarding email immediately after signup, a promo code two days later, and a ‘follow us on social media' email a week later is extremely simple. This is a common usage of autoresponders, and it's simple to do with Aweber.
On the negative side, the choices for triggering autoresponders based on user activities and purchases are far less than in comparable programs.
You can use Aweber to create 'goals' or combine automation rules with tagging to make autoresponders behave in fairly sophisticated ways — but if you want to use autoresponders in really advanced ways, you'll probably need to look at other products, particularly Getresponse, which has a lot more marketing automation functionality.
And while we're on the subject of marketing automation...
Marketing automation
Email marketing systems like Aweber are increasingly including marketing automation as a feature.
I call it "Autoresponders 2.0," in which you go beyond standard "drip" campaigns to design complicated user journeys utilizing "IFTT" (if this, then that) type processes.
You create a flowchart with marketing automation to send emails based on user behaviors like email opens, link clicks, site visits, purchases made, and so on.
Aweber has a marketing automation component called "Aweber Campaigns" that provide some of these capabilities.
You can use this functionality to determine what should be delivered to whom and when based on user activities such as opens and clickthroughs, as well as the application of tags (which can be triggered if a user views a specific page on your site) (see above).
However, I believe that this functionality could go much further - solutions like Getresponse and Mailchimp offer far more flexibility in terms of which user behaviors can trigger mailouts.
In Getresponse, for example, you can send messages based on triggers like a purchase, a certain page visit, a subscriber's "score," and the stage of the sales pipeline. In a similar way, Mailchimp functions.
As a result, Aweber lags behind its competitors in this category.
Getresponse's marketing automation is far more advanced than what you'll find in Aweber. |
Spotlight on… Aweber’s free plan
Aweber now provides a full free plan, maybe in an attempt to compete with Mailchimp. Most similar products give a free trial but not indefinite access to the product, which is rare in the email marketing field.
The free plan from Aweber is both less and more generous than the one from Mailchimp.
It's more generous since, with the exception of a few capabilities (most notably split testing and abandoned cart emails), the majority of Aweber's capability is available for free. Mailchimp's free plan is limited to a few key features; for example, you can't use any automation.
Aweber's free plan is less liberal, allowing you to work with a list of 500 contacts or less; Mailchimp's free plan, on the other hand, allows you to work with a list of up to 2,000 subscribers.
Both products include advertisements for their brands in the e-newsletters that come with their free plans; however, these are rather modest.
You can try out Aweber's free plan here.
AMP for email in Aweber
A new technology called AMP for email is one area where Aweber has an advantage over most other email marketing systems.
E-newsletters have traditionally been pretty static affairs, consisting of just text and photos. All of that changes with AMP for Email, which allows recipients to perform simple tasks (such as setting an appointment or RSVPing to an event) immediately within an email, rather than having to leave their email program or go to a website.
It also enables email senders to include dynamic content in their messages, such as real-time survey results, weather updates, and football scores.
The ‘dynamic' character of AMP emails encourages users to check back in with them on a regular basis, transforming e-newsletters into far more potent and engaging content.
For a quick introduction to the world of AMP for email, watch the Google video below.
Opt in processes
Split testing
Reporting
- the evolution of a list over time
- a rundown of the different ways to sign up
- where your email is being opened (i.e., geographical location)
- the history of a person's activities – On a subscriber-by-subscriber basis, you may see prior opens, clicks, and other activities.
Segmenting data in Aweber
Aweber, unlike some competitors, only allows you to send emails to one section at a time. |
Landing page builder
An Aweber landing page example |
Integrations with third-party apps
Aweber connectors allow you to link the tool to a variety of different websites. |
Aweber customer support
Aweber review: the verdict
Pros and cons of Aweber
Pros of using Aweber
- There is a completely free option.
- It's simple to operate.
- It includes a far larger number of templates than its main competitors.
- Support options are broader than those offered by several significant competitors, and customer service levels should be strong based on Aweber's Stevie awards.
- It's affordable - while it's not the cheapest product of its sort on the market, it's less expensive than a number of similar options.
- A landing page builder is included.
- It supports AMP for email, which is a first in the world of email marketing software.
- It gives you the option of allowing individuals to subscribe to your list using a single or double opt-in method.
- It offers good import capabilities, with the ability to import a variety of file kinds and instantly add the email addresses you're importing to an autoresponder cycle.
- It works with a good number of third-party tools and apps.
- It's pretty simple to set up simple time-based autoresponders with it.
- All of the email templates are mobile-friendly.
- Aweber allows you to utilize web fonts in your e-newsletters.
Cons of using Aweber
- If you keep unsubscribed contacts on your account, you will be charged.
- When sending an e-newsletter, you can't include or remove many portions at once.
- There are less expensive choices available that provide far more capabilities in the marketing automation field.
- While the landing page builder is great, it lacks A/B testing and a GDPR-compliant way to incorporate Facebook pixels and Google Analytics cookies.
- Some of the templates appear to be out of the current.
- The RSS to email templates are bad, and they can't be modified with Aweber's drag-and-drop email builder.
TRY AWEBER FREE
Alternatives to Aweber
Any thoughts on Aweber?