Alternative Autoresponders

The current email marketing system I use is Birdsend. They migrated my list, make it easy to send to un-opens in one click, and are quite affordable.

Although I personally used AWeber for many years, I’d like to mention a few other autoresponders I see some of my clients using.

The first on the honorable mention list is GetResponse, which costs $15/month for a list up to 1,000.

GetResponse is similar to AWeber and MailChiimp but comes with a built-in landing page builder. Although it is not quite as effective as OptimizePress and LeadPages, GetResponse’s landing page templates will do the trick if you are in a hurry to create a landing page or sales page and don’t mind having less stats, slightly lower conversion rates than LeadPages, and a little less flexibility to customize the pages.

For instance, if you wanted the background image on a GetResponse template to be blue instead of red, you’d have to start over with a different template to make that change. However, if you’re fine with the template’s background color and layout, you can add your own images, change the text, and easily correspond the page to a list already in GetResponse. Because it is both an autoresponder and a landing page builder, you don’t have to add integration steps.

GetResponse, AWeber, and MailChimp all integrate with WPAffiliate, which costs $49 one time:

www.techdoneforyou.com/WPAffiliate. WPAffiliate is the least expensive, most reliable affiliate tracking plugin I’ve found.

If you don’t like WPAffiliate for whatever reason, you could try Affiliate Royale, which is also a WordPress plugin, and costs around $78 per year for ongoing tech support. WPAffiliate comes with a year of forum support, but if you need ongoing email support and are willing to pay for it, Affiliate Royale offers good customer service.

Another alternative autoresponder is Constant Contact. But, it has a big downside: you cannot send a “day zero” email and the welcome emails that supposedly go out immediately don’t always send. If you have an autoresponder sequence and need to send your free gift on the same day someone opts-in, you may have trouble. The earliest you can send a free gift is the next day, which is not ideal because most people are used to instant gratification after opting in to a free gift. However, If you already have a big list in Constant Contact, it may not be worth it to switch systems depending on whether the system you’re switching to requires a double opt-in. If a double opt-in is required, you may lose a significant number of your contacts during the transfer. If you are starting your list from scratch, I would simply recommend not going with Constant Contact and choosing AWeber, MailChimp, or GetResponse instead.

Another autoresponder worth mentioning is ConvertKit. This is a newer autoresponder one of my clients found. It is super easy to transfer a big email list to ConvertKit without having to double-opt in everyone again. You can simply export your list from your current system and import them to ConvertKit without asking people who signed up for your free gift to click on anything to stay on your list.

Another great feature of ConvertKit is that when you’re creating an opt-in form for the first time, you can label the double opt-in button with the name of your free gift. That way, instead of clicking on a generic confirmation button, you can say something like, “Download your free More Profit Toolkit,” or whatever the name of your gift is.

A third feature I really like about ConvertKit is that there is one button to send a broadcast to unopens. If you send a broadcast and there is still a large number of people who haven’t opened that email, you can re-send the email with a new subject just to the people who didn’t open the first email. Sending to unopens in 1ShoppingCart takes several steps. It’s easy and fast with Convertkit, which can be handy during a launch.

There are two downsides to ConvertKit that I’ve seen. One downside is that the “what you see is what you get” area of the broadcasts doesn’t always show the same spacing between paragraphs as it does if you preview the email or send yourself a test. To fix it, you have to edit the code directly.

The other downside to ConvertKit is that it is relatively new, so you will need to purchase a ConvertKit add-on if you are using it with WPAffiliate. I have heard that ConvertKit works with SendOwl but not with LeadPages. SendOwl costs $15/month for 30 products.

The last alternative autoresponder I’d like to mention is Drip. LeadPages recently acquired Drip, which is an autoresponder that starts at $1/month for 100 subscribers and unlimited broadcast sends. Drip offers campaign workflows similar to Infusionsoft, for a fraction of the cost.

Until next time, happy launching!

Gina