Comments on: Review: MailChimp (Email Marketing)

By: Guy

Guy — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 19:09:24 +0000

I’m sorry… but MailChimp is a usability nightmare. The interface is horrid. It looks cute and pretty but every page has about a million options and there are what… half a dozen ways to create a template?! And the editor… wow. That editor is beyond craptastic. And you can’t even bypass the WYSIWYG… if for instance you want an editable field where the client can ONLY input text. Forgetting about price for a minute… just focusing on usability (which is critical when your clients barely know how to use Outlook)… Campaign Monitor wins hands down. MailChimp is an exercise in total frustration.

By: @RealScottsdale

@RealScottsdale — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:27:45 +0000

Good luck working that one out with most real estate agents. They have a habit of calling e-mail campaigns “drip” campaigns.

Nobody wants to explain “autoresponder sequence” to a 50-year old average-aged crowd.

By: Skribit Blog » Blog Archive » Thoughts on a Successful Launch

Skribit Blog » Blog Archive » Thoughts on a Successful Launch — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:35:45 +0000

[...] also have yet to work on a big email marketing campaign about our launch (thanks for the credits MailChimp!) but I’m not sure sending an email to thousands of people right before the holidays will lead [...]

By: Nicolas

Nicolas — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:01:24 +0000

Mailchimp is not for me. too expensive like aweber icontact etc.
As regards me I have been using Sendblaster since 2006 and i’m really satisfied. It costed 75 euros but no recurring fees and for me it’s the best ’cause i manage big lists :). In this moment they are also offering free licenses on twitter to bloggers and journalists.

By: Kracow

Kracow — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:48:28 +0000

Mailchimp is just a waste of time. What type of service takes 3 days to respond to emails and doesn’t have a phone number that one can actually call? If that sounds like something you want then get on board with mailchimp if not then get a real email service provider there are a lot around.

By: Benoit Gauthier

Benoit Gauthier — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:14:21 +0000

Hi,

we have just release version 2.0 of our marketing solution called beezilla-marketing.com. Come take a look and leave us your comments.
We have free accounts and give away free credits every day. Next 500 members will get 5000 free credits.

Lots of new features in release 2.0.

By: Ashish Bagadia

Ashish Bagadia — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:46:46 +0000

I have been using Benchmark Email (http://www.benchmarkemail.com) for a while now, and I find it much impressive than MailChimp.

By: Fun email marketing with MailChimp « Another Startup

Fun email marketing with MailChimp « Another Startup — Thu, 28 May 2009 19:25:16 +0000

[...] in Gmail and squandered a 60 day trial of Constant Contact (I think I sent out only one email). This article has a good summary of the major features that MailChimp offers, but there are three that appeal the [...]

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:48:48 +0000

Does anyone know a free engine campaigns in RoR?

By: annie

annie — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:36:09 +0000

Pretty interesting how they used Mechanical Turk to pick out a ton of templates: http://www.mailchimp.com/blog/want-700000-html-email-templates/

By: Philip Lucas

Philip Lucas — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:36:34 +0000

I agree with many of the comments above that Mailchimp is a nightmare to use. Lousy, cumbersome interface and nigh on impossible to get hold of anybody at customer support.

Lots of hype, but as all the people above who have used and ditched Mailchimp have commented, the reality is quite different.

No email marketing professional I know here in Canada would even consider using Mailchimp as they know the reality and don’t get sucked by the PR hype like newbies.

By: John Camo

John Camo — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:21:07 +0000

Great review ! I used AWEBER and Mail Chimp ( graphics are great ) in the past but it was a little cumbersome for me to get around .

I just switched to http://www.benchmarkemail.com

So far this has worked out for me terrifically. Super easy and straight forward.

By: Luke

Luke — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:58:18 +0000

I use mailchimp, great service and very easy to use.

By: Macbook Dreamer

Macbook Dreamer — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:47:28 +0000

Thanks for this wonderful review, I just started a new project and I really wanted a quality service for free to try out just to start off, I had MailChimp in my mind but AWEBER was also bugging, didn’t know whether or not I should move to paid service straight away. 100 subscribers might sound a little, but got only a little over 100 in my list, I think I’m just gonna give it a shot.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:35:58 +0000

Sounds like that customer of theirs isn’t syncing their list with MailChimp, which updates lists on unsubscribes etc. Can you name the company/customer?

By: Me

Me — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 02:34:22 +0000

MailChimp is a total fraud. After several ‘unsubscribe’ attempts, and several postings on their ‘abuse’ webform, I’m still getting junk from a customer of thiers.

Fraud!

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:34:46 +0000

Our company has done a few large blasts. We’re moving more towards opt-in email blasts for our clients. It seems to be the most credible and preferred practice (people open them). Here’s a little write-up on a study that supports this: http://www.heilbrice.com/blog/uncategorized/dont-be-afraid-of-e-mail/

By: John Swaney

John Swaney — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:04:30 +0000

Paul

You have just saved me money and made email list management … well … fun. I love the interface and CSR’s.

One tip for ya, you should have posted an affiliate link somewhere. I could have earned you $30 credit and 3 Inbox functions as I signed up based on your article. I had getresponse.com before and hated every minute of it.

thanks again!
john

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:00:34 +0000

Agreed, MailChimp is a great program with a really … well… fun interface. Phplist was the opposite of fun for me. Mailchimp has a lot of features and finding where to go for that one thing you used that one time isn’t always easy, but they have a good knowledge base too.

By: Rick Stevens

Rick Stevens — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:02:07 +0000

Hi,

Why not just try http://www.omnsitarmailer.com Omnistar Mailer. It is a lot better then the other ones.

By: Rick Stevens

Rick Stevens — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Hi,

For my email marketing I use Omnistar Mailer http://www.omnistarmailer.com. I tried Interspire and Omnistar Mailer and Omnistar Mailer was much better and had a lot more features. Also, you do not have to pay a monthly fee with Omnistar Mailer.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:53:14 +0000

Good point Josh and thanks for stopping by. Yeah I didn’t really do much testing. An A/B campaign with some alternate titles would have proved nice.

By: TC

TC — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:16:18 +0000

I’m using mail chimp for my own site and for work as well and i’m pretty satisfied with it.

I tried a couple others and went back to Mailchimp everytime.

The only think i dislike is the lack of options to upload your own templates and really code everything on your own. Their already-made templates are cool but not that nice and their coding is really complex and could be simplified

I forgot to mention that their templates DONT work at all with Lotus Notes (i know lotus suck big time but heaps of companies use it). The templates are all screwed up when opened with lotus Notes. The Mailchimp people were unable to give me some help or even try to note this problem down and solve it. The answer from them was pretty much “uh sorry”. I was waiting f for a better answer!

Other then that Mailchimp is good.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:46:09 +0000

I’ve used PHPlist for a few years and it has treated me pretty well. It’s a free download that you install on your own servers so the price was right. Sure, it doesn’t have the pretty interface or sweet stats but it’s fairly easy to use, some tracking features, and it’s free. The only maintenance is updating the software a couple times a year when an update comes out. Give it a try:

http://www.phplist.com

By: Phil Freo

Phil Freo — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:48:16 +0000

Looks cool. I’ve played around with Campaign Monitor and would love to see a detailed comparison between the two services.