Mailchimp vs Constant Contact – Which Email Marketing Tool is Better?
When we think about the best email marketing solutions in the world, Mailchimp is among the first tools that come to mind. But what about other solutions such as Constant Contact?
Did you know that Constant Contact set foot in the enterprise-grade software industry in 1995? In addition, the company has a customer base of over half a million users around the world. Having said that, if you compare the market share of Mailchimp and Constant Contact, there is only one winner – Mailchimp.
What is even more interesting is that although Constant Contact is one of the main competitors of Mailchimp, it has a modest market share of ~9% in comparison to that of Mailchimp whose market share sits at a mammoth 62%. [1]
On our platform, Constant Contact is rated lower than Mailchimp. But why? Continue reading to find out.
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Mailchimp vs Constant Contact: Overview
Pricing and deliverability rates are two important factors that are primarily considered by customers while choosing an email marketing platform. While Constant Contact is a basic email marketing software, Mailchimp offers an array of advanced features such as email templates, reporting, automations, and more.
Besides in this tussle between the two popular platforms, Mailchimp has a clear edge because of its free plan. Constant Contact does not offer a free plan.
Now, let’s compare both the email marketing platforms based on a few basic parameters. In this battle between Mailchimp vs Constant Contact, although Mailchimp seems like a clear winner, Constant Contact can surprise you in many ways.
Mailchimp vs Constant Contact: Comparison of key metrics
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Ease of use and editor
Both Constant Contact and Mailchimp have clear sections and provide crystal clear navigation. This is one of the main reasons why a lot of beginners opt for these solutions. Besides, they do not have to spend time learning an extra backend. If we had to pick between the editors of both tools, Mailchimp feels faster and more modern although some functionalities may not be easy to pick up initially.
Another feature that stands out is the navigation menu when a campaign is created in Mailchimp. Here, users can move back and forth to check each step of the campaign and ensure there are no errors.
Some design elements in Constant Contact feel dated and a few features are hidden in the menu.
Our winner: Although Constant Contact feels simpler due to less number of features, Mailchimp trumps Constant Contact as they have nailed their wide feature set.
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Flexibility and design
Both the email marketing solutions offer an extensive range of templates. Having said that, Constant Contact offers over 100 more templates in comparison to Mailchimp.
However, Mailchimp’s templates do an excellent job in categories such as holidays, e-commerce, newsletter, events, and more.
If you want to create your very own newsletter right from the start, you can use HTML to do so on both platforms. Mailchimp allows you to import the code from a .zip file or a URL.
If you are from a non-technical background, Mailchimp bridges the gap between custom code and a template. It offers a few blank templates known as layouts. You can add empty structures wherein you can add content including text and images.
Although Constant Contact also offers around three to four blank templates, they are not as useful as those offered by Mailchimp. Even when it comes to editing templates, Mailchimp provides more flexibility and options. Besides, you can let your creative juices flow by choosing how you want to display images and more.
Our winner: Again, Mailchimp is clearly better even though it offers nearly 100 templates less than Constant Contact.
Mailchimp leads 2-0.
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Email marketing features
Constant Contact offers a bunch of excellent autoresponders. In addition, you can also add coupons and surveys. Mailchimp also offers decent autoresponders, but more importantly, there are also top-class automations.
These automations come with excellent features including campaigns triggered by customer segments and different email sequences that are perfect for newsletter sales funnels.
Mailchimp also provides a very basic A/B split testing feature with three main variables (send time, content, and subject lines).
Our winner: Again, Mailchimp is a winner. However, if you are looking for a tool with the best inline email marketing features, you should also consider using Get Response and Active Campaign.
Their A/B tests and automations are much better than Constant Contact and even Mailchimp.
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Registrations forms
Registration forms are very important to create your subscriber list. If you are looking for more options to integrate registration forms into your website, Mailchimp has more options.
You can also create custom fields, change the color scheme, and also drag and drop the current fields at your convenience.
Constant Contact allows you to change the image banner, background color, font, and more. However, these fields are restricted to only your first name, last name, organization, and more.
Users can also create a QR code that is linked directly to their sign-up form.
Our winner: We will give this one to Constant Contact as the QR code feature is too good to ignore.
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Reporting
Even if you create and deliver the best newsletters, if you do not track the performance of your campaigns, you are wasting your time. Constant Contact allows you to track who has opened your newsletter and clicked on it.
The Google Analytics integration allows you to track your conversions.
Even Mailchimp comes with amazing reporting features. Apart from all the reporting features offered by Constant Contact, Mailchimp offers all these features along with geo-tracking, click maps, and social media reports.
What impresses us is the e-commerce conversion feature offered by Mailchimp. It allows you to track your conversions and also determine where your leads are coming from.
Our winner: Mailchimp wins again.
Final thoughts
In almost all rounds, Mailchimp has an upper hand over Constant Contact. Right from the reporting to advanced email marketing features, Mailchimp has an outright edge over Constant Contact.
But does that mean you should not consider purchasing Constant Contact? Well, not really. There are a few things Constant Contact does better than Mailchimp such as deliverability, registrations forms, and more.
In this debate between the two tools, do not forget that there are other excellent Mailchimp and Constant Contact alternatives. For example, Active Campaign, GetResponse, MailOptin, Emma, and more.
You can also go through our Mailchimp review and Constant Contact review before deciding which software is right for you.
SEE ALSO: 5 Marketing Automation Tools to Watch Out in 2022
Image 1 Source: Image by Elf-Moondance from Pixabay
Image 2 Source: rawpixel.com
Sources:
[1] Phillips. R (2022) “Mailchimp Market Share – I Bet You Didn’t Know it Was This Popular!” EmailToolTester [online] Available from: https://www.emailtooltester.com/en/blog/mailchimp-market-share/ [accessed February 2022]
