The most popular auto responder service in affiliate marketing and bulk email marketing software is Aweber. I’m in fact still a subscriber of Aweber for many years now as their reliable service made me impressed all the time.
What’s the point in using Aweber? Firstly, I will talk about myself that what got me using Aweber? It is just because all the top marketers were using and recommending it.
Now, after many years, I still come across in my inbox and I see that the mainstream of my preferred bloggers are still using Aweber like Brian Dean and Ana Hoffman.
Aweber has been considered the slowest of the email service providers to grip the new tendency of marketing automation.
Their new campaigns characteristic adds some straightforward tagging and click tracking. But in general, their automation features actually lag behind the others.
What is Aweber?
The word rock-hard will describe Aweber efficiently. Aweber is a practically easy bulk email marketing software to use. They freshly revise their user interface with better and bigger fonts along with buttons in order to present it with the purpose of additional up to date look. The site presents step by step wizards for every necessary function which makes it pretty simple to get around.
Web form editor
Aweber’s web form editor is one of the better ones offered yet. Web forms are incredibly customizable and most interesting feature is that every facet on your form can be customized or modified. You can initiate your form from scratch, or pick from one of the many templates as starting points.
Drag and drop editor
A drag and drop editor is also at hand for the purpose of publishing emails. Special modules can be crashed in to compose great looking html emails. You also obtain access to a upright selection of stock photos which can facilitate give your newsletters that extra energy.
Autoresponder
The Aweber autoresponder is pretty customary. It permits you send time based emails which means you can identify precise intervals at which each email in your follow-up series is sent.
Basic split testing
Aweber also includes basic split testing. You can generate different variations of your emails plus collect stats on every variation. It’s not as sound implemented like ActiveCampaign or GetResponse, but it does the job.
Click and goal tracking
Aweber has click tracking as well as goal tracking which involves you to consign a fragment of code on your pages. Analytics are straight and will demonstrate a wide variety of stats and basic graphs which illustrates that who opened your emails, and on what links they clicked on. Aweber also has a very superior API which is why you notice a lot of 3rd party add on’s that work with it.
Marketing automation
Aweber has been considered the slowest of the email service providers to grip the new tendency of marketing automation. Their new campaigns characteristic adds some straightforward tagging and click tracking. But in general, their automation features actually lag behind the others.
What is Aweber Communications?
Aweber Communications is one of the mainly recognized email service providers with over 115,000 customers and was launched in 1998. Their sustained success lies in their highly rated email deliverability and great customer support.
Why does AWeber’s popularity persist to decline?
New generations of marketers are merely demanding enhanced features to give them an edge in their business. Flourishing software rivals like ActiveCampaign, Drip and ConvertKit are conveying those demands with advanced marketing automation capabilities.
But still, AWeber remains a decent choice for most businesses. If your email marketing needs are not that multifaceted, then you must give AWeber some consideration.
Leading features of Aweber?
Aweber being a bulk email marketing software offers you variety of other features which are here:
It gives you the ability to import or host an email database
You have an access to a wide range of templates
Autoresponders can be automatically triggered
It also constitutes some basic marketing automation functionality
Responsive email designs are also accessible
Reports are also available to get an overall picture of analytics
Split testing involves sending e-newsletters to some of your mailing lists
RSS / blog to-email functionality
List segmentation options are also available
You can also communicate through phone, email and live chat support
Integrations with third-party apps are also installed
Overview of Autoresponders
Autoresponders are generally a series of follow up emails that are automatically triggered by either time or user actions that are considered a key part of any e-marketing solution.
Autoresponders in Aweber was invented back in 1998 and because of this you would expect their autoresponder functionality to be incredibly good. Improbably it’s presently ‘okay’.
Plus point: The plus point of Aweber is that it is effortless to set up follow up emails that are based on time interval. For example, automatically sending subscribers an onboarding email immediately after sign up, a promo code 2 days later and a ‘follow us on social media’ email a week later is extremely easy. This is a typical use of autoresponders and it’s a breeze with Aweber.
On the down side, triggering autoresponders based on user actions and purchases is a bit more complicated than with key competitors Mailchimp and Getresponse.
Using Aweber, you can create ‘goals’ or combine automation rules with tagging to make autoresponders behave in quite funky ways…but if you want to make use of autoresponders in really advanced ways, you’ll probably need to look at other products, particularly Getresponse, which provides ‘marketing automation’ functionality that hooks up to a built-in CRM.
How to import data into Aweber?
A pretty straightforward affair in Aweber is importing an existing database into Aweber. You can upload the file types like XLS, XLSX, TSV, CSV, and TXT.
You can also add individual subscribers manually and the other way is to copy and paste rows of subscribers into Aweber.
Importing data: When you thought of importing your data, you are given the choice to add your subscribers to exacting set of autoresponders, and tag them.
Marketing automation
The feature that is offered all the time by email marketing solutions like Aweber is marketing automation. I judged it as ‘Autoresponders 2.0’ in which you go ahead of traditional ‘drip’ campaigns plus create complex user journeys using ‘IFTT’ (if this, then that – style workflows).
How marketing automation works: You just need to design a flowchart with marketing automation where emails are sent based on user actions: email opens, link clicks, site visits, purchases made and so on.
Aweber Campaigns: A latest marketing automation feature recently introduced by Aweber provides this functionality of ‘Aweber Campaigns.’ You can make use of certain user actions with this feature specifically opens and clickthroughs along with the application of tags just to determine what should be sent to whom and when.
Getresponse and Mailchimp are providing more flexibility when we talk about the types of user behavior that can trigger mailouts. But what I think is that this functionality needs to go a bit further really.
For example, let’s consider Getresponse, you can make use of triggers such as purchase, and specific page visits, subscriber ‘score’ and sales pipeline stage to send messages.
Aweber is absolutely playing a bit of catch up with its competitors here.
What else you need to know about Aweber? So let’s narrate everything you need to know about Aweber
Does Aweber comprise of any support for split testing?
Aweber had A/B testing support in the past meant for their broadcast emails. But I no longer see it there anymore. But you do have the option to split test your forms.
Are you capable enough to generate forms that support more complex fields?
Of course, Aweber permits you to add custom fields to your forms right from the editor. Besides your standard text inputs, you can also add select boxes, radio buttons, checkboxes, and date fields into your forms.
How sound does Aweber incorporate with other 3rd party services?
Every 3rd party tool I’ve ever used that integrates with an email service provider supports Aweber. This includes some of my favorite tools like Thrive Leads, LeadPages, and ClickFunnels.
Why Aweber is super service?
Feature # 01: Awesome customer support
Feature # 02: Simple Drag and Drop Campaign Builder for Autoresponders
Feature # 03: Create Multiple Forms per list
Feature # 04: Generate Tags based on Link Click
Features that Aweber is deficient of
Feature # 01: Where are the automations?
Feature # 02: Outdated Templates
Feature # 03: Charge for duplicate subscribers and unsubscribers
Aweber plans and their charges
Aweber is offering 5 plans out there. So the pricing structure is as follows:
When you are hosting as well as emailing a list that contains up to 500 subscribers, then it will charge a fee up to $19 per month
If your list of subscribers contain 501 to 2,500 subscribers, then this plan will charge you $29 per month
If your list of subscribers contain 2,501 to 5,000 subscribers, then this plan will charge you $49 per month
If your list of subscribers contain 5,001 to 10,000 subscribers, then this plan will charge you $69 per month
If your list of subscribers contain 10,001 to 25,000 subscribers, then this plan will charge you $149 per month
Note: If your mailing list consists of more than 25,000 subscribers, you will need to call Aweber for a quotation.
Discounts: If you pay quarterly, then a discount of 14% is accessible. If you pay annually, then a 15% discount is accessible. There are also some discounts offered for students and not-for-profit organizations.
Free trial of Aweber
Best way to decide whether this product suits you or not is by availing its free trial. You can try the product free for 30 days here.
What are the final thoughts towards Aweber?
If we talk about email marketing space, Aweber was the market leader for so many years, and it is confusing why they languished and got passed by most of their competitors. On the other hand they are still practical in certain cases.
If you are a blogger or running a small business that has fundamental email marketing needs, then Aweber still remains a reasonable choice. You get both rock solid deliverability and great support in reasonably priced package.
However, if you are looking for an email service provider that’s going to develop with your business, then you may want to look somewhere else especially if you’re interested in adding more marketing automation into your business.
AWEBER PROS AND CONS
Pros
Step by step wizards are installed for easy to use.
But it incorporates with majority of third party tools.
It has very trustworthy email delivery.
It entails awesome support options.
Cons
It does not have a lot of advanced autoresponder options.
Aweber have basic split testing options.
Conclusion
We are going to take an in-depth review at one of the most accepted solutions for designing and sending HTML e-newsletters. You will see different aspects of Aweber by reading its features, price, marketing automation, and much more.