You probably heard many times that “money is in the list.” So you should start to build your list from day one. There are many email marketing providers on the market. Among them, Aweber and GetResponse are two popular ones with affordable pricing.
Some of my students asked “Aweber vs. GetResponse which one should I choose?”
It is hard to decide.
Each has its pros and cons. People have been debating “Aweber Vs. GetResponse” for a long time. Some prefer Aweber, some prefer GetResponse.
I have experience with both. Just recently I had to re-evaluate the email marketing providers I use to consolidate my lists from different platforms. I would like to share my findings with you in this blog. I hope it can help you make your decision.
I started to use Aweber since 2010. It has a very simple and straightforward interface. Many top internet marketers use it and recommend it. I guess that’s because Aweber is one of the oldest email marketing providers. The only thing that bugs me is Aweber’s strict rules on importing subscribers. Aweber will send a confirmation email to the new subscribers. Therefore, losing a certain percentage of subscribers is inevitable.
In 2013, I started to use GetResponse. It is similar to Aweber but has some cool features Aweber does not have. Though GetResponse is a little bit more complicated to get started at the beginning, it is pretty easy to use once you are familiar with its terms and interface. One advantage is that you can import your emails list without confirmation. This is a big favor for local business owners.
A couple of months ago, I planned to consolidate my lists from Mailchimp to GetResponse. GetResponse seems to be a good choice because it allows you to import subscribers without confirmation.
Before I did that, I accidentally noticed my GetResponse bounce rate was about 22%. This is VERY HIGH!
I contacted GetResponse support team they said they had some problems delivering to hotmail addresses. However, I checked those bounced email addresses, there is only 1/3 or ¼ of them are hotmail addresses.
I did a test by sending the exact same message to two lists. One list is in Mailchimp and the other is in GetResponse. The Mailchimp bounce rate is 0.5% out of 1534 subscribers while the GetResponse bounce rate is 22.33% again.
I did another test by moving the same GetResponse list to my Aweber account. The bounce rate is 0.1%.
I searched on Google and found other people complaining about GetResponse’s higher bounce rate. I presented my findings to GetResponse customer service. They told me they would investigate it but so far there is no news from them.
Many people experience a higher open rate with GetResponse than they did with Aweber. It is true if you just look at the open rate percentage from the above screen shot. However, you may not know GetResponse’s higher open rate is based on the total openings. Aweber’s open rate is based on unique openings. In the above test campaign, I actually got 100 more unique opens with Aweber. This is very significant.
Deliver rate is critical to a successful email campaign so I decide to move my GetResponse lists to Aweber for now.
Will I close my GetResponse account? Probably not, I love some of GetResponse’s cool features. I may need to use it from time to time.
Is Aweber perfect? Noop. It is hard to move subscribers from one list to another. Aweber does not support Chinese language. You can still use it to send emails in Chinese but it may not look right on some devices. Aweber was attacked by DDoS Attack in April this year. It lost some of its customers. I find it safe to have a backup email marketing provider just in case.
Aweber vs. GetResponse, which one should you choose?
If you just want to choose one, my recommendation is Aweber. Aweber’s bounce rate is lower and its deliverability is more reliable. It has the best customer support to answer your questions. Though GetResponse has more cool features, deliverability matters in the end. I would not recommend GetResponse until they solve the high bounce rate issue. What is your experience with Aweber and GetResponse? I would love to hear from you.
