Constant Contact CRM Review in 2024: Core Functions Covered
My Verdict
In my opinion, Constant Contact CRM is a mixed bag of advantages and drawbacks. On a positive note, even novices navigating the CRM terrain can utilize it because of its impressively simple user interface.
I am unable to ignore some flaws, though. The expense of Constant Contact might be a barrier, especially for startups looking for low-cost options. It also has certain marketing automation solutions, although they might not be up to the standards set by leaders in the industry.
Additionally, the hassle of contacting customer service to cancel a membership detracts from the entire user experience. My rating for Constant Contact CRM is 3 out of 5 stars.
- Easy-to-use and intuitive user interface
- Beginner friendly
- Social media management tools
- 14-day free trial
- Can be expensive for growing businesses
- Not the best marketing automation tools in the industry
- You’ll have to phone customer support if you want to cancel your subscription
Pricing
The Lite Plan
The Standard Plan
The Premium Plan
Integrations
Recommended by our experts
What Does Constant CRM Do?
Constant Contact provides outstanding email marketing services. It offers a way to send bulk emails to a pre-selected list of potential clients or consumers. Users are endowed with excellent tools for email design and response management, including bounces and opt-outs.
It distinguishes itself with features that are easy for beginners to use, such as a vast collection of ready-made email templates, a user-friendly interface (UI), and perceptive statistics. Constant Contact has been providing email marketing since 1995. During that time, they managed to become quite popular, after Mailchimp.
I always advise using a bulk email provider like Constant Contact when I have a customer who needs to send out a lot of emails at once on a regular basis. This kind of service is meant to send emails, provided you follow their opt-in and data integrity policies.
Key Features of Constant Contact CRM
Constant Contact’s email marketing platform and other tools, like its easy-to-use email editor, time-saving automations, and reporting, are its main features. It started as only an email marketing platform, but over time, it developed into a full-featured digital marketing suite with a wide range of integrations and marketing CRM to help organizations create leads and close deals.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still Constant Contact’s main function, despite the fact that it does a lot more. A very important part of email marketing is to make sure that your emails are sent to people’s inboxes instead of spam folders. Constant Contact has an impressive 97% delivery rate, which means that your messages are getting through to your contacts.
There are hundreds of prebuilt themes available in its user-friendly email editor. In addition to landing pages, surveys, analytics, and reports, it includes various automations that make life easier.
Thus, Constant Contact is regarded as a very beginner-friendly platform. Viewing the layout templates allows you to select a certain email structure with an adjustable amount of columns, text blocks, and images. This is a real game-changer for businesses looking to showcase their products.
Even though the majority of its predesigned templates look outdated, it does offer a big selection of layouts, which is really important when creating an email and the template type most marketers prefer.
Reporting
The analytics and reporting capability is a useful tool for data-driven marketing teams and companies to track and understand the effectiveness of their email campaigns and digital marketing initiatives.
It monitors the open, bounce, and share rates of each automatically sent email. It also offers industry norms and benchmarks to help customers have a better understanding of how their efforts are doing in comparison to those of other companies.
Pipeline Management
Constant Contact’s Pipeline feature presents visual representations and makes it possible for you to always know precisely where a sales opportunity is located inside the sales flow.
With its easy-to-use drop-and-drag interface, you can effortlessly track the progress of every prospect throughout the sales cycle and manage your sales funnel by making informed decisions.
Ecommerce
You can connect your store to Constant Contact if you offer products or services via an e-commerce platform like Squarespace, Wix, or Shopify. This can help to increase sales even faster. You’ll be able to produce product recommendations, send targeted messages to your customers without having to prepare them manually, and much more. You can even incorporate products straight from your store into your emails.
After importing contacts, this platform lets you divide your contact list into groups according to age, gender, location of the consumer, and even past website behavior.
You can list your products on several eCommerce marketplaces using Ecomdash by Constant Contact to increase sales and control your inventory. Sell with assurance in several places—all in one area, at a reasonable cost, with complimentary assistance available when needed.
You can use Ecomdash to access the following features:
- Inventory management
- Consolidated Order Management
- Customer data sync
AI Content Generator
Constant’s AI integrates into your workflow with ease. Enter a few keywords, and a variety of content possibilities will show up. You can make changes to an option or leave it alone without ever leaving the page.
Available integrations
- Salesforce
- Eventbrite
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Survey Monkey
- Etsy
- Vimeo
- Canva
Pricing plan
Constant Contact has three pricing plans — Lite, Standard, and Premium. The plans are priced according to a sliding scale, with the cost rising as the number of contacts increases.
The Lite Plan – begins at $12 per month
For one user and up to 500 contacts, Constant Contact’s entry-level Lite subscription starts at $12 per month. If you have 500 contacts, your monthly send limit is 5,000 because the maximum monthly send limit is 10 times your contact count.
The Standard Plan – begins at $35 per month
To segment contacts or schedule email sends, users will have to select the Standard plan. Up to three users can subscribe for $35 per month, with a maximum send restriction of 12 times your contacts each month. You can raise your contact limit, just like with the Lite plan, but doing so will rapidly raise your monthly cost. For instance, the monthly cost increases to $160 if you have roughly 10,000 connections.
The Premium Plan – begins at $80 per month
The highest-tier Premium package has a monthly send limit of 24 times your contacts and allows for unlimited users. It includes all of the features of the Standard plan plus a few more, such Google Ads Manager, Facebook retargeting ads, and SEO advice.
The Premium plan is intended to assist organizations with email marketing and digital advertising, which is the primary distinction between it and Constant Contact’s other two plans. Again, costs rise rapidly in proportion to the quantity of contacts you have. Monthly rates begin at $80 for up to 500 contacts.
As you can see, this software might be very reasonable in the beginning for startups, however, it can get expensive pretty quickly when they begin to scale up.
Is Constant Contact CRM Easy to Use?
Yes, the software is easy to use and navigate. This is great news for beginners who are new to this kind of software. Constant CRM has a Knowledge Base where new users can access help articles, video tutorials, and quickstart guides.
Quickstart guides are available for download to view on your desktop, print it out, or bookmark for easy use, while release notes provide essential product updates.
It does an excellent job of providing step-by-step instructions on how to easily navigate the user dashboard, import contacts, build campaigns, and connect with your website and any other tools you might use to grow your business and drive sales. In addition, it makes the process of creating a new account quick and easy.
Plus, with so many customizable email templates, creating emails becomes a super easy task.
Constant Contact Customer Service
Constant Contact’s customer service is helpful via both live chat and phone. Live support agents are available Monday through Friday. Phone hours are Monday – Friday from 8.30 am – 8.00 pm ET.
In my eyes, Constant loses points for not having 24/7 customer support.
Which companies work with Constant Contact CRM
Here are some well-known companies that make use of this software:
- Dynamic Elite Athletics
- Pet Wants Newton
- Tea’s Me Cafe
- Flavorman and Distilled Spirits Epicenter
Suitability Assessment
Choose Constant Contact CRM if:
- You have a small to medium-sized business
- You prefer a beginner-friendly, easy-to-use interface
Avoid Constant Contact CRM if:
- You are on a tight budget
- You have over 50,000 contacts
- You want to have the option to send unlimited emails
- You prefer modern-looking email templates
Last Thoughts
Constant Contact excels at making email marketing simple, enabling consumers to quickly and easily create compelling emails. It is great for businesses that want to get in touch with more customers. Emails that are personalized using editable templates and a drag-and-drop editor allow for greater creativity and result in meaningful replies.
Messages are sent to their intended audience with confidence because of the platform’s strong delivery rates. Constant Contact is a feature-rich platform that efficiently handles campaigns and provides all the tools needed for email marketing campaigns to be successful.
Constant’s incorporation of social media management tools is a notable asset, enhancing its functionality. Additionally, the free trial offers ample opportunity for exploration and evaluation. However, while it offers user-friendly features and a comprehensive trial period, its pricing model and limitations in marketing automation and customer service dampen its appeal for me.