Aweber : Features, Prices, Apps…
I’ve been using Aweber since March 2018 and it’s time for me to introduce you to the beast, what you can do with it, how much it costs and what I think of it in practical terms.
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Aweber : Emailing And Autoresponder Features
Aweber is one of the three leaders of its market since 1998 (with MailChimp and ConstantContact), this emailing tool has never stopped evolving since its creation 20 years ago. You can follow its news here and discover its latest features there.
How To Communicate With Your Subscribers?
Aweber allows you to communicate with your subscribers in four ways:
- Broadcast Messages: the classic way to send emails manually
- Blog Brodcasts: automatic sharing as soon as an article is published (RSS)
- Legacy Followup Series: sending a series of emails to new subscribers
- Campaigns: organizing campaigns with segmentation and automation
Aweber Email Templates
Aweber allows you to send emails with a simple or elaborate design. Basically, Aweber offers the simplest way to write an email: text on a white background. And it’s not for nothing, because it’s what works best in terms of deliverability.
Let me explain: the heavier an email is (heavy code, lots of CSS, images, links…), the more likely it is to go directly into the spam box. The simpler and lighter it is, the better the deliverability. It is also the easiest to read and it is perfectly adapted to all email services.
Aweber offers a very large choice of responsive and light templates, and there is every taste and need imaginable: newsletter, letter, course, event, notification, product, business, survey, coupon… You can have an overview here.
Can We Perform Spit-Tests?
Yes, recently! Like some other emailing services, Aweber offers a split testing tool (or A/B testing) that allows you to send different emails or titles to 2 or 3 segments of your audience, in order to determine which message has the most impact or which title has the best open rate. It is a very useful tool for marketers who want to maximize their results.
Segmentation And Automation With Aweber
The Holy Grail! This new Aweber feature, introduced in March 2018 and enhanced since then, allows you to:
- add a tag to a subscriber when they click on a specific link
- remove a tag when he clicks on a link
- add a tag when an email is opened
- remove a tag when a mail is opened
It may seem trivial when you put it like that, but it’s THE dream feature for all email marketers. These tags allow you to segment your subscribers with (great) precision, in order to register them in specific campaigns (or unsubscribe them).
For my personal case, I have a first classic emailing campaign to welcome all the subscribers of the Web & SEO blog. I have so much information, tips and advice to share about SEO, monetization, productivity, content, conversion … that I had to create separate campaigns to deliver only relevant information to my subscribers.
Thus, the one who is interested in SEO and productivity will only be able to receive my emails on these subjects if he wants. He will not be spammed with monetization emails and content that does not necessarily interest him.
To take a classic example, a clothing store could easily categorize its subscribers: men or women, singles or couples, popular styles (luxury, sport, chic, casual…), etc. Not only does this allow you to offer products that correspond to each of your subscribers, but it also allows you to better adapt your copywriting.
Normally, signing up a subscriber to a new campaign requires a double consent, which often results in abandonment. Thanks to this tagging system, everything is done automatically in one click. By subscribing to my newsletter, you will be able to have a concrete overview of this system at work. Finally, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to set up!
Aweber And Email Deliverability
In 20 years of good and loyal service, Aweber has kept a very good reputation regarding its email deliverability rate. Deliverability consists in delivering emails directly to the inbox, to the largest number of people, while avoiding the spam box.
An autoresponder that does not ensure this is a very bad emailing tool, because it is the most important criterion: deliver your emails to the right place, at the right time, so that they are read by as many people as possible.
A team dedicated to deliverability at Aweber monitors in real time the emails sent, in order to detect if there is any abuse or non-compliance with the terms of use. This allows the team to quickly stop any suspicious activity, block a problematic account, avoid having a mail server blacklisted and thus ensure an excellent deliverability rate for all.
If you’re interested in this topic, Aweber has put together a free guide in which it shares all its best tips and tricks to get a great deliverability rate.
Aweber: Reports and analysis of results
With a few clicks, you can access simplified or advanced reports on the results of your emailing campaigns. You can analyze if you have a good rate of opening emails, of clicks on links, you can know if the lists of subscribers are clean, what is the evolution of subscriptions and unsubscriptions… these analyses can be conducted quickly on a micro or macro scale.
Depending on your preferences, you can receive express reports by email, but also directly on your smartphone with the Aweber application available on Android and iOS. With the new “Push Notification” feature, you can be informed in real time when there is a new subscription or unsubscription to your mailing list.
Integrations / Applications
Aweber is certainly the champion in terms of integration with other applications.
Here are the main ones, classified by category:
CMS + E-Commerce
- WordPress
- Shopify
- PrestaShop
- Magento
- Drupal
- Weebly
- Wix
- WooCommerce
- Amazon Seller Central
- Etsy
- PayPal
Member Area, Training, eBook
- ClickFunnels
- WishList Member
- Paid Membership Pro
- Member Mouse
- aMember Pro
- MemberPress
- s2Member
- ClickBank
- JVZoo
Forms + Surveys
- Gravity Forms
- WPForms
- Contact Form 7
- 123FormBuilder
- CaptainForm
- CheckMarket
- Enalyzer
- FluidSurveys
- SmartSurvey
- SurveyGizmo
- Typeform
- Survey Funnel
- Bucket.io
- SurveyMonkey
Contests & Coupons
- Rafflecopter
- Gleam
- Wheelio
- Coupon Pop
- Better Coupon Box
Mailing list cleaner
- BriteVerify
- Kickbox
- QuickEmailVerification
- LeadShield
- ListFlex
- MailboxValidator
- MailFloss
- Udimi
- Verify550
CRM
- ZenDesk
- Salesforce
- LiveAgent
- Agile CRM
- Freshdesk
- Hubspot
- Pipedrive
- Podio
- Zoho CRM
Landing Page & Email Capture
- LeadPages
- Instapage
- Unbounce
- OptimizePress
- Thrive Leads
- OptinMonster
- Popup Domination
- MailMunch
- Ninja Forms
- Privy
- Bloom
Productivity
- Zapier
- Automate.io
- Apiant
- Microsoft PowerApps
- Calendly
- Excel
- Google Calendar
- Google Forms
- Google Sheets
- GoToMeeting
- Office 365
Social
- Cyfe
- Lander
Video
- Wistia
- SproutVideo
- OptimizePlayer
- vooPlayer
Webinars
- EasyWebinar
- GoToWebinar
- HQWebinar
- Livestorm
- WebinarGeek
- WebinarJam
- WebinarSuite
- Zoom
And so many more! You can check out their application search engine to find what you’re looking for.
Landing Pages & Popups
Creating a sales page or an email capture is an excellent way to boost conversions, and several tools make it easy to do so: LeadPages, ThriveLeads, Instapage, Unbounce, OptinMonster, Bloom…
Aweber can be linked with all these conversion solutions in just a few clicks to capture emails more easily and efficiently than ever.
Create An Opt-In Form With Aweber
To invite readers to subscribe to your site, there is nothing easier than to display a classic registration.
Aweber allows you to integrate this type of form anywhere on your site very simply by copying/pasting a piece of HTML+JS code.
You can also customize it among a large choice of templates, in this editor:
Create A Form With A WordPress Plugin
If you prefer to use a plugin to integrate a nice custom form on your site, you have a lot of choices!
If you already use the famous Contact Form 7 plugin for your contact form, you can pair it with the Contact Form 7 AWeber Extension, which will allow you to do something simple, but effective.
The AWeber Forms by Optin Cat plugin offers more integration options: in the content, in the sidebar or in a popup.
Aweber Pricing And Plans
Aweber has very recently restructured its pricing by proposing a more attractive quarterly/annual pricing, as well as a new plan 100% free for life! Here are the details…
What Is The Aweber Free Plan Worth?
Aweber’s new free plan is much less restrictive than those offered by MailChimp and ActiveCampaign. It even has its autoresponder functions, which I think are essential.
The limits are on several levels:
- the number of subscribers: 500 max
- the number of emails sent : 3000 / month max
- the number of subscriber lists: 1 max
- limited analytics tracking
- no advanced features : split test, links tracking, sales tracking
- display of Aweber branding
Otherwise, it is in my eyes the best emailing service with autoresponder in 100% free for life.
To have all the features of Aweber, without limit, you should opt for the Pro plan.
Aweber Pro: How Much Does It Cost?
The basic plan at $19/month offers access to all Aweber’s features, as well as a base of up to 500 subscribers, which is perfect to start your emailing business with peace of mind.
Here are the Aweber rates by tier:
- 0-500 : 19$
- 501-2,500 : 29$
- 2,501-5,000 : 49$
- 5,001-10,000 : 69$
- 10,001-25,000 : 149$
- 25,001+ : personalized quote
These are the monthly rates. If you pay by the quarter or by the year, you will benefit from an interesting discount: -14.05% for quarterly payment and -14.90% for annual payment.
Compare the emailing plans offered
Aweber: A Good Value For Money?
Yes, I would even say it is very good! Unlike some emailing services like MailChimp, Aweber does not impose any restriction on the number of emails sent each month.
In terms of similar features, ConstantContact and ActiveCampaign are much more expensive:
ConstantContact
- 500 subscribers for $45
- 2,500 subscribers for $70
- 5,000 subscribers for $95
- 10,000 subscribers for $125
- 25,000 subscribers for $225
ActiveCampaign
- 500 subscribers for $70
- 2,500 subscribers for $125
- 5,000 subscribers for $169
- 10,000 subscribers for $249
- 25,000 subscribers for $399
Only GetResponse and ConvertKit are close to Aweber in terms of features and pricing. GetResponse, which I know well, is however still lacking the excellent “One Click Automation and Segmentation” feature, and although its interface is very nice and easy to use, it is quite heavy and long to load in some cases.
Like most autoresponder services, you will be able to benefit from a free trial during your first month of use of Aweber. This will be the opportunity to get your hands on it, establish a base and send your first emails.
Try It
My Opinion On Aweber
While I had at first an apriori on this American autoresponder, my opinion has evolved with time and I think today only good things about it. Although the tool was not yet adapted to the international market a few years ago, things have changed since then, and Aweber now combines very affordable prices and a high quality service.
Who Is Aweber For?
Aweber autoresponder is perfect for all entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses, who want to build a powerful email database, in order to establish a long-lasting relationship with their customers and prospects, and thus boost their conversions.
Why Choose Aweber?
With this autoresponder, you have all the necessary tools to acquire subscribers and establish a relationship of trust with them. Indeed, Aweber offers a complete and easy-to-use management tool, powerful and customizable opt-in forms, detailed reports, an excellent deliverability, an impressive choice of integrations with external tools, email templates adapted to all needs, the possibility to perform split-tests, automate and segment in one click…
