Aweber Review: Build A Stronger Connection With Your Audience

Written BY Monowar Hossain ON 28 June

Hello Friends, In todays Article we will cover Aweber Review, All in one Email marketing software that gives us all the oppurtunities to grow our business easily and effectively.

Table of Contents

What is Aweber?

AWeber is a market leader of small business email marketing software. Build customer relationships while growing sales with Email Marketing. Founded in 1998, AWeber has over 20 years of proven success helping more than one million customers around the world reliably connect with their prospects and customers through powerfully-simple email marketing software.

Deployment & Support

DEPLOYMENT

Cloud, SaaS, Web-Based
~~Desktop – Mac~~
~~Desktop – Windows~~
~~Desktop – Linux~~
~~Desktop – Chromebook~~
~~On-Premise – Windows~~
On-Premise – Linux
Mobile – Android
Mobile – iPhone
Mobile – iPad

SUPPORT

Email/Help Desk
Knowledge Base
Phone Support
24/7 (Live Rep)
Chat

TRAINING

~~In Person~~
Live Online
Webinars
Documentation
Videos

CONTACT DETAILS

AWeber
Located in United States
Founded in 1998
https://www.aweber.com

Overview of Top Features

Some of the most popular features of AWeber include:

Dozens of integrations to make using your favorite tools even easier
API for third-party apps
Top-notch customer service by phone, live chat, and email
Easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor
Over 100 customizable templates
Robust autoresponder features
Ability to tag emails to create triggers
Trackable analytics so you can see what is working
High deliverability rates

Key features of Aweber

Aweber provides you with the following key features:

the ability to import and host a mailing list
a wide range of templates
autoresponders
marketing automation functionality
responsive email designs
reporting
split testing
RSS / blog to-email functionality
list segmentation options
a landing page builder
phone, email and live chat support
integrations with third-party apps

AWeber Autoresponder

Having created one of the first email autoresponders – if not the very first one – AWeber offers solid autoresponder functionality.

First up, AWeber allows you to set up follow-up emails based on time. For example, you may have AWeber send an introductory email immediately once someone signs up and send a promo code 3-4 days later. With AWeber, setting up time-based emails is easy.The next important feature of AWeber is Campaigns which allows you to determine what and when to send to users based on the actions they perform.

When creating a campaign, AWeber provides you with two kinds of triggers – On Subscribe and Tag Applied.

On Subscribe engages when someone is added to your list, while Tag Applied triggers when you add a tag to a subscriber.This system is very simple but allows you to be pretty flexible with your automation campaigns. With that said, AWeber is less versatile than some other platforms in terms of triggers. For example, GetResponse allows you to track purchases, sales pipeline stages, and more.

In practice, you could probably implement these triggers via tags in AWeber, but it’s going to be more difficult. With that, AWeber is fine for people who don’t have sophisticated email automation needs.

Using web fonts in Aweber templates

Aweber currently allows you to use the following fonts in your emails:

Arvo
Lato
Lora
Merriweather
Merriweather sans
Noticia Text
Open Sans
Playfair Display
Roboto
Source Sans Pro
Permanent Marker

In general, it’s a thumbs up for Aweber’s templates, with extra brownie points awarded for the inclusion of web fonts.

Aweber Review: Pros & Cons

PROS

Unlimited emails.
Great help materials.
Low-cost plans.
Extensive reporting capabilities.

CONS

No free plans.
Cannot import from Gmail or third-party address books.
No Google Analytics.
Imports take a long time.

Aweber Pricing

There are 2 versions of Aweber: ‘Pro’ and ‘Free.’

For the Pro plans, the pricing structure is as follows:

Hosting and emailing a list containing up to 500 subscribers: $19per month
501 to 2,500 subscribers: $29 per month
2,501 to 5,000 subscribers: $49 per month
5,001 to 10,000 subscribers: $69 per month
10,001 to 25,000 subscribers: $149 per month

Aweber Review: AWeber Pro vs Free

Here are of the differences between AWeber Pro and Free:

Pro allows you to have an unlimited number of subscribers, send unlimited emails, and have unlimited profiles for your lists. With Free, you are only getting 500, 3,000/month, and 1 respectively.
Pro has split testing, automation, click-tracking links, and removed AWeber branding.
Pro has custom segments.
Pro offers advanced analytics and reporting.
Pro can track sales and detect cart abandonment.

With that in mind, Free AWeber is essentially a free trial of Pro. It allows you to give the core features of AWeber a try, but the access to the sweetest things remains behind a paywall.

Rating Details

CRITERION	RATING	COMMENTS
Ease of Use		The menu structure mostly makes sense, although some sections are a little hidden, and the fact that you have to switch between lists can be a little confusing at first. Also, their terminology could be confusing for experienced users: automations are called ‘Campaigns’ and regular emails are called ‘Broadcasts’.
Newsletter Creation
Editor		The editor took quite a while to get my head around but, in saying that, it did allow for a number of sections I needed to create our monthly newsletter, such as triple column sections and text with in-line images. They also now offer AMP for Email, meaning you can add an image carousel, RSVP to an event, sign up for a newsletter or leave a product review all without leaving the email.
Personalization		Similar to other tools, If/Then/Else logic is available in a fairly standard format. You can also add personalization via custom fields.
Email types		Classic newsletters, autoresponders, automations, RSS and A/B testing.
Choice and Flexibility of Template Designs		There’s quite a good selection of responsive templates available (some offer multiple color schemes to choose from), although a few of them look a bit outdated. A new partnership with design tool Canva brings added flexibility to email design, as well as the thousands of stock photos available to you.
Email Automation		It’s good to see that they have certain automation features. However it would be good to see a little more complexity within this system, as not much has been updated in the last few years. It allows for creating triggered emails, limited to when someone subscribes to a list, or has a particular tag. Then you’re able to send a message, apply a tag or set a waiting period.
List Management		AWeber have good list segmentation, allowing you to manage subscribers via their automation features. You can easily set up a rule, for example, that unsubscribes someone from a particular list after leaving another.
Registration Forms/ Opt-in & Opt-out- Process		You’re given style options for pop-up, in-line and lightbox, yet this section really needs an update. It’s over-complicated and difficult to navigate. Regarding adding contacts, it has standard options available, as well as integrations that allow you to sign up contacts from WordPress, Facebook, Wix, etc. You can also set up forms directly on any landing pages you build in their editor.
Deliverability		We would have liked to have seen better results from AWeber. Sadly they’ve consistently scored poorly in our deliverability tests. As you can see in our results, they had problems reaching contacts with Microsoft email addresses (Outlook and Hotmail).
Reports and Analysis		Reporting is one of AWeber’s stronger areas. For emails, you can get names of openers and clickers, web visits, and also conversion and ecommerce tracking info. You also get some pretty impressive overall reports (account and list-based), including clicks over time, subscriber growth, sales over time and more. There isn’t direct Google Analytics integration available though.
Languages		The site is only available in English.
Further Features
Spam- and Design-Testing		These are not available.
Bounce Management		Soft bounces are counted as hard bounces after three times, then they are unsubscribed.
Blacklist		This is available. It’s called a ‘blocklist’.
Storage available for data and images	Unlimited
Pro Features
Authentication		SPF and DKIM are supported.
Own Domain		It’s possible to use your own tracking domain via AWeber Web Analytics.
Different levels of account access		There are three roles that you can assign to your users, with varying levels of account access.
Integrations		There are quite a few integrations available, and many big names are there such as Zapier, PayPal, WordPress, Shopify, Salesforce and more.
Landing Page Editor		This is a fairly new feature. A number of nice-looking templates are provided, and it’s fairly easy to customize them as you wish. SEO options are available.
Support	4.5/5	Support is fast and friendly, via all mediums. Their knowledge base is good, though I’d recommend email and online chat over the knowledge base.
Overall rating	3.3/5	AWeber has the essentials, it just doesn’t provide enough advanced features or a strong enough user experience for the asking price. Their deliverability is also something to keep an eye on. You can get more for your money with other email tools.

Alternatives to Aweber

ActiveCampaign comes with a very flexible and powerful automation approach and modern-looking and flexible registration forms – something AWeber should really work on. Additionally, ActiveCampaign’s deliverability is outstanding.
MailerLite is a cheap solution with excellent designs and a solid email marketing system. It also comes with a couple of perks (like a landing page editor) and we find their interface very easy to use.
GetResponse is an interesting alternative. It has many advanced features with excellent automations and advanced design and testing tools. ( SEE REVIEW)

Aweber Review: Conclusion

AWeber has all the basics you need for a small business and does quite a good job at educating first-time users with its range of articles, videos and podcasts. You have an easy-to-use interface and solid support system that allows you to kick off and maintain your email campaign without any difficulties.