Have you used GetResponse.com?

Discussions
#1

We use CampaignMonitor.com

I’m planning to switching to MailChimp or GetResponse

  1. Analytics for SIGNUPS. (I want gAnalytics on how they found us. CM doesn’t do that
  2. Polling my readers and storing that info about them. (“How old are you?” IF $AGE>65 EMAIL them $RETIREMENTinfoMsg) Get Response does this, only one other service I’ve found does this. Mailchimp does not. (It has very limited ability to respond based on LINK clicked in email, but that’s really cumbersome to use and hard to maintain.
  3. Better IF…THEN conditional branching based on reader polls, actions, etc.

I’ve had some concern with Get Reponse
Thier website is a bit slow and seems a tad bit buggy (or just some very poor UX stuff like: you add a user and try to find them but you can’t unless you view ALL the users first, as if they don’t update the Search until you view all users. Not a bug, but a poor feature.
General weirdness/buggy stuff like could not add an additonal “from” address. (Support added it for me.)
And I’ve read some reviews saying they have poor deliverability. Anonymous, so could a competitor trying to hurt them.
But I’ve also had very mixed results with the online Chat help. About half of the 8 or so I’ve chatted with were grossly misinformed about their service.

Changing ESPs is a bit time investment to don’t want to change and then have a huge problem.

.

#2

Clay, wouldn’t it be simple enough to add google analytics to the page where the signup form is located? People who signup and then see your “thanks for signing up” page are marked as a completed goal in GA. That’s how I track signups.

Once on the list, Drip helps me track engagement as people click various links.

Oh wait, Drip’s not on your list.

Drip can do both of these things.

Is there a reason Drip isn’t on your shortlist?

Rob Sobers has this excellent example of using Drip to automate sending Net Promoter Score surveys to customers. No, you didn’t mention you were looking for NPS surveys, but Rob’s article shows you how you can use Drip trigger links and automation rules to do what you’re looking to do.

Also, Drip has added a really powerful workflow engine that makes if/then logic a breeze. Here’s how to build workflows like this in Drip. Drip also gives you these already-built blueprints for automation, customer tagging, and using if/then logic based on customer engagement.

Brennan Dunn has a course on how to use Drip to do precisely the kinds of polling, tagging, scoring, and segmentation you’re describing. There’s a great demo video on his landing page there showing you a little bit about some of the internals of how you might use Drip automation to accomplish what you’re looking for.

Lastly, Drip has this free, 11-video course, as well, to help you get started.

Just an alternative to the products you mentioned.

Hope this helps!

As an aside, I apologize for the link armaggedon in this reply. I use Drip for my business, and while it may or may not be right for you, I think it’s worth a look. These are not affiliate links, just trying to be helpful.

#3

Unfortunately, Drip is way outside our price range. It’s 2x what I’d pay for most other options.

Doing analytics on the “thank you page” doesn’t work for two reasons:
(I do that already)

  1. It skews the results when people who are ALREADY signed up signup again (happens more than you’d think)
  2. The analytics don’t get recorded in the email system. So if a newsletter subscriber buys 12 months later, I don’t know how that subscriber found us. I’m not just interested in “where do subscribers come from”. I want to know “where do the ENGAGED subscribers come from”
#4

Those are two features the more expensive options give you.

I see a disconnect here. You’ve said it’s important to you, but yet you can’t justify paying more to get the features that are important to you.

So, I’ll step aside and let someone else answer. Maybe there’s a way to coax those other products to do what you’re looking for.

#5

Short while ago I was concerned that when I hit that magic 100 subscribers it was a large hit for a small weekend & nights bootstrapper although I loved Drip. So, I signed up for the free trial with Get Response.

I have to say I did not like it. As you have pointed out the UX just sucks. Clunky isn’t even the word. I had to wade through a lot of help pages to find out how to do things, it was like the UX/UI design team were smashed when they worked on it.

Secondly, I received the usual startup ‘drip’ campaign after signing up, but on one of them the subject line was in Norwegian! I raised a support ticket on it and never heard a peep.

In the end I just let it fade away and I’m prepared for that $50 hit when I hit 100 subscribers in Drip. I have my own Sendy install too so I can relocate some older leads to that if I need to but I probably won’t.

I was expecting a load of “hey we miss you” crap when I let the trial run out but nada. Wondering if they’re letting it gracefully die!

Just my 2c, Richard

1 Like
#6

GetResponse.com has the features I want at the price that would potentially be profitable.

Respectfully, you’re not answering my question, which was “have you tried GetResponse?”

Instead, you suggested a DIFFERENT alternative, out of my price range (twice the cost), that might have the features I want. Get Response seems pretty good. They have generally good 2nd tier support (I had a demo from someone who really knew the product). Just looking for gotchas.

The bottom line is that it’ll take a year to see how much revenue this “more interative” approach makes. I"m willing to spend $500 on that, but probably not $1,000. Also, if the newsletter makes $2,000 then a net of $1500 might justify doubling down on that marketing channel. A net of $100 probably would not.

#7

I’m curious: what part of the UX did YOU find didn’t work well?

#8

I didn’t find it that intuitive, and when I tried to change some things like the default subscriber confirm message I had trouble finding it. The footer message seemed to be in an odd place if I remember properly. From a workflow perspective it just didn’t seem to flow for me, but that is likely a personal thing, what makes sense for me may not for you or v.v. (That said I have had to read the Drip KB at times too.)

I wanted to add new subscribers from my SaaS app and on the surface it seemed easy but I kept having small bumps, it wasn’t as easy as Drip. So In suspect my needs are more different in a lot of respects.

That said, It’s like a crossword puzzle, once you’ve worked out how they think it’s probably ok. To be honest it annoyed me they couldn’t be bothered to reply to my support request asking why I received an email with a Norwegian subject line. :slight_smile: They could do with a full refresh but we all know how painful that can be!!

#9

Hi Clay, I’m sorry to have derailed your thread and inconvenienced you. Cheers, and have a great rest of your day.

2 Likes
#10

Hey Clay - I actually have (and still do) use GetResponse.

I almost left them a few months ago because of their UI. Well, more specifically their WYSIWYG email editor. It’s unbearable at times. Super buggy, then you finally get it right and then save it and realize it didn’t save (I’ve learned never to open more than one window while logged in, perhaps they store in session what newsletter you’re working on).

I decided to stay with them simply because I have noticed decent deliverability, price is right, and emails look good after I get through the creation hurdle.

I can’t vouch on the extra analytics and features you’re specifically looking for, but can say that I use it everyday and it gets the job done. I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it.

(Although, I did try mailchimp once and decided GR over MC, don’t remember why - was a long time back, sorry!)

#11

@Clay_Nichols Sorry to hijack,
Are you also looking into activecampaign? I’m asking because I’m in a similar situation to you, and activecampaign is on my shortlist.

#12

That is too funny. Yes, I found them the other day (after a fairly exhaustive search).

I"m getting a very bad feeling about GetResponse. Still haven’t gotten the “survey to update user record” working. Seems like that feature may be deprecated.

So… I moved on to taking a look at ActiveCampaign.com
So far, the Form/polling at least seems a lot more logically done.
I can copy their form to my own page, append a MyPage.htm?Email=Blah@Blah and it prefills .
Also, since I can put the form on my own page, I can modify it a bit.

I created a new thread for ActiveCampaign.com Evaluation

Or, if you like, PM me and we can discuss via email/chat/skype.

This sort of automation is quite complicated and choosing wrong can be a huge pain (to switch). So I wanna get it right. AND keep it simple.

#13

I use https://elasticemail.com/ its a bit clunky but dirt cheap.

https://emailoctopus.com/ looks interesting as well.

#14

Have you used Email Octopus?

I send them an email with a few simple yes/no questions. We’ll see how responsive they are.

#15

Got confirmation on May 25th. No actual response as of June 5th, over a week later.
Could be a fluke. If you’re considering them, try yourself.

-Clay

#16

Yeah, I very poor experience with about 1/2 the GetResponse CSRs.

A critical feature I needed was the ability to send a survey to an existing user and update thier record. Some CSRs said it was not possible, others pointed to a feature for that. However, when I tried the feature it didn’t work quite right and seemed to be deprecated.

I decided on ActiveCampaign.com b/c it has the above feature baked in.