IContact Review: Email Marketing & CRM for SMBs

IContact Review: In-Depth

IContact is a complete email marketing platform that doesn’t break the bank. Its design caters to various industries and team sizes. With this software, individuals can craft professional messages in a fraction of the time.

The system offers metrics and insights that small-to-medium businesses need. Plus, there are several popular integrations for more accessibility and ease of use. This IContact review will help teams decide if this service is best for their budget and projects.

IContact Key Features

The platform provides all the tools marketers need to reach the masses. Along with professional email builders, clients can access dozens of integrations. These include Facebook Ads and Zapier, for even more outreach.

• A/B Testing
• CRM
• Email Builder & Insights
• Lead Management
• Marketing Automation
• Social Monitoring & Posting

IContact Background Information

Aaron Houghton and Ryan Allis founded IContact back in 2003. Through six rounds of funding, the two entrepreneurs raised over $53 million. Today, IContact is the largest private provider of email marketing. It has received top reviews from Capterra, G2, and GetApp, among others.

IContact has several strong points that make it easy to use. This includes campaign templates, robust CRM tools, and A/B testing. Customers can take advantage of audience segmentation and lead scoring and smart sign-up forms. These come in handy for all kinds of business industries.

• A mid-sized company with less than 500 employees
• Acquired by J2 Global in January 2019
• Based in Morrisville, North Carolina
• Certified B Corporation
• Included in Capterra’s Top 20 Report 2024
• 2018 Q3 GetApp Category Leader

IContact Features & Technical Details

As an email marketing software, IContact offers quite a few features. Here is an overview of what clients can expect.

Marketing Automation

The right marketing tools can take businesses a long way. IContact customers can enjoy a range of features that will make their campaigns stand out. They can test one project against another and optimize multi-user accounts. Salesforce integration allows them to bring a higher level of CRM to clients.

• Analytics
• Audience Segmentation
• Drip Campaigns
• Email Builder
• Landing Pages
• Lead Scoring
• ROI Tracking
• Social Marketing
• WebForms

Email Marketing

IContact clients can reach more prospects with this in-depth platform. The toolkit includes various outreach formats like landing pages, emails, and webforms. Split testing and surveys bring in more qualitative insights, too. The email builder is where this software shines. Customers can manage subscription lists, keep a content library, and sync delivery schedules.

• A/B Testing
• Auto-Responders
• CAN-SPAM Compliance
• Customer Surveys
• Drip Campaigns
• Editing Tools
• Event-Triggered Messages
• Image Library
• Insights/Analytics
• List Management
• Subscriber Reports
• Template Organizer

Features in Detail

IContact encompasses more than easy email marketing. Check out the details below to get a better idea of this system’s capabilities. From template design and landing pages, to lead management, this software does it all.

Create Email Campaigns

It’s best to start with the email builder. IContact’s system allows users to craft their distinct campaigns. They can choose between a WYSIWYG editor or one that asks for HTML code input. The former option includes hundreds of templates. It makes sense, considering that the platform caters to all kinds of companies. Whether they work in education, tourism, e-commerce, or something else, clients will find what they need.

Information Heading: These pre-built designs also save loads of time, so teams can focus on providing better customer service.

Another aspect of the email campaigns is the image library and editor. Here, users can resize their photos to make messages look more appealing. Yet, the bells and whistles seem to end there. Having one spot for image content is great, but the editing tools are too basic. Clients can word-wrap and resize, but that’s it. Lots of competing software offer button creation and header blocks. It would be great to see those features in IContact soon.

Sending Messages

Most people know how to send an email, but brands need to step it up a notch. Professionalism is key to bringing in new prospects and keeping loyal customers. This platform has the tools and insights to help teams maintain consistency.

Along with the templates and image library, there are other features to check out. One of them is an auto-responder. This tool comes in handy when sending out welcome emails to new subscribers. It ensures that the company doesn’t leave anyone out. One useful detail is double opt-in. With this, new clients receive a confirmation message as soon as they agree to receive marketing emails.

Teams can upload a contacts list in CSV or XLS format. As for sending a message, the process is straightforward.

• Enter the message
• Add any images/content
• Run the email through IContact’s spam filter
• Check any social links to include the message across different channels
• Confirm the recipients
• Send or schedule for later

Insights & Reports

Reports and analytics are crucial to any marketing campaign. Email projects provide lots of key data for marketers. Fortunately, they can see everything at a glance with this platform.

IContact provides two primary sets of statistics. The first is “Account Health” and the second is “List Health.” These are straightforward and quite intuitive, so individuals shouldn’t have any issues. Here is where they’ll find all kinds of insights related to their campaigns and subscribers.

Some critical data points include:

• Email bounces
• Images used
• Messages sent
• Open/click rates
• Subscriber count
• Unsubscribes

These metrics will tell businesses just how effective their campaigns are. Most people are fond of the pie chart representations, which are great visual aids. These provide a quick overview of the analytics. There are numerical values as well, for those who want to go deeper into the stats. A potential downside here is that the open rate describes unique subscribers only.

Drag-and-Drop Functionality

Spicing up an email campaign is easy with the software’s drag-and-drop editor. Simply click and drag to create image elements. While the editing functionality isn’t the best, the controls are easy to use.

Attention Heading:Overall, it saves a lot of time and adds visual appeal to messages.

Pre-Built Templates

Again, users will find hundreds of templates to review. It’s easy to choose specific layouts for their messages. It’s great that anyone can go in and create a professional campaign. No UI or design experience is necessary. Any business can find different sign-up forms and opt-in emails. They can also add their unique HTML code or import designs from third-party apps.

Automated Tasks

These days, no software is complete with automation. When brands must send hundreds of emails throughout the week, they want everything to be automatic. At the same time, they need a say in how things look.

IContact combines the best of both worlds. Review and create tools that make it easy to build stunning campaigns.

Information Heading: This marketing feature works with landing pages, emails, social media, and individual workflows.

This seamless integration is obvious to the recipient, too. Auto-responders and confirmations boost subscriber counts and keep customers satisfied.

Split Testing

A/B reviews allow groups to check out their messages from the recipient’s perspective before sending them out.

Information Heading:They can experiment with different subject headings, images, templates, and more.

The platform will test the layouts on a portion of the contacts list.

Multiple Users

Some platforms only allow individual users, but not IContact. This is important because brands want to maintain a consistent voice throughout their campaigns. Multi-user access makes it a lot easier to do this. At the same time, the system caters to individual workflows, so everyone stays focused.

Audience Management

Before sending out a message, companies must be sure they have the right audience. This software includes segmentation and prospecting tools to help out. With these features, teams can review and group consumers based on several criteria:

• Age
• Behavior
• Gender
• Location
• Social Activity

Subscriber Lists

Once they have the right subscribers, companies must learn how to keep them satisfied. The platform helps out by offering contact management tools. With these, clients can identify different recipients and quickly update any relevant information. Embedded sign-up forms automate much of the process, too.

Salesforce Integration

Along with many other integrations, the software works seamlessly with Salesforce. The partnership adds a new dimension of customer-relationship management. It allows brands to learn more about consumers and contact them more effectively. Thanks to this synchronization, teams will never miss a client email again.

API & Add-Ons

Salesforce is just one of the integrations available on IContact. With the help of Zapier, clients can create Facebook Ads, e-commerce apps, and developer API. There are too many integrated apps to name, but here are a few stand-outs to review:

• PieSync CRM
• Shopify
• PayPal
• SurveyMonkey
• Google Forms
• Eventbrite
• WordPress
• Leadpages

Zapier integration opens the door for even more third-party apps. In this way, IContact is much more than email marketing. By syncing different apps, they can have an all-in-one digital outreach system. They’ll reach consumers on social media, through traditional email, on landing pages, and more.

Social Media Integrations

IContact gets great reviews for its social monitoring capabilities. Not all marketing platforms can sync with digital channels like Facebook and Twitter. With this system, teams can reach out to consumers across the Web. In 2024, a brand can’t afford to miss out on social media ads and content. Right now, it’s the best way to get in front of more people.

Users can link their IContact accounts to business profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The synchronization allows them to publish automatically on those channels. Plus, they can gather insights on each post’s performance.

They can also publish straight to Facebook from the IContact dashboard. The interface allows them to preview posts as well as track likes and comments.

Twitter compatibility helps them shorten links, track tweets, and schedule upcoming posts. The dashboard also lets them share content to LinkedIn with the click of a button.

IContact Plans & Pricing

Like most marketing software programs, IContact works on a subscription model. Its packaging system makes it easier for brands to pay for only what they need. On the pricing page, they can identify key details, such as how many contacts they have. They can also choose to pay yearly or on a month-to-month basis. From there, there are two plans available. Check out the details of each one below.

Base

Pricing for the Base package starts at $36 per month or $30.60 on the yearly plan. The cost reflects a subscriber list of 500. The more recipients a company has, the more they can expect to pay. That said, a 30-day trial with 100 contacts is available. Even though this is the basic plan, it is quite robust. Clients will get the email editor and image library, all marketing tools, and auto-responders.

Features:

• A/B testing
• Custom API
• Email & automation reporting
• Integrations
• List segmentation
• Multi-user access
• Sign-up forms
• Target welcome & follow-ups
• Templates/image library

Number of Users: 1+

Number of Accounts: 1

Scheduling: Yes

Price:

• >500 subscribers: $30.60/mo
• 500-2,500 subscribers: $50.15/mo
• 2,500-5,000 subscribers: $75.65/mo
• 5,000-10,000 subscribers: $109.65/mo

Pros:

• Allows multiple users
• API syncing
• Contact management tools
• Includes all integrations
• Split testing

Cons:

• Doesn’t include landing page creation
• Lacks audience segmentation features

Pro

This package is the most popular choice for businesses. They’ll get access to all the reporting and segmentation features. This plan also provides landing page creation tools and insights. A nice thing about this package is the event-triggered messages and client-specific campaigns. A potential setback is that it allows up to 10,000 subscribers. Beyond that, brands will have to pay for a quote-based custom account.

Features:

• Everything in Base plan
• Audience segmentation
• Landing page creator
• Smart sending

Number of Users: 1+

Number of Accounts: 1

Scheduling: Yes

Price:

• >500 subscribers: $61.20/mo
• 500-2,500 subscribers: $100.30/mo
• 2,500-5,000 subscribers: $151.30/mo
• 5,000-10,000 subscribers: $219.30/mo

Pros:

• Automatically updates contact lists
• Client-specific follow-ups
• Full reporting features
• Identifies best times to send messages
• Individual workflows & collaboration folders

Cons:

• Can get pricey
• Limited to 10,000 subscribers

Non-Profit

Nonprofits can get special pricing to use the platform for their digital fundraising efforts. This plan grants qualifying organizations a 20% discount. Groups in North Carolina (where IContact HQ is), get a free account.

Pricing & Key Features Comparison

Check out a side-by-side look at the Base and Pro packages. Depending on team size and subscriber count, some brands may be fine with the basic plan. Even so, the Pro membership is worth the cost for all the reporting and customization.

Terms & Conditions

IContact is a permission-based email marketing tool. The policy clearly states that clients may not use the software to send spam. Violating this anti-spam protocol will result in the enterprise terminating the account. The Terms and Conditions also include a code of conduct. This regulation prohibits hate speech, adult content, and illegal products or services. The system’s landing pages refer to any sales orders created by the customer. Clients may use the software for internal business purposes only. Any violations are subject to early termination.

Privacy Policy

The enterprise last updated its privacy policy in February 2024. IContact participates in and has certified compliance with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. Some of the data that the system collects includes:

• Information provided by the customer
• Payment details
• Public posts
• Third-party app data and usage
• Registration info
• Advertising content

The corporation collects demographic details to use in marketing promotions and similar content. This data may also appear in financial audits, surveys, and legal compliance documents. Clients have a right to request this information and opt-out of personal data collection.

Refund Policy

Paid subscription fees are non-refundable. Late payments are subject to a 1.5% fee of the total amount due. The additional billing will continue each month until the sum is paid in full. Continual late charges may result in the termination of the customer’s account.

Both the corporation and the client may cancel the subscription at any time. To delete an account, buyers can call 877-820-7837 during regular business hours. Be aware that subscription services are pre-paid and aren’t eligible for refunds.

Customer Support

Below are some different ways to get in touch with the support team.

Telephone

The support team is available over the phone at 877-820-7837. There is also a secondary, regional number at 919-957-6150. It corresponds to the headquarters at 2121 RDU Center Drive, 4th Floor, Morrisville, North Carolina 27560.

Email

For those who want more info on the products, services, and subscriptions, there is a sales email. They can send a message to [email protected]. Most people experience prompt responses from the sales team. There is also a press email at [email protected].

Online Chat

Customers can try the live chat service Monday through Friday. The hours of operation are from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST. To get started, fill out the contact form and identify the topic in question.

Help Center

The Help page is where visitors can find the support team’s contact information. There, they’ll see the phone number and a link to the Live Chat service. If they scroll down, they can fill out a technical support form.

At the bottom of the website, there are links to additional resources. The “Videos & Webinars” page contains tutorials on a variety of topics. These include email tips for non-profits and other businesses, as well as marketing guides. Some of the video seminars are hosted by IContact staff. Anyone can access these tutorials.

The “Resources” page includes blog posts about marketing topics. There are also product training videos. These guides walk customers through how to set up the dashboard, add accounts, and more. Individuals can walk through dozens of subjects to familiarize themselves with the platform.

It would be nice to see an FAQ page on the website. That said, it looks like there are plenty of ways to get in touch with support. Email, phone, and online tutorials provide more than enough information.

Quality of Service

The company is not listed with the Better Business Bureau and has zero reviews there. It has a listing on Trustpilot, but there aren’t any reviews. On Trustradius, the service has 7.9 out of 10 stars. The rating is based on 84 reviewers.

Most complaints emphasized the limited functionality of the image editor. It would work better if there were more tools for cropping and spacing pictures in emails. Others emphasized that it is difficult to add, remove, and manage contacts on the dashboard.

Customer Types

This platform is a good choice for small and medium-sized businesses. That isn’t to say that a freelancer or large corporation couldn’t use the service. Check out the customer types below and how they would fare.

Small Businesses

A smaller agency is an ideal candidate for this service. Teams can use a single account but have several individual workflows. It allows for smoother collaboration and easier organization. Non-profits can take advantage of a 20% discount, too.

Mid-Sized Companies

Slightly larger corporations will also find the interface to be streamlined and helpful. The thing to be careful of is a higher subscriber count. It seems that the more contacts one has, the harder it is to manage everything.

Large Enterprises

The software can definitely accommodate bigger agencies. Its plans cater to huge subscription lists. Yet, anything over 10,000 requires a custom package. It’s also nice that the system appeals to various industries, such as education, finance, and real estate.

Freelancers

An independent contractor should check out this service. If they have 500 contacts or fewer, they’ll only pay $36 a month. However, this is for the Base plan, which may be too rudimentary for some people.

IContact Alternatives

Below are a few rival providers that offer similar tools and features. Check out the competition and then compare and contrast each service in the chart.

1. Constant Contact: Better Brand Consistency

Another worthy competitor, this company offers unlimited emails and customizable templates. Users on the introductory plan get access to basic e-commerce tools, too. These include Shopify and WooCommerce integrations. Some of the top perks involve social media posting, imported lists, and landing pages.

2. Campaign Monitor: A Budget-Friendly Solution

Here is an option for those with tight budgets. The basic plan includes up to 2,500 emails for less than $10 per month. Clients will receive engagement and subscriber growth reports, too. Like its competitors, this provider offers custom templates, auto-responders, and messaging editors.

3. AWeber: Attractive Pricing & Elements

AWeber is another affordable provider. It offers a variety of plans and payment schedules. The lowest-tiered package comes with an email and landing page designer. Clients can send unlimited messages, too. They’ll receive pre-built reports and access hundreds of integrated apps. A unique feature is the AI Smart Designer, which takes campaigns to a new aesthetic level.

4. Benchmarkemail: Build Stronger Customer Relationships

Benchmark offers a free version of its software. For $14 per month, users can access the Pro plan and include up to 100,000 contacts. It includes must-haves like split testing, sign-up forms, and drip campaigns. There are other benefits such as Google Analytics Tracking and click heatmap reports. The insights here are in-depth and well worth the money.

5. Mad Mimi: Keep Clients Happy & Engaged

Mad Mimi has an older look to it, but it still performs the same functions as its rivals. The template editor lets users save their favorite styles to save time later. Clients also get unlimited audience lists and can upload CSV files, too. The system organizes audiences and gets rid of duplicates, unsubscribers, and bounced emails.

6. ActiveCampaign: Find the Most Engaged Audiences

With ActiveCampaign, clients can customize newsletters and subscription forms. Split testing helps them find the perfect content for audiences.

There is even a mobile app for on-the-go editing. Another key benefit is that the Lite plan accommodates up to three members.

Frequently Asked Questions

Full Automation & Ample CRM Integrations

It looks like this provider offers just about everything a marketing team needs. No matter their niche, they can segment audiences, compile contact lists, and organize drip campaigns.

The company caters to businesses of all sizes, although it specializes in SMBs. The only downside here is aesthetics. Those who want more say in how their emails look will find IContact to be lacking. Other than that, the automation, engagement, and personalization are spot-on.