GetResponse Review (2019): A Value Packed Email Marketing Solution

What is Getresponse?

Getresponse is primarily an email marketing app that allows you to:

  • import and host a mailing list and capture data onto it
  • create e-newsletters which can be sent to the subscribers on your mailing list
  • automate your emails to subscribers via use of ‘autoresponders’
  • View and analyses statistics related to your email marketing campaigns – open rate, click through, forwards etc.

Recently, however, Getresponse’s feature set has evolved quite a bit, to the point where it is becoming more of an ‘all-in-one’ marketing solution.

In addition to email marketing, it now also provides webinar hosting, landing pages, and basic CRM (customer relationship management) functionality.

We’ll discuss all these features in depth below, but first, let’s look at pricing.

 Getresponse pricing

There are three main types of Getresponse pricing plan – ‘Email’, ‘Pro’ and ‘Max’ – and within each of these, several additional types of plan to choose from (all based on list size).

  • Up to 1,000 subscribers: $15 (‘Email’) / $49 (‘Pro’) / $165 (‘Max’)
  • 1,001 to 2,500 subscribers: $25 (‘Email’) / $49 (‘Pro’) / $165 (‘Max’)
  • 2,501 to 5,000 subscribers: $45 (‘Email’) / $49 (‘Pro’) / $165 (‘Max’)
  • 5,001 to 10,000 subscribers: $65 (‘Email’)/ $75 (‘Pro’) / $ 165 (‘Max’)
  • 10,001 to 25,000 subscribers: $145 (‘Email’) / $165 (‘Pro’) / $255 (‘Max’)
  • 25,001 to 50,000 subscribers: $250 (‘Email’) / $280 (‘Pro’) / $370 (‘Max’)
  • 50,001 to 100,000 subscribers: $450 (‘Email’) / $490 (‘Pro’) / $580 (‘Max’)

Additionally there is an “Enterprise” plan for users whose lists exceed 100,000 email addresses: this starts at $1199, with exact pricing depending on requirements.

Discounts are available if you pay upfront for 12 or 24 months of service (18% and 30% respectively) – this is more generous than most competing platforms.

Get Response Autoresponders

Autoresponders are e-newsletters that are sent to your subscribers at intervals determined by you – you can set them up so that immediately after somebody signs up to your mailing list, they receive a welcome message from your business; a week later they could receive a discount offer for some of your products or services; three weeks later they could receive an encouragement to follow you on social media. And so on.

Getresponse’s autoresponder functionality is a key selling point – it offers one of the most comprehensive feature sets available.

You can send either time-based or action-based messages; time-based options include cycles such as the example above, and action-based messages can be triggered by user actions or information, for example:

  • opens
  • clicks
  • subscriptions to particular lists
  • changes in contact preferences
  • completed transactions / goals
  • birthdays
  • changes in user data

Recently Getresponse launched a new version of their new autoresponder functionality, called ‘Marketing Automation.’ This allows you to create automation workflows using a drag and drop builder – you basically set up an ‘automation flowchart’ that instructs Getresponse what to do if a user opens a particular offer, clicks on a certain link etc.

This kind of functionality goes way beyond what’s traditionally been on offer from autoresponders, and allows you to create a user journey that can be customised to the nth degree.

GetResponse Features

  • Auto-Responders
  • Behavior Driven Rules
  • Bounce Tracking
  • CAN SPAM Compliance
  • Click-Through Tracking
  • Contact Database
  • Drip Campaigns
  • Event Triggered Email
  • Image Library
  • Mailing List Management
  • Multi-Variate Testing
  • Newsletter Management
  • Spam Check
  • Subscribe / Unsubscribe
  • Survey Management
  • Template Management
  • Unsubscribe Database
  • WYSIWYG Email Editor

User-friendliness

On the whole, Getresponse is pretty straightforward to use. It’s certainly easy enough to do all the basics: import contacts, create campaigns, set up autoresponders and check statistics (which, incidentally, are very comprehensive) and the interface is pretty clean and intuitive.

In terms of how it stacks up against its competitors in this regard, I would argue that Campaign Monitor is a little more user friendly, and Mailchimp has a slicker user interface (although one that makes finding certain functionality a little bit tricky at times).

One area I feel that could be significantly better from a user-friendliness point of view is the Getresponse e-newsletter editor.

Whilst its drag-and-drop approach does in theory provide a very flexible way to create blocks of content and move them around an e-newsletter, in practice it is quite clunky to use and can lead to accidental deletion of content, or placement of it in the wrong part of the e-newsletter.

If you can get your head around it, and practice using it a bit, it does make for a useful tool – it’s just that the implementation of it could be rather better.

Getresponse deliverability

The email deliverability rate – the percentage of e-newsletters sent that successfully reach inboxes – is obviously an important thing to look at when choosing an email marketing tool.

Not all email marketing providers are that forthright about their deliverability rates; but Getresponse seems reasonably open about this, with this to say about it on their website:

At GetResponse we are frequently asked about the quality of our deliverability rate. Because deliverability depends on many factors, including the content of your messages, the deliverability rate could vary for each mailing

Furthermore, Getresponse actually give you the deliverability rate of each message on your email analytics – this is something I haven’t encountered on competing products’ metrics. A thumbs up for this. I do have to pull Getresponse up on one thing relating to deliverability however: to ensure a high deliverability rate, it’s advisable to use a system called DKIM email authentication. You can use DKIM with Getresponse – but only on the Getresponse ‘Max’ plans.

Although have not encountered any deliverability problems using the cheaper plans, competing products don’t force you to invest in a more expensive plan to avail of this feature – and it would be good to see Getresponse being more generous here.

Conclusion

GetResponse really came through with the goods, managing to provide both the features and ease-of-use that most other newsletter tools fall short of. We also noted the great automation mechanisms for list management

While the editor can be a little fiddly when performing certain tasks, and the templates look a little dated, they’re responsive and still good enough to create something useful. And, of course, all templates are responsive, which means you’re good to go on mobile, too. There’s even an app for iOS and Android that allows you not only to track, but also to send (plain-text) newsletters on the go.

With its long list of powerful features like landing pages and now even webinars, GetResponse is doing quite a few things right. And while we might not call it the ‘world’s easiest email marketing’ tool, it’s definitely versatile enough to perform almost everything you’d need for your personal or business needs.

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