Back to top
jasper

OVERVIEW

aweber

AWeber is really focused on trying to be a premium email marketing tool for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Instead of using a third party, AWeber owns every part of its email delivery system and seems to be constantly making updates to try to stay competitive.

It's been around forever - well, since 1998, forever in email marketing terms. But is that a good thing? Email has been going on a lot, a lot since 1998, and I don't know about you, I definitely don't want an email marketing service that gets stuck in the past.

Can AWeber keep up with the times or is it out of date? That's what I want to find out. I checked its ease of use, tested its features and analytics to see if they were up to date, and even tried out customer support.

 

Key features of Aweber

All the basics a business needs

Although AWeber was one of the first services to introduce autoresponder, it is far from superior. However, Aweber is constantly adding new features, such as automation, to try to keep up with the competition.

Here, I want to focus on features that stand out, so I won't go into details about standard things like the drag-and-drop email editor, or the ability to import existing email subscribers.

Drag and drop campaign builder (with automation)

In addition to mass emails (ie one time), you can also create a series of emails called "campaigns" ("campaigns") in AWeber.

The campaign builder is very simple to use. Simply drag in one of the three available actions (send a message, wait (wait), apply tag) from the left panel:

aweber login

You can create a basic autoresponder by combining message blocks and "waiting" blocks. But more importantly, you get access to a few more advanced automation options.

When you click on any message that you have dropped in, you can choose an email (which you have already created) to send. Clicking on that email block again opens a panel on the right with automation options:

aweber pricing

You can choose to add or remove tags based on whether the subscriber opens an email or clicks a link in it.

Since campaigns can be activated by adding a tag to the subscriber, here's how one campaign might trigger another.

While this would be fine if you're a small business owner, it probably won't be enough if you're an advanced email marketer. Other email marketing tools have more triggers to choose from (e.g. visited a URL on your website, didn't open an email, etc.), as well as conditional blocks (done actions based on user behavior).

Split Test function

This is a relatively new feature, and it makes it simple to do split testing for optimizing your results.

Under "Messages" on the dashboard menu there is a label clearly labeled "Split Tests". Note that it only works for bulk emails.

It allows you to specify what percentage of your subscribers will be sent per email (for up to three emails)

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: $19 per 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

If you have 25,000+ subscribers on your mailing list, you will need to call Aweber for a quotation.

aweber communications

Additionally, an entirely free version of Aweber is available. This allows you to use most of the features of Aweber, so long as your mailing list is smaller than 500 subscribers (after this, you’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan).

A 14% discount is available if you pay quarterly; a 14.9% discount is available if you pay annually. There are also some discounts available for students and not-for-profit organisations.

One aspect of Aweber's pricing structure that potential users might like is that all features are available on all plans — unlike some competing products, you don't have to be on more expensive plans to unlock certain functionality. The differences in pricing are to do with mailing list size only.

That said, the functionality available on Aweber — as we'll see below — not necessarily as extensive as you might find in competing email marketing solutions.

Pros and cons of Aweber

aweber affiliate

Pros of using Aweber

  • An entirely free plan is available.

  • It’s really easy to use.

  • It comes with a very large range of templates — considerably more than its key competitors.

  • Support options are more extensive than is the case with some key competing products and based on Aweber's Stevie awards for customer service, should be high.

  • It’s reasonably priced — whilst not the cheapest product of its kind out there, it is cheaper than several similar solutions.

  • It has a built-in landing page builder.

  • It facilitates AMP for email — something of a first for email marketing tools.

  • It lets you choose whether to let people subscribe to your list on a single or double opt-in basis.

  • It has good import functionality, with the option to import a wide range of file types and add the email addresses you’re importing directly to an autoresponder cycle.

  • It integrates with a decent range of third party tools and apps.

  • It makes setting up up simple time-based autoresponders very easy to do.

  • All email templates are responsive.

  • You can use web fonts in e-newsletters sent with Aweber.

Cons of using Aweber

  • You can't include or exclude multiple segments at once when sending an e-newsletter.

  • There are cheaper options out there which offer considerably more features in the marketing automation department.

  • While the landing page builder is useful, it doesn’t provide A/B testing or a way to use Facebook pixels / Google Analytics cookies in a GDPR compliant way.

  • Some of the templates look a bit dated.

  • The RSS to email templates are poor and they can’t be edited using Aweber’s standard drag-and-drop email builder.

Add new comment
  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Shafiq Armani
I'm Shafiq Armani, an expert in selling group buying tools. With more than 10 years of experience in the digital marketing industry
See more article by the author