MailChimp or Campaign Monitor? The Pros and Cons of using both.

Our personal favourite is MailChimp, but in this article we’ll give you the pros and cons of of both and let you make up your own mind. Of course, if you were to work with us on your HTML email newsletter project, we’d give you a run down on both platforms and recommend the best for your needs.
So lets get to it…

MailChimp

We naturally gravitated towards working with MailChimp after a client years back insisted that we use it. Prior to that we were avid Campaign Monitor users, so we know the ins and outs of both platforms.

Here are the benefits of MailChimp:

• It’s free to use if you’re sending to less than 2,000 people. Check out their pricing page for more information. http://mailchimp.com/pricing/
• You can save details about particular contacts on your list, which can be handy to refer to.
• Importing contacts is easy (the biggest list we’ve imported was just over 12k subscribers)
• You can see who your most dedicated ‘fans’ are. E.g. clients / customers who interacted most with your emails.
• You can access pretty detailed reporting on both desktop and mobile devices
• It integrates with other platforms (like CRM’s)
• The template language is very easy and making custom HTML email newsletters with variable content is a synch.

Campaign Monitor

On the other side of the fence is Campaign Monitor. So what’s good about it?

• It generally feels more business like when you use it. It’s less quirky than MailChimp.
• The interface is simpler than MailChimp and easier to use
• The template language is pretty easy to get to grips with.
• If you’re a web / HTML email designer you can ‘white label’ Campaign Monitor so it looks like it’s your own software.
• Campaign Monitor has great support staff and a very active forum so help is always at hand

So, ultimately which one should I choose?

If you’re a web designer and you’re going to design and code a custom email newsletter it’s all about what’s best for your client and your own preference. Many designers go with Campaign Monitor as it’s marketed towards web designers.

If however you’re not a web designer / coder, then I’d recommend MailChimp, because it’s easier to get up and running using one of their existing templates.

Like I said, we prefer to use MailChimp for HTML email newsletters, even though we’re web designers at heart, and the reason is because we can create mobile friendly, tailor-made email designs that match the look and feel of our client’s websites’ and at the same time give them an amazing amount of flexibility and control with the variable content options that MailChimp offers.

For example, this recent campaign we created for McMaster Yachts highlights just that. McMaster have the ability to turn on and off different sections of their newsletter.

If you’d like to get more information about which platform is best for you, or talk to us about an HTML email design project, give us a call on 01747 852298 or use the contact form on our main site.