Analytics-enhanced Aweber Autoresponder Service Accompanied by Huge Price Increase May 22, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wee in : email marketing , trackbackI signed up with Aweber for my email marketing solution when I started out 2 years ago and have been generally happy with their deliverability rates.
In a recent Friday Podcast, Aweber education marketing manager Justin Premick alluded to some forthcoming enhancements to their services and it looks like they made the announcement today.
Here are some of the enhanced email analystics tools:
- See exactly when subscribers open your message so you can focus on the right time to send your message.
- Send a broadcast to only subscribers who didn’t open or click on your previous broadcast.
- Send a broadcast to only subscribers who did click on your order page, but didn’t order.
- See which subscribers are responding to your campaigns — which messages they’re opening, which links they’re visiting, and where on your website they’re going after clicking through.
- Target subscribers by sending broadcasts to only those who responded (or didn’t respond) by clicking or opening a specific message or link.
- Track revenue generated by campaigns and subscribers to see which subscribers and campaigns are making you money.
Together with click tracking, campaign reporting, email tracking, email ROI reporting and other features.
The old package cost $179.40 for 10,000 list members for a year. The analytics-enhanced service costs $69 per month for 10,000 list members.
With about a 362% increase in their prices, email marketers will have to decide if they need the enhanced analytics functions.
In an exchange between marketer Kevin Riley and Aweber founder/CEO Tom Kulzer, Kevin mentioned in a twitter update that existing customers can choose to remain on their existing plan.
Are the enhanced analytics going to be worth the upgrade?
I’m keen to hear some feedback from other marketers before making a decision.
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The new features at Aweber certainly would be a great advantage for experienced marketers who are already successful and would use them. I believe that for the average newbie to internet marketing, the cost would be hard to justify, unless they can afford a generous budget. If money is not an issue for the newbie and they have the time and determination to succeed, then they should go for the upgrade and learn how to use the Aweber tools from the beginning.
The obvious advantages of email marketing to me are the one-time customer acquisition cost and the ability to continually follow up with your prospects,leads,customers.
Having said that, email marketing has its own rules for building the customer relationship and if you don’t have the fundamentals in place, the best analytics will not help you.
The way I see it, at 50,000-150,000+ list sizes, I’d probably spend more time on tracking such data. That’s not to say it doesn’t hold it’s merit at ANY list size, however there is a time investment to it and I’m plain lazy.
One of the arguements (or points) made by Tom Kulzer is that their analytics exceeds what other stats/analytics service providers offer, yet the prices are very competitive.
I know the going rates for autoresponder and mailing list services but can’t comment on the prices for analytics such as this. If it really IS comparable and the business is large enough than it certainly makes sense to invest the extra X dollars per month for the stats data in order to see 2X, 3X or more growth from better targeted campaigns.
For now, I’m happy to know that the price increase is only if current clients wish to upgrade.
Hi Rob,
At a list size of 100,000, I’d probably be running my own mail server with a dedicated mail admin.
Even if you’re using a lowball figure of $0.50 revenue per user per month, that’s a $50,000 list there.
One of the main benefits of marketing online vs. traditional business is low overhead costs. Most of the stress as a traditional business owner comes from having to pay wages and rental each and every month regardless of business performance.
Also, I don’t like the idea of “wastage”. Although the fee is not high, if I take a few months off I wouldn’t want to keep paying the higher fee. Some services I use (like gotowebinar) allows you to “turn off” the fee when not used. That’s fine.
So my personal preference is to avoid services with high recurring costs. I would rather pay a high one-time fee upfront than to have to worry or manage recurring costs. Alternatively, I don’t mind paying a percentage of turnover (e.g. Paypal or Clickbank) but not a fixed recurring fee.
Any idea if the current users of Aweber are automatically shifted to the more expensive plan or they will be giving an option to upgrade if they want to do so?
Hi Andrew,
A lot of AWeber’s Resellers have also increased their prices but one of them, http://www.RazorrConnect.com did not. They will still offer the “grandfathered” deal - 10,000 leads for $19.95/month. (Just in case your subscribers don’t need all the analytics.)
Warmly,
Rita
http://www.RazorrConnect.com
and
http://www.Razorr.com
Organize, communicate, build, grow, and lead your sales team to success, whether you’re at home, in your office, or on the go!
Existing customer can choose to remain in old plan, the real question is this: When your subscription is matured, will we be forced to upgrade when renewal?
Which reseller worth recommended? I saw ProFollow also offer old pricing