Constant Contact Review, Pricing & Features

What is Constant Contact?

Constant Contact is an email marketing platform used by more than 600,000 businesses worldwide. Constant Contact’s target audience is small businesses with basic email marketing needs.

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Table of Contents

Constant Contact Review Summary

Constant Contact was founded by Randy Parker in 1995. Today, Constant Contact is used by over 600,000 businesses. Constant Contact’s target audience is small businesses with basic email marketing needs.

Some of Constant Contact’s strengths are its large library of built-in integrations and pre-designed email templates. Also, Constant Contact offers live chat and phone support for all subscription plans. However, Constant Contact’s segmentation, automation, and A/B testing capabilities are not as robust as top competitors. These are significant drawbacks, and heavily reduced our rating for this product.

Constant Contact pricing starts at $20 per month, and subscription costs increase depending on your number of contacts. Constant Contact does not offer a free plan. Constant Contact is comparably priced with alternatives like Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor, but offers an inferior set of features.

  • If you strongly value a large library of built-in integrations and pre-designed email templates, and desire solid customer support, consider testing Constant Contact.
  • If you want an email marketing solution with a free plan, we recommend Mailchimp.
  • If you want an email marketing solution with more robust segmentation, automation, and A/B testing capabilities, we recommend ActiveCampaign.

Constant Contact Pricing & Cost

Constant Contact pricing starts at $20 per month, and is based on your number of contacts. Constant Contact offers three paid subscription plans. Constant Contact offers a 50% first-month discount, and a 60-day free trial.

Contact SizeEmailEmail PlusPro
0 to 500$20$45N/A
501 to 2,500$45$70N/A
2,501 to 5,000$65$95$195
5,001 to 10,000$95$125$245
10,001 to 15,000N/A$195$295
15,001 to 25,000N/A$225$355

Constant Contact Features

Below, we'll discuss Constant Contact’s key features. We include product screenshots to give you a sense of this solution’s interface and usability.

Dashboard

When you first log into Constant Contact, you will be directed to the dashboard. You can use the dashboard to track KPIs such as total contacts, contact growth, and social audience growth. Also, the dashboard includes a shortcut to create new campaigns, and shows your most recent and active campaigns.

Constant Contact Dashboard

Data Integration and Storage

You can use Constant Contact to collect and store data about your customers. This data is key to segmentation, personalizing content, and implementing trigger emails. Below, we explore Constant Contact’s data fields and offer an overview of importing customers and data.

Data Fields

Contact information that you collect and store in Constant Contact is organized into data fields. You use these data fields to segment your lists in order to send better targeted communications. Default data fields included in Constant Contact are:

  • Address
  • Anniversary
  • Birthday
  • Job Title
  • Name

In addition to default data fields, you can create up to 100 custom data fields to capture additional information that is relevant to your business. Also, tags can be incorporated to refine your list further and to identify subscribers based on your objectives. For example, you can use tags such as 'location', 'interests', or 'new customers' to create a sub-group of contacts in a list.

Constant Contact Data Fields

Importing Customers and Data into Constant Contact

You can import data through a variety of ways in Constant Contact. Below, we highlight some of the primary methods of data collection.

Data Collection MethodDescription
Manual EntryCustomer information can be entered manually through copy and paste.
File UploadYou can upload XLS, XLSX, VCF, CSV, and TXT files that contain customer data.
Pre-built integrationsBuilt-in integrations allow Constant Contact to seamlessly share data to and from third-party solutions. Constant Contact integrates with over 500 third-party platforms. We further explore Constant Contact’s integrations later in the review.
APIConstant Contact has an open API that allows businesses to create custom integrations. You can use this to move data in and out of Constant Contact and build custom applications that leverage Constant Contact’s functionality.
Signup formsYou can embed signup forms in your website and emails to capture customer data.

Segmentation

Constant Contact’s platform includes segmentation tools that you can use to create segments of customers using the data that’s stored in the system. Using segments is a best practice to increase the relevancy of your emails, and save cost by reducing send volume.

You can define the segment conditions to include or exclude portions of your list. Here are some of the segmentation conditions found in Constant Contact:

Data SourceDescriptionExample Data Points
Contact ActivityThis type of segment condition is based on contact behavior.
  • Clicked
  • Did not click
  • Opened
  • Did not open
  • Were sent
  • Were not sent
Contact InformationThis type of segment condition is based on the attributes associated with each contact.
  • Birthday month
  • Contact source
  • Custom field
  • Date added
  • Job title
  • Last date edited
GeographicGeographic segmentation is based on the location of your contact
  • City
  • Country
  • Postal code
  • State

You can create segments in Constant Contact using logic. Specific operators included in Constant Contact’s application are:

  • is
  • is not
  • contains
  • starts with
  • is blank
  • in the last
  • in between
Constant Contact Segmentation

Constant Contact’s segmentation is limited relative to similarly-priced solutions. You can only add up to 10 conditions per segment. Also, Constant Contact does not include as many operators as top competitors.

Email Builder

Constant Contact includes a drag-and-drop email editor. You can add different design elements to your emails such as text, images, and buttons. Also, you can edit the layout of your email designs, and change columns, headers, and spacing.

Constant Contact offers over 300 pre-designed email templates. Constant Contact offers more email templates than most of its competitors.

Constant Contact Email Builder

You can preview your emails in Constant Contact to see how they will appear on desktop and mobile devices. While testing the solution, if you find Constant Contact’s preview feature to be insufficient for your needs, ActiveCampaign and Sendinblue are email marketing solutions that offer robust email preview tools.

Constant Contact Email Preview

A/B Testing

Constant Contact’s A/B testing tool is limited compared to top competitors. You can’t test variables like preheader text, email content, and from information. Also, you can only test two variations at a time, and the testing length period is shorter than average.

Constant Contact does have an A/B testing tool that you can use to optimize subject lines. You can create up to 2 subject lines, and send each version to a portion of your customers. In the table below, we highlight the major components of Constant Contact’s A/B testing.

A/B Test ComponentDescription
VariablesSubject line
Subject Line VariationsUp to 2 subject lines
Testing Pool Size1% to 100% of list
Testing Length Period48 hours maximum
Winning MetricsClick rate, open rate

Drip Campaigns

Constant Contact allows you to create drip campaigns that send a series of automated messages to contacts. However, Constant Contact’s automation features are limited compared to many of its competitors. For example, you can’t create splits and branching points in your automation workflows. This means you can't trigger different actions based on your contact’s behavior, or send personalized emails to them.

Constant Contact includes a visual builder to create your automation workflows. Automation workflows begin with a trigger that sends the first email. Here are some of the triggers included in Constant Contact.

  • Email opened
  • Link clicked
  • Contact joins list
  • Contact placed first order

Once you have selected your trigger, you can customize the order in which you want your emails sent. You can add delays between each email in the sequence.

Constant Contact Email Series

Other Marketing Channels

Constant Contact includes several marketing channels in addition to email marketing. Below, we highlight some of Constant Contact’s other marketing channels.

Website builder: Constant Contact offers a website builder for $10 per month. If you are an eCommerce business, Constant Contact offers professionally-designed store layouts and online payment processing.

Social media: Constant Contact integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin. You can schedule and publish social media content directly in the platform.

Deliverability

You should choose an email system that gets a high percentage of your emails into recipient inboxes. In the email world, this is known as deliverability.

There are several best practices that email systems should follow to increase your deliverability. As you can see below, it follows the best practices.

Deliverability FeaturesOffered by Constant Contact
Deliverability analytics and reportingYes
Deliverability-specific benchmarksYes
Double opt-inYes
Automated contact removal for soft & hard bouncesYes
Dedicated IP addressNo
Dedicated click trackingEmail Plus
Supports email signatures for DKIM, SPF, and DMARC protocolsYes
Unsubscribe optionYes

Analytics and Reporting

Constant Contact includes an analytics dashboard to help you monitor the performance of your campaigns. Here are some of the metrics you can track in Constant Contact.

  • Sends
  • Opens
  • Open rate vs. previous 30 days
  • Open rate vs. industry average
  • Clicks
  • Click rate vs. previous 30 days
  • Click rate vs. industry average
  • Bounces
  • Unsubscribes
Constant Contact Reporting

Integrations

Constant Contact offers over 500 built-in third-party integrations. Below are some of Constant Contact’s integrations.

  • BigCommerce
  • Formstack
  • Genbook
  • Jotform
  • Justuno
  • Magento
  • Salesforce
  • Shopify
  • Typeform
  • WooCommerce
  • Xero
  • Zapier

Constant Contact Alternatives & Competitors

Constant Contact competes with a variety of email marketing and marketing automation solutions that offer similar functionality. The best choice for you will depend on your budget and feature preferences.

Constant Contact's top competitors are:

Is Constant Contact Right For You?

Constant Contact is an email marketing platform used by more than 600,000 businesses worldwide. Its target audience is small businesses with basic email marketing needs. Constant Contact is comparably priced with alternatives like Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor, but offers an inferior set of features.

  • If you strongly value a large library of built-in integrations and pre-designed email templates, and desire solid customer support, consider testing Constant Contact.
  • If you want an email marketing solution with a free plan, we recommend Mailchimp.
  • If you want an email marketing solution with more robust segmentation, automation, and A/B testing capabilities, we recommend ActiveCampaign.

If you're interested, you can try Constant Contact today.

Lloyd Park

Lloyd Park is a Research Analyst at SoftwarePundit, where he conducts in-depth analyses of software markets and products. Lloyd also has experience managing the development of software platforms and is an expert in content production & media software. You can connect with Lloyd on LinkedIn.

Lloyd is an expert in several software categories including:

  • Dental software
  • Email marketing software
  • Field service management software
  • Legal software
  • Property management software