Need Help: List collection, management, sending

[animalstyle]

I really need a way to collect and manage my email list while having marketing campaign features. I'm handy enough tagging where emails are being collected, which list they go in etc:

Before I was using the Newsletter plugin for Wordpress and it was fairly good at collecting and managing contacts, but email sends were insanely slow. It was using server resources to send messages and when it came to sending large batches it was impossible. The win with that plugin was the auto responder plus good automating options for sending recent posts and similar.

Currently I use gravity forms for a subscribe then export and dump my list into Sendgrid marketing campaigns. Had to make the switch just to be able to send multi-thousand blasts that Newsletter couldn't handle. Obviously this method Is too manual in the long game, I need to shift to something else.

What are the bros doing to be effectively collecting, managing and sending intelligent marketing campaigns?

 

[OG]

how much data are we talking about?

 

[andreint]

Thrive Leads + Active Campaign should do the trick.

AC is a monster and it's rather cheap.

 

[Sutra]

I use LeadPages with GetResponse. I use the lead boxes function more than the actual lead pages.

@andreint Just checked out AC, looks badass. Do you know how accurate it's able to determine demographics just from an email? And how accurate their geotargeting is?

GetResponse has geotargeting but it's bullshit. It's based on the users ISP so when I try to segment for a specific area I get people from all over because their ISP is based elsewhere. Which defeats the whole purpose of geotargeting.

 

[andreint]

@andreint Just checked out AC, looks badass. Do you know how accurate it's able to determine demographics just from an email? And how accurate their geotargeting is?

It's pretty accurate. I did a couple of live tests and it seems that he geotags with 80-95% precision (AC, GA and Clicky)

 

[turbin3]

For those that have huge lists and don't mind the cost, I can recommend Ongage. Last send = 3M sent in roughly 1 hour, if that's any indicator of what's possible. It's pricey, but the performance tracking, ability to segment lists, and capabilities with handling volume are awesome.

 

[animalstyle]

how much data are we talking about?

Currently I'm handling a list of ~5,000, but looking for a solution that I can apply here and set up for much larger projects.

Thanks for all the other recommendations. Ill be digging in and seeing what will work...

@turbin3 .... 3m list... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$.... wow

 

[finnegan]

Thrive Leads + Active Campaign should do the trick.

AC is a monster and it's rather cheap.

I was all set to use Mautic since it's free, but after looking over AC yesterday I think it's worth the small cost they charge for their software. You get email and chat support and a bunch of bells and whistles that Mautic can't offer. They also seem to very active in adding new updates to their product.

Think I'll be using them instead, mainly because I want access to some kind of guaranteed support since marketing automation is new to me.

 

[animalstyle]

Would managing multiple site's email lists through Active Campaign be possible and a good idea or would I need a separate account for each site?

 

[animalstyle]

Just signed up with Active Campaign. The shit I am about to be able to do between the Gravity Forms integration and the AC platform....

 

[finnegan]

Just signed up with Active Campaign. The shit I am about to be able to do between the Gravity Forms integration and the AC platform....

What AC package did you get?

It seems like you could just pay $9/month for the Lite version and then use a service like SendGrid to actually mail out up to 12k/month for free to save on costs.

Is that what you're doing?

 

[animalstyle]

What AC package did you get?

It seems like you could just pay $9/month for the Lite version and then use a service like SendGrid to actually mail out up to 12k/month for free to save on costs.

Is that what you're doing?

Not saying you can't go the route you're suggesting, but its not what I am doing.

I am paying for the list size that I keep. I wasted lots of time on crap email providers and services and ending up with shit service that took me tons of extra time to manage. I find value in my list and having a toolset where I can quickly and easily manage/send messages makes the cost well worth it.