Vertical Response |
For more than a decade, Vertical Response has been providing small businesses with direct email marketing tools and solutions, event marketing, list management and most recently, social media marketing.
We applaud and like the straightforward approach and affordable pricing for most small businesses – they have no minimums and lengthy contracts to sign, unlike most of their peers. And, we also like their unconditional support for non-profits, enabling them to send up to 10K emails per month for free!
Vertical Response review shows a good reputation overall, with regards to customer service support and responsiveness. Vertical Response integration with social media, as well as other tools such as SalesForce CRM and Google Analytics and Google Apps makes it an attractive option for many small businesses.
Vertical Response makes it easy to import and export CSV lists, list segmentation, offers free image hosting (Constant Contact does not) and makes it easy to upload and manipulate images and emails are fully and easily customizable and has over 700 email marketing templates available for use.
Vertical Response counts a number of established email marketing solutions providers among its direct competitors, including Constant Contact, iContact, AWeber, Emma and MailChimp. Their market share has remained strong over the years, putting them in the top 5 email marketing platform vendors on a consistent basis.
Some of the most significant features of Vertical Response include:
Step-by-Step campaign creation: The area where Vertical Response really shines is in the creation of direct email marketing tools and campaigns. The interface takes you through every aspect of the campaign, from start to finish, in a user-friendly and intuitive manner. The learning curve is very low, making it an attractive option if you have no desire to spend time mastering a new technology. Point-and-click menuing takes you through everything you need.
Robust tracking information: Vertical response has perhaps one of the most robust tracking and reporting packages in the direct email marketing vertical. You can drill down to individual subscribers and see what actions they take, whether it’s opening the email, clicking a link, or making a purchase. You can get geographic tag information, and pull data from across your entire database of subscribers to begin to get a picture of who’s really responding to your campaigns.
Print campaigns: Unlike most of the other email marketing providers, Vertical Response also offers print and snail-mail based marketing campaigns to complement your email campaigns. Currently, they only offer postcard campaigns.
Integration with other applications: One of the most useful features for some businesses will be Vertical Response’s integration with SalesForce CRM. You can update your customer database in SalesForce, indicate whether they should be added to an emailing list, and it will automatically add the information to Vertical Response. Vertical Response also features a number of integration options with Google, including Google Apps and Google Analytics, which is convenient for most small businesses.
Email Personalization: You can personalize individual email messages (most vendors offer this) so you don’t have generic “Dear Sir/Madam” and also individualize the subscribe and unsubscribe messaging.
Non Techie Access – any novice marketer or business owner can use their email wizard or a template to easily create emails and newsletters; the templates are truly easy to customize. And, if you are more technical, the advanced HTML features can be used in a much more creative manner, with just about any type of mail format you can dream up.
Spam Email Blocking Automated – we like the fact that Vertical Response aggressively blocks users who are actively spamming (this is in your interest) as this ensures they are well rated by ISPs and that all outbound email campaigns sent from their mail servers will be delivered to the recipients. We also like their automated “data cleansing” capability which identifies duplicate and/or bad emails which automatically purges these addresses, ensuring you don’t pay for unsuccessful email attempts.
Risk Free Trial is High Quality – we also like their bona fid risk free trial from Vertical Response, enabling any business to create an account and send out 100 emails for free, with access to all of their features and capabilities. Many of their competitors offer only limited functionality when offering a free test.
As is the case with some of the other email marketing providers, Vertical Response offers both a tiered plan based on the number of subscribers:
Number of Subscribers |
Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
Up to 500 |
$10 |
501-2000 |
$28 |
2,001-4,000 |
$46 |
4,001-8,000 |
$72 |
8,001-16,000 |
$120 |
16,001-25,000 |
$150 |
25,001-40,000 |
$240 |
Over 40,000 |
Special/negotiated |
In these plans, you can send unlimited emails to the subscribers on your email list. Prices are on par with other providers, with most tiers falling within +/- 20% of the median range.
A Vertical Response pricing review also shows a pay as you go plan. Pricing in the pay as you go plan looks like this:
Number of Credits |
Price per Email |
|---|---|
Up to 1,000 |
1.5¢ |
Up to 2,500 |
1.3¢ |
Up to 25,000 |
1.2¢ |
Up to 50,000 |
1¢ |
Up to 100,000 |
.85¢ |
Up to 500,000 |
.75¢ |
Over 500,000 |
Special/negotiated |
Pricing in the pay as you go plan is slightly higher than some competitors, but still within 20% of the median price range.
Vertical Response Review Features we liked:
A wide template library (over 700), second only to Constant Contact
Provides a large amount of image hosting space (sufficient for most small businesses)
Deep reporting and analytical capabilities
Integration with Google Analytics
A less complex platform than many other email marketing applications
Features/issues we didn’t like about Vertical Response.
Vertical Response does not have an autoresponder, one of the few email direct marketing tools that doesn’t have this feature.
Making changes in a campaign setup requires you to go back through iterative steps, which can be a little challenging.
There is also no spam-checking tool
Like other web-based applications, you may occasionally run into compatibility issues with the browser or the platform, requiring a significant investment of time in customer support.
The “Sender Score Certified” program has a hefty complaint fee of $20 per incident, which is high for the industry.
As a small business email direct marketing tool, Vertical Response scores 8 out of 10 stars.