The first Blogging Tips Newsletter was sent today, which is also a week since I have been using the email marketing service Aweber. I am not familar enough with the service to give a comprehensive review so I thought it would be good to give my first impressions of the site.
My first week with Aweber
The last newsletter I sent was for a email list I developed for a shopping site around 2001/2002 so it’s safe to say that things have improved since then. When you first sign up to Aweber it does take you a while to get used to how everthing works. However, Aweber have a great FAQ and video section and before you know it getting around the site is a breeze.
Setting up sign up forms is fairly easy and very easy to customise. You also have the option of adding custom fields and setting up split tests to see what form converts the best and Aweber tells you how many people have subscribed and unsubscribed every day. You can opt in subscribers into other lists you own too.
This was a feature which I have used and by default anyone who subscribes is automatically added to a weekly summary of Blogging Tips list. The weekly list is generated automatically via an option called ‘Blog Broadcast’ which pulls data from your RSS feed. Unsubscribing is incredibly easy too which is important in my opinion. Subscribers can give feedback about why they unsubscribed too which will help you see where you can improve.
Sending out emails
Sending out emails is fairly easy and there is a good range of templates which you can use. Aweber lets you cloak links in your emails so that click thrus can be tracked.
Yesterday a summary was sent out automatically to newsletter subscribers containing a summary of posts from the last week however it isn’t exactly what I am looking for. I assumed that posts would be sent in full and clearly some subscribers thought the same as two people emailed me to say as much. Unfortunately, the weekly roundup only contained a small excerpt of each post. I contacted Aweber today to see if there is a way round this but there isn’t a working solution at the moment.
There is a reason why Aweber does this. By default it pulls data from the excerpt of your feed rather than the post itself. The solution which Aweber advised me to try was to put all my posts in the excerpt area of WordPress. Obviously this is something I can’t do as without hacking my source code, WordPress strips HTML formatting from this area. They have suggested manually viewing the source of posts and posting them in the editor but this clearly defeats the point of an automated service like Blog Broadcast and creates a lot of additional work for me too.
I am also concerned about the speed at which newsletters are sent out. I have only sent one newsletter through Aweber so I’m unable to comment on how reliable the service is on a regular basis but today I was disappointed with the speed at which the newsletter was delivered. After submitting my newsletter for emailing today it was placed under ‘Pending Broadcast’ for more than 3 hours. The newsletter was only being sent to 42 people which is why I was concerned ie. if it takes this long to send a newsletter to 42 people, how long will it be to send to 500 or 1,000?
Aweber is used by a lot of popular bloggers who have large mailing lists so I’m sure today was just a blip and that delivery is usually a lot more reliable. It doesn’t look like the ‘Blog Broadcast’ option will send full posts on a weekly basis so I may have to look for an alternative but the main service should be ideal for the regular newsletter.
Summary
Overall I have been happy with Aweber but I will use it for another few weeks before seeing if it’s worth looking at the alternatives. Although delivery was very slow today, I have been incredibly impressed with the support so far. I have asked a few questions through their live help option a few times and have had a reply within a minute each time. Also, they do seem to be trying their best to find a solution which will help me send full posts in a summary every week.
Once I have used the service more and I’m more familar with it I will write a few guides for you guys. In the meantime, I’ll let you know how I get over the next few weeks.
If you use Aweber please let me know what you think in the comment area. Specifically, are emails usually sent quicker than 3 hours?
Link : Aweber
Karin H. | August 13th, 2008 at 4:04 am #
“After submitting my newsletter for emailing today it was placed under ‘Pending Broadcast’ for more than 3 hours”
Hi Kevin. You personally decide on which time of the day the broadcast is send out. You change that in the broadcast itself (first box in the broadcast screen: Send on: date and time). Click save broadcast which brings you back to the list of created broadcast. Click the green button: Queue now and AWeber gives a pop-up window: broadcast will be send…… and mentions the day and time you set.
Until that specified time it will indeed say: pending broadcast. Just be aware theat everything in the AWeber system is set at EDT time. Best way to check if there is a time difference with your own time-zone (we’re in the UK, 5 hours ahead of EDT) is to test send the broadcast to yourself.
Hope this helps.
Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
Dean Saliba | August 13th, 2008 at 6:28 am #
I have never used Aweber, I like to host my own newsltter script. (I’m assuming this is hosted for you)
Todd Andrews | August 13th, 2008 at 9:04 am #
Been using and having my clients use AWeber for a while now. Completely agree with what you said.
Kevin Muldoon (Post Author) | August 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm #
Karin - Yes I know there is a time difference. The newsletter was scheduled to sent at 10.22am Eastern Time (which was 3.22pm UK time). According to Aweber it was sent at 1:06pm Eastern Time. I checked back a few times after it was supposed to be sent and Aweber still had the status at pending
Karin H. | August 14th, 2008 at 3:02 am #
Hi Kevin
Now that is strange! But to be honest, yesterday I noticed a 10 minute delay on one of my broadcasts too.
I would definitely mention this to our friends at AWeber, I know broadcasts end up in a queue and AWeber is getting more and more popular, but 3 hours ! ! !
Not what I would call: reliable email delivery
Karin H.
amaterashu | August 14th, 2008 at 4:10 am #
it’s really awber good?? hmm.. i should try it…
thankss pall..
Paula | August 14th, 2008 at 6:32 am #
I definitely recommend aWeber. I have used it for just over a year now and it is an excellent email system. Still lots of things I need to learn about it though - it is quite complex and has lots of features.
Karin H. | August 14th, 2008 at 6:54 am #
Paula, I’m in the process of creating a practical guide on AWeber - how to benefit from all the features it has, perhaps that’s something that might interest you?
Karin H.
berlioz | August 15th, 2008 at 3:25 pm #
that’s a great post with great writing style, love reading your articles
Codrut Turcanu - AdSenseProfitTips.com | August 16th, 2008 at 10:08 pm #
I highly recommend Aweber as it provides excellent platform for email marketing.
In addition to that, Aweber is a very useful for tracking the response due to its advanced features.
Marg | August 30th, 2008 at 6:52 pm #
I’ve been experiencing major problems with Aweber the past few weeks. Customers who have signed up to a (paid) e-course have been waiting for up to 4 days for their weekly lesson to arrive (supposed to go out on the same day each week, starting the first week they sign up.)
Even worse, the support ticket system isn’t working: the past two I’ve submitted haven’t got though, and there’s no email address as a backup. Live support is closed; the office is closed on Sundays, and they have a public holiday this week as well.
After being a customer for 5 years, I’m more than a little annoyed right now. What’s going on? I’m wondering: change of management/ownership? Hackers? Major server problem? This CAN’T be good for business: I’ve seen similar comments in various places.
Marg
Jacob from Group Writing Projects | September 3rd, 2008 at 9:18 am #
Dean- I’m also a do-it-yourselfer but there’s a good reason to use Aweber or similar service instead of PHPList or other self-hosted software- whitelisting. Aweber will make sure it’s email gets through because its business depends on it, and I don’t think you want to spend time running after ISPs because your members/clients aren’t getting the email.
Marg- sounds like Aweber is having growing pains. Find a friend whose support tickets are getting through and ask them to submit for you. I’m sure they appreciate your loyalty.
Sean Grimes - Sean-Grimes.com | September 26th, 2008 at 12:18 am #
I’m using Aweber and I must say that it’s quite easy to use and has many features. I agree with Jacob. Awbers business is to get your email delivered and no one wants to chase ISP’s and all of that crap.
I did want to warn people with existing blogs who attempt to use the blog broadcast feature. When I set up my blog broadcast, I did everything I thought I was supposed to do. I was shocked to see that each of my subscribers received 10 emails at one time from the blog broadcast feature. I think it was my fault though because the default settings in Aweber don’t behave like other auto responder systems I’ve used. My blog RSS feed syndicates 10 of my most recent post. In Awber, I told it to send out an email when I have at least 1 new item. Well, that’s exactly what it did. All of my blog post on my RSS feed were new to Awber so it sent out 10 different emails to all of my subscribers. I got a lot of opt outs because of this. This is just a warning to those who have blogs and want to use this feature. What you can do is schedule Aweber to broadcast your blogs to your subscribers. Once Awber gets the information from your blog, you can delete the ones you don’t want emailed. You should only have to do this once.
Hope this helps.
Sean Grimes
Jacob from Group Writing Projects | September 26th, 2008 at 1:33 am #
Sean- thanks for the great insight. Your experience should be useful to anyone who’s considering Aweber for their blog, you’ll save many people from unnecessary headaches.
Mitch | October 12th, 2008 at 11:31 am #
I have to say I have been more than underwhelmed with AWeber as my email broadcaster. While their product does have an amazing amount of features and while you can reach a live person, I would say about 1/2 of the live people you can reach are smug and condescending and react like you are bothering them or that you have interrupted them when they answer the phone.
I find the service inflexible and doesn’t allow for you to chose who specifically gets the newsletter or email and who doesn’t, it gives options to marrow the range but doesn’t allow to pick and chose. I have a real problem with this as my newsletter is extremely time sensitive and I get many subscribers who sign up very close to the time when it won’t be long until the information expires. I cna always learn to go around systems but when I am a customer and I am treated as if the merchant is doing me a favor it sits bad with me, that is what AWeber has provided.