Constant Contact is a company best known for its email marketing services. Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, you can use this tool to connect with your customers on a regular basis. However, in recent years, the team behind Constant Contact has been keen to expand on its portfolio.
Today, Constant Contact claims that it’s built one of the best website builder tools in the world. Not only that, but the solution also offers eCommerce tools too.
Of course, there are dozens of alternative options out there for companies who want to build the perfect digital presence. However, Constant Contact could be the ideal solution if you were already thinking of using the Constant Contact email marketing service to reach your audience.
To find out just how great this new website builder might be, we’re going to take a deep dive into the features and functionalities and share our thoughts with you.
Constant Contact Website Builder Review: Pros and Cons
Constant Contact’s website builder is designed to make building your digital environment as quick and straightforward as possible. Even if you’re launching a small business website, you want to be able to get everything up and running fast, with minimal stress.
As a simple drag and drop site builder, constant contact isn’t the most advanced tool that we’ve ever seen. However, it is a good option if you want to go beyond advertising your company on social media. There are lots of easy-to-understand tools, including analytics and reports. Plus, the generous free plan makes it easy to get started.
Pros
- Excellent if you want to use Constant Contact for email
- Easy to use components throughout
- ADI ensures that you can get a functional site up and running fast
- Access to Unsplash offers a lot of royalty-free images
- Good support from the team
- Easy to use analytics
- Generous free demo
Cons:
- No tools for image editing
- Backend is a little glitchy
- Basic blogging functionality
Constant Contact Website Builder Review: Pricing
There’s more to choosing the best site builder than looking at options for phone support and ease of use. Today’s companies need to ensure that they’re getting the best return for their investment. That means looking into pricing and extra fees.
So, does Constant Contact’s website builder offer good value for money? Well, the pricing has changed a little lately. Initially, you had 3 different plans to choose from, including a free plan. Now, there’s a free entry demonstration, and one website builder plan, named “Builder.”
The Builder plan is available for $10 per month, and it claims to offer everything you need online, including:
- Unlimited storage
- SSL certificate
- Website analytics
- Domain connection
- Blog
- Unlimited products for eCommerce
- Digital or physical products
- Inventory management
- Coupons and discounting
- Logo support
- List building tools
The options go on. One thing worth noting is that this pricing comes with a transaction fee of 1.5%. However, that is relatively decent as far as eCommerce site builders go. Additionally, you won’t get access to the email marketing tools from Constant Contact with your purchase. However, you can look at everything from list-building services to email pop-ups, Google Ads, and social media posting for advertising.
Constant Contact also comes with tons of apps and integrations to explore. What’s more, if you’re looking to send personalized messages to everyone on your list, Constant Contact can help with that using advanced segmentation tools.
All that, and you get phone support from the team to ensure that you can get up and running fast. Overall, this is an excellent price for a high-performing site builder. Although you might not get the flexibility you get with WordPress, you can manage your store and inventory in real-time. Plus, because Constant Contact has a deal with Unsplash, there’s a vast image library too.
Constant Contact Website Builder Review: Ease of Use
As mentioned above, Constant Contact’s website builder comes with things like customer support and a knowledge base to help you build your online store. The integration options mean that you can even attach your store website to email marketing from another provider, like Mailchimp. All you need are the right plugins.
The Constant Contact site builder works by generating a website for you automatically, using artificial intelligence. You can then edit your site with the builder afterward, adding your own custom domain and branding.
You start by letting the website know what your site is going to be about. Next, you choose a title for your website and add an image that’s suitable for you. You can also add your own logo if you want to here. From there, choose a style, a color scheme, and a font. You’ll also need to give your contact details. Once all the info is available, the algorithm generates your site.
This process may feel a lot easier than building your site using something like Squarespace or WordPress. You get the bare bones of something that’s customized to suit you. All you need to do is add the details afterward.
Another big bonus we noticed during our Constant Contact review is that nothing felt overwhelming. You weren’t left feeling like you had too many options to choose from. However, you don’t have a one-size-fits-all solution to worry about either. You have the option to choose from a range of different styles for your website and adapt your design however you want.
Although there’s no free domain provider, you can add your domain if you already have one. Additionally, you can also use your own content, logos, and images.
Constant Contact Website Builder Review: Customization
So how exactly does Constant Contact perform when it comes to making your site unique? Well, once you’ve gone through the introductory process outlined above, you’re pretty much ready to go. You just need to replace the content that the company automatically generates for you with your actual website content.
The Constant Contact site builder consists of numerous blocks. These modules have customization elements to choose from, with different formatting options to suit your needs. The process that Constant Contact offers means that it’s one of the simpler tools on the market today. However, if you’re looking for something that gives you in-depth control over your website, you’re going to be disappointed.
Though there are customization options, there aren’t a lot of designs for A/B testing. One good feature is that you can preview what your site is likely to look like on different devices. For instance, you can get an insight into desktop, tablet, and smartphone design. This is crucial if you want to ensure that you’re giving your customers a great experience.
The majority of the Constant Contact site templates will be responsive automatically. However, it’s worth checking exactly how well each one performs before you go too far. Try clicking beyond your homepage and exploring your site for yourself in mobile mode.
Ultimately, while Constant Contact makes everything from marketing automation to page design simple, it’s not the best builder around. From a design perspective, there’s not much you can do to make your website stand out from the other options on the search engine. Every element you create convincing your customers to use their credit card with you is pretty basic.
Although you do get a few flexibility options, there’s a good chance that you’ll end up with a DIY-looking site that appears considerably basic compared to the other options out there. You can get a more advanced solution from companies like WordPress, Squarespace, or Duda. If you’re looking for simplicity and flexibility, even Wix offers more versatility.
Constant Contact Website Builder Review: Blogging and SEO
Ultimately, there’s not much to say about Constant Contact’s “advanced features.” The company is still struggling to find out how to go beyond the email list for its audience. While you can definitely rely on this company to support your email campaigns, it’s not sure whether the site builder is good enough for those who want “email plus website building.”
At first glance, it’s worth noting that Constant Contact does offer quite a lot of functionality, and a money-back guarantee. It’s hard to find a drag-and-drop editor these days that can offer the functionality of other eCommerce platforms and align with your email marketing campaigns. The low price tag sets the stage for what to expect feature-wise, though.
Blogs on Constant Contact are available in RSS format, so you’ll always see the most recent post first. It’s challenging to add blogs to your landing pages and home pages, and you can’t enable comments, or archive your content. There are clearly quite a few things missing here.
There’s little support to make sure that your site appears on the top of the search engines. This is an issue that you can get with many website builders. However, most market leaders have begun to invest more time and effort into making sure that SEO works much better for their customers. Constant Contact will need to follow suit.
Constant Contact Website Builder Review: Ecommerce
It’s surprising how much functionality you get from your Constant Contact Online Store when you consider the low price tag. You can choose to sell everything from digital downloads to services, and physical products. You can add descriptions to your pages in seconds, and the tutorial will help you to figure out all of the steps you need to take.
Payment is managed mostly via PayPal, which means that you will have those fees to consider, as well as Constant Contact’s additional transaction fee. On the plus side, there are a few advanced features here, like the option to reduce the number of times someone can access a digital download.
You can create an unlimited number of pages on your store and connect everything you like on the back-end. Unfortunately, there isn’t an option for sub-menus, which could make it harder for customers to sort through your store if you have a lot of categories to consider.
Despite a few obvious downsides, Constant Contact’s website builder does take on a handful of challenges for customers, including integrated shipping and tax calculations. You can even track your customer’s purchases, which means offering customer support is a lot easier too.
Constant Contact even has its own analytics solution, so you can track how well your website is performing on a regular basis.
Constant Contact makes it easy to build and manage an online store quickly if you want to get up and running as soon as possible. You can set up an eCommerce store that takes payments through Stripe and PayPal, and you’ll have complete back-end management over your store, which includes the options to modify products, organize your inventory, and track orders.
Real-time shipping rates ensure that you can always give your customers the best deal. Plus, the analytics section of the page make it easier to track your performance as a seller. You can technically A/B test every strategy you use to make a sale.
On top of that, you get seamless site navigation and an excellent secure checkout that’s designed to keep customers happy. Although there aren’t any submenu options, you can group related items on your store so that there are more opportunities for up-selling.
Constant Contact Website Builder Review: Customer Support
Even though we’d consider Constant Contact to be one of the simpler website builders on the market today, it’s important to note that all site owners might eventually need some help. Whether you want to know how to let customers unsubscribe from your autoresponders, or you need help checking your stats, it’s important to have good service available.
The good news is that Constant Contact does offer a lot of support. The first thing you’re likely to come across is the knowledge base. You can use this to find answers to your questions as quickly as possible. There are insights on how to integrate your free website builder with your business, plus you can get information on your email marketing too.
Many of these articles are quite helpful. However, it’s worth noting that there aren’t a lot of screenshots if you’re more of a visual learner.
From a phone and email perspective, you can expect Constant Contact to respond to you within around 48 hours. Calls to the worldwide and US numbers are toll-free. However, you need to have a paid plan to use this form of support.
While there is some form of live chat available from Constant Contact, it’s far from the best option around. You’ll have a hard time connecting to a professional immediately. Additionally, there’s no guarantee that the company will always be able to help you once you finally get in touch.
Bonus Features: The Logo Builder and More
Perhaps the best bonus feature to come included with the Constant Contact website builder is the logo designer tool. This solution comes with your $10 package and allows you to explore different logo designs quickly and easily. You can create your logo fast using the same kind of AI process that you got when you first started building your store.
Additionally, just like with building your site, you’ll have options to customize your design however, you choose with different colors and fonts.
On top of all that, you can also connect your site with your email marketing strategy, whether you’re using outlook, Gmail, or constant contact. This will give you access to more content management tools for connecting with your clients, and a complete contact list to work with.
Constant Contact is also working on new features all the time. It’s great if you want to build a business plus manage email marketing.
Constant Contact Website Builder: Verdict
Ultimately, if you’re looking for an affordable website builder and marketing platform, Constant Contact could be a good choice. Although you need to add your domain name and email marketing solution separately, Constant Contact makes designing your site affordable and easy. Plus, you can always add-in email features from the same company if you want to stay in the same place for your email templates and automation.
While it’s worth remembering that this isn’t the most advanced website builder around, it’s also important to note that it’s still growing. Constant Contact wanted to create something simple and affordable for beginners that are keen to get started online. In that regard, the company has succeeded. This site builder is basic enough that you won’t be overwhelmed, but it still comes with a lot of bonus features that you might not expect.
Access to your own logo builder and support with optimizing your site through analytics are excellent added touches. Additionally, the company is gradually adding more ways for you to take payments from your audience with your eCommerce site. Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go before Constant Contact can play with the other big dogs of website building.
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