For my Digital Analytics class, we were given an assignment to compare the email marketing tools MailChimp and Constant Contact for a fictional client. This is my final work comparing the various features of the two platforms and choosing a winner.

1. V.
Email Service Comparison
By Anh Thu Nguyen

2. Background
• A popular bakery/deli/coffee shop with 10
locations in Metro Atlanta, concentrated in
downtown Atlanta and the northern suburbs.
• Serves breakfast/lunch, special occasions, and
caters.
• Well known for fresh quality, delicious food and
friendly service.
• In need of an email marketing campaign, either
using MailChimp or Constant Contact.

3. Business
Objectives
& Needs
• An effective email marketing tool.
• Encourage repeat customers.
• Improve Customer Relationship Management
(CRM).
• Attract new customers, particularly brides.
• Improve eCommerce.

4. Target
Markets
Office Michael
• Works a “fancy” 9-to-5
job in downtown Atlanta.
• Probably graduated from
UGA, Georgia Tech, or
Emory.
• Still tries to relive his
college days by going out
every weekend.
• Goes to Alan’s for coffee
and bagels due to the
proximity of the shop and
quality of food.
Suburban Nancy
• Soccer mom.
• Does something along
the line of Interior
Designer or Travel
Agent.
• Very involved in
children’s schools.
• Goes to Alan’s for bagels
for family, cupcakes or
cakes for children’s
parties and school
events.
Bridezilla Claire
• Recently engaged.
• Excited, but mostly
stressed out about
planning her wedding.
• Fiancé is of little help .
• Alan’s wants to cater
her wedding with
cupcakes and a
wedding cake.

5. Suggested
Strategies
Office Michael
• Should be reminded
about daily menus,
focusing on more deli
items and beverages.
• Offer a free dessert with
a $10 purchase to
encourage them to try
more sweets.
• Promote catering to their
offices for breakfast,
lunch and parties.
Suburban Nancy
• Emphasize freshness
and quality of
ingredients, because
Nancy is feeding her
family, including kids.
• Send reminders if she
ever made big purchase
for a party or event,
asking if she would like
to repeat her purchase.
Bridezilla Claire
• Emails should contain
images of beautiful
cakes and other
sweets she would
want at her wedding.
• Set dates for wine and
cake tasting events,
and allow private
scheduling.

6. Approach
OR
• MailChimp and Constant Contact are two of the
most popular email marketing tools available.
• I am going to compare and analyze the multiple
features of both platforms, including price,
integration, automation, etc., and recommend the
one best suited for Alan’s.

7. Prices
• $875/month
• “Growing Business” package
for automation and additional
features, starting at $10/month
=> Total: $885/month
• $895/month
• Constant Contact offers 15%
off for the 12-month prepaid
plan
 Total: $895/month
OR $760.75/month (prepaid)
Conclusion: The original price difference is negligible, but Constant
Contact is the clear winner should Alan’s commit to the 12-month
prepaid plan.

8. Interface
• Aesthetic
• Easy to navigate
• Built-in search engine
• Informational
• Tutorials
Website
Email creation
• Ease of use
• Templates
• Campaign design
suggestions
• Image upload
• Preview
Modern, young, fun More professional
Incredibly Not really
Plenty & very helpful Available, but hard to
find
Unlimited
Needs to upgrade
after 5 images

9. Interface Conclusion
MailChimp is the clear winner due to:
1. Incredibly helpful website. You can easily find in-depth
information regarding all the tools and features they
offer.
2. Superior ease of navigation. The built-in search engine
narrows down information and reduces search time.
3. Unlimited image upload is important since Alan’s needs
to frequently updates pictures of their current items in
order to attract customers. The brides should especially
interested different designs and inspirations.
4. Offers more preview options than Constant Contact.
can see what the email will look like on different
browsers, rather than just desktop and mobile.

10. Contact
Management
• Adding individual email
• Import a .CSV file
• Import from Google
Contacts and Salesforce
• Tags
Conclusion: Both providers offer importing contacts from .CSV files,
Google and Salesforce, which is crucial since Alan’s has around
200,000 subscribers, plus the brides from the Bridal Expo. It would be
impossible to add them individually.
Constant Contact wins by allowing grouping of contacts by tags,
which would allow us to filter through and manage the 200,000+
contacts much easier.
Only VIP

11. Segmentation
• Easy-to-use tool
• Pre-built segments
• Tags
• Good for
Conclusion: Constant Contact wins.
• Both providers offer incredibly great tools for segmentation. Alan’s able to
easily create segments based on location (downtown v. suburbs), types of
customers (new v. returning, office Michael v. suburb Nancy), etc.
• However, with all the brides being segmented by month, the advanced
tagging tool from Constant Contact makes the segmentation process much
faster. Additionally, we can compare the performance of each month and see
which designs/campaigns are more effective.
Limited
Customized segmentsCustomer engagement

12. A/B Testing
• Offers A/B testing
• Can set up 3 variations of email
prior to sending, which
MailChimp will then test to find
the best one
• Doesn’t offer A/B testing
• Every email has to be
individually designed and
sent out
Conclusion: MailChimp clearly wins. A/B testing allows Alan’s to
send out emails that will encourage the most engagement from
customers while saving precious time.

13. Automation
• Auto-responder
• Pre-determined emails
• Triggers
Conclusion: MailChimp wins.
• Constant Contact has very limited automation capabilities, while MailChimp
has far more features than listed above.
• MailChimp allows the triggers to be set up when someone clicks a certain link
in the email or buys a certain product. For example: if someone buys a dozen
cupcakes, it’s likely they’re going to a party, a trigger can be set up so that
when more than 10 cupcakes are bought, they are brought to a page that
displays party-specific products.
• Product
recommendation

14. Reporting &
Analytics
• Open rate
• Click-thru rate
• Bounce rate
• Industry average
• Contact averages
• Top locations by opens
• Most clicked email links
• Google Analytics tagging
• Revenue reports
One-time set up
Have to activate
tagging before every
email

15. Reporting/Analytics Conclusion
MailChimp is the clear winner due to:
1. More reporting features.
• Having “industry average” stats allows Alan’s to see where they
stand in comparison to competitors.
• “Top locations by opens:” what types of customers are most
interested in emails by Alan’s, the downtown office workers or the
rich suburban residents?
• “Revenue reports:” since Alan’s wants to increase its eCommerce,
the revenue reports track customers who make a purchase after
opening a campaign email => can tell which campaign is most
effective financially.
2. Automatic Google Analytics connection.
• Each visitor to the website is correctly recorded to each
campaign, so we don’t mess up the brides with the office
workers.
• Having to turn on the tag before emailing with Constant
Contact is too time-consuming.

16. Customer
Service
• Self-service knowledge base
• Live chat
• Email support
• Call support
Conclusion: Constant Contact wins hands down. Even though their
self-help is not as helpful, they offer all the support services one can
ask for, all week long.
MailChimp states that they don’t have a phone service because it
lowers cost, but that proves problematic if we don’t have to time to
dig for the answer ourselves.
Very extensive and
easy to navigate
Available, but not as
in-depth
(Monday-Friday)

17. Comparison
Summary
• Interface
• Price
• Contact management
• Segmentation
• A/B Testing
• Automation
• Reporting & Analytics
• Customer service
Lower only with
prepaid plan

18. Final Recommendation
• MailChimp is the email tool best suited for Alan’s.
• Even though the Comparison Summary shows the
two quite neck-to-neck, MailChimp won all the
heavy-weight categories: easy-to-use interface,
automation and reporting/analytics.
• In the rounds that Constant Contact did win, it was
not by a large margin. MailChimp can perform any
task almost as well as Constant Contact can.