Vertical Response Review

Full review

Vertical Response has been a fixture on the email marketing scene since 2001. While it has some stiff competition from others on the scene, it does offer a set of reliable features for email marketing. We had a look at the tools available with the Vertical Response program to see how it meets your needs.

Setup

Send 100 emails for free on the 30-day trial. You don’t need a credit card to sign-up. The Vertical Response paid plans are on either a pay-as-you-go or pay monthly basis. The plan you choose depends on how often you send email marketing newsletters and how many people you send them to. If you send infrequent emails or few emails then the pay-as-you-go plan is probably best as there is no contract and you pay for what you use.

Email creation

With over 700 email templates to choose from you are likely to be able to find something to use for your next marketing campaign. When you use a template to create your email the program takes you through the process step by step. There are simple customization options available including adding images and background colours. Alternatively, customize the template using your technical knowhow or start from scratch with an uploaded HTML document. An additional feature available with the Vertical Response package is the image editor that allows you to host images as well as crop, rotate and resize them to fit your email template.

Campaign creation

Uploading mailing lists from your own files is simple with the Vertical Response process – save any lists as a .CSV or .TXT file and follow the steps to upload these to your account. The system will automatically remove people who have unsubscribed from your lists. Once your lists are in the system it is simple to segment them so that you send your information to the people that want to see it. Vertical Response also has an email archiving feature for storing past campaigns for future use.

Deliverability

Vertical Response takes spam and deliverability seriously, making it more likely that emails go into inboxes and are not returned. The company also utilizes feedback loops with major providers and automatically removes addresses from people who have reported email as spam. Vertical Response claims over 98 percent delivery rate to inboxes with its service. However, one thing lacking is the ability for you to see a spam rating on your email before it is sent out, so you can change anything that could mark your email as potentially untrustworthy.

Tracking & reporting

The tracking and reporting features included in the Vertical Response program are not the most comprehensive we’ve seen but you can track who clicked on your website or made a purchase as a result of the email you sent. Then you can compare different email campaigns in order to find out which ones were more successful in terms of growing your bottom line. In addition to the reporting features, you can integrate with Google Analytics in order to see where people go once they have accessed your website through your email marketing campaign. The reporting tools are available on any web browser so you can check your success on the move or at home.

Features

Social media – Every email has a Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook icon included that allows recipients to immediately share your email with the people in their social network. You can see how many ‘likes’ you got from your email and also download the list of people who followed you on social media. There’s also a feature for linking your emails with your social media posts and you can schedule updates for the future.

Archive – An archive of past campaigns is included with the Vertical Response program.

Coupons – Create coupons using the Vertical Response tool and you’ll automatically have them displayed on a webpage whose link you can share.

Ease of use

The Vertical Response program is suitable for beginners with its package of easy to use features and step by step instructions to creating, sending and reporting on email campaigns. The ready-made templates are a simple solution to creating an email and you don’t need much technical knowledge to get a campaign underway. The Vertical Response program also includes a mobile app so you can easily create campaigns, check on your mailing list, see responses and get statistics on your mobile device, wherever you are. This means you don’t have to wait until you get back to the office to see how a particular campaign is doing.

Help & support

Vertical Response has won a few awards for customer service and you can contact the team by phone, live chat, email and Twitter during business hours. Email and chat are also available at the weekends. In addition, there are weekly demos and webinars, online tutorials, tips and FAQs for all your technical and other support needs. We like the attention to detail and the response times found in the help and support from Vertical Response.

Overall

This is a decent solution for email marketing needs. While Vertical Response doesn’t include as many bells and whistles as some other providers, it does represent an easy to use, beginner-friendly system for sending email newsletters and running campaigns. The pay-as-you-go pricing structure makes this system particularly useful for people who don’t send a lot of emails but who still want the features included with.