Aweber is for noobs. Period

[signature16]

Ok a recent post on these forums inspired me to write a blog article on why I think Aweber is simply a terrible program for any serious marketer.

If you don't want to read the article, it basically says:
Even though Aweber guarantees 99% deliverbility, it is also guaranteed your going to lose 40% of your leads because of the double opt-in requirement. If you serious about email marketings its better to send emails/autoresponders from your own email server.




What do you think about Aweber and double opt-in?
Does the 99% deliverbility compensate for the 30%-40% lead drop out rate?






Here is my article

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Aweber is worthless and so is any other double opt-in email newsletter service. If your a serious email marketer, or even a semi-serious email marketer, Aweber is a waste of your time. Period.

Aweber claims 99% of emails sent through their system are delivered to the inbox. I think this claim is ridiculous and I doubt many customers see 99% deliverability . Aweber can’t guarantee their deliverability because most customers realistically see less than 90% but still, Aweber’s deliverability rate is nothing to complain about.

Unfortunately, Aweber requires all leads who sign up for a newsletter to confirm their address by clicking a confirmation link emailed to them. It is safe to say 40% of the people who subscribe simply won’t confirm their subscription. I have helped clients setup and use Aweber and I almost always see a 40% lead drop out rate. With this being said, Aweber actually has a 60% deliverability rate after you account for leads who don’t confirm their email address. 60% is a pitiful deliverability rate by any standard and your going to have to basically double your marketing efforts to make up for the lost ground.

People will argue this and say you need to provide a stronger incentive for leads to confirm their email. Unfortunately there are no two ways about this problem. The fact is, you will lost a significant percentage of leads collected on your website because of Aweber’s double opt-in requirement.

So why is Aweber so popular and successful? Aweber is simply an awesome newsletter service for newbie internet marketers who can’t really do anything. Aweber has a good affiliate program and has great service. I’m sure many people are successful with it, but I think the double opt-in feature makes it worthless for any serious email marketer. Most of Aweber’s customers are new internet marketers who are giving the world of online business their best shot. …most of these people probably fail and it’s partly Awebers fault.

So as a serious email marketer, the best way to solve this problem is to send newsletters and autoresponders from your own server. Collecting leads isn’t a problem, but deliverability is. Poor deliverability comes from poor email marketing techniques and this is why I say Aweber is worthless for serious marketers. Deliverability of an email is based on three things: The content of the message, your email servers IP Address reputation and your domain names reputation. The great thing about these things is they are all in your control and if you run your email campaigns correctly, you should be able to reach over 90% deliverability. The more emails you send the better your deliverability rate will be. If you getting less than 0.05% spam complaints, your deliverability will just as good if not better than Awebers.

The rule of thumb is: Don’t send spam, include an obvious opt-out link and use a dedicated IP Address. If you follow these rules you simply won’t have a deliverability problem. You should reach a true 90% deliverability rate opposed to the 60% Aweber can provide.
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[paula1935]

Hi 16, please could you point me to some useful links where I can learn about the pros & cons of having my own server? Thanks

P

[signature16]

I can't find any decent links but here are essentially the pros & cons. I'm sure there are at least a few more.

Pros:
Your users can single opt-in so 100% of people who want to subscribe will be subscribed.
Your users can double opt-in if you want them too.
More flexibility.
Everything is internal. Your subscribers wont ever have to go to another website e.x. going to the aweber site on confirmation. I think it looks some what unprofessional.
If you send legit CAN-SPAM compliant emails, your emails will go through.

Cons:
More expensive
More maintenance required.. especially if you send a lot of marketing stuff because you'll have to make sure your whitelisted.
Your deliverability will be based on your own reputation. You send crap to your subscribers and you can almost guarantee your emails will be blocked by almost all major email hosts. You send crap to your subscribers with Aweber it will probably still go through.
Its harder, more complicated and your going to run into more problems.

[paula1935]

Many thanks 16

[jessekanclerz]

Signature16,

You seem to be against double-opt ins for email subscribers even though this is the accepted standard for permission based email marketing.

The benefits I see in using double opt-ins

- A step in protecting yourself as legitimate and not a spammer. This procedure is especially important if you are self-hosting your email marketing software.

- A more engaged reader base. If people click on the link in the confirmation email it shows they are that much more willing to receive your correspondence, and their decision wasn't a passing fancy. Plus you get a second chance at re-engaging them with your site by redirecting the link.

Although you may be losing 40% of the leads who initially sign-up for email have you considered they may not be an audience you want to reach? Besides if you really want these people to confirm can't you use Aweber to send a message to unconfirmed users asking them to confirm?

[brandon2k8]

You don't have to use the double opt-in feature necessarily, you can turn it off if used through a web form.

I believe you will have to use double opt-in on the "send a blank message to this address to subscribe" subscriptions but i'm not 100% sure about that.

Also, you can change the "Thank You" page to be your own url. So, once someone submits their details they could be taken to a page that says something like "PLEASE CONFIRM - To get the information you're anxiously awaiting you need to confirm your subscription to our e-zine/newsletter/etc - this is as simple as clicking a link in an e-mail that has probably already been sent to your inbox. This helps us make sure someone isn't signing you up against your wishes!"

I agree with Jesse that the customers who do double opt-in are probably more likely to be receptive to your messages. It's hard to tell how much of the 40% you lose, this is not a concrete number either, would actually have any value going forward. You could reach some of the 40%, for sure though.

One thing to consider if you DO decide to go with a dedicated server is that a) you will be the one running it, so make sure you have the appropriate skills to manage a server or can hire someone that can. b) check with the hosting provider first to make sure they allow mass e-mail messages. A lot of providers are getting away from allowing that because of all the problems it creates for the rest of their customers. One bad apple spoils the bunch, ya know...

As far as best bang for the buck scenarios, you can't beat Aweber. $20/mo for up to 10,000 leads vs at LEAST $80/mo for a good dedicated server.

Just my two cents,
Brandon