I absolutely hate it when email marketing services advertise for themselves in the footers of their paying customer’s messages. I mean, you’re paying them right? Why the heck should you have to advertise for them too? So, here’s a breakdown of email marketing services and their policy of intruding into your messages.
- Aweber – No footer ads, ever.
- MailChimp – Footer ads can be disabled easily in your account if you’re a paying customer.
- Vertical Response – You’ll have to contact support to get the ad removed.
- Constant Contact – Same, you’ll have to put in a support request… adding your logo costs extra.
- iContact – Pay 10% extra per month (minimum $4.95) to remove the ad. In their defense, iContact does have the least intrusive footer ad, plus they’re based right here in Raleigh, NC.
While I’m at it, I have to tell you why I hate Constant Contact. It’s the name. Sure, you want to be in constant contact with your list, but I’ll wager you’re readers would rather not hear from you constantly. Years ago, I actually unsubscribed from a local company’s newsletter because of that Constant Contact logo at the bottom. “Constant Contact? I don’t want that. My in-box if full enough already!”
Got a tip or something I missed? Share it in the comments below!
This post first appeared in my monthly small business newsletter.
On Constant Contact – In addition to the word “constant” the “try it for free” tagline doesn’t exactly promote a quality image. It’s like handing someone a Vista Prints business card that says “Get business cards for free” on the back. Not exactly confidence inspiring that this business will be around very long if they can’t afford real business cards. By the way, at Email Broadcast we will delete our logo upon request. Cheers.
Thanks for adding that Ken. You’re right.
I remember once meeting a university professor from Israel in a coffee shop here. He gave me his card, and it had the Vista Print “Get your own free business cards at…” line on the back. He was inviting me to his house to work on his computer and it made me a little nervous to see that on his business card. Forunately, he turned out to be 100% legit. Google showed me that he had published in many academic journals. I even spotted him on the Discovery Channel once.
It goes to show how important the first impression is. When it comes to your e-mail marketing be sure the first 2 or 3 e-mails anyone gets will make a good impression.
I should also add that there are many email marketing service providers out there. My list is attempt to address the “big players.”
I’m experiencing a similar situation where our online payment processor, PaySimple, automatically embeds a “powered by” statement as well as an advertisement of their services, within the body of the invoices that go out to clients.
They are justifying it by stating that this is quite common and is actually an industry standard.
I’ve recently started a thread on Quora to get the PaySimple’s response on the matter.
What are your thoughts?
The justification of it being common or even an industry standard is flimsy at best. The question they need to answer to justify this is ‘What value does this provide to the user?’
I don’t think it provides any direct value to the user. Maybe it does indirectly: by keeping their advertising costs low, they can offer lower transaction costs to users.
Still, there should be an option to disable it.