The Ultimate AWeber Review 2022

We've compiled the complete Aweber review from A-Z

Overview: 

Marketing is the cornerstone of any business. Your methods can range anywhere from digital promotion, to keeping it old-school by passing out flyers. However, the tide of the digital revolution cannot be ignored, and it’s about time the past gets washed away.  

Digital marketing tools provide businesses with enormous amounts of potential to catch and communicate with prospects. Online newsletters specifically, allow businesses to showcase their proficiency, by providing expert insights on their fields. The practice of newsletter marketing consists of sending educational and product-focused content via email, to a list of potential and existing subscribers. 

The profuse list of available marketing platforms is daunting, and it’s crucial to find the right choice for you and your business. These platforms need to be flexible, easy to use, and not break the bank. This is where AWeber swings into the scene. 

This marketing-superhero sports a prestigious cape, full of features and superpowers. But as with any superhero, AWeber doesn’t come without its weaknesses.

AWeber Free: Email marketing for free. No credit card required.

AWeber features 

Landing page designer:

If your business lacks a website, AWeber also provides the perfect substitution, with their email-based landing page. Usually consisting of attractive imagery, a bit of text and a form asking for a name and email, landing pages are built with a goal of data capture in mind.

Landing pages are especially effective in capturing data since there are no other pages to distract visitors, only a sign-up form. AWeber allows you to create landing pages using their easy-to-use editor, these landing pages can then be used cooperatively with newsletter campaigns.

Autoresponders:

Autoresponders are a sequence of emails that are sent based on client interactions with previous emails, almost like a chain reaction.

For example, you can set up a series of autoresponders so that

• After joining your mailing list, a client immediately receives a personalized welcome email.
• One week later they get an invitation to like your Facebook page.
• Two weeks later they receive a promotional email, discount code or whatever your heart desires.

Pretty neat isn’t it? Autoresponders are key to any email campaign, as they save you tons of time and generate revenue.

Design: 

AWeber boasts an extensive list of visually pleasing designs you can create, even if you’re not the creative type. Upon subscribing, you also get access to AWeber’s massive template library, giving you more than enough starting points to perfect your brand’s design. On the downside, some of these templates do look a bit dated. If templates still sound intimidating, their AI-powered designer has your back. Utilizing cutting edge tech, this AI-assistant provides you with beautiful designs while you just sit back and watch.

Editor: 

Many editors have extensive features and functionalities, but these tools can often be overwhelming, throwing you in the deep end of an almost unlimited creative reservoir. AWeber is your life-jacket, providing you with their intuitive and easy to use editor, without sacrificing features. This editor allows you to create beautifully enthralling newsletters without requiring coding. 

Automated emails and campaigns: 

Automation is the key feature of any email-marketing app. The purpose of these automated campaigns is to save you time and optimize your marketing efforts. AWeber’s automation tools allow you to easily personalize your newsletters’ scheduling. Simply enter your email’s content, and then select the date and time you want it to be sent out. Deeper personalization also allows you to automatically modify each email with your customer’s name, surname and location, and the interesting option to send emails based on your customer’s behaviour.  

AWeber also has support for hundreds of apps to integrate into your email scheduling. 

Tags: 

Tagging allows you to group customers from several email lists together, grouping them by similar interests based on your newsletters. Tagging your customers allows you to easily reach focused groups of your customer base. These groups can be targeted with personalized newsletters that cater to their interests. Tags are an easy way to seamlessly engage with your audience, leading to increased conversion rates. 

Sign-up forms: 

Your AWeber subscription also gives you access to their sign-up and opt-in form generator, allowing you to create striking, mobile-responsive forms in just a few clicks. AWeber’s template library also contains a bunch of templates for sign-up forms that you can use and edit.  

Integrations and third-party support: 

One of AWeber’s biggest advantages is the enormous number of supported apps for integration. Supporting more than 700 third party apps, this number is unchallenged by their competitors. 

One of my favourite AWeber integrations is with Integromant. Integromat works with a series of triggers and actions, for example when a new subscriber joins your newsletter, Integromat can automatically create, delete or modify a custom field. 

Additionally, AWeber offers a powerful API that you can use to implement custom integrations too. 

Analytics: 

As with any marketing effort, newsletters must lead to quantifiable returns for a business. Using AWeber analytics, you can easily track your returns and engagements from newsletters. AWeber analytics provide you with useful data, such as open rates, conversion rates, unsubscription rates, in spreadsheet or graph form. This data is essential in determining what your customers like and dislike, giving you the opportunity to adjust accordingly. You can also look at these statistics on the go, using AWeber’s mobile apps. 

Deliverability: 

Deliverability is arguably the most important aspect of any email-marketing application. After all, what good is your campaign if all your emails end up in your clients’ spam inbox, or worse, go undelivered?  

Different email marketing apps have different deliverability rates, and AWeber has among one of the highest. Chalking it up to good ISP relations, and only managing opt-in mail, AWeber’s delivery rates have an amazing reputation.  

Customer support: 

Claiming to have award-winning 24/7 US-based customer support, AWeber’s customer support has a great reputation. They are open to queries 7 days a week, even replying to most complaints I could find on online boards and forums.  

Split testing:

Split testing (Also referred to as A/B testing) entails mailing different variants of your newsletters to parts of your mailing list, monitoring each variant’s performance, and sending the most successful version to the remainder of your list.  

AWeber allows you to easily perform split testing, with up to three newsletters at a time. Play around with different subject lines, content, graphics and scheduling to see what works best for you.  

You can run the split-test against 40% of your mailing list and analyse the results, before sending the successful variant to the other 60% of your recipients.  

 

AWeber’s pricing: Is it worth it? 

Pro vs. Free 

Now that the plethora of features is out of the way, it’s time to get down to brass tacks. 

Pricing, of course, is what people consider the most before buying a product.  

Although AWeber has a free option, businesses who are serious about newsletter marketing should definitely opt for AWeber Pro. 

As you can see, the free version causes you to miss out on all AWeber’s defining features and limits you to a mailing list of 500. 

AWeber also allows you to give the pro version a test run, with a free 30-day trial. This trial gives potential customers more than enough time to explore and experiment with all the features. This 30-day trial is especially generous when comparing it to other mailing services’ trials, that typically only last 14 days.

AWeber Pro 

The premium version starts out with a modest price for businesses with small mailing lists, but quickly ramps up as subscriber numbers increase. 

Here AWeber differs compared to its competitors, it only offers one pricing plan, that only changes based on the number of subscribers you wish to pay for. 

You will get all the same features, no matter which subscriber amount you choose. Clients with mailing lists bigger than 25,000, have to contact AWeber for a quotation. After contacting them, you will be assigned with a dedicated agent who will help you set everything up.

AWeber Vs Mailchimp

These are two of the best-known newsletter-marketing solutions available – could this be AWeber’s kryptonite?

Let’s see which one is more cost-effective.

Mailchimp offers four plans, each with different features and prices, also depending on how big your mailing list is.

One key difference between AWeber and Mailchimp is that the latter doesn’t offer all of it’s features to all the tiers. Crucial features such as analytics, are only available to Premium Mailchimp users (the most expensive option), as well as customer support giving Premium subscribers priority over other customers.

Another interesting option is Mailchimp’s Pay-As-You-Go, where you are charged per email you send. This payment plan shares the same features and functionalities as the “Essentials” plan. This plan might be useful for users interested in a one-off type of deal. AWeber does not offer a similar pay-as-you-go option.

Unlike AWeber – Mailchimp caps the number of emails you can send per month. This limit varies from plan-to-plan, “Essentials” users need to bear this in mind, as this package features considerably less monthly emails than the other plans.

With all this in mind, it’s clear that AWeber gives you a better bang for your buck, with more features and a simpler pricing plan.

Additional AWeber pricing comments

• You are allowed to cancel your subscription at any given time.
• Unsubscribed users still count towards your bill. Unfortunately, you will regularly have to check to remove unsubscribed clients, and any analytics regarding the removed client will also be erased. This is a manual and tedious task.
• Undeliverable clients are automatically removed from your mailing lists.

Creating a mailing list with AWeber

Aweber gives you the option to add contacts to your mailing list manually, or using their import tool. For businesses with minimal contacts, manually adding contacts should be a breeze. Each record created collects the contacts name, email, and even ad-tracking value. For businesses with large customer databases, manually adding contacts will be a tedious task. Luckily, the import tool is a lifesaver, giving you the option to enter a long list of comma-separated emails at once. You can also upload these email lists as a spreadsheet (A feature that competitors such as MailChimp and GetResponse lack.) Unfortunately though, Aweber does not have third-party integration for extracting contacts from existing Gmail accounts. However, this can easily be worked around, by simply exporting the Gmail contacts as a spreadsheet and then importing it into Aweber.

Upon adding to your contact list, Aweber requires to know the origin of your subscribers. Did they sign up on a form? Or purchased a product from your store and opted in to receive mail? The goal of asking this is to ensure that you are not spamming emails or buying lists of thousands of random emails.

How do you use Aweber?

As with using any new software, all the bells and whistles of Aweber might feel a tad overwhelming, leaving you with the question “Where do I begin?”

To get the ball rolling, we've listed five steps to get you up and running as an Aweber expert in no time.

1. Set up your first list.

Aweber works off lists of email addresses of contacts you wish to include in your email marketing campaign. After all, what good is an email marketing program if you have nobody to mail to?

Each of these lists contain specified emails, allowing you to target specific groups for different campaigns. Aweber allows you to create any amount of lists, even splitting them into groups called “segments”.

Our best advice is to first create a small list consisting of emails that have opted in to your once-off or automated emails, and sending them a test run of your marketing project.

2. Import your subscribers

This step might seem daunting for people with large lists of contacts, however, Aweber comes more than prepared with bulk-import features to help you with this otherwise time-consuming proccess.

Users can also make use of Aweber's 100+ app integrations to help them import their contact lists easily and efficiently.

This step also comes with features such as legacy follow up series, which just mails your contact list asking them if they opt-in to be a subscriber to your campaign.

3. Create a sign up form

The key to any successful email marketing project, is to create a self-sustaining and growing contact list. To do this, you need a way to consistently get new subscribers to join your contact list. The easiest way of achieving this, is by creating a sign-up form.

Once this form is created, you can add it to social media, your website, or wherever else it might catch eyes.

Aweber provides users with templates when first creating their sign-up forums, however I would advise you to customize it even further to match your company's identity.

This sign-up form, as the name implies, allows people to sign up to join your newsletter, so it's crucial that it needs to be clean, concise, and eye-catching.

4. Create and send an email.

With your lists set up, and your subscribers ready, we're moving on to the most important step.

Aweber uses a drag-and-drop style editor, making the act of designing emails a breeze even for newcomers. Customize your email to fit the needs of your marketing campaign, and to fit the look and feel of your business.

For more advanced users, Aweber also allows your to edit the raw HTML contained in your email design, allowing you to make precise adjustments to mould your email to exactly fit your needs.

As with the sign-up form, Aweber also provides you with a bunch of email templates, giving you a starting point and more than enough inspiration.

This step also allows you to edit the broadcast options of your campaign, specifying if it's a once off email, or reoccuring. In the case of the latter, you can specify the dates or how often you want this email to be sent out to your subcribers.

5. Automate with AWeber

We’ve refined our list, added subscribers and shared our first email, but sending one-time emails all day every day is extremely time consuming, and not everyone on your email list needs the same content.

This is where Aweber's flagship feature, automation, can transform how you do business. You can use automation to send a sequence of welcome emails to introduce new subscribers to your brand, services, and products.

You can group subscribers based on the links that they click or the messages they open, doing so allows you to group your subscribers based on current or even future interest.

These five steps should put you on the right path towards email marketing success.

If you seek any additional advice on getting started, visit Aweber's academy page, where these five steps are discussed in more detail.

Aweber Partner Program

Using Aweber's email marketing software also grants users exclusive access to the Aweber Partner Program – allowing you to earn money by simply recommending the email marketing software to other people. The process of becoming a partner is extremely easy, all you have to do is sign up for an Aweber Advocate account, then you'll receive a unique link that you can share anywhere!

This link is used to promote Aweber, and any sales made originating from your link nets you 30% of recurring payments each month for the lifetime of that account. Becoming an advocate is a great way of creating an additional income stream with minimal effort!

If you refer just five people and they each sign up for $19.99/month and continue paying, you’d make…

If you could manage to recruit only five people and each of them signs up for the $19.99 per month plan – you could be making $360 a year from simply sharing your link!

Creating an advocate account also gives you access to a toolkit to help you promote and start earning. This toolkit includes articles and ads that include easily-repostable, persuasive content; sales stats and email notification for each successful referral sale, and access to the customer referral newsletter.

If you're advocating for a service, it better be a good one! Aweber's extensive list of features and functions, coupled with its unrivaled support ensures that your referred customers won't need another email marketing service.

You can learn more about the partner program here.

Conclusion

I really hope this comprehensive AWeber review provides you with more than enough information to make an educated decision.

As someone with limited experience with email-marketing tools, I barely had trouble using it. AWeber likes to hold your hand, guiding you through every part of the setup, as well as providing you with a ton of video material to assist you with any problems. This is perfect for users who haven’t used other email-marketing services before, as the terms and jargon surrounding these tools might be intimidating.

In my time spent with AWeber, I feel satisfied with it, but I’m left asking myself one question. Is it worth paying for? For businesses with small client lists, the monthly price isn’t too taxing, considering the potential revenue it can also generate. But climbing up the price ladder, your acrophobia might kick in, as these prices can get sky-high.

Pros:

• 700+ unique templates
• Entirely free plan available
• Easy to use
• Amazing delivery rates
• Great third-party integration

Cons:

• Outdated looking templates
• Cheaper options are available

As always, the proof is in the pudding.

Try AWeber’s free version, or sign up for the 30-day Pro trial

Click here to sign up for a 30-Day Free Trial

19 Tips on How To Increase Your Aweber Newsletter Open Rate

1. Clean up your subscriber list by removing inactive users
2. Write about the latest news and trends to capture users' attention.
3. Create posts around your passion or interests. Your authenticity will come through in the writing, and your readers will appreciate it.
4. Write engaging subject lines that capture their attention.
5. Make sure the subject line matches the content of the newsletter.
6. Segment your subscriber list and send applicable content to each
7. Use first names if the data is available.
8. Research the best time of day and day of the week to send out your newsletters
9. Avoid spam filter trigger words like Free, Sale, Rich, or Deal to avoid going to users' spam box.
10. Use A/B testing to test what works best with your audience.
11. Ask your users a question at the end of the newsletter to grab their interest.
12. Compress your images to ensure you don't slow down your user's inbox. (TinyPNG is an excellent tool for this, and it is free)
13. Try to keep emails short and link to longer content on your blog if needed.
14. Don't forget to check your newsletter design on mobile.
15. Proofread your content and do grammar and spellchecks before sending(Grammarly is an incredible tool that takes the grind out of this)
16. Send a test mail to yourself or your team to make sure everything is as it should be
17. Add some humor to your content.
18. Focus on the customer, not just your service or product
19. Include social media links in the footer