When it comes to email marketing software, AWeber and Campaign Monitor stand out as two of the top choices. Selecting the right platform is critical for business owners who want to grow their customer base and ensure their marketing efforts drive results.
This article provides an in-depth comparison of these two popular email service providers across several key criteria. We will evaluate AWeber vs Campaign Monitor across market position, ease of use, customization, features, website performance, customer support, pricing, and reviews.
Comparing these email marketing titans on factors such as integrateable features, deliverability rates, reliability, and cost will help entrepreneurs select the best solution for their unique needs. By the end, readers will have a clear picture of AWeber and Campaign Monitor’s respective strengths and weaknesses.
1. Understanding the Basics
AWeber was founded in 1998 by Tom Kulzer and became one of the early pioneers in email marketing software. Today, AWeber is a leading global provider with over 120,000 customers.
Campaign Monitor emerged in 2004 when co-founders David Greiner and Ben Richardson identified the need for an affordable, reliable email marketing solution. Since then, Campaign Monitor has grown in popularity with over 150,000 customers worldwide.
Both companies have established strong market positions. AWeber commands over 5% of the email marketing market share. Campaign Monitor has over 10% market share in Australia and continues expanding globally. They have each garnered reputations for being easy-to-use, full-featured platforms.
Those interested can join the Official AWeber User Group on Facebook with over 25,000 members or the Campaign Monitor Community to connect with over 150,000 users. The active discussions and advice provide helpful insights from customers of both providers.
2. Features and Functionality
Automation
AWeber
AWeber offers robust email automation through its Autoresponder series, allowing you to send triggered emails and automated email sequences.
Users can create sequences for email marketing campaigns based on schedules, specific actions customers take, or other triggers. For example, setting up a 5-day welcome series of engaging emails for new subscribers or an abandoned cart recovery flow for e-commerce stores.
With drag-and-drop creation, pre-built templates, and intuitive editing, AWeber makes it easy to set up multi-step drip campaigns, segmented lists, RSS-to-email, and more without coding. Advanced options include dynamic content insertion to customize messages.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor has advanced automation capabilities, and enables visual automation workflow building. Users can design sign-up funnels, create sequences tailored to customer behaviors, send SMS reminders, integrate live chat, and more.
The Journey Designer feature provides a simple interface for constructing multi-layered campaigns with different paths based on audience engagement. Customizable templates and settings give extensive control over triggers, content, timing, and lists for each flow.
Winner: Campaign Monitor
With its superior Journey Designer features, granular behavioral targeting, and cross-channel capabilities, Campaign Monitor wins for most advanced automation features.
It gives users an unmatched ability to create advanced workflows and send automated emails tailored to customer engagement across websites, stores, and marketing platforms for maximized relevance.
Email Templates
AWeber
AWeber provides hundreds of professionally designed email templates across categories like welcome series, product launches, events, holidays, and more. Users can browse based on layout, theme, and industry to find an ideal starting point.
The drag-and-drop editor makes it simple to customize templates by adding/deleting sections, inserting images/content, styling elements, and tailoring to your brand. Handy features like block duplication speed up revisions. All templates are mobile-optimized and editable on desktop or mobile.
AWeber also offers Template Builder for crafting emails completely from scratch using a simple block editor. Sections can be mixed, matched, and styled for complete creative control. But those less design-savvy can lean on the pre-made templates.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor equips users with hundreds of flexible, professional templates suited to various industries and campaign types. Browse by category or layout to locate an on-brand design to personalize.
An easy-to-use drag-and-drop Template Editor allows customizing colors, images, blocks, and text elements. Global styling options provide consistency across campaigns. Useful tools like image libraries, fonts, and color palettes simplify revisions. Templates work seamlessly across devices.
For original designs, Campaign Monitor’s Template Builder gives unlimited creative flexibility. Sections can be added, resized, and arranged however you like – with no coding or design experience required.
Winner: Tie
Both AWeber and Campaign Monitor offer ample beautifully designed templates to simply edit and send unique emails. Their nearly identical template customization interfaces enable effortless brand-aligned updates. And neither requires HTML knowledge to craft attractive, responsive messages.
With a vast catalog of templates equally suited to various industries alongside flexible editing tools and options to build custom layouts from scratch – AWeber and Campaign Monitor are evenly matched when it comes to email templates and creativity.
Segmentation
AWeber
AWeber enables users to segment their subscriber lists based on categories like demographics, engagement metrics, locations, links clicked, survey responses, and more. List segmentation helps target specific groups with tailored content.
Key features include profile merging for deeper insights into subscribers and automated segmentation by subscriber data and behaviors. There is also seamless integration with third-party apps for expanded segmentation capabilities.
Send time optimization based on subscriber segments allows timing emails to match group habits. A/B testing different messages per group is another core capability.
Overall, AWeber makes it relatively easy to divide an audience into smaller subgroups for more personalized, relevant messaging.
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor also provides advanced subscriber and customer segmentation tools. Users can create dynamic groups based on metrics like geography, purchase history, email engagement, website visits, and more to hone in on subsets with shared traits.
Potent features include visual campaign maps based on user segments for clear journey visualization and auto-updating groups via workflows when users meet defined criteria. Tags and custom fields allow flexible subscriber labeling for segmentation.
AI-driven behavioral targeting and location-based segmentation enable extremely precise grouping for hyper-targeted campaigns.
In summary, Campaign Monitor enables extremely precise grouping of subscribers for hyper-targeted campaigns.
Winner: Campaign Monitor
With its advanced segmentation options, including visually mapped journeys, automatic segmentation workflows, and granular tracking of on/off-site metrics, Campaign Monitor edges out AWeber.
Both make audience grouping simple yet Campaign Monitor’s AI and tighter platform integrations take behavioral targeting to the next level for maximizing campaign relevance. Marketers seeking to serve different segments with truly tailored content can best achieve this with Campaign Monitor.
Analytics
AWeber
AWeber provides robust email analytics to track and optimize campaigns. Key reporting features include:
Opens, clicks, unsubscribes, spam complaints, sent messages, bounce rates, and click heatmaps show the most clicked links and areas per message. Granular engagement metrics help improve content and layouts.
Advanced insights like subscriber behavior, acquisition tracking, email share rates, conversion tracking, ROI reporting, and subscriber lifetime value calculations inform strategy for a successful email campaign. Segmentation filters results by location, type, link, and other factors.
Integrations with Google Analytics and advertising platforms expand analytics. AWeber Insights consultants offer customized analysis and strategic recommendations based on an account’s metrics.
Useful visualizations, optimal send times, and predictive performance indicators guide data-backed decisions.
In summary, AWeber equips users with deep email and subscriber analytics with some automation and expert support.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor delivers comprehensive email marketing analytics:
Subscriber engagement metrics like open, clickthrough, and unsubscribe rates down to individual links and content blocks. Location-based reporting and spam test results help optimize deliverability.
Marketing channels detail subscriber acquisition by source. Campaign ROI and revenue tracking show direct financial impact. Audience insights include lifetime value, activity trends, and engagement scoring. Predictive analysis flags issues.
Integrations with Google Analytics, Zapier, and Salesforce expand available data. Custom reports and expert analysis services provide a strategic perspective. Interactive visualizations simplify large data sets.
In short, Campaign Monitor provides complete visibility into email program performance with automation and consulting to turn insights into growth.
Winner: Tie
Both AWeber and Campaign Monitor make key email and subscriber metrics easy to access along with advanced analytics and expert services to inform strategy.
Each offers comparable functionality – from campaign reports to business impact analysis and predictive tools – to maximize the value of audience and performance data.
For extensive email insights to refine audience targeting and content for growth, AWeber and Campaign Monitor deliver all the essentials resulting in a tie.
Unique Features
AWeber
AWeber provides some specialized capabilities beyond core email marketing functionality. These include over 250+ app integrations with platforms like WordPress, Shopify, Zapier, and PayPal to expand features. Instagram Marketing allows turning Instagram followers into email subscribers.
There is also a Facebook Lead Ads integration to capture leads from Facebook directly into AWeber lists. Smart Lists automatically update based on user behaviors no matter the source.
TrustPulse enables instantly updating subscriber profiles with user-verified data. Site Audits provide assessments of on-page elements that impact conversions.
In summary, AWeber delivers robust core email marketing alongside some innovative features improving integrations, lead capture, list management, and site optimization.
Campaign Monitor
Unique Campaign Monitor offerings include SMS capabilities coordinated with email campaigns within the same platform. Custom coding integration allows web developers to embed Campaign Monitor directly into sites for subscribers.
Simple Automation based on actions users take on your website can trigger campaigns. Campaign Monitor University provides free email marketing video courses. Interactive Email Templates offer quizzes, calculators, assessments, and more.
To summarize, Campaign Monitor specializes in effective cross-channel coordination, educational resources, and interactive content innovations.
Winner: Tie
Both AWeber and Campaign Monitor have proprietary features that set them apart beyond standard email functionality within their respective specialties – expanded app integration for AWeber and multi-channel coordination for Campaign Monitor.
However, neither holds a clear advantage making this category a tie. Their respective strengths suit different user needs and preferences equally well.
3. Ease of Use
AWeber
AWeber is widely praised for its intuitive user interface. AWeber’s user interface neatly organizes core features like broadcasts, lists, sign-up forms, and reports using simple icons and menus.
Despite extensive capabilities, most functions are accessible on the AWeber dashboard in just 1-2 clicks through the clean layout.
The step-by-step wizards make building lists, creating sign-up forms, designing broadcasts, and establishing automation extremely simple even for beginners. Handy hover tips explain features without needing to consult help docs. Drag-and-drop editors further ease key tasks.
The platform dynamically adapts as users add features catering to growing sophistication. Yet despite expanding capabilities, AWeber retains simplicity through smart UX design geared for all skill levels. Its renowned ease allows focusing time on content and execution rather than platform management.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor’s interface emphasizes usability across experience levels. The dashboard uses a clean, minimalist visual design allowing easy access to essential features. Icons, menus, and navigation keep critical tools discoverable without clutter.
Easy-to-follow wizards guide users through list building, creating campaigns, and setting up forms and automation. Drag-and-drop modules reduce complexity for central features. Inline help content defines advanced options accessible as needed. Custom views toggle between Beginner and Advanced modes.
Overall, Campaign Monitor does an excellent job of making robust email marketing highly accessible. Strong visual design principles and intuitive workflows make the platform feel natural even as capabilities scale up over time through a fine-tuned balance of simplicity and functional depth.
Winner: Tie
Both AWeber and Campaign Monitor stand apart in their dedication to usability – making their extensive email marketing capabilities achievable for non-technical users through smart interface design.
Well-considered layouts, simplified wizards, drag-and-drop functionality, inline education, and tiered views optimize for all experience levels. For intuitive email marketing excellence, they share top honors.
4. Email Deliverability
AWeber
AWeber emphasizes deliverability through advanced features like dedicated IP addresses, subscription confirmation protocols, inbox testing tools, and automatic list cleansing.
Its proprietary Graphite Deliverability Technology leverages machine learning to optimize routing based on historical metrics for major ISPs. Over 99% of AWeber emails reach the inbox thanks to these smart sending capabilities adapting to evolving filters.
Granular analytics offer visibility into deferral rates, blacklist status, and spam test results. AWeber’s Deliverability Success Services provide custom strategies for boosting clickthrough rates and open rates. By prioritizing deliverability, AWeber ensures content lands successfully.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor ensures strong email deliverability through its proprietary IP Warm-Up method and Smart Send technology. By gradually increasing the volume sent per dedicated IP, 99%+ arrival rates are maintained even at scale.
Characterization features adapt copy tone and content to match subscriber segments for relevancy. Advanced mailbox provider testing and predictive inbox placement further sustain effectiveness. Users can preview inbox rendering across email clients too.
Detailed analytics track spam complaints, blacklist status, and engagement by provider/client. A deliverability-centric infrastructure and fine-tuned approach makes successful subscriber reach predictable.
Winner: Tie
Both AWeber and Campaign Monitor offer precise deliverability monitoring, adaptive sending technology, advanced testing capabilities, and infrastructure honed specifically for reliable inbox placement.
Their equally stellar delivery rates result from fine-tuned features ensuring content lands successfully across subscriber inboxes. For inbox-focused email marketing, AWeber and Campaign Monitor share top honors.
5. Customer Support and Community
AWeber
AWeber provides 24/7 email support with direct access to agents without phone menus or hold times. Users typically receive responses in under an hour encompassing technical help, platform questions, and marketing advice.
Self-service resources include webinars, tutorials, documentation with answers to common issues, and an online knowledge base organized by topic. The AWeber Reddit community and Official AWeber User Group on Facebook offer peer discussion.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor offers tech support via email 24/5 with responsive, individualized answers from knowledgeable representatives. The self-help section contains eCourses, how-to articles, webinars, and searchable docs covering core platform applications.
An active peer community engages in the Campaign Monitor Facebook group and help forum. Usage tips, marketing advice, and feature requests foster organic growth. The exclusive Client Advocate Team offers VIP-level support.
Winner: AWeber
Both AWeber and Campaign Monitor provide stellar email support alongside robust self-service materials and engaged user communities.
However, AWeber’s 24/7 live chat support edges out Campaign Monitor’s 24/5 schedule, and, combined with a more populated and active user community on Reddit and Facebook, earns them the win.
The tighter integration between peer discussion and direct representative access enables solving a wider breadth of questions and challenges anytime.
6. Integrations
AWeber
AWeber has integration options for over 250+ third-party platforms and apps including popular solutions like WordPress, Shopify, Zapier, Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, and more.
No HTML code is required, and turnkey integrations make crucial connections seamless without extensive configuration or development. Two-way syncing shares key data across tools for comprehensive visibility.
Beyond basic software integrations, AWeber offers an API and webhooks allowing developers to build custom solutions. Published SDKs facilitate linking niche platforms.
Overall, AWeber makes it easy to centralize services under one pane through turnkey integrations while supporting advanced customizability as well.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor integrates with over 200 apps, enabling seamless connectivity with everyday business platforms. One-click installations handle popular workflow tools like social media schedulers, e-commerce backends, CRM systems, and more.
Zapier expands options for niche use cases alongside the Campaign Monitor API and code libraries aiding developers. Real-time data syncing unit information across tools.
In summary, Campaign Monitor delivers broad integration access focused on customer-facing applications with available deeper coding capabilities as well.
Winner: AWeber
While both platforms offer extensive standard integrations to everyday tools alongside developer options enabling advanced functionality, AWeber edges out Campaign Monitor in quantity and niche variety to customize complete workflows.
Their 250+ turnkey integrations save users even more time getting centralized visibility compared to competing solutions. For maximizing interoperability and connectivity using easy installations or custom development, AWeber comes out ahead.
7. Pricing
AWeber
AWeber’s pricing structure is divided into 4 tiers based on the number of subscribers and emails sent. There’s a free plan with all the basic features, and prices range from $12.50/month to $899/month.
Each plan includes email and signup forms, drag-and-drop editors, broadcast scheduling, automation workflows, notifications, and integrations. Advanced features like dynamic content tags, split testing, API access and more come standard, and the unlimited plan lets you access all the platform’s powerful email features at one fixed price.
The free trial allows testing full platform capabilities with up to 500 subscribers without commitment, making it perfect for small businesses. Custom consulting and support packages are available to accelerate strategy. Overall, transparent per-subscriber pricing makes costs predictable.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor’s pricing plans are based on sender size: up to 2,500 subscribers run $11/month on the basic plan (Lite), up to 50,000 is $19/month, and over 50,000 is custom quoted. Higher volume tiers unlock added features like predictive inbox placement, compliance tools, and premium support.
The free trial enables testing up to 2,000 subscribers and all functionality. Add-on packs for SMS, landing pages, automation and more adapt across growth stages. Transparent per-sender pricing allows the modeling long long-term costs.
Winner: Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor wins for more affordable starter pricing for mid-sized businesses at $11/month accommodating early customer bases. Their free trial also supports more subscribers providing greater ability to evaluate the platform across formative stages for many businesses.
For bootstrapping a customer audience initially, Campaign Monitor’s lower cost tier offers better conditions for testing email marketing traction before investing in volume.
8. Reviews and Reputation
AWeber
AWeber earns positive reviews from users, experts, and industry authorities. They are consistently ranked a top email marketing provider on G2, TrustRadius, Capterra, and more.
Users on these sites praise the platform’s ease of use, template variety, segmentation capabilities, and automation features. Many switched from a previous provider and found AWeber far simpler while still meeting business needs.
The most common downsides noted are higher pricing at scale and occasional deliverability issues relative to volume, which can be a deal breaker if you’re an affiliate marketer. But most agree AWeber’s extensive capabilities and reliability outweigh the costs.
With a 4.5/5 average on G2, AWeber enjoys a strong industry reputation as a premier email marketing platform.
Campaign Monitor
Similarly, Campaign Monitor holds top rankings on software review sites and is equally renowned as an email leader. Happy users on TrustRadius, Capterra, and G2 highlight exceptional deliverability, customization options, automation tools, and ease of use.
Less experienced entrepreneurs particularly appreciate the intuitive interface and clear feature explanations that accelerate learning. Critics warn costs to grow high in higher tiers while praising most other aspects.
With a 4.7/5 average on G2, Campaign Monitor shares positive user experiences noted across capable email software providers. The main differentiation comes down to individual use cases and budgets.
Read Campaign Monitor Reviews on G2 and Capterra.
Winner: Tie
Both AWeber and Campaign Monitor earn strong reputations and reviewer sentiment stemming from their accessibility paired with advanced marketing options helpful in driving small business growth.
For entrepreneurs seeking full-featured email marketing made achievable, either platform has earned user trust and praise to recommend depending on unique scenarios. Both edge out competition across core metrics earning them joint recognition here.
9. FAQ’s
AWeber
- What types of email campaigns can I create in AWeber?
AWeber supports welcome campaigns, broadcasts, RSS-fed emails, course emails, post notifications, event promotions, surveys, and more through templates and automation workflows.
- Is there a limit to my contact database size?
No, AWeber places no hard limits on contact database sizes across plans so users can expand target audiences indefinitely.
- Does AWeber integrate with my e-commerce store or website?
Yes, AWeber offers 250+ native integrations with leading platforms like WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, and more to centralize data.
- Can I switch email service providers without losing data?
AWeber simplifies switching providers through import wizards pulling all past emails, lists, creatives, metrics, and other account content without requesting exports.
Campaign Monitor
- What types of email campaigns can I create in Campaign Monitor?
Campaign Monitor enables welcome automation, broadcasts, behavioral triggers, course campaigns, post notifications, event promotions, polls, quizzes, calculators, and more.
- Is there a limit to my contact database size?
No, Campaign Monitor does not impose hard limits on contact database sizes though costs per contact rise in higher pricing tiers.
- Does Campaign Monitor integrate with my e-commerce store or website?
Yes, Campaign Monitor natively integrates with over 200+ platforms including e-commerce backends like Shopify and custom frontend frameworks.
- Can I switch email service providers without losing data?
Campaign Monitor supports easy account migration tools importing past campaign history, creatives, contact lists, and metrics into the platform without needing manual exports.
Final Thoughts
Choose AWeber If…
With its slightly wider feature set through more app integrations and email options, AWeber is ideal for established businesses seeking a highly customizable centralized marketing platform for sending transactional emails.
Extensive capabilities with drag-and-drop simplicity optimize it best for growth-stage companies managing multiple outbound channels.
Choose Campaign Monitor If…
For solopreneurs and early-stage startups focused purely on email, Campaign Monitor provides an affordable entry point to optimize and automate subscriber communications with enough functionality to sustain maturation.
The combination of good value and core features caters specifically to modest email programs.
Ultimately, selecting the best email marketing platform depends entirely on current business needs and budget. Both AWeber and Campaign Monitor stand as leaders in the space, each aligned better to different scenarios.
We urge readers to carefully assess unique requirements against the solutions outlined to determine the ideal choice for helping reach company goals through email. Please ask any questions in the comments section below for further guidance in finding the best platform for your needs.