Most marketers are quick to recommend Aweber as the go-to email management service for building an email list.
But is it really the best? Does it make things easy for beginners?
Some people love it… others, not so much.
I have been using Aweber for several years, and I finally feel its time to write my own review of the product.
So if your planning to launch your website and you’re looking for the best email management service, continue reading this review.
Aweber Review
Product Name: Aweber
Product Type: Email Autoresponder Program
Best For: Anyone who’s building a marketing email list.
Rating: 90/100
Summary: Aweber is a great email marketing autoresponder that I’ve trusted and used for years.
The pricing is economical, the customer service is excellent and they are perfect for beginners to get started with email marketing.
Recommended: Yes
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What is Aweber Autoresponder?
The Aweber Autoresponder is an email or lead management service.
Aweber allows you to collect leads from your website, then send out automated messages to market to these leads.
There are lots of different ways you can use the service to generate income and expand your business.
We’ll discuss some of those methods later on in this review.
With Aweber you can create sign-up forms, manage subscribers, send out automated campaigns, and more.
Every new website owner should focus on building leads for day one, and that is where Aweber comes into the picture.
In short, Aweber is a service you can use to collect and manage leads, and of course, market to those leads once they’re signed up to your list.
How to Get Started with Email Marketing and Aweber?
If you want to make the most of this service, its best to register when you have an offer to giveaway.
In order to get leads to sign up for your email marketing, you need to offer something of value to them.
Otherwise why will they give you their email address?
My recommendation is to focus on putting together a nice offer, like a how-to guide for a problem in your niche, and then grab an Aweber membership.
Its also just easier to configure everything when you have everything ready to go!
Once you have an offer, its time to make a sign-up form and start collecting leads.
Creating Sign-up Forms with Aweber:
One thing I love about Aweber is their database of professional sign-up form templates.
Notice the template list in the left hand menu?
There are plenty more!
Just keep in mind these are not full-page sign-up forms, but smaller widgets you can place in the sidebar of your website or within specific areas.
Its always a good idea to place sign-up forms in a few different areas of your website to squeeze in the most leads.
Most marketers place a sign-up form in the side-bar, within the content, and as a pop up or overlay – its up to you.
I mentioned its best if you have a giveaway, so we’ll need to make a cover image for the giveaway that we can add to the sign-up form.
You want to make it clear to people what they will get when they subscribe, and a descriptive image is one way to do it.
Don’t worry, there’s no need to be a Photo-shop wizard – designing a cover image is not hard.
I used a free designer tool called Canva to make most of my covers… even business cards with qr codes!
Once you have a cover image, select a form template, and click the image button to upload one to the form.
There are a few different ways to send people your offer when they subscribe to your list.
This article, taken from Aweber’s Blog does an excellent job of explaining the steps.
Creating an Email Campaign with Aweber:
In my opinion, the email campaign feature is one the best and most useful features.
The campaign-editor is drag-and-drop based so you can build a wide variety of campaigns.
One of the most common campaigns is to launch an email series, share value, and include some promotional offers.
These email campaigns can be an excellent source of income, especially for affiliate marketers.
To take a peek at the campaign editor, hover over the Messages tab and select Campaign (BETA).
Add a name, and start dragging in elements to build a campaign.
I’ll briefly explain how this works, more information can be found on Aweber’s website.
Start by selecting a trigger: when someone subscribes or when a tag applied.
The first trigger is the most common and easiest to set up, so we’ll start with that.
Notice actions tab?
You can drag these into the campaign editor to create a cascade of actions that will start whenever someone subscribes to the list.
The most effective email sequences are ones that don’t focus on you – but rather your audience.
In other words you want to write helpful messages that provide value, even if you don’t directly benefit from it.
So I would start a campaign off with a Send Message, something helpful related to the giveaway, and then drag a Wait action in there.
The Wait action pauses the campaign for a specific amount of time; either minutes, hours, or days.
I like to wait a day or two between messages because most people don’t like being bombarded with emails.
And then you can send another message, and continue building the campaign.
A few days into your campaign you can send a promotional message, a message that points people to your products or an affiliate offer.
The Apply Tag Feature:
The Apply Tag Feature is actually super useful, but most people don’t use it to its full potential.
Remember the list of triggers at the beginning of the campaign builder?
“When a Tag is Applied” is one of the triggers.
Well, inside the campaign editor you can add an “Apply Tag” feature.
So you can link campaigns, and send subscribers to different campaigns.
It sounds a little complicated but this feature is perfect for narrowing down leads.
Here’s one way marketers use it…
Lets say you want to launch an email training series.
You can start building a campaign for the beginners, and at the end of that campaign, add an Apply Tag feature to tag all the subscribers who completed the course.
Then, create a new campaign with the trigger “When a Tag is Applied” to start a more advanced training series.
Learning how to use tags is super important for creating a laser-targeted email list.
How Much Does Aweber Cost?
One thing I love about Aweber is the first month is free!
Then, it costs $19/month and the price increases as your list grows.
In other words you have one month to build a campaign that can bring in cash to pay for the service.
The price is quite low and I think its perfect for the features included.
Of course, there are other email management companies out there, but I have found this one works for me.
Our Conclusion on Aweber:
To summarize, I really like Aweber, and I think its perfect for beginners.
Just remember its best to have a good idea of what your email campaign will be about; the offers you’ll promote, the messages, and the giveaway you’ll use to attract subscribers.
Another note is these sign-up forms are not full-page templates, rather small side-bar style forms.
If you want full-page forms, I recommend checking out Thrive Architect (it’s what we use on this site), click here to read our Thrive Architect review.
Combine Aweber with a tool like Thrive and you’ll see some amazing conversions!
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Thanks for taking the time to read this Aweber review: What is Aweber Autoresponder. The next step is to take action and integrate Aweber into your online business.
Hey Tim-
Nice review on Aweber… GetResponse and Aweber seem to be the go-to Auto Responders in the internet marketing industry. Personally, I use GetResponse… I was introduced to it in my early days and never looked back.
However, I must admit that I have always been intrigued with Aweber. Some of the biggest Marketers in the industry use Aweber.
I really never knew much about the functionality of Aweber until I read your article and I’m impressed! The “Tag” feature sounds pretty awesome… do you use that feature a lot? And have you ever tried GetResponse?
Thanks!
Awesome Mark, thanks for your feedback and Tim says thanks.
We haven’t played around with GetResponse yet, but seems like a solid autoresponder.
We’re just starting to update our email series and beginning to play around with the Tag feature, there’s a lot of cool options to add with this feature.
So we’re laying out the groundwork and will have better feedback in the future.
Thanks,
Todd
Todd; Are you saying that AWeber campaign editor can be drag and drop?
I have found your review much helpful especially to those who want to build their online business with email marketing.
I have never used AWeber but the information that you have given makes it look very easy to use.
I consider AWeber to be compatible with other Autoresponders provider facilitators in the business.
My question to you is: are you telling me that AWeber is the best Autoresponder platform, with the best price tags? Is this a benefit that I should consider in the future?
DorcasW
Yeah, AWeber can be used through their drag and drop builder, HTML builder, and I believe something else. I use the drag and drop, and I find it pretty intuitive to use.
I think a Weber is priced pretty competitively in the market. There’s always gonna be something cheaper and other programs that can do just as good a job.
I think if you’re looking for an easy platform do you use, with excellent customer service, and something that simplifies the whole email marketing process, then aweber will do a great job for you.
I also like that they have tons of webinars to help you with email marketing. Hope that helps.
Thanks, Todd
This is Great and helpful Information about Aweber. I never use Aweber. I am using only Mailchimp.
But After reading this Article, I came to know that Aweber is also a good autoresponder to work with.
Can You Please Tell me..
Is there any discount If I buy it for a year ?
Hey Sameer, thanks for your feedback on our review of Aweber.
I do not believe that they offer yearly discounts. I just checked and couldn’t find any information or ability within my own account.
If I were you, I’d wait till your Mail Chimp account is around 2,000 subscribers, then I’d transfer to Aweber. Maybe I’m off here, the last I checked Mail Chimp was free up 2K subscribers.
Either way, Aweber seems to be a solid company that is continually trying to update and improve upon their services.
Best,
Todd
Wow, great in depth review of Aweber. Actually this was much more than a review but rather some great lessons about building your online business and email marketing.
I’ve used Aweber as well as several other autoresponders. I always end up going back to Aweber. For me, it’s the easiest system to learn. The more you dig into Aweber, the more incredible features you will find.
Since Aweber is so populare, they are compatible with most every other tool you’ll want to work with.
Thanks Steve for your feedback on Aweber, seems like a lot of people eventually come back to Aweber that try out other autoresponders.
This is who I went through first and I looked at about 6 companies and I’m happy with them.
Best
Surprisingly, I wasn’t even aware of Aweber! What a great service!
Compared to other autoresponders out there, what are some of the benefits this one offers that the others don’t?
I think if I used Aweber, I would want to generate a huge email list to be successful. In your experience, does it work with smaller campaigns as well?
Hey Burleyboy,
You will find that you can develop a number of campaigns (small and large) to build your email list.
The key is offering something of value.
Aweber is going to have many similar features to other auto responders, and I’m sure I can’t go through all the differences to do it any justice.
In general, I think Aweber is at the top of the competition with other responders, the thing that separates it for me is how easy it is to use and I’ve been very happy with the customer service.
Hi Todd,
I am not ready for an Auto-responder yet but Aweber is on my list.
You did a great job reviewing them and I do believe they are among the best in their field.
A lot of top marketers are using them for their list building, to me that says something.
Thanks for the informative review.
Hi Cosmus,
Thanks for your feedback on Aweber, much appreciated.
I’d say add putting together your email marketing system together as a long term goal and give yourself 3 months to complete it.
Maybe even when you get to having a couple hundred visitors to your site per month. At least start thinking and planning what you want to put together.
We put together another really helpful post you might like, it outlines some simple steps to email marketing.
Best,
Todd
I’m new to the whole Website/ affiliate marketing gig. I was just thinking that since I have a Website and I am getting some visitors, now might be the time to invest in Aweber.
I have approximately 400 visits per month. So, following your guide, I am either going to write a “how to” guide or prompt them to sign up for “product recall notice and online deals”,
Which do you think would be more effective? Can I do both?
Hey Crystal,. I
You are in an awesome position to start building your list. Good for you and it won’t be long before you’re at 400/day.
Do both, see which one works better.
One of the big things about email marketing that Aweber helps out with is stats.
You can also do split testing with Lead Pages where they will automatically put 2 opt in’s on the same post/page and you can see which performs better.
One thing I learned a year ago was to drive traffic through relevant links to a opt-in/landing page.
For me, the conversions is around 35% for me which is pretty awesome. Pop in’s and side bars get between 2 and 10% conversions in comparison.
Email marketing is a bit like creating your site. The first thing is just dedicating time to put it together, but it’s really an important aspect to any online business.
I’m always trying to improve this aspect of my business and it develops with time and education.
If you need any help, get set up on our Free Internet Marketing Training eCourse. This is my Lead Pages landing page.
It comes with a free Targeted Traffic eBook (This is the page and link that performs so well – it’s funny how it’s so simple and works so well.) and you can use this as a guide to rank content naturally and in top position in Google.
Best,
Todd
That’s a good sign – an email sign-up form pops up. And after closing it another one pops up not too long thereafter.
I didn’t know exactly what Aweber Autoresponder was really all about. I just got started creating my own site and so I think I need to wait a bit before working on my email marketing strategy.
I think you’re right, you need to have some traffic and a decent understanding of the direction of your online business to create a good opt-in ebook or something.
But then you need to have an email marketing system in place.
It all seems to take time. Thanks for the great post.
Hi Peter,
Sounds like you’ve got your plan laid out and I think you’re doing all the right steps.
When you are ready with a good opt-in as well as a email drip (helpful content with some occasional helpful products), and you’ll do great.
Best
Excellent and very complete review on Aweber.
I like how you stress the need and importance to work with an autoresponder. It is very true, the money is in the lists, and an autoresponder is one of the key tools needed to really make money online.
I can assure you that I will imitate your example and soon as I begin my first email campaign. Thank you very much!
Happy to help and thanks for your feedback on our review of Aweber. It’s a solid product and easy to use, plus great support for when you get stuck and need help.
Hi Todd,
Thanks for the review. I was actually looking into options for Autoresponders. I am at the beginning stage of my website but I like to plan for starting an email listing and hence choice of an Autoresponder becomes the next research topic.
I heard about aWeber but I also see MailChimp being used by a lot by internet marketers. What do you say between these two?
The other thing is pricing. aWeber has an attractive pricing. Not too expensive and within budget but did you say the price goes up according to the size of the subscriber list?
Thanks.
Jude
Hi Jude,
I did check out mail chimp and even watched a webinar on the various choices. I believe Mail Chimp is free up to 2,000 subscribers.
I think there is some great benefit in that number (if that’s still the case) because it can take some time to get your email marketing system dialed in to the point that you’re gaining massive opt-in’s per day.
However, I remember reading of a few issues with them and a bit of a pain to transfer your email list if you decide to move on.
I went with Aweber because I really found them easy to use, somewhat intuitive, and they have really awesome support.
I can’t really speak towards Mail Chimp since I never ended up using their service.
There’s a ton of systems out there, Aweber has really worked well from my business and any time I’ve had questions or issues, they’ve been super quick to respond.
And yes, the price goes up as your subscribers go up, but by the time you have thousands of subscribers, you should be making plenty of money to offset the cost.
That’s what someone told me and it’s totally true in my experience.
Check out our review of Lead Pages as well. These two services are an extra expense but well worth it in a short period of time.