Easy to use

Pros

Very easy to upload csv files. Some CRMS you need a masters degree in Technology just to upload clients into the database. Campaigner is simple to use, and cuts out all the other garbage fields that you don't need.

Cons

Pricing should continue to reduce as the economy is certain to crumble in the next six months.

Use What You Know

We send a weekly email to 40k users and this program has worked for us for the last 8 years.

Pros

This program was already in use when I joined the company and the learning curve was minimal. It has all the standard templates, contacts, and reports that you would need. Every time I have called customer service, they have been helpful.

Cons

Working with the templates can be really finicky. It can be difficult to get it to do what you want at times. It is also not as user friendly as MailChimp, for instance. Their reporting is there but you have to do click more time to get to it and comparing email sends can be annoying the way it's laid out.

A little learning curve, but powerful software

We use Campaigner for numerous purposes, including marketing directly to customers, distributing information to vendors and other interested parties, and media outreach. We have found it effective for all of these purposes, especially since it can handle all of these without interfering with the others.

Pros

Ease of managing lists, importing from other sources, handling unsubscribes and reporting. Terrific customer support via chat and telephone.

Cons

Creation WYSIWYG tool can be a little frustrating, as the interface sometimes makes editing difficult (size of the working box inhibits cut-and-paste, moving elements up and down, etc.)

Much to be desired

We understand Campainer is not just an email program, but they don't seem very interested in our suggestions along the way. It's disappointing that in all these years, there hasn't been any kind of redesign for ease of use. At what we are being charged monthly; we are likely going to shop around and see if there is something better matched for our needs, and priced more competitively.

Pros

We use it for simple email blasts to our neighborhood association. We don't use it for marketing campaigns, so therefore do not have the need for some of the functionality available with Campaigner. For our needs it works.

Cons

Ease of use. It is not intuitive, and they haven't done any kind of software or GUI redesign since we started using it (6+ years ago). Making a template should be a lot easier than it is: Creating and editing templates has a lot of old graphic (frames?) technology that makes for a frustrating experience when trying to line up text blocks with headers, footers and images. Writing an email with attachments should be easier. Having to upload a file/image to the media library, and then importing it into your email is a lot of steps. Instead, allow a person to add a file/image to an email note in the same simple fashion as any other email client works: add a paper clip button and allow us to select the file to add to the note. That seems like it should have been done a long time ago. Also, if you accidentally remove a person from an email list, you have to call up Campaigner support to get it fixed; you can't manually fix it yourself. Very annoying.

Great for Small Businesses

I like the software as a whole. We are small so don't use it a lot but it's great to have. The staff that set us up were great to work with.

Pros

Being able to duplicate a previous SEND so I can update it easily instead of recreating. Report are easily viewed. Being able to set the time for the SEND. The ability to SEND a previous email only to those that didn't open the first time. I like the fact that I can see JUST the opt outs and the bounces - both hard and soft.

Cons

Sometimes I want to have a picture to move to a certain spot in the 'page' but it won't go "dead centre" I would like to be able to edit a SENT product to be able to update a typo or date and then RESEND to those that didn't open. If I create a copy, I loose the means to only send to those that didn't open the original - if there is a way I would be interested to know.