GetResponse Review

Using an email marketing platform, or an email auto-responder can be a great way of increasing your earning potential, or even a great way of building trust and a relationship with an audience. 

There are a lot of different email services out there, some are even bolted onto other 'all-in-one' platforms such as BuilderAll's MailBoss or GrooveFunnels version called GrooveMail.

Today we are diving into one of the old school email marketing platforms, GetResponse, I call it a email marketing platform, as many of these companies do more than just emails, they also do automations, funnels and even landing page builders to really try and give you everything you might need under one roof. 

What Is An Email Marketing Platform

Before diving into the main part of this GetResponse review, I wanted to touch on and expand on the 'Email marketing platform' term, especially as for many, they would see GetResponse or may of it's competitors as simply an email autoresponder, but these days, that is no longer true. 

Many such as ActiveCampaign and GetResponse also now include additional features (that are improving over time), for example a lot of them will come with a basic, though still useful landing page builder. Allowing you to create a simple, but still useful landing page to capture leads.

Before you would be required to use something such as Thrive Architect or maybe ClickFunnels to building something that is really at the heart of it, just a few boxes, some text and maybe 1 or 2 additional selling points. 

This GetResponse review will look at diving into these extra bits and features, beyond the normal email responder tool. 

What Is An Email Responder?

To use the industry definition of the auto-responder, it is simply an automated sequence of emails that are sent based on a time sensitive trigger. 

GetResponse actually have an image that describes it really well, so I will let them give a visual representation of their auto responder. 

There are lots of different triggers and actions that can happen within an auto responder sequence, but at the heart of it, it will always be a series of emails, usually designed to eventually convert a lead into a customer, or a one off customer into a life long customer. 

I myself use an auto-responder to send out the 5 day blog builder bootcamp, the 1st email will be sent as soon as someone signs up to do the bootcamp, and then the final email will be sent to them around 5 days later. All of this is automated, meaning that I don't have to sit and send out these emails myself. 

Autoresponders can be created as simple 1 email after another, or they can be made to be a bit more 'dynamic' or clever by the inclusion of different situations, if statements and actions, but more on that later. 

What Features Does GetResponse Have?

GetResponse themselves now split their features into separate areas, depending on what you are trying to achieve, you will need to upgrade to unlock some of these features, which is pretty standard these days with email platforms. 

Email Marketing

The core of any email platform, is the email marketing section, and for GetResponse this is no different, within here you will find;

• Email creator
• Autoresponders
• Email analytics
• Transactional emails
• List management

Email Creator

The email creation within GetResponse is pretty simple, with a 2 step process given to you, a bit like a creation wizard. The first section focuses on who is sending the newsletter (email), what email to send it from, what the subject is and of course who will be getting this particular email 

Each part is easy to fill out, pretty much just a click and fill in with the details that you want. 

Once ready, you can hit 'Design Message' which will take you to the selection page. As with most email platforms these days, GetResponse have a fairly wide and varied number of prebuilt templates and styles. 

If you are not after a fancy looking newsletter or template, you can always create a simple looking email with GetResponse's message builder, that allows you to create them as you wish. 

Take for example this simple email I sent out to those who had shown an interest in the Super Affiliate Accelerator and Super Affiliate Intensive program. I created a 3 part email, using the basic blocks on the side. 

With a large text box, followed by some proof that the particular idea and tips I had sent can work, followed by another text block with a bit more information inside. 

The email creation page is quick and easy to use, and I really enjoy creating emails with it, it is easier than other platforms, for example ActiveCampaign, who's email creator takes 4 or 5 clicks to change something like the subject, or the 'send from' email address. 

AutoResponder

The heart beat of any real email platform, and something that I have been critical of other platforms (I am looking at you BuilderAll/Mailboss...).

The Autoresponder within GetResponse is ok, and kind of falls into two areas really. One that they call an AutoResponder, and of course their marketing automation flows (where I see autoresponder moving too).

These days most people want their autoresponder to be a little more sensible, and more than just "Send Day 1 Email after 4 hours" or "Send Day 2 Email 24 Hours". Instead they want to be able to re-send emails or increase the logic within a sign up email process, which again is where the marketing automation comes in. 

GetResponses standard autoresponder is fine, it works, and is fairly easy to set up, but it can be difficult to understand what email list it is working with, which can be difficult if you run multiple lists. 

To create the autoresponder, you will see a wizard, much like that of the email creation section.

You will see a lot of similarities, including subject lines, a linked list and of course different times to send the message. The email creation section is the same as before, so fairly simple to get going. 

Using The Breakout Codes & the Phoenix training to create these auto-responders, you can see that there are 4 emails that are sent out in this particular auto-responder. Sent across 3 days, designed to remind people of the product they wanted to find out more 

For me, I find this page ugly, and a little clunky, you will still see days even if they are not active, if you have multiple in a single day it can be a little messy and confusing, again which is why I prefer the flow viewed versions of these. 

You do have the ability to see it in calendar view, so you can see how many days you have loaded up with emails. Again, as with my one from The Breakout Code I only have 4 set up, which seems to work really well for me. 

If I was promoting higher ticket products, or possibly focusing on a single product/platform then I would increase this out. For example the Legendary Marketer follow up sequence spans across 7 - 10 days, but utilises more logic inside of it.

You are also restricted to simple 'send email after X hour/day/week" of signup. Others allow you to base it on the last email sent, i.e send it 12 hours after Day 0 is sent, or 48 hours after Day 2 is sent. But GetResponse do all of their calculations on the sign up date and time. 

All in all, the auto-responder is quick and easy to set up, doesn't take much time and can be easily sorted to get a number of auto emails added in. 

Email Lists

Having an email list is vital for running any type of online business, be it an eCommerce store, blog, affiliate program or basically any other kind of online business.

Thankfully, GetResponse have made it quite easy to run and keep email lists really clean and simple, which is something I have always had issues with, especially with some email platforms. I have found in the past that some people will always end up on multiple lists, which can of course become annoying for subscribers. 

Being able to clean out dead weight or the ones who are simply not engaged or active is important, it means your open rate %'s can rise, email companies are more likely to deliver your email to actual inboxes. 

GetResponse gives you the ability to tag people or add scoring based on the actions, and you can also do much smarter tagging and automation (if you are willing to pay for higher levels). You can also add custom fields to your sign up forms or capture pages, allowing you to start building up a rich picture of your contacts and your lists. 

For me, I don't use GetResponses auto tagging, but I do use it's segmentation and I do enjoy having more than one email list (usually a main capture list and then an inactive list that I use to reengage)

I can do searches through my lists, finding people who have opened messages, or haven't opened messages and even checking tags (if you use them). As you can see from the image above GetResponse gives you some decent information about each contact, letting you decide what you want to do with them.

I am obviously a rubbish test subject, as I haven't opened the last 5 messages I sent to myself.. oops!

Analytics 

If you are running email campaigns, no matter the business, you need to be able to view and read clear and concise analytics or data about those campaigns. One of my pet peeves with email platforms, are the useful, hard to read or completely utterly pointless reports they give. 

As a marketer, I simply want to know which email campaigns did well, if I have anyone not reading the emails and if my read/open rate is going up or down. 

I rarely care the country they are from (as my emails are for the whole world, I don't lock products to certain regions), I don't really care what email they client use, or if they like the colour orange. 

Thankfully, GetResponse actually do provide some pretty normal, useful reports and charts straight off the bat.

For example, I can look at the open rate across the last 30 days on the autoresponder from above and can see that actually, the average is about 20% open rate (across 300 emails sent total), which isn't brilliant, and require me to look into ways of increasing this. 

I can see that the first open rate isn't bad at all, just shy of 40% open rate with with the 80 new people who signed up to get some more information. 

But by day 4 or 5, this has dropped down (which is kinda normal) and is hitting around a 7% open rate. 

This means I have clear and useful data that I can look at to now tweak my headlines on these last emails to try and increase that open rate, as I am losing 20 - 30 people across those few days, and of course that means a drop in my commissions from these emails. 

This type of clear, and useful information is imperative, as it means I have evidence that I can use to help me improve my rates and of course commissions.  

Other things that you can do with GetResponse analytics, is compare email campaigns (or newsletters), again this is only a small sample size, with around 300 people on this list, this is not a huge list (and it already needs a clean). 

I have two separate emails I sent out, as you can see, with 1 headline the open rate was only 7% (not brilliant) and then the second managed to get slightly better at nearly 12% and of course a ever so slightly higher click through rate. 

This again gives me some good data, showing I need to start targeting the near 300 (or 90%) people on my list to re-engage them, and possibly even get them off the list much earlier. 

Now this email account and email list are quite focused on one style of marketing, and many people on this list are quite 'churn and burn' and a lot of people in this space just sign up to as many things as possible, so it becomes a numbers game.

But, due to the nature of the promotions, even with 3 or 4 clicks through or 10 clicks you still get a conversion, which is always good! But thankfully, I have some pretty clear evidence that I can use to tweak and play with this style more as I get used too it. 

Of course if you are a mega analytics and report geek then you can really get into the stats of the emails, running A/B testing, playing with headlines, checking to see what devices people use and tailoring content that fits better, compare older email campaigns, a bit like I do or even start to dig deep into segmenting and targeting certain audiences. 

For example, with the 300 I have on the list who don't seem to be opening emails, I can now target them specifically, with a re-engagement campaign, as I have that data and I can start to send different emails, see which ones ignite that fire, or simply leaves them feeling a bit damp. 

Landing Pages

It has become more of a 'thing' with email marketing platforms these days to offer this type of tool, especially with the rise of landing page builders or all in one programs such as BuilderAll, Kartra, ClickFunnels and even GrooveFunnels.

Email Marketing platforms want to stay at the for front of a customers mind, they want to offer something that other marketing platforms don't. That's one of the reasons why funnel builders, or landing page builders started to offer email services or focused on certain types of funnels etc, to branch out. 

These landing pages are great if you don't want to spend money on additional platforms, and simply need a way of capturing details, especially if you are on a budget, or don't want to play around with trying to integrate with platforms (I am looking at you ClickFunnels...). 

GetResponse have a pretty wide variety, depending on what you are trying to achieve, from simple sign up pages, lead magnet pages or even full on sales pages designed to capture that potential buyers wallet. I think I saw about 40 different designs that they had created, ready for you to swap out the images with your own. 

Creation is pretty easy, as with most of GetResponses stuff it's done via a wizard or step by step process. Simply select a template you want to use, give it a name and of course check out what it will look like (in case it's 3 or 4 steps long).

Once you have named your new landing page something really amazing, click the 'Next Step' button and you are take to their landing page builder. 

The builder is actually pretty solid, they had a version of this a few years back, and I hated it. One of the reasons I moved away from GetResponse in the past (the email builder was also pretty awful). Thankfully these have both improved massively. 

One thing that did bug me a little bit, is that you have to click the Mobile symbol to generate a 'mobile friendly' version of the page, which seems a bit backwards, I don't understand why it doesn't create one anyway. I understand if you want to move things around, but most of the time you would be happy with it just putting things in a line one on top of each other. 

Finally, you have the ability to either have GetResponse host the page for you (and you simply share the link) or you can add it to a subdomain (i.e training.avidmarketer.com). Either way, it's pretty easy to do. 

A pretty simple and easy to use landing page builder, and great if you just want something that can be created fairly quickly and easily.

Marketing Automation

A going trend in email marketing platform is the use of automation or even email AI as some like to call it, though possibly a bit much if you ask me. Marketing automation comes in a number of flavours, from analysing email behaviour to tell if people will read an email at 5am or 9pm to deciding what to do if someone hasn't opened an email or clicked a link in a few days. 

GetResponses marketing automation falls into the second category, using tags, scores and behaviour to target email campaigns and even more exciting automation flows to build up a rich picture of a client. 

For me, I don't use it, at least not with GetResponse, simply being I don't want to pay for the additional flows or targeting, though I would if this was my primary autoresponder. 

 The email marketing flows work on a decision or action base, letting you decide if you want to send additional emails if a customer clicks a link and see a product, or if they get to a certain URL then you send them a different set of emails etc. 

This allows you to send quite targeted email campaigns, really useful if you are an ecommerce store and you want to retarget or even try to do an abandon cart sequence. 

The flow building system itself is pretty easy to use, I used to use their original version, when it was available to all users and found it pretty easy to set up and use. If you have ever used ActiveCampaign, it's pretty much the same flow builder. 

If you are someone who perhaps runs a number of funnels, or different entry ways of getting onto a list (eBooks, lead magnets, courses etc) then this would be a great way to funnel and tag them as they go.

Again I use something similar with Legendary Marketer and ActiveCampaign, with a 7 day flow set up that onboards new leads and explains to them what Legendary Marketer does and even others them some extras (if they watch certain videos or see a certain URL). 

Webinars

A bit like the landing page tools or builder, Webinars is yet another area some email marketing platforms are starting to use, which in away, makes sense. 

Most people will sign up on an email marketing platform for a webinar, so it makes sense being able to use the same platform to then host that webinar. 

GetResponses webinar tool allows you to host as many webinars as you like, but you only get 1,000 live attendees, so if you are someone with a big email list or launching something amazing, the 1,000 attendees might be a deciding factor for you. But if you are just starting out, I would say this is pretty decent. 

You can obviously integrate the webinar with GetResponses landing pages and email marketing, so you can easily email invites out, reminders and even have special pages set up to capture these emails. 

The GetResponse webinar comes with a bunch of additional tools for example;

• Live Streaming onto Facebook and YouTube
• Interactive Whiteboards
• Call to actions and promotions within the webinars
• Run polls and split tests
• Free 30 day trial

There are also some of the standard things you would expect, such as analytics and additional information you can get from the webinars and from GetResponse itself.

Pretty easy to set up and even easier to send out invites and information to your subscribers, if you are trying to run a webinar and do lives etc quite often, then this might be a pretty good idea.  

Paid Ads

Something I wasn't aware of until about 2 weeks ago when someone posted a few on social media the other day, GetRespose allow you to target and create ads to help you bring in new, or recover old customers. 

GetResponse gives you the ability to build and design Facebook ads and Instagram Posts/Ads. 

The ads can be tied in with the GetRespose landing pages spoken about above, allowing you to install pixels and retargeting code onto your pages.

Also if you suck at design, like me then you can use the 200+ templates and ready built ads. Simply add a few photos, the product name and the price, and let it do the rest for you. You could use Canva, but at least using this you know it will all fit together from creation to posting and everything in between.  

Conversion Funnels

Finally on this pretty big list of GetResponse Features, is the GetResponse Conversions Funnels, another feature I didn't know about before I started to write this GetResponse review. 

The conversion funnel is actually a little more than simply them telling you some high level overview (for example a few images that say 'get someone to sign up' or 'send email'.

They are actually pre-built sections that will (as with other parts of GetResponse), take you through a wizard, telling you the exact parts you need to fill in to begin filling the funnel and get you towards your goal. 

For people who might be new to gathering and nurturing leads, this is a nice, visual way to get started, giving you the exact steps that you simply need to fill in. 

You get two main funnels to choose from;

An eCommerce funnel for those who are running a store via Shopify or possibly on WordPress with WooCommerce, GetResponse can be integrated in, and used to promote products inside of GetResponse emails and landing pages. Giving you the ability to send targeted one product sales pitches, or even run abandon cart campaigns to entice potential customers back. 

And of course a lead magnet funnel, designed to turn that person who wanted a free PDF or video into a fully fledged customer. You can get the ads and landing pages set up with the tools already mentioned, and then start to send out targeted emails, at set periods, adding names and details to certain list (for example push engaged users one way and less engaged users a different way).

I really like this tool, I don't personally need to use them that much, as I utilise the Autoresponder and individual emails more than anything, but I can see that this could be useful for eCommerce store owners (maybe DropShippers) or Affiliate Marketers who want to start capturing and funnelling leads.

How Much Does GetResponse Cost?

As with a lot of programs and platforms these days, GetResponse runs on a fairly simple 3 tier pricing strategy. Though, worth baring in mind that the cost of the platform does rise as your number of leads grow.

GetResponse starts at $10.50 per month, rising to $580+ (If you have 100,000 contacts and want maxed out webinars, paid webinars, unlimited automation among other things). You can also save money if you are willing to pay every 12 months or 24 months. 

All of GetResponses pricing starts with the assumption you have under 1,000 contacts (or you will only be capturing and keeping up to 1,000 contacts).

Basic - As low as $10.50 per month

For those who are just starting out, with a relatively small list, or perhaps no list at all, Basic is a great place to start. 

It gives you access to the core email marketing section, autoresponders, landing pages, automation templates, 1 sales funnel, unlimited leads funnels and of course the ability to use Facebook ads templates. 

It has been designed to get people started and to help build up their email list, without doing anything crazy and it's pretty good if you are running two separate email responders, especially as GetResponse are a lot more affiliate friendly than some other email responders. 

Basic is $15 per month, for up to 1,000 contacts, but drops down to $10.50 per month if you are willing to lock in a 12 month plan (considering it will save you around $50 across the year, I think it's worth it). 

Start your free trial here

Plus - As low as $34.30 per month

According to GetResponse, 'Plus' is their most popular plan, which does make the most sense, as it opens up a new bunch of tools and automations, without breaking the bank. 

For example, you get access to everything within the Basic plan, plus you also get 5 automation builder workflows (allowing you to be more creative with your sign up process or lead generation flows). You are also given the ability to run webinars (only up to 100 attendees, but still, not bad). 

GetResponse also add the contact scoring and tagging capabilities, which can be used with the automations to build up a better picture of your contacts and what they are doing. 

Finally, you then get access to 5 sales funnels and also 5 webinar funnels, plus the ability to work with 2 other users, so you can work collaboratively as a team (great if you have a VA or possibly an ads manager). 

Plus is $49 per month (on a month by month), but again drops down to $34.30 if you are happy to lock in the 12 month discount. As with basic, I think the lockins are worth it if you are happy with what you get. You save $170 per year, which is the same as just over 3 months free.

Start your free trial here

Professional - As low as $69.30 per month

If you are someone who really knows what they are doing or you have lots of webinars and sales funnels that you want to create, then Professional might be for you. As with the others, you get access to everything before, as well as some new features. 

Professional brings in unlimited numbers of automations and flows, as well as paid webinars (yes, you can charge for webinars), standard webinars (now with 300 attendees), unlimited sales and webinar funnels, 5 total users on your account and even on demand webinars. 

In a similar style as the others, Professional costs $99 per month, again dropping by 30% to $69.30 per month if you lock in the 12 month price. Again offering a significant saving. 

Start your free trial here

MAX - Contact for pricing

For those who have possibly gone beyond the realms of a normal email platform, GetResponse offer a personalised tier called MAX. 

You are provided with your own dedicated IP addresses (no need to worry about others spamming that IP and getting your emails flagged), your own dynamics integrations, consultancy services (both email campaigns and deliverability). 

Webinars get a boost to 500 attendees, so if you are someone who regularly maxes our their webinars, this might be for you. 

Full list of features

If you want to grab a list of their full list of GetResponse features, and exactly what you get for your money each month, then be sure to check out this page.

Is There a GretResponse Free Trial?

Yes, GetResponse offer a 30 day free trial on their platform, giving you access to all their features, without the need for a credit card. 

That means with just an email address, you can try out their platform and see if GetResponse is the right email marketing platform for you. 

If you are interested in starting your free trial, click here to get access.

What I liked About GetResponse

GetResponse has improved a lot over the years since I originally used it, it was one of the first email platforms that I ever used, but I stopped using it because I found their email builder awful and the whole experience pretty crap. 

But, they have managed to really up their game, they have managed to create an easy to use email builder, with a nice step by step wizard that makes creating autoresponders, newsletters and basically anything easy. 

Email deliverability has never been an issue for me, with emails arriving at inboxes and I get a fairly decent open rate, which suggests the emails don't end up in spam folders or promotion tabs etc. 

GetResponse is my second email marketing platform, as I moved away a while back, built a lot in other email clients, but then moved back when I needed something that could deal with more 'affiliate' focused traffic. As it's my second platform, I didn't want to spend lots on it, and the $15 per month cost to me is pretty decent, as it pays for itself and gives me nearly all the access I could want. 

A simple to set up, highly integrated and easy to use platform, perfect for first time marketers, eCom store owners or even good ol' fashioned bloggers can easily find a use forthis platform, especially when it comes to building an email list that can be utilised for months at a time. 

GetResponse Issues

Every platform and program I have ever reviewed has at least had a few quirks, and GetResponse is no exception. Though, they are not that big. 

I would have liked it if you could at least got 1 or 2 Automation workflows with the basic plan, it was something that was originally given and would allow people to get a taste of it, and how useful it could be. 

If I could easily replicate them into GetResponse and could move some other automation over, then I would jump up to the next tier in a heart beat.. but without the ability to see how easy is it to replicate it, I don't really fancy doubling my months spend 'in the hopes' that it will work. 

Another issue I have noticed is the mobile version, it's god awful. Trying to send an email (or even write an email) with their builder is impossible, it just doesn't load correctly and tries to load the sidebars and things. 

Considering most of the time I simply want to write an email, send it too my list and be done with it, it's really quite difficult to do. I don't even want to add pretty pretty pictures, simply text.. it's 2020 that should be fairly easy to do.

GetResponse Alternatives?

There are loads of alternatives, many of which I will cover in more detail in other articles, because trying to cram them all here would be quite difficult, but here are a few that probably stand out the most and are the common alternatives people recommend. 

Aweber

If you mention GetResponse, people will usually mention Aweber as an alternative, as they offer some quite similar functionality and their pricing isn't that different either. 

Aweber do also have a drag and drop style email builder, they have auto-responders and even have landing pages, though they don't offer much in terms of email flows (at least not quite as easy to use as GetResponse). 

I used Aweber for quite a while, though they are not a fan of affiliate marketers, or even bloggers. I came up against campaigns and emails being stopped because they contained links to products that Aweber deemed 'risky', though I was never provided with reasons, or even a list of products they didn't like. 

As mentioned, the pricing is quite similar, and they even offer your first 500 subscribers free. as long as you don't mind some Aweber branding. Though if you are an affiliate marketer, try to utilise landing pages, and try not to embed affiliate links directly in the emails. They get angry. 

ActiveCampaign

My current main email marketing platform (but that may change) ActiveCampaign was picked up pretty much because Aweber had got on my nerve, and I wanted to keep using the Legendary Marketer follow up email sequence that I had set up (if you are interested in getting the automation, you can get more information by signing up to the 15 day business builder challenge and details will be sent through over a few days).

ActiveCampaign does come with the same kind of automation and flow builder as GetResponse (though I will admit the GetResponse was is nicer to use). 

At a first glance, ActiveCampaign is more expensive to start out with, costing a minimum of $25 per month (if billed annually and being able to hold 1000 contacts). But, you are actually given access to the automations and flows straight away using the 'Lite' package. Which would normally cost you around $34 with GetResponse. 

If you really do want to use automation and flows, or you want to take advantage of someone else's hard work, then ActiveCampaign is pretty decent. 

Start your free trial with ActiveCampaign.

MailChimp

Mailchimp used to be my go-to email responder, especially when running eCommerce stores, though MailChimp have since stopped supporting sites such as Shopify, and really frown upon DropShipping sites. 

They also don't like affiliate marketers, so maybe let's skip MailChimp these days. 

Is GetResponse Right For You?

An odd question, because ultimately I don't know you or your business, or even your level of IT competenacy...

But, if you want an easy to use email marketing system that doesn't cost that much, can be used with pretty much any online business such as eCommerce or Affiliate Marketing, then I would say GetResponse might be the right choice for you and your email marketing efforts.

Plus, they have a free trial, so you can even give it a run to see if it works for you without having to pay a penny. 

GetResponse Review Conclusion

GetResponse has managed to improve a lot over the last few years, with a much easier to use platform, a simple email builder and even the ability to create landing pages and automation, without costing the moon. 

If you are after an email marketing platform that has a decent delivery rate, easy to use email wizard and can be used in most industries, plus also have the ability to create ads and landing pages, then GetResponse really is a good choice, and I bloody love it these days. 

Now, just have to find a way to move some of my automations away from ActiveCampaign.