Campaigner Review
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- Date Established
- 1999
- Location
- Ottawa, Canada
Pros
- Minimal learning curve
- Powerful automation features
- Good customer support
Cons
- High cost
- Clunky email builder
Campaigner Overview
Campaigner is an email marketing platform that has great features for the small, medium, and enterprise-level businesses. However, because of the higher cost for plans and because some basic features aren’t available until you hit a much higher price point, Campaigner is not very well suited for an average small business.
Despite this, you may decide that with a minimal learning curve and powerful automation features, it’s worth it to take a look at Campaigner. In this review, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about this email marketing platform so that you can make the best decision for your small business.
If you’re already finding yourself wanting to look for other options, however, check out our Best Email Marketing Software & Services.
Table of Contents
Pricing
Campaigner has pricing that’s quite a bit higher than the average email marketing service. You have three basic pricing options, or you can opt for the eCommerce plans
The Starter Plan is $40.95/mo if you opt for the annual plan and includes:
- Experiments
- Up to 5k contacts
- Drag & Drop Editor
- Full Code Editor
- 900+ Templates
- Geolocation
- Social Integration
- Landing Pages
- Facebook Audience Builder
- Suppression Lists
- Basic Segmentation
- Recurring Campaigns
- 50 MB CDB Media Hosting
- Conversion Tracking
The Essential Plan is $119.95/mo annually and includes everything in the Starter, plus:
- Up to 24K contacts
- Remove Campaign Branding
- Dynamic Content
- Custom Footer
- Exclusion Lists
- eCommerce Integrations
- Localization
- 1 GB Total CDN Media Hosting
The Advanced Plan is $449.95/mo billed annually and includes everything in the other plans, plus:
- Up to 100K contacts
- Automation Workflows
- Sales Engineering
- Purchase Behavior
- API Access
- Static Segment Sampling
eCommerce Email Marketing Plans
eCommerce plans are separate and also have three basic pricing options. Note that you won’t have automation workflows included unless you are in the custom Enterprise plan.
The Starter Plan is $69.95/mo billed annually and includes:
- Shopify Integration
- Magento Integration
- Unlimited Contacts
- Up to 30K Emails
The Essential Plan is $89.95/mo and includes everything in the Starter plan with an increase to 45K emails.
The Advanced Plan is $119.95/mo and includes everything plus sending 75K emails.
The Enterprise Plan provides up to 18% off and includes everything plus volume discounts and automation workflows.
Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed
Campaigner is a SaaS, cloud-based email marketing platform.
Specific Size Of Business
Because of the pricing options and features, we recommend Campaigner for a mid-size to large business.
Ease Of Use
Campaigner strikes me as a bit clunky and may be difficult to navigate for some. The user interface, while not exactly gorgeous, does its job without being distracting. There is nothing here that hugely impresses me, but nothing that makes me frustrated either.
The sign-up process, on the other hand, is a little more irritating. Campaigner offers a free trial, but to access it, you have to enter your credit card information. Apparently, this policy exists to cut down on spam accounts, but it makes the whole process more of a hassle for users. Not all email marketing services require a credit card and we find it to be an off-putting practice to say the least.
Customer Service & Support
Campaigner offers strong customer support avenues for its customers, but when we look at the reviews, we do have some cause for concern. (See upcoming section.) You can reach them a few different ways including:
- Self-Service: Like most SaaS providers, Campaigner offers a number of resources for you to peruse on your own time, from whitepapers to videos, infographics, and webinars. It is an extensive, though pretty standard, list. I recommend heading to this knowledgebase when you encounter issues, just in case the issue can be resolved simply.
- Phone Support: Campaigner had one of the strongest customer support systems we have seen, originally being 24/7 but because of the pandemic, it has been scaled back. You can now reach customer support on business days, Monday-Friday from 8 am to 6 pm EST.
- Chat & Email Support: Monday-Friday 7 am to 9 pm EST
User Reviews
Consumer reviews for Campaigner are a bit lukewarm. Here is a rating snapshot:
- TrustRadius: 4.9 out of 10
- Capterra: 3.9 out of 5
- G2: 3.5 out of 5
Negative Reviews & Complaints
Campaigner has received fairly mediocre reviews from those who use it. Here are a few of the things people found frustrating about this app:
- Overall Usability: I saw a sizable number of comments where customers griped that Campaigner could have better UI, specifically in the template and reporting areas.
- Email Editor Deficiencies: Not all of Campaigner’s customers are pleased with the way their emails look after using the built-in editor. Several felt that the email designer is too limiting, and does not allow extensive manipulation of campaigns.
- Customer Service: I saw a couple of comments from users who claimed to have had a difficult time getting assistance from Campaigner’s customer support team.
Positive Reviews & Testimonials
While I have identified a couple of common complaints with Campaigner, it should be noted that a wide variety of users like and enjoy using Campaigner. Here is what customers do appreciate.
- Reporting: We found positive regard for the reporting details and features among user reviews.
- Customization: Reviewers appreciate the template design options and campaign-level customizations.
- Easy To Use: Reviewers cited ease-of-use, specifically training other members of their team on this email marketing platform.
Features
Here are a few feature highlights that you can expect with your subscription:
- Creating & Customizing Emails: Campaigner’s standard features include Contact Lists, responsive-design email templates, reporting, and a media library. As the name implies, these features are considered standard across email marketing apps, and there is little to find here that surprises. Having said that, it is good to know that Campaigner’s email templates are designed to work on traditional computer displays, but also on tablet and phone screens.
- Email Segmentation: Campaigner, like many other email service providers, has expanded beyond simply allowing users to create attractive emails, also allowing for automation and focusing content to the specific needs of different customers. Campaigner includes features that allow you to design multiple segments for one email, then target those different variants based on several indicators, including customer information, geolocation, and more.
- Automation Features: While Campaigner’s Targeting features (described above) are at the cutting edge of email marketing automation, there is another, more traditional form as well that includes A/B testing, workflows, and automatic responses.
- Sign-Up Forms: Campaigner allows users to bulk-import contacts from spreadsheets or other file types. From there, you can use one of Campaigner’s custom sign-up forms to continue growing your contact lists. Campaigner also features custom fields that allow you to include specific information about your contacts that are unique to your needs.
- Reporting: Campaigner offers data points in what they call their “advanced reporting” features, including click rates and open rates. These reports will tell you what platforms are most common amongst your audience (whether they read your campaigns mostly on desktop, tablet, or other mobile directions). Combine that with access to Google Analytics and API reporting, and you have a decent picture of how effective your campaigns are for your audience.
- Autoresponder: You can send an email to a contact after a specific action or create a time-based schedule. Note that this is only available on higher-tiered plans, however.
Integrations & Add-Ons
Campaigner offers a few integrations you can utilize for your email marketing campaign goals:
- Google Analytics
- Adobe Analytics
- Magento
- Shopify
- Facebook Audience Builder
- Surveytown
- PieSync
Overall we think the limited number of integrations may pose a challenge, so be aware of what you may need before you commit to the year-long plan.
Security
Campaigner’s policies align with federal anti-spam laws (US). All complaints are dealt with by Campaigner’s postmaster and reviewed to ensure they are not unsolicited messages.
Other anti-spam measures include:
- Closed-loop authentication list building
- Contact list abuse prevention with list hygiene system
- Honoring ISP policies
- Reviewing of individual recipient complaints
Additionally, Campaigner remains transparent in system uptime. At the time of our review, all signs were green with a 100% uptime for the previous 60 days.
Final Verdict
When we take a look at cost versus features that come with each plan, Campaigner is probably not the best choice for most small business owners looking for an email marketing platform. Other email marketing apps are more affordable, have better templates, and are a bit easier to use. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with Campaigner, at least nothing so significant that I can point to it and turn on the alarm bells and sirens.
As always, the final choice will come down to you. I always recommend getting the free trial before making any final purchase, though with Campaigner you will have to enter your credit card information regardless.
Check out some of our other options in email marketing in our post: The Best Free Email Marketing Software Programs. Also, feel free to check out our resources to help your efforts with our post How To Create A Successful Email Marketing Strategy.
Wesley Kriz
Writing from the Pacific Northwest (read: the Best Coast), Wesley graduated from George Fox University in 2014 with a degree in History, then again from George Fox in 2016 with a Masters of Arts in Teaching. He has been writing about project management for 2 years, and keeps a running list of wacky software brand names; seriously, it's wild out there.
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Organization Name: Express Cash Flow
We had used Campaigner by Protus for about 2 years and decided to prepay for a year to receive an 18% discount. We prepaid $2,952 in January 2019 but starting the next month we had significant delivery issues with Gmail blocking delivery and overall open rates in the low single digits. We had reached out to our account rep and tech support numerous times to discuss the issues. On three separate work arounds we completed their recommendations and followed-up with subsequent blasts but continued to have delivery issues and very low open rates. We contacted Campaigner and asked for refund for the unused months and they denied the request because under the prepaid contract there are no refunds. As a result, we reversed the charge and they immediately blocked the account, they then disputed the charge and still have not reopen our account or contacted us. Knowing this I would just warn others to not subscribe to their larger plans, stay month-to-month and expect the service to deteriorate over time. It would take about 5-7 days for tech support to respond to emails.
This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.