Wiki Definition:
An autoresponder is a computer program that automatically answers e-mail sent to it. They can be very simple or quite complex.

The main purpose of using an autoresponder is to keep in contact with your List. Your list consists of people who trust and follow you and respect you as a leader.

As they say "The money is in the List".

So it is vital that your autoresponder can do a couple of things very well.

1. Gets the e-mails to your List (spam filters are an issue and might prevent some messages to getting to their destination)
2. Manage the List (being able to filter who is on your list and the health of the List)
3. Easy of Use
4. Cost as List grows
   
5. Tracking
6. Affiliate program
   

I have moved to Aweber and the main reason was because it is tightly integrated into my marketing page which teachs anyone HOW to build ANY Network Marketing (MLM) Business.

I wasn't sure how I would like it since I first started with iContact which was recommended by the Magnetic Sponsoring group (Mike Dillard). I thought iContact was pretty powerful and was really low cost to use.

1. Cost - $20/month (0-500 subscribers) vs $10/month (0-250 subscribers), $14 (500 subscribers) = Price is close but iContact barely wins
2. Popularity Alexa - 256 vs 3,197 = Aweber for sure
   
3. Ease of Use - Both are similar as both allow both HTML and TXT messages but converting a HTML to a TXT in iContact sometimes requires additional editing as words get merged. Very annoying. Also Aweber shows you the standard width so you can sentance wrap lines for smaller screens which most people have.
4. Tracking - I like iContacts method of tracking as it breakes it down per message sent and you can see the sent, opens, bounces, spams. Aweber also does it but take a bit longer to adjust to. Aweber seems to have more information and seems to focus more on a larger audience as each subscriber has more unique information tied to them. I also really enjoy how the autoresponder list is managed in Aweber. In iContact you specify how many days after a subscriber joins to send the message. Aweber has how many days AFTER the message before. This makes total sense. If you have 100 autoresponder emails then you don't want to have to edit each iContact email and have to adjust how many dates from entry to send the email. The drag and drop order and how many days the next email shoudl be released after the previous one is Aweber is much easier to handle.
5. Affiliate - 20% personal and 10% from 2nd level vs 25% on all sales. Aweber raising commissions from 20% to 30%, take effect today, April 8th, 2009.
6. Spam - I have to give it to Aweber. Their system seems much easier to pin point what is making your message a "spammy" message. iContact also has this feature but doesn't seem as integrated into the who editing process of a message. I find I can take a look and see which of my e-mails is more "spammy". This is important and Aweber stresses that by making sure we understand if one of my messages is on the border of being marked.
7. Global Fields - I haven't use global fields much in iContact but Aweber it just "feels" right. I have a couple customer global fields like a domain and brand name. Makes it easier to copy and past certain aspect of my e-mail and reconstruct another e-mail quickly. Changes can be done very quickly by NOT having to manually change each and every e-mail that has a domain/e-mail change. Trust me. When you start getting a ton of pre-written e-mails you DO NOT want to edit each for a silly domain change.
8. Signature - I don't remember having issues with iContact and the signature common field but.... YOU MUST KNOW THIS FOR AWEBER. The Text e-mail will automatically attach your signature data you specifiy in your list options. The HTML WILL NOT. You must manually put "{!signature} " after your message. I thought that was odd that it wasn't automatically placed like in the Text version.
   

I do have to add that both will be able to send from YOUR e-mail. This is vitally important if you want to be able to stay out people's Spam Box.

I have ran across another autoresponder, Isoresponder that didn't have this for some reason. I'm not sure if it was an option but every time the sender sends me a message it is from some generic e-mail from isoresponder. So every time I open the e-mail I'm asked if this message is from someone I know. I know them but if their e-mail keeps changing then what is the use of adding their e-mail into my address book?

Use an autoresponder like iContact or Aweber that sends from YOUR e-mail and not not generated e-mail.

I believe most people only have an issue with Aweber due to initial start up price. Mostly because they don't really have a $1 trial. They basically give you a month free and if you don't like it they refund your money.

Aweber states: "If you are not satisfied with the results you see, contact us for a full, hassle-free refund."

You might be thinking that $20/month isn't a good deal considering many others are around $10/month. The Aweber $20/month goes to the next price point after 500. I figured I would hit that 500 pretty quick so I wanted to know if Leads who don't confirm will be counted as subscribers. Here is what Aweber support replied that same day:

"There are two types of leads (subscribers) that counts towards your pricing.  1.  Active Leads which are leads subscribed to your list receiving messages.  2.  Inactive leads which are leads that are unsubscribed.   Although they are not receiving messages from you, their records still remain on your account but you can delete them whenever you want.  Unconfirmed leads do not count towards pricing.  These are subscribers that were sent the confirmation message but never clicked the link.  They are automatically deleted from the system after 30 days since the confirmation link has an active period of 30 days you would not be charged for them."

In terms of which to chose, it really depends on your personal needs. I had to use Aweber with my marketing system as it integrates an autoresponder series into it.

Both are great programs and if your list is small the only difference would be price until you go over 250 subscribers. If your goal is 250 subscribers then your thinking too small. Personally, I was fed up with iContacts HTML email copy to TEXT and having to correct the mistakes of that conversion.

I did find it odd that iContact wanted me to CALL them to cancel my subscription. Really? In the digital age I have to actually call someone to quit their digital service? I can understand why they would want to try and retain their business but it just seems so 90s to try and force customers to wait on the line to speak with a customer rep to see if they can retain you as a customer.

MLM Lead System Pro uses Aweber and that is more than enough reason for me to use it too.

So Aweber is my Winner.

Lawrence Tam
MLM Engineer