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Aweber Vs GetResponse
It's essential to have one if you are selling anything on the website, or even if you are just using affiliate links to promote other products. It has been proven that the majority of sales take place after you contact them several times (for bigger purchases, it usually requires at least 7 follow-ups). So now that I convinced (hopefully) you that you need an autoresponder, your next question might be "which one?"
First, you have three basic options: either purchase a professional one hosted at another site for a monthly fee (usually $10 to $20 a month), pay a one-time fee for your own autoresponder that you can run from your own server using a script, or use a free hosted autoresponder (which almost always have ads and not as many features or reliability).
Let me say now that free ones with ads might be okay to start with, but don't expect to make a fortune off of them. Not only does it look unprofessional to have other ads on them, but some of those ads might even be from companies that are competing against you! On top of that, due to it being free, the company usually doesn't have the resources to make sure that your e-mails are getting where they need to go or to support you with any problems. I don't recommend them unless your running a small site for fun and not expecting to make money (for instance, if you're running a fan site of a game, famous person, etc.). But even then, you can turn any opportunity into a money making opportunity.
Now as to hosting your own using a script that you pay a one time fee for versus paying a monthly fee, the answer as to which is better isn't as easy as you might think. Obviously most people would want to pay less and might lean towards the autoresponder script, which typically cost anywhere from $80 to $300 or more (I sell a good script for $9.95, click here to see it among other products). The advantages to this are that you only have to pay this fee once and that everything looks like it's coming directly from you (because it is). The disadvantages are that because everything is coming from you, you have to deal with all of your own problems -- ranging from e-mails not getting delivered to problems with the script and setting it up. Also, because it's mailed out using your hosting provider, there might be extra restrictions with how many you can e-mail each day, bandwidth problems, and problems with e-mails not getting delivered (and your host won't care because that's not their expertise and they don't make sure that their e-mails don't get blacklisted). This along might force you to pay more or it might cost you several sales if more of your e-mails get blocked or end up undelivered (or even in spam folders). In addition, any complaint about you spamming people (even if you did it legally and they requested it) you'd have to deal with yourself, and your host might drop you just to remain safe.
Basically, I'd only recommend this method, despite a few advantages and the cheaper price, if you had a much smaller mailing list and if your subscribers were always expecting your e-mails and not likely to accuse you of spamming. Having said that, there is one script that I'd recommend. It's by Kalptaru and sells for just under $80 as a one-time payment, but it also comes with 90 days of free support. They also have a free one that has a few features disabled and has their own ad in it. You can get the entire script here or the free one here. This script has all the top features, including ways to automatically generate pop-ups, pop-overs, web forms, broadcasting, etc. This is by far one of the cheapest ones with the best support of desktop or your own server scripts for the price.
Now if you're more serious about autoresponders, plan on having a list of several hundred to several thousand (even tens of thousands), or if you want to avoid all of the hassle, worries, and problems with hosting your own script, then an autoresponder hosted on another server and run by another company is your best bet. Again, I wouldn't get a free one if you were serious about it, as not only does it look bad with other ads, but the service and rates of deliverability will be far lower than what you'd get with a premium autoresponder. They might be a good choice for starting out, though.
It basically comes down to two companies when you deal with high end autoresponders -- Aweber and GetResponse. Both companies have great programs, great support staff, great features, great deliverability rates, and constantly deal with issues ranging from getting better deliverability (they actually call up places to make sure your e-mails don't get blocked by certain e-mail providors) to taking care of spam problems for you (you are no longer at risk). Both have many positive reviews (be careful of negative reviews, as many come from people working for either company -- kind of a shady thing), and I haven't really seen any major complaints from either.
Both offer all the features you'll need plus tons more from easy message editors (do it yourself html or with their editors or plain text) to direct RSS feeds (so your mailing list knows when you update your blog, for instance). All types of pop-ups and forms are also as easy as a cut and paste (you can customize everything too) and offered at both. Both have great customer support as well. There really is very little difference between the two. Aweber is just under $20 a month and GetResponse is just under $18 a month. I'd say that the layout of GetResponse is a little easier for the novice compared to Aweber, but you can learn both of them fairly easily if you just take a little time.
Aweber also seemed to be a little ahead of the game several years ago, but GetResponse has more than caught up now. GetResponse is not only a little cheaper, but if you deal with huge lists (of over 10,000 subscribers), you'll also save a little there too (just over $4 per extra 5,000 subscribers compared to about $10 per 10,000 new subscribers). So if you have a mailing list of 11,000 to 15,000 subscribers, you'll save about $8 a month with GetResponse. Both allow you to have up to 10,000 subscribers for within their normal price without any extra fees, and they allow you to e-mail as many times to that entire list as you want. Both also allow you to have an unlimited number of campaigns too (so you can have a dozen different sites with a dozen different e-mail campaigns for the same price without paying extra).
Old reviews show Aweber being a little cheaper with larger lists only because GetResponse was priced differently a year ago when they didn't offer unlimited broadcasts (e-mails to your entire list) and the like, but now GetResponse is actually a little more affordable.
The one thing that Aweber has that stands out a bit is that they seemed to be on top of things a little more in the past, but GetResponse seems to have everything more than together now and seems to be on top of things as well. This, however, almost made me go with Aweber at first. On the other hand, though, it was GetResponse who first had a much better backup system than Aweber (now both are good), so that kind of neutralized it again for me. But both are well established companies with constant updates.
It's very hard for me to suggest one over the other, as it really comes down mostly to personal preferences. I actually eventually went with GetResponse and I'm very satisfied, but I'm sure I'd also be just as happy with Aweber as well (except the $2 extra dollars a month).
There are cheaper places, but be careful of their reliability. On a side note, Aweber sometimes claims to have the highest reliability, but it's based on their own tests and what they claim to have is simply impossible to really achieve -- and proven. It basically comes down to the fact that both have top notch deliverability rates and the differences seem to be negligible.
I'm also very happy that I switched to a monthly fee autoresponder over from a one time fee script. Not only are things a little easier, but it has saved me lots of time and worries. The customer support along saves me more time and money than the monthly fee. I have also noticed better deliverability rates. In fact, that's one of the things that convinced me to switch. In the not so distant past, I e-mailed a very select and specific group a special promotion that was only going on for a week. Off of one e-mail, I made over $700 dollars in a matter of hours (no joke). Sounds exciting, right? It was! BUT after the promotion ended, I checked my message and realized that it only e-mailed 36 of the nearly 300 subscribers it was suppose to due to a bug that had to be dealt with. If I didn't have that bug and used the service that I have now, I probably could have made several thousands of dollars in a matter of a day with that one e-mail. Luckily I switched and I'm off to a good start.
