AWeber is one of the leading email marketing companies out there.  They offer some impressive features, but what I was interested in and what led to this project was their email subscription forms and their feed Blog Broadcast to email service.

They are currently offering a one dollar 30 day service and I thought I would take advantage of that as see if the price tag of $19 a month was going to be worth it in the end.  The AWeber people seem to think it is.

I began my hunt for services when Feedburner kept messing up my daily email feeds.

Below is a quick video illustrating the issue with Feedburner’s feed to email subscription service.

I found a couple of services, but in-the-end it was the affiliate program that AWeber was offering that got me to try it.  So, head over to AWeber and check it out.  My auto link plugin has enough links for ya to follow.  I would just post it here but most affiliate programs have that listed as against their TOS.

In this AWeber Review – 30 Day Project, I will try and answer some simple questions.

• Will it increase my email subscribers enough to warrant the price.
• Will my site increase in revenue by only utilizing the Blog feed to email service.

Below is a break down of each day using the AWeber service.

• Day 20 – Subscribers = 8
• Day 8 - Subscribers = 5
• Day  6 – Subscribers = 4
• Day 4 – Subscribers = 4
• Day 3 – Subscribers = 3
• Day 2 – Subscribers = 2
• Day 1 – Subscribers = 1

There wasn’t much of an increase in subscribers so I thought I would just wait and see how this developed.  I discovered how to make Feedburner do nearly the same format that AWeber does, so natually I wouldn’t stick with them when the trial ended.  However, as subscribers increase, some are coming from the Sports Betting area in which they would like an instant email of when I post them.  Now with AWeber I can send out an email to all the subscribers and if I wanted to get really creative I could just send out to people who signed up for a particular form.  As in, if I had a form that only showed up on the Free Picks section, then I would know those people for sure want the immediate emails.

Anyway, there are a lot of possibilities with AWeber and with that I have now climbed on the fence and my time is running out.  I will see how March Madness effects this and make my decision whether to keep this service or just use a free one.  However the free one just can’t come close to doing what AWeber does.

Current Email Subscribers: 8

Talk to ya soon,

JD

So far, I am not seeing the benefit for what I need in this AWeber Review.  There is still time for the project to come alive, but for me, just needing a source to send my email daily updates, not sure AWeber is the right fit for me.

End of Day: 8

• Subscribers = 5
• Unconfirmed Subscribers = 0
• Total Subscribers = 4
  • From light box form = 3
  • From Sidebar form = 2

Talk to ya tomorrow,

JD

I received a letter in the mail, actual postal mail, from AWeber.  They were thanking me for becoming a customer and the letter comes complete with my login name and their many ways to contact them.  They are also offering me to join a free video seminar about How to Get Started and Get More Subscribers.  Well, I could definitely use more subscribers.  As-it-stands, AWeber has not helped me in that regard as apposed to using a free service.

There has not been a change in the number of subscribers since day 4.

End of Day: 6

• Subscribers = 4
• Unconfirmed Subscribers = 0
• Total Subscribers = 4
  • From light box form = 2
  • From Sidebar form = 2

Talk to ya tomorrow,

JD

I am up to 4 Subscribers but they are not anyone that signed up without me asking them too. I hope this picks up, because I am happy with the ease that it works, but obviously it will not be cost effective.  Not any problems to really report…

End of Day: 4

• Subscribers = 4
• Unconfirmed Subscribers = 0
• Total Subscribers = 4
  • From light box form = 2
  • From Sidebar form = 2

Talk to ya tomorrow,

JD

End of Day: 3

• Subscribers = 3
• Unconfirmed Subscribers = 0
• Total Subscribers = 3
  • From light box form = 2
  • From Sidebar form = 1

Talk to ya tomorrow,

JD

Today started off a little shaking for AWeber as my daily feed broadcast did not go out.  It said it had, but no one, meaning me, had received it.  Eventually I contacted customer support via their live chat and discover the problem.  When you first sign up they do not automatically send out the first batch.  It is queued and you have to manually send it.  After that, I was assured it would go out automatically from now on. Another note on their live chat.  I have used other companies’ live chat service before and many times it was frustrating waiting for the other person to respond to a question.  As in, he/she was probably servicing many people at once.  However, here, I didn’t sense that at all.  My questions were immediately answered, so that was a nice change from what I am used to.

So, I manually sent my broadcast feed to email and I got it within seconds and it was perfect.  Just what I wanted.  All my articles from my feed that had not been previously sent were sent in one email.  Of course since this was my first one, ten article snippets with links back to my site were listed.  A short while later I received another email from AWeber. It let me know the broadcast had been sent and that one of the people had opened it and clicked on a link.  Of course that was me, but it was interesting to see these stats.

I now have the same two Subscribers I had on my Feedburner account.  So, we shall see what happens now…

AWeber Day 2

To hear an Audio version push the play button above

End of Day: 2

• Subscribers = 2
• Unconfirmed Subscribers = 0
• Total Subscribers = 2
  • From light box form = 2
  • From Sidebar form = 0

Day 2 Pros:

• Excellent online chat customer service

Day 2 Cons:

• No notice that the first automatic broadcast will not go out without manually sending it out once it is queued.

Talk to ya tomorrow,

JD

When beginning any new software or just trying to learn anything new there is always a learning curve.  How hard is AWeber to learn out of the box?  Well, I was able to pick it up pretty quickly in one setting.  I did make a few mistakes, but was able to correct them once I started learning more about it.  However, I could see where it might take a little time to adjust to their software.  They have video tutorials, which is great, but I found them to be not as informative as I would have hoped.  However, they did get pass the basic information that was needed to get started.

Although they have many newsletter templates, I am really only interested in the feed templates.  I am still unsure of how it will send them.  If it will send them in separate emails or all in one email.  I selected a specific time, because I want a full days of posts in one email, not a bunch of single emails.

Also, I discovered they do not have a separation from their feed times being sent out and their social media being sent.  In-other-words, if you wanted your twitter followers to be undated immediately and you wanted your email followers to be updated on a daily basis, you can not do this.  You have to choose one time for both, as they are combined in the same set up.

I do like the lightbox form they have and their other subscriber sign up forms.  It will be interesting to see where and how I plan to use them all.  Currently I am using the lightbox pop up and a sidebar form.

It appears the emails will not be full article emails, but rather short feed snippets, unlike the free service of Feedburner where the entire article is part of the email.  However I will know more once I receive my first email from AWeber and whether which method I prefer

AWeber Day 01

To hear an Audio version push the play button above

End of Day:

• Subscribers = 1
• Unconfirmed Subscribers = 0
• Total Subscribers = 1
  • From light box form = 1
  • From Sidebar form = 0

Day 1 Pros:

• Nice forms for sign up subscriptions, especially the light box form, with the time variables

Day 1 Cons:

• lack of separation of social media with feed distribution

See you guys tomorrow,

JD