Top 10 Cons or Disadvantages of Using Mailchimp

Email marketing is crucial in today’s digital landscape. It remains a fundamental and effective strategy for businesses to connect directly with their target audience. Email marketing fosters a stronger and more intimate relationship between brands and customers through personalized and relevant content delivered straight to recipients’ inboxes. It is cost-effective compared to traditional advertising methods and offers a high return on investment (ROI) by driving conversions and sales.

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With email marketing, businesses can engage their audience regularly, informing them about new products, promotions, or valuable content, increasing customer loyalty and retention. Segmenting email lists allows for more targeted campaigns, ensuring the right message reaches the right audience.

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What is Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is a prominent email marketing platform that offers a suite of tools and features to assist businesses and individuals in creating, managing, and optimizing their email marketing campaigns. It allows users to design and send professional-looking emails, build and organize mailing lists, automate email sequences, and track the performance of their campaigns through detailed analytics.

Disadvantages and Cons of Mailchimp

Although Mailchimp has achieved considerable popularity, it is crucial to recognize the platform’s drawbacks. In this segment, we will explore the disadvantages of using Mailchimp and offer valuable insights for users to contemplate before making their choice.

1. Limited Free Plan: A Far Cry From Its Initial Generosity

The primary drawback lies in the current constraints of the free plan, which have significantly diminished since my initial sign-up. The free option now caters primarily to very small lists and basic emails. For instance, if you are a small business with a mailing list of 500 subscribers, you can only send up to 1,000 emails per month under the free plan. However, as your business grows and your subscriber list exceeds this limit, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Additionally, to perform more advanced tasks, such as segmentation, automation, or managing larger lists, opting for one of the monthly subscription plans becomes necessary. For example, a business wanting to send personalized birthday emails to segmented customer groups would need to subscribe to a premium plan to access these features.

2. Costly Choice: Mailchimp’s Premium Price Tag for Infrequent Senders

Mailchimp stands out as one of the costlier email marketing services, particularly for customers with infrequent sending needs. Our company operates with a limited product range, which doesn’t require daily email communication. We only reach out to customers approximately twice a month.

While other providers offer more budget-friendly plans for our lower sending frequency, and you should always make the comparison of free email marketing software yourself, we’ve found that Mailchimp excels in deliverability and open rates. Due to the better results we achieve, we have opted to stick with Mailchimp, despite the higher rate it entails.

3. Mailchimp’s Focus on Daily Email Campaigns: Limited Options for Occasional Users

Mailchimp appears to cater predominantly to businesses that engage in daily email campaigns. As a user who sends campaigns only 3-4 times a year, specifically before major events, I find that Mailchimp lacks a suitable pricing option to accommodate my needs. The platform lacks the flexibility to turn off or on the subscription based on my sporadic usage. Furthermore, editing images or photos in email designs proves to be a challenging task.

For occasional users like myself, these limitations may present challenges in fully leveraging the platform’s capabilities. For instance, a small event planning business that only sends newsletters before seasonal events, such as holiday parties or summer festivals, may find it difficult to justify the cost of maintaining a Mailchimp subscription year-round. Additionally, when preparing these occasional campaigns, they might struggle with editing images to fit their branding, further complicating their experience.

4. English-Only Tools and Challenging Landing Page Optimization

The marketing software is undeniably impressive, offering powerful automation capabilities. However, it comes with some crucial limitations. The tools provided are all in English, making it challenging for non-English speakers. For example, a Spanish-speaking business owner may find it difficult to navigate the platform or create effective email campaigns without relying on external translation services, which can slow down their workflow.

Additionally, optimizing landing pages for better performance is quite difficult, hindering the potential for higher yields. For instance, a user attempting to improve their landing page’s conversion rate might struggle with limited customization options or unclear guidance on best practices. Despite its strengths, these essential drawbacks should be considered when using this software.

5. Pro Features Excluded: Frustrations for Startups in Email Marketing

I have reservations about how the Pro features are not included in the basic starter package. While I understand that this is how Mailchimp generates revenue, these additional tools could benefit new startup businesses like mine, which cannot upgrade to the Pro level due to budget constraints.

Furthermore, I encountered difficulties ensuring that my emails were 100% compliant, as many recipients nowadays block or report spam mail. Although this issue is not Mailchimp’s fault, it adds complexity to navigating the red tape of email marketing. Despite the challenges, I appreciate Mailchimp’s efforts to simplify the process as much as possible.

6. Flawed Automation: Drafts and Timed Emails Mishaps

Occasionally, the automation features may encounter glitches, leading to situations where an older version of a saved draft is mistakenly sent (though this is a rare occurrence, sometimes due to user error, but not always). For instance, a marketing team might prepare a promotional email for a new product launch but inadvertently send an outdated draft with incorrect pricing or product details. This can cause confusion among recipients and may require follow-up emails to clarify the error.

Moreover, timed-out emails for different time zones might be sent earlier or later than intended. For example, a business scheduling a campaign to be sent at 9 AM in each recipient’s local time may find that some emails are sent at 8 AM or 10 AM instead, potentially missing the optimal engagement window for their audience.

7. Troublesome Bulk Email Function: Mailchimp’s Spam Concerns

The sole feature that has consistently concerned me is the bulk email marketing function. When sending bulk emails simultaneously, there are instances where recipients’ mailboxes perceive my emails as spam or generated by a bot because of the identical content in the messages. This issue often arises due to spam filters that flag emails with repetitive or overly generic content as potential spam. For example, during a holiday campaign, I sent a bulk email with a uniform subject line, “Holiday Sale – 50% Off Everything,” and identical content to all recipients.

As a result, several emails were flagged as spam, reducing the campaign’s effectiveness. If Mailchimp could implement advanced personalization features or provide tools to bypass such spam filters, I believe it would significantly enhance its reputation as the finest automated email marketing tool in the present era.

8. Pricing Surprises and CRM Limitations: MailChimp’s Downsides”

The pricing can become steep as your business grows to certain stages. Upgrading to the business and pro tiers significantly increases monthly costs, and as your email list expands, you also incur additional charges. This cost escalation can be quite abrupt and alarming, especially for bootstrapped businesses. One major concern is that MailChimp has recently positioned itself as a CRM. However, I don’t believe it serves as a suitable CRM replacement for businesses of any size, except perhaps for freelancers with small contact lists.

The data management and manipulation features are too basic, and the data management tools are weak. There are also some tracking issues, but the complexity and constant changes in this area make it difficult to pinpoint the root cause. Specifically, if I leave “click tracking” enabled on a campaign, MailChimp will override my source/medium tags in third-party site tracking.

9. Mailchimp’s Limitations: Tag Management and Visual Automation

When using Zapier or WordPress to deliver content, it is essential to have the capability to modify tags for individuals already on an existing list without the need to create a new list. Incorporating a visual automation builder into the platform would be highly beneficial. Furthermore, Mailchimp should offer manual domain verification as a feature. Currently, to use Mailchimp, one must generate an email and then import it into the system, which can be challenging for novice users. It would be fantastic to have an alternative option for manual nameserver verification.

For instance, a business using WordPress to manage its blog might want to tag subscribers based on their interactions with specific posts. If a user reads a post about “Email Marketing Tips,” the business could automatically tag them as interested in email marketing. Without the ability to modify tags for existing subscribers, the business would need to create a new list, which could lead to redundancy and inefficiency.

10. Feature Overload: Navigating Mailchimp’s Expanding Interface

With the abundance of features offered, locating specific functionalities on the platform can be slightly challenging, especially for new users or those unfamiliar with email marketing tools. As Mailchimp has expanded, new features have been introduced rapidly, leading to a somewhat confusing user interface. For example, a small business owner looking to set up an automated email sequence for abandoned cart reminders might find it difficult to navigate through the menus to locate the automation feature.

This can be particularly frustrating if they are on a tight schedule or lack prior experience with similar tools. Over the recent years, the learning curve to use Mailchimp effectively has slightly increased, but even beginners can still learn and navigate the platform relatively quickly with some exploration and practice.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while Mailchimp offers numerous advantages and has been a popular choice for many businesses, it is essential to acknowledge the potential drawbacks associated with its use. This article has highlighted the top 10 disadvantages of using Mailchimp, ranging from cost concerns and limitations in automation to data management issues and the learning curve for novices.

As with any marketing tool, it is crucial for businesses to carefully evaluate their specific needs and requirements before committing to Mailchimp or any other email marketing platform. By being aware of these disadvantages, businesses can make informed decisions and explore alternative options that align more closely with their goals and objectives.

Ultimately, Mailchimp may still prove to be a valuable asset for some organizations, especially those with smaller contact lists or simple automation needs. However, by being informed about its limitations, businesses can mitigate potential challenges and maximize their overall marketing effectiveness.