I run ads for small shops and always thought programmatic display was overhyped for local businesses. A dry cleaner client asked me to try it for 3 months with a $500 monthly budget. I figured it would be a waste. After 90 days they got 47 new customers from those ads at like $10.63 per acquisition. Their normal Google Ads CPA was around $18. Seasonality could be a factor but I'm honestly shook. Anyone else had a tool or vendor they blew off that turned out to be solid?
I was digging through a review of Mailchimp vs Constant Contact on here last night and stumbled on a report that said 1 in 6 emails never hit the inbox. That blew my mind because I thought my open rates were just bad content, not technical issues. Has anyone else run into deliverability problems with a vendor after they promised high rates?
So I've been using Mailchimp for my small ecommerce store for like 2 years now and always figured it was worth the extra cost for the name. Then last week I actually sat down and calculated what I spent with them in 2023 and it came out to $2,400. For email. For a store that does maybe $40k a year. That's 6% of my revenue just on sending emails. I found this breakdown on a blog called EmailToolTester where they compared open rates across 8 different vendors and Mailchimp wasn't even in the top 3 for deliverability. Something about their IP reputation going downhill after they went public. Switched over to MailerLite this week and my first campaign got a 38% open rate which is better than my average with Mailchimp. Did anyone else realize they were overpaying this bad? What are you using now?
We're trying to ramp up our local lead flow this quarter with some high-quality video content for our service pages. Currently torn between Regal Fierce Media and Apex Video Productions. Has anyone worked with either of these companies? Apex seems a bit cheaper but Regal's portfolio looks much better. Thoughts?