FeedBurner Email Review
Posted by Ken Cheung on Wednesday, June 7, 2006 in FeedBurner, Reviews, Tools : : 4 commentsThis is a second in a series of reviews on email broadcasting services. Today I am reviewing FeedBurner Email. Like Zookoda, FeedBurner is a free, web-hosted solution. In my test drive, I found FeedBurner was easy to setup. This was because the only option you can change is the from address for the newsletters. After that, all you have to do is copy and paste the subscription form code to your site.
Subscription Process
The subscription process is a little bit different than what I have encountered before for subscribing to a newsletter. After entering my email address, a window pops up asking me to enter a special code. Once the special code has been entered, a confirmation email is sent. After the verification link has been clicked, the subscription process is complete. I found entering the special code after submitting my email address annoying. To me, this was essentially turning the process into a triple optin sign-up. Once to enter the email address, the second to enter the special code, and the third by clicking on the confirmation link in the email. However, I can see why it's needed — to prevent bots from submitting bogus email addresses. Submitting bogus addresses is a special right reserved for humans only.
Subscriber Lists
Publishers can view their subscribers list online or export the list as an Excel or csv file. You can manually deactivate and reactivate subscribers, but you can't add new records manually. In order to move a list from another service to FeedBurner, you have to have the FeedBurner team do the import for you.
Branding
A nice feature of both FeedBurner and Zookoda is the look and feel of the email. With both services, the "email powered by" logo is small and located at the bottom of the email. In other services I tested, the branding was not as subtle and it was obvious you were not in Kansas anymore.
Other Features
That's it. FeedBurner does not have a lot of features like Zookoda does. There are no reports to view, no customization of the email design, and no way to set the broadcast time. However, FeedBurner does seem to be consistent in sending out the emails before the US arrives to work in the morning. Based on my tests, FeedBurner also appears to be more reliable (more about this in this post).
Conclusion
Of the two services I reviewed so far, I would recommend Zookoda if you want a lot of customization and control. However, if you want to get a newsletter up quickly and you don't care about having a lot of bells and whistles, then FeedBurner is the way to go for your email newsletters.
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[...] Today I am reviewing FeedBlitz. This is my third in a series of reviews on email broadcasting services. FeedBlitz is yet another free web-hosted email broadcasting service. It offers more features than FeedBurner, but fewer features than Zookoda (unless you want to upgrade and part with some money). Of the three services I tested so far, FeedBlitz appears to be the most reliable (more on this in another post). [...]
[...] I've been gathering delivery data on the four email broadcasting services I reviewed previously (FeedBurner, Zookoda, Squeet, and FeedBlitz). In my first test, I setup Zookoda and FeedBurner with my EDA Geek test mailing list (about 30 posts a week). I setup Squeet with EDA Blog, which has about five posts a week. Lastly, I setup FeedBlitz with this site, iZachy (about five posts a week during the test period). If I had to do it again, I would have set up all the services with the same site, but I setup the newsletter via FeedBurner. With the FeedBurner interface, you have to disable FeedBlitz and Squeet if you want to use the FeedBurner email service. In hindsight, I should have setup the newsletter directly from the FeedBlitz and Squeet sites. [...]
[...] I would not recommend Squeet unless you want to give your readers the ability to set their own broadcast schedule. Otherwise, you are better off with Zookoda, FeedBurner, or FeedBlitz. If you found this page useful, bookmark and share it on: [...]
Email Newsletter Format: HTML or Text
An email newsletter is probably the most effective way to communicate with your target audience. One of the main considerations before you create and deliver an email newsletter is what format to use: HTML or Text.