I live in hope that this will not be needed for analytics, as anything that significantly reduces the amount of data an analytics service can gather is going to compromise the whole premise of analytics. After all, if you know that only 10% or 20% of your visitors are being recorded, and aren’t even sure that’s a representative sample, then can you trust what your analytics are telling you?

We’ve been working on a compliance solution which is available here: http://www.civicuk.com/cookie-law.

The aim is to provide a consent solution that works regardless of your approach to compliance.

As a consent solution it’s pretty lightweight – we’ve tried to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

[...] Read the rest of this excellent post here…. [...]…

thanks!

Good to hear from you again. Is 121prodata a new venture?

Mailchimp, to me, is a great option for the kinds of company that I tend to work with, namely small businesses. I’m not nearly as familiar with Constant Contact, but I believe the general consensus is that Mailchimp is easier for those that may not be completely familiar with the principles of email marketing, as it uses a wizard-driven interface to allow people to create a visually impressive email very easily. In addition, the 2,000 subscribers/12,000 email-per-month limit for the free account is hard to beat (CC has a free trial, but charges a minimum of $15/month thereafter), and is enough to get most SME’s started without having to commit much in the way of funds.

I also like the way in which it very actively manages the mailing list, automatically unsubscribing email addresses after one hard bounce or three soft bounces. As I know you are aware, being flagged as an email spammer is very much to be avoided, and my experience of Mailchimp is that is actively encourages, even enforces, good practice from its subscribers.

Lastly, Mailchimp is easier than most to integrate with other applications. I use Google Analytics on most of my websites, and it’s possible to view the Mailchimp stats there. I build websites using wordpress, and there is a very good Mailchimp plugin that allows users to subscribe from my site, and shows me the website stats alongside the email stats, so I know just how big an impact an email campaign has had. There are many other Mailchimp integrations (e.g. salesforce.com, Google Apps, etc) whereas CC seems to stand alone.

After I saw your comment, I did a quick search for a comparison of the two, and in this post at least, Mailchimp appear to be the better choice. Ultimately, I think Mailchimp is aimed at SME’s and beginners, whilst being pretty powerful under the skin. CC seems to be more for those with a little more experience.

Hope this helps.

Can you tell me why you would go for Mailchimp over Constant Contact which is the one I was going to use?