With my aWeber account, I added customization to my forms and messages. Most services provide customization, but aWeber provides templates too. This means that you use the templates and add your text for your promotions and for your sign-up form. Maybe you can spuce them up more to match your website if you know HTML.

If you have an eRetailing website to sell goods - an Internet Store, and you only want to manage one website for selling your goods, you may simply want the basic autoresponder features that may be available with your merchant (shopping cart) hosting account. If you add autoresponder services to your Hosting account, the management of your webmaster tasks would be simplified. Even if the cost is higher than an alternative, it might be the best way for you to go.

You may decide you want to purchase a list of leads to build traffic to your website. Entering these new leads into your list is more complicated than you might think. You MUST avoid spamming or you will break all the rules, and probably lose your potential customers before they even visit your website.

Opt-in and verification requires some definition. There is double opt-in verified too. You can read more in this Article on Opt-in and Spam compliance here.

AutoResponder Extended features:

AWeber is one of the most popular services today and is used by many of our esteemed gurus. Their costs are competitive and they offer multiple lead databases, unlimited broadcast messages, and an easy-to-use control panel.

If you support multiple websites, you will definately want a service that provides unlimited lead list databases and messages. AWeber does. They also provide help for newbies and on-line chat for support. (I've used it - it's great.)

On the downside, I found aWeber's opt-in message is a bit cryptic. I cannot enter a lead without them having to respond to this cryptic email to be on my list. (My family won't even reply.) This is a problem and I began to re-evaluate my own needs.

Once set, the opt-in feature didn't allow me to import (or type in) my own leads without forcing the lead to respond. I should not have set it until I had thought it through and entered my own leads first. Opt-in can't be "turned off". I needed a new account. So, I went exploring for another service while I was at it.

I Tried Another Autoresponder and Came Back to aWeber - Here's Why:

I tried SendFree. It lets you purchase opt-in leads and have them easily entered into your lead database, or you can type in your own (from an earlier list - DON'T SPAM).

SendFree sells leads that have already been "double opt-in" for your product area at 30-50 cents each in groups of 100 or more. I never did this, but you can.

Another of the best-known autoresponders, GetResponse, also has a list builder called GetSubscribers. Costs seem comparable, differing only by a few dollars a month and a few cents a lead. The thing I noticed about GetResponse is that their logo is on each email I've seen. Maybe it's an option that can be turned off, but I didn't want it, so I went with SendFree. And it was free, but only until you want to Broadcast a message. So you have to pay, really.

Then after a few months I am getting subscribers and working on my messages and I go to Broadcast one AND IT DIDN'T WORK! Yeah, it never got sent. I waited until the next morning and tried again. It STILL didn't work. And there was no message on their site that it was down for maintenance or anything, so in disgust, I switched everything back to aWeber!

UPDATE: When I went back to aWeber, I customized that cryptic opt-in message BEFORE I entered my existing (SendFree) leads. That did the trick - all but one of my subscribers remained on my list.

PLEASE learn from others mistakes (mine) and just get aWeber and stick with it. They are clearly reliable, I know, because so many of the true Internet Marketing experts use aWeber, and they wouldn't if it wasn't flexible, affordable, and reliable.

Just Get aWeber and Save Yourself Time and Hassle!