A Review on Squarespace's Email Service (vs Mailchimp)

Whenever something new comes out, clients/friends/family have learned to just text or DM me and ask my thoughts on the matter. Software, Hardware, Apps, Productivity tools…thats my weakness. Seriously every time a new Apple product comes out, I have to ignore the internet because I know I’m going to go get it.

So when Squarespace launched an integrated email platform…I was beyond excited. Lets start with the fact I ADORE Squarepsace. I’ve been doing design for a very long time, have used every WYSIWYG editor there is (“what you see is what you get”…think drag and drop), have coded my own websites, delved into the horrific world of Wordpress customization, and Squarespace is hands down my favorite. I use it. I put my husband’s site on it. I urge most of my clients to use it. I’m not getting any kickbacks from saying this, I just truly love it as a platform and think its the best on the market and one hell of a bargain for what you pay for.

So when they announced email service, I was so pumped for not only myself, but for my clients. Because I knew now the scary (and often poorly designed) world of email marketing for small businesses would look a little bit better thanks to Squarespace’s help.

And it does. The layouts and integrations into what your style profile is from your site is incredible. You can have your logo assets, fonts, colors, etc all loaded in so its an exact match to your branding. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, it did not disappoint.

Photo: Squarespace

But…From whats expected in today’s world of analytics, its a bit of letdown compared to the other company I love almost as much Squarespace…Mailchimp.

Mailchimp has grown so much from its origins as an email marketing company. Its a full blown marketing and e-commerce strategy to any online business. And its had a decade + to grow its analytic capabilities along with it.

For Squarespace to get into the email game now, I would expect them to be on the same level as the other guys in the market.

So while the design capabilities for a person who doesn’t know how (or in my case has no interest) in coding, its superior. Its looks fantastic and again the fact it matches your website branding is only a plus for the non-designer users.

But I had users who unsubscribed and nothing happened on my list, which is a big no-no and a punishable offense in the land of CAN-SPAM laws.

I also can’t see anything except high level numbers.

I can’t see who read the email. Who didn’t. What links they clicked on. Nothing.

Now the rumor was that this would all be fed into their analytics dashboard (which is what I thought would happen) but I haven’t seen that yet (and I had buttons directly tied to sell services on my website so it would be easy to track).

Maybe they’re still working on it.

So while this is a free tool (for now), I don’t see a problem using it if you’re just building up your email list. But if you’ve been using a service for a while and take the time to export/import your subscriber list into Squarespace…you’ll be disappointed at the results.

Oh, and then you’ll have to re-export/import the list back into your old service if you want to deep dive into user behavior from your campaign. #aintnobodygottimeforthat

But once they start charging an $8/month fee (which is supposedly whats happening)…the capabilities and integrations of this application will need to be much much better. Because keep in mind that Mailchimp is free up until a subscriber threshold.

I hope thats helpful to you guys. If there’s any other applications you’d like me to get on my soapbox and preach about, just let me know in the comments below!