Benchmark Review - Hitting the mark?

Benchmark in Detail

Criterion	Rating/Info	Notes
Ease of Use		Benchmark is very easy to use, with a visually pleasing interface that mostly makes sense. Some sections look a little dated, though, and a few things are hidden away.
Newsletter Creation
-Editor		The editor is one of the better ones out there, with easily interchangeable templates and a good variety of blocks. You can add images within any block of text, and they also have several image+text ready-made options. Anchor points can also be added with one-click. You can only ‘undo’ while you’re editing a block, so keep that in mind.
-Personalization	yes	Only simple personalisation is available, no if/then/else logic.
-Types of Emails		Classic, autoresponders, recurring, once-off (date-based), RSS to email, A/B testing, surveys.
Choice and Flexibility of Template Designs		There’s a good choice of templates available, and they’re all responsive. One good thing about the templates is that you can choose specific options for how certain features display separately on mobile devices.
Marketing Automation		Benchmark's automation is mostly advanced autoresponders, allowing automatic emails to be sent based on signups, opens and clicks.
List Management		Only basic list management is available, segmenting lists via and/or criteria. It’s not that flexible to manage users across lists either, as you can only delete a subscriber from either one, or all, lists. There’s nothing in between.
Registration Forms/ Opt-in & Opt-out- Process		The forms are done well, allowing you to create pop-ups and other basic forms with relative ease, yet some sections could do with an update. You can add your own database fields, yet the options are limited, for example no drop-downs.
Reports and Analysis		The reports are good, giving you the detail of openers and clickers. They also have an email heatmap, Google Analytics integrations, geo-tracking and social tracking. There was no client or ecommerce tracking though.
Languages		A relatively good 9 languages, but we found a couple of instances where pages didn’t quite work correctly, such as when choosing Portuguese.
Further Features
-Spam- and Design-Testing		They do have these available within the editor. Spam testing is free, while design testing needs to be purchased. We did have issues where our emails passed the spam tests though, and all were delivered as spam. This also happened with all emails from Benchmark’s marketing team too, which is a little concerning.
-Bounce Management	yes	Pretty standard bounce management, flagging contacts as ‘confirmed bounces’ once they hard bounce twice. Note that these count towards your active contact count as long as they are not deleted or set to 'unsubscribed'.
-Blacklist	no	This is not available.
-Storage Available for Data and Images	10MB-10GB	Benchmark only offer a tiny 10MB of image storage, meaning that the average user will have to pay an additional $5 per month to increase it to 10GB.
-Social Media Integration		Apart from basic social media buttons, Benchmark actually have some diverse social media integration. The regulars, Facebook and Twitter, are there, but you’ll also find services like Tumblr, Etsy and Pinterest.
-Newsletter Archive	yes	This is available.
Pro Features
-Authentication	yes	SPF, DKIM and whitelisting all available.
-Own Domain?	no	Tracking links use bmetrack.com as domain name.
-Different Access Levels	yes	Benchmark have sub-accounts available on their paid plans. It lacks some of the customisation depth that other tools have.
-Integrations	yes	Quite a lot of integration available, including social media and most popular products.
-Landing Page Editor	no	This is not available.
Support		The knowledge base is great due to its large library of videos, webinars and even several free ebooks on different topics. The online support was fast, and mostly useful, but they can be quite pushy with trying to call you every time you ask something.
Overall Rating	3.9/5	A breeze  to use and offering a handy free plan. And although parts of the interface can seem outdated, you could do worse than Benchmark.

© EmailToolTester Matrix

Conclusion:

When comparing Benchmark’s paid plans to its competitors, they sit within the middle to higher end, depending on subscriber numbers. They can match their competitors in the areas of ease-of-use, especially when it comes to the editor and template flexibility. But Benchmark starts to lose some of it’s lustre when you look at things such as their basic list management and spam testing issues, which could be important for some businesses.

Unfortunately their marketing automation (a.k.a. ‘Engagement Automation’) is really just a version of an autoresponder and doesn't stack up against the powerful automation offered by, for example, ActiveCampaign.

Coming back to support: while friendly, it can often be a little pushy. I had several calls, and requests for calls, when I just wanted a simple question answered. Also, I’d recommend giving free users a trial period that allows them to try out the paid features, like many other services do.

Benchmark is surprisingly stingy with their image and file storage: 10 MB won't get you far. Keep that in mind when deciding for one of their plans as you'll probably end up paying $5 on top for additional storage.

Benchmark is a capable tool, with a good design and simple enough for first-time users. And with their free plan, it’s worth at least trying them out to see if they fit your needs.

  > Try Benchmark now for free.  

Updates

28 Nov 2016 - Small updates in the storage section.
15-27 Oct 2016 - Initial tests.
 

Last Update: 28 Nov 2016 | Steve Lamattina