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In the spirit of GetVero, Intercom.io and Mixpanel, here is our done-is-better-than-perfect take on drip campaigns. Definitely check out the docs [1] and the de

by bryanh 14y ago

In the spirit of GetVero, Intercom.io and Mixpanel, here is our done-is-better-than-perfect take on drip campaigns. Definitely check out the docs [1] and the demo [2] for a better idea of what it does (and doesn't do). My favorite feature is the ability to view "scheduled" emails. Hope the services out there add that feature! [1] https://django-drip.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ https://django-drip.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ [2] http://djangodrip.com/ http://djangodrip.com/

yesimahuman 14y ago
Just wanted to add Customer.io, which is a similar service we have been evaluating. It'll be interesting comparing this with that.
- jmathai 14y ago
  I was just going to make a comment regarding Customer.io. We've been using them for a few months and are very pleased.
- sudonim 14y ago
  Thanks guys. Colin, co-founder of http://Customer.io http://Customer.io here. The build vs. buy decision for people is always an interesting one. Taking a quick look at the app, if you're using Django, it's for sure worth a try. Some of the questions you may want to ask: * How do you know if your emails are working? * Which emails has randomuser@gmail.com received? * How do you handle unsubscribes? We take care of those as well as answering many other questions. And we're working full time on improving the product for you. So, how much is an hour of your time worth? And how many hours will you spend building your answers to the questions above? If you want to hack around with a system for fun or curiosity, do it. Otherwise, whether you use us or someone else, you're better off buying. P.S. For pythonistas, an awesome customer built python bindings for us that I just pulled in: https://github.com/customerio/customerio-python https://github.com/customerio/customerio-python
  - WadeF 14y ago
    While I typically agree that buying is better than building this was one case where building still made the most sense for us. See the post below: https://zapier.com/blog/2012/10/14/when-you-should-build-not-buy/ https://zapier.com/blog/2012/10/14/when-you-should-build-not... Here's a portion of an email I wrote to another email company about why we built this: I've run email for multiple companies now, and the biggest problem I've always faced is a disconnect between what data the third party holds vs. what data is in my internal database. There's also a bit of an issue with us (Zapier) that a lot of things happen on when a user isn't on site so we have to use the API to constantly push data to the third party if we want it to work. This requires us to either 1) figure out what data we should be pushing or 2) push everything. The first part is annoying because it's hard to predict what is needed and developers hate getting requests to add just one more piece of data to the email service. The second part is not great because now we spend a bunch of resources sending everything and the third party can essentially replicate our database or we push so much data that it becomes cost prohibitive. So we just built a simple logic builder around MailGun that handles sending email. It's not perfect (i.e. we don't have great analytics and all our emails go out at the same time ever day), but we can literally segment on anything. Every single table in our database. And for a service with use cases all over the place this saves me from sending stupid generic emails or from sending an email about sales to developers or an email about github to a marketer. edit: my hope is still that a 3rd party service figures this out because I'd much rather pay someone for this than build it. But if building is the only way you get features you need, then build you must. P.S. I think Bryan might have spent a weekend hacking on this. So not a ton of resources lost especially considering that you can't spend all your brain waves hacking on your core product or you'll go mad.
    - bryanh 14y ago
      Again, we would like to reiterate: we would have loved to buy this. But Wade outlined the reasons we couldn't scratch our itch with products like yours (or your competitors).
      - sudonim 14y ago
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Just wanted to say "Thanks". I'm building out a web application right now and this was on my feature list.
- eupharis 14y ago
  Seconded! This looks perfect.

by bryanh 14y ago

yesimahuman 14y ago

Just wanted to add Customer.io, which is a similar service we have been evaluating. It'll be interesting comparing this with that.

jmathai 14y ago
I was just going to make a comment regarding Customer.io. We've been using them for a few months and are very pleased.
sudonim 14y ago
Thanks guys. Colin, co-founder of http://Customer.io http://Customer.io here. The build vs. buy decision for people is always an interesting one. Taking a quick look at the app, if you're using Django, it's for sure worth a try. Some of the questions you may want to ask: * How do you know if your emails are working? * Which emails has randomuser@gmail.com received? * How do you handle unsubscribes? We take care of those as well as answering many other questions. And we're working full time on improving the product for you. So, how much is an hour of your time worth? And how many hours will you spend building your answers to the questions above? If you want to hack around with a system for fun or curiosity, do it. Otherwise, whether you use us or someone else, you're better off buying. P.S. For pythonistas, an awesome customer built python bindings for us that I just pulled in: https://github.com/customerio/customerio-python https://github.com/customerio/customerio-python
- WadeF 14y ago
  While I typically agree that buying is better than building this was one case where building still made the most sense for us. See the post below: https://zapier.com/blog/2012/10/14/when-you-should-build-not-buy/ https://zapier.com/blog/2012/10/14/when-you-should-build-not... Here's a portion of an email I wrote to another email company about why we built this: I've run email for multiple companies now, and the biggest problem I've always faced is a disconnect between what data the third party holds vs. what data is in my internal database. There's also a bit of an issue with us (Zapier) that a lot of things happen on when a user isn't on site so we have to use the API to constantly push data to the third party if we want it to work. This requires us to either 1) figure out what data we should be pushing or 2) push everything. The first part is annoying because it's hard to predict what is needed and developers hate getting requests to add just one more piece of data to the email service. The second part is not great because now we spend a bunch of resources sending everything and the third party can essentially replicate our database or we push so much data that it becomes cost prohibitive. So we just built a simple logic builder around MailGun that handles sending email. It's not perfect (i.e. we don't have great analytics and all our emails go out at the same time ever day), but we can literally segment on anything. Every single table in our database. And for a service with use cases all over the place this saves me from sending stupid generic emails or from sending an email about sales to developers or an email about github to a marketer. edit: my hope is still that a 3rd party service figures this out because I'd much rather pay someone for this than build it. But if building is the only way you get features you need, then build you must. P.S. I think Bryan might have spent a weekend hacking on this. So not a ton of resources lost especially considering that you can't spend all your brain waves hacking on your core product or you'll go mad.
  - bryanh 14y ago
    Again, we would like to reiterate: we would have loved to buy this. But Wade outlined the reasons we couldn't scratch our itch with products like yours (or your competitors).
    - sudonim 14y ago

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

Just wanted to say "Thanks". I'm building out a web application right now and this was on my feature list.

eupharis 14y ago
Seconded! This looks perfect.