Sometimes, you don’t need to build a full-fledged, website encompassing all pages with all information. Sometimes, you just need to build one page where you run contests, games, or quizzes. Giveaways, contests, or raffles are standard tools that marketers use to drive traffic. The goal is to increase engagement fast – within minutes. This means you need the right tools to build an engaging and converting page.
And for that, you don’t need an all-purpose website builder but a specialised landing page builder. This is where Shortstack comes in. You can use it to create basic landing pages to capture leads or interactive landing pages to host anything from raffles to competitions.
- Pros and cons of Shortstack
- Who is Shortstack for?
- How easy is Shortstack to use?
- Design and templates
- How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Shortstack?
- Integrations
- What marketing tools does Shortstack provide?
- Payment options
- Security
- Customer support
- Pricing
- Is Shortstack the right solution for you?
Pros and cons of Shortstack
Shortstack is a cloud-based landing page builder that you access with your browser. You can use it to build a landing page with just a form or contests without coding or design skills.
Pros
- Forever free trial
- You can opt into announcements and best-practice mails when you sign up, so if you don’t want to be inundated with mails just don’t toggle the checkbox
- Build with the marketer in mind, so it’s easy to learn and to use
Cons
- Build with the marketer in mind, so if you’re not a marketer, it may take a while to learn
- Views are still limited on the paid plans
- Can be a bit pricy for some, especially if you don’t use the contests regularly
- Limited SEO
Who is Shortstack for?
If you’re driving traffic with social media or PPC campaigns, you want to have a converting landing page, full stop. Shortstack is a bit different in that it can help you run and manage your contest and competition-based marketing activities.
How easy is Shortstack to use?
You can test out Shortstack with its forever free plan, although it’s quite limited with only 20 entries and 100 views per 30 days. Still, you don’t need to have your credit card ready to sign up.
The interface is uncluttered where every element is well-labelled and not hidden behind endless submenus or cryptic icons.
To create a landing page, you first select a template that you then customise in the drag-and-drop editor. If you’ve used a standard website builder, you’ll find your way within minutes.
When you’re done, you have the choice to publish your page as a stand-alone landing page or embedded on an existing site. You can embed it into any website that accepts an iframe.
Design and templates
Each campaign you set up starts with selecting a template for your landing page. You can search the template gallery or browse through the categories. All templates are mobile-ready – as you’d expect nowadays from any provider.
Shortstack has a template for landing pages as well as social media contests so that you can quickly design and run your raffles (Shortstack calls them sweepstakes), contests, or giveaway.
How easy is managing your ecommerce store with Shortstack?
Shortstack is focusing on what you can do to increase engagement as well as generate new leads. So, it wants to help you create campaigns and pages that convert well. This means you’re probably collecting information about the visitors and not trying to run and manage an online store.
Integrations
If you want to run social media campaigns, Shortstack gives you its Hashtag Contests system with which you can run campaigns on different social media such as Twitter or Tiktok. There’s also Facebook Campaign, which does exactly what it says on the tin.
You can connect it to Mailchimp or any CRM with the help of its webhooks, so that visitor information is added directly.
What marketing tools does Shortstack provide?
Effective digital marketing includes maths and keeping track of what happens on the different channels. Therefore, Shortstack provides its own performance analytics of your campaigns in real-time. You can also add the known analytics providers such as Google Analytics.
SEO
SEO in terms of adding meta tags is limited. It’s more about your efforts in social media.
Marketing automation
Integral to digital marketing is what you do with the data post-campaign. Ever filled in a form, be it for a quiz or a freebie, only to get an email right after? You can do it too with Shortstack, from autoresponders to follow-ups and scheduled emails.
For example, you’ll want to do that after a contest, be it for sending out simple “thank you for participating” to informational emails where you declare the winner. Obviously, marketing automation is also helpful for your other campaigns.
Payment options
Accepting payments is usually not in the scope of a social media campaign.
Security
All pages created with Shortstack are secured with SSL.
Customer support
When you work on a campaign, you can browse Shortstacks documentation or contact live customer support. The documentation is well organised and searchable. Customer support via chat and email is available 24/7 for all subscription plans.
Pricing
Once you tested Shortstack and want to work with it, you need to upgrade to one of the 4 paid plans, since the free trial is too limited. If you choose the annual pricing, you can save 20%.
Is Shortstack the right solution for you?
Although Shortstack’s highly specialised, what it sets out to do it does really well. So, if your marketing efforts revolve around generating leads via social media and contests, Shortstack can help you be more effective and efficient.
Do you want me to review a tool? Leave a comment below.
Original post here: Shortstack review – More than a no-code landing page builder
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