Detailed Full Review of ShortStack: All you need to know (2024)

What is Shortstack?

Shortstack - the digital marketing platform created for lead generation, engagement, and marketing automation. Users can create contest landing pages, games, and quizzes from one place.

Shortstack can also organize social media contests, select winners, send emails, and analyze the results. Shortstack offers ready-to-use, editable templates to create mobile-friendly landing pages for quick wins. In addition, it is possible to create simple photo-vote, hashtags and sweepstakes competitions.

Features

For starters, Shortstack offers a great free trial with no time limits and no credit card required. Only the number of entries and views on your Shortstack landing page is limited.

After registering, the software will guide you through the initial steps. It will provide you with helpful tips along the way and even video training for each new task.

Templates

If I had to choose one characteristic that sets Shortstack apart, it would be this one. The platform allows you to develop a variety of online contests using fabulous templates that are easy to customize. And considering the numerous comments in Shortstack reviews, other users share my opinion.

With Shortstack templates, you can create compelling social media landing pages and contests. These templates are incredibly useful when you want to easily and quickly build and organize a giveaway or competition. Simply select the type of competition and a template, then adapt it to your needs.

Here is more information about the types of models available.

Landing Pages

You can use Shortstack to develop several types of contest landing pages. These include giveaways, photo contests, sponsorship contests, quizzes, etc.

There are several models for each type of competition. So, if you want to organize a competition, you will find a variety of competition models for different types of offers.

These templates are fully customizable. So you can use your brand guidelines and adjust any design element you choose. Overall, Shortstack speeds up and simplifies the creation of landing pages with a high conversion rate for your contests. I will discuss the details of the types of competitions available later in this review.

WYSIWYG constructor

Your best friend when building Shortstack landing pages will be the campaign builder.

It is a website builder that uses the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). The campaign you see in the editor will appear in the finished product.

It also means that you can build pages and contests without having previous coding skills. Of course, if you want, you can add your own CSS code (cascading style sheets).

The Shortstack designer could be easier to use. But useful tutorials and a wealth of resources help to simplify processes.

Competition management software

Shortstack is useful not only for designing landing pages and creating contests, but also for managing your contests. It offers several competition management tools. These can help you create and manage a competition from start to finish with minimal effort.

Selection of winners

The selection of winners in an impartial and fair manner is essential to the management of any form of competition. Shortstack can help you automate and simplify this process so you don't have to do it manually.

Shortstack's advanced entry selector is a great tool for quickly selecting random winners. You can also include your selection criteria. This ensures that the winner is selected in accordance with the contest rules.

Rights Management

Competitions are a great way to develop user-generated material. You can share this material on social media or display it on other brand platforms. However, you need to get specific permission from people before using their content.

That's something Shortstack can help you with. Shortstack comments on posts from users you want to use. And it lets you know when they give you permission. The whole procedure is automated. And you can easily locate the UGC (User Generated Content) that you have permission to use.

Entry restrictions and restrictions on access to the right to vote

Several contests allow only one entry per user. Shortstack can help you enforce these participation limitations. In events where votes determine the winner, you don't want the same people to vote more than once. Shortstack includes various voting restrictions that you can place in such situations.

For example, you can set up voting restrictions. You have the choice:

• No restrictions
• Anonymous fingerprint
• Anonymous IP address
• Email address

The only negative is that not all models are available with all plans. You need to have the Agency plan or a higher plan to use some models.

Integrated email tools

Shortstack has excellent email marketing capabilities. Directly from the Shortstack platform, you can send automated emails to contest participants.

These can be thank-you emails for taking the time to participate in contests, informational emails announcing the name of the winner, etc. You can even maintain your prospects by sending follow-up emails after the end of a competition.

Shortstack also allows you to design email campaigns from scratch. Here, several emails are scheduled and sent to each user. Thus, Shortstack provides both an email marketing and contest management solution.

Analytical

You can integrate Shortstack with Google Analytics And at Facebook Meta Pixel. Or you can use its own real-time analysis tools.

The software tracks your views, clicks, and shares, and shows which devices your potential consumers are most likely to use. Even better, you can specify a date range and check the results throughout that time period.

Shortstack's email analytics feature is the most impressive. The platform offers detailed information about the effectiveness of your campaign. You can see how many emails you've sent and how many people have opened or clicked on them.

Account services and platform management

In addition to the tools and features described in the article, Shortstack offers some paid custom services. For example, you can pay their team to moderate contest entries on your behalf.

Hire their custom design team to create and manage your contests. You can talk to their sales team to review what you need and get a quote for these services.

Try their additional services if you are new to the platform. But for most people, the platform is enough to run competitions and campaigns from start to finish.

No multiple accounts

Separate accounts are usually required to organize campaigns for different customers. That's not the case with Shortstack. You can manage all campaigns and customers with a single Shortstack account.

Information storage

Shortstack stores contact information in a database that is easily accessible and exportable.

Fraud prevention

If you designed the contests, make sure that no entries are duplicated. Shortstack ensures this by limiting entries and confirming their legitimacy, which reduces the possibility of fraud.

How do I create a contest with Shortstack?

I'm going to walk through the basic steps of creating a competition to illustrate Shortstack's functionality and ease of use.

Creating a contest on Shortstack is a relatively simple process, which is as follows:

• Click on “campaign” to start a new campaign.
• Select the type of competition you want to organize.
• Please select a model.

• Add tags and a name for your contest.

• Edit and customize the template.
• You can change photos, colors, and backgrounds.
• You can edit the text and add anything you want.
• Click on the section you want to change to see all of your options.

• Publish.

This is a very basic approach to creating a competition. You can always add other elements, such as emails, to your campaigns.

Integrations

Mailchimp and Webhooks are the only native Shortstack connectors. The latter allows you to access other email marketing tools and CRM software.

You can also use Mailchimp and Webhook to connect your Shortstack account to Zapier. This will allow you to integrate any application that Zapier supports.

Thanks to the integration function, you can publish your digital marketing campaign on any content management system (CMS) such as Shopify. It also means that you can publish your Shortstack campaigns on WordPress or any other website that supports HTML.

At first, this might seem pretty tricky, but it's just a copy/paste operation. And Shortstack can show you how to do that if you need help.

Customer Support

Shortstack has a extensive knowledge base and lots of tutorials. The videos are brief and educational, and demonstrate everything you need to know. Some appear automatically while you are using the service.

Pricing

Free

The Shortstack trial is free for life. Unlike many other businesses, Shortstack offers a free version that is completely risk-free. It does not require payment card information and contains everything that is included in the business plan.

But there is a catch. Every 30 days, you're limited to 20 entries and 100 views. If that's enough to get a feel for the product, it won't be enough in the long run.

Business

With this package, you can get up to 10,000 submissions per campaign and 50,000 views per month. You have unlimited emails and campaigns that you can send. You can also create freebies and participate in most social media contests. Just keep in mind that photo upload contests only allow you to post a maximum of two photos per submission. This package costs $99/month.

Agency

The storage limit is increased to 50,000, and the number of monthly views is increased to 250,000. You'll also have access to retweet, hashtag, and video upload contests. Entrants can submit up to five images per competition. The cost is $249/month.

Even better, this plan removes the Shortstack brand. This allows you to create your own custom Shortstack domain.

Marque

The Shortstack Brand plan is quite expensive. It costs $499/month. But this plan supports up to five simultaneous users. Businesses have plenty of room to grow with a 500,000 entry limit and a 30-day cap of 2,500,000 views, an account manager, unlimited retweets, and hashtag contests. In addition, access to all models is a valuable asset.

Enterprise

The most advanced plan removes all restrictions and allows you to customize everything. Customizable options include templates, integrations, and team settings. You can negotiate with the team the number of views, entries, and images uploaded to the contests.

You should contact sales for pricing and Enterprise plan settings.

Security

Shortstack takes security and privacy seriously. It complies with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). It has strong SSL encryption and single sign-on (SSO) with OneLogin integration. SSO provides an additional layer of protection.

Alternatives to Shortstack

1. ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign is a category-defining customer experience automation (CXA) platform. It allows more than 130,000 businesses in 170 countries to communicate with their customers. The platform provides access to more than 500 pre-built automations. These combine theemail marketing and marketing automation.

It also provides a CRM for effective segmentation and personalization. It does this through social, email, messaging, chat, and text for organizations of all sizes. Over 75% of ActiveCampaign customers use one of the company's 850+ connections. These include Microsoft, Shopify, SquareSpace, Facebook, and Salesforce.

• Create tailor-made experiences for your customers across all touchpoints.
• Track shopper preferences, activity, and numerous personalized attributes throughout the customer's life. This improves segmentation and awareness.
• Use data from the complete customer lifecycle. This data determines the best content, the best sending time, and the best delivery channel for each customer.
• Create fully personalized campaigns without any work. Then change your delivery strategy in real time based on customer behavior.
• Reproducing the individual personal experience for each consumer.

Pricing starts at $29/month, payable annually.

Want to know more? Our ActiveCampaign reviews will tell you everything about its pros and cons.

2. GetResponse.

GetResponse is a cloud-based marketing solution. It allows users to communicate with their consumers via email, and you can develop destination sites. It is primarily aimed at small businesses, bloggers, and marketing companies.

GetResponse offers an email generator. The email generator allows you to create emails without prior programming experience. This module includes email templates as well as images to meet design requirements.

GetResponse's inbox preview feature shows how emails appear. Users can assess campaign performance by adjusting things like the purpose and the ideal time to send using A/B testing. GetResponse uses a responsive design strategy. This means that the appearance of emails can be changed depending on how the device is displayed.

The Solution's List Booster component can import contacts from hard drives and email clients. These include gmail, Magento, Salesforce, and Highrise. It also contains an automatic response module. This module can send birthday emails and personalized offers. Chat, email, and tutorials are available to help.

Pricing starts at $15.58/month for the annual plan. There is also a fairly generous free plan.

Read our GetResponse review to find out if this email marketing platform can help your business grow.

3. LeadPages.

LeadPages is a lead generation and sales tool. It's designed for non-designers and businesses that need to execute campaigns quickly and confidently.

The tool includes:

• Drag-and-drop landing page builders
• Custom website templates
• Tracking return on investment
• Brand asset management and more

LeadPages allows marketers to:

• Building mobile-friendly websites
• Create landing pages
• Define pop-up windows
• Alert bars to convert your hard-earned clicks into customers

LeadPages also connects campaigns to other marketing tools. These include webinar platforms, payment processors, email automation, etc. Users can also track and analyze the performance of their campaigns using a real-time dashboard.

Customers frequently praise Leadpages' help as the best they've ever experienced, especially in the SaaS space. The agents are experienced, friendly and eager to go the extra mile to help you get by.

Conversion coaching is also provided weekly to LeadPages customers. You receive marketing advice and feedback on your landing pages and websites. Pricing starts at $99/month.

Learn more about the characteristics of LeadPages in our review here.

4. Unbounce.

Unbounce has a conversion intelligence platform. It helps you convert more visits into sales, customers, and prospects. Unbounce uses your expertise with machine learning to help you translate ideas into marketing campaigns. Campaigns get results, whether it's pre-optimized landing pages produced in minutes or stunning texts prepared for you.

Smart Builder can serve as a developer, designer, and conversion rate specialist. Smart Builder is a landing page builder with pre-optimized page designs. Designs target your industry, audience, and campaign goals. All are powered by data from 1.5 billion conversions.

Goodbye, the blank page syndrome, good morning, more time in your day. Smart Copy develops original texts in six languages. These are intended for more than 45 professional and personal uses in just a few clicks. It takes care of all of your editorial responsibilities, whether it's creating great headlines, advertising content, or composing emails. Even long-running blog posts can be written in minutes.

A/B testing requires time, money, and patience. If you run out of them, then this self-driving vehicle is ideal for you. All you need to do is activate Smart Traffic. And it will start directing each visitor to the landing page that works best for them. That equates to a 30% increase in leads, purchases, and registrations for current Unbounce customers.

Pricing starts at $90/month.

Want to know more? Our Unbounce reviews will tell you everything about its pros and cons.

Affiliate Program

Earn $$$ by referring ShortStack When someone signs up for a paid subscription after clicking on your unique link, you earn a 15% reward. In addition, you will earn an additional 15% for each month your friend continues their paid subscription, for up to one year!

Here is the breakdown of commissions by subscription plan:

• Business Monthly at $99/month: Earn $14.85/month
• Monthly agency at $199/month: Earn $29.85/month
• Monthly brand at $499/month: Earn $74.85/month

If your sponsor signs up for an annual plan, you'll receive a one-time 15% reward for the entire year:

• Annual business at $948/year: Earn $142.20 in total
• Annual agency at $1,908/year: Earn $286.20 in total
• Yearly brand at $4,788/year: Earn $718.20 in total

FAQs

Is there a free ShortStack trial option that I can use?

Yes, you can test all the features of the Business plan for free before upgrading to the higher plan if you like them. With the free trial, you only have 20 entries and 100 views before you need to upgrade to a paid subscription.

Do I need to provide my credit card details to start the free trial?

No, the free trial does not require you to provide credit card information. Without any complications, you can simply sign up and start using ShortStack for free. If you choose to upgrade to a paid plan, you'll simply need to enter your credit card information.

Will my plan be automatically updated if I exceed my existing plan restrictions?

Yes, when you reach the limits of your current plan, you will be upgraded. However, it will not be done without your knowledge, and you will be kept informed.

Final Verdict

To summarize, Shortstack allows you to design custom landing pages and emails. Thanks to these stylistic elements, it is easy to comply with brand rules.

You can have total control. You can use your own domains for independent destination sites. And you can do that without seeking help from the IT department.

It is secure and reliable. The Shortstack platform guarantees 99.99% uptime, giving you the confidence that Shortstack will be there when you need it.

You can manage your team by increasing the efficiency of your staff through the access of team members. You can assign logins to colleagues and customers. This is in order to be able to collaborate on marketing tasks.

Through real-time analytics, you can see how users are interacting with your landing pages and emails using Shortstack.

Finally, is it worth spending my money on this product? Absolutely! When you're just starting out, Shortstack is the ideal solution. It's easy to use and you don't spend a lot of time pulling your hair out trying to figure out how to use it.

There are a few downsides, one being that the model collection is limited. You'll quickly run out of them all, so you may need to switch to one of the Shortstack alternatives with more features. With that in mind, let's take a final look at the best Shortstack alternatives.