Constant Contact now includes AI features that help small businesses write email subject lines, generate email body copy, recommend send times, and build automated email sequences. These tools reduce the time it takes to create a marketing email from 30-45 minutes down to about 10 minutes, and Constant Contact reports that AI-generated subject lines see 10-15% higher open rates on average compared to manually written ones.
Key Takeaways
- Constant Contact’s AI tools are built into all paid plans starting at $12/month. No additional cost for AI features.
- The AI Content Generator creates full email drafts from a brief description of what you want to say.
- AI-powered send time optimization analyzes your subscribers’ behavior and sends emails when each person is most likely to open.
- For small businesses already on Constant Contact, these features are ready to use today with no extra setup.
What AI Features Does Constant Contact Include?
Constant Contact has rolled out AI across several parts of its platform. Here’s what’s available and how each feature works in practice.
AI Content Generator
This is the headline feature. When you create a new email, you can click “Generate with AI” and describe what you want to communicate. For example: “Announce our summer sale, 20% off all services for existing clients, runs June 1-15.”
The AI produces a complete email draft with a subject line, preheader text, body copy, and a call-to-action button. You review it, make edits, and send. The output is decent for promotional emails, newsletters, and announcements. It follows your brand voice if you’ve set that up in the platform.
Where it works well: routine promotional emails, event announcements, seasonal campaigns, and follow-up sequences. Where it falls short: highly personalized content, thought leadership pieces, or emails that need to reference specific client conversations.
Subject Line Recommendations
When you write your own email, Constant Contact’s AI suggests alternative subject lines based on what tends to perform well in your industry. It analyzes open rate data across its user base (hundreds of thousands of small businesses) and recommends phrasing, length, and tone adjustments.
In testing, AI-suggested subject lines consistently outperform the user’s first draft by 10-15% in open rates. The suggestions tend to be shorter, more specific, and include personalization when appropriate.
Send Time Optimization
Instead of guessing when to send your emails, the AI analyzes each subscriber’s past open behavior and delivers the email at the time they’re most likely to read it. This means your 10am newsletter might actually land at 10am for some subscribers, 2pm for others, and 7am for early risers.
This is a meaningful upgrade over the old approach of picking a single send time for your entire list. Constant Contact claims a 25% improvement in engagement from optimized send times, though results vary by industry and list quality.
Automated Email Sequences
The AI helps build multi-step email sequences for common scenarios: welcome series for new subscribers, re-engagement campaigns for inactive contacts, and post-purchase follow-ups. You describe the goal, and the AI suggests the number of emails, timing between them, and content themes for each step.
For a small business owner who’s never built an automated sequence before, this is genuinely useful. It removes the strategic guesswork (“should I send 3 emails or 5? How far apart?”) and gives you a solid starting point to customize.
Constant Contact AI vs. Other Email Platforms
Most major email platforms now include some form of AI. Here’s how Constant Contact compares:
Constant Contact vs. Mailchimp AI: Mailchimp’s AI features are more mature, especially in audience segmentation and predictive analytics. Mailchimp’s Creative Assistant generates branded designs automatically, which Constant Contact doesn’t match yet. Constant Contact’s advantage is simplicity. If you find Mailchimp overwhelming, Constant Contact’s AI is easier to use.
Constant Contact vs. ActiveCampaign AI: ActiveCampaign is more powerful for automation and CRM integration. Its AI handles predictive sending, win probability scoring, and sentiment analysis. It’s also more expensive and complex. For businesses that just need solid AI email marketing, Constant Contact is the simpler, more affordable choice.
Constant Contact vs. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue): Brevo’s AI is strongest in transactional email and SMS marketing. For pure email marketing with good AI assistance, Constant Contact and Brevo are comparable, with Constant Contact having a slight edge in template quality and ease of use.
How to Get the Most Out of Constant Contact’s AI
Set Up Your Brand Voice
Before using the AI Content Generator, configure your brand voice settings in the platform. Tell it your business name, industry, tone (professional, friendly, casual), and any phrases you always or never use. The AI references this profile every time it generates content, which makes the output sound more like you and less like generic marketing copy.
Use AI for First Drafts, Not Final Copy
Treat the AI-generated content as a starting point. Read every email before sending. Add personal touches: a reference to a recent event, a customer story, or a specific detail about your business. The AI handles the structure and gets you 80% there. The last 20% of personalization is what makes your emails feel authentic.
A/B Test Subject Lines
When the AI suggests subject lines, don’t just pick one. Use Constant Contact’s A/B testing feature to test the AI’s suggestion against your own. Over time, you’ll learn what resonates with your specific audience, and you’ll get better at writing subject lines yourself.
Let Send Time Optimization Run for 30 Days
The send time AI needs data to work well. For the first month, let it learn your subscribers’ patterns. After 30 days, the optimization becomes significantly more accurate. Don’t judge it based on the first few sends.
Pricing
All AI features are included in Constant Contact’s standard plans:
- Lite ($12/month): Basic email marketing with AI content generation. Up to 500 contacts.
- Standard ($35/month): Adds automated sequences, A/B testing, and send time optimization. Up to 500 contacts.
- Premium ($80/month): Advanced segmentation, dynamic content, Google Ads integration. Up to 500 contacts.
Pricing scales with contact count. A 2,500-contact list on Standard costs about $55/month. A 10,000-contact list runs about $110/month. No per-email or per-AI-generation fees.
Who Should Use Constant Contact for AI Email Marketing
Good fit: Small businesses that send 2-8 email campaigns per month and want to spend less time writing them. Businesses already on Constant Contact that haven’t explored the AI features yet. Non-technical users who want AI that works without complicated setup.
Consider alternatives if: You need advanced automation with complex branching logic (look at ActiveCampaign). You want AI-powered design recommendations (look at Mailchimp). You’re sending high-volume transactional emails (look at Brevo or SendGrid).
How AI Scale Labs Can Help
We help small businesses set up and optimize their email marketing with AI tools like Constant Contact. Our AI setup service covers platform selection, template creation, automation setup, and list management best practices. Book a call to discuss your email marketing goals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the AI content generator included in all Constant Contact plans?
The basic AI content generator is available on all paid plans, including Lite ($12/month). Advanced AI features like send time optimization and automated sequences require the Standard plan ($35/month) or higher.
Can the AI write emails in languages other than English?
The AI Content Generator works best in English. It can produce content in Spanish and French, but the quality is noticeably lower. For non-English campaigns, use the AI as a structure guide and rewrite the copy in your target language.
Will AI-generated emails hurt my deliverability?
No. Constant Contact’s AI generates content that follows email marketing best practices (appropriate length, balanced text-to-image ratio, clear CTAs). The AI actually tends to produce more deliverable emails than many manually written ones because it avoids common spam triggers.
How does Constant Contact’s AI handle my data?
Constant Contact uses aggregated, anonymized data from its platform to improve AI recommendations. Your specific subscriber data and email content are not shared with other users or used to train the AI models. Check their privacy policy for detailed data handling practices.
