With such a huge range of WordPress plugins to help build your mailing list, you might wonder what Hybrid Connect has to offer that makes it different to all the other similar plugins.
Over the last few years I’ve used a number of popular plugins to handle email opt-in forms, popups, popunders etc, but I’ve settled on using Hybrid Connect for all my sites.
You’ve probably already noticed that I use Hybrid Connect forms in various locations and designs on this website.
To find out how I came to the decision to use Hybrid Connect exclusively on all my sites (and for clients), read on…….
Hybrid Connect Summary
[framed_box width=”90%” bgColor=”#EAFFF8″ rounded=”true”]Official Website: http://hybrid-connect.com
Publisher: IM Impact – Shane Melaugh & Paul McCarthy
Price: $39 for Single Site, $57 for Multi Site and $127 for Professional License
Guarantee: 30 day money back guarantee
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Video Review
For those of you that prefer the visual medium, the video below gives a good summary of using Hybrid Connect.
Hybrid Connect Features
I’m not going to bore you with all the features of Hybrid Connect, as it does a lot of the stuff most other similar plugins do. Instead, I’m going to cover the features that I considered to be major factors in my decision to purchase Hybrid Connect.
Facebook Sign Up
Firstly, the main selling point of Hybrid Connect is its ability to show an opt-in form with either the traditional email address sign up, or Facebook connect, depending on whether the visitor is logged into Facebook or not.
Note that this hybrid feature is entirely optional. On one of my client websites, I turned off the Facebook option as their target audience weren’t big Facebook users.
You have complete control over how you want Hybrid Connect to operate.
Form Designer and Customization
While my web design skills are OK, anything that makes the task easier is most welcome.
Hybrid Connect comes with a range of pre-designed templates that you can use as your starting point for building your forms.
The screenshot below shows a small selection of the various templates.
Once you have chosen your template, you can edit the text and images.
To get the form looking exactly how you want, there is an extensive list of customization options that you can tweak. If I was being nitpicking, I’d say that the customization options might be a little overwhelming for some people and it would be nice to see a basic/advanced settings for customizing.
The screenshot below gives you an idea of the types of elements you can change.
It is important to note that while there are a large number of options to tweak, as you get a preview of the form that instantly updates whenever you change the settings, you can easily see what affect each option has.
Flexibility of Form Placement
I really like that you can display Hybrid Connect forms pretty much anywhere you like on your site, either via the built in settings, shortcodes, widgets or the raw code you can insert anywhere on your theme.
Hybrid Connect allows you to create:
- Forms on any post/page
- Forms at the bottom of any post/page
- Widget to add forms to the sidebar
- Lightbox form
- Squeeze page
- Slider Forms
Hybrid Connect Support
Quite often, one major factor that is commonly overlooked when purchasing software is the level of support and upgrades you get.
Too many times I’ve purchased software from seemingly reliable sources, only to find that when it comes time to get a response to a support ticket, the reply is either not helpful or in a lot of instances, it is non-existent.
I’ve been using Hybrid Connect since it was initially released as a beta product. As it was an early release, I did find some bugs and limitations with it, but I was highly impressed with the level of support I received and a number of suggestions I made to improve Hybrid Connect were incorporated into later releases.
Additionally, because this product was created by Shane Melaugh, I have a very high level of confidence that the support and development of Hybrid Connect is solid. I can base that opinion on Shane’s previous excellent track record with looking after his clients.
Summary
Given my very favourable impressions of Hybrid Connect so far, I have great confidence that you’ll find it one of the best list building plugins out there.
I encourage you to try it out for yourself.
[button size=”large” link=”http://umstrategies.com/hybrid-connect” linkTarget=”_blank” color=”blue”] Click here to visit the Hybrid Connect website [/button]
Cheers
Hi Peter
What do you consider are the benefits of Hybrid that makes it better than Viperchill’s Optinskin?
Thanks
Hi Paul.
Given there are so many opt-in plugins, I obviously have seen or used them all.
I hadn’t heard of OptinSkin before, so my opinion is based solely on the OptinSkin sales page.
One of the main selling points of Hybrid Connect is that it automatically taps into the Facebook user market by offering a Facebook sign-up if the user is signed into Facebook, otherwise it presents the traditional name/email form.
I’m not aware of any other opt-in plugin that does that.
Also, Hybrid Connect creates opt-in forms, widgets, shortcodes, lightboxes and slide-in bars. It doesn’t look like OptinSkin offers all those.
Two features OptinSkin has that Hybrid Connect doesn’t have are:
1. Social Media buttons. Mind you, given there are a ton of free social media plugins, I don’t see this as much of an advantage.
2. Split testing. That’s supposed to be the next thing on the Hybrid Connect development, and may already be implemented by the time most people read this.
Apart from that, they have some similar features, so my suggestion is to try both out as they both have money back guarantees.
Cheers
Peter
Hi Peter – thanks for the review of Hybrid – much appreciated!
I hope you don’t mind me jumping in here to add a comparison of Optin Skin v Hybrid.
Disclaimer: I am one of the creators of Hybrid and did a lot of the development work on it so I’m potentially biased!
OptinSkin has social media sharing buttons that we don’t include in our templates. There are a few main reasons for that:-
– In most cases the value of a subscriber is higher than the value of a typical share
– Choice can have a seriously detrimental affect on conversion rates
– As you said, Peter, there are a number of plugins out there that do it already.
Here is where I think we are strong in comparison to Optin Skin:-
– We have 40 + templates, OptinSkin currently has 19 (I just counted the designs to make sure this is accurate).
– Our template designer is more flexible and has live updates so you can change pretty much any element of the opt in box as you see fit. Optin Skin’s customisation is less extensive – for instance it’s impossible to change the width / height of your opt in boxes.
– Optin skin does post footer, widget and shortcode optin boxes. Hybrid does all the aforementioned plus squeeze pages, lightboxes and fly-in boxes.
– Hybrid Connects with Gotowebinar so you can sign users up to webinars and your mailing list at the same time. Optin Skin doesn’t offer this.
– Hybrid Connect has link tracking so you can create your own tracking links to see where your subscribers are coming from. Optin Skin doesn’t have this, either.
– Both Optin Skin and Hybrid Connect have split testing. Optin Skin’s split testing is manual – you set it up once and it’s up to you to go back, monitor the results and declare the winner.
Also, the only stats provided are “Impressions”, “Submissions” and “Conversion Rate”.
Hybrid will automatically measure the conversion rate and statistical significance of the variations in the test to determine winners automatically once 95% is met. Any serious split testing tool should have this “statistical significance” percentage measure – it ensures that the winning variations haven’t just won out of “luck” and that they are instead mathematically probable.
Furthermore, because of the nature of the Hybrid Connect interface – I think it’s easier to create incremental tests but that’s personal opinion.
– Hybrid Connect allows you to have Facebook forms, opt in forms or hybrid forms – Optin skin has only opt in forms.
Like I said, I am the creator of this product so I am biased, but I’ve tried to keep this as factually correct as possible.
Paul
Hello Peter,
Hybrid Connect looks like an awesome plugin. I’m looking forward to playing with this one. This plugin has so many options and I really love the Facebook sign-in.
Hi Peter
Thanks so much for helping me decide on the Hybrid Connect and OptinSkin plugin. I like the look of both, I’m hoping to get Hybrid Connect and crossing my fingers it will work with my theme setup. I have quite a few plugins now so hoping there isn’t any conflicts. Still good to know there is a money back gurantee if it doesn’t work.
Saving your site now as thought in the video you sounded very genuine and honest.
Hi Phil
Thanks for your feedback. Very much appreciated.
Cheers
Peter
I’ve been looking for a replacement for my optin plugin “wpsubscribers” which is very similar to this. I actually love WPsubscribers.
Howerver: I need to start using an affordable CDN such as Amazon Cloudfront and it turns out that WPsubscribers plugin clashes with CDN. In other words, CDN does not work unless I disable WPsubscribers.
Do you know or maybe one of the developers can help, if this will work with a CDN ?
Hi Annie.
I’ve forwarded your query direct to the developer of Hybrid Connect, so hopefully you should get a response from them soon.
Cheers
Peter
Hi Peter – thanks for the heads up.
Annie sent a ticket to the helpdesk yesterday about this and so I’ll add the response that I sent to her:
“Hi Annie,
Thanks for your note, here are your answers:-
I can’t guarantee that Hybrid will run find with Amazon’s CDN as it’s never been tested. If you did want to take the plunge to test the plugin and find that it doesn’t work well with Amazon, let me know and we’ll refund you as part of our refund policy.
Also, I have rewritten the plugin so that it works fine with caching plugins like W3 Super Cache. You should be aware, though, that if you make changes to your designs with W3 Super Cache / Total Cache running then they don’t always update and you have to clear the cache to see your changes (we get a few support tickets about that regularly).
Best Regards,
Paul
Thanks Peter and Paul,
I went ahead and bought the plugin. It looks awesome. The video intro demonstrating what and how it works really sealed the deal. I am crossing my fingers about it working with CDN Amazon Cloudfront. If you google WPSubscribers and CDN, you will find loads of people saying that CDN only works when they disable the plugin. So it’s a realy issue that I bet future users will have as more people get this plugin. Especially blogs with more traffic that need to use CDN because of website load time…
Annie
Hi there!
Good review on Hybrid Connect. At the same time, Paul did a very good comparison as well!
Thank you!
Hi peter,
Hybrid connect is a great plugin, I bought it after reading a couple of reviews and since I bought it, I have been enjoying it.
Hi, I just bought Optinmonster and it is beautifull but so damn buggy. Seems to be a problem with php 5.4 or just buggy. I get no support and I hope to get my money back. I tried a lot of those plugins and they all suck. So Now Hybrid Connect is my last option I’m affraid. I have few questions about Hybrid Connect for you.
First question is if you can style these optin forms to flat designs? This looks best on my blog. So no 3D and round corners.
Second. How does it work in mobile mode? Does the text and buttons squash togheter making it look some code has exploded like all the other plugins do?
(Optinmonster did not. It looked great actually but it just did not work!)
You know text that is glued to one side and that kind of crap..
Hope Hybrid connect works because I spent my entire weekend trying to get this fixed on my blog without result..
Regards Jochgem
Hi Jochgem
The best thing about Hybrid Connect is that you have complete control over the design.
It’s very easy to create a flat design as you control how much shadow and rounded corners you want (or none at all).
Hybrid Connect uses a responsive design, so any forms you create should work with whatever screen size you are using.
Cheers
Peter