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Hello Bar v/s Icegram Engage – How they compare and which one’s best?

Here's everything you need to know about Hello Bar vs. Icegram before you make your final selection. Let's get started.

HelloBar vs Icegram

Last updated on November 29, 2022

Hello Bar was the pioneering solution that created conversion breakthroughs and a whole new market for high converting marketing message solutions. Hello Bar is a hosted solution, and there’s a WordPress plugin available (rather old) that makes it easy to add your Hello Bar embed code to your WordPress website.

Hello Bar was taken over by Neil Patel’s CrazyEgg a while ago and is completely free now.

Icegram Engage itself took a lot of inspiration from Hello Bar. Especially during conceptualization. And while Hello Bar caused some concerns because of limited number of impressions in the free version when it launched, we decided to keep Icegram Engage core features free so everyone can use it.

In this post we do a head-on, one-on-one comparison of Icegram Engage with HelloBar.

This is Not Apples to Apples…

HelloBar is a hosted solution. Icegram Engage is a WordPress plugin. HelloBar offers header notification bars,popups, overlays and slide-ins. Icegram Engage offers header/footer notification bars, and three other message types – Popups, Messengers and Toast Notifications in the FREE version and sidebars, overlays, interstitials, badges, inlines, ribbons, exit redirects etc as premium addons. Icegram Engage allows creating campaigns and adding multiple messages to it, HelloBar is only for single messages. So Icegram Engage does a lot more than HelloBar…

But why not just compare the action bar message type of Icegram Engage to that of Hello Bar?

Creating your first notification bar…

HelloBar asks for your goal first – collecting emails, driving traffic to a page or sharing and connecting. Then guides you through a wizard like process to create your notification bar. This is great and easy to use.

Icegram Engage creates a sample campaign when you install it on your WordPress site and offers a single screen configuration that’s very easy to understand.

Both Icegram Engage and Hello Bar have a quite user friendly, simplistic, one page configuration panels.

Configuration Panel - Hello Bar
Configuration Panel - Icegram Engage

Styling your action bar

Hello Bar allows you to enter the bar text and then style it according to font color, font, background color, button color etc.

Font Styling - Hello Bar
Font Styling – Hello Bar
Color Styling - Hello Bar
Color Styling – Hello Bar

Icegram Engage gives you similar options of background color, text color. Also it has the fully powered WordPress editor that can be used to style your messages even further. Icegram Engage also does not impose any limits on the size of the message. You can do single line messages, or long texts with images.

This means you can use Icegram Engage even to create header “panels” – not just “bars”.

Styling Options -Icegram Engage
Styling Options -Icegram Engage

Themes

Hello Bar doesn’t provide any themes as such. But gives you color combinations to choose from.

Themes - Hello Bar
Themes – Hello Bar

Icegram Engage on the other hand provides 4 amazing themes. These themes can further be modified (color palette or CSS customizations) in order to suit your website.

Themes - Icegram Engage
Themes – Icegram Engage

Headline Generator

This is a unique feature from Icegram Engage. You don’t need to break your head or spill four cups of coffee devising the perfect headline. Icegram Engage can give you ready options – you fill in the blanks and are ready to go!

Icegram Engage Headline Generator
Icegram Engage’s Headline Generator

Message Editor

Hello Bar comes with a live editor – this gives you a preview of your changes right at the top of current page.

Live Editor - Hello Bar
Live Editor – Hello Bar

Icegram Engage on the other hand gives you flexibility by providing a WordPress editor and a preview mechanism. So you can see how your messages will look on the exact page you are targeting them on. And like we mentioned earlier, you can do single line messages for action bars, or long texts with images for action panels!

WordPress Editor - Icegram Engage
WordPress Editor – Icegram

Positioning – not just header, but footer too…

Both Hello Bar and Icegram Engage give positioning options. However Icegram Engage offers both header and footer positions, and makes it very easy to pick your choice.

Positioning - Hello Bar
Positioning – Hello Bar
Icegram Engage's Positioning Option
Icegram Engage’s Positioning Option

Targeting – whom / where / when to show your notification bar?

Icegram Engage gives you liberty to precisely target your action bars. You can select who, when, how many times and on which device can view your action bar campaign. Icegram Engage campaigns can even be shown with a shortcode…

Hello Bar only provides you two targeting mechanisms. That is Time delay and Exit intent.
Icegram Engage provides both these features in it’s premium addon Behavior Trigger and Advanced Targeting.

Targeting Options - Icegram Engage
Targeting Options – Icegram Engage

Analytics

Hello Bar provides analytics on how your action bar is faring. Icegram Engage provides analytics for tracking how eacho f it’s campaigns are faring.

Analytics - Hello Bar
Analytics – Hello Bar

Price – you do get free meal at times…

Icegram Engage and Hello Bar both are FREE. No limitations!

Summary – so what’s the bottomline?

HelloBar is great for simple, header notification bars. Icegram Engage is great for WordPress site owners who need full power and flexibility.

To summarize let’s put it in a table:

FeatureHello BarIcegram Engage
Configuration PanelSimple to configureSimple to configure
StylingVarious Options availableBasic Options
ThemesColor styles, not themesColor styles + 4 built in themes
Headline GeneratorNot AvailableYes, Unique Feature
EditorBasic, Live PreviewPowerful WordPress editor
PositioningHeader onlyHeader + Footer
Timing ControlYesYes
TargetingTime delay and Exit Intent onlyMany Excellent Targeting Rules
AnalyticsAvailableAvailable
PlatformHosted SolutionWordPress
CampaignsSingle MessageMultiple Messages, Multiple Campaigns
Message Types4, Header bar,Popups, Overlays, Slider4, Notification bars, Popups, Messengers, Toasts
Branding RemovalFree plan – Complusory Branding Pro plan- There’s Branding RemovalYes, even in free version
PriceFree & Pro plan- $50/month for 7500 clicksFree & Premium add-ons

What’s your take?

Hello Bar or Icegram Engage? What is your choice and why? Drop a comment below!

Download Icegram Engage

30 thoughts on “Hello Bar v/s Icegram Engage – How they compare and which one’s best?

  1. I got it! I even posted a review of Icegram on my my website – YesIAmBlogger. I like Icegram and now I am using this on many of my wordpress websites. I would happily recommend this to my readers.

    1. Thank you for the review Vashishtha. We’re glad you are using Icegram 🙂 Thank you for recommending Icegram to your readers as well.

  2. Thanks for the comparison between the two. I just saw an option on a site I visited about the “Hello Bar” and decided to research it because I have never heard of it before and I came across your site comparing Hello Bar with Icegram which is new to me as well. Thanks for sharing. I may try the Icegram first.

    1. Hi Cheryl,

      Do try out Icegram. I’m sure you will find it much more amazing than Hello Bar 🙂 Incase of any difficulties, feel free to reach out to us at hello@icegram.com

  3. Hi currently i am using Hello Bar. Really it gives some fancy look to my website http://www.discountdukan.in . It gives multiple options to place Hello Bar as fixed or floating bar.
    Now i should also try with icegram i got lots of positive comments on this.

    1. Please try Icegram and let us know how it goes?

  4. I am using connecto bar for my website http://dealsout.in/ but in some loading test it lags and scores goes down. I am defiantly trying icegram now to get faster loading and for feature rich lead generation.

    1. Hi,

      Do try out Icegram and surely share your experience too. If you need any assistance reach out to us, we will reply asap.

      -Andrea.

  5. After reading the article and reviews, i’m thinking of using icegram for my website http://recipesmonkey.com soon. Thanks for sharing valuable information.

    1. Thank you for your kind words. Do try out Icegram and let me know if you need any help or guidance related to it.

      Thanks,
      Andrea.

  6. I will download and install icegram for one of my website.

    1. Hi Ekant,

      Do try out Icegram. I’m sure you will find it useful 🙂

      Regards,
      Andrea.

  7. I will check out icegram on one of my blog.

  8. i am rather confused over which to try. i read that hello bar and icegram can collect emails, does that mean i can skip providers like sendinblue, constant contact, mailchimp, optinmonster, stuff with exit intent “technology”, bloom etc? It can all get quite confusing as there appears to be a lot of over lap and i can’t see myself subscribing to 2/3 tools just to handle email marketing smartly.

    1. Hi Chris,

      Icegram, Optin Monster and HelloBar are lead generation tools. They help you collect emails on your website. What you do next is export this list of emails onto email sending services like MailChimp, Aweber, SendinBlue etc.

      So inorder to have a smart email marketing system you will have to pick one lead capture as well as a email marketing tool.

  9. Very useful post.

    1. Thank you for the appreciation 🙂

  10. Relay nice informative blog. Thanks for sharing it.

    1. Thanks for sharing this awesome post. It’s really helpful to me.

  11. Thanks for sharing amazing info

  12. thanks for sharing this post and awesome blog.

  13. I will download and install icegram for one of my website.

  14. Thanks for sharing good blog post about the trendy bloggers, who’s making millions of new audiences also appreciate for the article which you shared with us.
    I always look your website for new update. Go ahead….

  15. Best article thanks for it, good job

  16. Wow! Such a nice article and blog too.

  17. I read on the net, a lot of article on the subject. But I admit that this one is special and unique.Thank you very much for this huge list.

  18. Nice job done here. Your content arrangement is nice and helpful.

  19. This has been very helpful.

  20. I have been looking for this information.

  21. Thanks for Posting. Nice Blog!

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