Act-On

Vorteile

Act-On is a simple to use platform with WYSIWYG editors for emails, forms, and landing pages. You can quickly set up multiple touch point campaigns.

Nachteile

Act-On recently updated their email composer which made it more cumbersome to design emails. They haven't forced users to use it yet, but eventually it will replace the existing composer.

Vorteile

There is a huge uniqueness in the services I get from Act-On compared to my switch softwares. I have experience a fast way to reach out to our leads through SMS and emails. It is quite effective and saves time too. We have been able to collect important data concerning our marketing efforts. It is generally easy to launch and user friendly.

Nachteile

I can't get enough of this. Act-On is easy to use and quite customizable. I have only experienced advantageous services so far.

Vorteile

Absolutely nothing. I came from using Pardot at my previous company and then was stuck with this poor excuse for an automation system for two years. Luckily we're in the process of switching back to Pardot at the moment.

Nachteile

Pricing Model Not Built to Scale: They think that the "pay for contacts" pricing model is a pro, but it is not! For any marketer with a growing database this is a pure nightmare given that they are basically unresponsive when you need to add more contacts. We are actually currently in a situation where we can't get ANYONE to respond to help us add more contacts, which means that I cannot execute on a very large campaign that we were set to launch yesterday.

Customer Service: As mentioned above, good luck getting anybody to actually call you back or fix your issues. If you have any level of sophistication in your marketing programs and automation, it's just a matter of when you're going to run into issues with Act-On, and half the time, they don't even know why the system doesn't work. I just got a call back a few days ago about a support ticket I submitted in JULY (it's October 18 right now).

Product: Act-On does not have a contacts database. So if you need to look up a contact and see every list that they are on, every automation program they are in, or to manage their subscriptions or lists, you cannot. That's right - there is no way to globally search for a contact in Act-On. This is absurd. There is no way that you can call yourself an automation system in 2018 and not have this most basic of capabilities.

Vorteile

Act-On offers automated program templates, all of which are completely customizable to meet our needs in driving leads in our marketing plan. The ease of use which is visually appealing with drag-and-drop, list segmenting, lead scoring options and integrations all work for our organization on both the user level and administrator level.

Nachteile

Pricing as this tool is at the higher end of some marketing resources. Also, the inability to schedule integrating segment runs at the earliest of four hours has caused issues with some of our marketing aspects.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

HubSpot Marketing Hub und Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Act-On

We were in need of a very comprehensive social media and automation tool and Act-On was highly recommended and after test driving, the ease of use and functionality proved itself.

Vorteile

Act-On is easy to use and great metrics!

Nachteile

Nothing I'd change about this software!

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Marketo Engage

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I chose Act-On because of the ease of use, their intuitive interface, and metrics. Their automation is amazing and allows me to focus on other lead generation tools in addition to social publishing tools. Our business has greatly benefitted from their significant increase in delivery rate than the last email marketing platform.

Vorteile

Most actions are very intuitive and the tool is easy to navigate.

Nachteile

Our onboarding experience wasn't the best, but Act-on has since implemented a new onboarding process that involves thorough training and set-up. We went to the bootcamp later and we are pleased that Act-on now offers that at the kickoff for other customers.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement und Marketo Engage

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Act-On

Act-on looked to be easy to use and intuitive, whereas the others seemed a bit more complex.

Vorteile

Less expensive, serves the purpose for a while not for long run

Nachteile

ui and ux is very poor and navigation was not so friendly

Vorteile

Act-On has proven to be a valuable tool in optimizing my marketing efforts in the aviation industry. Efficient task automation has freed up my time, allowing me to focus on more creative strategies and high-quality content generation.

Nachteile

While Act-On offers customization, some advanced features may require deeper technical skills.

Vorteile

We like to use Act-On to have a bigger impact on our clients, the personalization is very good, it empowers our sales force, it keeps the marketing automated which allows us to maintain a good interaction with our clients, good detailed reports. It allows us to segment our clients to design specific marketing strategies.

Nachteile

Our expectations with Act-On have been exceeded as we have increased our sales and customer acquisition, we have achieved good ROI with this software, the implementation was easy and it has great technical support.

Vorteile

Provides valuable insights through data enabling for both inbound and outbound marketing creating an alignment between sales and data.

Nachteile

The price is high compared to competitors.

Vorteile

Act-on was supper easy to learn how to use, with good end results. Easy to design emails for folks with little design experience.

Nachteile

Couldn't get Act-on to communicate well with Dynamic CRM or Infor CRM. Real shame. We moved to Sales Force and use Pardot now. Better back end, but design tools no where as good as Act-on.

Vorteile

Since implementing Act-On, my click-through rates have increased by nearly 200%! The product is very user-friendly and the onboarding process was a breeze. Highly recommend!

Nachteile

Overall, Act-On is a very good marketing automation tool. There are some features which could be improved, but for the most part it is a very user-friendly tool which was easy to integrate with my existing business processes. The support team was very helpful in getting us up and running and we were quickly able to see the value that Act-On could bring to my marketing efforts.

Vorteile

Act-On gives me the ability to get extremely specific with my target prospects and customers. It's easy to build new segments and immediately see the size of those groups. It's very useful for data mining and determining where to focus your marketing efforts. For example, in just a couple of minutes (assuming you've done the work to collect the information from customers and store them properly in custom lists) you can create a segment of prospects who have downloaded or purchased x product from your website, meet criteria x,y,z for their attributes, have opened or clicked messages in a specific timeframe, and have visited a specific page of your website. You have the ability to get as granular as you want. You can then build automated programs that send targeted and timely messages depending on where these prospects are in your funnel and use conditional logic to define any future interactions.

Nachteile

The UI in some areas of the platform could use some design enhancements for aesthetics and for consistency throughout.

Vorteile

Syncing with SFDC is awesome. Easy to use - novices can pick it up quickly. Reporting is quite good and easy to understand. Love the continuous product improvements that are made.

Nachteile

WYSIWYG can drive you crazy, especially with formatting and fonts and hyperlinks, making it tedious to get the look you want. Lately it has been very slow to load, especially photos/graphics.

Vorteile

This software works very well for our company. A lot of people I've chatted with feel it's out of date but for us, it's perfect. It's easy to write and send an email campaign, and even easier to track the results! I also appreciate how easy it is to use with Dynamics CRM and upload .csv files.

Nachteile

There really isn't anything I don't like about this software. I haven't had a negative experience and it hasn't disappointed me in any way.

Vorteile

Once you learn it, you realize how nice of a tool it is. Email campaigns, lead scoring, assessing total voice of customer -- it's all there.

Nachteile

Unless you get the white glove setup service, it's tough to really figure out what you're doing at first. I would not recommend for Dynamics CRM (it's missing features that other CRMs have). The Outlook email template plugin is nice when it works, but more often than not, there are problems. I do wish they help you better understand what data fields are required in both Act-On as well as the CRM, and how to add/edit what is being integrated.

Vorteile

With Act-On's Activity History, I am able to view a Timeline that helps to keep me organized so I know what I may still need to send and so that I have a good idea about whether or not my prospects are getting communications that they should. Sometimes, with email blasts emails may not get through an organization's spam filter, but using the Activity History and Timeline in Act-On and testing by sending things through Act-On Anywhere in Outlook help to determine who need to receive emails alternate ways.

Nachteile

Often times, maintenance and issues are not brought to our attention prior to us having issues with the software not working or causing issues with our campaigns. Having warnings in advance of when maintenance is being done or of possible known issues so that we can watch for them and be prepared would help a great deal.

Vorteile

That you can do everything in one place, you don't need to code anything, (it is useful if you want to improve features or personalize a little bit more, but really not necessary) all modules are easy to use.
You have Social Media, Automation, Reporting, Scoring, detailed contact information, connectors, etc.

Nachteile

I think that lists could be updated a bit, like being able to sort by any of the columns.
I don't like that they don't have a connector for Instagram and only to webinar options.

Vorteile

Act-On is FAST to get running, whether using alone, or in conjunction with another platform like Salesforce. Answers, insight, follow up automation are all easily obtainable quickly without being sent to a week-long training seminar for $1500.

Nachteile

Act-On is still building out some capabilities that other players like Eloqua have had. But if you're just starting out, you're not likely to need those features for some time as you get your feet under you. A/O is best for small to mid-size firms.

Vorteile

This is a very robust email marketing program with marketing automation capabilities. We switched to Act On to be able to take advantage of setting up automated campaigns based on user behavior both in our emails and on our website.

Nachteile

Because the automation capabilities are so robust, this software has a very steep learning curve. It would not have been feasible for us to use this for marketing automation in-house without a full time person just using Act-on. We had to hire a consultant to be able to use this software.

Vorteile

Act-On is an extremely easy to use software. It is mapped out in a user friendly fashion to where you feel you are utilizing as much as possible from the program.

Nachteile

We have encountered a few deliverability issues with sending our email campaigns and I've felt that at times Act-Ons customer service has not always been the most responsible or understanding. They provide help but not necessarily in correlation with the severity of the matter.

Vorteile

Act-On gives our marketing teams the ability to send out email drip campaigns and monitor website visitors.

Nachteile

Act-On is a very in-depth software and takes quite a bit of time to understand and become familiar with.

Vorteile

Very simple user interface. With a team spread out across the country, there was no problem in teaching everyone how to use this platform. Really like that I can schedule out my email for time zones, that is a great feature.

Nachteile

Sometimes painfully slow to run. Also, help desk would take a long time to respond to a request that would be marked as urgent. While I understand a small company is not biggest fish to fry, it would be nice to have responses within an hour if marked urgent during normal business hours.

Vorteile

Ease of use and template share between markets is great.

Nachteile

All the bells and whisltes are a bit overwhelming.

Vorteile

Act-On’s automation platform is intuitive, I like the way the menu is built, it’s been made in a logical order so that when you move from one section to another, you go down the logical path to build automation.
The support team is great, they’re efficient and patient ! There are many ways to find answers and tips; the Act-On community, the Act-On university, the online training courses, the webinars, everything is made for us to easily learn and efficiently use the platform.

Nachteile

Sometimes it takes us quite some times to do some simple tasks, for example when editing a step in an automated program, we have to wait a few seconds for the system to record what we edited and allow us to move to the next step. When there are many steps, it can become frustrating. Another example is when editing an image using Act-On editor, it can time many minutes before we can see the changes on the image where it’s being used (in emails, landing page, etc). These delays can be a bit frustrating when you are working on a template and you can’t finish it because some of the assets are still being processed by the system.
The marketing calendar is a bit confusing sometimes, I see messages that have not been sent marked as sent, and we can only have a month view unless we export the details.

Vorteile

I liked everything about this software! It was truly an all-in-one deal. First of all, it integrated with our CRM (we used SugarCRM). The features related to this integration were: lead generation from our web forms, lead generation from our email campaigns, lead generation based on user action. It also pulled information in from our CRM, so any lead lists we created in our CRM (manually or automatically based on file status, etc) could be pulled into ActOn for campaigns.

Next, it integrated with our website - it also has the ability to design your own website within ActOn that allows for even more neat features. It tracked users across emails & webpages and the reports allowed us to drill down to specific geographical areas of activity, key words used, which pages they were on and for how long, etc. It also gave a numerical value (that you can custom set) to each action and at a certain point could put that contact into a sales cycle or send an alert to the sales team to reach out to them.
Lastly, the automated marketing feature was THE BEST. You have the ability to design a multi-faceted campaign that could run for a set amount of time, or indefinitely. What I found to be the cherry on top was that you could set actions for contacts who didn't do certain things (didn't click, didn't open, etc) and then repeat steps or put them into different tracks.
As huge as this program seems, it was also incredibly easy to navigate. Saved our teams a lot of time and energy.

Nachteile

The most challenging features were the design elements. It was very template based and it took some CSS or HTML skills to make them less-standard. This was true for everything - emails, web pages, landing pages, etc.

Vorteile

Sincerely easier to use than others on the market, great overall feature set, love the dynamic content options, program templates were a game changer, account-based marketing provides visibility into how programs are doing at the Account-level that we haven't had.

Nachteile

The UI is slowly being overhauled but I'd like to see this go faster. Their out-of-box reports aren't great, but I haven't run across a marketing automation platform who has great reporting (I do like Marketo's Opportunity Analyzer report) and we use Data Studio to simply pull data out the way we want it to populate our reports in excel or Tableau

Vorteile

We just started using Act-On a few months ago. We had debated marketing automation companies to go with for years. Overall, Act-On was able to go toe-to-toe in most regards with the other vendors we were considering, at least. The deciding factor was the pricing model, which is a bit unusual. They only charge you for "active" contacts, which are contacts you are actually reaching out to. You can import other contacts for reporting, data synchronization, or potential marketing purposes down the line if you wish, and you won't be charged for them. The support team at Act-On is great. During our evaluation, I received an email from the CEO himself, asking what he could do to help us choose. Throughout implementation, we had several calls and I was always provided what we needed quickly. Act-On does so many things, it would be impossible to cover here, but I like their email and landing page creator. I found it to be very intuitive. The user interface is showing some age, but it's very straightforward and there's not a lot of guessing about how to use it. Act-On is list based, which is the "old" methodology in the industry right now, but if you're a fan of that strategy, you'll feel right at home. Workflow creation is very easy. Data Studio (an add-on) also allows you to create custom reporting, and baked in integrations and an automated FTP connection allow you to get your data talking to each other automatically. The university has great educational information available too.

Nachteile

You'll get out of Act-On what you put into it. The support and university is there to guide you in that process, but it's ultimately up to you. That's how it is with any platform that doesn't offer in-house services, but with a marketing automation suite, you will really get more out of it if you have knowledgeable staff that have experience implementing and using these platforms. It can be daunting if it's your first time using a marketing automation suite. While Act-On is working on some new things, I don't know that they are putting as much effort behind investing into the product as some of the leading companies in the space. Also, some of the tools are a little rudimentary, and the UI could certainly use some modernizing. It feels too much like Windows XP at times.

Vorteile

Act-On is a robust, yet easy-to-use solution that combines multiple marketing applications into one. It has been a workhorse for us. While it can serve more than a dozen vital functions, including social media management and ABM, I most appreciate its integration with our CRM system (Microsoft Dynamics 365) and how it can be used to automate nurture programs, score leads based on behavior/engagement, and monitor web site visitor activity. I’m also very impressed by members of the tech support team who are very patient and have bailed us out of an after hours pinch more than once.

Nachteile

Keeping up with the constant evolution of Act-On is a full-time job. I often feel like we’re 5 steps behind in understanding newly released features and everything it can do. Of course, that’s a good problem. My only true critique is that the organization seems to have gone through some growing pains and lost its personal touch along the way. When I first selected and implemented Act-On at my previous company 4 years ago, I felt like our sales rep and implementation team were truly invested in our success. I was so impressed by the product and Act-On’s customer success team that I implemented it again at my next company and recommended it to several peers. However, faces began to change quickly, and we had 3 different reps in the same year. Our new contacts were less interested in our success and more interested in what we could do for them. One became obsessed with recruiting our company as a reseller. Things have settled down, but I don’t feel like they value our business as much as they once did.

Vorteile

The system was pretty easy to use. The set-up process for lead nurturing, forms, creating newsletters and other tools were pretty useful.

Nachteile

Customer service, account limits, aesthetics were below average. The customer service was woeful, the original salesperson who on-boarded me and two referral partners promised the world features wise. Lots of nice looking mocks and promises were made yet nothing provided. On the customer service side of things, on two occasions when the unique contacts and email limit was exceeded the entire system shuts-down. All nurturing campaigns cease and there is no ability to send any emails at all. It took two weeks for someone to be able to apply a temporary increase to allow our marketing efforts to continue.

Vorteile

We chose Act-on as our marketing automation software because of its native integration with Salesforce, our CRM at the time.

We made the move from Marketo, and Act-on has a much easier user interface. There were so many things we could track and do.

We had great customer service, including weekly calls with a customer experience rep.

Nachteile

Like most marketing automation software, the key to success is learning all of the ins and outs of the system, then create a strategy surrounding it.

If you don't have someone on your team willing to take advantage of all of the features, the price might outweigh the benefit.

Our customer experience rep could have helped more in overall strategy and campaign building, but they were incredibly busy, too busy to go in depth on those items.

The team ended up moving to a simpler and cheaper product because they weren't taking advantage of everything Act-on had to offer.

Vorteile

I liked that over the past four years I have worked with the product I have seen it grow leaps and bounds. They have a team that is dedicated to making smart improvements with the product.

Nachteile

Like all products this isn't perfect. I had the most problems with our sales rep kept changing. Also, once in a blue moon a feature would change without proper notification.

Vorteile

Great support and product learning program. The integration with our CRM and overall features/ease-of-use was excellent. It was a pleasure working with their team.

Nachteile

I'd like to have more in-person user group opportunities to discuss best practices.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement und Marketo Engage

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Act-On

Integration to SugarCRM

Vorteile

The company's main advantage (whether they market it or not, but they definitely use it during a sale) is they allow for companies to BUY lists and bring in cold contacts. Almost every other provider prohibits this.

Well, that's why for good companies, your marketing performance and emails drop wayyy down. And worse, their support imagines nothing is wrong, and everything is going OK.

They will also negotiate your price far lower than others, to lock you into an annual contract.

Nachteile

- Email delivery is terrible
- Their support tried to help, but makes false promises on waiting
- Locked into a major contract, which even with their lack of performance, is tough to leave
- Their UI is really, really bad
- Barely any templates for things like landing pages, emails, etc.
- General data between modules is not easy to gather, collect or use for additional sales.

Vorteile

The software interface is mostly drag and drop, which is helpful for non developers and non designers alike to create modern, effective emails. With automation and A?B testing, it is great for marketing research and drop or nurture campaigns. Each account is attached to a customer service representative, and they are very helpful and attentive.

Nachteile

The functionality compared to the price is a concern. While it can handle thousands of users, free automation softwares are offering more email design functionality than this software. The user interface isn't the most friendliest, with emails, landing pages, templates and content all divided up into multiple folders. The software boasts that it is custom HTML friendly, but it is very difficult to execute properly. The software also has issues formatting for Outlook.

Vorteile

- Their support team was stellar
- Their Salesforce integration is the best I've seen in a Marketing Automation Platform
- Their list segmentation system features were fantastic
- We were early subscribers to act-on so we had a really cheap rate

Nachteile

I haven't used this software for a couple years, so they may have improved a lot but here were some of my major gripes:

- Extremely difficult to track lead sources
- Integration with ad platforms wasn't very good
- Landing page builder was terrible
- Lots of limitations with forms
- Email builder was quite painful to use but they made some improvements along the way while I was using them

Vorteile

The Dynamics integration was a crucial part of my decision to adopt this software for my company. Ease of use is comparable to any other robust marketing automation tool. We've seen huge value in this purchase.

Nachteile

Unfortunately the software does not function well on iOS devices.

Vorteile

In the landscape of marketing automation systems, ACT-ON is not the most powerful solution, but it is not the most expensive. It works quite well for our needs.

Nachteile

I generally don't need a lot of support, but if I can't find a solution on their knowledge base, I have no choice but to call them directly. Ever since ACT-ON closed one of there offices a few months ago, it has been taking me an hour to get through on their support line. I had someone email in June and said they would get back to me very soon. After 6 weeks, I emailed them back and then received a response.

Vorteile

I like that it will track my emails and log them to our CRM (Microsoft Dynamics). I like that I can get a daily email letting me know of known and anonymous visitors to our website.

Nachteile

It's clunky to try and track down a specific email to see if the recipient has interacted with it. This is really a tool that is more valuable to marketing, but has built some features that are being sold as a sales tool. It's a nice to have, but not a need for sales.

Vorteile

It's functionality and diverse tools makes it the top-of-class when it comes to marketing automation platforms.

Nachteile

In recent months, the customer service has not been as strong as in the past. It seems like it takes more than 48 hours to get questions/concerns of mine answered.

Vorteile

I think you will find ActOn easy to use. I can quickly develop an email and define a target list and send as easily to 10 people or 100,000 people. I also like the reporting and graphs associated with a campaign. I also find the Form editor very valuable b/c I can quickly create a business need survey in a matter of minutes for my internal customers. The responses are easy to analyze b/c they are in spreadsheet form.

Nachteile

ActOn recently rolled out a new forms editor and they did not bring over the reporting URL feature from the Classic Form editor...this would make it easier for my internal customers to pull data vs having me pull the data for them.

Vorteile

Good set of features and functions. Good product team and exciting roadmap. Easy to implement.

Nachteile

Onboarding could have been better (but that was some time ago now and I know they have improved it). Feature request facility feels like a black hole at times!

Vorteile

We started using this as an alternative to similar features in SalesForce. It does have a ton of features and integrates with many other systems.

Nachteile

We've had nothing but trouble with this since the beginning. Even after two years we still have random issues (services disconnecting) which can take hours to repair. The bulk emails we send from Act-On consistently end up in spam folders and customer support gives us the run around about how to fix it, usually we end up spending hours just to prove to them that this is actually happening.

Vorteile

customer success team was friendly
feature set sounds useful

Nachteile

interface is abysmal
functionality is limited
product is slow and outdated

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Act-On

We made a mistake... should not have chosen.

Vorteile

Act-On's back end really customizable and you're able to make your emails look exactly how you want. The landing pages you make are able to capture documents (like jpgs or PDFs) so participants can upload files making it really easy to download all the attachments along with their responses at once.

I also appreciated the ability to schedule survey reminders to participants in advance and to cross check that with live results. This means that you could schedule a reminder to go out at 8AM tomorrow, but if someone completed the survey at 7:59AM, they wouldn't receive the reminder. Great feature.

Nachteile

It's very admin and training heavy. The software is not intuitive and you need to setup the pieces of the survey/email first (I.e landing pages, contact list, etc) before you start working on the actual survey or email.

Vorteile

Once you figure it out, it's a very simple tool to use and can be easily accessed.

Nachteile

The form set-up. I think the set-up is complicated & could use some tweaking. I don't like that you have to create a new form (when pulling the data) if you add anything new into the original form.

Vorteile

Ease of use is first and foremost. To create, segment and automate emails of value that will reach our varied customer base is key for us. The social media aspect of Act-On is also a valued feature that not only allows us to plan when our content is shared but what content hits at the right time. We don't use the scoring as much as most companies probably do, but our dive into behavioral analytics through Act-On is yielding great results as well.

Nachteile

Main dislike: More personalization for our sales force to view how their customers are responding. Dashboard is fine, for sure, but we'd love a better way for them to witness the contacts happening.

Vorteile

Act-On has been my go-to solution for the last 5 years. They may not be as well known as some, but they offer great value and a deep bench of functionality. Incredibly innovative too.

Nachteile

Customer service has gone through hiccups of late