B2B Connection

In Q4 2014, Hubspot retained its position as the most evaluated marketing automation product on TrustRadius by some margin. Marketo remained in the number two slot. Act-On climbed from number three to number two overtaking Pardot. Infusionsoft climbed to number five, overtaking both Oracle’s Eloqua and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email (formerly known as ExactTarget). We chose to include Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email (ExactTarget) in this analysis as while traditionally an email marketing platform, Salesforce has been adding more marketing automation features, and the product increasingly competes with solutions like Marketo.   Some of these products serve different market segments. For example, IBM Unica and Teradata Marketing Studio are exclusively focused on very large enterprises, and Infusionsoft exclusively focused on small businesses. This can account for differences in evaluation frequency. Most Evaluated Marketing Automation Products by Large Enterprises Using reviewer mix on TrustRadius as a proxy for customer mix, and assuming that current customer mix is similar to prospective buyer mix, we can estimate the number of buyers by segment. Focusing in on the enterprise segment (companies with >500 employees), the ranking for evaluation frequency changes considerably. Marketo takes the top slot, followed by Eloqua, IBM Unica, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email and IBM’s Silverpop Engage. While evaluation rates often correlate to product satisfaction, it is important to remember that there’s rarely a one-size fits all right […]

Unique page views for Social Media Management Software products on TrustRadius – a measure for how many people are running product purchase evaluations – grew at a healthy 13 percent from Q3 to Q4. This growth rate was down from the Q2-Q3 growth rate of 30 percent. While page views are not an absolute representation of category growth, they are a good proxy. Social Media Management is a fragmented category with close to 140 vendors listed on TrustRadius. However, a few vendors are starting to break from the pack. In Q4, Hootsuite Enterprise retained its position as the most evaluated SMMS product on TrustRadius. Sprinklr moved up from to the number two slot. Radian6, now part of the new Social Studio suite from Salesforce retained a top 5 position. While all of these products are in the social media management category, some do different things. For example, Woobox focuses on social media contests, Meltwater Buzz and Social Bakers focus on listening, and Buffer is a publishing tool. These products also sell to different market segments. Using reviewer mix on TrustRadius as proxy for customer mix, and assuming prospective customers follow a similar distribution to existing customers, you can make an educated guess as to evaluation frequency by segment. Using this estimation approach, the Social Media Management Software product […]

  Bjorn Billhardt is the Founder and Chairman of Enspire, an Austin-based company that creates learning experiences for Fortune 500 companies. Bjorn’s small marketing team was really satisfied with the marketing automation software it was using. Bjorn heard about TrustRadius through a friend and encouraged one of his marketers to get on the site and contribute a review. After looking at TrustRadius, Bjorn decided Enspire should do an internal analysis of the marketing automation platform they were using. Upon closely reading what others were saying on TrustRadius, he realized Enspire wasn’t really using it in a way that justified its expense. “It’s a fine piece of software,” he said. “But the people on TrustRadius who were giving it all the thumbs up were mostly from larger companies with big marketing departments, which is not our case.” Bjorn also realized the platform’s workflow and customer-segmenting functions would better serve a company with thousands of prospects and customers, but Enspire’s client base is highly specific: the HR departments of Fortune 500 companies. Last spring, Bjorn discontinued his marketing automation software license for an annual saving of $30,000. “I don’t think we would’ve had the confidence to pull the plug if we hadn’t read the […]

On September 3rd, 2014, we announced the release of TrustMaps™ for Digital Analytics software, which rank products based on user ratings and adoption within each market segment – small businesses, mid-size companies and enterprises. Unveiled in our first Buyer’s Guide to Digital Analytics Software, the TrustMaps™ quickly help software buyers locate the solutions most highly rated and adopted by their direct peer group and therefore most closely aligned to their needs. Each TrustMap™ depicts Digital Analytics products on two dimensions – likelihood to recommend ratings by users and the estimated relative number of websites using the product within that company segment size. All ratings come from authenticated reviews by end-users of the software on TrustRadius.com. The Buyer’s Guide also distills the pros and cons of each software product, as cited by software users in 230 in-depth reviews. Because success is not solely contingent on software selection, the guide includes a discussion of key factors for Digital Analytics success, drawn from interviews with highly regarded digital analytics experts. “While traditional technology analysts cover digital analytics, we felt there was room to provide a fresh perspective on the market based on insights from users and leading industry experts” said Vinay Bhagat, CEO of TrustRadius. “Our Digital […]

This is a guest post by TrustRadius member, Ausrine Pasakarnyte. Ausrine is a Senior Set Up and Data Quality Manager at WorldOne. She joined TrustRadius in March and wrote an in-depth review of Confirmit.   Back in 2008, when I started volunteering as a UN online volunteer for an organization in Ghana, Young People We Care, they wanted ideas on how to make their annual youth migration studies more interactive. They had been using Microsoft Word to distribute their questionnaires. As a specialist in data collection, my goal was to find a free platform to present the survey, making it more engaging for people to participate and express their opinions. The organization had no funding and survey participation was voluntary and unpaid. Initially, I zeroed in on a new version of Google Docs with the new Forms feature. Now, many years later, I am once again hunting for a free online survey platform. And while I love Google Forms, it does not give me some of the newer question options like ranking, multi-choice grid, star rating, etc. Today, I want to share some recent research on free online survey platforms that offer basic features at no cost for anyone who is lacking dedicated funds to run […]

On August 20th, 2014 we announced the results of our 2014 Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) survey (*). The results underscore the rapid adoption of Digital Analytics and A/B testing software among business of all sizes. We also announced the availability of its first Buyer’s Guide to Conversion Rate Optimization Software (which can be downloaded for free here) designed to help digital marketers navigate and support a conversion rate optimization program to increase online revenue without spending more on traffic acquisition. The 2014 Conversion Rate Optimization Survey asked respondents about their CRO practice maturity, software usage and spend. Key findings include: A Majority of Companies Have Moved Beyond the Infancy Stage 72 percent of companies have some CRO processes in place 18 percent consider CRO part of their DNA Digital Marketers Rely On Multiple Tools for CRO 91 percent of respondents use two or more tools for digital analytics 43 percent of respondents use two or more tools for A/B testing This pattern is consistent across company sizes. Companies with more mature CRO processes tend to use more tools Most Spend More Than $10,000 On Digital Analytics Software 58 percent of companies surveyed spend more than $10,000 on digital analytics tools per year […]

Traditional reporting tools are primarily a product of the past.  Sure, some of these tools have a nice application for operational reporting needs. But we’re seeing more frequently that many of these operational reporting features are being built into ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems directly. With the growth in computing power, ERP systems can often handle the operational reporting load and therefore do not require separate reporting systems for operational needs.  This may not be the case with larger organizations. Take Workday for example.  This product has fantastic reporting capabilities built into the ERP directly.  Both the reports and the product are SaaS-based and available from a standard web browser.  Workday offers drillable displays that are contextual and actionable.  Additionally, the product provides real-time operational intelligence by cross-walking data sets that reside within the Workday platform.  This is a good example of some of the sophistication – and general ‘goodness’ – that is happening in the ERP world. Operational or transactional reporting tools, however, often do not answer the more sophisticated questions of the business users.  These reporting tools are commonly used for lists or standard reports (e.g. budgets versus actuals, list of customers/vendors/students).  You’ll rarely see an operational reporting tool answer a […]

12/30/2014 Executive interview series by Vinay Bhagat, CEO TrustRadius Battle Intensifies with $250m Raised in Last 12 Months On April 29th, Social Media Management software company Sprinklr announced $40m in financing from Iconiq Capital, a firm which manages assets for some high profile technology executives, bringing their total funds raised to $77.5 million. In the last 12 months, three social media software companies targeting the enterprise have raised close to $250 million. Spredfast raised $32.5m on January 3rd. Hootsuite raised $165m in August 2013. These figures exclude the internal investments made by large software companies like Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle in their acquired social media management solutions. Enterprise Suites Expand Organically and via Acquisition As we discussed in our Buyer’s Guide to Social Media Management and blog post, “Social Media Management in Large Enterprises”, many large enterprises have unique needs including the ability to manage cross-functional coordination. Sprinklr and several of its competitors are adding capabilities historically offered by point solutions either organically or via acquisition. With their funding, Sprinklr announced the launch of a paid media platform, to help companies deploy and measure the performance of paid media ads. This product is designed to compete with solutions like Kenshoo. This announcement follows on the heels of their acquisition […]

It’s been a great year at TrustRadius! Our members have contributed 10,000+ in-depth user reviews and ratings.  And 125,000+ software buyers now rely on these insights every month. Together we’re changing how business software is bought and sold.  Thank you! To wrap up 2014, we’re highlighting the 14 most-read articles on TrustRadius this year. Enjoy and stay tuned for more real-world user insights in 2015. 1. Best Marketing Automation Software for Small Businesses, Mid-Size Companies and Enterprises Unveiled in our first Buyer’s Guide for Marketing Automation Software, the Marketing Automation TrustMap™ quickly helps marketers locate the solutions most closely aligned to their needs and most highly rated by their direct peer group within each market segment – small businesses, mid-size companies and enterprises – read more >> 2. Top 10 Fastest Growing Marketing Automation Platforms In Q3 2014, the most evaluated marketing automation products – based unique page views for marketing automation products, a measure for how many people are running product evaluations on TrustRadius – were Hubspot and Marketo, followed by Pardot (from Salesforce), Act-On, Eloqua (from Oracle) and ExactTarget (from Salesforce) – read more >> 3. Why did HubSpot build a CRM? An interview with Mike Volpe, CMO Earlier this fall, HubSpot, widely known for its comprehensive online marketing suite and as the torch bearer for inbound marketing, took many by surprise in announcing […]

Executive Interview Series By Vinay Bhagat, CEO TrustRadius In 2012 Oracle made a huge bet on Social Media Management Software making three acquisitions in rapid succession. In May they acquired Vitrue, a Social Marketing solution for $300 million; in June, social intelligence platform Collective Intellect; and in July social media development platform, Involver. We wanted to understand how those acquisitions have turned out, and how Oracle was approaching social. As part of our Social Media Management vendor executive interview series, I interviewed Meg Bear, Group Vice President of Social Cloud at Oracle. This article follows interviews with executives at Sprinklr, Spredfast, and Hootsuite about the battle for the enterprise within social media management. Oracle’s Social Media Management Offering Today Oracle’s Social Media Management offering is called Social Relationship Management (SRM) and there are two primary components which can be purchased together or stand-alone: Social Engagement & Monitoring (SE&M); derived from Collective Intellect and Involver. Social Marketing (SM) – derived from Vitrue. Per Meg, “The majority of our new customers are purchasing the SRM platform and many of our longtime SM customers have recently upgraded to the full SRM.” Often times, when small, innovative software companies are acquired by large ones, innovation takes a long pause to focus on […]

Digital Analytics is a quickly evolving software category. The presence of free or low-cost solutions and important trends like mobile adoption have led to very interesting market dynamics. On TrustRadius, unique page views for Digital Analytics Software products – a measure for how many people are running evaluations – grew 11 percent from Q2 to Q3. While page views are not an absolute representation of category growth, they are a good proxy. While this is a healthy growth rate, it lags other marketing technology categories like AB testing (30 percent), Social Media Management (27 percent), and Marketing Automation (25 percent). The most evaluated Digital Analytics products on TrustRadius during Q3 were Google Analytics by some margin, followed by Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, and Google Analytics Premium.   Some of these products sell to different market segments, which can account for differences in evaluation frequency. Using reviewer mix on TrustRadius as proxy for customer mix, and assuming prospective customers follow a similar distribution to existing customers, it’s possible to make an educated guess as to evaluation frequency by segment. For example, in the enterprise segment, based upon review mix on TrustRadius, 24 percent of Google Analytics customers are companies with more than 500 employees; for Adobe Analytics, the corresponding figure is […]

  A/B Testing is an emerging but rapidly growing software category. Our August 2014 Conversion Rate Optimization Survey, indicated that 48 percent of companies plan to spend more on A/B testing tools this coming year. It has also attracted a fair amount of investment capital. Optimizely has raised $88 million including a $57 million round this May. Monetate has raised $46 million, and Maxymiser has raised $15m. A/B Testing software is also a rapidly growing category on TrustRadius. Page views for A/B Testing software products – a measure for how many people are running evaluations – grew 30 percent from Q2 to Q3. While page views are not an absolute representation of category growth for a variety of reasons (including our own improvement in search rankings), they are a good proxy. The most evaluated AB Testing software product on TrustRadius in Q3 by a fair margin was Optimizely, followed by Adobe Target, Monetate, and Maxymiser. The next most evaluated products were Qubit, Visual Website Optimizer (VWO), and SiteSpect. These products sell to different market segments, which can account for differences in evaluation frequency. Using reviewer mix on TrustRadius as proxy for customer mix, and assuming prospective customers follow a similar distribution to existing customers, it is possible to make an educated guess as to […]

Marketing automation remains a hot category with multiple rapidly growing vendors. Google searches for the term “marketing automation” have increased 50% over last year. From Q2 to Q3, TrustRadius experienced a 25% increase in unique page views for marketing automation products – a measure for how many people are running product evaluations on our site. This figure factors some improvement in our search rankings, so it’s not a precise representation of category growth, however, it indicates strong category growth. In Q3, the most evaluated marketing automation products on TrustRadius were Hubspot and Marketo, followed by Pardot (from Salesforce), Act-On, Eloqua (from Oracle) and ExactTarget (from Salesforce). We include ExactTarget as a Marketing Automation solution as they have continued to add relationship management oriented features to their offering. The most evaluated products sell to broad populations of businesses. Hubspot’s stated target market is companies with 10 to 2,000 employees and they are particularly strong among SMBs (75% of the Hubspot reviews on TrustRadius are companies with less than 50 employees). Marketo has offerings for small business through large enterprises and is currently most penetrated among mid-market companies (55% of Marketo reviews on TrustRadius are from companies from 51-500 employees). By contrast, IBM Unica only sells to very large enterprises. However, the most evaluated products […]

An estimated $14 billion is spent on business intelligence (BI) software each year. Last year, the market grew more than 8 percent, with certain segments like Cloud BI growing much faster. ­It is also attracting a lot of investment capital. BI software companies Domo, Thoughtspot, Birst, GoodData, Looker and Tidemark raised over $200 million in investment capital in 2014 alone. Business Intelligence software is also an extremely popular category on TrustRadius. Unique page views for BI software products – a measure for how many people are running evaluations – grew 16 percent from Q2 to Q3. While page views are not an absolute representation of category growth for a variety of reasons – including our own improvement in search rankings – they are a good proxy. The most evaluated BI product on TrustRadius in Q3 by a fair margin was Tableau, followed by Qlikview. The next most evaluated products were IBM Cognos, Tibco Spotfire, and SAP Business Objects. While evaluation frequency is typically a good thing, it can also signal that you are being frequently considered for replacement. Three of the top four most evaluated products – Tableau, Qlikview, and Tibco Spotfire – are discovery/ visualization tools. Two of the top ten most evaluated solutions – Birst and Domo […]

Social Media Management remains a fast growing software category. Page views on TrustRadius for Social Media Management Software products – a measure for how many people are running evaluations – grew 27 percent from Q2 to Q3. While page views are not an absolute representation of category growth, they are a good proxy. While Social Media Management remains a fragmented category, with more 137 vendors listed on TrustRadius, and many companies using multiple social media management products, a few vendors are starting to break from the pack. The most evaluated social media management software product on TrustRadius during Q3 was Hootsuite Enterprise, followed by Sprout Social and Sprinklr. It’s important to note that some of these products do quite different things, e.g. Woobox focuses on social media based contests, but they are all in the broad category of social media management. These products also sell to different market segments, which can account for differences in evaluation frequency. Using reviewer mix on TrustRadius as proxy for customer mix, and assuming prospective customers follow a similar distribution to existing customers, it’s possible to make an educated guess as to evaluation frequency by customer segment. For example, in the enterprise segment, based upon review mix on TrustRadius, 37 percent of Hootsuite […]

Marketing automation is a hot category. Google searches for “Marketing Automation” have increased by about 50% in the last year, and the evaluation frequency of Marketing Automation software products on TrustRadius increased 25% from Q2-Q3. But just how much are companies spending on marketing automation software and to what degree are its features being put to work? TrustRadius recently completed a survey of Marketing Automation users across small businesses, mid-sized companies and large enterprises to answer these two questions. Key Findings Annual software expenditure aligns with company size. For example, 65% of small businesses spend less than $12,000 per year. 86% of very large enterprises (>5,000 employees) spend more than $60,000. Annual software expenditure also aligns to database size, which is correlated to company size. Core marketing automation features like email marketing and email management, landing page creation and customization, lead management and scoring, and reporting and analytics, are used widely across companies of all sizes. The use of lead management and scoring functionality is, however, more prevalent in very large companies with more than 5,000 employees. Read the Report Interested in other insights from our survey? We’re publishing our findings via SlideShare (click here): TrustRadius Marketing Automation Survey Results 2014. As always, we […]

InsightSquared raises $13.5m Series C Round to further develop SMB Business Intelligence offering InsightSquared provides business intelligence software to SMBs, with a particular strength in dashboards and pipeline analysis for the Salesforce platform. Hot on the heels of the Salesforce Analytics Cloud announcement last month, and following funding announcements by a number of new BI entrants like Domo, ThoughtSpot, Tidemark, and Looker earlier this year, this funding provides further evidence that the BI market is red hot. This new infusion of cash brings the total raised by InsightSquared over its four-year lifespan to $27m. The company has been growing quickly, doubling headcount and revenue over the last year. BI software was historically something that only large-enterprises had the capacity to use. The category was dominated by enterprise vendors like IBM Cognos, SAP Business Objects and MicroStrategy. More recently, data discovery and visualization tools like Tableau and QlikView, along with cloud BI vendors like Birst and GoodData, have succeeded in making BI accessible to the mid-market, but these tools still require a level of technical sophistication that is beyond the purview of many small organizations. This is the challenge that InsightSquared has taken on: making BI a feasible option for small, unsophisticated […]

Struggling to make sense of the complex and fast moving social media management vendor landscape? Don’t know which tools you should be looking at to engage in social selling or which ones you should use to track the effectiveness of your social campaigns? You’re not alone. As social media has entered the business mainstream, evolving from a marketing experiment to an enterprise-wide imperative, social media tools have proliferated and many have greatly expanded in scope.Unfortunately, most of the coverage to date has grouped products that do very different things into a single view and additionally only covered a small subset of the the landscape. Until now. Based upon first hand descriptions of use cases described by end-users product reviews on TrustRadius, our research team grouped the social media management tools into the seven primary use cases social media management software professionals are trying to address: Click on the image below to see a larger view Share this Image On Your Site </p><br /><br /><br /><br /> <p><br /><br /><br /><br /> <strong>Please include attribution to blog.trustradius.com with this graphic.</strong></p><br /><br /><br /><br /> <p><a href=’http://blog.trustradius.com/2013/10/seven-use-cases-for-social-media.html’><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <img src=’http://www.trustradius.com/downloads/smmslandscape.jpg’ alt=’Social Media Management Software vendor infographic’ width=’540px’ border=’0′ /></a></p><br /><br […]