7Sheep is a marketing automation tool that concentrates on delivering features for what they consider 7 key components of marketing automation software: contact storage, form building, automation triggers, e-mail and text message campaigns, prospect tracking, integration and translation interface.
$0
Above 10 users
Act-On
Score 8.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Act-On is an adaptive marketing platform designed to drive personal and purposeful multi-channel marketing. Its foci are inbound and outbound marketing, for enabling a tighter alignment with sales and turning data into actionable insights.
$900
per month (starts at 2,500 active contacts)
Pricing
7Sheep
Act-On Software
Editions & Modules
Entrepreneur
$59
Single User
Small Team
$249
Per month, up to 5 Users
Business
$389
Per month, up to 10 users
Enterprise
Above 10 users
Professional
$900
per month (starts at 2,500 active contacts)
Enterprise
$2,000
per month ( starts at 2,500 active contacts)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
7Sheep
Act-On
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Required
Additional Details
—
The Professional package starts at 2,500 active contacts, 3 marketing users, 50 sales users and 30,000 API calls per day. The Enterprise package starts at 2,500 active contacts, 6 marketing users, 100 sales users and 30,000 API calls per day. Annual contract required.
I use 7Sheep for marketing as a sales person. This works well for me as a single user. I do not think I could use the software together with my colleagues. Although we could have separated lists the access rights might not fit our use case. It has a strong marketing focus and cannot replace a full CRM system.
Act-On simplifies the creation of landing pages, web forms, email campaigns, and other types of marketing automation. Designing a customer journey using the workflow builder (a nurturing flow) is possible. It is used in various ways and in a variety of contexts. Tactical's knowledgeable support team helped us unlock Act-On's potential for complex integrations and marketing campaigns. In some areas, it would be beneficial to improve functionality.
When preparing an event, 7Sheep takes care of pretty much everything you need to select, inform, and register participants, as well as prepare materials for the events, such as name badges and signature lists.
We also use 7Sheep for reporting on communications activities.
7Sheep allows you to build simple or complex forms and questionnaires which we use both for events and independent surveys.
The drag and drop HTML editor makes things look good without a lot of extra effort.
I know that they are working on a simpler way to send a test e-mail to yourself. This will streamline my activities as well and I look forward to that system change (which was suggested by a client. I have also suggested improvements which have been implemented.)
I miss an easy unsubscribe feature (like you get in MailChimp). Overall, 7Sheep's system is more flexible (good) but that does make it more complex to split up (not so good).
Setting up the SPF record in our DNS system was flexible and easy but for DKIM integration we had to contact the 7Sheep support. They do not check or show the necessary records in the tool. Customer service was great, though, so not a very big problem, just a bit of a nuisance.
The designer tools, especially for emails, were often difficult to use. The formatting of the text would be all over the place and change / refuse to change at random. Moving boxes around was shifty and sometimes nearly impossible. It just wasn't customizeable enough. No "undo" functionality either.
The only way to collect information expansively over time (there's a term Act-On uses for it, I can't recall) where it adds questions to the form each time a user fills it out, is if the person were to fill out the same form multiple times. I know this does happen for some websites/resources, but as a company that wanted to collect new information each time someone filled out any form, regardless of the resource or the URL, that was simply not an option, and that doesn't really make a lot of sense. I know it's not really possible to track someone but if they filled out the first part of the form and then it added new questions to answer, and then they submitted and got through the gating, that would actually be helpful.
There was no "trash can" of sorts in case you deleted something by mistake. This could be so stress-inducing if it was a major project. My coworker did this once, contacted Act-On, they couldn't even recover it.
The tool serves our needs and we like the user interface. The few times we contacted support they were super helpful and responsive. When we asked for more integrations they confirmed the integrations we need (e.g. Hipchat) for the near future.
It's my single biggest asset in my current role. With limited resources, its enabled Anachron to punch well above our weight marketing wise and although we're still at the beginning of our journey I know the system can scale with us
It's good, but not quite brilliant. Some parts of the interface are still a bit outdated. The product has been evolving very fast, though, and I believe in a few months it will be up there with the best of them, interface wise as well.
I have always found them quick to respond to my query by web inquiry. In those instances when I call, I have always reached help quickly. They are conscientious and skilled in discussing my concern and finding a solution to my problem. Other tech organizations should use Act-On as a model for top-notch customer service.
With both chat and email support I have always had enough ways to get through to them! Their support is good, honest and most importantly supportive. They helped us set up and start using the tool when we got stuck. Moving from Mailchimp where there were some semantic lessons to learn and they took the time to help us get used to 7Sheep
Since we start using Act-on for ourselves and our clients, we have been supported very well. Often we need to integrate with legacy systems and we find the support team on our side during the whole endeavor. Always asking if they can help us further, always willing to do a better job. The support of Act-On is one of the main differentiators
Act-On had a lot of resources, and their staff was great at answering any questions I had to make sure we got started on the right foot. Looking back, I would have preferred some additional training sessions since we didn't have any previous experience with Marketing Automation and best practices.
What impressed me most is that Act-On showed full committment in making our implementation successful, even when it required additional support from their team. This gave me a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings. Most other software software vendors are not anywhere close to being this responsive and effective
I've mostly used survey monkey and google forms and doodle for small inexpensive jobs - anything more sophisticated always seemed to cost more than the actual fee I charge. 7sheep does everything they do, but it automates a lot of the processing, for a cost which is affordable and makes me more efficient - as I can use my subscription for different clients.
Act-On is easier to use than Marketo, but not as visually appealing and user-friendly as HubSpot. It's much better than Pardot, as Pardot feel clunky every step of the way. SharpSpring is comparable because of its price point but surpasses Act-On in its tools and intuitive interface. We selected Act-On because of the pricing model and thought all things would be close to parity with other options. It depends on the team you have. If you have developers and a marketing team that knows some html/css, you can get by with Act-On.
With the translation support we have translated forms into Spanish for our producers and this has been a really positive benefit for them as a partner.
I am able to monitor interest in different products very easily and so re-target particular varieties to specific regions.
Text message campaigns mean that we can directly engage: especially for physical meetings, tasting reminders and so forth.
With the Automated Series, we were able to put in place campaigns that generated revenue that took no time to continue running once set up. This was a positive feature allowing employees to work on another project while the campaign ran on their own.
