Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review We used the Manticore Marketing Automation solution for almost/just over 2 years, and initially, it was a great solution. Everything just seemed to work. When Manticore Technology, Inc. and Sales Engine International merged on May 31st of 2012, the overall product quality began to decline. As browsers and other programs (like our CRM environment) went through updates and new releases, Manticore just didn't keep up. Parts of the program became incompatible with certain browsers, forcing us to change where and how we logged into the back-end of the system. It was a silly workaround, but not the end of the world. When we learned that other client-facing portions didn't work with certain browsers, we brought it to their attention, and were told that we needed to find some way to work with it, and that the changes to the system were not possible. We ended up having to change our 200+ landing pages/forms, and could no longer have the State/Province field as a required field for registrations. That is just one example of our experience, and there have been others that are just as troublesome.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Awesome integration with CRM/SFDC. Support is US-based, free with subscription, and very helpful. Best workflow capability (drag and drop) I've seen in any comparable product. Custom templates are available for purchase and are great for branding. Easy to use landing pages. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review List Building for Resends - I like to resend my email campaigns to non-openers and there is no easy way to pull this list within Manticore (If did not open this email is not an option). Typically I pull the report for the campaign, then re-import my list of non-openers to create a new list. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review I've been incredibly pleased with Manticore/SEI and have selected them at several companies now. It's worked in a variety of different business environments, both big and small, and everyone on both the sales and marketing side have been extremely pleased with the results
Read full review Usability It is easy to use and if I do have a problem or question I receive an answer almost immediately.
Read full review Some of the actions require you to be in a specific section before actions are available to you, like adding a list. You first have to navigate to that section for options to be available to you
Read full review Reliability and Availability Manticore hardly ever has "product down time" and almost never during a normal work day for our company
Read full review Performance Email campaigns are deployed instantly when you launch, unlike other Marketing Automation tools I've used in the past that queue emails in batches and can take hours to complete a send
Read full review Support Rating 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
Read full review The Manticore team is very knowledgeable, I haven't had an issue where a ticket was left unanswered or unresolved
Read full review Online Training Training was done online, but was one-on-one, giving me a lot of time to ask very specific product questions. They also walk you through setting up a test campaign, email, and landing page
Read full review Implementation Rating It was the easiest integration and implementation that I've ever experienced. I've implemented other CRM integrated services before that provided the same services as Manticore that were extremely technical and expensive to integrate with Salesforce.com or Microsoft CRM Dynamics, or just plain couldn't integrate
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review We migrated to Marketo approximately 6 months ago, and were extremely happy with the change. Besides the higher sticker price and the "everything's a sales pitch" communications from Marketo, we can't find any fault. Sales Engine International - Manticore (commonly referred to as Manti-beast internally) created many problems for us. And while they did integrate with our Microsoft Dynamics environment, the software quickly ate through our purchased storage and forced us to constantly purchase more. That alone cost us many hundreds of dollars in Microsoft Dynamics CRM storage every year. And, when confronted about it, Manticore support flat out lied about how much storage their activities were taking up in our system. So, while it integrates, it's a very poor integration.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Errors in forms led to a decrease in registrations - found workaround to correct it, but was never informed of certain incompatibilities Reports have been inaccurate and very inflexible, and have not allowed for reliable forecasting/planning Read full review ScreenShots —