Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) vs Marketo | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 6.8 out of 10

Based on 100 reviews and ratings

Score 7.9 out of 10

Based on 1774 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

WYSIWYG email editor

Dynamic content

Ability to test dynamic content

Landing pages

A/B testing

Mobile optimization

Email deliverability

List management

Triggered drip sequences

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Lead nurturing

Lead scoring and grading

Data quality management

Automated sales alerts and tasks

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Calendaring

Event/webinar marketing

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Social sharing and campaigns

Social profile integration

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Dashboards

Standard reports

Custom reports

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

API

Role-based workflow & approvals

Customizability

Integration with Salesforce.com

Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Integration with SugarCRM

Pros

Automated Messages - we currently have over 70 automated messages going out on any particular day through feeds and API calls that we pass to Silverpop. We rely on these automated messages to communicate to our customers and can rely on Silverpop to always be up and running to get these messages out.
Robust query building - We can target customers easily based on a combination of demographic profile data, as well as email and site behavior and purchase behavior, allowing us to finely segment our audience
Deep dive reporting - the UI reporting, as well as the available reports to download through the API give us tremendous insight into how our subscribers are responding to email.

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Email Marketing Manager

SmartPakRetail, 201-500 employees

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Flexibility - It has a lot to offer, but you don't have to have it all. There are a lot of integrations that allow you to set up your MarTech environment however you want.
Usability - Marketo is pretty straightforward to use, and there are a lot of resource documents and community available to help mitigate any issues a user might have.
Comprehensive - There's a huge range of features that Marketo has built into it that can be bolted on. I accept there are other tools out there there that do "more", but Marketo's features are comprehensive and operate in a local environment.
Support - Marketo's support feature and team are fantastic. They've always been willing and able to help with simple and complex queries in a highly professional manner. The Marketo Community backs this up - with both Marketo Support and Marketo Experts providing insight and responses to queries.

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Senior Customer Lifecycle Manager

Trade MeConsumer Services, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

Data syncing and errors - Silverpop does not do a great job of getting data to sync regularly with our CRM (Salesforce.com). The data had to flow back and forth several times before being added to campaigns and in some instances, it took days to update leads! Also, failed lead syncs get stuck in an alert list but it does not notify you otherwise that a lead failed the sync.
Design issues - we use custom HTML to build emails and landing pages, and we were unable to render background images on our campaigns. Also, once you toggle between design and source (code) view to make edits, it often broke the code and threw off the design.
Administrator alerts - when sync fails altogether between systems, there is no email alert sent to the system admin (me/my team) so we at times have found that we have gone 18 hours until we stumble across the fact that the system sync has failed.
Reporting - it is not very comprehensive and we had difficulty generating the level of reporting that we need to have.
Support - there are a few gems in the support team who know what they're doing, but largely calling support is a lesson in frustration.
Product bug fixes - in two instances, my open support tickets were identified as product bugs. One related to incorrect cookie tracking which was causing our leads not to be scoring properly. They determined that this wasn't critical enough to build into their product fix road map. This is core to an automation system working properly.

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Sr. Interactive Marketing Manager

SafeNet, Inc.Information Technology and Services, 1001-5000 employees

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Pricing -- Marketo is clearly designed for a premium market, and most people will not be able to get in at the price point it starts from. This is a con especially for small businesses who do not always have the resources to invest in a solution like this.
Analytic reports within Marketo are not the greatest. I feel that there is more data you can view, and smart lists do not always work as they are supposed to.
It must also be said that Marketo does have a steep learning curve, and in some cases, you may need to hire a specialist to help you with the integration process. This can add to your cost.

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Nathan Sichilongo

Regional Manager

Dotcom ZambiaConsumer Services, 11-50 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) 5.5

Based on 30 answers

SilverPop is a great marketing tool that integrates with Salesforce to provide customers and employees a great buying and selling experience. The software takes some very difficult tasks and makes them easy to accomplish. With proper setup and management, Silverpop gives you the tools to gain insight into the productiveness of campaigns.

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Shannon Feldpush

Senior Manager, Marketing Analysis

Roadnet Technologies Inc.Education Management, 1001-5000 employees

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Marketo 8.0

Based on 145 answers

The renewal process with Marketo can be very frustrating. The first year I managed the renewal for my company, I received a quote from the rep with additional products that I had not even inquired about. Additionally, as a result of an increased database size that required us to go up one tier level, we saw our price jump by over 25%. This year, we are decreasing our database size by at least two tier levels and so far I'm disappointed to see that there will be very minimal savings, despite having much less data to store.

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Valerie Armstrong

Marketing Operations Manager

SmartBear SoftwareComputer Software, 201-500 employees

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Usability

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) 8.0

Based on 6 answers

This is a little bit difficult to rate because Silverpop is gradually updating its interface to improve usability all around. I know users are able to do their job with minimal assistance. However, some of the interface is dated, and the Programs interface, while functional, has a bit of a learning curve.

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Silverpop Administrator & Web Designer

Intertek10,001+ employees

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Marketo 7.7

Based on 88 answers

There's a fair amount of flexibility, but as you start moving beyond the basics and get into more complex programs, it gets a bit cumbersome; for example, flexible drip campaigns that can customize / change content based on triggers after the initial start. Some way of normalizing scoring so older, less intensive users don't overshadow newer, more-intense users. Etc.For a basic setup and taking control of the user flow from contact to lead without leaks, Marketo is awesome, once you've got the core data governance and standardized processes in place.Template design is difficult - designers find it restrictive and there is a LOT of debugging needed, with finished templates sometimes behaving very oddly in some environments - adding / deleting code snippets, disabling some scripts - not enough to break it, but definitely some odd behaviors

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Senior Manager, Marketing Technology

Tata Communications (Americas) Inc.Telecommunications, 5001-10,000 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) 10.0

Based on 2 answers

While several of the other reviews have mentioned poor performance in this department, we have only had one situation where the system was down (although it was down for several hours). Silverpop segments its clients on different servers, and I know that the problem we experienced only occurred on our specific server (maybe other servers have had their own problems?) but our service has been reliable otherwise.

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Silverpop Administrator & Web Designer

Intertek10,001+ employees

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Marketo 8.3

Based on 23 answers

There are performance issues that make it seem like it's down sometimes. The backlog of campaign triggers etc. can be a real issue. The issue is probably more around performance than uptime.

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Jennifer Robertson

Marketing and Analytics Manager

NavicureComputer Software, 201-500 employees

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Performance

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) 7.0

Based on 2 answers

The throttle time for sending emails would vary depending on how many other campaigns were going out that day, which I found inconsistent

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Verified User

Professional in Marketing

Media Production Company, 11-50 employees

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Marketo 7.9

Based on 28 answers

There are times when it is slightly slow for us, where we sit on a screen waiting for it to load. This could be our internet since we have had the same issue occasionally with other systems, but it is enough to make you crazy.

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Demand Generation Specialist

Applied SystemsComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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Support

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) 5.9

Based on 5 answers

The Salesforce Integration support team is fantastic. I'd give them greater than a 10 if possible. The rest of the support team can be extremely frustrating to work with. Too often they try to blame something obscure and refuse to escalate or look into the issue. And on occasion when you find system glitches they don't seem to care about fixing them

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Senior Manager of Email Marketing

Connections AcademyE-Learning, 1001-5000 employees

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Marketo 7.2

Based on 77 answers

On multiple occasions we've had Marketo support (technical and license based) issues. Technical issues were minor and resolved within a day. License based issues (even things encouraged by Marketo for partners, like provisioning another license) took WEEKS. They actually took so long to respond that the client we were working with withdrew from the contract because they were no longer convinced Marketo was capable of supporting their business. As an agency trying to sell the software, you can only explain away so much before they just made us look silly.

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Emilee Anderson

Client Relationship Manager

TrekkMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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In-Person Training

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Marketo 7.0

Based on 11 answers

Our account rep stopped out in Lincoln, NE to ensure we were properly set up and running. This was very much appreciated. I was very, very new at this point, so I can't comment very much on the extent of what was taught because I was still brand new to the company and the system

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Marketing Specialist

LI-COR Biosciences201-500 employees

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Online Training

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) 9.0

Based on 2 answers

The online trainings are very detailed (for the most part) and really walk through the entire system. They are a little dry, but they are usually broken up into segments to allow you to skip to the parts you need.

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Silverpop Administrator & Web Designer

Intertek10,001+ employees

View all 2 answers on this topic

Marketo 3.8

Based on 27 answers

I had never used Marketo prior to taking this job so online training was my starting point. I was able to follow along, it was interesting and quickly and efficiently taught me what I needed to know without a lot of fluff. It was far from boring and really helped me get my hands dirty with Marketo.

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Robert Barrett, MBA

Marketing Automation Manager

GE Healthcare ITHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees

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Implementation

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) 7.4

Based on 4 answers

Based on recommendations from Silverpop we made some implementation decisions that we later regretted pretty substantially. In hindsight we should have started a pilot implementation earlier so we could learn and then start over. The big issue for us was that Silverpop recommended a non-keyed database, or at least a database that doesn't use email address as primary key. This is resulted in a large number of duplicate email addresses so that the end user is forced to unsubscribe multiple times to stop receiving emails.

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Verified User

Vice-President in Marketing

Computer Software Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Marketo 7.1

Based on 36 answers

1. Have a content marketing plan to run in parallel with the marketing automation installation--you'll need a lot of content to make full use of Marketo's capabilities.2. Work with sales (and ISRs) to define and document a workflow--build your Marketo installation around how you do business--not figure out how to apply your business to the tools3. Spend time of data cleaning--both an initial project as well as a strategy for ongoing data management. We found some change manaement issues (no more appending ZZZ to the first name to identify contacts who have left the company, for example, or prohibiting the entry of "info@company.com" email addresses).4. Find some champions in the sales and ISR teams. You'll have both fans and detractors--work with the fans to build some success stories

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Director, Demand Generation Services

Crain CommunicationsPublishing, 501-1000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

We evaluated alternate providers less than a year into our IBM Watson Campaign contract because the system was so clunky to use (and we wanted a system that would include or better integrate with our SMS provider). Bluecore and Klaviyo were the front runners at the time, and we came close to moving forward with Bluecore. The pricing model and overall the cost of Bluecore was much higher than IBM for us though, and the timing of this was right when the IBM to Acoustic changes took place. We decided to give Acoustic a shot and are optimistic it will be enough to keep us on board once all the dust settles, though I find it unlikely we will renew with Acoustic when our contract is up again. My main email specialist is a Klaviyo expert and finds that platform very easy to use in comparison-- it might be a better fit for a team of our size.

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Verified User

Director in Marketing

Retail Company, 11-50 employees

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Honestly, they are the industry leader for a reason. Their database like approach in interface and the way the product functions could be confusing or intimidating for some people, but once you see the power it has, and get the hang of it - you'll never look back. We honestly couldn't do some of the things we do without Marketo, and they probably have ME as a customer for life. If I'm consulting with other companies, honestly, it depends on what you're looking for. If you have a simple use case, a simple solution like Pardot or Act-On will probably suffice. If you want advanced targeting capabilities, data cleanliness and automation, advanced segmenting, form completion actions, and industry leading scoring, then I wouldn't look further than Marketo. More of a steep learning curve, but trust me - it's absolutely worth it!

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Digital Marketing Operations Manager

SaltStackComputer Software, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Marketo 7.9

Based on 9 answers

As we have grown, Marketo has grown with us. We started with simple single email campaigns and are now doing complex campaigns with multiple emails and tracks that we send a contact to if they take certain actions within our emails. We also have a complex integration with several systems and have the visibility into our marketing activities throughout our organization.

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Demand Generation Specialist

Applied SystemsComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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Return on Investment

we have not experienced any currently but moving to lead automation and lead scoring could change that.
i'm not sure how increased employee efficiency would ever be a benefit b/c lead importing and visibility, along with setting up email templates is quite cumbersome.

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Senior Marketing Manager

SafeNetComputer & Network Security, 1001-5000 employees

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Massive increase in efficiency for sales/service/customer success reps -- automation manages their workflow and communication letting them focus on what they do best and increase customer satisfaction.
Much faster deployment of programs and campaigns.
Big gains in conversion and revenue through better nurturing, lead scoring, lead management.

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Senior Consultant

PerkutoMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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Screenshots

See All (4) Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) Screenshots

See All (7) Marketo Screenshots

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

Optional

TBD*

* depends on scope and complexity

Marketo Editions & Modules

Edition

Spark	$895¹
Standard	$1,795¹
Select	$3,195¹

per month up to 10,000 records

Additional Pricing Details

For the Enterprise edition, contact Marketo for a custom quote.

Rating Summary

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation)

Marketo

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