Act-On Software vs. Formstack Forms

We often have quick turnaround time requests, and Act-On's new composer is great because it is easy to make an email look great in desktop or mobile views. This has been a huge time-saver for us! We have benefited from using Act-On for many years and are accustomed to where everything is and how to use it. For the new accounts we train, we will sometimes hear that the organization of where things are could be improved.

Incentivized

Formstack makes it easy to create a variety of forms. I have used it for event interest and registrations, email list sign-ups, and surveys. I have found it easy to customize, and easy to export data for import into other systems (e.g., CRM).

Incentivized

• The templates are easy to use and set up campaigns.
• It's simple to use, and the email editor features a drag-and-drop interface.
• It's easy to set up a drip campaign or a series of scheduled emails.
• It has the flexibility of having a variety of scheduling options and the use of user experience automation.

Incentivized

• Allows for unique situations. As a school, we don't have the luxury of being cookie cutter. Neither do our forms.
• Support. If we don't know how to do it, their support team has been very helpful and actually attempts to understand the issue on hand.
• User friendliness. In our field we have a phrase: "what if you get hit by a bus?" With Formstack, you can "get hit by the bus" and someone else can jump in and still keep things running (this is used as a phrase for illness, not termination).

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Setting up our multi-step form took some getting used to. Some of the branching logic configuration wasn't as intuitive as would be ideal.
• Since we were pushing data directly into Hubspot, I found it cumbersome to deal with data storage limits within Formstack. I would get frequent notices that new responses were not being stored in Formstack and that I needed to upgrade or delete data. I got tired of that.
• More/easier support for custom fonts would have been a huge plus. We were able to customize the form's appearance, but had to make some concessions in that regard.

Incentivized

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

Our user base has come to rely on Formstack to get forms done. The Formstack tools make it easy to start from scratch or copy an existing form to "quick start" a new, similar form. The price is right and frees up IT staff to do more transformative work.

Incentivized

It's a great tool for our business, and we get a fantastic ROI on it every year based on wins for customer service and automation responses. It's save projects, repaired salesperson/customer relationships and generated new sales and interest yearly. We really wouldn't hesitate to recommend this platform at all.

Incentivized

It's easy to learn how to use, generally easy for clients to use, and overall I've never had an overwhelmingly negative experience with it. While there are a few tweaks that could make it really shine, Formstack Forms serves almost all our needs and we're super happy with it.

Incentivized

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.

Great for the most part. Sometimes there are little lags, but that's likely because I'm requesting to see a lot of data at one time.

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

The agents in the original group, especially the ones in cahoots with the developers, are really solid and know what they're talking about--I'm looking at you, Collin. The 'Tier 1' support agents that typically reply to the tickets are really spotty. If you have an overly technical question, i.e. bugfix, or describe a feature from a few years back that randomly disappeared, these agents typically will give you what feels like a generic reply and not know what you're talking about.

Incentivized

Dan D. was great. He took the time to understand how I needed the program to run, and was very flexible to our special CRM setup.

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

We implemented on one of the earlier versions. Through continuous engineering improvements, the interface keeps getting easier and more intuitive. Therefore, later implementations keep getting easier and better.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Drupal is a much more customizable platform, however you must have someone build the forms first and then you can work with them if you do not have the programming knowledge. If you have any changes to make, it can sometimes be both a time consuming and difficult process. Formstack is much more efficient if you do not have an in house programmer.

Incentivized

Before I feel like I need more features, the Act-On customer service reps are contacting me telling about new features as part of my account.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Positive - ability to analyze submission trends - e.g. when a marketing email is sent, looking at increased form viewing and submissions in relation to the sending of the campaign.
• Immediate response - those that submit forms receive immediate response that their form has been submitted.

Incentivized