Act-On Software vs. Hootsuite vs. Intuit Mailchimp

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

Hootsuite presents my team everything we need to manage the social media function. Even writing the "what can be improved" section strained me, because there really isn't a whole lot to complain about. At this point, I (and my social media manager) need to explore the platform more, specifically OwlyGPT, campaigns, and listening. It's pretty much everything we need right now

Incentivized

For any E-commerce related needs, like you need to see a list of customers who have added products to cart but did not purchase, this can be done really easily, but if your e-commerce provider provides integration, then it is best suited. Most of the systems in the Market provide out-of-the-box integration. Their API is also very easy it can be integrated to any language. You can integrate it into your custom developed system and use the features, like adding customers to specific lists. Also, if your lists become really big, then their system can get a bit slow to respond via API, so you might need a strategy for how you are gonna fetch the data using API.

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

• Reporting. We are able to pull accurate and concise data points on our channels.
• Planning and calendaring. We love that we are able to have our teams plan out content across months so that we are never feeling behind schedule on getting content out there.
• Creating content natively in the platform!

Incentivized

• Mailchimp allows you to manage your mailing list really well. You can subscribe people, unsubscribe people manage the mailing list directly into segments, and what not.
• Mailchimp has features where you can create campaigns based on your mailing lists and send out newsletters to your subscribers based on a multitude of parameters that you can setup. Such as send email daily, weekly, monthly and they also have event based mails that you can send out.
• Mailchimp also has a feature where you can design your emails. The look and aesthetics are very important when sending emails to your subscribers and all those needs are addressed here.

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

• TikTok is an area for improvement as it's newer to Hootsuite. It would be beneficial to be able to link non-business profiles on TikTok to Hootsuite as many businesses use personal accounts to access TikTok's expansive music library.
• Hootsuite does have room to improve the analytics capabilities. There could be more ways to customize each aspect of their reports. There isn't much manipulation of data in each type of data set.
• Simplicity is an area of improvement for Hootsuite. The streams are one example of an area that is super cluttered and difficult to view. Their platform could really use an aesthetic overhaul to make things look more pleasing.

Incentivized

• The pricing tiers do scale quickly so if you have a free newsletter it may get expensive
• The pricing is based on total emails so if you have users who you only email rarely it might not make sense to use Intuit Mailchimp
• Customer support can be a bit lacking at times and their docs aren't always the best

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

At this time we are satisfied that Hootsuite offers the most of what we are looking for at the most reasonable price point. As the social media landscape and monitoring/scheduling software changes, so do our needs. We re-evaluate our tools semi-annually or as new tools emerge onto the market. If we find at any point that we aren't gaining an advantage, then we are open to switching products.

Incentivized

We've had Mailchimp for about ten years, I want to say. I started with the company about four years ago, and I don't see us ever diverting to another source. It's easy for us to use, and we have all our clients already built into the database. I imagine we'll use them for as long as we have the company.

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

I will give Hootsuite a rating of 10/10 because it has delivered measurable business impact through social media. It helps centralize and streamline content planning, approvals, scheduling, and reporting in one place. It has significantly reduced manual workload and improved team efficiency. We achieved higher engagement rates, faster customer response times, and improved lead quality through social channels. It has also helped us with centralized reporting across different social media channels.

Incentivized

The interface is a bit complicated, and I need to spend some time to learn new functions and understanding how it works. I don't like working with email templates because of the limited customization options. However, functions like AI for generating emails, segmentation, and analytics still work well and are very useful.

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.

Gliches have made it a bit of a bind, particularly when you just want to 'click and send' a web article after you have read it - and then you have to deal with support (a great team but not always able to solve the problems with the gliches). Gliches with it loading properly, gliches with 'double ups in FB on the posts (the personal page and the business page if both clicked will lead to 2 lots of postings to each page!)

I have, in the 4+ years that I've used Mailchimp, never seen an issue that restricted the use of their software/tools. I don't know of a single time when they're system crashed or went down. I could be wrong, but I honestly haven't experienced any issues with outages, errors or unplanned downtime

Incentivized

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.

HootSuite does everything it is designed to do very well: the product's performance is very reliable and efficient. Like other tools, there is always a room for new developments and updates, and the HootSuite team recognizes this and focuses on new development as well.

I haven't noticed any slow speeds from Mailchimp or their tools. I think the landing pages load quickly and look nice. The email reports and editing operates smoothly and doesn't take time to load. Additionally, when I use Mailchimp in conjunction with Zapier + Hubspot I don't notice any drag between any of these tools

Incentivized

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

I can manage all of my accounts on one site! It's absolutely amazing!
The dashboard is helpful to see how you are doing as well. Still
getting to understand the analytics and may need to reach out for help
on this

Website tools were easy to use and understand so a novice can easily meet or exceed their client's expectations! Loved that we were able to totally customize so that the e-mail we created conveyed our client's overall messaging consistent with their branding! Client love that we can provide turnkey services to support their sales and marketing teams!

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.

Very easy to teach and learn

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.

The online training is decent; however, it takes a lot more time to search for answers to my questions. Having a training session with a live person was much more effective as they were able to quickly address the business needs I have.

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

Simple and easy to use, and have never had any issues. We like how it saves me time and allows me to plan in advance. I plan on using this for as long as I can and will encourage others to use it too. If you haven't tried it you should. I hope my review is helpful to everyone.

Incentivized

It's pretty easy to get up and running! There's a slight learning curve on a few things, but once you find where everything is located, you can import your list and send your first email. It really makes our clients feel great to see how quickly they can get that first email out.

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

Hootsuite offers a wide range of tools at a somewhat steeper cost. If you manage multiple platforms and want to survey the content being shared and interacted with across all of them, Hootsuite seems to have an easier platform to do that with. HubSpot CRM allows us to integrate our social platforms into our existing CRM, which is a cost saver, but Hootsuite is social media-focused, so the set-up is easier.

Incentivized

I don't think they are comparable; we use Google Ads to put our website at the top of the list when someone googles certain words. We use meta business to manage our social media. Google aims to gain customers, while Mailchimp is used to interact with both existing and new customers.

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.

We are only using in marketing and have been able to scale.

Incentivized

Mailchimp over the years I've used it has grown in leaps and bounds. They have added so many additional features than were previously available. They are truly an all-in-one marketing platform now. If you're a small operation and just want to add email to your marketing efforts, they're there for you. If you're a larger operation and want to start sending postcard advertisements, they can do that. If you'd good with that and want to kick up your marketing by going social, you can do that on their platform. They are truly able to be as small as you need, but also get quite large in whatever it is you'd like to do through their system.

Incentivized

• 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

• For our organization, all ROI was on time saved and efficiency: for creating posts, for scheduling and publishing, for interacting with users, and for analyzing performances. It all comes in one place and this makes a very huge difference in your workflows. We would say that Hootsuite went beyond our expectations on this front, for example with the dynamics UTMs and the media library. Saving time was the main reason why we wanted to purchase the platform and it did not disappoint at all.
• The ROI in time was also fast to get. The learning curse is very short and this is also an important element. Benefiting from the platform did not take long to be experienced.

Incentivized

• One of my retail web store clients was sending out email specials and notices about once a month. After clicking the send button, we would watch Google Analytics and the current site users would light up immediately. Often, the current site visitors would pop up to 20, 30 or more after the email was sent. On a normal day, seeing 1 or 2 online users would be OK.
• Pretty much in all cases, we could see an uptick in positive activity after sending out a Intuit Mailchimp email to a list.

Incentivized