Act-On Software vs. Ion Interactive

If you have MS Dynamics CRM, this is the automation platform for you and your operations. Act-On Software easily syncs with dynamics, and we've never had a problem with this since we set ours up years ago. If you use a different CRM, I'd check to see if other options might make more sense. Having that ability for the systems to seamlessly talk is critical.

Incentivized

I don't give 9 ratings easily. Anyone wanting greater user engagement would benefit from ion interactive. I can slap together a simple interactive tool for a social post easily. I also have a plan selector with complex logic built in that would have cost me $50k to build without ion. Now I'm able to duplicate it and make adjustments to use it for various other applications. We've created a couple dozen fun interactive tools for social posts and now we simply re-purpose them easily to create new ones frequently. I just created a new page for our website that we'll want to be fluid; so the site developers suggested we simply embed an ion tool to give us real-time flexibility. Marketers in other divisions are jealous when they see all the fun stuff we're doing--they're gradually becoming ion converts

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

• I love that ion interactive autosaves. So many of these platforms leave me terrified of disconnection or closing my laptop.
• This WYSIWYG actually works. I've yet to have a translation or code glitch.
• Fast load times are a huge bonus, as well as mobile-optimized display.

Incentivized

• Building email and landing page templates are difficult, the drag and drop builder is not straightforward, and requires coding knowledge
• The workflow tool is cumbersome and not as intuitive as I'd expect a best in class marketing software's to be
• Domain connections and domain management functionality made it difficult to manage multiple company domains and subdomains for pages

Incentivized

• no revert option/revision history if you make a bad mistake
• some simple styles that should be just there for you have to be made through custom CSS
• some of their template options have some pretty bad designs and are not usable beyond a basic functionality level/have to be completely reskinned

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

Because unless I find something better to replace it with, we're probably going to renew our contract. Ideally, Ion interactive can update Liveball so it's easier to use, more functionality that includes forms and javascript options currently not in place

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.

Incentivized

Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported

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.

Sometimes the server loading speed is a little slow but most often runs fine and if it doesn't their tech support is quick to respond

Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.

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 ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.

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.

The system is very user friendly, I think we were up and running within a day or so of having the product. It took very few online training for me to learn a large chunk of the functionality of this system.

They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.

Incentivized

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

There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.

Incentivized

We chose Act-On for its ability to support our customers within a single account. The Marketing Network is a huge benefit to our business and the offerings we provide to our customers. In previously working with Hubpsot and Salesforce, we found the support to be lacking - often being referred to a forum or landing page rather than getting hands-on guided help from a knowledgeable person on their team. We LOVE Act-On and the team that they have servicing our account!

Incentivized

I haven't had a lot of experience with templated CMS systems and was not involved in the original selection, though I was part of the renewal discussions. Most of the templates I've used have been html and created in house on an as-needed bases

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.

Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.

Incentivized

• Positive- quick setup for webinars between 3 different tools, made it easy to do in high volume
• Negative- lots of processes with the designer tools that made email/landing page design take longer than it should have, costing man hours
• Positive- email automation with different types of campaigns we could have flowing at once or could span across multiple audience segments made it so we could consistently create touch points and increase our engagement, thus our ROI over time

Incentivized

• So far the impact has been positive, but as we are new to the platform that opinion is based on relatively few interactive assets.
• There hasn't been any negative reactions or impact from Ion as of yet, but as I said before it's still early for us in terms of usage (less than a year).
• We do really appreciate the level of complexity and customization available in the platform.

Incentivized