Likelihood to Recommend When choosing a marketing automation system, it is important to think of what exactly you want it to do. I think no matter what you are hoping to get out of a marketing automation platform, you can achieve it with ActiveDEMAND. It can be used for simple/basic marketing email sending and campaign execution or it can be used to develop a microsite, create sales and marketing kiosks, run multi-step campaigns, host protected assets or whatever you want to do with it. You can easily choose (or ignore) the modules and features to be as creative as you choose to be.
Read full review I think Blueshift is well suited as a CRM. It does a great job handling the customer information that you need, placing it, and displaying it in one concise place. They could do better in regards to being forthcoming with information. Documentation is weak, and depending on who you speak with on the support team, they may have different answers to the problem you're having. In my experience, there are a lot of inconsistencies in how they think about reporting, that someone who's been in marketing for the past 10-years, has to relearn and rethink how we share data for KPIs.
Read full review Pros Customer Service - this company EXCELS at customer service, always answering our questions and being helpful. Innovative Ideas - they stay on top of the trends in marketing, offer ways for us to incorporate these items into our efforts. Friendly staff - the staff at ActiveDEMAND are great to work with and are responsive to our needs. Read full review Customer Segments + Recommendations Tool - Blueshift and has helped with automating and personalizing our retargeting efforts. The true value of Blueshift was realized when we could launch triggered marketing campaigns targeted to specific segments based on a user's behavior onsite, and deliver relevant personalized content using the AI-based Recommendations tool. Integration with Segment and other apps Retargeting with dynamic content pulled from data feeds / catalogs Read full review Cons Reporting - Though the reporting is extensive and very very good... I sometimes miss a simplified view of email opens/clicks/link clicks etc. Don't get me wrong, you can get to this data in ActiveDEMAND relatively easily, the default views through the campaign dashboard are just quite detailed (which some people would probably prefer) and I just don't think that we need that level of reporting on first glance. That being said, I do love the option to drill down and uncover the complex detailed data when i do want it (ActiveDEMAND is very good at this). One element of reporting that I would also like would be an event registrant report showing all registered people (this part exists) and their responses on the registration form they completed to register for the event. (These things would be dietary restrictions, industry, customized responses to other event related questions). I also wish the reports autorefreshed more frequently. ICS Files - Right now there are work arounds for loading an ICS file (Calendar meeting invite file) that can be accessed in campaign assets. I just wish this was more native to the tool. Archive Filing - Now, first of all, it is so amazing that ActiveDEMAND even has an archiving feature... I LOVE this. One small downside, however, is that the archiving cannot be organized using a folder structure or anything. I would like to be able to group my live events together, then group my webinars together etc. Read full review Campaign management features like drag and drop, copying elements - general ease of use improvements to the UX Ability to move customers easily from one campaign to another with one click Read full review Likelihood to Renew We're not in the mood to start this process over at this time. A lot of hard work went into it.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Vertical Response wasn't a full marketing platform at the time when we used it, but it was clunky and the tech support wasn't easy to use. I like the one-on-one response we get from ActiveDemand and really being on a first name basis with the folks there
Read full review Customer has a better UX/UI but Blueshift's capabilities are far stronger. The price is also more interesting considering what it does. Blueshift doesn't have certain integrations that are useful for startups (like Slack) but it's something that they should be having soon. Social media interconnection is also a step in the right direction that Customer hasn't moved toward
Read full review Return on Investment Simplified email marketing and event management Better tracking of leads Better intelligence about which initiatives are working well and where future opportunities lie Less reliant on IT department/third party to execute our online marketing Read full review Blueshift has had a tremendous impact on our email marketing KPIs. The AI-based approach and Recommendations tool has led to increased engagement. Read full review ScreenShots