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 My advice in choosing software in general is to know what you want to get out of the software. Then start researching the software on your own to see what features and benefits each has that will help you accomplish what you need. Once you have a good idea of what sorts of features you're looking for, reach out to the vendors that have them to see demos. Get really in-depth with your demos and ask for practical use-cases for each feature. Free trials are pretty useless with this sort of technology because the initial set-up is so time-consuming that you would either not set it up properly, or you would not stop using the provider you chose after the set up because you don't want to do it again!
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 It is easy to use without too much set-up. The e-mail engine is simple to use and straightforward, and e-mails seemed to get delivered for the most part. The reporting information is very in-depth and detailed. 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 I think creating the HTML email campaigns could be made easier. I would like to have more HTML templates available. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Loopfuse was great for a startup with a limited budget and limited technical resources, but it's not something I'd use for a larger company because the functionality can be fairly limited compared to other similar products. If I were in a startup again, I wouldn't hesitate to use them for a second. I would also note that, when I first started using them, they were great about answering questions via phone, email, web form, forum, etc - which is one of the reasons I went with them. When I used them at a later company, I found they were a little less receptive to 1x1 support with the cheaper plan I was using. I can't blame them for that, but it wasn't always intuitive to use their product (even after having used it for a year).
Read full review Usability It's pretty easy to use without any technical abilities, but the email editor will require html skills (no drag and drop).
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 At the time we had to choose between several versions of marketing products. We decided to choose LoopFuse since a few of our employees were quite amused with the ease of use of LoopFuse. Also when looking at cost-effectiveness LoopFuse is a great product for the smaller companies. Making the decision was not too hard.
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 I can't really quantify ROI from Loopfuse Read full review ScreenShots