ActiveDEMAND vs. Percolate, now part of Seismic

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.

Very useful for the management, planning, and programming of all social networks, as well as marketing campaigns. One of the best tools to make life easier for community managers and automate daily tasks such as content publishing. It is my favorite for managing my clients' networks.

Incentivized

• 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.

• Create social content from briefing all the way through to the approval process.
• Social planner for managing topics and content streams across multiple channels.
• Robust API and integrations.
• Image library (with cost-free access/rights to stock photo libraries).
• Frequent updates to the platform.
• Built-in community management.

Incentivized

• 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.

• A lot of the features in Percolate are very well built, but only provide the bare minimum as features go. Its editorial calendar for example lacks export/import features and its multimedia repository only supports images. In many ways, Percolate is trying very hard to be too much at the same time.
• At the moment, Percolate lacks user level management. We can add users who need to be moderated before posting, but it is for example not possible to add users just for one specific function (like the multimedia database).

Percolate is a great tool for us, because we need the approval process workflows. The training was great when we first signed on, and the interface is very user friendly. We have trained our interns to use it as well with no issues. It makes keeping up with our content calendar a breeze and we can easily see what posts have been approved and which ones are still pending at a quick glance

Incentivized

Rarely has a company shown this much support during implementation. This almost got to the point where it was too much hand holding. Sometimes, social teams just want the keys to the car so they can drive it themselves instead of waiting on someone to drive along with them...

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

Percolate and Falcon have many similarities and provide many of the same features, however Percolate felt a bit more robust than Falcon, although it does come with a higher price tag to match. Both platforms are excellent for content approval workflows, content scheduling, and community management. Percolate offers additional features such as an Asset Management Library and a section for creative briefs and collaboration with internal teams.

Incentivized

• 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

• Percolate has made it much easier to communicate between teams and has provided a return on investment in that area in particular.
• Percolate also helps save time because you are able to schedule social media posts across channels easily.
• It has also been an easy way to work with remote team members, which is very helpful.

Incentivized