Likelihood to Recommend Small businesses with even smaller marketing budgets and no email marketing experience would be better off selecting a lower-end email marketing provider. However, Adestra will provide a growing company with every email marketing tool along the way.
Read full review Maropost is a little more expensive than its competitors. I'd say Maropost is well suited for medium and larger businesses, not small businesses unless they're really good at utilizing e-mail and monetizing it.
Read full review Pros Adestra's "dynamic" list allows users to consolidate multiple lists in combination with data filters and exclusion lists. This implements segmentation and is a powerful marketing tool. Adestra's MessageFocus API integration provides developer-tools for list, campaign or transactional automated requirements. Campaigns can be sorted into project folders. This allows marketers to group campaigns together for management or reporting requirements. Moving or copying campaigns from one project to another is a simple process. Data downloads via Reporting is available at every level, from overview to individual KPI. Creating "core" tables helps marketers develop lists with similar attributes. Whether a list has many fields or simply the one required email address field, a "core" table helps to quickly map data labels from spreadsheet to online database. Creating data labels on the fly is a simple process, as well. The "core" table also groups similar contacts into one core database. Any list can be quickly "emptied" for to manage refreshed data. The contacts within the "emptied" list would still be members of the "core" table and so the process does not negatively impact reporting. Unsubscribes can be managed in one list (as a default) or individual lists. Creating individual unsubscribe lists -- dependent on business requirements -- would allow for a preference center, whereby recipients could be given a choice as to which campaigns they receive. The Form tool creates signup forms, simple surveys and landing pages. These can be hosted via Adestra or otherwise on the web. The tool provides for branding and proprietary cascading stylesheets, with a number of actions available through a drag-and-drop interface. Read full review Maropost is particularly strong in the customization aspect. As a sales person, I love using MSC because I can customize everything from A-Z. The features are endless, a personal fav is the Journey's feature with Marketing Cloud. Client support is quick to respond. Read full review Cons As of this writing, there are at least 3 different editors available (a drag-and-drop, a WYSIWYG and HTML). However, only a small template library is available if requested through support. Those expecting to find ready-built templates for re-branding would find them through the third-party EDM Designer drag-and-drop editor. Read full review The Sales Department shouldn't promise the customer what support can't deliver on. They should also brush up on some ethics courses. It's appalling to me how they conduct business. Buyer beware. Read full review Usability I have been self-trained on different ESPs for over 10 years, so my experience isn't comparable to most users. However, I've trained people on various email marketing platforms, and with some training, clients have a positive user-experience with Adestra.
Read full review Support Rating I have had campaign related issues solved very quickly. When there are technical issues, that involve more than one departmental, it may involve a longer turn-around and management.
Read full review Though relatively responsive, the responses were always utterly unhelpful and sometime not even relevant to the questions we asked. It quickly became apparent that it was outsourced copy/paste support.
Read full review Alternatives Considered For medium and large sized businesses, Adestra competes well with
dotMailer . While many of the functions are available through either provider, creating campaigns, managing lists and reviewing metrics are somewhat different. As of this writing,
dotMailer 's drag-and-drop editor dominates that platform and performs well for low-end users with little-to-no HTML experience. Even high-end users will appreciate how quickly campaigns can be built via the drag-and-drop editor. While Adestra utilizes the EDM Designer drag-and-drop, the third-party functionality is not completely cohesive and lack of a template library gives
dotMailer a bit of an advantage.
Read full review Maropost had everything we needed and more. We loved that fact that one price covered everything. As we move forward we don't have to go back and purchase modules that we are now ready for. No one wants to go back to management and ask for more money
Read full review Return on Investment For companies that focus on goals and analytics, Adestra provides all the necessary tools. Read full review Lack of data and information about our users that we can use to get smarter in our segmentation hurts us in that we lose branded deals or partnerships. Takes too much time to export reports and gain attrition reporting information, manually preparing reports is not a good use of time for anyone on our team. Read full review ScreenShots Maropost Marketing Cloud Screenshots