Adobe Business Catalyst (Discontinued) vs. Wishpond Propel IQ

The service provision is good the accounts customer service is poor so I would struggle to give BC a better than average review, if only they could offer customers a better accounts service then the value would be much higher.

It's a great platform if you're looking for something to run contests that provide leads and drive user engagement, but if they also incorporated social media management and scheduling, Wishpond would be a 10 by far. It's definitely worth looking into specifically for running contests throughout the year, for a wide variety of companies and industries.

Incentivized

• Probably one of the easiest e-commerce platforms to work in, it does take setup, but compared to a lot of other e-commerce solutions, this is probably the best one that I have seen that can be designed and implemented custom.
• Their template system works very well and allows you to create and re-use templates across Adobe Business Catalyst.
• Their pre-built modules are great, giving people a great way to use common web elements without having to use a plug-in or find some solution, it is simply built in and generally works exactly as you would expect.
• Adobe Business Catalyst is more of an all-around solution, providing elements that most smaller companies would have a hard time figuring out, since it includes the ability to build websites, send and track e-mails, analytics. It really is a powerful tool that would typically require a fair amount of coding knowledge and expertise but with the system already built, it can be easily modified and edited by those with limited or no coding knowledge at all.

Incentivized

• Very small learning curve, thanks to wonderful real-time tutorials and help, and drag-and-drop editors.
• Easy to navigate - there are only 3 main sections of the site (content, lists, and emails).
• Excellent customer service. I've always gotten prompt answers to any questions I've had.

Incentivized

• Multi Client Management: The dashboard for managing multiple clients as a reseller is a little difficult to get to. There is also no very easy way for me to manage multiple clients at once. I have to log into and out of individual client accounts to do billing or management.
• Lack of Server support: There are certain server protocols and languages that are not supported using BC. For example I cannot build a custom php database and upload to BC. I am required to use their tools.

Incentivized

• They added keywords to campaigns we'd specifically said not to.
• They should tweak campaigns with a 0.06 ROAS.
• They should provide the services that are promised.

Actually with Business Catalyst there is no renewal; once you are a partner, you are a partner for as long as you like. It is an investment in your business not simply a product you purchase...and as an investment in partnership with Adobe, both are committed to each other's success.

Overall it is a "plug and play" interface. The majority of the work is done in other software interfaces. Managing billing, user roles and custom reports are all that you need to manage in the actual BC user interface. For my business this is an incredible benefit as I have to leave my preferred software less.

Incentivized

very few issues with availability

Incentivized

Very few issues

Incentivized

The support provided by Adobe is excellent. Though the knowledge base, forums, blogs and online chat questions most all answers can be found. In the event that you are unable to find an answer or you have a unique situation simply post a question to the forums. These forums are regularly monitored by Adobe and its users.

There is no support at Wishpond. I contacted my project manager's manager over a week ago without a reply. When I responded to the automated 'How is your experience' email saying how awful it was there was no follow-up. When I had trouble and had to escalate things it resulted in some new procedures being put in place that changed nothing and they never checked in to see if things were fixed.

bcgurus.com kiyuco

Incentivized

Pretty easy to do

Incentivized

As far as the CMS for BC goes, there is none out there that compares. In the past we have utilized Joomla, Wordpress, Mambo, Drupal, Concrete 5 and others. None of them were as easy to use and train on that Adobe's Business Catalyst. Our alternative to BC is WordPress when our clients want a less expensive solution. For the most part that works OK but we have had issues with plugin incompatibility among other issues. We lost at least two clients because of similar issues. The other great part about BC's solution is that we can still work with our favorite site creation tool - Dreamweaver. The whole process continues to be more and more simplified with added features to the system. No other solution (that we've found) offers such an easy way to create custom web sites that are easily editable by our clients.

Incentivized

We choose Wishpond as our first option since we were a startup e-commerce. Klaviyo was a little bit expensive for us and Wishpond really suits pretty well in our budget. Besides, if you don't have so many clients, at a first glance, there are a lot of features that would not be taken advantage of. That is why Wishpond was a better option when we started.

Incentivized

It's easy to build small sites or large sites and there is lots of templating.

Incentivized

• As someone who uses it on behalf of other clients, our ROI with BC is definitely positive. We needed a mid-range CMS without huge licensing costs to satisfy mid-range clients who have some dynamic needs but doesn't need the expense or liability of enterprise level products. Without it we would have lost possible customers or taken bigger hits on projects because of the costs involved with satisfying their mid-level needs
• Our clients are all usually very positive about the BC platform and are able to use it themselves which lessens our Support time/cost.
• To use the Web App element,. which we do on almost every site, you need to pay for the highest plan. This brings along with it many features most of our clients would never use. A more basic plan with that Web App capability would be a big improvement on our costs.

Incentivized

• Negative google ROI.
• A few conversions in September on paid social then none - negative ROI.
• Between ad spend and Wishpond fees every month is negative ROI. Can’t wait until I can get out of this contract.
• Emails don’t perform as well as my own for open rates or clicks.