Adobe Campaign vs. HCL Unica

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Campaign
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Adobe acquired Neolane in July 2013 and later re-named the product Adobe Campaign. Adobe Campaign provides both marketing automation and marketing resource management functionality such as spend & financial management, workflow, and asset management.N/A
HCL Unica
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
HCL Unica (acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in late 2018) is a suite of enterprise marketing management tools including marketing automation with cross-channel campaign management, budgeting and forecasting, project workflow management, asset management, brand management and spend management.N/A
Pricing
Adobe CampaignHCL Unica
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe CampaignHCL Unica
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe CampaignHCL Unica
Considered Both Products
Adobe Campaign
Chose Adobe Campaign
This tool was very powerful and seemed very easy to use for our direct mail capabilities, but wasn't adapted to email. However, as the market grew to involve more personalized expectations we needed to integrate other tools to handle email capabilities and it no longer seemed …
HCL Unica
Chose HCL Unica
Adobe is a tough competitor, and it's fair to say that you can get the same quality of service from Adobe. Speaking as an Adobe fanboy, it's easy to say that I'm biased – however, from a price standpoint, IBM is cheaper, and you get the same results. I will say that IBM doesn't …
Chose HCL Unica
Against all the other applications, IBM EMM stands head and shoulders above the others, in terms of sophistication & diverse capabilities - with Neolane being the closest.
Chose HCL Unica

It's been a market leader within this space for over 10 years, it has a high ability to execute time and time again. Against it's competitors it has been tried and proven to been robust but flexible within reason to allow adaptations that will not break the system. Can be …

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Adobe CampaignHCL Unica
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Campaign
8.8
92 Ratings
12% above category average
HCL Unica
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG email editor9.486 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic content9.592 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content9.687 Ratings00 Ratings
Landing pages8.184 Ratings00 Ratings
A/B testing8.888 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization9.586 Ratings00 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.090 Ratings00 Ratings
List management6.392 Ratings00 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences9.781 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Campaign
6.7
6 Ratings
14% below category average
HCL Unica
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation7.16 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading7.35 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management6.36 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks6.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Campaign
8.5
86 Ratings
11% above category average
HCL Unica
-
Ratings
Calendaring9.586 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing7.46 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Campaign
7.9
4 Ratings
5% above category average
HCL Unica
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns8.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration7.74 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Campaign
8.5
92 Ratings
13% above category average
HCL Unica
-
Ratings
Dashboards8.091 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports8.891 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports8.787 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Campaign
8.3
88 Ratings
9% above category average
HCL Unica
-
Ratings
API8.879 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals9.682 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability9.485 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com7.563 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM7.850 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM6.56 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe CampaignHCL Unica
Small Businesses
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.4 out of 10
Airtable
Airtable
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
LeanData
LeanData
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Adobe Marketing Cloud
Adobe Marketing Cloud
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe CampaignHCL Unica
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(97 ratings)
9.0
(15 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(5 ratings)
8.7
(11 ratings)
Usability
8.8
(41 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.8
(40 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.2
(2 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe CampaignHCL Unica
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
Multi-Channel Campaign Management: I have found Adobe Campaign to be excellent for managing campaigns across multiple channels, including email, mobile, social media, and web. Its centralized platform allows me to plan, execute, and track campaigns effectively, making it ideal for organizations with diverse marketing channels. For example, when I was running a campaign to promote a new product launch across email, SMS, and social media channels, Adobe Campaign provided me with the tools to orchestrate and track the campaign seamlessly. I could ensure consistent messaging and a cohesive customer experience across different channels.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
I think it is wel suited for a business with a lot of one on one relations in the database. For example a supermarket that sells products to a client and gives a reduction on that product. It is nice if the selection process is not to complex and does not involve to many calculations. It is also nice if it is very clear what you want to follow up. In our environment we have lots of many-to-many relations. for example one product is held by more then one client. And that client might have more of those products with other clients. These kind of situation demands for a lot of calculations with derived fields(*), and there things go far too slow. Unica is probably not such a good solution for us, because our environment is too complex, and so is to process of creating the selection, we often have to change things in the selection flows. Because of the complexity it is difficult to see what the flow is exactly doing afterwoods, it also takes to much time to modify existing campaigns. The interface is not handy to work with, if you have long lists of variables, of tables or derived fields(*) you have to scroll through trough them, you can not really search them or reorder them. You can not drag and drop fields or other objects like derived fields in the flow, what would be easy if you have to make frequent changes to the proces flow. When you copy objects something the content of the object changes because the links with other objects or lost. (*) derived field: field to calculate something
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Pros
Adobe
  • It allows me to capture leads through various sources, such as website forms or landing pages.
  • It offers a centralized repository where I can securely store and manage customer data, encompassing contact information, preferences, transaction records, and additional relevant data.
  • It provides robust analytics and reporting capabilities.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
  • Ability to translate Multiple SQL queries into a very easy to use visual GUI.
  • Provides the ability to pre-define segments, run them once in off hours, store them in their own system tables for quick youth and a significant reduction in CPU utilization on the database.
  • It’s use of Reusable objects. Including user variables to pre-define calculations one time, macros that you can create and pass values to parameterize the SQL code And the creation of templates to easily replicate work.
  • It’s ability to bring in external data on the fly that can very easily be mapped into any flowchart.
  • It’s flexibility and creating UNIX script via triggers to automate sending of files to multiple vendors with different FTP sites
  • It’s flexibility in the output layouts that it can create.
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Cons
Adobe
  • Adobe Campaign does not have a high enough sales intelligence to let us know which landing page format would be the most optimal for the proper development of our mass marketing operations, which in the long run would also help with customer collection.
  • Does not directly track the number of people who enter our website, beyond sending them automated messages depending on whether they entered a certain section of the site. This problem is important, because it does not allow us to get complete tracking results in that area.
  • The platform does not do social media marketing extensively enough to let us create dynamic evaluations on the results of interactions that are obtained within social networks, which creates a huge margin of error in our analytical results messages, and so we have stopped applying social marketing.
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HCL Technologies
  • Greater integration of real time (Interact) capabilities with outbound channels, in particular IBM eMessage Email & SMS delivery.
  • Additional outbound channels to be integrated into eMessage, including Facebook Fanpage & Twitter DM broadcasts. At the moment these are possible only through custom additional integration.
  • Support for additional marketing database technology, e.g. MySQL, Exasol, ParAccel, WX2.
  • Provision of database technology with software purchase, as Web technology (IBM WebSphere Express) is supplied for free, but no database is supplied - since IBM also market DB2, which is a supported technology it seems a shame.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
Once you go for Neolane you are a bit stuck with it, so we will most likely stay with Neolane. Cost of investment and training are the main factors at work here. We havesimply have invested too much in the product to stop using it after 2 years. That said, my score of 8 does not imply that the product is worthy of getting an 8 but reflects our willingness to renew. Given that upgrading to a new version will cost again a substantial sum, we most likely will keep using the current version we are on which is 6X.
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HCL Technologies
There are three main factors to renew a licence: 1) Cost to migrate to another platform would be rather expensive and time consuming, plus the requirement of retraining employees to use a new tool 2) It has been proven time and time again that it is a market leader in the space (10 years +) 3) It can be built upon, with the addition of additional IBM EMM modules - despite theories it does have very strong digital capabilities.
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Usability
Adobe
Thanks to this tool we are taking more internal control of the creation and deployment of campaigns with less dependency on an ESP. We can pre-program marketing publications, being able to concentrate on the target audience. It helps me manage email campaigns with real-time tracking.
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HCL Technologies
I think it is easy to use, if you don't have to do to complex selections.
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
Aside from frequent error prompts, the program is quite dependable
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HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Adobe
Although there is a lot of material available on the internet to answer questions, I still feel a lack of commitment and delay in the responses of the support, but as a whole, it leaves nothing to be desired. I believe that, in the great majority, companies sin in the desired support, but we cannot generalize. But this one, in particular, has a wide range of specialists and well-qualified management, but I believe that it is not so bad.
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HCL Technologies
I didn't use the Unica support since it is with IBM, only before.
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Implementation Rating
Adobe
No answers on this topic
HCL Technologies
- We had to rebuild a part of the datamart afterwards to tighten up and simplify the selection process. But as it was too time consuming to rebuild all the existing campaigns, we no run campaigns on different versions of the datamart. - The response tracking of the campaigns never worked out well, it was impossible to implement a direct response where there is a link between the lead and the response in our operational process
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
As we tried to centralise the marketing automation platform within the enterprise, Adobe Campaign can plug into several instances of Salesforce.com for lead management queues. All other marketing automation platforms can only plug into one instance of Salesforce.com. Adobe Campaign was also able to handle the complexity and challenges of our enterprise data which are a result of years of legacy, mergers and acquisitions and data aggregation.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
The contact history and the response history are so powerful. You can track whatever you want to help the call center to push relevant offers to our customer. In addition, predictive models can be built, with patience, in IBM Campaign. If you have some complaints from the call center about any campaigns, you can easily validate it into the contact or response history.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Adobe
Not everything was great at all times. It was handled accordingly, pricing was reasonable for what was purchased. It was the best value on the market at the time of purchase.
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HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Adobe
  • Talking about profits can be subjective if you don't take into account the periodic variations between net and gross profit margins, but fortunately with Adobe Campaign, it is easy to notice these differences quickly.
  • Results have always seemed relative to us, as they vary greatly depending on how much is invested.
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HCL Technologies
  • It helps my clients drive their business which in turn, drives more profit for them.
  • It helps my clients determine what works, and what doesn't work, in terms of their social marketing campaigns.
  • It helps navigate proper budgeting through determining what clients' users respond to, and what they find unique.
Read full review
ScreenShots

HCL Unica Screenshots

Screenshot of End-to-end campaign managementScreenshot of Faster campaign creation