Adobe Marketo Engage vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Marketo Engage
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Marketo Engage (acquired by Adobe in 2018) is a marketing automation platform whose basic features include email marketing, drip nurturing, landing pages, and lead scoring, but other editions offer additional advanced features. Typical customers are B2B firms with complex sales cycles.N/A
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.
$69
per month per agent
Pricing
Adobe Marketo EngageZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
Growth
Pricing based on database size.
per month
Select
Pricing based on database size.
per month
Prime
Pricing based on database size.
per month
Ultimate
Pricing based on database size.
per month
Suite Team
$69
per month per agent
Suite Growth
$115
per month per agent
Suite Professional
$149
per month per agent
Suite Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Marketo EngageZendesk Suite
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
Additional Details20% discount available with annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Marketo EngageZendesk Suite
Features
Adobe Marketo EngageZendesk Suite
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
7.8
1021 Ratings
2% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG email editor8.1929 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic content7.5904 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.5883 Ratings00 Ratings
Landing pages7.6946 Ratings00 Ratings
A/B testing8.0931 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization7.6901 Ratings00 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting7.9988 Ratings00 Ratings
List management8.1985 Ratings00 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences8.2894 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
8.1
987 Ratings
4% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation8.4960 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading8.1936 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management7.6935 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks7.7885 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead segmentation and distribution8.53 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
7.7
914 Ratings
3% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Calendaring7.5738 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing7.9872 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
7.2
575 Ratings
4% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns7.1566 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration7.2375 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
7.3
987 Ratings
0% below category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
Dashboards7.2929 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports7.5967 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports7.1921 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
7.9
979 Ratings
6% above category average
Zendesk Suite
-
Ratings
API8.0846 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals7.8719 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability7.4868 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com8.4842 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM7.7296 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM7.2195 Ratings00 Ratings
Third-party software integrations8.83 Ratings00 Ratings
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.7
160 Ratings
6% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.2159 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.0108 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings8.3111 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings8.4110 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.3159 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings9.2158 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.5
145 Ratings
6% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings8.4139 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.5132 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Marketo Engage
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.6
155 Ratings
8% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings8.8126 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings8.562 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings7.9102 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings9.2152 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.8117 Ratings
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
Adobe Marketo EngageZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(1191 ratings)
9.0
(198 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.8
(147 ratings)
10.0
(43 ratings)
Usability
5.0
(99 ratings)
8.7
(71 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(25 ratings)
9.1
(14 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(30 ratings)
9.1
(11 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(92 ratings)
6.0
(31 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(12 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
6.7
(29 ratings)
6.4
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(37 ratings)
9.1
(19 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(6 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
7.9
(4 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
1.1
(9 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.0
(10 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
9.4
(3 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.2
(7 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.2
(6 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe Marketo EngageZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
I would say it's unique and more advanced in marketing great way to work as teams and manage lead sales. Works well with social media platforms for overboard marketing on soft tools like email. Customization of dashboard for industry specific reports and user preference.
Read full review
Zendesk
One specific thing I love about Zendesk Suite lately is the ability to use AI "Enhance writing" it allows me to freehand a response and then have it help me sound more formal or friendly, this is very useful, not only for those free handed ones, but also when you need to repeat the same information to a customer, it can help you make it sound slightly different. I don't like that when a ticket comes, even if you have the shortcut to toggle between chat and email, it doesn't actually toggle.
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Pros
Adobe
  • It keeps all of our very important lead data in one place. It's very flexible, allows us to do a lot of different things around list building and segmentation. It deploys our email campaigns for us and it's also where our landing pages are built. So it does a lot of the things that we need to do from a data and deployment perspective.
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Zendesk
  • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
  • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
  • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
Read full review
Cons
Adobe
  • Adobe Marketo Engage crashes a lot or freezes. We don't have many users and less than 300k contacts so there's no reason it should ever crash.
  • It's really expensive! It would be nice to pick which features we want a la cart versus being stuck paying more for a feature and not using the others in the package.
  • Because of our integration with Dynamics, we had to use a 3rd party tool called Scribe for field matching. No one at Adobe will help us now that we have a 3rd party tool
Read full review
Zendesk
  • The development of messaging out of the earlier Chat module is clunky and still has limitations for multi language flows.
  • When creating queries in Explore, you can't search for 'or' conditions, only 'And', meaning you have to build multiple queries and manually add them.
  • You can't download the charts in the reports, they come down as tables and then you have to make your own charts.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
We're likely to renew for several reasons:
  • Now that it's been implemented, I can't imagine not having marketing automation and the easy interface that Marketo provides to run our campaigns
  • Marketo's community and customer service is fantastic; I know that when I need help, I'll get it
  • Marketo continues to improve the product, so I know that I can expect it to be even more useful in the future
Read full review
Zendesk
Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
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Usability
Adobe
In some aspects, the tool can feel quite clunky in parts. But with the rich feature set it has, it's understandable. There is a lot of room for improvement for the user interface. The system itself doesn't have a slick or modern feel, so the usability could feel nicer to use with these areas considered.
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Zendesk
Zendesk Suite is a straightforward solution that provides agents with everything they need on the same screen. Allowing an agent to navigate one tab, one screen and switch between features, pin favorite features while viewing the customer profile and details in 360degrees. A view like this empowers agents to support customers better and in a more composed state.
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
Marketo provides different way and abilities to connect. If you are having product support or unexplained errors you can get someone on Marketo support 24 hours a day. One of Marketo's greatest assets in my opinion however would be the community. Often times our company is just looking for case success stories from someone else. In the community you can search for problems you are currently facing and see others having the same issue and solutions for those issues. If not, you can pose a question to the whole community and champions of the product and others can chime in to provide suggestions to fix your needs. The community is truly a 24/7 place to get your answers quickly.
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Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
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Performance
Adobe
There are times when it is slightly slow for us, where we sit on a screen waiting for it to load. This could be our internet since we have had the same issue occasionally with other systems, but it is enough to make you crazy.
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Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
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Support Rating
Adobe
On multiple occasions we've had Marketo support (technical and license based) issues. Technical issues were minor and resolved within a day. License based issues (even things encouraged by Marketo for partners, like provisioning another license) took WEEKS. They actually took so long to respond that the client we were working with withdrew from the contract because they were no longer convinced Marketo was capable of supporting their business. As an agency trying to sell the software, you can only explain away so much before they just made us look silly.
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Zendesk
We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
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In-Person Training
Adobe
Our account rep stopped out in Lincoln, NE to ensure we were properly set up and running. This was very much appreciated. I was very, very new at this point, so I can't comment very much on the extent of what was taught because I was still brand new to the company and the system
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Zendesk
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Adobe
I had never used Marketo prior to taking this job so online training was my starting point. I was able to follow along, it was interesting and quickly and efficiently taught me what I needed to know without a lot of fluff. It was far from boring and really helped me get my hands dirty with Marketo.
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Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
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Implementation Rating
Adobe
1. Have a content marketing plan to run in parallel with the marketing automation installation--you'll need a lot of content to make full use of Marketo's capabilities. 2. Work with sales (and ISRs) to define and document a workflow--build your Marketo installation around how you do business--not figure out how to apply your business to the tools 3. Spend time of data cleaning--both an initial project as well as a strategy for ongoing data management. We found some change manaement issues (no more appending ZZZ to the first name to identify contacts who have left the company, for example, or prohibiting the entry of "info@company.com" email addresses). 4. Find some champions in the sales and ISR teams. You'll have both fans and detractors--work with the fans to build some success stories
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Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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Alternatives Considered
Adobe
Adobe Marketo Engage is one of the best email sending platforms I have worked with, because there is so much you can do on a lead scoring area and also then connect this to other platforms such as Salesforce. It allows for seamless reporting and working alongside sales colleagues. We chose Adobe Marketo Engage because it allows for more sophisticated audience segmentation and management of ongoing large scale nurture flows across a number of complex criteria.
Read full review
Zendesk
Zendesk Suite is exceptionally user friendly and highly customisable. Free training for all levels and roles of users which is easy to follow and engaging for users is particularly helpful along with the added support behind the scenes from Zendesk support and the Zendesk community is second to none.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Adobe
The total cost is a little bit higher than we expected.
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Zendesk
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Adobe
We look at scaleability in a few different ways. First, the speed while using Marketo has remained relatively the same as our database has grown. Though I would say Marketo is slow at times, it has not gotten slower over the last few years. If anything, it has improved, and they are working to improve it. Second, the amount of programs we have developed in Marketo has exponentially grown as well. Marketo has allowed us to drastically increase our output without having to drastically increase our headcount.
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Zendesk
WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
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Return on Investment
Adobe
  • Generated a 35% higher return on investment (ROI) in demand generation in the company.
  • The focus on the accounts that presented a greater sales potential, allowed us to prioritize and reduce costs by 20 Million USD.
  • Being personal and optimized. reduced efforts towards a more personalized customer experience, in working hours by almost 100 h.
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Zendesk
  • We have been able to deliver IT accurately and onetime
  • Our customers have been able to provide feedback on a given ticket and helped us build a better support structure
  • Zendesk Suite has allowed us to be more efficient in our every day operations
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ScreenShots

Adobe Marketo Engage Screenshots

Screenshot of the Contact Timeline in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of the Audience Feature in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of Progressive Profiling in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of the Insights Dashboard in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of Sources in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of Metrics in Adobe Marketo Engage

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations