Reporting software designed specifically for marketing agencies, boasting over 5,000 agencies as users of AgencyAnalytics for reports and live marketing dashboards. It can report on SEO, PPC, call tracking, social media, email marketing, and more with 60+ integrations. The solution aims to displace spreadsheets and help users grow their agencies, and is presented as an easy-to-use reporting software that just works the way it is needed to. It is available to try out through a 14-day…
$60
per month
Cision Communications Cloud
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
CIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.
N/A
Pricing
Agency Analytics
Cision Communications Cloud
Editions & Modules
Freelancer
$12
per month per client campaign (minimum 5 client campaigns)
Agency
$18
per month per client campaign (minimum 10 client campaigns)
Enterprise
contact for enterprise pricing
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Agency Analytics
Cision Communications Cloud
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
What is a Client Campaign?
A client campaign represents a client (their website and integrations).
We identified Agency Analytics as the most well-rounded software for our agency’s needs. The platform was reasonably priced and included integrations for SEO, paid search, paid social, and organic social. Having reporting and tools for all major marketing channels will be …
Agency Analytics has made the overall marketing procedure quite effective, where all the approaches have been brought into a single dashboard for the purpose of easy and quick functionality. [I] highly recommended analytic software for better growth of your company.
For a small start-up, the cost-benefit to add lift to press releases [and] particular milestone accomplishments is definitely there with the Cision [Communications] Cloud. Much of what we do, by necessity, is done internally without the benefit of outsourced press folks, so the Cision [Communications] Cloud ease of use and reporting is very important.
Their upgraded press release templates and ability [to] pull in an entire, completed release makes the [process] faster and easier, and allows for more graphics, such as company mastheads, [are done well].
The media tracking offers the ability to find relevant placements across the entire country.
The journalist database streamlines the process of finding relevant reporters to directly connect [to] on news releases that are relevant to their beats.
The process of setting up, creating, and distributing a release is seamless, easy to use, and not labor-intensive.
Would like to see the stars feature to bring keywords to the top of the report have 1 click to remove all stars that were checked off previously.
Would love to have a feature to track how clients are ranking for keywords; currently only shows the # of keywords ranking in the top 10 positions of Google but doesn't show the actual keywords for each competitor.
Would extremely love to see a feature where the keywords can be viewed/filtered by position; for example page 1 of Google only, page 2 of Google only.
Would love to see a keyword tool to check keyword rankings or search volume for specific keywords; similar to Google's keyword planner.
In the media influencer database, the classic Cision allowed us to do a zip code radius search to really drill down to the neighborhood level. That's because we do localized media advisories and press releases for events at neighborhood schools. One part of a big city like Chicago really doesn't care what's happening in another part of Chicago that's too far away. The zip code radius search was a feature in the classic Cision but not with the current Cision Communications Cloud. We've asked for this to be restored several times, but nothing's happened. In fact, we were told to use DMA — which actually goes wider in a search (bigger than a city), not more narrow as needed. This reflects a basic misunderstanding of what we need.
Another missing feature involves a merge field when sending out an email press release through Cision. This is the "select insert field" button in the upper right that's used to personalize a release with the media contact's name and other information. This is key for localization of the release. Many media outlets won't run a release unless it's local. While "county" is a feature in the influencer database when putting together a media list in Cision, "county" is not available to insert into a press release as a merge field. Counties are important because this is how many newspapers and health departments are organized and identify themselves. I've asked for this to be implemented, to no avail. As a workaround, we've had to use "contact city" or "outlet city."
After refining a media list in Cision using filters, I've had to download the list and take it offline to see the big picture, screen for duplicates, etc. While there is a button on the bottom left intended to help with this, it doesn't do the trick. That's because there may be multiple contacts with the same email address. In addition, one media contact may represent numerous media outlets, so this same contact could show up several times. It would be nice to have a better way to see the whole list online and eliminate both duplicates as well as those who previously opted out.
While I am happy with the product performance overall, TrendKite's recent merger with Cision is cause for concern. When we first signed on with TrendKite, I spoke with several users and the best response I received was that the company was a startup and we could expect there to be hiccups along the way as the company grew and the platform got more robust. That has certainly been the case. However, now that they have merged with Cision — a company that has grown too fast, has not focused on improving its product and has poor customer service — I have concerns that TrendKite will lose some of the qualities that have made it a great company and great product to work with.
The flexibility and customization of Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is among its most important features. Changing the dashboards, using keywords in the saved searches to pull out the best stories and the integration with marketing automation tools gives me confidence that I will able to continue using this tool well into the future. The future implementation and integration of the media contact database will complete the suite, making list management and email marketing programs much smoother. *This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
Generally, Cision performs well day to day, but it's got some annoying bugs that slow down usage/require user workarounds which is inefficient. More seriously, a few months ago, as a result of a major system upgrade, certain critical functionality was not working and I was unable to use the service for more than a day when I had time-sensitive work to execute
They are always on top/ahead of the curve. There has never been a time where I haven't had the platform work professionally when I needed it. They stand behind a top-quality product. It's easy to support something when they put hard work into development and maintenance.
For Cision TrendKite in particilar, support always responded, but it was sometimes slow. For some of our booleans and search queries, we would need help refining and excluding terms/phrases that weren't relevant to our client or campaign. This sometimes took 1-2 days just to get a response back, which sometimes was too late when a last-minute report was due. This was only with the support staff, not necessarily our customer success manager or sales rep.
The online training sessions available for the Cision Communications Cloud are helpful and informative. There's more than one option - initially, I signed up for the live webinar classes on basic functions and that is what I recommend other new users do as well. If I have specific questions or something I want to learn more about, I can search the online database and find article or online training videos to get the information I need.
This is my first experience with a tool like Agency Analytics because I don't have a digital marketing background. My background is in sales, but I quickly realized that Agency Analytics is a selling point for prospective and existing clients. We also use Ahrefs and Semrush, but having access to AA is extremely valuable.
It's a similar product. I think Meltwater sells itself as being a bit more niche, but I have not found many significant differences between Meltwater and Cision. Meltwater's sales process is a very high pressure and their prices are inflated.
