Apollo.io vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apollo.io
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Apollo is a sales intelligence platform with tools to help users engage with prospects. Sellers and marketers can use Apollo to discover more customers in market, connect with contacts, and establish a modern go-to-market strategy. Apollo's B2B Database includes over 220M contacts and 30M companies. Teams can leverage Apollo’s Engagement Suite to scale outbound activity and sequences effectively. Finally, Apollo's Intelligence Engine supports the user's go-to-market processes…
$59
per month
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
Marketing Cloud is an AI-powered, cloud-based digital marketing platform within the Salesforce Customer 360 ecosystem. Marketers can segment their audience, deliver personalized messages, track campaign performance, engage leads and accounts, and optimize strategies based on real-time insights.
$1,250
per month per installation
Pricing
Apollo.ioSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Editions & Modules
Basic
$59
per month per user
Professional
$99
per month per user
Organization
$1,188
per year per user
Account Engagement
$1,250
per month
Engagement
$1,250
per month
Intelligence
$3,000
per month
Loyalty Management
$20,000
per month
Personalization
$100,000
per year
Data Cloud for Marketing
$108,000
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apollo.ioSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details20% discount for annual billing on the Basic and Professional plans.
More Pricing Information
Features
Apollo.ioSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Prospecting
Comparison of Prospecting features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
7.7
17 Ratings
0% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Advanced search7.417 Ratings00 Ratings
Identification of new leads7.417 Ratings00 Ratings
List quality7.617 Ratings00 Ratings
List upload/download8.416 Ratings00 Ratings
Ideal customer targeting7.717 Ratings00 Ratings
Load time/data access8.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Intelligence Data Standards
Comparison of Sales Intelligence Data Standards features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
7.3
17 Ratings
5% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Contact information7.217 Ratings00 Ratings
Company information7.617 Ratings00 Ratings
Industry information7.016 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Augmentation & Lead Qualification
Comparison of Data Augmentation & Lead Qualification features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
7.7
17 Ratings
4% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Lead qualification process7.914 Ratings00 Ratings
Smart lists and recommendations7.714 Ratings00 Ratings
Salesforce integration8.48 Ratings00 Ratings
Company/business profiles7.716 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts and reminders7.114 Ratings00 Ratings
Data hygiene7.315 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic data refresh7.415 Ratings00 Ratings
Tags7.010 Ratings00 Ratings
Filters and segmentation8.516 Ratings00 Ratings
Sales Intelligence Email Features
Comparison of Sales Intelligence Email Features features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
6.8
12 Ratings
8% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Sales email templates6.612 Ratings00 Ratings
Append emails to records7.111 Ratings00 Ratings
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
167 Ratings
3% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings8.1118 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings7.9149 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings7.8108 Ratings
Landing pages00 Ratings7.7117 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings8.2147 Ratings
Mobile optimization00 Ratings7.4107 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings8.3128 Ratings
List management00 Ratings7.9125 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings8.191 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
121 Ratings
1% above category average
Lead nurturing automation00 Ratings7.9107 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading00 Ratings7.7108 Ratings
Data quality management00 Ratings7.8113 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings8.199 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
111 Ratings
5% above category average
Calendaring00 Ratings8.1100 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing00 Ratings7.794 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.4
85 Ratings
2% below category average
Social sharing and campaigns00 Ratings7.880 Ratings
Social profile integration00 Ratings7.036 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
121 Ratings
7% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings7.9115 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings8.1120 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.797 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Apollo.io
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.7
121 Ratings
3% above category average
API00 Ratings7.487 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals00 Ratings7.986 Ratings
Customizability00 Ratings7.3108 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com00 Ratings8.5110 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM00 Ratings8.313 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM00 Ratings7.410 Ratings
Third-party software integrations00 Ratings7.121 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Apollo.ioSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Small Businesses
Lead411
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Score 9.1 out of 10
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Lead411
Lead411
Score 9.1 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
D&B Hoovers
D&B Hoovers
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Score 9.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
Apollo.ioSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(36 ratings)
7.9
(325 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.4
(114 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(6 ratings)
4.5
(35 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(5 ratings)
6.7
(36 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(17 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(34 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apollo.ioSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Apollo.io
For startups or companies who needs to get big amounts of data but at the same time have some insights about their prospects and leads is the best tool, it provides easy to use tools and interface that makes it simple to any user withut any level of experience, also great with data analysis for small companies.
Read full review
Salesforce
I rated this a seven because I love Salesforce, and it is excellent on the sales side. However, the marketing side has some pros and cons. It is terrific for keeping track of lead, customer, and dealer information, but it is not easy to automate workflows, integrate other software, or create well-designed emails. It is also straightforward to generate reports, which is very helpful in keeping track of lead progression to better market those leads and turn them into customers.
Read full review
Pros
Apollo.io
  • Allows users to easily add new prospects to database without much manual effort at all
  • Allows you to make cold calls from different area codes that are relevant to where your prospect is located
  • Allows A/B testing for emails so you can figure out which ones are gaining the most traction
  • You can also find prospects based off of title, company, technologies, etc
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Filter relevant content so you can priorize those that are more relevant and resolve it first
  • Measure the traffic in the different social networks, as well as the response rate, average response time and other relevant metrics
  • Configure automation rules to order the work of those who must interact with the customer
Read full review
Cons
Apollo.io
  • Their customer service is just terrible. You get an assigned account manager but 9/10 times they wouldn't know what you wanted and/or how the product works or how to fix it. Vast majority of the time it was a canned response that made you question if they read the message, or if they read it and did not understand a word.
  • The software was relatively buggy and lacked features that were promised upon signup. They seem to have some large corporate clients and if you aren't one none of your bug submissions, feature requests, or concerns will be addressed.
  • Their growing quickly so they seem to be very understaffed which I believe caused many of the issues above.
  • The data, while good, can quickly run out if you're looking for specific types of leads. If you're looking for something generic like Managers at companies between 10-5000 people, you can pull leads all day every day. However if you're looking for a specific industry, specific title, and specific location - don't count on having an endless supply of leads (or even really enough to use month after month).
Read full review
Salesforce
  • The email builder does not offer any way to catch/check bugs across different email service providers
  • Creating SQL is not as easy as drag-and-drop; a lot of technical knowledge is required
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud is sold as a marketing tool, but to be honest, you need a LOT of technical IT support to run the tool
  • Einstein metrics are across the board; if you have multiple audiences in one instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can't segment the data.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Apollo.io
Generally quite a reliable tool with decent data quality/availability. Pricing works well for our team and our use case
Read full review
Salesforce
As of right now we have not seen any other program that integrates as seamlessly into our Salesforce platform. We have barely scratched the surface of all the features and use cases. It would be irresponsible to make a move to another platform in the near future. We have not come up against any limitations that would prompt a need to switch
Read full review
Usability
Apollo.io
Apollo.io is very helpful for any sales team. It is a great way to create a large database of mostly accurate contacts. This has been very helpful for my sales team as we are constantly reaching out to prospects via phone and email and looking to be as strategic as possible which Apollo.io helps us with.
Read full review
Salesforce
You won't find another solution that has as many features as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Interaction Studio. We all know Salesforce, we all know how big they are and it's not for nothing... Their tools do most of the things you want, need and even imagine. Using it is complicated, but the usability is infinite.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Apollo.io
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Upgrades and timing of the upgrades were communicated well and planned during off hours for our work. If we did have a campaign scheduled during that time, it would kick-off after the system was back active. There were a few unplanned system down times, but it was a rare occurrence and those times were also short in duration.
Read full review
Performance
Apollo.io
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Though the make up of MA apps is not built this way today, it would be nice to see them become more real-time. The integration between Salesforce and Pardot is not a true real-time integration. If I modify something in Salesforce, those changes are not automatically reflected in Pardot immediately. There is a delay of about 15 minutes before the systems sync. This delay, although not long, is less than ideal We would love the systems to be integrated real time such that changes are propagated from one system to the other immediately.
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Support Rating
Apollo.io
I received excellent support at any time I opened up a ticket. But I would add to it that the tool was very self-explanatory, so there wasn't much need for support. With Outreach, we have a closer relationship with our CSM because of the intricacy in things like SFDC task mapping.
Read full review
Salesforce
They are really responsive and more than not solve the problem or give you insight to how you can manage the solution yourself. I do find however sometimes a long delay on the more complex issues when they need to loop in other departments. but overall a good experience with support
Read full review
In-Person Training
Apollo.io
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
The trainers at the Pardot user conference (Elevate and Connections) were very knowledgeable and presented the material well. Again, the content was targeted to more of a new user audience, and was not really relevant for folks who had been using the product for 2+ years.
Read full review
Online Training
Apollo.io
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Pardot's online training touches on all topics briefly and vaguely without much indepth exploration into how a final outcome could look, such as Nurturing Campaigns, Email templates, landing page templates, etc... The only true way to uncover Pardot's full capabilities is to have Front End design and coding experience. Without this key skill set, I would not recommend Pardot to another business.
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Implementation Rating
Apollo.io
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
From an IT perspective, once you set up the Javascript beacon and start collecting data there is a waiting game. During this time you can start labeling your site actions which can be labor intensive for a single person, but you don't really have the final end-users on the platform yet. We did a lot of training so users were experienced, but it wasn't until they had their first tasks to accomplish that they started using the system and had questions. I'd recommend setting up some immediate goals for an end-user to start segmenting for the purpose of displaying message campaigns so you can jump start end-user action.
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Alternatives Considered
Apollo.io
Apollo is inexpensive of all the above tools. Data accuracy of other tools like lintel and infotelligent is much much better but they are expensive also. One needs to be careful while using data from Apollo because email bounces can damage your domain reputation. I suggest you use a different SMTP server while sending mail.
Read full review
Salesforce
I think that all of the marketing platforms I have evaluated and used in the past serve different markets and purposes. Salesforce Marketing Cloud was more palatable to our team because of our existing tech stack where we had Salesforce CRM already deployed and in use. Compared to Marketo and Hubspot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a bit dated in terms of the UI/UX and the overall experience but still meets the needs of our organization. Mailchimp, however, isn't even playing in the same arena and is meant for small organizations and companies that don't have a need for a full fledged offering that SFMC brings to the table.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Apollo.io
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
was not involved with this part but i have not heard about clompaints
Read full review
Scalability
Apollo.io
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Prior to this, we had no solution and literally were doing things on paper in a world where technology is outpacing paper. Having this process optimized has made it easier for the sales and marketing people to change information. From the training perspective, it has allowed us to see holes in where we could create additional support training, so the ROI here has been a lot more than just the optimization of a process.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Apollo.io
  • Generated a lot of expectations that were not real when we needed them
  • The ROI was positive but we decided to stop using the tool
  • We loved how easy to use it was and how easy it was to interact with the Support team
  • There is room for improvement in the video tutorials - they were from old versions of the software that would not be useful for the version at hand
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to more efficiently reach out to a higher number of prospects.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to nimbly communicate important messages in a timely fashion to facilitate conversion.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to track who is opening our messages so that we can stop sending to those not interested and focus on the most engaged audiences.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Apollo.io Screenshots

Screenshot of Find every prospect. Uncover high-intent contacts in your market.Screenshot of Connect with every contact. Orchestrate multi-step sequences at scale.Screenshot of Optimize your sales strategy. Unlock efficiencies and opportunities across your entire workflow.Screenshot of Apollo B2B Lead Database - Access data on more than 250M people and companies.Screenshot of Apollo Engagement Suite - Automate personalized messages across your entire pipeline.Screenshot of Apollo Intelligence Engine - Improve your revenue strategy across your workflow and boost efficiencies.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Pardot Analytics - Pardot's reporting and analytics can be used to perform true revenue impact analysis and closed-loop reporting.Screenshot of Pardot Email Analytics - The reach and impact of  email marketing efforts are displayed in real-time with advanced reporting and analytics by device, and email client.Screenshot of Pardot Forms and Landing Pages - Pardot's form and landing page builders are used to turn online traffic to leads with targeted offers and content marketing.Screenshot of Pardot Email Marketing - Lead nurturing flows are defined via an interface that enables definition of the simplest or most complex segmented and targeted campaigns.