Likelihood to Recommend For low volume non-profits, Benchmark Email provides a respectable free service. Ease of use is high and customization of the email is good. The discount for 501(c)(3) organizations and fully free use for non-profits that help children is commendable. Although the GUI editor is flexible and easy to learn, it does have some issues with certain detailed formatting concerns, like properly showing the newlines between paragraphs. Image/photo processing and presentation is similarly both easy to use, but frustrating due to some capability gaps and quirks, like specifying image sizes and display on hi-resolution devices. Overall, Benchmark Email provides a good service that is easy to learn to expand your communication reach; however, the ROI and satisfaction may not be as high if paying fees comparable to other offerings.
Read full review Braze is likely at its best for companies that engage with customers on both an app-level and web-level. It gets even better if you have the opportunity to leverage some of the additional channels Braze unlocks such as in-app messages and content cards. If you're only using Braze to send SMS and Email and the occasional push, you're likely better off finding a cheaper platform. Braze organizes its analytics in a very odd way in my experience, so I'd also recommend pairing Braze with a secondary reporting tool of your choosing.
Read full review Pros 2,000 contact list space available with no time limit to those who can't upgrade. The AB Testing feature helps to improve the performance of your emails by experimenting with different content and send times to determine what works best. Thus great emailing objectives are easier to achieve. There is a feature where website and email engagement trigger an automatic email series. For example, the automatic flow of a subscriber from a leads list to a customer list upon making a purchase is awesome. Read full review Canvases are a straightforward way to dynamically target users We have a lot of control over our email templates- especially compared to the last service we used Built-in reporting is fantastic and offers solid insight Braze integration with our consumer-facing App opened up a lot of options for us when running promos Read full review Cons List maintenance -- navigating multiple lists is a cumbersome activity. Analytics about user engagement could be better. It's not super robust, especially if you're used to Google Analytics. Customer support is kind of slow to get back to us. Read full review It offers analytics insights, but this is still not incredibly detailed It takes a while for features on the product roadmap to be implemented The drag-and-drop editors of their marketing channels (Email & IAM) could use some improvement in terms of more functionality and tweaking abilities Read full review Usability Braze's usability is one of the main things that makes it stand out from its competitors. The UX and UI are excellent, and it ensures it is not overcomplicated where it doesn't need to be. The online documentation is also handy to help support teams in your business.
Read full review Support Rating Very responsive and helpful on simple questions, but not great other than that. They do not have a way for the customer/user to escalate a ticket. You have to contact your rep and in some cases, they don't respond within 24 hours so you have no idea if they have escalated it. There is no phone number for an urgent issue - you have to rely on email
Read full review Alternatives Considered I stated this plenty of times in my previous responses but we moved to Benchmark from
Mad Mimi .
Mad Mimi 's feature set is extremely basic and only suited for start-ups or very small businesses. Benchmark provides enough customization to take the next step in your email marketing program. It's also fairly affordable
Read full review Compared to
Salesforce Commerce Cloud , Braze is much more user friendly, flexible and provides for easier segmentation and personalization. The reporting in Braze is also much easier to use. Compared to
Marketo , Braze has a better UI and UX, and an easier learning curve for new users. The set up and maintenance of customer journeys is much easier. The only thing I miss from
Marketo is the ability to view the customer log, which allows you to see the automation that happens against each user profile, allowing for easier troubleshooting.
Read full review Return on Investment If we think particularly on the ROI then benchmark email gives you a definite amount of ROI. But it takes time, you will see the results after a six month span of time. Because sending an email itself is a slow and steady process to follow. Read full review Positive: A growth hacking experiment was proven successful in nudging users who abandoned their cart after checking out with a product/service and leaving their chart or 24 hours. Positive: A growth hacking experiment was proven successful in nudging users whose credit card failed when trying to upgrade to a paid account. Negative: With the plethora of teams (disciplines / business units / markets) with access to braze, it's easy to accidentally over-nurture users. Read full review ScreenShots Benchmark Email Screenshots