Bound vs. Ion, by Rock Content

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bound
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Bound (formerly Get Smart Content) is a website segmentation and targeting platform that enables marketers to read a website visitor's digital body language and serve relevant content based on the person's stage in the buying journey. Using behavioral, demographic, and firmographic data, Bound creates personalized web experiences for both anonymous and known website visitors to increase the effectiveness of marketing efforts and dramatically reduce the buyer's path to conversion. Bound partners…N/A
Ion, by Rock Content
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Ion is an enterprise-grade content experience platform that empowers modern marketers and designers to create no-code interactive content experiences integrated with their CRM or marketing automation tools. Ion helps enterprises to build brand awareness and increase conversions and lead generation enriching their contact database with declared, high intent data. Ion helps brands launch quizzes, ROI calculators, assessments, interactive infographics, and other interactive formats in…N/A
Pricing
BoundIon, by Rock Content
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Managed Services + SaaS
Custom
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BoundIon, by Rock Content
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeOptional$5,500 per customer
Additional Detailsion’s Build Anything SaaS platform provides organizations with an entirely new and agile interactive content marketing capability. It enables non-technical marketers and designers to create, test and measure an unlimited number of all types of interactive content marketing experiences. It includes unlimited seats, experiences, tests, customization, phone and email support, analytics and more.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BoundIon, by Rock Content
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BoundIon, by Rock Content
Testing and Experimentation
Comparison of Testing and Experimentation features of Product A and Product B
Bound
9.7
1 Ratings
12% above category average
Ion, by Rock Content
-
Ratings
a/b experiment testing10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Split URL testing9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Multivariate testing9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-page/funnel testing10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Cross-browser testing10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile app testing9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Test significance10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Visual / WYSIWYG editor10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Advanced code editor10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Page surveys10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Visitor recordings9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Preview mode10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Test duration calculator10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiment scheduler9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiment workflow and approval10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic experiment activation9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Client-side tests10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Server-side tests10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Mutually exclusive tests10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Audience Segmentation & Targeting
Comparison of Audience Segmentation & Targeting features of Product A and Product B
Bound
9.8
1 Ratings
11% above category average
Ion, by Rock Content
-
Ratings
Standard visitor segmentation10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Behavioral visitor segmentation10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Traffic allocation control9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Website personalization10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Results and Analysis
Comparison of Results and Analysis features of Product A and Product B
Bound
9.4
1 Ratings
10% above category average
Ion, by Rock Content
-
Ratings
Heatmap tool10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Click analytics10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Scroll maps9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Form fill analysis10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Conversion tracking8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Goal tracking9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Test reporting9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Results segmentation10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
CSV export10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Experiments results dashboard9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Creation
Comparison of Content Creation features of Product A and Product B
Bound
-
Ratings
Ion, by Rock Content
7.5
105 Ratings
7% below category average
Ideation00 Ratings10.099 Ratings
Content collaboration00 Ratings5.094 Ratings
Content Publishing
Comparison of Content Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Bound
-
Ratings
Ion, by Rock Content
8.7
120 Ratings
7% above category average
Content hub00 Ratings10.0104 Ratings
Forms / Gated content00 Ratings10.0107 Ratings
Embedded CTAs00 Ratings10.0108 Ratings
Content distribution00 Ratings8.093 Ratings
Content promotion00 Ratings8.086 Ratings
Content automation00 Ratings6.090 Ratings
Content Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Bound
-
Ratings
Ion, by Rock Content
8.5
118 Ratings
9% above category average
Audience profiling and targeting00 Ratings6.091 Ratings
Closed-loop tracking and reporting00 Ratings8.095 Ratings
Content performance analytics00 Ratings10.0116 Ratings
Campaign optimization dashboard00 Ratings10.0107 Ratings
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BoundIon, by Rock Content
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BoundIon, by Rock Content
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(135 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(22 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.4
(17 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(18 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
BoundIon, by Rock Content
Likelihood to Recommend
Bound Systems, Inc.
I think the customer service and relationship we have with Get Smart Content is great
Read full review
Rock Content
If you want to choose a quick start template and fill in the fields with your content, Ion will be fantastic for you. We've done this with whitepapers and quizzes and it's been great and extremely easy to use. If you have an exact idea of what you want, and a background in web development, you may get frustrated. Ion has some quirks that make it tricky to fully customize - everyone once in a while I really just want to go into the HTML and make some changes, but can't. If you are looking to reuse a piece of content for specific targeting (industry or account-specific), Ion is great. The dynamic substitutions are great and very helpful.
Read full review
Pros
Bound Systems, Inc.
  • Connects easily with other APIs such as Demandbase and Google Analytics.
  • Easily create segments.
  • Easily create segmented content.
Read full review
Rock Content
  • Quick Starts make it so easy to get started.
  • Real-time updates are awesome and save a ton of wasteful process.
  • The combination of user friendliness for simple things and the flexibility to do more complex things is great.
  • Chat support is excellent and deeper-dive support has been super helpful.
  • The ability to use these tools in the cloud or embedded has given us tactic flexibility.
Read full review
Cons
Bound Systems, Inc.
  • When you set up a campaign you should be able to set up content while in the campaign.
  • You should be able to set up new segments while in the campaign.
Read full review
Rock Content
  • Ion University, while stacked with a wealth of information, is difficult to navigate from a troubleshooting perspective. The tutorial videos are all very helpful, but they are also very long. Sometimes I would want to search for how to address a particular issue I was struggling with and it would be a two-minute segment buried in a 45-minute video.
  • Again, getting back the self-guidance side of things. I think a lot of the tutorials are set up in a way that makes sense to Ion, but not as much to the end user.
  • I think the controls admins use when creating new users could be a bit more straightforward.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
We use it for every landing page and we plan on only doing more dynamic content creation. We dont see that option coming in-house any time ever in the future. ION has a very robust platform for us to work with that really allows us to do more for our customers in regards to having the one-to-one conversation.
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Usability
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported
Read full review
Performance
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.
Read full review
Support Rating
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
The ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.
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Online Training
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.
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Implementation Rating
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.
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Alternatives Considered
Bound Systems, Inc.
It has the inability to export subject line or ISP complaints that require manual pulling by each campaign when needed. Results from variable tests are also reported only as a percentage of chosen KPI (opens, clicks, etc.). There's no ability to see hard numbers from the tests or other metrics to determine the statistical significance or unintended results (maybe opens increased per the test, but we saw clicks or conversions were lower). On the other hand, Bound performs absolutely great.
Read full review
Rock Content
I was not the decision maker to choose this over Uberflip, but the UI is much more appealing to me. It's incredibly easy to use, clean, and from a backend standpoint, it requires little to no tech savvy'ness. Our team has really enjoyed using it and has required no training what-so-ever.
Read full review
Scalability
Bound Systems, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Rock Content
Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Bound Systems, Inc.
  • We have seen more traffic going to revenue generating sites after using Get Smart Content. I'm not sure of the dollar amount since that's a separate department, but traffic increasing is great.
  • Engagement on our internal site has increased after implementing Get Smart Content. We are getting more views, comments and likes on our content than before.
Read full review
Rock Content
  • Though we have not had the service long enough to see any measurable outcomes, we've been able to create interactive web content faster than ever before
  • The speed with which we can build interactive pages and re-use assets has been critical as projects we've done with Ion have made their way around and more and more internal clients have said "me too" for their own projects
  • It is very pricey at $28K for the base annual subscription (dropping to $24k after the first year), so depending on your budgetary situation, that may make no sense for your team--but we had contract money set aside for a company to build us a microsite for around the amount, so we just used it for Ion instead and will now be building the microsite ourselves using it
Read full review
ScreenShots

Bound Screenshots

Screenshot of Campaign viewScreenshot of Segment viewScreenshot of Segment list

Ion, by Rock Content Screenshots

Screenshot of ion empowers your other marketing technologies to deliver higher fidelity, data-driven scoring, targeting, segmentation and personalization.Screenshot of The types of interactive experiences the ion platform can create is near-endless. These are the most common types used by our customers: Assessments, Calculators, eBooks, Interactive Infographics, Interactive White Papers, Landing Pages, Lookbooks, Quizzes, Resource Library, Solution Finder.Screenshot of See what our customers are saying about our platform and services!Screenshot of Starting at $2,000 per month, you get an unlimited, scalable interactive content platform with our full feature set. Including: Unlimited experiences, unlimited use of Quick Starts, Unlimited Seats/Users, Unlimited A/B/n Testing, Unlimited Sell-Side Experiences, Unlimited Phone, email & chat support, unlimited analytics... PLUS a FREE custom-branded theme that can be applied to all of your experiences.Screenshot of You have the option to start from a template or entirely from scratch. Our Quick Start template library includes more than 100 fully tested, responsive and flexible interactive experiences you can brand, customize and launch.Screenshot of ion is the only interactive content platform that provides the scalable foundation to grow from one interactive experience to one thousand interactive experiences. With ion, interactive content development complexity, long timelines, high costs and maintenance problems are replaced with freedom and agility.