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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Brandwatch

    Score8.2 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Brandwatch, from Cision (acquired February 2021) is an enterprise social intelligence platform that is designed to allow brands to listen and analyze online conversation to extract meaningful insights, inform their business decisions and understand more about the return on their marketing spend.

    $800

    10k mentions

    Smartly.io

    Score10 out of 10
    N/ASmartly.io supports Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns with campaign optimization, multi-product ads, automatic budget allocation and optimization, and custom analytics.N/A
    Pricing
    BrandwatchSmartly.io
    Editions & Modules
    Pro
    $800
    10k mentions
    Enterprise
    3000+
    Unlimited mentions or Queries
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BrandwatchSmartly.io
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    BrandwatchSmartly.io
    Considered Both Products
    Cision
    No answer on this topic
    Smartly.io
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    80%
    Would buy again
    16 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    75%
    Delivers good value for the price
    12 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    19 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    87%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    87%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Best Alternatives
    BrandwatchSmartly.io
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    Mention
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    LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Mention
    Score8 out of 10
    X Ads
    Score4.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Social Suite by Reputation.com
    Score9.4 out of 10
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    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BrandwatchSmartly.io
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.5
    (69 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    6.0
    (8 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.9
    (14 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BrandwatchSmartly.io
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cision
    The user interface is great and is easy to use for social media marketers of all ranges. In regard to planning and scheduling content, it allows all users with access to the capability to view all upcoming on an actual calendar. For organizational purposes, this is great and mitigates any confusion that other team members may have. The tool seems to always be updating which has its pros and cons because once you figure something out, there's a switch and you'll need to relearn how things are positioned but overall, it's not a heavy lift.
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    It is the best for visually appealing brands, basically, any hedonic goods to advertise. Best if you have a lot of visuals to represent your business and want to leverage your presence on given platforms. You can easily turn images into videos or have dynamic attributes for your remarketing campaign. As the pricing is not attractive for smaller clients, it is the best to be either a big brand to use the platform on your own or a big agency to use smartly.io features as your competitive advantage.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cision
    • Clean, beautiful visuals that can be easily incorporated into reports to be used internally and externally.
    • Customization-- anywhere from the queries you create to adjusting individual report widget/components this tool is very flexible.
    • Excellent Customer Service and support. My Brandwatch rep is always open to hearing from me for questions and often reaches out to me to check in on my status or see if I would like to participate in beta programs.
    • Constant innovation. It seems like Brandwatch is constantly updating and adding improvements to their platform--especially with their 2019 acquisition of Crimson Hexagon.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    • A/B testing
    • Automated boosting
    • Content optimization
    • Customer care
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cision
    • Very steep learning curve- good luck training casual users on the difference between a query, a rule, a category etc
    • Lack of access to FULL historic data is a serious drawback- populating that data takes a minimum of 24 hours and incurs additional costs
    • Volume limits mean you may have to build your query to exclude mentions that may be useful in getting the full context of the situation
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    • Pricing is not attractive to smaller agencies. The base minimum was 1k per month, then 2.5k per month and it grew up to 5k per month. It means that agencies will have to choose service of competitors as Smartly.io is not affordable for everyone. It becomes a premium business.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cision
    Brandwatch is a simple tool that is easy to learn and understand. Without any rigorous training, the team can learn to use it and interpret the results in an efficient manner. It saves a lot of work and helps the team to focus on other important time consuming tasks. I would like to continue using Brandwatch.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Cision
    I've invited quite a few of my colleagues to try Brandwatch, and all of them were able to use its features with no assistance, and most of these had never used a social listening/monitoring tool before, or even a digital analytics tool! Brandwatch is not only easy to use, but filters, widgets, menus and other options are in intuitive places - it just works
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Cision
    Brandwatch craps out sometimes. Pages freeze, data doesn't populate for hours. It's fine if you're not in a hurry but something to keep in mind if you're working in real-time. It's not as bad as Talkwalker but it's impacted timely delivery of work for me, and one of the first things I teach when introducing the platform is the process for closing out and re-logging in to see if it unfreezes
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cision
    We have not had to reach out to the team for much support but when we did, The support from the Team has been Superb. We were given the assistance needed once requested by the Team. We would recommend Falcon not only because the product is simply amazing but also because of the level of support we have reached.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    • If the problem involves some product bugs, customer support does not leave it be. They forward the problem to engineers so it would be solved. Once we caught a problem, they fixed it through the weekend. They always keep you in the loop with the current status of the issue. Once a new person jumps in to follow up, the reaction is
    • They are all the time super polite and very friendly.
    • Replies in under 5 minutes.
    • Customer support can jump into your account and make quick fixes if you allow them to.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Cision
    good knowledge, great tips, although the program seems a bit disconnected. It could improve it they create more free webinars and a good content calendar and tackle little topics in each webinar. Their trainers are top notch and they know a lot about the tool but they fall a bit low on technical level understanding of how the tool actually works
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Cision
    Not that I can think of.
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cision
    If you're using it to monitor your brand's social presence only, or if you're in an agency and using it to monitor existing clients and provide reports to them, then this is a great tool and you're hard-pressed to find something better. But if you're wanting it more for new business and discovery, there are tools that do this much better, including Sysomos and Crimson Hexagon. So it depends on what specifically you're trying to do. My agency was already using this product when I arrived, so I did not have a choice in the matter, but I've evaluated both of these other tools. Crimson is similar enough that the slight increase in cost doesn't justify switching. Synthesio is the most expensive competitor in the market (no matter what they tell you), but you get what you pay for. If you can afford it, go with Synthesio.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Cision
    • At a high level, the biggest impact the Brandwatch Analytics has had is giving us the ability to quantify the impact of social media for our clients. In the world of social, ROI is defined and interpreted differently across clients (particularly where it's more difficult to apply traditional ROI) - so this may mean reporting on earned media for some, while for others it's measuring increasing engagements or social mentions over time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    • Allowed us the ability to A/B test organic content
    • Workflow efficiencies
    • Content insights
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Brandwatch Screenshots

    Product screenshot