Campaigner vs. Gist

Workflow feature makes this best suited for those who want to send a series of emails over time based on contact attributes and behavior. Ability to add custom fields and define segments makes this tool valuable for very targeted email campaigns. Lack of communication about releases and poor technical support means your users will need to be fairly skilled in critical thinking and more technical than average. Our knowledge of system came from lots of trial and error.

Incentivized

If your marketing model is selling products, services, or SAAS where you are doing inbound marketing and your website will do most of the lead generation and conversion, this is a great product. From live chat, support, event tracking, and automation, you could almost put your entire business on autopilot. If your marketing model is mostly outreach to cold leads and conversion, this software currently does not have any type of sales stages or task generation. I would still use Gist for website inbound but use another software for outreach and cold leads then when they become a lead put them into Gist for marketing automation.

Incentivized

• Number 1, is it's ease of use. We have not run into any problems where someone finds Campaigner difficult to use and this comes in handy every day. The more people that know how to use it the better because it reduces stress/buildup on others.
• We love the reporting system here. We use the clicks and opens to follow up with people all the time so to have all that detailed information is very beneficial.
• Customization is great. You can really make all your emails look exactly like they're pictured in your head.

• Customer service via a unified inbox so you dont have to separately monitor your twitter, Facebook or IG account for consumer communication there. Gist unified all into one inbox, better than anyone else I've seen in the market. They archive all communications and tie them back to a single user so you get unified customer history / data.
• Marketing segmentation and automation: they track user history and behavior across the site and have super detailed segmenting capability, on par with ActiveCampaign's, but better I'd say. Better UI for the marketing admin person, and more unified data than in AC.
• Live chat and chatbot. Usually it's either one or the other but with Gist you can do both seamlessly.

Incentivized

• Campaigner is just too bare-bones. When we first started using Campaigner close to a decade ago it was perfect for what it was. But nowadays Campaigner is missing several features that their competitors offer like exit intent and cart abandonment emails.
• Campaigner has an astonishingly bad unsubscribe option. We have had many customers complain to us over the years that when they try to unsubscribe through the emails Campaigner sends, their unsubscribe does not go through.
• Hard to change account settings such as changing our subscription plan. We had to call and were told to wait 24 hours just to make a small change to our account.

Incentivized

• Plan limits can be confusing. For example, there is a monthly charge for support and a monthly charge for "growth," plus there's a separate charge depending on how many contacts and seats you have. Perhaps this is normal in the industry, but it can make it a little challenging to understand the bill every month.
• The vast amount of features means development will never be as fast as you'd like it to be (even though they release updates all the time). This may not actually be a valid concern, and it certainly isn't unique to Gist (who doesn't have a wishlist they're waiting on their favorite SaaS to get to?), but I do believe the likelihood of being stuck without your desired feature being developed goes up a lot as the product gets bigger and bigger.
• Email deliverability has been less than perfect in the past, but it has improved drastically in the last year.

I can't see us not renewing unless we find something better. This is highly unlikely because there was a thorough research done for use to chose the best marketing client and it always came back to campaigner.

Gist is a quite reliable service with a lot of added values. We don't need to pay for different Saas for these important features. If I had an issue the team was super responsive and helpful, that is essential for every business. The email delivery is great, so virtually no email has landed into spam folder

Incentivized

Great features but awful tech support experiences over five years of use. Some releases broke our workflows and Campaigner could never explain why. Our initial plan provided a designed client support contact. This individual changed frequently without notice and at one point they decided our plan no longer included a designated contact. Of course this was never communicated to us until we tried to reach out to the person. If you are tech savy this system might be for you but you'll be on your own.

Incentivized

It’s pretty simple, but it does a lot so there are more complicated features which depend on an individuals ability for software implementation. I am not an IT expert and I’ve managed to implement everything myself, others that are more tech-minded may find everything easier.

Everything takes a minimum of 24 hours to solve and after being with campaigner for several years we were just told for the first time we have an account rep which we never even spoke to.

Incentivized

Fantastic support. Ask a question, get an answer within 24 hours every time. And sometimes within a few minutes. They've always come through for me, helpful and, even when it's an issue on my end, they point me in the right direction.

Incentivized

MailChimp is far more customizable and User-Friendly, although Campaigner gets the job done. Campaigner could benefit from a design upgrade to bring their look into the modern realm. The drag and drop features and email customization of MailChimp, Campaigner is lacking. However, MailChimp is pricier. So you are definitely getting what you pay for.

Incentivized

Gist combines all our previous products into one application and adds many more features that would require more apps. Gist is excellent and a no-brainer all-in-one application when compared to having to manage multiple applications at higher cost. The support from the whole Gist team has been extremely responsive.

• We are able to sell Campaigner as a premium feature
• The plans can be a bit pricey
• We do cover cost by using their flexible "bucket" model.

Incentivized

• They are perfect for me as a someone who needs a lot of bang for the buck. The chat messenger device on my website alone has brought me new prospects that I did not have to spend money recruiting.
• I am able to save hours of time with the automated emails that are GDPR compliant.
• I don't have to pay for a designer to have excellent looking emails either.