CIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.
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Dealfront
Score 9.7 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Formed from the merger of Leadfeeder and Echobot, Dealfront is a Go-to-Market Platform for Europe used by businesses to find leads and close deals.
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Lead Forensics
Score 9.0 out of 10
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UK company Lead Forensics offers their eponymous platform for lead generation and web analytics.
Cision is by far less expensive dollar for dollar and does not demonstrate any lacking comparatively speaking. Where other platforms are difficult to navigate or make sense of, Cision is fairly straight forward. If you can use Facebook, you can use this. Additionally, it is …
Lead Forensics is a more costly option. Their fee is several hundreds of dollars a month. They give you the same information as LeadFeeder but different dashboard visuals. You will also have to pay extra if you need email addresses. Leadfeeder gives you a more cost-effective …
Price was a big factor. This software was roughly a quarter of the cost. Plus Lead Forensics charges to access the emails of people at the company where as LeadFeeder does not.
Lead Forensics data was more accurate and in-depth. I pay more for it but get a larger volume of leads. I also find the contacts to be better too. I did a test between the two and the accountant manager was less salesy and helped me learn the product and its benefits.
For a small start-up, the cost-benefit to add lift to press releases [and] particular milestone accomplishments is definitely there with the Cision [Communications] Cloud. Much of what we do, by necessity, is done internally without the benefit of outsourced press folks, so the Cision [Communications] Cloud ease of use and reporting is very important.
If you're looking to find new sales/customer contacts and are not a fan of complete "cold calling", Leadfeeder is a great source for finding those contacts or companies which may benefit you as they're clearly already looking at you. It weeds out half of the footwork for you.
It's a great system. As I said, I had never used it, but I feel that if I do move on, I would definitely take this with me - everyone I introduce it to via my network is amazed by it. As a small company, for our sales and marketing, it is a brilliant platform; in fact, I'll go as far as to say that our logistics and supply chain look at it daily as well. Reports are fantastic, and the fact that you can jump on and see data in real time is brilliant.
Their upgraded press release templates and ability [to] pull in an entire, completed release makes the [process] faster and easier, and allows for more graphics, such as company mastheads, [are done well].
The media tracking offers the ability to find relevant placements across the entire country.
The journalist database streamlines the process of finding relevant reporters to directly connect [to] on news releases that are relevant to their beats.
The process of setting up, creating, and distributing a release is seamless, easy to use, and not labor-intensive.
Research Quality versus invested Time is absolutely efficient and motivating. Quick Research or Standard Alerts, both are done easily with instant results.
Usability of the User Interface in any of the modules is very supportive. New Team members are trained in short time. Very much self-explaining.
The connectivity between the modules is great and saves time. Each module has its key topic, but in Connection with the other modules this practical tool turns out to be even smarter more and powerful.
Lead Forensics helps us see which companies are visiting our site, even if they don’t fill out a form. This gives us a chance to reach out to businesses that are already showing interest but might not have contacted us yet.
Instead of cold-calling random prospects, we can see which pages a company has viewed and how often they return. This helps us tailor our conversations based on what they’re actually interested in.
The Lead Forensics support team has been great whenever we’ve had questions. They’re quick to respond and always ready to help, whether it’s troubleshooting an issue or offering advice on how to get the most out of the platform.
In the media influencer database, the classic Cision allowed us to do a zip code radius search to really drill down to the neighborhood level. That's because we do localized media advisories and press releases for events at neighborhood schools. One part of a big city like Chicago really doesn't care what's happening in another part of Chicago that's too far away. The zip code radius search was a feature in the classic Cision but not with the current Cision Communications Cloud. We've asked for this to be restored several times, but nothing's happened. In fact, we were told to use DMA — which actually goes wider in a search (bigger than a city), not more narrow as needed. This reflects a basic misunderstanding of what we need.
Another missing feature involves a merge field when sending out an email press release through Cision. This is the "select insert field" button in the upper right that's used to personalize a release with the media contact's name and other information. This is key for localization of the release. Many media outlets won't run a release unless it's local. While "county" is a feature in the influencer database when putting together a media list in Cision, "county" is not available to insert into a press release as a merge field. Counties are important because this is how many newspapers and health departments are organized and identify themselves. I've asked for this to be implemented, to no avail. As a workaround, we've had to use "contact city" or "outlet city."
After refining a media list in Cision using filters, I've had to download the list and take it offline to see the big picture, screen for duplicates, etc. While there is a button on the bottom left intended to help with this, it doesn't do the trick. That's because there may be multiple contacts with the same email address. In addition, one media contact may represent numerous media outlets, so this same contact could show up several times. It would be nice to have a better way to see the whole list online and eliminate both duplicates as well as those who previously opted out.
Leadfeeder has basic lead Tagging capabilities and some native integrations. It would be great to see more lead Activity Tracking and integration capabilities that sync with sales tools so a team could hypothetically keep their eyes on Leadfeeder-only while updating the CRM/sales tool.
Better updates on companies' current names. Often if a company was a different company years ago it still says the old company name which is confusing.
Better identifying the correct location. Sometimes it seems like that the location coming up is the wrong location.
Giving a better understanding of how they got to the website would help too. Often is says "direct" but I would like to know if it was via a link from an email or what
While I am happy with the product performance overall, TrendKite's recent merger with Cision is cause for concern. When we first signed on with TrendKite, I spoke with several users and the best response I received was that the company was a startup and we could expect there to be hiccups along the way as the company grew and the platform got more robust. That has certainly been the case. However, now that they have merged with Cision — a company that has grown too fast, has not focused on improving its product and has poor customer service — I have concerns that TrendKite will lose some of the qualities that have made it a great company and great product to work with.
Leadfeeder is the best anonymous visitor tracking software platform that I've ever used. Sitting as a layer on top of Google Analytics, the tool consistently provides us with accurate intelligence of what our hottest prospects are looking at while visiting our site. The Leadfeeder customer support is top notch and the company is always coming out with new updates that further improve the technology. On top of all of this, Leadfeeder integrates with Slack and our CRM, allowing me to continue to do my job without having to switch between various platforms throughout the day.
The flexibility and customization of Cision Communications Cloud (TrendKite)* is among its most important features. Changing the dashboards, using keywords in the saved searches to pull out the best stories and the integration with marketing automation tools gives me confidence that I will able to continue using this tool well into the future. The future implementation and integration of the media contact database will complete the suite, making list management and email marketing programs much smoother. *This review was written before Cision acquired TrendKite. TrendKite is now part of Cision Communications Cloud.
Always found the system super intuitive to use. I've never been stuck finding what I'm looking for and the team has some very clear and easy to understand documentation online.
Lead Forensics is usable and has clear videos scattered around the platform, encouraging users to level up. The CSM team is great at supporting and providing training for sales and marketing. Dashboards are a bit clunky, and the UI isn't the best. From memory, it hasn't really changed since we've been using it. These factors hold the platform back, as something as simple as filtering can be hidden behind a few clicks, which some salespeople are unaware of.
Generally, Cision performs well day to day, but it's got some annoying bugs that slow down usage/require user workarounds which is inefficient. More seriously, a few months ago, as a result of a major system upgrade, certain critical functionality was not working and I was unable to use the service for more than a day when I had time-sensitive work to execute
For Cision TrendKite in particilar, support always responded, but it was sometimes slow. For some of our booleans and search queries, we would need help refining and excluding terms/phrases that weren't relevant to our client or campaign. This sometimes took 1-2 days just to get a response back, which sometimes was too late when a last-minute report was due. This was only with the support staff, not necessarily our customer success manager or sales rep.
Top support from the Lead Forensics team. They take time to understand your business specifications, they make sure your needs are fulfilled, they show the new assets of the platform. The rythm for the business review is very flexible. You can access a live chat at any time. A lot of tutorials help you to deepen your skills in using the platform for your busines.
The online training sessions available for the Cision Communications Cloud are helpful and informative. There's more than one option - initially, I signed up for the live webinar classes on basic functions and that is what I recommend other new users do as well. If I have specific questions or something I want to learn more about, I can search the online database and find article or online training videos to get the information I need.
It's a similar product. I think Meltwater sells itself as being a bit more niche, but I have not found many significant differences between Meltwater and Cision. Meltwater's sales process is a very high pressure and their prices are inflated.
Leadfeeder is very easy to set up, use, and maximize functionality. It is also easy to train. Other tools have a higher cost of acquisition and ownership. Plus, the customer support and training are helpful and very accessible! It's great for small to mid-market businesses.
I’ve used SalesIntel primarily for contact data, but I haven’t explored its web tracking features. What sets Lead Forensics apart is how quickly it delivers actionable insights from site visits. It helps me identify engaged accounts and prioritize follow-up without extra effort. For our needs, Lead Forensics offered a more immediate impact on sales productivity and customer engagement.
It has helped support us to understand our market and if our website is properly communicating to and providing value to that market
We currently do not have the sales staff to go after potentially qualified organizations that visit the site but don't convert but it is a strategy we will employ at some point.
We are still in the very early stages of using Lead Forensics for our agency, but I can see that it could already be very useful to us as we haven't had insights like this previously.
Our very first use case with Lead Forensics was with a brand-new client and I would say it went exceptionally well. We were running a large media campaign for them, and it was very insightful to see how those specific businesses were getting to the site and what page they were going to. Like mentioned previously, this helped their very small sales team to go after businesses they know were interested in them.
