Cision Communications Cloud vs. Foundry ABM

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.

Incentivized

I think it's good for companies who have a built out marketing program. I know our marketing team knows the software very well. As someone on the sales side, I struggle to understand some concepts. However they have a great support team and they help with reports that make things very easy to understand.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• It has paved the way in creating an audience for our respective campaigns that are easy to set and customize.
• This tool has a high configuration aspect which helps and facilitates [the business thoroughly] in their cases.
• It helps you in interacting with any third-party websites or arbitrators for API calls and web solutions.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The ability to separate budgets by dept. currently, you have one pot of money but can set limits based on campaigns. This is fine for a single user but gets messy with multiple users.
• Campaigns with multiple steps, I do hear this is in the works.
• It would be nice if each area did not open a new tab, navigating pages within the same page would be nice.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We continue to have a good experience with Triblio, and they continue to deliver value for our money. If they would do a better job with analytics, then it'd be easier for me to tie campaign activities to the bottom line.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The Triblio platform makes it easy for non-technical users to get around and figure out what we need relatively quickly. Of course, a basic training or tutorial is needed initially for you to know where everything is. We paid for managed services which is great since we have an account director who can operate the platform better than any outsider can, and she can also give us recommendations on best practices.

Incentivized

Easily accessible 24/7.

Incentivized

The platform has always been available, and the occasional system updates aside, there have been no downtime issues with Triblio. The platform has always been available when I needed it, and campaigns were launched timely

Incentivized

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

Triblio pages, campaign performances, and platforms have not slowed us down at all. If anything, Triblio has enhanced how we engage with our target accounts. There has been no speed performance issues, or lag due to system limitations. Triblio tracking on our site has not slowed our page performances significantly, so there has been on effect on speed

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Triblio makes it possible for a small SaaS company without a lot of manpower to implement ABM strategies to help compete in a world where the sales motion is now very different - requiring more targeted messaging and education before prospects are willing to engage with a salesperson. We believe that as we continue to spin up our ABM strategies, Triblio is helping us be in the right place and at the right time for the right audience for a reasonable CPC.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We had our Account management team online to provide training to the marketing team, ADR team, and the AE team, which was helpful as each team had their own sets of questions and needs from the platform. Having the Triblio experts on the call and knowing that they are available for questions later on was reassuring to everyone in the trainings.

Incentivized

There is no implementation at the customer's end so this doesn't really apply to my instance of Cision (possibly to all instances of it).

Definitely have a dedicated technical team work on the implementation full time with the Triblio team. There are requirements on both ends of the pipe that needs to be done. It is much easier to have both teams work together full time as opposed to part time duty; it would take much longer than doing it all in one shot.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Terminus appears to be the cheapest on the surface but with the least amount of capabilities, clunky (lots of manual stuff they have to do on the back end to launch your campaign), very low CTR due to the DSP they use (TradeDesk) which also carries a media upcharge. Terminus also cannot figure out their analytics - they are out of whack across various screens in the tool. 6sense is expensive and very limiting (you get X of this, and Y of that - nothing is unlimited, feels like being nickeled and dimed). A very pushy sales team, you are under pressure to book the next meeting or to provide a date when you will sign. The tool appears to have nice capabilities but it is the people, at the end of the day, you will be working with - and I got concerns with that experience. Metadata - nice sales team, low/no pressure to buy. The demo of their platform also looks like it has interesting capabilities. The team appears to be very small, the communications from the salesperson were random and I had to take the lead asking for the next call to see more. This is concerning when it comes to supporting - will they have enough people to support their customer base if they drag their feet in the sales process? None of these tools had ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE to Triblio's orchestration capabilities, so none of them were strong competitors.

Incentivized

Easy to use, but still room for improvement.

Incentivized

The Triblio platform works fairly reliably since we have implemented it into our instance. There are the occasionally wishes that they have more functionalities, but those are feature requests which can be accommodated in future product enhancements. In terms of flexibility and scalability, we chose Triblio since we wanted to scale our ABM efforts, so that was a big part of our consideration.

Incentivized

• Cision has a net positive impact on time savings for staff so we can be quicker to market
• Cision has a positive impact on internal savings as it is used internally across multiple accounts and with the internal PR team
• Cision is extremely useful when it comes to resourcing and conducting outreach in those DMA's where our agency doesn't have a physical presence

Incentivized

• Triblio is extremely powerful in terms of increasing conversion rates and we've tripled conversion rates using their targeted modals versus less targeted approaches with less sophisticated products, such as HelloBar.
• Though it is hard to quantify, Triblio has increased the speed to market with which we can introduce targeted promotions. Campaigns can be spun up with Triblio in less than one day.
• There have been no negative impacts to ROI from Triblio.

Incentivized