CIsion Communications Cloud is used for identifying key media and influencers, connecting with audiences, monitoring traditional and social media, and analyzing outcomes.
N/A
Terminus ABM Platform
Score 8.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Supporting B2B strategies, the Terminus platform offers tactical playbooks that help teams meet accounts throughout their entire lifecycle. It is a platform rooted in first-party data that surrounds buyers with engaging digital experiences from account acquisition to expansion and renewal. The Terminus engine is built to drive ROI, minimize fraud, prioritize brand safety, and turn intent into relevant, actionable insight for GTM teams. Key benefits of Terminus: - Relevant…
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.
Terminus ABM Platform is well suited for organizations beginning their ABM journey. It is easy to implement and there is a great team to help you do so. Ongoing customer success teams ensure you are taking full advantage of the platform and work to help you develop an ABM strategy that fits your business needs.
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.
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.
Support times are iffy. We've had slower replies and resolutions to issues since they acquired Sigstr and now support both products.
Display advertising generally has low ROI, in part due to "banner blindness". If you're not continuously developing engaging creatives, you're going to see very little return with this platform.
Their UI needs serious work. Some options are locked after you move to the next screen in their campaign wizard (nothing should ever be locked in draft) and unless they've recently changed it, you can't delete dead draft campaigns - just archive them.
There are a few serious discrepancies in the analytics when it comes to identifying which end companies have people who have viewed your ads (i.e. Microsoft has huge numbers because Azure is their product).
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.
Terminus is a turn-key partner in the B2B Account-Based Marketing space. Their model is flexible and efficient which in turn provides effective results. Their sales staff is great and never tries to up-sell, but rather coach and educate our teams to be better at our jobs. It has been great to collaborate
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.
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.
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.
Drift has banners available in their email tool, furthermore, we are able to mimic a Sigstr banner in HubSpot when we build emails by placing the banner image with a link in the bottom of an email, it's just a more manual process. I can't recommend any other solution over Sigstr, they own what they do and don't try to reach in their product marketing and I respect their product for that.
