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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Woopra
Score 3.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Woopra provides real-time customer analytics. It begins by tracking users across digital touch points (website, mobile app, help desk, marketing automation, etc.) and building a comprehensive behavioral profile for each user. These Customer Profiles are Woopra's building blocks, which are used to generate custom analytics reports, funnel analytics, retention analytics, and more.
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.
My rating of Woopra is the absolute best possible. I would recommend them to anyone looking for an analytics website that prefers a visual interface and a beautiful design. I have not encountered any problems using their app -- ZERO! Their integration with other marketing software, such as MailChimp, helps our company zero in on our marketing campaigns and gives us the information we need to make better choices. I LOVE Woopra and think they are the best out there! I have used other websites and there is no comparison!
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.
Woopra tracks *individual users and customer accounts*. It cannot be understated how important this is. Google Analytics and other low cost solutions only sample users and provide aggregate data. For enterprise sales, this is critical. Likewise, for product managers trying to segment product usage by types of accounts, this is incredibly useful.
Woopra updates user analytics in real time. This is critical in a sales context as you want to be able to follow up quickly on opportunities. Likewise, it is useful for customer success as they can see usage in real time for an individual they are supporting.
Woopra has the most turnkey integrations of any web analytics solution on the market. By far the most useful are Marketo, SalesForce, and Slack, but there are several more we didn't tap into. While any solution worth its salt has an API, Woopra's integrations usually require a login and/or API key, and you are good to go. Here is the current list: https://www.woopra.com/appconnect/.
Woopra enables B2B product managers to track product and feature usage by revenue, not just clicks. Again, in a B2B context, this is critical, as there are high-value users and low-value users. Knowing the difference is critical.
Woopra's implementation is super simple. We were able to set it up with a couple of hours of one frontend developer and some help from our product intern.
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.
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.
We just really like the tool. There are lots of us using it internally... from Product, to marketing, to customer service, to optimization team, to traffic acquisition, to Executives. Really helps us answer questions about how well things are going, and what is not going well.
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.
The UI and reports are great overall. Creating reports just requires a few too many screens and clicks. Also dashboard tiles can't be resized. Both of these are easy items that are being addressed
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.
Compared to other products, the support was a small effort. We only had part time contributions from a product management intern and front end developer.
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.
Woopra is much easier to setup and use than Google Analytics. I've spent hours trying to create custom reports in Google Analytics. Woopra does not take this much time to get solid reporting for our site. If you need something that tracks marketing efforts then Google Analytics will likely be a better fit.
Really helped us begin to segment our users based on their engagement and retention.
Helped increase retention by about 1.5% after about 5 months of implementation (don't shoot the messenger if your team can't implement that quickly).
I felt like it had great potential to create a pipeline between sales and the CSM, but I had trouble getting the sales team to implement it properly as they had their noses deep in calls and emails (they struggle entering notes in SalesForces as well, so it's more a company specific problem).
