Constant Contact vs. Oracle Commerce vs. Segments

Constant Contact is an excellent tool for sending out flyers and newsletters. However, I feel the content's appearance is typically all the same. When I receive an email from Constant Contact, I can immediately identify it - the templates usually all look the same. When sending out communications with images, it is easy to use Constant Contact and link webpages. However, the email layout is always vertical and can get very lengthy. I prefer a more flip-book approach with options to flip the page.

Incentivized

Oracle CX Commerce (formerly Oracle Commerce Cloud) is very well suited for B2B commerce transactions. The wonderful thing about this software is its ability to regularly update on an automatic basis, and keep up with upgrades. Oracle CX Commerce provides my organization with greater flexibility and quick integration processes. I would recommend this to any organization trying to set up their own storefront.

Incentivized

• Market segmentation is great: my main segmentation is by region because that's how our sales team is divided.
• Lists: making customized email lists is easy and intuitive; the custom fields allow some flexibility in case our fields don't exactly line up with Constant Contact's.
• Campaigns: creating campaigns is quick and simple. I especially appreciate the 'resend to non-openers' option. I am constantly using this feature.
• Subject line generator: I like using the recommended subject lines. I'm able to plug in their recommended ideas, or sometimes, this feature helps me generate my own ideas.

• It uses an effective algorithm to provide users with product recommendations based on other products they’ve previously viewed.
• It comes with a decent support platform, where Oracle is attentive and provides help diagnosing issues that may arise within the environment.
• Oracle CX Commerce comes with a developer tool known as the DCU Tool, which is very helpful when it comes to pushing changes from environment to environment. The DCU Tool is also a good resource to use for source control.

Incentivized

• It would be nice if we had more customizable options for emails - like moving around pictures and text boxes, rather than a set spot for everything to go.
• I would like it if multiple people could work on a document at one time. So if I'm in charge of graphics, I can get those updated while someone else is entering content, etc.

Incentivized

• Customer experience - Oracle CX is already a leader and I bet they'll make it even better surpassing all expectations.
• They've [been] the best eCommerce model solution for any kind of business at least for book publishing and logistics management - thus can't complain here either.

Incentivized

There is no doubt that we are going to renew Constant Contact. We have not just invested a lot of time in learning and creating a great looking product but we have developed a strong database of information that allows us to track how we are doing for each newsletter. This supports our goals of creating products that residents desire and are excited to receive.

Oracle Commerce Cloud is definitely not my favorite platform to use, however our company has gotten very comfortable with the way our website operates using it so I do not see us switching to a different product any time soon. Over time, I’ve grown to have a love/hate relationship with this product, but as I learn more about what it offers I come to appreciate its functionality more

Incentivized

There is always room for improvement. I don't know how they test their systems, but they should invite not-so computer savvy people to test it. If I, as an expert have problems, they need to think like the technophobe. Since I've used Constant Contact in the past as part of my former employment, I have not viewed any of the tutorials and just jumped in to work on my client's newsletter. With that said, I found some areas easy and some a bit cumbersome

No major problems in sending out the email campaigns and accessing the analytics

Incentivized

The system seemed quite slow sometimes. Specifically, there was sometimes a delay in sends if it was during a high traffic period. There were time-outs when uploading new code for an email, and a lag in reporting analytics which was sometimes as long as 72 hours

I think the overall support for Constant Contact has always been incredible; I have nothing negative to say. Our customer support representative was attentive, easy to understand, and very knowledgeable. I never felt like I wasn't a priority of his and my issues, while very small, were fixed in a very short time frame.

Implementation is very easy for someone who wants to send out the “batch and blast” type newsletters. If you want to use their templates with no customizations, the product works fine. However, the more customizations you get into involving link color, etc, that’s where things can get tricky for someone who may not be familiar with coding

Constant Contact is much more intuitive for people who are not tech-savvy. Also, while sendgrid offered more options in it's drag and drop interface, it displayed differently across different email clients, which made it very cumbersome to use. It also took much longer to upload contact lists and it was harder to manage existing contacts. Performance in sendgrid was much slower as well, and the Preview feature was quite buggy. Our team initially chose sendgrid because of the integration options that it's API offered, but we ultimately switched to Constant Contact because it was much easier to build campaigns and better suited our requirements.

The upgrade cycle of OCC and the subscription model ensure we are always on the latest and greatest version of the platform. The responsive design makes it easier for small departments to provide an optimum mobile experience. The stability of the platform is far superior to our on-prem solution.

Incentivized

Very reliable in sending email campaigns and controlling the recipients so that no contact is sent the same email more than once, even if they are on a resent list

Incentivized

• I have had nothing but positive impacts from using Constant Contact.
• The church is large, and there are many subgroups and axillary groups within the church. Setting up specific groups based on responsibility, interest, member goals, and service needs allows me to send information quickly, saving valuable time for other tasks.
• Constant Contact allows leadership to stay personally engaged with the members I work with, without over-taxing my time. It feels so seamless.

Incentivized

• We were able to drive sales for one of our clients up by 50% over the course of a 6 month window by revamping their online web store with Oracle ATG.
• Sharing data and communication improved greatly between legal/finance and marketing.

Incentivized