Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued) vs. PathFactory vs. Sprinklr Marketing

IBM analytics has continued to improve upon the days of being the original core metrics. After using the updated version for quite some time, it has been great at providing the needed analytics to measure ROI and goal performance for our quarterly KPI's. It has resulted in a great increase in web engagements although we are a midsize company, smaller outfits may not need such an expensive option.

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It's a great tool if you want to create experiences on web and share content with your audience - especially if you want to create bingeable content. For a microsite, I would like to see more modules that build up a page, and great examples for inspiration

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Sprinklr is well suited for several teams working together to all use one tool. It's helpful for brands running several paid initiatives on several different platforms for monitoring or turning ads on and off quickly if a PR issue arises. You can have ads set up for timely/seasonal scenarios to quickly take advantage of messaging that's relevant for geo-targeted locations. If you're looking for a very simplified quick step process, Sprinklr is too robust and costly for that.

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• IBM CXA comprises an acquisition called Tealeaf. This tool has deep heritage and this is evident in its present-day capabilities.
• The Universal Behaviour Exchange or UBX puts the concept of personalisation at the forefront. The ability to combine physical (analog) and digital transactions to create the complete picture of a customer journey, is a stand out benefit.
• The solution does not have to involve the purchase of software. IBM CXA can be sold as a service bundled with analytics as a service. This not only lowers the cost of ownership, it gets around one of the principal issues. Strong staff with design and analytical capability to drive the solution and deliver tangible benefits.
• The seamless integration of Watson AI services to help with the heavy lifiting. Watson reinforces the analytical focus this solution has and can learn to recognise situations specific to a company.

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• Create Visually appealing performance report
• Give more in-depth information about performance metrics than most alternatives
• Ability to track performance over time and compare this performance across time periods
• Provide and send auto-run reports to top level management based on predefined criteria and timeframes

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• Great personal attention from our account executive. They tried their best to coach and onboarding.
• Sprinklr is really user friendly. The navigation is intuitive and simple to learn.
• Their knowledge base of articles and user generated tips was really awesome and complete. You can find anything you need in there.

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• The user interface is in Flash, which can be very frustrating and slow at times. Apparently, this is to be transitioned in a future release.
• Can only segment the last 93 days of data. Any historical segmentation beyond the 93 days must be run in Explore (which is credit based, and has its own limitations with the number of credits per month, based on the initial contract with IBM).
• Reports can only display 93 days of data at a given time for custom date ranges. There are pre-programmed date ranges setup with IBM during implementation (last week, last month, last quarter etc.), but are not flexible enough to answer more specific questions.
• Certain reports cannot have segments applied, making answering some simple questions a bit more tricky. For example, I can create a segment around mobile devices and apply it to the marketing channels report, but I can't create a marketing channel segment and apply it to the mobile reports.
• Built in API calls allows for nice report design and automation.

• Microsite was very hard to build ourselves. Changing the site can be really confusing and is not always intuitive. We have trouble knowing how to update items to get it to work the way we want it to.
• Better instructions on how to customize tracks and use the different tools.
• Users that come in without UTM parameters should still be included in all data reporting.
• The reporting is confusing.

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• It can be overwhelming when you first start. There is so much functionality. Go to a formal training to see all of the things it can do and pick what you need. Once you learn it, it is a great tool, but it is a lot to learn!

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IBM Digital Analytics is a great solution for our clients and I believe they offer the best solution for the retail space. We have access to IBM support via email or live chat and they can answer many of the reporting questions that come up. IBM is receptive to our feedback of the product so I am confident they will continue making improvements

We have seen a lot of value from our team's use of Path Factory. We also like working with this vendor as they actually take our feedback and implement it on their roadmap. A great vendor with a great product

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Very easy to implement and use.

Overall, I think the tool is fairly easy to use to get a basic content uploaded to create a track and even the more complicated features become easier once you become familiarised with the process

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Never had any issues

I think there was only one time where we had issues reaching our account manager, otherwise PathFactory was always willing to hop on the phone to talk through strategy, to work through issues, and help build custom solutions to fit our needs. Customer service is a big selling point of PathFactory.

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As reports are templated, the system is pretty quick. Sometimes you have to wait a bit for a report to render. Or you might have to re-load the page. But there is no real issue here and the system is on par with other similar systems.

The analytics and reports feature is fairly new and have proved very popular with many areas of our business and is growing in popularity. The metrics that are attainable are very insightful and provides a clear picture on the performance of the track.

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Overall, the level of support is very good and I would say it is a strong asset of the solution. However, you can sometimes feel that there is a difference of level among the support team.

We meet weekly with Jennifer and I can't say enough about her. When issues have happened or we need help, she jumps on it quickly. If she doesn't know the answer, she pulls in Reggie or another on her team that can help. She goes above and beyond and has been very supportive, even when we had a lot of hard questions to answer from higher-ups. All this is on top of just being an awesome person.

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We do not have the closest relationship with our Sprinklr representative. It would be nice for them to be more proactive like our other platform reps who are in constant communication when it comes to new products and launches within the platform. I usually sign up for webinars in order to learn about new products.

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I was able to browse around the tool quite easily once some basic training was given. I learnt much from using those method and only needed further help when wanting to learn about Reports, External codes and adding forms.

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Online training is really great. One of the best assets that they have. Lots of great videos, pop quizzes at the end of each module. Fantastic. Other tools have similar features, but not as good.

The customer service, from technical through to customer success, is one of the biggest reasons I'd recommend PathFactory. This is true of their training. It can be as bespoke as you like, at least in my experience, and the team is always willing (where possible) to incorporate your suggestions.

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See previous comment: reading and understanding the encyclopedic implementation guide is a must.

The PathFactory team was very helpful when implementing the product. They gave us a lot of recommendations on best moving forward. As a note to new users, when implementing I would make sure that you create with your team a system to make sure that the platform is scalable. My team was able to do this through creating a foldering structure, naming conventions for tracks and assets, and ensuring tagging is used on all content uploads. I would also make sure when implementing that you have an understanding of how your team will track success and that your brand team is involved to make sure that there is consistency in the look and feel of the tracks

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Much of the work we did in IBM Digital Analytics could have been answered through Google Analytics, a much simpler, agile and FREE solution set. Not mention, given the vast number of Google Analytics USERS, free and actionable support is simply a click away ... this compared to IBM Digital Analytics fractured and often absent support service.

I used Uberflip in a past company. I think they are pretty comparable. From what I remember, Uberflip was more intuitive to use, but I think PathFactory might have more capabilities. Although this was years ago, I am not aware of Uberflip's functionality now. I have had good experiences with both.

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We are using different platforms for different clients. It depends on how the client's budget and what they can invest in their reporting tool. Sprinklr is the most complex, biggest, and most customizable. We say if Brandwatch is LEGO Duplo, then Socialbakers is LEGO Classic and Sprinklr is LEGO Technic. I really love the Powerpoint export from reports from Socialbakers because it saves me a lot of time (one of their best selling points) & the integration of competitors and their metrics is very helpful. But their publishing tool does not work well. If we want to have the cheapest version, we implement a simple Google Data Studio dashboard.

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This solution can support large amount of data and transaction. The way that user management features are built, it shows it is meant for large organizations.

Pathfactory is growing in popularity amongst individuals from different parts of the organisation and it would be difficult to forecast how scalable this can become

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• We spend too much time trying to work around bugs on the new UI.
• We spend too much time trying to figure out how to make certain segments work because support and the knowledge center are lackluster.
• Our sales rep is very unresponsive and leaves us searching for a lot of answers on our own, including what other products we may benefit from that IBM offers.

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• We saw ROI within the first 9 months of using PathFactory.
• Our onboarding team saw quicker adoption of our product while using PathFactory to engage them during the onboarding process.
• We've been able to more accurately understand our content needs and what works best when prospecting for specific segments. (eg. SMB, mid-market, and enterprise)

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• Time saved on reporting: no need to request any reports from social media agencies anymore
• Time saved on optimisations thanks to AI optimisations available on the platform
• Increased team collaboration: local users have visibility on the best performing content across all the markets

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