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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Emma by Marigold

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AEmma by Marigold is an email marketing solution. Its key features include mobile-ready design templates, email automation, audience segmentation, and dynamic content. The software includes integration with third-party CRM solutions, ecommerce platforms, and social networks.

    $500

    per year per user

    Gist

    Score9.5 out of 10
    N/AGist is a unified marketing, sales, and support platform. It includes live chat, a help desk, knowledge base, email marketing, marketing automation, opt-in forms, and more.

    $29

    per month

    Pricing
    Emma by MarigoldGist
    Editions & Modules
    Basic
    $500
    per year per user
    Professional
    $29.00
    per month
    Premium
    $99.00
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Emma by MarigoldGist
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Emma by MarigoldGist
    Considered Both Products
    Marigold
    No answer on this topic
    Gist
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    19 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    21 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    21 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Implementation went as expected
    20 Answers
    Features
    Emma by MarigoldGist
    Email & Online Marketing
    Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Emma by Marigold and Gist
    Feature
    Emma by Marigold
    9.1
    31 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Gist
    -
    Ratings
    WYSIWYG email editor8.024 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic content9.025 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ability to test dynamic content9.024 Ratings00 Ratings
    A/B testing9.024 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile optimization9.029 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email deliverability reporting10.031 Ratings00 Ratings
    List management10.031 Ratings00 Ratings
    Triggered drip sequences9.021 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Emma by Marigold and Gist
    Feature
    Emma by Marigold
    10.0
    31 Ratings
    27% above category average
    Gist
    -
    Ratings
    Dashboards10.030 Ratings00 Ratings
    Standard reports9.931 Ratings00 Ratings
    Custom reports10.019 Ratings00 Ratings
    Chat Analytics and Reports
    Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of Emma by Marigold and Gist
    Feature
    Emma by Marigold
    -
    Ratings
    Gist
    8.9
    2 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Chat history and transcripts00 Ratings8.92 Ratings
    Chat reporting00 Ratings8.92 Ratings
    Chat and web analytics00 Ratings8.92 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Emma by MarigoldGist
    Small Businesses
    Mad Mimi
    Score10 out of 10
    Olark
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Campaign Monitor by Marigold
    Score9 out of 10
    Zoho SalesIQ
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Litmus from Validity
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Genesys DX (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Emma by MarigoldGist
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (32 ratings)
    9.5
    (112 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.5
    (5 ratings)
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    6.7
    (4 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.6
    (9 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Emma by MarigoldGist
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Marigold
    Using Emma for weekly templated email use with minimal changes is awesome. If you want you can create a master and make minor graphic edits quickly and easily from your smartphone. Any edit is possible as long as the artwork is on the online server. Only time I hit a bump in the road is when I was asked to change the style sheet and did not know that the pricing plan I was on did not include this feature. Client had to wait to send new format until Emma performed the requested changes.
    Read full review
    Gist
    If your marketing model is selling products, services, or SAAS where you are doing inbound marketing and your website will do most of the lead generation and conversion, this is a great product. From live chat, support, event tracking, and automation, you could almost put your entire business on autopilot. If your marketing model is mostly outreach to cold leads and conversion, this software currently does not have any type of sales stages or task generation. I would still use Gist for website inbound but use another software for outreach and cold leads then when they become a lead put them into Gist for marketing automation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Marigold
    • Enterprise-level email marketing with multi-level account structure allowing for multiple users at different levels to send campaigns
    • Easy-to-use WYSIWYG email template editors to create dynamic emails with enhanced personalization through merge-fields
    • A large API index that connects to many different platforms and the ability to work with Emma support to create new connections to new platforms as needed
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gist
    • Customer service via a unified inbox so you dont have to separately monitor your twitter, Facebook or IG account for consumer communication there. Gist unified all into one inbox, better than anyone else I've seen in the market. They archive all communications and tie them back to a single user so you get unified customer history / data.
    • Marketing segmentation and automation: they track user history and behavior across the site and have super detailed segmenting capability, on par with ActiveCampaign's, but better I'd say. Better UI for the marketing admin person, and more unified data than in AC.
    • Live chat and chatbot. Usually it's either one or the other but with Gist you can do both seamlessly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Marigold
    • Their customer service leaves something to be desired. We ran into an issue with one of our campaigns, and we decided to reach out to support, but they didn't get back with us until 3 hours later! Time is money!!
    • We don't like that their photo editing capabilities are limited, you can only choose small, medium or large photos with no way to resize to exact dimensions. Makes emails a bit of a pain
    • The upgraded premium tools are buggy and leave something to be desired as well – it's a shame.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gist
    • Plan limits can be confusing. For example, there is a monthly charge for support and a monthly charge for "growth," plus there's a separate charge depending on how many contacts and seats you have. Perhaps this is normal in the industry, but it can make it a little challenging to understand the bill every month.
    • The vast amount of features means development will never be as fast as you'd like it to be (even though they release updates all the time). This may not actually be a valid concern, and it certainly isn't unique to Gist (who doesn't have a wishlist they're waiting on their favorite SaaS to get to?), but I do believe the likelihood of being stuck without your desired feature being developed goes up a lot as the product gets bigger and bigger.
    • Email deliverability has been less than perfect in the past, but it has improved drastically in the last year.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Marigold
    Emma has been a great tool for our marketing. It's easy to use and I've had no issues in the almost two years we've been with them. It's really been a great way for us to stay connected with customers that takes no time to setup and send
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gist
    Gist is a quite reliable service with a lot of added values. We don't need to pay for different Saas for these important features. If I had an issue the team was super responsive and helpful, that is essential for every business. The email delivery is great, so virtually no email has landed into spam folder
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Marigold
    While every WYSIWYG software will experience glitches, Emma handles them well. Keep in mind they rarely happen, but they do, it can be of annoyance. Regardless, Emma allows my organization to create seamless email campaigns using fresh data. Emma makes coming up with strategic decisions very easy. The list segmentation that Emma feature allows us to easily manage a large list without issues. Overall, Emma is extremely usable with nearly no learning curve!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gist
    It’s pretty simple, but it does a lot so there are more complicated features which depend on an individuals ability for software implementation. I am not an IT expert and I’ve managed to implement everything myself, others that are more tech-minded may find everything easier.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Marigold
    I hate that to get support I have to submit a question to a public forum and wait for a response. I just want the ability for a quick live chat to answer my simple help questions quickly or at the very least submit a ticket via email and get a status update.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gist
    Fantastic support. Ask a question, get an answer within 24 hours every time. And sometimes within a few minutes. They've always come through for me, helpful and, even when it's an issue on my end, they point me in the right direction.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Marigold
    At the time we made the decision to move to Emma, my organization was using both MailChimp and Constant Contact. Emma's drag-and-drop template editor surpassed both, and even editing the pre-made template HTML in Emma was easier. List management was much smoother than the clunky Constant Contact and MailChimp lists we had. From a design perspective, we chose Emma for its ease of use in creating templates and modifying existing ones, as well as the ability to push out branded templates and brand assets through its master admin/subaccount capabilities. Emma's analytics and reporting were much less frustrating to navigate and understand, such that, rather than spending all of our time trying to make sense of the metrics from a campaign (which we were definitely doing), we were attracted to being able to report easily and then move on to determining how to make real improvements
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gist
    Gist combines all our previous products into one application and adds many more features that would require more apps. Gist is excellent and a no-brainer all-in-one application when compared to having to manage multiple applications at higher cost. The support from the whole Gist team has been extremely responsive.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Marigold
    • Stores using the platform have seen good deliverability stats. Open rates and click-through rates are high with the templates that Emma creates. We still face the challenge of getting more users on the platform.
    • User satisfaction is high for our users who are regularly using the platform.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gist
    • They are perfect for me as a someone who needs a lot of bang for the buck. The chat messenger device on my website alone has brought me new prospects that I did not have to spend money recruiting.
    • I am able to save hours of time with the automated emails that are GDPR compliant.
    • I don't have to pay for a designer to have excellent looking emails either.
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Emma by Marigold Screenshots

    Screenshot of dynamic content used to send unique, personalized content to each subscriber based on the data stored about them from a single email.Screenshot of the editor's drag & drop layouts and inline text editing, that help to keep the creative process fast and flexible.Screenshot of a display of account activity, email performance and recent mailings in one place right after login.Screenshot of insights on the go using Metric, the included iPhone and Android app.Screenshot of response results that give insights into what's working and provide next steps.Screenshot of customizable, mobile-optimized templates to show off a brand and content in the template gallery.

    Gist Screenshots

    Screenshot of Live ChatScreenshot of Email MarketingScreenshot of Marketing Automation WorkflowsScreenshot of Knowledge BaseScreenshot of Meetings