Emma by Marigold vs. MessageGears

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Emma by Marigold
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Emma 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
MessageGears
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
MessageGears is a hybrid email marketing service built around deliverability, actionable customer data, and audience segmentation and targeting.N/A
Pricing
Emma by MarigoldMessageGears
Editions & Modules
Basic
$500
per year per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Emma by MarigoldMessageGears
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
Emma by MarigoldMessageGears
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Emma by Marigold
9.1
31 Ratings
12% above category average
MessageGears
3.3
3 Ratings
84% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor8.024 Ratings1.62 Ratings
Dynamic content9.025 Ratings3.83 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content9.024 Ratings2.33 Ratings
A/B testing9.024 Ratings2.73 Ratings
Mobile optimization9.029 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting10.031 Ratings3.83 Ratings
List management10.031 Ratings2.13 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences9.021 Ratings2.33 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Emma by Marigold
10.0
31 Ratings
26% above category average
MessageGears
1.1
3 Ratings
150% below category average
Dashboards10.030 Ratings1.23 Ratings
Standard reports9.931 Ratings1.23 Ratings
Custom reports10.019 Ratings1.03 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
Emma by Marigold
-
Ratings
MessageGears
3.7
3 Ratings
79% below category average
URL Validation00 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Link Tracking00 Ratings2.93 Ratings
Image Validation00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Inbox Display00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Spelling and Grammar Check00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Spam Testing00 Ratings1.02 Ratings
Email Previews00 Ratings1.12 Ratings
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Emma by MarigoldMessageGears
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VerticalResponse
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Score 10.0 out of 10
VerticalResponse
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Litmus
Litmus
Score 9.0 out of 10
Emma by Marigold
Emma by Marigold
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Emma by MarigoldMessageGears
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(32 ratings)
9.2
(3 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(2 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
2.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Emma by MarigoldMessageGears
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.
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MessageGears
MessageGears can be a solid, inexpensive email solution and you can be able to send millions of emails per year. In 2020, we delivered over 235 million emails at a fraction of what that would cost with any other email service provider. We worked with MessageGears on a custom solution with our database.
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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
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MessageGears
  • The MessageGears Support team is very helpful.
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.
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MessageGears
  • Multivariate testing
  • WYSIWYG email builder
  • SQL audience error report
  • Native reporting
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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
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MessageGears
No answers on this topic
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!
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MessageGears
Our situation is unique so I believe we are working on a semi-outdated UI which needs a tune up / version upgrade. Similarly, our custom connection means that we do not have access to the full feature set so I've never experienced MessageGears' best functionality
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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.
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MessageGears
MessageGears support is always quick to respond when we have an issue, which is rare. Gail has been our main rep and she has been great. We don't have many issues so luckily, we don't need to lean on their customer support team much. That said, it would be beneficial to hear from upper management more.
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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
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MessageGears
MessageGears doesn't come close to Salesforce Marketing Cloud. We chose MessageGears based on how data was accessed. We never really got a good preview of how the system works or what was available, so we didn't know everything that it was lacking until we started using it.
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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.
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MessageGears
  • Sending more email!
  • Onboarding handoff was a little rough
  • Great control on who we are sending to
  • Dynamic content is very easy!
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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.