eTrigue DemandCenter vs. Intuit Mailchimp

The platform is most scalable-- works for small and large companies alike. Key for most of our clients is the little to no IT support required to implement and run the platform. I would definitely explore this when looking at a marketing automation platform beyond the "batch and blast" solutions. We've yet to have an issue working with our clients' sales and/or marketing teams to implement. And most of our clients work in the platform independent of the programs we run; are able to set up acampaign, upload lists and/or pull for CRM, and run reports on their own in very short turn.

Incentivized

For any E-commerce related needs, like you need to see a list of customers who have added products to cart but did not purchase, this can be done really easily, but if your e-commerce provider provides integration, then it is best suited. Most of the systems in the Market provide out-of-the-box integration. Their API is also very easy it can be integrated to any language. You can integrate it into your custom developed system and use the features, like adding customers to specific lists. Also, if your lists become really big, then their system can get a bit slow to respond via API, so you might need a strategy for how you are gonna fetch the data using API.

Incentivized

• Really easy to use. We can build a campaign in about 30 minutes and our new hires can learn to use it very quickly.
• Free phone support.
• I can always get someone to help me and they actually return calls quicker than most all companies.
• We are able to create campaigns before we finish all the assets. We can launch, then change the flow and add assets when they are ready.
• Integration with Google AdWords is very easy to setup, and has lots of ROI and campaign peformance reporting.

• Mailchimp allows you to manage your mailing list really well. You can subscribe people, unsubscribe people manage the mailing list directly into segments, and what not.
• Mailchimp has features where you can create campaigns based on your mailing lists and send out newsletters to your subscribers based on a multitude of parameters that you can setup. Such as send email daily, weekly, monthly and they also have event based mails that you can send out.
• Mailchimp also has a feature where you can design your emails. The look and aesthetics are very important when sending emails to your subscribers and all those needs are addressed here.

Incentivized

• I've never been too crazy about the reporting within DemandCenter. There is always a solution for any type of report I'm seeking, but it involves report designing (choosing data points dragging/dropping columns & rows) which is made difficult by the lack of descriptions & values for the data points. To their credit, they did release a new suite of simplified (and pretty) reports, dubbed "Marketing Effectiveness". Relegating the older, complicated (yet super-flexible) reports as "Business Analytics".
• The UI will be a little unfamiliar at first. That is, where you think you should be clicking, you'll need to double-click or drag-and-drop. And I would say DemandCenter has always (and still does) have an issue with UI elements that are "windows within windows" or modal windows with scrolling. But, at least these UI components are consistent throughout the entire application - so once you're used to it, you can actually achieve some pretty impressive speeds.
• One of DemandCenter's greatest features is being squished down to uselessness: Derived Data. As mentioned, I scrub our data on a regular basis, and this means filling/appending data, or extrapolating to fill missing data. DC released a feature called "Derived Data" that scours useful info from the prospect's IP address (mostly geographical info). Now, while you can create campaign & list conditions based on derived data, there is no easy way to simply extract that oh-so-valuable derived Country or State and have it map those values to the standard fields. Or at least let you export derived data. They have plans to fix this - but for now it's like dangling candy in front of a baby.

• The pricing tiers do scale quickly so if you have a free newsletter it may get expensive
• The pricing is based on total emails so if you have users who you only email rarely it might not make sense to use Intuit Mailchimp
• Customer support can be a bit lacking at times and their docs aren't always the best

We have tried other systems and eTrigue is the easiest to use, easiest to train new people on, and most responsive support team we have ever experienced. They ask our input on new features they are developing, and have implemented some of our suggestions in their product rollouts. We get new features almost every month. We get live support without any cost, and they return our phone calls within an hour every time. They treat us like a true partner.

We've had Mailchimp for about ten years, I want to say. I started with the company about four years ago, and I don't see us ever diverting to another source. It's easy for us to use, and we have all our clients already built into the database. I imagine we'll use them for as long as we have the company.

Incentivized

Having used Marketo, Act-On, and Pardot, eTrigue is MUCH easier to use and easier to train new team members to use.

The interface is a bit complicated, and I need to spend some time to learn new functions and understanding how it works. I don't like working with email templates because of the limited customization options. However, functions like AI for generating emails, segmentation, and analytics still work well and are very useful.

Incentivized

I have, in the 4+ years that I've used Mailchimp, never seen an issue that restricted the use of their software/tools. I don't know of a single time when they're system crashed or went down. I could be wrong, but I honestly haven't experienced any issues with outages, errors or unplanned downtime

Incentivized

I haven't noticed any slow speeds from Mailchimp or their tools. I think the landing pages load quickly and look nice. The email reports and editing operates smoothly and doesn't take time to load. Additionally, when I use Mailchimp in conjunction with Zapier + Hubspot I don't notice any drag between any of these tools

Incentivized

Been very happy with their responsiveness and ability to resolve issues

Website tools were easy to use and understand so a novice can easily meet or exceed their client's expectations! Loved that we were able to totally customize so that the e-mail we created conveyed our client's overall messaging consistent with their branding! Client love that we can provide turnkey services to support their sales and marketing teams!

Incentivized

You will need to think about which users you want to have each role, and the features allowed in each role. You should watch the training videos before you get live training. It saved us several hours as they had already answered 90% of our questions.

It's pretty easy to get up and running! There's a slight learning curve on a few things, but once you find where everything is located, you can import your list and send your first email. It really makes our clients feel great to see how quickly they can get that first email out.

Incentivized

Constant Contact offered now tracking, lead alerts. Marketo wasn't as flexible-- for example not easy to schedule campaigns in advance, to launch in the future. Also liked the interface and the DemandCenter lead alert format more than Marketo.

I don't think they are comparable; we use Google Ads to put our website at the top of the list when someone googles certain words. We use meta business to manage our social media. Google aims to gain customers, while Mailchimp is used to interact with both existing and new customers.

Incentivized

Mailchimp over the years I've used it has grown in leaps and bounds. They have added so many additional features than were previously available. They are truly an all-in-one marketing platform now. If you're a small operation and just want to add email to your marketing efforts, they're there for you. If you're a larger operation and want to start sending postcard advertisements, they can do that. If you'd good with that and want to kick up your marketing by going social, you can do that on their platform. They are truly able to be as small as you need, but also get quite large in whatever it is you'd like to do through their system.

Incentivized

• We get the upper hand on follow-up with return visitors... not by reverse DNS lookup or pattern match but by direct cookie validation. Inside sales productivity is boosted by 33% easy with eTrigue.
• The alerts and data are lightning fast, giving marketing immediate feedback on campaign data and prospects.

• One of my retail web store clients was sending out email specials and notices about once a month. After clicking the send button, we would watch Google Analytics and the current site users would light up immediately. Often, the current site visitors would pop up to 20, 30 or more after the email was sent. On a normal day, seeing 1 or 2 online users would be OK.
• Pretty much in all cases, we could see an uptick in positive activity after sending out a Intuit Mailchimp email to a list.

Incentivized