eTrigue DemandCenter vs. Vbout

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

To Automate your social media presence by bulk scheduling content. Create multiple drip email marketing campaigns to support different marketing promotion initiatives. Visualize your marketing funnel. Learn what is your best referral traffic source per each initiative (for example, I learned that Quora was bringing us highly qualified leads). Create lead scores and start qualifying your prospects. Create multiple landing pages to promote your product to different audiences.

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.

• On email marketing, it has petty good recommendation for sending methods.
• The landing pages can be fully customized with code editor and works with Bootstrap frameworks.
• The automation comes in handy since it works on all Vbout tools.
• We can also install the Tracking Code on external websites to utilize Vbout tools.
• Awesome support team!

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.

• Since their team is so focused on being the best, they occasionally have small feature appearance issues

Incentivized

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.

The better relation quality / features / pricing in the market

Incentivized

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

Great experience so far. Vbout has low learning curve. It's a user-friendly product with comprehensive knowledge base. Even if we meet a blocker, their team is ready to help us solve the issue. Their keep the dashboard straightforward that contains all tools, so we can access each one of them right away.

Incentivized

Been very happy with their responsiveness and ability to resolve issues

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.

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.

Vbout offers a very robust overall solution, with a more basic solution, and a much lower price point than the Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM solution.

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.

• The platform has saved us a lot of money
• It's highly functional and allows us to do a lot more than Marketo
• It's easy to manage, and it saves us a lot of time on a regular basis.

Incentivized