Acoustic Campaign vs. Adobe Marketo Engage

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Acoustic Campaign
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) is a scalable, SaaS-based, cross-channel, digital marketing platform providing digital marketers the ability to implement and manage email, mobile, social, and lead management campaign processes.N/A
Adobe Marketo Engage
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe Marketo Engage (acquired by Adobe in 2018) is a marketing automation platform whose basic features include email marketing, drip nurturing, landing pages, and lead scoring, but other editions offer additional advanced features. Typical customers are B2B firms with complex sales cycles.N/A
Pricing
Acoustic CampaignAdobe Marketo Engage
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Acoustic CampaignAdobe Marketo Engage
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Acoustic CampaignAdobe Marketo Engage
Considered Both Products
Acoustic Campaign
Chose Acoustic Campaign
Reviewed HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot and ActiveCampaign. Chose IBM Watson Campaign Automation due to their workflow capabilities. They can automate a process that requires a series of steps that typically require intervention by a several different users. Administrators can write …
Chose Acoustic Campaign
I really liked the ability to create multiple queries on lists imported. The integration with SFDC worked well for our organization. The reporting was okay, though I really liked the dashboard features. It made presenting high level information to management simple.
Chose Acoustic Campaign
We had evaluated Marketo at the time, but had chosen Silverpop instead. Some people compare Hubspot, but we consider that a different flavor of marketing automation--not apples to apples.
Chose Acoustic Campaign
Eloqua and Marketo are both superior in pretty much every way. Constant Contact does not have near the feature set of any of these, but is very good at the small number things it does.
Chose Acoustic Campaign
Eloqua
Marketo
Bronto
Chose Acoustic Campaign
We selected Siverpop over Marketo based on price and the demonstration of SalesForce integration. Marketo were unable to demonstrate the degree of integration we were looking for, although I'm sure it does have the capability.
Chose Acoustic Campaign
I wasn't involved in the tool selection process but inherited the system. I think that Pardot and Marketo are the leaders in the marketplace, followed closely by Eloqua. Hubspot is a nice option with good usability but I was concerned it would not scale for the global campaign …
Chose Acoustic Campaign
Aprimo
Eloqua
ExactTarget
Adobe Marketo Engage
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
[Adobe] Marketo Engage, frankly, blows every other comparable product out of the water, from my perspective due to its' extensive customization and integration capabilities.
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo is robust and effective - it can be daunting to learn but once you learn something you get ahold of things in the system quickly over time. Marketo has a cleaner interface, it is nice to be able to have everything rolled into one spot and not have to figure out how to …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo is much more complex than these others. That's a double-edge sword because there seem to be a lot more intricate campaigns and workflows that can be developed, but it is not turnkey at all. So working with an expert to get set up with Marketo will likely be necessary to …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo has the best community support, best in class, with comprehensive yet very easy to follow product guide and documentation. Active community members and expert advice from fellow Marketo users, available through the Marketo community 24/7, is a huge advantage that …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo had the best balance of customizability and usability. It matched our need for advanced data capabilities, marketing automation, and a native Salesforce integration.
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
It's been several years since I've used another marketing automation platform. However, I remember literally crying at my desk when I called support and asked a question about lead scoring only to find out that it was not scalable. I have had to head-to-desk moments with Marketo!
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo is super sophisticated in tracking digital marketing efforts in the marketing automation space. Even just using the website and email tracking, Marketo helps you analyze and prioritize automated (or not) campaigns. Its price point is relatively average for size and …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
HubSpot is the most "easy" as far as getting going and fits its niche of low-complexity business use-cases (and their UI for design is great, with good version control). HubSpot is like an "easier" and less sophisticated Marketo.

Marketo is a great mid-company to large company …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo has the best user interface which makes it very simple and powerful. The documentation is very well explained and any new person can read it and use Marketo. Marketo has very rich functionality.
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo is best of breed. No surprise they rule the Gartner Magic Quandrant.
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo is very user friendly, yet it still holds all the functionality a marketeer would need. The product focuses less on inbound then HubSpot but certainly makes up for that in grating the user more options to automate. With regards to Silverpop the building of campaigns in …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo is better suited to bigger companies and more complex flows than HubSpot but is similar in how easy it is to use. Marketo is much more intuitive than Silverpop but isn't any better with complex flows. Marketo seems to be the sweet spot between the two from my …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
I have used Marketo at two companies, and am starting implementation at a third. The first, an IT systems integration and consulting firm, the second a B2B publishing company, and the third a management consulting firm.

At the IT systems integration firm, I formally evaluated …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
I have worked with Vtrenz, Silverpop, Pardot, Eloqua and HubSpot. All decent products, but Marketo is hands down the most flexible and powerful platform.
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo's front-end is much quicker and more reliable then Exact Target. At my past company we had many user interface issues and browser compatibility issues with each new Exact Target release. With Marketo, I don't have to worry about these interface issues and in the event …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
I briefly used Silverpop in the past to create unique landing pages, run a scoring model and analyze results. It was much more labor intensive and offered much less on the reporting side.
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
HubSpot, SilverPop, Emma, ExactTarget, and Pardot. Marketo is the best software due to its capabilities and focus on leads. Marketo has many more functions and items that are extremely helpful without having to download extensions.
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo is a leader when it comes to enterprise capability and overall usability. The power under the hood puts it way ahead of systems like Pardot and Act-On, and the user-friendly UI/UX puts it further than Eloqua. While all the platforms are similar, Marketo takes the cake …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo's UI is one of the cleanest and by far the easiest to use. The drag and drop features as well as the WYSIWYG editors makes creating assets fairly simple. The smart lists and smart campaigns are the best in the business when it comes to building campaigns. However when …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
There's no comparison between the other "marketing automation platforms" I've used and Marketo. The Programs and Smart Campaigns (flows) are what make Marketo the amazing tool that it is and Silverpop and Manticore just did not have this type of functionality. After having …
Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
Marketo can do way more than Silverpop ever could in terms of automation, events, webcasts, etc. Silverpop was extremely archaic in its UI and was very unpredictable. Marketo is always WYSIWYG and we have no issues with our templates coming back wrong in sample emails, etc. …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Acoustic CampaignAdobe Marketo Engage
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
7.0
10 Ratings
11% below category average
Adobe Marketo Engage
8.1
979 Ratings
4% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor4.010 Ratings7.5888 Ratings
Dynamic content8.07 Ratings7.6865 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.58 Ratings7.8843 Ratings
Landing pages5.18 Ratings8.1905 Ratings
A/B testing7.010 Ratings7.9891 Ratings
Mobile optimization6.97 Ratings7.8863 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.010 Ratings8.1947 Ratings
List management8.09 Ratings8.8944 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences8.08 Ratings9.0854 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
7.4
8 Ratings
4% below category average
Adobe Marketo Engage
8.7
947 Ratings
12% above category average
Lead nurturing automation6.18 Ratings8.8922 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading7.97 Ratings8.8897 Ratings
Data quality management8.07 Ratings8.7895 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks7.54 Ratings8.7850 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
7.0
8 Ratings
9% below category average
Adobe Marketo Engage
7.9
876 Ratings
4% above category average
Calendaring6.58 Ratings7.5708 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing7.44 Ratings8.3836 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
6.3
5 Ratings
17% below category average
Adobe Marketo Engage
7.4
545 Ratings
1% below category average
Social sharing and campaigns6.54 Ratings7.5536 Ratings
Social profile integration6.25 Ratings7.3375 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
4.5
10 Ratings
50% below category average
Adobe Marketo Engage
7.5
949 Ratings
0% above category average
Dashboards4.210 Ratings7.3891 Ratings
Standard reports4.210 Ratings7.8929 Ratings
Custom reports5.18 Ratings7.4884 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
5.7
10 Ratings
28% below category average
Adobe Marketo Engage
8.5
939 Ratings
11% above category average
API5.29 Ratings8.5807 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals6.04 Ratings8.5685 Ratings
Customizability5.95 Ratings7.9831 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com4.38 Ratings9.1808 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM5.03 Ratings8.6271 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM8.02 Ratings8.2173 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Acoustic CampaignAdobe Marketo Engage
Small Businesses
Vbout
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Score 9.4 out of 10
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Acoustic CampaignAdobe Marketo Engage
Likelihood to Recommend
4.1
(40 ratings)
8.5
(1129 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.5
(30 ratings)
9.0
(146 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(6 ratings)
8.0
(98 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(25 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(30 ratings)
Support Rating
5.9
(5 ratings)
8.8
(89 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(12 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(2 ratings)
6.7
(29 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.4
(4 ratings)
10.0
(37 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(6 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(4 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
1.8
(9 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(10 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.4
(3 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(7 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(6 ratings)
User Testimonials
Acoustic CampaignAdobe Marketo Engage
Likelihood to Recommend
Acoustic
Silverpop is a powerful and comprehensive tool for digital marketers, and is apprprioate for companies of varying sizes, as well as both B2B and B2C models. It's particularly well-suited for companies with large, accurate customer databases and the ability to track customer actions on their websites to use as marketing automation triggers.
Read full review
Adobe
Adobe Marketo Engage is great for lead gen because of the out of box solutions. We import leads from Google, LinkedIn, Meta, Tradeshows, and web forms. It allows me to track leads from the moment they enter the system to the point where they become customers. I use it to score leads, segment them, and nurture them with targeted content. It's especially useful as a B2B organization.
Read full review
Pros
Acoustic
  • Automated Messages - we currently have over 70 automated messages going out on any particular day through feeds and API calls that we pass to Silverpop. We rely on these automated messages to communicate to our customers and can rely on Silverpop to always be up and running to get these messages out.
  • Robust query building - We can target customers easily based on a combination of demographic profile data, as well as email and site behavior and purchase behavior, allowing us to finely segment our audience
  • Deep dive reporting - the UI reporting, as well as the available reports to download through the API give us tremendous insight into how our subscribers are responding to email.
Read full review
Adobe
  • Like I have said Marketo has been very helpful by helping us to connect us with our customers and keeps them coming back, hence saving time, effort and resources.
  • Let AI build predictive audience and segments easily.
  • Personalize experience with active listening and triggered content.
  • 24/7 responsive support and service team.
Read full review
Cons
Acoustic
  • Data syncing and errors - Silverpop does not do a great job of getting data to sync regularly with our CRM (Salesforce.com). The data had to flow back and forth several times before being added to campaigns and in some instances, it took days to update leads! Also, failed lead syncs get stuck in an alert list but it does not notify you otherwise that a lead failed the sync.
  • Design issues - we use custom HTML to build emails and landing pages, and we were unable to render background images on our campaigns. Also, once you toggle between design and source (code) view to make edits, it often broke the code and threw off the design.
  • Administrator alerts - when sync fails altogether between systems, there is no email alert sent to the system admin (me/my team) so we at times have found that we have gone 18 hours until we stumble across the fact that the system sync has failed.
  • Reporting - it is not very comprehensive and we had difficulty generating the level of reporting that we need to have.
  • Support - there are a few gems in the support team who know what they're doing, but largely calling support is a lesson in frustration.
  • Product bug fixes - in two instances, my open support tickets were identified as product bugs. One related to incorrect cookie tracking which was causing our leads not to be scoring properly. They determined that this wasn't critical enough to build into their product fix road map. This is core to an automation system working properly.
Read full review
Adobe
  • Marketo's email editor is basic in comparison to other cheaper alternatives out there.
  • Marketo doesn't work as well in B2C scenarios as it does in B2B. One of the painpoints of this is it's difficult to showcase a selection of product recommendations based on purchase behaviour without a very time consuming workaround. It's manageable if you're only selling a handful of products, but it's inefficient when dealing with a large catalogue.
  • Marketo's form and landing page builder are also behind the times. Perhaps not as bad as the Salesforce Marketing Cloud platform, but for an enterprise company the product should be much better.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Acoustic
SilverPop is a great marketing tool that integrates with Salesforce to provide customers and employees a great buying and selling experience. The software takes some very difficult tasks and makes them easy to accomplish. With proper setup and management, Silverpop gives you the tools to gain insight into the productiveness of campaigns.
Read full review
Adobe
We're likely to renew for several reasons:
  • Now that it's been implemented, I can't imagine not having marketing automation and the easy interface that Marketo provides to run our campaigns
  • Marketo's community and customer service is fantastic; I know that when I need help, I'll get it
  • Marketo continues to improve the product, so I know that I can expect it to be even more useful in the future
Read full review
Usability
Acoustic
This is a little bit difficult to rate because Silverpop is gradually updating its interface to improve usability all around. I know users are able to do their job with minimal assistance. However, some of the interface is dated, and the Programs interface, while functional, has a bit of a learning curve.
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Adobe
In some aspects, the tool can feel quite clunky in parts. But with the rich feature set it has, it's understandable. There is a lot of room for improvement for the user interface. The system itself doesn't have a slick or modern feel, so the usability could feel nicer to use with these areas considered.
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Reliability and Availability
Acoustic
While several of the other reviews have mentioned poor performance in this department, we have only had one situation where the system was down (although it was down for several hours). Silverpop segments its clients on different servers, and I know that the problem we experienced only occurred on our specific server (maybe other servers have had their own problems?) but our service has been reliable otherwise.
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Adobe
Marketo provides different way and abilities to connect. If you are having product support or unexplained errors you can get someone on Marketo support 24 hours a day. One of Marketo's greatest assets in my opinion however would be the community. Often times our company is just looking for case success stories from someone else. In the community you can search for problems you are currently facing and see others having the same issue and solutions for those issues. If not, you can pose a question to the whole community and champions of the product and others can chime in to provide suggestions to fix your needs. The community is truly a 24/7 place to get your answers quickly.
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Performance
Acoustic
The throttle time for sending emails would vary depending on how many other campaigns were going out that day, which I found inconsistent
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Adobe
There are times when it is slightly slow for us, where we sit on a screen waiting for it to load. This could be our internet since we have had the same issue occasionally with other systems, but it is enough to make you crazy.
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Support Rating
Acoustic
The Salesforce Integration support team is fantastic. I'd give them greater than a 10 if possible. The rest of the support team can be extremely frustrating to work with. Too often they try to blame something obscure and refuse to escalate or look into the issue. And on occasion when you find system glitches they don't seem to care about fixing them
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Adobe
On multiple occasions we've had Marketo support (technical and license based) issues. Technical issues were minor and resolved within a day. License based issues (even things encouraged by Marketo for partners, like provisioning another license) took WEEKS. They actually took so long to respond that the client we were working with withdrew from the contract because they were no longer convinced Marketo was capable of supporting their business. As an agency trying to sell the software, you can only explain away so much before they just made us look silly.
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In-Person Training
Acoustic
No answers on this topic
Adobe
Our account rep stopped out in Lincoln, NE to ensure we were properly set up and running. This was very much appreciated. I was very, very new at this point, so I can't comment very much on the extent of what was taught because I was still brand new to the company and the system
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Online Training
Acoustic
The online trainings are very detailed (for the most part) and really walk through the entire system. They are a little dry, but they are usually broken up into segments to allow you to skip to the parts you need.
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Adobe
I had never used Marketo prior to taking this job so online training was my starting point. I was able to follow along, it was interesting and quickly and efficiently taught me what I needed to know without a lot of fluff. It was far from boring and really helped me get my hands dirty with Marketo.
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Implementation Rating
Acoustic
Based on recommendations from Silverpop we made some implementation decisions that we later regretted pretty substantially. In hindsight we should have started a pilot implementation earlier so we could learn and then start over. The big issue for us was that Silverpop recommended a non-keyed database, or at least a database that doesn't use email address as primary key. This is resulted in a large number of duplicate email addresses so that the end user is forced to unsubscribe multiple times to stop receiving emails.
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Adobe
1. Have a content marketing plan to run in parallel with the marketing automation installation--you'll need a lot of content to make full use of Marketo's capabilities. 2. Work with sales (and ISRs) to define and document a workflow--build your Marketo installation around how you do business--not figure out how to apply your business to the tools 3. Spend time of data cleaning--both an initial project as well as a strategy for ongoing data management. We found some change manaement issues (no more appending ZZZ to the first name to identify contacts who have left the company, for example, or prohibiting the entry of "info@company.com" email addresses). 4. Find some champions in the sales and ISR teams. You'll have both fans and detractors--work with the fans to build some success stories
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Alternatives Considered
Acoustic
We evaluated alternate providers less than a year into our IBM Watson Campaign contract because the system was so clunky to use (and we wanted a system that would include or better integrate with our SMS provider). Bluecore and Klaviyo were the front runners at the time, and we came close to moving forward with Bluecore. The pricing model and overall the cost of Bluecore was much higher than IBM for us though, and the timing of this was right when the IBM to Acoustic changes took place. We decided to give Acoustic a shot and are optimistic it will be enough to keep us on board once all the dust settles, though I find it unlikely we will renew with Acoustic when our contract is up again. My main email specialist is a Klaviyo expert and finds that platform very easy to use in comparison-- it might be a better fit for a team of our size.
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Adobe
Prior to Marketo, we used SharpSpring. I will say that SharpSpring is more intuitive to use than Marketo, but it has much less functionality. If you have the time to really learn Marketo, it has much more to offer as well as many more options to customize the solution to your exact needs.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Acoustic
No answers on this topic
Adobe
The total cost is a little bit higher than we expected.
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Scalability
Acoustic
No answers on this topic
Adobe
We look at scaleability in a few different ways. First, the speed while using Marketo has remained relatively the same as our database has grown. Though I would say Marketo is slow at times, it has not gotten slower over the last few years. If anything, it has improved, and they are working to improve it. Second, the amount of programs we have developed in Marketo has exponentially grown as well. Marketo has allowed us to drastically increase our output without having to drastically increase our headcount.
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Return on Investment
Acoustic
  • we have not experienced any currently but moving to lead automation and lead scoring could change that.
  • i'm not sure how increased employee efficiency would ever be a benefit b/c lead importing and visibility, along with setting up email templates is quite cumbersome.
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Adobe
  • Generated a 35% higher return on investment (ROI) in demand generation in the company.
  • The focus on the accounts that presented a greater sales potential, allowed us to prioritize and reduce costs by 20 Million USD.
  • Being personal and optimized. reduced efforts towards a more personalized customer experience, in working hours by almost 100 h.
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ScreenShots

Acoustic Campaign Screenshots

Screenshot of Digital marketingScreenshot of Journey design

Adobe Marketo Engage Screenshots

Screenshot of Marketo Lead Scoring - Marketo dynamically scores leads in real-time and can trigger a timely sales call based on website or other activity. Lead scores are integrated with a connected CRM.Screenshot of Marketo Moments - A mobile app designed to deliver timely, actionable insights.Screenshot of Simple or advanced workflows, built using drag-and-dropScreenshot of Lead nurturing can be performed without having to be a programmerScreenshot of Visualizations - display the revenue influence of each program and channelScreenshot of Marketo Sales Insight, which filters out the noise