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Ion Interactive vs. Optimizely Content Marketing Platform

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Ion Interactive

    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Ion is an enterprise-grade content experience platform that empowers modern marketers and designers to create no-code interactive content experiences integrated with their CRM or marketing automation tools.N/A

    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AOptimizely Content Marketing Platform brings teams together in a single, AI-powered workspace to share plans, collaborate on assets and execute campaigns.N/A
    Pricing
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Editions & Modules
    Managed Services + SaaS
    Custom
    per year
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup Fee$5,500 per customerOptional
    Additional Detailsion’s Build Anything SaaS platform provides organizations with an entirely new and agile interactive content marketing capability. It enables non-technical marketers and designers to create, test and measure an unlimited number of all types of interactive content marketing experiences. It includes unlimited seats, experiences, tests, customization, phone and email support, analytics and more.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Considered Both Products
    Ion Interactive LLC
    No answer on this topic
    Optimizely
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Would buy again
    45 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    96%
    Happy with the feature set
    47 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    81%
    Implementation went as expected
    29 Answers
    Features
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Content Creation
    Comparison of Content Creation features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    7.5
    105 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    3.6
    48 Ratings
    74% below category average
    Ideation10.099 Ratings3.635 Ratings
    Content collaboration5.094 Ratings4.944 Ratings
    Approval workflows00 Ratings4.145 Ratings
    Content calendar00 Ratings3.040 Ratings
    Network for content licensing/production00 Ratings2.525 Ratings
    Content Publishing
    Comparison of Content Publishing features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    8.7
    120 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    3.7
    43 Ratings
    71% below category average
    Content hub10.0104 Ratings3.436 Ratings
    Forms / Gated content10.0107 Ratings3.01 Ratings
    Embedded CTAs10.0108 Ratings3.628 Ratings
    Content distribution8.093 Ratings4.337 Ratings
    Content promotion8.086 Ratings4.231 Ratings
    Content automation6.090 Ratings3.632 Ratings
    Content Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    8.5
    118 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform
    3.0
    37 Ratings
    84% below category average
    Audience profiling and targeting6.091 Ratings8.23 Ratings
    Closed-loop tracking and reporting8.095 Ratings1.830 Ratings
    Content performance analytics10.0116 Ratings1.834 Ratings
    Campaign optimization dashboard10.0107 Ratings1.729 Ratings
    Competitive analytics00 Ratings1.619 Ratings
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    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Small Businesses
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    Score9.9 out of 10
    Contently
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
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    Score10 out of 10
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    Enterprises
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    User Ratings
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (135 ratings)
    3.6
    (52 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (22 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.4
    (17 ratings)
    3.2
    (47 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (18 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Marketing Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Ion Interactive LLC
    If you want to choose a quick start template and fill in the fields with your content, Ion will be fantastic for you. We've done this with whitepapers and quizzes and it's been great and extremely easy to use. If you have an exact idea of what you want, and a background in web development, you may get frustrated. Ion has some quirks that make it tricky to fully customize - everyone once in a while I really just want to go into the HTML and make some changes, but can't. If you are looking to reuse a piece of content for specific targeting (industry or account-specific), Ion is great. The dynamic substitutions are great and very helpful.
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    Optimizely
    A 7 only because I think there's question marks around customization. However, I've seen very similar tools in the past where stakeholders have been skeptical, but as you get to know it and use it, you'll find actually you realize those benefits. I just think Optimizely could help its stakeholders and clients see those benefits early on versus later on. However, that's not to say it's not possible, so a 7 at this stage, but I think it's got potential in future. If you are a marketing firm who wants a centralized system for managing workflows and campaigns, it's great. It does that. However, there are better competitors fill in some of the gaps better than optimized leaders does. It could do better. I think for me, visually when I see, when I create a workflow or a campaign, I can see all the tasks associated with it and I've seen the way that our parent company uses it. It's just a list of all the tasks you see in one view. I think visually it needs improving. However, the purpose that it serves fundamentally, it's got potential, if that makes sense. It's going in the right direction, but I think competitors are doing some of it better than Optimizely is. I think they, like I was saying earlier, if they really want to realize the benefits of the product visually there needs to be some improvement. And then the controls element that I mentioned earlier as well, hopefully that answers both of your questions.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Quick Starts make it so easy to get started.
    • Real-time updates are awesome and save a ton of wasteful process.
    • The combination of user friendliness for simple things and the flexibility to do more complex things is great.
    • Chat support is excellent and deeper-dive support has been super helpful.
    • The ability to use these tools in the cloud or embedded has given us tactic flexibility.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    • The CMP really is useful for us not only to manage the processes behind how we create content that we serve in different platforms like websites, landing pages, emails, social media, but it also help us as a team that is scattered around the globe to be able to be connected all the time to be able to see what we're working on, to be able to share assets as well. We are not reinventing the wheel to be able to show to other people within the organization what is happening at any given point. We use it not only for assets now, but we use it also for things like planning our webinars, planning our face-to-face events, so it truly is the heart of our marketing organization within the business.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Ion University, while stacked with a wealth of information, is difficult to navigate from a troubleshooting perspective. The tutorial videos are all very helpful, but they are also very long. Sometimes I would want to search for how to address a particular issue I was struggling with and it would be a two-minute segment buried in a 45-minute video.
    • Again, getting back the self-guidance side of things. I think a lot of the tutorials are set up in a way that makes sense to Ion, but not as much to the end user.
    • I think the controls admins use when creating new users could be a bit more straightforward.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    • One thing that could be improved is some of the promotions that happen in platform. For example, there's a Opal AI little bubble at the bottom right of the corner, which you can't move across the screen. So if you're trying to change the status of a step or you're trying to update a description within a step, that can be a bit challenging and as it seems to be quite an easy fix.
    • I would love to see a capability in terms of having visual representation that we can share out with stakeholders that don't necessarily need access to CMP. But for that level of detail, we don't want it to go too granular, but we do want to be able to share in a quick and visual manner some of the activities that are happening so we can keep everybody in the loop without having to create different variations via different tools.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Ion Interactive LLC
    We use it for every landing page and we plan on only doing more dynamic content creation. We dont see that option coming in-house any time ever in the future. ION has a very robust platform for us to work with that really allows us to do more for our customers in regards to having the one-to-one conversation.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    The tool is over-engineered and overly complicated. It makes my job much harder and not easier. There's much simpler tools for a lot less money
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    The editorial calendar is the one I check multiple times every day. It gives me a clear picture of what's in progress, what's due, and where things can be moving faster. And, there's no need to open a separate doc or ask anyone for a status update.
    Also, the workflows are another super useful thing. Being able to assign specific reviewers to specific steps and know that nothing moves forward until they've acted has eliminated many repetitive processes.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Ion Interactive LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Optimizely
    I have not experienced any prolonged outages. From time to time there will be errors but nothing that significantly slows down production
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform's performance is generally good. Nothing that has impacted production. Page load speed doesn't typically lag longer than a few seconds. Reports take some time but not any longer than we're used to with other platforms. We have not experienced lag when integrating with other platforms
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Ion Interactive LLC
    The ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    The NewsCred team is very responsive and helpful with any technical issues.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Ion Interactive LLC
    They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    Training was clear and concise. It was intuitive and helped me understand how to navigate the platform. Options to dive in on each action or skip to learn about areas of regular use. Resource links available to when I had additional questions or needed more training in a specific area. Overall, the training allowed me to use the platform without interruption
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Ion Interactive LLC
    There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Ion Interactive LLC
    I was not the decision maker to choose this over Uberflip, but the UI is much more appealing to me. It's incredibly easy to use, clean, and from a backend standpoint, it requires little to no tech savvy'ness. Our team has really enjoyed using it and has required no training what-so-ever.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    We haven't yet explored the CMS or other products within the suite but we see the potential to move all of our tools to Optimizely One. I see this really helping us gain clarity in the end to end content lifecycle, and help us use our resources and bandwidth more strategically
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    Optimizely is generally a reliable platform for A/B testing and digital experience management. It's helpful for it's stability, flexibility, and comprehensive features, which is helpful when managing an enterprise website
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Though we have not had the service long enough to see any measurable outcomes, we've been able to create interactive web content faster than ever before
    • The speed with which we can build interactive pages and re-use assets has been critical as projects we've done with Ion have made their way around and more and more internal clients have said "me too" for their own projects
    • It is very pricey at $28K for the base annual subscription (dropping to $24k after the first year), so depending on your budgetary situation, that may make no sense for your team--but we had contract money set aside for a company to build us a microsite for around the amount, so we just used it for Ion instead and will now be building the microsite ourselves using it
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    • The program has allowed us to meet our content goals more easily (e.g.: we publish X articles per month and track where each article is at).
    • It's helped us improve the accuracy of our information. We have SEO, content strategists, and legal teams involved in the workflow now because it's easy to manage.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Ion Interactive Screenshots

    Screenshot of ion empowers your other marketing technologies to deliver higher fidelity, data-driven scoring, targeting, segmentation and personalization.Screenshot of The types of interactive experiences the ion platform can create is near-endless. These are the most common types used by our customers: Assessments, Calculators, eBooks, Interactive Infographics, Interactive White Papers, Landing Pages, Lookbooks, Quizzes, Resource Library, Solution Finder.Screenshot of See what our customers are saying about our platform and services!Screenshot of Starting at $2,000 per month, you get an unlimited, scalable interactive content platform with our full feature set. Including: Unlimited experiences, unlimited use of Quick Starts, Unlimited Seats/Users, Unlimited A/B/n Testing, Unlimited Sell-Side Experiences, Unlimited Phone, email & chat support, unlimited analytics... PLUS a FREE custom-branded theme that can be applied to all of your experiences.Screenshot of You have the option to start from a template or entirely from scratch. Our Quick Start template library includes more than 100 fully tested, responsive and flexible interactive experiences you can brand, customize and launch.Screenshot of ion is the only interactive content platform that provides the scalable foundation to grow from one interactive experience to one thousand interactive experiences. With ion, interactive content development complexity, long timelines, high costs and maintenance problems are replaced with freedom and agility.

    Optimizely Content Marketing Platform Screenshots

    Screenshot of Optimizely Opal: Opal, Optimizely's AI, is an extension of the marketing workforce. From building comprehensive campaign and content briefs and suggesting how to best execute a campaign, to creating on-brand content for any channel and providing suggestions for ongoing optimization, Opal's capabilities and AI agents make "doing more with less" a reality.Screenshot of Marketing Work Requests: Dynamic intake forms, automatic routing, and integrated workflows ensure that requested work gets completed, fast.Screenshot of Library (Digital Asset Management): With Optimizely Content Marketing Platform's DAM, users can automate the management of brand-approved assets, all within the same platform where content creation, collaboration and publishing take place.Screenshot of The Editor, with Embedded AI: Content is created for multiple channels with the help of Opal, Optimizely's native AI.Screenshot of Calendar: This provides visibility into planned and scheduled content and campaigns with the ability to save and share views.