Litmus from Validity vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Litmus from Validity
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Litmus, from Validity, is an email marketing solution used to create error-free emails in less time. It is also used to build email campaigns, personalize and test them thoroughly, monitor deliverability, and analyze email performance.
$500
per month
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Marketing Cloud is an AI-powered, cloud-based digital marketing platform within the Salesforce Customer 360 ecosystem. Marketers can segment their audience, deliver personalized messages, track campaign performance, engage leads and accounts, and optimize strategies based on real-time insights.
$1,250
per month per installation
Pricing
Litmus from ValiditySalesforce Marketing Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Account Engagement
$1,250
per month
Engagement
$1,250
per month
Intelligence
$3,000
per month
Loyalty Management
$20,000
per month
Personalization
$100,000
per year
Data Cloud for Marketing
$108,000
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Litmus from ValiditySalesforce Marketing Cloud
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsLitmus offers different plan types to fit various needs, offering monthly and annual plans, as well as fully customizable Enterprise plans.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Litmus from ValiditySalesforce Marketing Cloud
Considered Both Products
Litmus from Validity
Chose Litmus from Validity
It seems like similar functionality, but was simpler to use alongside Salesforce.
Chose Litmus from Validity
I prefer the user interface and I like that its possible to join it with Salesforce
Chose Litmus from Validity
We evaluated Litmus against Email on Acid and ultimately opted for Litmus due to its more expansive functionality and workflow. In fairness, Email on Acid offered a good rendering tool, but Litmus went further with engagement analytics, heatmaps and read time insights. …
Chose Litmus from Validity
Litmus is much more user-friendly and easier to use, and it comes with additional features that weren't available in Email on Acid.
Chose Litmus from Validity
Litmus is better overall. Better UI. User friendly. Relatively intuitive.
Chose Litmus from Validity
I selected Litmus because it provides an all-in-one powerful tool to update content, collaborate with teams, and analyse data seamlessly. This saves a big amount of time for the whole team. The insights are more granular allowing us to focus deeper into improvements. The …
Chose Litmus from Validity
We've tried Email on Acid in the past and Litmus has a much more advanced offering. The user interface is superior and they are constantly innovating and rolling out new features.
Chose Litmus from Validity
I've used HubSpot Marketing Hub previously to build marketing emails. In my current role, I do not use Litmus to build emails, only to QA - so I can cannot compare apples to apples. But I do have some familiarity with Hubspot, and I was never able to easily share an email for …
Chose Litmus from Validity
From a platform and tool perspective, Litmus does a great job at providing rendering testing. No issues.
Chose Litmus from Validity
Litmus has an easier view to see how the emails render across different email clients and seems to be very accurate to how they show up in mailboxes.
Chose Litmus from Validity
There is just no comparison in a way, Litmus offers a much greater range of features, from builder to previews accross various clients. Mailchimp only seems to allow very simple features compared to what Litmus itself has to offer.
Chose Litmus from Validity
I haven't used another service similar to Litmus before, but would be very happy to recommend it and I do not feel the need to evaluate other products.
Chose Litmus from Validity
We currently use both Everest and Litmus. In my opinion, the way our team uses Litmus would rank in second place compared to Everest. Everest not only reports on deliverability, feedback loops, spam traps, block listings, domain and IP reputation, and so much more, but it also …
Chose Litmus from Validity
Litmus is easier to understand, easier to use, and you cant beat the code editor Litmus provides
Chose Litmus from Validity
Overall better user interface, product and pricing. Litmus is very well-known in the industry.
Chose Litmus from Validity
Litmus has a better UI and is friendlier to non-email building people who need to collaborate and leave comments
Chose Litmus from Validity
Litmus is the original email testing platform, and nothing compares to the preview options it provides.
Chose Litmus from Validity
Campaign Monitor is good but Litmus seems to be more solid and "fully baked". We liked the flow of the Litmus build process better and Litmus Proof really sealed the deal.
Chose Litmus from Validity
I was not involved in the evaluation, however we just resigned our contract with them so Litmus has been working really well for our organization!
Chose Litmus from Validity
Litmus is a far more comprehensive platform than Email on Acid for template development and testing, but its analytics suite is not really that much more sophisticated. I use Litmus primarily for development and testing, so I am not complaining, but I wish that the analytics …
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is superior to other marketing platforms I have used in the past.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
I MUCH prefer Pardot to Mailchimp and Mailjet. It feels more like a professional product and behaves as such with a more advanced feature set and customizability. For instance, I have not found a good way in either of the competing products to do branded preference center …
Features
Litmus from ValiditySalesforce Marketing Cloud
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Litmus from Validity
5.3
356 Ratings
40% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.5
170 Ratings
1% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor7.955 Ratings7.6121 Ratings
Dynamic content7.856 Ratings7.8152 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.6231 Ratings7.0111 Ratings
Landing pages2.63 Ratings7.5120 Ratings
A/B testing1.84 Ratings7.3150 Ratings
Mobile optimization9.2345 Ratings6.8110 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.1252 Ratings7.6131 Ratings
List management1.82 Ratings8.0128 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences1.01 Ratings7.594 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Litmus from Validity
6.7
234 Ratings
13% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
123 Ratings
4% above category average
Dashboards5.610 Ratings8.0117 Ratings
Standard reports7.7233 Ratings7.6122 Ratings
Custom reports6.6165 Ratings7.399 Ratings
Pre-Send Testing
Comparison of Pre-Send Testing features of Product A and Product B
Litmus from Validity
9.0
346 Ratings
13% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
URL Validation8.7261 Ratings00 Ratings
Link Tracking8.7229 Ratings00 Ratings
Spam Testing9.0258 Ratings00 Ratings
Email Previews9.5344 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Litmus from Validity
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
123 Ratings
1% above category average
Lead nurturing automation00 Ratings8.1108 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading00 Ratings7.9109 Ratings
Data quality management00 Ratings7.6115 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings8.2100 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Litmus from Validity
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.5
113 Ratings
1% above category average
Calendaring00 Ratings7.7102 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing00 Ratings7.296 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Litmus from Validity
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.3
87 Ratings
2% below category average
Social sharing and campaigns00 Ratings7.582 Ratings
Social profile integration00 Ratings7.138 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Litmus from Validity
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.4
123 Ratings
0% below category average
API00 Ratings7.089 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals00 Ratings7.188 Ratings
Customizability00 Ratings6.9110 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com00 Ratings7.8112 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM00 Ratings8.513 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM00 Ratings7.610 Ratings
Third-party software integrations00 Ratings7.023 Ratings
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Litmus from ValiditySalesforce Marketing Cloud
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User Ratings
Litmus from ValiditySalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(370 ratings)
8.0
(328 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(27 ratings)
8.2
(114 ratings)
Usability
9.2
(21 ratings)
8.1
(37 ratings)
Availability
7.7
(8 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(8 ratings)
9.6
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(36 ratings)
In-Person Training
4.5
(2 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
4.5
(3 ratings)
8.1
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
2.7
(12 ratings)
3.0
(17 ratings)
Configurability
4.3
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(2 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
3.7
(8 ratings)
7.4
(39 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
3.6
(5 ratings)
8.0
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
5.5
(4 ratings)
7.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Litmus from ValiditySalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Validity
Proofing your emails is necessary. This is a tool that allows you to see how your email not only renders on multiple devices but how it performs. Some email building platforms will tell you their drag and drop templates are ready to go, however they stop short of analyzing accessibility, checking links, load speed among other things. I've also experienced drag and drop template issues as new email clients are released. Litmus provides peace of mind that you did your due diligence on crafting your email. While Litmus does provide some reporting you will not see every typical analytic an email report offers. However, you can use your Litmus data to enhance your email reports which in turn creates a robust view of email performance.
Read full review
Salesforce
I think the product, by definition, is meant for marketing — and we use it exactly for that, for running campaigns. That’s the best-suited use case for the product. I don’t think it’s really meant to be used for anything else — that’s just not how it’s designed.
Read full review
Pros
Validity
  • We haven’t explored the personalization features in depth yet, aside from using the Add-to-Calendar option, but we're excited to dig in further. Tools like live polls offer an easy way to boost engagement in our product marketing emails, and we see a lot of potential in using these templates to enhance personalization moving forward.
  • Litmus’ continuing education resources have been really helpful. I recently read an article on email deliverability that offered practical insights my team can apply moving forward. I especially appreciate how Litmus uses real examples and stats from the brands they work with—it makes the content feel actionable and relevant.
  • Online Training.
Read full review
Salesforce
  • Filter relevant content so you can priorize those that are more relevant and resolve it first
  • Measure the traffic in the different social networks, as well as the response rate, average response time and other relevant metrics
  • Configure automation rules to order the work of those who must interact with the customer
Read full review
Cons
Validity
  • I've not seen many limitations but I have noticed that sometimes emails sent from our CRM take too long to land in Litmus, or sometimes don't land at all.
  • As a beginner it was quite difficult for me to make my way around the platform - I thought "Create new" CTA was actually creating something new, maybe "Import from CRM" would have been more understandable. There were a few others but I remember this one.
  • In the Emails section, whenever I hover over an email, I want to be able to copy the subject line instead of getting the different CTAs appear intrusively (Summary, Builder, Previews & QA, Proof, Analytics, Monitor) - maybe these could appear on the bottom of the textbox, instead of them being imposed on top?
Read full review
Salesforce
  • The email builder does not offer any way to catch/check bugs across different email service providers
  • Creating SQL is not as easy as drag-and-drop; a lot of technical knowledge is required
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud is sold as a marketing tool, but to be honest, you need a LOT of technical IT support to run the tool
  • Einstein metrics are across the board; if you have multiple audiences in one instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can't segment the data.
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Likelihood to Renew
Validity
It's one the best tools that we've found for this type of tool but we would like some additional features like spell check so if there's a platform that features that with everything else Litmus has, then we'd potentially look to move over to that platform instead. However, we are overall pretty help with the platform
Read full review
Salesforce
As of right now we have not seen any other program that integrates as seamlessly into our Salesforce platform. We have barely scratched the surface of all the features and use cases. It would be irresponsible to make a move to another platform in the near future. We have not come up against any limitations that would prompt a need to switch
Read full review
Usability
Validity
Litmus has integrations that make the software an integrated part of my work every day. Being able to test right within my email builder is just brilliant. Daily I also use the web interface to review analytics and spam testing. Overall it is one of the pieces of software I use daily without any complaints or issues.
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Salesforce
You won't find another solution that has as many features as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Interaction Studio. We all know Salesforce, we all know how big they are and it's not for nothing... Their tools do most of the things you want, need and even imagine. Using it is complicated, but the usability is infinite.
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Reliability and Availability
Validity
We have never had a problem with Litmus being unavailable so I would say their availability is fantastic. There might have been one time years ago that the site was down briefly but it also might have been a server issue on my end. Either way, Litmus was back up and running in a very short time
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Salesforce
Upgrades and timing of the upgrades were communicated well and planned during off hours for our work. If we did have a campaign scheduled during that time, it would kick-off after the system was back active. There were a few unplanned system down times, but it was a rare occurrence and those times were also short in duration.
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Performance
Validity
As with all technology, there are inevitably use-cases where you are unable to get to your original goal without some good old-fashioned experimenting. Some situations will (and are) more urgent which complicates an effective integration of a new process or a new team using an existing process but the "issues" are regularly resolved by re-starting the process specific to when Litmus is introduced to a project. If it doesn't come out the way you're anticipating, run it again and verify there is an issue before declaring all is lost
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Salesforce
Though the make up of MA apps is not built this way today, it would be nice to see them become more real-time. The integration between Salesforce and Pardot is not a true real-time integration. If I modify something in Salesforce, those changes are not automatically reflected in Pardot immediately. There is a delay of about 15 minutes before the systems sync. This delay, although not long, is less than ideal We would love the systems to be integrated real time such that changes are propagated from one system to the other immediately.
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Support Rating
Validity
I am always so so impressed with the litmus support team. They are not only prompt but attentive and offer very personalised responses and support
Read full review
Salesforce
They are really responsive and more than not solve the problem or give you insight to how you can manage the solution yourself. I do find however sometimes a long delay on the more complex issues when they need to loop in other departments. but overall a good experience with support
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In-Person Training
Validity
I had internal training for how to use, not lead by litmus. Unsure if there was any external training which took place before my time
Read full review
Salesforce
The trainers at the Pardot user conference (Elevate and Connections) were very knowledgeable and presented the material well. Again, the content was targeted to more of a new user audience, and was not really relevant for folks who had been using the product for 2+ years.
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Online Training
Validity
It has all the required information.
Read full review
Salesforce
Pardot's online training touches on all topics briefly and vaguely without much indepth exploration into how a final outcome could look, such as Nurturing Campaigns, Email templates, landing page templates, etc... The only true way to uncover Pardot's full capabilities is to have Front End design and coding experience. Without this key skill set, I would not recommend Pardot to another business.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Validity
I didn’t really personally participate much in the implementation of Litmus, but from what I observed during the process, it was a smooth process with minimal disruptions. The team was able to get up and running quickly, and the platform’s user-friendly interface made onboarding fairly easy for everyone involved from the start.
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Salesforce
From an IT perspective, once you set up the Javascript beacon and start collecting data there is a waiting game. During this time you can start labeling your site actions which can be labor intensive for a single person, but you don't really have the final end-users on the platform yet. We did a lot of training so users were experienced, but it wasn't until they had their first tasks to accomplish that they started using the system and had questions. I'd recommend setting up some immediate goals for an end-user to start segmenting for the purpose of displaying message campaigns so you can jump start end-user action.
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Alternatives Considered
Validity
This is not applicable to my role as I have used Litmus to test emails since I have started. Because of the ease of use, timeliness, consistent quality, and affordability that Litmus offers, I haven't found the need to look at similar products or organizations. If all of these features continue to stay strong, I don't plan on changing providers
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Salesforce
We use Salesforce Marketing Cloud for lead management, generating reports, tracking customer and dealer information, inputting orders, and more. I prefer HubSpot for email marketing and automation because it is easier to use and the emails are designed much better. We currently use Salesforce and HubSpot, and we are very happy to have both, as they have different pros/cons.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Validity
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
was not involved with this part but i have not heard about clompaints
Read full review
Scalability
Validity
With our enterprise account, scalability is not an issue. I have not yet seen or heard of significant issues with user access, API connections for integrations etc. This includes down time for "Scheduled Maintenance" as some providers call them, Litmus has the technology backing to support a global team with a 24-hour workday across regions
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Salesforce
Prior to this, we had no solution and literally were doing things on paper in a world where technology is outpacing paper. Having this process optimized has made it easier for the sales and marketing people to change information. From the training perspective, it has allowed us to see holes in where we could create additional support training, so the ROI here has been a lot more than just the optimization of a process.
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Return on Investment
Validity
  • Litmus saves our team so much time by making the QA and email review process so much easier, streamlined, and efficient.
  • We often send out campaigns out to thousands of members, and Litmus gives us the assurance and peace of mind that everything is working as it should before it gets sent out.
  • Decreases the number of email review cycles we go through.
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Salesforce
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to more efficiently reach out to a higher number of prospects.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to nimbly communicate important messages in a timely fashion to facilitate conversion.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to track who is opening our messages so that we can stop sending to those not interested and focus on the most engaged audiences.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Litmus from Validity Screenshots

Screenshot of Litmus Personalize Essentials, with live polls to give subscribers a voice and drive email engagement.Screenshot of Litmus Email Guardian, featuring 24/7 link monitoring to safeguard emails.Screenshot of Litmus' integrated insights reports, that can automatically combine metrics from Salesforce Marketing Cloud with subscriber engagement insights from Litmus.Screenshot of campaign preview, available in 100+ popular email clientsScreenshot of Litmus' inbox previewing and feedback tools, that help users to spot and fix issues early.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Pardot Analytics - Pardot's reporting and analytics can be used to perform true revenue impact analysis and closed-loop reporting.Screenshot of Pardot Email Analytics - The reach and impact of  email marketing efforts are displayed in real-time with advanced reporting and analytics by device, and email client.Screenshot of Pardot Forms and Landing Pages - Pardot's form and landing page builders are used to turn online traffic to leads with targeted offers and content marketing.Screenshot of Pardot Email Marketing - Lead nurturing flows are defined via an interface that enables definition of the simplest or most complex segmented and targeted campaigns.