Mailchimp vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 8.2 out of 10

Based on 1926 reviews and ratings

Score 7.4 out of 10

Based on 404 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

WYSIWYG email editor

Dynamic content

Ability to test dynamic content

Landing pages

A/B testing

Mobile optimization

Email deliverability reporting

List management

Triggered drip sequences

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Lead nurturing

Lead scoring and grading

Data quality management

Automated sales alerts and tasks

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Calendaring

Event/webinar marketing

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Social sharing and campaigns

Social profile integration

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Dashboards

Standard reports

Custom reports

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

API

Role-based workflow & approvals

Customizability

Integration with Salesforce.com

Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Integration with SugarCRM

Pros

Contact list creation - this is a real strength because I can either enter individuals in separately or from a database or Excel spreadsheet.
The ability to time the release of communications is especially helpful. I am involved in a volunteer capacity and Mailchimp allows me to do the work I need to do when I want to do it - and then send it out at a predetermined time!

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Communications Specialist

Northwest Wayne FAN (Families Against Narcotics)Public Relations & Communications, 1001-5000 employees

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Sends client confirmations when they subscribe to a newsletter, sign up for a conference, or place an order with our company (SourceMedia). We don't have to hire an agency to send these for us.
Manages newsletter subscriptions and allows us to deploy on specific dates/times.
Helps us discover and manage the correct audience base per newsletter, and automates the distributions so we don't have to do it manually.

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Client Services Manager

SourceMediaPublishing, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

Issues with MS Outlook--because Outlook (so I've read and heard) depends on coding particular to MS Word, as opposed to more generic html-based formatting code, things can get really wonky in an email viewed in Outlook, such as text not wrapping properly around graphic images, horizontal line of images showing up vertically, etc. It's a coding issue. Believe me, my IT friends roll their eyes when we discuss this, and my non-tech clients' eyes glaze over when I try to explain why they should look at their test emails in their browsers or other mail software for a proper viewing rather than in Outlook.
Feedback tab interrupting the right scroll bar. What a pain to lose the scrollbar for a half-inch of screen area.

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Verified User

Consultant in Other

Non-Profit Organization Management Company, 1-10 employees

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Deliverability reports - before sending emails they are checked for known issues and deliverability performance. The SFMC offering is ok but could be better. There additional software that can be purchased which should be included as part of the offering
SF should make it easier to integrate other clouds i.e commerce cloud and service cloud. The implementation of commerce cloud has improved but I still feel there is a way to go

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Technical Project Manager

Speedo International LtdTextiles, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Mailchimp 9.4

Based on 49 answers

Love the product! Easy to use -create fabulous e-mails for our clients which met their needs! Enjoyed using the tools and creating a report for the sales and marketing teams that we work for which helped sharpen their focus and increase their revenue!

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Owner

Patterson-Robbins and Company LLCMarket Research, 1-10 employees

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Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio 8.9

Based on 18 answers

Exact Target has an exceptional team with great customer care. Whenever we have a question or concern they are timely in addressing it. They also perform annual reviews in person that provides us with market trends, new tools and features, performance metrics, and new content recommendations. We evaluate this by local market and at the international level

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International Product Development Manager

CareerBuilder.comInternet, 1001-5000 employees

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Usability

Mailchimp 8.5

Based on 147 answers

Mailchimp is super easy to use. You can view each campaign in your browser just as it shows up in desktop and mobile versions. Drop-and-drag elements enable a clean design for each unique campaign. You have got to learn to use tags to get the most out of your varied audience and subscriber lists. Before we used tags correctly, we were duplicating many aspects of our list management. Since figuring out tags, our work has gone down substantially

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Verified User

Director in Other

Education Management Company, 51-200 employees

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Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio 8.0

Based on 3 answers

I think the tool is easy to use, protects a company from the spam legislation and manages subscribers very well. It is simple to create a non-complex email. I like the survey function on the email tool as well. Overall usability is quite easy and no necessary to have an IT background or extensive knowledge to use. It is helpful, though, to have an understanding of HTML for formatting at this point.

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Marketing Manager

Stens CorporationFurniture, 5001-10,000 employees

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Reliability and Availability

Mailchimp 10.0

Based on 8 answers

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

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Risk Manager, and Insurance Agent

Hummel and Plum Insurance Agency Inc.Insurance, 11-50 employees

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Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio 9.0

Based on 1 answer

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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Marketing Manager

Stens CorporationFurniture, 5001-10,000 employees

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Performance

Mailchimp 10.0

Based on 10 answers

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

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Risk Manager, and Insurance Agent

Hummel and Plum Insurance Agency Inc.Insurance, 11-50 employees

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Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio 2.0

Based on 2 answers

This software is extremely limiting. The layouts don't give much flexibility and take a long time to set up. If you aren't a designer or know html (like me), the emails look unpolished and amateur. It takes forever for me to make revisions and sometimes when I send the test email, it looks completely different in the software vs. how the message looks in my inbox. Fonts are different sizes and aren't aligned properly, etc. The whole platform is pretty clunky and not very user friendly. The reports are pretty good - however there isn't much you can do when viewing the info. Ex: If you have 200 "Did Not Open" emails, there isn't an easy way to just click and quickly resend to this group. I like that it can sync with Salesforce.com - but I have no idea how to set that up in my account.Out of frustration I have been using Constant Contact which has easy to use drag and drop features, built-in templates I can choose from, survey/coupon/registration tools, tagging and responsive reporting. My company's creative agency even prefers Constant Contact vs. Marketing Cloud.I still have to enter www.exacttarget.com (the old address) to log on. Wondering when they will change it to the new name, which I don't like using. Exact Target is so much easier to say. Salesforce Marketing Cloud just doesn't roll off the tongue and - just like the software - is clumsy and awkward, so I just keep calling it Exact Target.Overall, pretty much dissatisfied with Exact Target and have pretty much stopped using it. Although I know eventually I will have to go back to it at some point since my company has invested in the automation features and we will have to use it for our marketing.

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Verified User

Program Manager in Marketing

Events Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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Support Rating

Mailchimp 10.0

Based on 16 answers

The support for Mailchimp All-in-One Marketing Suite is great. Any time any of our employees has experienced any difficulties or even just had a simple question, the support team is always super responsive. They go above and beyond to make sure that all questions are answered, a resolution was provided for any problem, and that we understand the full capabilities of their platform.

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Verified User

Manager in Marketing

Hospitality Company, 51-200 employees

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Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio 1.0

Based on 6 answers

They're fast and knowledgeable. You will always know what's the status of your request and they usually follow up with phone calls to ask you questions or provide updates. Sometimes it takes them a couple of days to investigate, especially if you have custom "situations" like my company usually does but at least they are very good at managing time expectations.

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Digital Marketing Lead & SalesForce Marketing Cloud Administrator

TELUSTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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Implementation Rating

Mailchimp 8.8

Based on 40 answers

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.

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Digital Marketing Specialist

Thoughtprocess InteractiveInternet, 11-50 employees

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Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio 7.9

Based on 2 answers

Easy to implement, with simple emails and solutions initially created. More advanced usage of the tool and more advanced subscriber attribute usage was implemented during later phases when the knowledge of the tool increased. Monitoring success and results of email campaigns were done at a high level initially, but not fully used until the tool and email marketing as a whole was better understood in the corporation.

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Marketing Manager

Stens CorporationFurniture, 5001-10,000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

While both of these are viable options, Mailchimp’s user interface seemed much more intuitive and was a much better visual design. Being a creative person, I appreciated that and wanted to give it a chance based on that alone. But beyond the aesthetics, one of the other programs didn’t have the level of customization that I needed, and the one that did have it was not easy to use. Mailchimp was the clear winner in my book.

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Verified User

Director in Marketing

Graphic Design Company, 1-10 employees

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I have used Epsilon and I have evaluated Silverpop, e-Dialogue and Yesmail. From my analysis Salesforce MC is far more superior in flexibility, scalability and freedom to custom built initiatives. The AMPscripting is one of the driving forces in allowing the previous mentioned abilities. However, I can see from a marketers perspective where they simply want to send emails and segment easily. But given that effective email marketing requires a lot of different components and there is no simple way of doing it and I found that most companies that offer the out of the box solutions do a good job but there is no one size fits all and if you are trying to be really good at it which includes integrating your business such as registration, stats, CMS, API, etc. This is a much better solution.

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Danny (Danny Blaq) Tran

Lead Technical Developer

WebMDHealth, Wellness and Fitness, 1001-5000 employees

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Scalability

Mailchimp 9.3

Based on 4 answers

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.

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Risk Manager, and Insurance Agent

Hummel and Plum Insurance Agency Inc.Insurance, 11-50 employees

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Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio 9.0

Based on 1 answer

We had approximately 20,000 recipients of most email campaigns, with some higher amounts and some smaller campaigns. The tools is easy to use and the recipient list size is really not a factor in the complexity or work to create and email campaign. Our campaigns could just have easily been sent to many more people, with virtually no additional work.

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Marketing Manager

Stens CorporationFurniture, 5001-10,000 employees

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Return on Investment

The click reports have been amazing for helping target digital leads that may not have yet taken a next step but are quietly, actively engaging with content.
The ability to quickly A/B test subject lines and get detailed reports on the campaign have really helped drill down what language to use in campaigns moving forward.

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Maria Clara Daly

Interactive Communications Director

Love & CompanyMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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Better execution/monitoring - when multiple steps are involved, IMH is great at dashboarding.
Facilitates exploratory campaigns - it is great at instilling confidence when you're trying a new facet of a campaign, due to the process transparency.
Cloud - can be a double-edged sword. Allows for on the go access, but isn't truly mobile-friendly, and can sometimes sputter. But certainly will improve with time.

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Email Marketing Specialist

AnsiraMarketing and Advertising, 201-500 employees

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Screenshots

See All (6) Mailchimp Screenshots

See All (5) Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio Screenshots

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Yes

Free/Freemium Version

Yes

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Yes

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Rating Summary

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Mailchimp

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

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