Ontraport vs. PFL Direct Mail Platform

Starting a business you have enough stuff to deal with. Ontraport takes the headache out of the tech side. Everything works together and you don't ever get left alone to figure things out. I would beg any new business to invest in Ontraport. Or if you want to grow and scale an existing business it would be great. I think it more for service-based business.

Incentivized

The reason it's not a seven or above is purely because of the timing of a solution we had requested originally back in August 2023. It's now February 2024, and we're waiting for a wow-factor pitch deck. Previously, we only received a demo recording and an order form quote. These truthfully aren't helpful enough to convince and sway our senior leaders into spending the $35k+ investment into the PMC.

Incentivized

• Campaign builder. The visual campaign builder is very easy to use and feels pretty modern.
• CRM: customizing what type of data I'd like WHERE has been great. Custom fields, being able to move them around.
• Task Management: one of the things that set ONTRAPORT apart from other similar automation platforms is the tasks. You can trigger automated tasks that cause your salespeople to take action, and the tasks stay in the queue until the salesperson takes that action and checks it off. This is great for putting together a web of accountability.

• Personalization: It allows us to create highly personalized direct mail pieces tailored to individual recipients. For instance, we can include the recipient's name, relevant product recommendations, or even custom images that resonate with their preferences.
• Multi-Channel Integration: The platform seamlessly integrates with our existing digital marketing tools and CRM systems. It enables us to orchestrate cohesive campaigns that combine email, social media, and direct mail to reach our target audience through multiple touchpoints.
• Automated Workflows: PFL offers robust automation capabilities, streamlining the entire direct mail process. We can set triggers, such as website visits or email engagement, to automatically trigger the sending of personalized direct mail pieces, ensuring timely and relevant outreach.
• Variable Data Printing: The platform simplifies variable data printing, enabling us to print custom content for each recipient efficiently. This is particularly useful for A/B testing different messaging or designs within a single campaign.

Incentivized

• Ontraport is a very powerful and robust system capable of a great many things. The time it takes to get to know the program is a little intimidating. Don't get me wrong, you can get started right away, but a year in I know I am still not making the most of all Ontraport can do. I am UK based so access to their advanced trainings means international travel, maybe some online events could be initiated.

• There is no built-in functionality to automate direct mail; this has to be created through triggers in Salesforce.
• The sales cloud integration didn't give us the syncing or reporting we thought would be available.
• We would like to see more support from team members in the post-onboarding process.

Incentivized

My client was already using Ontraport and had a decent investment in the tool. As soon as we turn around the revenue situation with my client's products, we will be ditching OAP immediately, despite the significant re-implementation cost we are going to face moving to a new system. I am part of a high-end, professional marketing group, and the overwhelming sentiment with these other professionals is that one should run away from this as fast as humanly possible. I thought their words were just ungrounded opinion, and I deeply regret that I did not heed them more closely before sinking still more time and effort into OAP.

I will continue to use the platform as long as my employer provides access, but I do not have purchasing power myself.

Incentivized

The software is just easy to use. The UI is fairly intuitive. The help system is pretty good. I find it is pretty quick to get my work completed and if I don't document my things well, I can always figure out how I did something when I need to make changes. When I have a problem the tech support is easy to deal with and when things need to get escalated they are resolved quickly.

The UI is friendly, clear, and accessible, and I access it directly through the interface (Salesforce) that I perform my function in every day. It is intuitive to navigate, and I am able to find most functionalities I need without the need to consult an admin and/or support teams.

Incentivized

Most of the time OP runs fine. But I've had to submit more support tickets this year do to messages, seq.'s or rules not running correctly. Also experienced slow response times moving in and around OP.

The techs are reasonably savvy, highly courteous and want to do right by their customers. Unfortunately, the product they are supporting is so deeply flawed that there's only so much they can do when your legitimate business requirements are simply not supported.

Only thing holding me back from a perfect 10 would be the timelines for involving the technical team on occasion. There have been a few times where the PFL technical support team has been booked up for days or more than a week out which can delay our project timelines. This doesn't happen often, let me be clear. But when it does, it's usually at the worst time for our campaigns.

Incentivized

I went to their Ontrapalooza event, and it opened my mind as to how the software can be used.

If you know your business, ONTRAPORT is easy

We used it because it was recommended by other coaching companies. It meets well the need we have which is mostly about creating different type of access based on when the clients joined our program. You can easily create automations and rules to be notified when clients evolve in the program. It allows us to send them our messages at the right moment.

Incentivized

JourneyMail is one I have evaluated. It did not seem as full featured as PFL Direct Mail Platform, nor did it integrate with the rest of the Salesforce products like PFL Direct Mail Platform (journeymail ONLY integrates to marketing cloud). My customers tend to be cross-cloud and own multiple products and want solutions that can integrate across their stack easily.

Incentivized

With the new lower priced options, it's now easier for newer businesses to start with a more basic version and upgrade as they need more features.

It does take a while to launch or re-launch a campaign, which can make it difficult to pivot quickly. However, if you're integrated with Marketo, then PFL is as scalable as your database and marketing strategy! The sky is the limit in terms of creativity. Post launch, the program is hands-off apart from report monitoring and potential optimization tweaks.

Incentivized

• ONTRAPORT has helped us as we continue to segment our users - we're able to quickly determine what messaging is working and what isn't.
• Their form loading is so slow at times that it negatively affects signup conversion rates on our website.
• They have an open API that let's us connect to other productivity and marketing tools without hiring programmers.

Incentivized

• Increased live webinar attendees that lead to booked meetings
• Increased client satisfaction and rapport with sales teams and leadership
• Increased pipeline generation from events we are a sponsor of

Incentivized