OutboundEngine vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
OutboundEngine
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
OutboundEngine provides a hands-off way for small business owners to market and grow their business. The product aims to provide small businesses with what big companies have achieved with marketing automation. The service aims to help users keep in touch with clients and prospects with professionally designed, branded campaigns. Benefits include: driving engagement, surfacing warm leads from current contacts, generating referrals and repeat business from their existing contacts, social…
$199
per user
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
OutboundEngineSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Editions & Modules
Essential
$199
per user
Value
$299
per user
Premium
$499
per user
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
OutboundEngineSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup Fee$99 per userNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMore information is available on the vendor's website.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
OutboundEngineSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
OutboundEngineSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
OutboundEngine
8.0
48 Ratings
5% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
158 Ratings
2% above category average
Mobile optimization8.143 Ratings7.598 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.348 Ratings8.3119 Ratings
List management7.643 Ratings7.5116 Ratings
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings8.1110 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings8.1140 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings7.7100 Ratings
Landing pages00 Ratings7.5108 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings8.4139 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings8.184 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
OutboundEngine
7.7
37 Ratings
6% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
1% below category average
Automated sales alerts and tasks7.737 Ratings7.792 Ratings
Lead nurturing automation00 Ratings7.7100 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading00 Ratings7.3100 Ratings
Data quality management00 Ratings7.6104 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
OutboundEngine
7.8
46 Ratings
8% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6.8
80 Ratings
10% below category average
Social sharing and campaigns7.846 Ratings7.276 Ratings
Social profile integration00 Ratings6.432 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
OutboundEngine
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
103 Ratings
4% above category average
Calendaring00 Ratings7.993 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing00 Ratings7.987 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
OutboundEngine
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
1% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings7.6107 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings7.8111 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.488 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
OutboundEngine
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
0% above category average
API00 Ratings7.681 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals00 Ratings8.278 Ratings
Customizability00 Ratings7.399 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com00 Ratings8.7101 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM00 Ratings7.88 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM00 Ratings6.77 Ratings
Third-party software integrations00 Ratings7.314 Ratings
Best Alternatives
OutboundEngineSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Small Businesses
Kentico Xperience
Kentico Xperience
Score 7.2 out of 10
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Kentico Xperience
Kentico Xperience
Score 7.2 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Kentico Xperience
Kentico Xperience
Score 7.2 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
OutboundEngineSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(59 ratings)
8.0
(316 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(2 ratings)
9.6
(112 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(5 ratings)
6.2
(35 ratings)
Availability
9.4
(26 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
5.6
(24 ratings)
4.0
(35 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(17 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(24 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
OutboundEngineSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Elm Street Technology
OutboundEngine does a referral campaign and I've been able to close a couple of deals based on getting in touch with people who engage with this campaign and state they could use my services in the next 6 months. This is a great follow up tool for those you may or may not know are going to be needing your services.
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Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud does an excellent job at collecting and storing leads. Once the leads are qualified by workflows and automations established against your qualifiers, you can begin to segment, target, send communication, and track the efficacy of your campaigns. Being that Salesforce Marketing Cloud is an extension of Salesforce CRM, there is little work that needs to be done to ensure that your SQL are migrated to your CRM once they are ready to do so. The seamlessness between the two systems is paramount to the success of our organization.
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Pros
Elm Street Technology
  • The content that they generate to send to our clients is relevant and the clients want to engage with us. It makes us appear more professional and consistent, even though we are a smaller company.
  • It helps us stay in touch with clients and helps us stay top of mind. We are able to generate more new business leads if we are in consistent contact with current, former, and potential clients.
  • Their customer service and support is outstanding. All my questions were answered and I went into the program feeling confident and knowledgeable.
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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
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Cons
Elm Street Technology
  • I do not like the use of drawings to attract new customers, and they have ignored my requests to eliminate that for my personal emails.
  • I do not like it when a competitor in my immediate market has the same posts. It cheapens the service or makes it appear that I am simply sharing another's post.
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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
Elm Street Technology
The biggest issue is poor ROI. The second biggest issue is rigid customer service process, lack of a sense of urgency, and inability to reach out to upper management with issues.
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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
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Usability
Elm Street Technology
Overall, OutboundEngine is very user friendly. It is simple to set up and explore, and if there are any issues or questions, the customer service team and account managers are always available to help. They are very knowledgeable and were able to explain everything in detail to me. The program is easy to navigate and helps me stay organized, and an uncomplicated and straightforward solution was exactly what I was looking for
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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
Elm Street Technology
I haven't had to contact Outbound Engine because I haven't had any application errors or unplanned outages. I basically have had such a trouble free experience with them that I haven't had to call. Everything is automated and I get a notice to review every isse. I suppose if I personalized the newsletter a bit more and added some of my own articles, I would need to contact them, (which I should really start to do) but so far things have been so on point, I haven't felt the need.
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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
Elm Street Technology
No answers on this topic
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
Elm Street Technology
The customer service was excellent! Everyone I spoke to was kind and knowledgeable. My account manager was easily reachable. Setup of the OutboundEngine program was explained really thoroughly, and we knew how we could best use the product to meet the needs of our clients and get our online and social media presence off the ground.
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Salesforce
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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In-Person Training
Elm Street Technology
No answers on this topic
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
Elm Street Technology
No answers on this topic
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.
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Implementation Rating
Elm Street Technology
No answers on this topic
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
Elm Street Technology
I selected it for the ability to have an automated system do 3 things all at once, social media posts, emails and the instant communication with the chat box. I have never seen a chat come through that lead to a helpful client touchpoint. I have never used another product but have since begun to weigh some of the less expensive options.
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Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud stands out for its comprehensive features, scalability, and seamless integration capabilities. Compared to other platforms, its unified suite of tools for email, social media, mobile, and advertising enables streamlined cross-channel campaign management and personalized marketing at scale. We chose Marketing Cloud for its industry leadership, robust ecosystem, and tight integration with Salesforce CRM, allowing us to deliver exceptional marketing solutions and drive measurable results for our clients efficiently.
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Scalability
Elm Street Technology
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud helps create profiles for each subscriber. The Contact Builder feature stores information about every subscriber, including whether they're an active customer, their purchase history from the last year, and their email engagement metrics. It also identifies the likelihood of a subscriber churning, aiding in creating personalized campaigns to boost company revenue.
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Return on Investment
Elm Street Technology
  • It has provided a consistent email message to my clients
  • It has provided a consistent social media presence for my past clients
  • It has helped me obtain and correlate customer reviews
  • Unfortunately I cannot say that I have any direct information that a sale was generated directly as a result of OutboundEngine. I feel that it has but I have no measurable proof of this
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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.
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ScreenShots

OutboundEngine Screenshots

Screenshot of Automated Social Media MarketingScreenshot of A personalized snapshot of your account activity and warmest leads.Screenshot of Personally designed, tested, and automated emails

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.