PFL Direct Mail Platform vs. SwagUp

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
PFL helps businesses deliver authentic moments by creating impactful direct mail that is data-driven, bringing measurement, personalization, and predictability from digital to direct mail. PFL offers direct mail that is... Simplified: PFL simplifies direct mail execution by managing the entire process under one roof from strategy and production to delivery and measurement. Engaging: Supports engagement that results in action by paring digital tactics with memorable…
$40,000
per year
SwagUp
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
SwagUp in Piscataway aims to bring simplicity and quality to the world of branded swag. The solution provides swag packs for employee welcoming, client gifting, and event attendees. The service is paired with warehousing and fulfillment services.N/A
Pricing
PFL Direct Mail PlatformSwagUp
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PFL Direct Mail PlatformSwagUp
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$10,000 No setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
PFL Direct Mail PlatformSwagUp
Small Businesses
Iterable
Iterable
Score 8.6 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Iterable
Iterable
Score 8.6 out of 10
Sendoso
Sendoso
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Alyce by Sendoso
Alyce by Sendoso
Score 9.1 out of 10
Sendoso
Sendoso
Score 8.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
PFL Direct Mail PlatformSwagUp
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(33 ratings)
4.3
(3 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.4
(3 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.9
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PFL Direct Mail PlatformSwagUp
Likelihood to Recommend
PFL
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.
Read full review
SwagUp
In my experience, it was a horribly complicated process with an account manager, who takes things very personally in my opinion. SwagUp came highly recommended from some client-serving companies, who I believe, apparently, spend a lot of money with them. For a company that is supposed to help other companies wow their clients, I find their customer service is woefully lacking in my opinion. I believe “swag” doesn’t make up for the bad service. Not recommended because I believe I did not get the customer service or product fulfillment I expected when initially choosing this product, service, and company.
Read full review
Pros
PFL
  • 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.
Read full review
SwagUp
  • Customer Services has gotten better.
  • Platform is organized.
  • Communication.
Read full review
Cons
PFL
  • 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.
Read full review
SwagUp
  • UX
  • International shipping.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
PFL
I will continue to use the platform as long as my employer provides access, but I do not have purchasing power myself.
Read full review
SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Usability
PFL
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.
Read full review
SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
PFL
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.
Read full review
SwagUp
We have an active order in with SwagUp at this moment for $1400+, but the poor customer service, complicated process, the entitled attitude of their account manager who is on some sort of weird power trip, and the fact that our clients won't ever be receiving what we ordered makes that amount irrelevant in my opinion and experience. I feel like the time I wasted with their account manager was worth much more than what we spent with SwagUp. First of all, I’m not the type to be critical of anyone doing their job. People are busy, tech has issues, emails get lost, etc. in our digital world. It happens and true professionals who work online understand that. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there are employees who don’t get this and feel entitled to express their emotions freely. I believe that while this doesn’t harm them, it definitely harms the bottom line of the company. In my opinion, an angry and insulted client WILL spread the word about said company - which is precisely what I will do. Let's talk about this what I feel like is a completely unprofessional account manager first, because, in my opinion, this is the type of employee who causes companies to bleed revenue unless they are checked. The call was recorded, so whoever is in charge can feel free to review it for consistency. The purpose of my call was simple - to smooth out what I believe was a simple miscommunication. In my opinion, what should have been a simple process became stalled because the person who I feel like was an entitled account manager was more concerned with flexing his “client boundary” muscles than actually doing his job, which was taking care of the account. I believe that an account manager who gets upset and emotional because he didn’t receive a response to an email, and who can’t even disguise that fact on a zoom call, needs to fix it or work elsewhere. Because if he had this attitude with me, I feel like lord knows how many others of his accounts are receiving the same treatment. During my experience, here are a few statements I believe he made on the call: -I believe he talked about how my business was “not the type of clients SwagUp wants to work with”… -I believe he complained out how it was “unfair” it was to bring up their January 18th delay. -I believe he asked, “what sort of company we run” (because an email was missed - even though from my understanding from SwagUp, communication is encouraged mainly through their portal). -I believe he proceeded to talk about “how busy” he was and had other people to talk to, while he was on the call with me, a paying client. -I believe he also complained about third-party vendors and stated that they (SwagUp) don’t even want to have third-party materials sent to them (which to me, is confusing as a customer, because then why on earth do you even allow it through your product and service?) -I believe he denied that the company had anything to do with “fulfillment” and then proceeded to try to explain what sort of company SwagUp was. Nevermind that when our order was delayed the email literally started with (what I believe is a copy and pasted message) “You are receiving this message because we've been notified that your order is experiencing a longer than normal fulfillment timeline.” -During my experience, after what I feel like was him constantly implying that our company was incompetent because we missed an email, he proceeded to give what I felt like was a half-hearted “apology” and state that “he hopes we consider SwagUp in the future”. After all of this happened during my experience with them, I informed him that we would not based on what I felt like was his horrible customer service to me, and guess what Mr. Emotional Customer Service does? I believe he ended the call by saying, “Well, the feeling is mutual”. With all of that personal customer service experience I had out of the way, here’s the context of our experience using SwagUp: We began the process with SwagUp on November 29th. Mockups were completed and approved on December 28th. In the meantime, we had originally wanted to add a third-party item to our order, so they linked us up with an account executive. Throughout the process, the account executive was adamant that we use the SwagUp dashboard to stay informed of the progress of our materials and order. In my opinion, based on my experience there with the account executive, the implication was that everything could be one on there (SwagUp dashboard). The problem, in my opinion, is (and now I know) that it can’t. On January 18th, our order was delayed. The message I believe we received was: “We know you and your recipients are looking forward to receiving your custom swag and understand the frustration of missing holiday expectations. We appreciate your patience, apologize for the inconvenience, and look forward to getting you your order as soon as possible.” No complaints on our part for that. On the 20th, our account manager reached out to ask about the third-party material we requested to be included. Unfortunately, on our part, due to a personnel change, the email thread was archived. Nevertheless, we were informed it was shipped to their warehouse. However, at this time on their online portal (SwagUp dashboard), where we were previously constantly encouraged to check for updates, there was nothing to see in my opinion. I couldn't find any new updates or any new information. As far as we knew at that point, our order was still delayed. Bear in mind that at this point in our experience, we had paid our invoice and were assuming that SwagUp still had logistics problems due to COVID and other factors mentioned in their email. On February 16th, I believe the account manager emailed to state that due to lack of responsiveness, they were going to go ahead and pack the packages without the third-party material we had requested. I believe we did not hear back from SwagUp till February 21st when were informed that our order was ready to ship. This is when my customer service experience began, which was when the account manager was called and I believe his entire attitude was based around being upset that his emails were not responded to. In my experience, he kept repeating that under no circumstances would they place our requested material in the boxes - never mind that I didn’t even call about that. I never asked, but during our call, it seemed like to me that he got some sort of kick out of explaining how their process worked and why he would send the boxes back, which was information that I had no interest in hearing because I didn’t call about any of that. It seemed to me that he wasn't informed that SwagUp had delayed the process and that we received no feedback from their portal, which I feel like they heavily push. The craziest part, in my opinion, was that at the end of everything, he STILL redirected us to the portal to fill out everything else. I recommend SwagUp to listen up. This company (SwagUp) *looks* good as a brand. I understand that logistics is tough. This could have been a good experience - even just using your portal, but, in my opinion, there are two issues: 1) Your third-party fulfillment is clunky and 2) Your account managers (the human element) need to be better managed and trained based on my experience. Just because they had a poor experience with one client, I hope they don't treat all other clients with the disdain and disrespect that I feel like I experienced during my time using SwagUp. In my experience, we still paid for our product on time and fulfilled every aspect of the complicated process, despite a delay, which we never complained about. Even though we requested it, our third-party order will not even be included when it's shipped out to our clients – and we still had no complaints either. But, in my opinion, what we won’t put up with or will actively share is an employee that I believe is emotional, condescending, and acts like he owns the company towards clients.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
PFL
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.
Read full review
SwagUp
SwagUp has more options to order swag and items for the organization and is more user-friendly, the others are but SwagUp is easier to figure out on the first try!
Read full review
Scalability
PFL
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.
Read full review
SwagUp
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
PFL
  • We've sometimes struggled to maintain a positive ROI due to some issues with packages not arriving, arriving broken, or including the wrong items.
Read full review
SwagUp
  • Negative- The process takes too long, comes with delays, and based on my experience, involved a lot of miscommunication.
  • Negative- In my experience, I believe the account manager was rude and entitled.
  • Negative- In my opinion, employees may say one thing, but their automated portal proceeds at a different rate, so I feel like there is constantly conflicting information for the customer.
Read full review
ScreenShots

PFL Direct Mail Platform Screenshots

Screenshot of Custom kits available for useScreenshot of Entering the sender addressScreenshot of Personalization at scale with custom messaging and signaturesScreenshot of Product selection with product details, template data, and advanced options