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
Zapier
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
The Zapier Automation Platform designed to integrate data between web apps. It is scaled for small to mid-sized businesses, with a functional but limited free version of the program.
I found Marketo to have stronger, more granular functionality around automation. However, Pardot is MUCH easier to use, and thus more manageable for one or two people. You don't need to have a developer on your team to be able to put out some great looking content. Pardot is …
I rated this a seven because I love Salesforce, and it is excellent on the sales side. However, the marketing side has some pros and cons. It is terrific for keeping track of lead, customer, and dealer information, but it is not easy to automate workflows, integrate other software, or create well-designed emails. It is also straightforward to generate reports, which is very helpful in keeping track of lead progression to better market those leads and turn them into customers.
If you have processes that are now managed and controlled using a spreadsheet, Zapier will give you a lot more control over what is happening and will help you increase productivity by eliminating simple steps such as sending emails and sharing information with your colleagues. It frees time for very transactional activities.
Ease of use - multiple people in the organization can set up and run Zaps per their specific use cases without much training.
Connectivity - Zapier is able to connect to multiple applications we use on a regular basis.
Functionality - Zapier provides embedded functionality within the app itself (email, data conversion), but also appropriate triggers and actions for apps it connects to.
Versatile - Zapier can execute complicated and simple tasks and thus has many use cases.
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
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.
The interface is very user-friendly, and there are also many tools to help a brand-new user get started. For example, you can put your Zap idea into the AI bot, and it will basically build a shell of your Zap to get started on. The format for each step within a Zap is also very helpful (set up the connection/app, set up the fields/details, then test).
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.
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.
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
Before we purchased Zapier, I contacted support and asked them if Zapier could support my intended workflow (this is actually a selection on their support form - awesome). Within 2 hours, I was contacted by a support team member who seemed sure it would work, but granted me premium access for 2 weeks to try it out for myself. Sure enough, it did! Ever since then, support has replied rapidly to any problems I have experienced and answered my questions within a few sentences.
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.
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.
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.
I think that all of the marketing platforms I have evaluated and used in the past serve different markets and purposes. Salesforce Marketing Cloud was more palatable to our team because of our existing tech stack where we had Salesforce CRM already deployed and in use. Compared to Marketo and Hubspot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a bit dated in terms of the UI/UX and the overall experience but still meets the needs of our organization. Mailchimp, however, isn't even playing in the same arena and is meant for small organizations and companies that don't have a need for a full fledged offering that SFMC brings to the table.
We actually utilize both Integromat and Zapier at our company, for all the reasons detailed in this review. Though Zapier is excellent for simple client integrations, we often run into internal use cases that require complexity that Zapier cannot provide. Specifically working with API calls (not just webhooks), complex multi-step integrations with Routing/parsing/etc, and large volume integrations. Integromat is perfect for these use cases, but doesn’t provide the simplicity and account scalability that Zapier offers.
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.
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.