Salesforce Marketing Cloud vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Score 5.9 out of 10
N/A
Radian6 was acquired by Salesforce.com in 2011 and - along with Buddy Media - became Salesforce Social Studio. The product is slated to be retired in November 2024.
$1,000
Per Org Per Month
Pricing
Salesforce Marketing CloudSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Editions & Modules
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
Basic
$1,000.00
Per Org Per Month
Pro
$4,000.00
Per Org Per Month
Corporate
$12,000.00
Per Org Per Month
Enterprise
$40,000.00
Per Org Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Salesforce Marketing CloudSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Salesforce Marketing CloudSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Considered Both Products
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Pardot is a weaker version of Marketing Cloud. I would only recommend it if you really need the lead scoring and nurturing. That is probably the only leg up it has over Marketing Cloud. We stopped using Pardot and switched over to Marketing Cloud.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Pardot is a player in that it is one of the older products on the forefront of email marketing. This is good and bad in that it has been established but bad in that it isn't as robust as some of the other products on the market. Adobe can be good but is new to the market and …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
I used ExactTarget in a company that had a large B2C focus, as well as a B2B. If sending large volumes of emails to consumers, ET is the solution of choice. Pardot is a better fit if you're looking at smaller volumes and if you need interaction with the sales team based on …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
I have used parts of the marketing cloud. While certain components of the marketing cloud are better (like social studio), the marketing automation and email marketing components of pardot are better and best suited for our business.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
At the time, Pardot was the only other marketing automation system that supported SugarCRM.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
After reviewing all three products, we felt that Pardot offered the most robust product for the price. We have been extremely pleased with our choice. And the customer service and account management has been terrific.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
We have used Eloqua and Exact Target previously. Pardot is miles ahead of the competition. They are the ones that raise the standard in opposition to clunky and out of touch interfaces and non-intuitive automations. It is a marketers dream to have tools that do not require IT …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
We are switching from Pardot to ExactTarget.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
They are in completely different ballparks. Radian6 is an enterprise tool. Mention, Google Alerts and Talkwalker are for anyone.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Salesforce Marketing CloudSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
158 Ratings
2% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
-
Ratings
WYSIWYG email editor8.1110 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic content8.1140 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.7100 Ratings00 Ratings
Landing pages7.5108 Ratings00 Ratings
A/B testing8.4139 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile optimization7.598 Ratings00 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.3119 Ratings00 Ratings
List management7.5116 Ratings00 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences8.184 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
1% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
-
Ratings
Lead nurturing automation7.7100 Ratings00 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading7.3100 Ratings00 Ratings
Data quality management7.6104 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks7.792 Ratings00 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
103 Ratings
4% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
-
Ratings
Calendaring7.993 Ratings00 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing7.987 Ratings00 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6.8
80 Ratings
10% below category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
-
Ratings
Social sharing and campaigns7.276 Ratings00 Ratings
Social profile integration6.432 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
1% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
-
Ratings
Dashboards7.6107 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports7.8111 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports7.488 Ratings00 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
0% above category average
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
-
Ratings
API7.681 Ratings00 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals8.278 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizability7.399 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com8.7101 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM7.88 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM6.77 Ratings00 Ratings
Third-party software integrations7.314 Ratings00 Ratings
Listening/monitoring
Comparison of Listening/monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
8.5
10 Ratings
11% above category average
Boolean keyword searches00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Filtering out noise/spam00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Sentiment analysis00 Ratings10.08 Ratings
Broad channel coverage00 Ratings10.010 Ratings
Publishing
Comparison of Publishing features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
8.5
10 Ratings
7% above category average
Content planning and scheduling00 Ratings10.010 Ratings
Audience targeting00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
Content optimization00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Engagement
Comparison of Engagement features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
7.6
9 Ratings
6% below category average
Automated routing and prioritization00 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Customer interaction histories00 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Bulk actions00 Ratings3.19 Ratings
Marketing
Comparison of Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
5.5
9 Ratings
33% below category average
Lead generation00 Ratings5.08 Ratings
Content marketing00 Ratings5.09 Ratings
Paid media management00 Ratings6.07 Ratings
Campaigns and promotions00 Ratings6.08 Ratings
Channel coverage/integration
Comparison of Channel coverage/integration features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
8.1
10 Ratings
5% below category average
Twitter00 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Facebook00 Ratings10.010 Ratings
LinkedIn00 Ratings10.08 Ratings
Google+00 Ratings6.86 Ratings
Instagram00 Ratings8.07 Ratings
Pinterest00 Ratings6.54 Ratings
YouTube00 Ratings6.76 Ratings
Reporting/analytics
Comparison of Reporting/analytics features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
8.6
9 Ratings
9% above category average
Campaign success analytics00 Ratings8.99 Ratings
Real-time tracking00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Competitor analysis00 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Account management
Comparison of Account management features of Product A and Product B
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
9.5
9 Ratings
15% above category average
Role-based user permissions & privileges00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Mobile access00 Ratings9.99 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Salesforce Marketing CloudSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Small Businesses
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.4 out of 10
Publer
Publer
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Social Suite by Reputation.com
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Salesforce Marketing CloudSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(316 ratings)
8.9
(51 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.6
(112 ratings)
8.8
(38 ratings)
Usability
6.2
(35 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(11 ratings)
9.6
(5 ratings)
Performance
9.6
(9 ratings)
8.4
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
4.0
(35 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
In-Person Training
5.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.1
(7 ratings)
7.6
(6 ratings)
Implementation Rating
3.0
(17 ratings)
9.8
(6 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.9
(24 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Salesforce Marketing CloudSalesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio (retiring)
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
If you're tasked with publishing content to social on behalf of your organization then this tool is certainly worth considering. You have quick and easy capability to schedule across multiple platforms with drag-and-drop simplicity. It ties into Salesforce's real strength of its CRM platform so you can quickly tie social activity and leads to those already in your database. And it does a good job at monitoring and analyzing brand and competitor content across multiple media types. Having said that, if you're into deep-dive and full functionality SaaS tools then this might not be for you as it covers three areas adequately, but not in enough detail or strength to make it a star performer
Read full review
Pros
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
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • The amount of the information that radian6 can pull from multiple social platforms is absolutely phenomenal. Its just not only the pull but the way the information can be presented in dashboards was way good. It helped us understand in various aspects of our social presence.
  • Multiple profiles helped us to break down the Big/Huge social buzz cloud to smaller and more manageable pieces. This helped us concentrate on the lows and helped us to plan better on turning them to highs.
  • Radian6 allowed us to follow thru the crowd trends with the latest information presented in a single view. This also helped us to collect the social opinion on the product releases.
  • The ease of use, one need not be an expert to start using this platform. The interface is easily understandable by anyone.
  • A keyword can be edited quickly to tailor the needs and the results were quick.
Read full review
Cons
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.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Instagram Social Listening - it currently does not offer much social listening in terms of Instagram.
  • Instagram Owned - It currently stops pulling once an update is "old" by their standards, even if it receives recent comments. They can force pull, but you have to work with their tech team to do so.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
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
Read full review
Discontinued Products
I spent a lot of time researching the right platform for me and our organisation (thanks to the other reviews on TrustRadius also). Having used other platforms when I found frustrations getting my everyday work done, I knew exactly what I wanted and this is why I chose Social Studio. While there have been a few hiccups, the quarterly update releases and the outstanding tech support have kept me more than happy.
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Usability
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.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
• Would rate this a 6. The User Interface is pretty intuitive, but the platform was still considered pretty intimidating by our non-technical staff when they first saw it. It took a while to get used to it and feel comfortable. There was quite a lot of setup work in the beginning (for example, we had to build our own reports using a canned report as a template, and this was not simple). Although it took a while to get it setup correctly, it’s quite intuitive once that work has been done.
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Reliability and Availability
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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Discontinued Products
The platform is rarely down
Read full review
Performance
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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Discontinued Products
No issues with performance.
Read full review
Support Rating
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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Discontinued Products
As mentioned previously, it can be hard to get through to people who can help you. On occasion when I have spoken to customer service/tech support, they all seem nice and try to be helpful, however instead of admitting the system cannot do certain things, they will persist it saying that it can, which results in many wasted hours overall.
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In-Person Training
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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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Online Training
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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Discontinued Products
• We initially received dedicated online training for our team which was delivered by our account rep. This was pretty effective since it happened after our data had been loaded into the system and it had been configured for specific needs our organization. The training was perhaps a bit shallow though, as it was only an hour long. Online videos are available to be taken individually, and these have been useful.
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Implementation Rating
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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Discontinued Products
Implementation was pretty simple. Just a matter of giving the account rep a list of our search terms and having him set the system up to pull the data we wanted to see. Once this had been done, we tweaked it with his help. Process was pretty smooth, although there was some back and forth until it worked the way we wanted.
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Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
Compared to Radian6, I found Meltwater Buzz, Simply Measured, and Sprout Social to be much more user friendly. Meltwater Buzz and Radian6 are very similar products with many of the same functionalities but Buzz presents your analytics in a way that is much easier to understand. I did a two week trial with Sprout Social and absolutely loved the product but our company needed the capability to connect to Salesforce, which is available on R6 and Buzz. Simply Measured is my all time favorite but I have only used the free version so I am not completely sure how it stacks up to Radian6
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Scalability
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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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
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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Discontinued Products
  • Monitoring social brand awareness is not something you can consider to have a meaninful impact in your business ROI short term, however it's a must for taking care of long term relationships and customer intimacy.
  • Radian6 connects with other analytical tools like webtrends, Google Analytics, etc..however it's not directly linked to a revenue driven platform, you can´t see the immediate ROI generated in the tool.
  • If you bet for social relationships you should consider this tool, no question on that. Social Commerce might be of course impacted postively by the proper use of this tool.
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ScreenShots

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.