Acoustic Campaign vs. HubSpot Marketing Hub

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Acoustic Campaign
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Acoustic Campaign (formerly IBM Watson Campaign Automation) is a scalable, SaaS-based, cross-channel, digital marketing platform providing digital marketers the ability to implement and manage email, mobile, social, and lead management campaign processes.N/A
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
HubSpot's Marketing Hub is an all-in-one inbound marketing engine that includes tools for email marketing, landing page creation, social media marketing, content management, reporting & analytics, search engine optimization (SEO), and more.
$50
per month
Pricing
Acoustic CampaignHubSpot Marketing Hub
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0
per month
Starter
$50
per month (includes 1,000 contacts)
Pro
$890
per month (includes 2,000 contacts)
Enterprise
$3,200
per month (includes 10,000 contacts)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Acoustic CampaignHubSpot Marketing Hub
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Acoustic CampaignHubSpot Marketing Hub
Considered Both Products
Acoustic Campaign
Chose Acoustic Campaign
IBM Watson Campaign Automation is more of an enterprise product for large organizations where you're plugging into all kinds of systems and workflows tend to be slower.
Chose Acoustic Campaign
Reviewed HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot and ActiveCampaign. Chose IBM Watson Campaign Automation due to their workflow capabilities. They can automate a process that requires a series of steps that typically require intervention by a several different users. Administrators can write …
Chose Acoustic Campaign
We had evaluated Marketo at the time, but had chosen Silverpop instead. Some people compare Hubspot, but we consider that a different flavor of marketing automation--not apples to apples.
Chose Acoustic Campaign
I wasn't involved in the tool selection process but inherited the system. I think that Pardot and Marketo are the leaders in the marketplace, followed closely by Eloqua. Hubspot is a nice option with good usability but I was concerned it would not scale for the global campaign …
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Chose HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot is an all around inbound marketing suite while the others are just pieces.
Chose HubSpot Marketing Hub
My team has previously used Silverpop and it was proven that hubspot has been more intuitive, easy to use and more of a complete solution for marketing automation. Hubspot has put a lot into persepctive as to what we should and shouldn't be doing in terms of lead generation …
Chose HubSpot Marketing Hub
We moved away from Silverpop because it was much easier to use HubSpot and see how our emails were turning into leads. The forms and landing pages didn't depend on a developer to create. It was overall a much more comprehensive solution so that we could manage social, our blog, …
Chose HubSpot Marketing Hub
We moved from Silverpop and HubSpot is miles ahead. Even though it's a higher cost, the investment saves valuable time and speeds our content to market.
Chose HubSpot Marketing Hub
We used Marketo before we used HubSpot. It was much less user friendly and took the marketing team too much time to complete tasks. Marketo also charged extra for support whereas HubSpot rolls it into the plan.

Silverpop would not issue a trial when we were in our decision …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Acoustic CampaignHubSpot Marketing Hub
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
7.0
10 Ratings
11% below category average
HubSpot Marketing Hub
7.1
369 Ratings
9% below category average
WYSIWYG email editor4.010 Ratings8.6332 Ratings
Dynamic content8.07 Ratings6.1333 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content7.58 Ratings7.8309 Ratings
Landing pages5.18 Ratings6.3362 Ratings
A/B testing7.010 Ratings8.0286 Ratings
Mobile optimization6.97 Ratings6.4355 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting8.010 Ratings6.2363 Ratings
List management8.09 Ratings8.2364 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences8.08 Ratings6.5276 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
7.4
8 Ratings
4% below category average
HubSpot Marketing Hub
7.1
360 Ratings
8% below category average
Lead nurturing automation6.18 Ratings6.4356 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading7.97 Ratings7.9324 Ratings
Data quality management8.07 Ratings7.8330 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks7.54 Ratings6.4299 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
7.0
8 Ratings
9% below category average
HubSpot Marketing Hub
6.3
320 Ratings
19% below category average
Calendaring6.58 Ratings6.4305 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing7.44 Ratings6.2251 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
6.3
5 Ratings
17% below category average
HubSpot Marketing Hub
6.4
346 Ratings
16% below category average
Social sharing and campaigns6.54 Ratings6.4342 Ratings
Social profile integration6.25 Ratings6.4331 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
4.5
10 Ratings
50% below category average
HubSpot Marketing Hub
7.7
369 Ratings
3% above category average
Dashboards4.210 Ratings7.8366 Ratings
Standard reports4.210 Ratings8.1362 Ratings
Custom reports5.18 Ratings7.1324 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Acoustic Campaign
5.7
10 Ratings
28% below category average
HubSpot Marketing Hub
7.4
341 Ratings
3% below category average
API5.29 Ratings7.6251 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals6.04 Ratings7.2280 Ratings
Customizability5.95 Ratings6.0303 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com4.38 Ratings7.8228 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM5.03 Ratings7.896 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM8.02 Ratings7.790 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Acoustic CampaignHubSpot Marketing Hub
Small Businesses
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.4 out of 10
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Acoustic CampaignHubSpot Marketing Hub
Likelihood to Recommend
4.1
(40 ratings)
7.4
(654 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
5.5
(30 ratings)
9.0
(371 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(6 ratings)
9.0
(106 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(25 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(2 ratings)
8.9
(17 ratings)
Support Rating
5.9
(5 ratings)
8.4
(88 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(8 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(26 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.4
(4 ratings)
7.3
(48 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(5 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(7 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Acoustic CampaignHubSpot Marketing Hub
Likelihood to Recommend
Acoustic
Silverpop is a powerful and comprehensive tool for digital marketers, and is apprprioate for companies of varying sizes, as well as both B2B and B2C models. It's particularly well-suited for companies with large, accurate customer databases and the ability to track customer actions on their websites to use as marketing automation triggers.
Read full review
HubSpot
As I said previously, I was not a fan at the beginning because, like everyone, I don't take change so well. Once I started following leads through HubSpot Marketing Hub, I integrated it with my email and created templates for what I needed, I started to see the positives immediately. My time working was better spent as I eliminated time put in routine tasks. I was able to track all communication in HubSpot Marketing Hub, we created systems in the office assigning tasks to one another and, through HubSpot Marketing Hub, our leads were able to book meetings in my calendar automatically. To be honest, if you are in sales and marketing, I cannot think of scenarios where HubSpot Marketing Hub cannot help. All I would like to say is, when using templates, pay attention to where you send them - you may need some personalization. I would encourage the management of HubSpot Marketing Hub to create short tutorials for beginners like me who need to configure and start using various features: setting up deals, templates, and dashboards.
Read full review
Pros
Acoustic
  • Automated Messages - we currently have over 70 automated messages going out on any particular day through feeds and API calls that we pass to Silverpop. We rely on these automated messages to communicate to our customers and can rely on Silverpop to always be up and running to get these messages out.
  • Robust query building - We can target customers easily based on a combination of demographic profile data, as well as email and site behavior and purchase behavior, allowing us to finely segment our audience
  • Deep dive reporting - the UI reporting, as well as the available reports to download through the API give us tremendous insight into how our subscribers are responding to email.
Read full review
HubSpot
  • All-in-one software - the main thing HubSpot does well is the breadth of functionality.
  • Easy of use - personally, I find it more intuitive than Marketo, which is the other MAP that I know well.
  • Ads - I like that we can drill down on ads by channel, ad group, campaign, and even create and see performance data at each level.
Read full review
Cons
Acoustic
  • Data syncing and errors - Silverpop does not do a great job of getting data to sync regularly with our CRM (Salesforce.com). The data had to flow back and forth several times before being added to campaigns and in some instances, it took days to update leads! Also, failed lead syncs get stuck in an alert list but it does not notify you otherwise that a lead failed the sync.
  • Design issues - we use custom HTML to build emails and landing pages, and we were unable to render background images on our campaigns. Also, once you toggle between design and source (code) view to make edits, it often broke the code and threw off the design.
  • Administrator alerts - when sync fails altogether between systems, there is no email alert sent to the system admin (me/my team) so we at times have found that we have gone 18 hours until we stumble across the fact that the system sync has failed.
  • Reporting - it is not very comprehensive and we had difficulty generating the level of reporting that we need to have.
  • Support - there are a few gems in the support team who know what they're doing, but largely calling support is a lesson in frustration.
  • Product bug fixes - in two instances, my open support tickets were identified as product bugs. One related to incorrect cookie tracking which was causing our leads not to be scoring properly. They determined that this wasn't critical enough to build into their product fix road map. This is core to an automation system working properly.
Read full review
HubSpot
  • While Hubspot has added some collaborative tools, I think this could improve. I'd like to see more options to comment on emails and ways of being able to share out changes as well as approval channels.
  • The ability to update ads via the calendar is pretty cumbersome. There's no good way to bulk edit or update. You have go into each one individually.
  • Real time edits would be nice. If you have multiple people working on the same thing, you'll get kicked out and your changes might not be saved.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Acoustic
SilverPop is a great marketing tool that integrates with Salesforce to provide customers and employees a great buying and selling experience. The software takes some very difficult tasks and makes them easy to accomplish. With proper setup and management, Silverpop gives you the tools to gain insight into the productiveness of campaigns.
Read full review
HubSpot
Our business relies on the HubSpot platform to manage our marketing, sales and CRM processes. HubSpot marketing automation helps us define our activities and streamlines them in a cohesive and efficient way. Without HubSpot, we will have to revert to the 'old way' of doing everything with a variety of disparate systems.
Read full review
Usability
Acoustic
This is a little bit difficult to rate because Silverpop is gradually updating its interface to improve usability all around. I know users are able to do their job with minimal assistance. However, some of the interface is dated, and the Programs interface, while functional, has a bit of a learning curve.
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HubSpot
While there are some frustrating things that pop up unexpectedly ("wait... I can't do X?"), I have found HubSpot to be easy to use and extremely helpful to my daily work. The documentation is really good, and when it's not helpful, the support staff have been amazing.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Acoustic
While several of the other reviews have mentioned poor performance in this department, we have only had one situation where the system was down (although it was down for several hours). Silverpop segments its clients on different servers, and I know that the problem we experienced only occurred on our specific server (maybe other servers have had their own problems?) but our service has been reliable otherwise.
Read full review
HubSpot
They have had issues with system availability over the course of days. Sometimes the system is unusable, other times updates simply take a long time to show up. It's better now but, from a reliaibility standpoint, HubSpot is not Salesforce.com yet. Still great software though.
Read full review
Performance
Acoustic
The throttle time for sending emails would vary depending on how many other campaigns were going out that day, which I found inconsistent
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HubSpot
With all the new features in HubSpot, the system can get a tad slow sometimes... That said, most of the time it is lightning fast and I have no problems. Because most of the integrations are API, they silently work in the background. I have not had trouble with lag due to HubSpot integration
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Support Rating
Acoustic
The Salesforce Integration support team is fantastic. I'd give them greater than a 10 if possible. The rest of the support team can be extremely frustrating to work with. Too often they try to blame something obscure and refuse to escalate or look into the issue. And on occasion when you find system glitches they don't seem to care about fixing them
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HubSpot
During the few times I've needed it, HS support has been accessible, helpful and efficient. Often rolling up their sleeves to make changes for you as opposed to leaving you with a list of instructions to decipher on your own.
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In-Person Training
Acoustic
No answers on this topic
HubSpot
I did the 2-day classroom at HubSpot's corporate office in Cambridge. First off, it was amazing to see their corporate office in general. They have such a cool office environment. But it was also great to have the ability to learn in a workshop format with other HubSpot users and meet my Account Manager/ Inbound Marketing Consultant in person.
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Online Training
Acoustic
The online trainings are very detailed (for the most part) and really walk through the entire system. They are a little dry, but they are usually broken up into segments to allow you to skip to the parts you need.
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HubSpot
I went through Inbound Marketing University in 2006. Great training and helped my transition from traditional (outbound) marketing to inbound marketing that I've been able to apply to a number of businesses from wastewater and water reuse, to professional services and SaaS. Share information of value to build awareness and trust. Answer customers' questions in a transparent way to generate more qualified leads. Understand the difference between a marketing qualified lead and a sales qualified lead and put together a lead nurturing program. Your sales and marketing efforts will see significant ROI.
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Implementation Rating
Acoustic
Based on recommendations from Silverpop we made some implementation decisions that we later regretted pretty substantially. In hindsight we should have started a pilot implementation earlier so we could learn and then start over. The big issue for us was that Silverpop recommended a non-keyed database, or at least a database that doesn't use email address as primary key. This is resulted in a large number of duplicate email addresses so that the end user is forced to unsubscribe multiple times to stop receiving emails.
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HubSpot
My biggest piece of advice for those who are implementing Hubspot is that you need to devote the time up front and learn how to use the product. Once you learn how to use Hubspot, it will be much more effective as well as much easier to use in the long run
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Alternatives Considered
Acoustic
We evaluated alternate providers less than a year into our IBM Watson Campaign contract because the system was so clunky to use (and we wanted a system that would include or better integrate with our SMS provider). Bluecore and Klaviyo were the front runners at the time, and we came close to moving forward with Bluecore. The pricing model and overall the cost of Bluecore was much higher than IBM for us though, and the timing of this was right when the IBM to Acoustic changes took place. We decided to give Acoustic a shot and are optimistic it will be enough to keep us on board once all the dust settles, though I find it unlikely we will renew with Acoustic when our contract is up again. My main email specialist is a Klaviyo expert and finds that platform very easy to use in comparison-- it might be a better fit for a team of our size.
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HubSpot
Other competing software such as Zoho and Boomtown may have more bells and whistles, but it is too cumbersome and has many parts that only advanced users can operate. With HubSpot, each function is within reach of the average agent. It doesn't overpromise and then makes you feel incompetent when you can't use it all...
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Scalability
Acoustic
No answers on this topic
HubSpot
HubSpot is addressing this more and more. Currently you can assign tasks to designated sales teams, which grow as you grow. They've added free baseline products for those just getting started. These and more contribute to the scalability of HubSpot - so I gave it an 8 and am hoping for more in the future!
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Return on Investment
Acoustic
  • we have not experienced any currently but moving to lead automation and lead scoring could change that.
  • i'm not sure how increased employee efficiency would ever be a benefit b/c lead importing and visibility, along with setting up email templates is quite cumbersome.
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HubSpot
  • HubSpot has helped us increased our lead generation.
  • HubSpot has allowed us to continue to grow our customer base without having to spend a ton of marketing dollars on advertising.
  • HubSpot has allowed our company to standardize our process and bring the company onto one platform for sales and marketing.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Acoustic Campaign Screenshots

Screenshot of Digital marketingScreenshot of Journey design

HubSpot Marketing Hub Screenshots

Screenshot of Marketing Automation with HubSpot - Define workflows for highly targeted and personalized nurturing campaigns that send your leads and prospects the right targeted content at the right point in their decision-making process.Screenshot of HubSpot Analytics - Track engagement with your entire funnel with real-time reporting on website performance, traffic and marketing effectiveness.Screenshot of HubSpot Social Media - Don’t batch and blast. HubSpot’s social media publishing helps you become smarter about the way you schedule and publish content on social media.Screenshot of HubSpot Blogging and SEO - HubSpot provides an integrated set of tools for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which makes getting found online a natural part of your inbound marketing mix. More than a simple CMS, HubSpot provides an integrated authoring view with SEO-oriented suggestions as you write blog posts.Screenshot of Marketing Automation with HubSpot - Define workflows for highly targeted and personalized nurturing campaigns that send your leads and prospects the right targeted content at the right point in their decision-making process.Screenshot of HubSpot Contacts - Integrating with most common CRMs, HubSpot provides a seamless view of your contacts, allowing you to customize and personalize email communications.