VerticalResponse vs. Zaius (discontinued)

For businesses requiring advanced email marketing features like sophisticated automation, in-depth analytics, and extensive customization, VerticalResponse might fall short due to its limited featuresVerticalResponse is ideal for small businesses or freelancers who need a simple, straightforward email marketing tool. Its ease of use and basic features make it suitable for those without extensive technical expertise in email marketing

Incentivized

Optimizely Data Platform is a great tool for teams who look to use open-source tools over tools with white glove service. You do get a dedicated customer success manager and access to their (almost) 24/7 support team via chat, but the real benefits of the platform stand to be unlocked by teams who enjoy getting their hands dirty.

Incentivized

• I love the ease of list builder because we often times have a lot of data to import. It would be simply impossible without this tool, considering the amount of customer data we have for any one given email.
• We really enjoy the ease of use of the HTML wizard as well. It helps even a novice be able to make a beautiful and attention grabbing email.
• The dashboard is functional and easy to find when you need with a quick search.

Incentivized

• It's relatively simple to use
• Segment building is quick and can be easily customized with field data
• Chat support is generally fast to respond

Incentivized

• The type face is small. Not sure if this is to avoid overwhelming the reader, but I could see this being an issue with vision-impaired people or people who don't see small print well.
• Sometimes I find it takes multiple clicks to make one simple change. I wish there was a search field at the top of the screen that allowed me to jump directly to a client's entry to update it there.

• Automation of data from other platforms such as our ERP.
• The approval process needs work. I should be able to flag fields that have issues and give users feedback if a product is rejected.

Incentivized

Product is easy for both technical and non-technical people to use. A cost effective solution for sending out large number of messages. We can manage unsubscribes by individual accounts, so we can have multiple multiple accounts combined to maximize our buying power on credits. Effective API for sending/receiving data makes tool a valuable asset.

There's so much that needs to be improved and it seems like not much has happened since Optimizely first took over. When Optimizely did take over, they reduced the UX of campaign reporting.

Incentivized

I truly love this product. We are moving to an all-in-one system next year and my greatest fear in doing so is how much I will miss this platform. Although we are excited for things ahead, I will always keep Vertical Response in my back pocket incase I don't love the new platform as much

Incentivized

• Creating reports can be difficult and they aren't very visual.
• There is not much control you can have with your imported product catalog. Product filters can be difficult to use.
• Manually importing customers is a more difficult process from when I was using Mailchimp 10 years ago.
• Figuring out how to inject a module onto a page is difficult.
• Figuring out how to get off an email blacklist is near impossible even with ip warming. Very little help here.

Incentivized

Never had an issue with uptime

No issues

At Vertical Response the help desk associates are courteous, knowledgeable and helpful. You can tell they enjoy what they do. And clearly, they are well trained because most times, the first point of contact is able to resolve any issue you may have. There have been very few times where an associate has needed to get back to me or escalate me to a supervisor

Incentivized

Positive - Onboarding was quick and easy. Positive - Access to a Zaius data analyst has been wonderful. Negative - I don't know who our CSM is if we even have one.

Incentivized

Basic functions and online help...we used what was needed, at the time, and will continue to explore other online trainings as our functional needs expand

Salesforce integration never worked right. We had to abandon.

We have a home built CRM. From start to finish our implementation was a nightmare loaded with problems that destroyed my initial trust with the platform.

Incentivized

In addition to using Vertical Response personally I also manage email marketing for clients that already use Mailchimp, Robly and Constant Contact. While most of these platforms all offer similar features I choose Vertical Response first if the client does not have a platform in place. Typically I am also teaching the client how to use this tool and the Vertical Response visual interface is very easy for me to teach a client how to navigate and create their own campaigns.

Incentivized

Oh my goodness, there were many, including:

• Klaviyo
• Salesforce Email Marketing Cloud
• Bronto
• Marapost (the worst experience we ever had. We used them for the longest year on earth).
• Silverpop (IBM)
• I forgot their name but they are based in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.
• Exact Target
• Active Campaign
• Get Response
• Drip
• SendInBlue
• And more I cannot remember. We spent over six months looking at everything.

Incentivized

• We were able to blast out promotions our company was having to customers which created an increase in business.
• By blasting out any service issues, it keeps our customers informed so that they are not wondering what is going on.
• Allows us to store unsubscribed emails so that we are not constantly pestering people who do not want to be emailed.

Incentivized

• We hit record numbers this year in regards to sales which is attributed to the launch of our new e-commerce website.

Incentivized