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Acoustic Campaign

Acoustic Campaign
Formerly Silverpop / IBM Watson Campaign Automation

Overview

What is Acoustic Campaign?

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.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Users have found Silverpop Engage to be a valuable tool for their mass mailing and global program campaigns. It has also been used for …
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I Love Silverpop!

10 out of 10
June 17, 2015
We use Silverpop for marketing, retention, and transactional emails. Prior to Silverpop we had very little insight into the performance of …
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Marketing evolution

10 out of 10
February 25, 2015
Silverpop Engage is used for all of our customer-facing marketing emails and is administered by the Email Marketing team. Marketing …
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Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 26 features
  • Email deliverability reporting (10)
    8.0
    80%
  • A/B testing (10)
    7.0
    70%
  • Dashboards (10)
    4.2
    42%
  • WYSIWYG email editor (10)
    4.0
    40%
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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

What is Acoustic Campaign?

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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.ibm.com/marketplace/cloud/d…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

17 people also want pricing

Alternatives Pricing

What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

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.

What is Oracle Marketing?

Oracle CX Marketing (formerly Oracle Marketing Cloud) is a solution designed to enable marketers to plan and execute automated marketing campaigns via email, display search, video advertising, and mobile while delivering a personalized customer experience for their prospects.

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Product Demos

Acoustic Campaign demo - introduction

YouTube
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Features

Email & Online Marketing

Using software to manage lists, send emails, automate email campaigns, and track results.

7
Avg 7.8

Lead Management

The process of tracking and managing prospective customers from lead generation to conversion.

7.4
Avg 7.7

Campaign Management

Users can schedule campaigns and/or events with reminders, announcements, etc.

7
Avg 7.6

Social Media Marketing

Using social media networks to help amplify marketing endeavors.

6.3
Avg 7.5

Reporting & Analytics

Users can report on and analyze usage, performance, ROI, and/or other metrics of success.

4.5
Avg 7.5

Platform & Infrastructure

Features related to platform-wide settings and structure, such as permissions, languages, integrations, customizations, etc.

5.7
Avg 7.6
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Product Details

What is Acoustic Campaign?

According to the vendor, Acoustic Campaign is a comprehensive platform designed to enhance businesses' understanding of customer behavior on both a personalized and large-scale level. The product provides various tools for insights, planning, and implementation that enable data-driven experiences across multiple channels. By leveraging these features, brands aim to develop enduring connections with customers while driving revenue through tailored and impactful interactions based on individual preferences. Integration capabilities with existing tools and systems offer marketing processes flexibility, efficiency, and optimization. Although no specific industries or professions are explicitly mentioned, it can be assumed that any business desiring enhanced marketing efforts and increased customer base may find value in utilizing this platform.

Deep Insights and Personalization

The product is designed to provide marketers with the necessary tools to deliver personalized experiences across various interaction points, both online and offline, in order to enhance customer retention and establish enduring brand allegiance. The vendor asserts that by utilizing behavioral data, Acoustic Campaign enables marketers to construct meaningful and timely messages, fostering long-term connections with customers. Through its real-time personalization functionalities, the product aims to empower marketers to deliver compelling experiences that promote customer advocacy and drive revenue expansion.

Integration and Efficiency

The product is designed to enhance operational efficiency and streamline business processes through its advanced technology and extensive capabilities. The vendor claims that Acoustic Campaign delivers a user-friendly experience, supported by cutting-edge technology, enabling users to navigate the platform effortlessly. By seamlessly integrating with existing tools and systems, the product aims to simplify workflows, eliminating manual data transfer or redundant procedures. This integration also facilitates smooth collaboration between teams, ensuring a seamless marketing process from initiation until completion. Ultimately, Acoustic Campaign equips businesses with the necessary resources to optimize returns on investment and effectively achieve their marketing objectives.

Acoustic Campaign Screenshots

Screenshot of Digital marketingScreenshot of Journey design

Acoustic Campaign Video

Acoustic - Free your inner marketer. Learn more: https://acoustic.com.

Acoustic Campaign Integrations

Acoustic Campaign Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

Constant Contact, Oracle Marketing, and Emarsys are common alternatives for Acoustic Campaign.

Reviewers rate Dynamic content and Email deliverability reporting and List management highest, with a score of 8.

The most common users of Acoustic Campaign are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(125)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Users have found Silverpop Engage to be a valuable tool for their mass mailing and global program campaigns. It has also been used for automated lead nurturing and mass mailing. Marketing teams have utilized the platform to administer customer-facing marketing emails, while marketing communications managers have accessed it to track the performance of their individual email campaigns. Large enterprises like Texas Instruments have been able to engage with customers across different locations using Silverpop Engage. Its relevant and responsive marketing automation capabilities have enabled users to engage with customers at the right time based on their actions on the site. The platform has been widely used for emails, landing pages, marketing automation tracks, and lead scoring within global marketing organizations. Sales teams have benefited from its features by being able to rank leads based on their actions and qualify them accordingly. E-commerce departments have relied on Silverpop Engage for powering their entire email programs, including promotional messages, browse behavior, confirmation emails, and more. With its versatility, Silverpop has assisted organizations in communicating quickly and effectively with customers, leading to improved revenue generation. Additionally, the web tracking functionality of Silverpop allows for deeper insights into subscriber interactions with websites, leading to more targeted messaging based on opens, clicks, and interactions.

Toggle between HTML and Design views: Users have appreciated the ability to toggle between HTML and Design views for creating emails. This feature has been mentioned by several reviewers, making it easy to update photos and hyperlinks in emails.

Newly added features for test emails: Reviewers have mentioned that the newly added features for test emails have made it easier to ensure the accuracy of the email before sending it out. This improvement has been well-received by users, who find it valuable in preventing errors and mistakes.

Thorough examination process before sending: Users have commended the thorough examination process of the email before sending it, which helps prevent it from getting stuck in junk mail and ensures proper rendering on different platforms. Several reviewers have highlighted this aspect as a positive attribute of the product.

Outdated Usability: Users have consistently mentioned that Engage's usability is outdated and cumbersome, with confusing user interfaces, cryptic notifications, and old-style drop-down menus. Some users even reported browser lock-ups when editing signup forms.

Limited Email Creation Engine: Several users expressed frustration with Silverpop's email creation engine, which requires manual HTML coding instead of offering advanced Ajax or jQuery based creation engines like other ESPs. This limitation hampers flexibility in layout design and adds complexity for users.

Confusing Reporting Tools: Many users criticized the overall reporting in Silverpop, stating that it is confusing and lacks flexibility. They found it difficult to generate comprehensive reports, as well as extract contact information for opens/clicks. The presence of two different reporting engines, one legacy and one new, further added to the confusion.

Users have provided several recommendations for IBM Watson Campaign Automation. The three most common recommendations are:

Consider the software for organizations: Users recommend considering IBM Watson Campaign Automation for organizations, especially those with a limited marketing budget. They believe that the software has an edge over competitors like Adobe campaign and Salesforce marketing cloud in terms of intuitiveness and quick setup.

Use the software for marketing automation: Users highly recommend using IBM Watson Campaign Automation for marketing automation and automating inbound and outbound campaigns. They find it great for creating and managing end-to-end campaign management.

Seek help and support from IBM: Users advise seeking help and support from IBM when using IBM Watson Campaign Automation. They recommend hiring an Acoustic Partner consultant for implementation and training to ensure better long-term results. They also suggest reaching out to tech support for assistance before considering switching to another program.

Overall, users recommend considering IBM Watson Campaign Automation for organizations, utilizing it for marketing automation, and seeking help and support from IBM throughout the process.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-4 of 4)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Michael Hobley | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Obviously, sending email is its core function and it does it well. It has all the necessary functionality to help maintain sending reputation (throttling, spam threat estimation, etc). The built in functionality that allows you to have "mail-merge" type functionality (through personalization, dynamic content, and adding data from relational tables) really adds a whole new level to email marketing -- it lets you take your marketing to as detailed a level as you can potentially go.
  • Scoring models allow you to quickly and easily automate lead qualification by adding your own rulesets and criteria. Very easy to tweak and add email alerts when people meet specific ranks or scores.
  • The Landing pages (form builder) allows a user to quickly add a form on a webpage that interacts directly with Engage database. You can either use their default form builder (which, honestly, is not real attractive and very difficult to alter the appearance of), or you can import your own forms and map your form fields to fields in the database.
  • The Engage API is very well done, and very well documented. It is constantly evolving and being updated.
  • The community forum and knowledge base are also a very excellent resource for finding answers to questions without having to call support. Of course, it takes action on the user's part to find these answers - but it's a really valuable resource for those willing to take the time to search.
  • I think the Programs functionality of Engage is amazing, and you can really do a lot of awesome stuff with it -- but testing (and sometimes even updating) a program is laborious and sometimes difficult to do. I know they are aware of this and there has been much discussion regarding the topic on the community forum and within Silverpop.
  • The WYSWYG editor used by Silverpop (at the time of this writing is a version of FCK Editor) isn't super great in terms of the HTML it produces. It's not going to maim your email to look terrible, but it will alter your code if you have imported it (ex, changing hexidecimal colors to rgb, adding various font and span tags, etc). Nothing super critical, and if the user is comfortable with HTML - probably won't care (or even be aware it's doing it).
  • CRM Integration. Currently, Silverpop integrates with Salesforce.com (SFDC) and MS Dynamics. Salesforce integration has been available for years, and I cannot personally speak to it. We use MS Dynamics, and it is in its infancy. Current features and functionality are extremely limited. The initial introduction of the integration service was introduced mid-2013. Also, there is additional cost (setup and monthly licensing fee) for CRM integration, and - at least for MS Dynamics, requires a subscription to Scribe Online for usage (another cost, but not through Silverpop).
Silverpop hosts an annual conference every year (Amplify) in Atlanta. It's a 2-day conference (3 if you do the boot camps) where you can network and meet the staff, attend trainings, listen to expert panels, see new features. Really great experience and really got my teams excited to try new things.

They also do annual user-group conferences (in various cities) that allow users to meet other local users and discuss features and do hands-on examples. Not as helpful as the conference, but good nonetheless.
  • While I am usually not on the ROI side of things, I do know that we have seen a increase in conversions (using the automated lead scoring) by about 14% for one business line.
  • We have seen our deliverability increase significantly, and open and click-thru rates increase gradually over the last two years.
  • We are now able to provide a unified, consistent brand-experience for all our email campaigns on a global basis.
With the company I was with previously, we evaluated Eloqua and ExactTarget. There were a number of reasons we chose Silverpop over the others:
  • Pricing was much more transparent and was not "seat-based"
  • The price included the full system instead of having to pay for each piece separately. (Since then, Silverpop has begun introducing "apps," which are enhancements, but not part of the core product.)
  • Time from signing of contract to usage was very quick.
145
We currently have 145 accounts in the system, although truthfully not everyone logs in that frequently. We have about 50 dedicated users that send email multiple times a month. The others are varying levels of management who need access for reporting, surveys, or administrative usage.
2
I (personally) am a dedicated resource to handle support on a global basis. One other person is my "backup" and handles some of the requests that come in. We also have a "super user" in Singapore to assist with APAC during our North America off hours, but his support is very minimal.
  • Email marketing.
  • Internal corporate communications.
  • Client updates (regulatory announcements, etc).
  • Surveys.
  • Automated lead scoring.
Overall, we are happy with the service and results of Engage. Also, the general investment in the product (integration with CRM and CMS) and training of users has been significant.
Lyris' Email Labs
  • Implemented in-house
I (personally) rolled out the system across our entire business (145 users in 14 countries) and trained everyone myself. That way I could make sure they not only understood the system, but understood how our company, specifically, used the system and made clear any specific details that were necessary for their usage.
Implementation for the most part went smoothly - and I don't think the hiccups were Silverpop's problem. Understanding our internal need for multiple IP addresses and handling our CRM integration made for some bumps in the road - but that was later, after our first year -- not our initial implementation. The initial implementation went smoothly.
  • Online training
  • Self-taught
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.
This is a complex question. There are really two kinds of users -- administrators and general users. Training for the administrator (as far as best practices for setting up your environment, recommendations, and detailed explanations) is rather lacking. You really have to know ask the right questions. For general users - the online training is very lengthy, and again - best practices (general guidance?) probably need to be provided by the admin. So while you probably COULD do it on your own, it's easier with training.
Admittedly, I use support a lot, primarily when my users have questions (or problems) that I cannot resolve. Support is always quick to respond (either by email or phone), and do their best to resolve problems or concerns as quickly as possible. There have been times where some problems have taken over a week, but if you talk to your relationship manager, they can usually be escalated and quickly resolved. Overall -- the support is there when you need it, and is available 24 hours.

Additionally, there is also the user community and knowledge base for those who want to research on their own.
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.
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.
Some parts of the system are very quick - others can really crawl. I imagine it depends on overall server strain - but I think part of it can also be traced back to the specific browser being used.
  • MS Dynamics
  • Our CMS (using the API)
Standard integration with MS Dynamics - and being that it is a new product offered by Silverpop (mid-2013), the features are slim, and the integration had a few bumps.
  • Not at this time.
Signing up for a 2 year agreement will net you a better rate. You can also choose between plans that are priced on email volume or database record volume (email volume tends to be cheaper).

Only tip - as with anything ... it can never hurt to ask (about anything and everything).
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • List segmentation based on behavior - It was very easy to pull an "openers" list or "non-opener" list, then re-market accordingly.
  • Also, as previously mentioned, lead scoring with online behavior was easy to set up and post to Salesforce.com.
  • Some of the improvements that they made to setting up the Lead Nurture programs I wanted weren't available until the next product roll-up.
  • If you didn't test your processes thoroughly, strange errors could happen, like a lead never receiving an email, or receiving the initial email but not the second email in the workflow.
  • The biggest ROI/KPI that we monitored was the quality of leads, which was something that the sales team had expressed frustration with.
  • After implementing, marketing was able to identify "pain points" along the sales process, taking the data from the lead scoring model and identifying points when interest began to decline (due to lack of follow up, wrong information, or decision making role). We were able to tweak our marketing programs to better appeal to the actual decision maker, yet arm those doing research for a decision maker with the proper tools to understand our products and present our solution.
The system is easy to use and the support team at Silverpop were very easy to work with.
5
Marketing
1
Marketing
  • Lead Scoring - Helping sales team categorize and prioritize leads based on information given (form submission) and a lead's activity on our website. Overall, more focused sales team leads to bigger opportunities to pursue, rather than following up with a lead to first qualify interest, then qualify the opportunity.
  • Created lead ranking program, allowing sales to categorize their highest priority sales leads and manage their follow up accordingly. Leads that had both higher interest via interactions with our site, along with a fit score for the ideal prospect, were given the highest rank.
  • Implemented a lead disqualification process through email interactions. If someone opened one email, then no emails X amount of sends later, they were removed from our database. This allowed us to both clean our database and focus on targets that were truly interested in our brand and product line.
Previously to implementing Engage, the company did not have a marketing automation system.
  • Eloqua
  • ExactTarget
We chose Engage because of the ability to integrate with our Salesforce.com system, the intricate lead scoring and lead nurture programs that could be implemented on this system. Scoring was very important to our sales team, as they had been utilizing a Hot, Warm, Cold manual system in Salesforce.com. We replaced this manual process with the lead scoring, with great success.
  • Vendor implemented
  • Online training
Training was very easy to follow, with lots and lots of session options.
When I used the system, it wasn't plug and play with Salesforce.com, so the Silverpop team needed to do work (which we were charged extra for) in order to integrate with our CRM.
No
The Silverpop team is fantastic, easy to work with and are pretty technical. They get back to you right away when you have trouble using the system.
Besides the initial cumbersome nature of the workflows, Engage was a very easy system to learn and implement.
The throttle time for sending emails would vary depending on how many other campaigns were going out that day, which I found inconsistent.
  • Salesforce.com
API build out was needed in order to integrate, not out of the box.
Sales process was pretty long, we had lots of questions about capabilities. Post sales process was a little lack luster, I hardly ever heard from my salesperson again after I was handed off to the implementation team.
My biggest pointer would be to make sure that you understand what the system is capable of doing out of the box and how this will fit into your current processes, instead of trying to create processes to fit the system.
Shannon Feldpush | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Integration with Salesforce.
  • Drip email campaigning.
  • Easy landing page creation.
  • Dealing with duplicate email addresses.
  • More advanced landing page design.
  • Easier administration for SFDC integration.
  • Silverpop allowed us to deliver 5 times the amount of emails.
  • Increased prospect experience through the ability to deliver emails based on a drip schedule.
  • Increased open and click rates.
  • Outbound reps were able to speak intelligently to prospects about the information they already received which built confidence and trust in the prospect.
  • The analytics team was able to develop more targeted marketing campaigns because we could see the natural progression of which emails were driving response. We could see which campaigns were pushing enrollment.
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.
There is always room for improvement, even with the best tools so remember that during the selection process. SilverPop gives marketers all the tools they need to more efficiently manage landing pages, email campaigns, and determine the ROI or value of those campaigns.
8
email marketing, online marketing, outbound sales reps, marketing analytics. The main users of the tool are the Marketing department. Marketing implemented, managed, and paid for the product themselves.
1
The SilverPop Admin is the main support for the product. The Email Manager did support the email campaign design and email design. The SilverPop admin and Email manager worked together to support issues or questions of deliverability and unsubscribe.
  • Email campaigns.
  • Landing pages.
  • Campaign analysis.
  • Subscription management (opt-in and opt-out).
  • We were able to reducing software costs exponentially by using SilverPop as a one-stop-shop for our automation needs.
  • Subscription management was robust.
  • As a subscription center
  • To create and manage landing page and eliminate the vendor doing this currently.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes
1 - Training for the inhouse admin.
2 - Data clean-up.
3 - Product installation & connection to Salesforce.
4 - Strategic mapping planning.
5 - Mapping and activation.
Change management was a minor issue with the implementation
  • We should have had an in-house team, not just one person reasonable for the implementation in-house.
  • The mapping process (SFDC to SilverPop) was a bit daunting. Have a team to plan and review.
  • Bi-directional versus one way syncing was a huge issue for us. The initial implementation caused problems and overwrote a good bit of data in Salesforce.
Have a team to work on implementation. Strategic planning will help to avoid any potential issues.
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Heavy duty interface allows us to support multiple brands.
  • Extensive API allows us to integrate with our data warehouse.
  • Has all the standard marketing automation bells and whistles.
  • Nice drag and drop program interface.
  • Reliability has been a huge issue. We have had multiple outages where our redirect links in our emails no longer send visitors to our website but instead send them to some sort of backup site designated by Silverpop. Unfortunately, this backup site has a message regarding anti-SPAM. So when Silverpop's service is down it looks to our users like we're spamming them!
  • API documentation often differs meaningfully from how the API actually operates. Sometimes you have to actually do what the API documentation says NOT to do to get it to work.
  • Their database infrastructure is lacking. Huge problems with the database fragmentation.
  • None, really. No better off than on Eloqua.
Changing vendors is hard. Sometimes it's better to re-implement what you have than switch to a different system that's going to have its own pitfalls.
  • Email marketing platform.
Eloqua v9
PulsePoint
ExactTarget
  • Implemented in-house
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.
  • Online training
  • In-person training
  • Self-taught
This is a pretty complicated product. training is pretty much a necessity.
Yes
Our account rep is great. Unfortunately technical support is not always great.
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