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Act-On

Act-On

Overview

What is Act-On?

Act-On is an adaptive marketing platform designed to drive personal and purposeful multi-channel marketing. Its foci are inbound and outbound marketing, for enabling a tighter alignment with sales and turning data into actionable insights.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Intuitive User Interface: Users have found Act-On's user interface to be intuitive and easy to use, allowing them to complete tasks …
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Act-On review

10 out of 10
September 25, 2019
We are using Act-On to reach our customers through email blasting. We also use landing pages and forms to support our website. Currently …
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A great marketing tool

6 out of 10
May 11, 2019
Incentivized
Act-On is used by several departments. We use it for outbound and inbound marketing purposes. We also use it to score leads coming in for …
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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
  • WYSIWYG email editor (112)
    8.1
    81%
  • List management (111)
    8.1
    81%
  • Standard reports (112)
    8.1
    81%
  • Email deliverability reporting (112)
    8.1
    81%
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Pricing

View all pricing

Professional

$900

Cloud
per month (starts at 2,500 active contacts)

Enterprise

$2,000

Cloud
per month ( starts at 2,500 active contacts)

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee required
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.act-on.com/pricing

Offerings

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

Act-On Software Demo

YouTube

Act On! Software Demo

YouTube

Act-On Software and Touchtown: Personalization and the Buyer’s Journey

YouTube
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Features

Email & Online Marketing

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

7.8
Avg 7.8

Lead Management

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

8.1
Avg 7.7

Campaign Management

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

7.5
Avg 7.6

Social Media Marketing

Using social media networks to help amplify marketing endeavors.

8.1
Avg 7.5

Reporting & Analytics

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

8.1
Avg 7.5

Platform & Infrastructure

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

7.9
Avg 7.6
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Product Details

What is Act-On?

Act-On is an adaptive marketing platform that drives personal and purposeful multi-channel marketing, that aims to spark better inbound and outbound marketing, enable a tighter alignment with sales, and turn user data into substance to act-on.

The vendor states their customers range from start-ups and fast-growing young companies to well-established enterprise institutions; from marketing teams in small and medium-sized businesses, to independent teams in large enterprise corporations. They use Act-On in many different ways to realize their marketing objectives.

Act-On Features

Email & Online Marketing Features

  • Supported: WYSIWYG email editor
  • Supported: Dynamic content
  • Supported: Ability to test dynamic content
  • Supported: Landing pages
  • Supported: A/B testing
  • Supported: Mobile optimization
  • Supported: Email deliverability reporting
  • Supported: List management
  • Supported: Triggered drip sequences

Lead Management Features

  • Supported: Lead nurturing automation
  • Supported: Lead scoring and grading
  • Supported: Data quality management
  • Supported: Automated sales alerts and tasks

Campaign Management Features

  • Supported: Event/webinar marketing

Social Media Marketing Features

  • Supported: Social sharing and campaigns
  • Supported: Social profile integration

Reporting & Analytics Features

  • Supported: Dashboards
  • Supported: Standard reports
  • Supported: Custom reports

Platform & Infrastructure Features

  • Supported: API
  • Supported: Role-based workflow & approvals
  • Supported: Customizability
  • Supported: Integration with Salesforce.com
  • Supported: Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
  • Supported: Integration with SugarCRM

Additional Features

  • Supported: Email Marketing
  • Supported: Lead Scoring
  • Supported: Website Visitor Tracking
  • Supported: Automated Programs (Trigger & Drip Campaigns)
  • Supported: Social Publishing
  • Supported: Reporting & Analytics
  • Supported: SEO
  • Supported: Forms
  • Supported: Events & Webinars

Act-On Screenshots

Screenshot of List Segmentation - Segmentation using behavioral, demographic and/or firmographic dataScreenshot of the Quickstart PageScreenshot of Landing Page Composer - landing pages are designed with a drag and drop function

Act-On Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android
Supported CountriesAvailable Internationally
Supported LanguagesEnglish, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew

Frequently Asked Questions

Act-On is an adaptive marketing platform designed to drive personal and purposeful multi-channel marketing. Its foci are inbound and outbound marketing, for enabling a tighter alignment with sales and turning data into actionable insights.

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Net-Results, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud are common alternatives for Act-On.

Reviewers rate WYSIWYG email editor and Dynamic content and Landing pages highest, with a score of 8.1.

The most common users of Act-On are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).

Act-On Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)29%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)67%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)4%
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Comparisons

View all alternatives
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Reviews and Ratings

(407)

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!

Intuitive User Interface: Users have found Act-On's user interface to be intuitive and easy to use, allowing them to complete tasks quickly. Several reviewers expressed this sentiment, highlighting the platform's user-friendly design that requires minimal training.

Flexible and Catering to Different Skill Levels: Act-On has been praised for its flexibility and ability to cater to users with different skill levels. Multiple reviewers commented on how the platform can accommodate both simple and complex campaigns, making it accessible for novice users while also providing advanced features for experienced marketers.

Robust List and Contact Management Capabilities: Act-On's robust list and contact management capabilities have been appreciated by users, enabling seamless communication within the platform. Many reviewers mentioned this as a positive aspect of Act-On, emphasizing its effectiveness in managing contacts and facilitating targeted marketing efforts.

Unintuitive and Confusing User Interface: Multiple users have expressed frustration with Act-On's user interface, finding it to be unintuitive, confusing, and difficult to navigate. Some reviewers mentioned difficulties in finding certain features and abilities, resulting in a time-intensive process.

Limited Customization Options: Several users have mentioned limitations in Act-On's customization options. Specifically, the form builder is considered somewhat difficult to use, with limited CSS customization available, requiring manual updates on every single form. Additionally, the landing page creator lacks flexibility in terms of design and layout.

Performance Issues: Users have reported experiencing slow and laggy performance when using Act-On. Edits often fail to save or are lost if left idle for a few minutes. These issues can significantly impact productivity and frustrate users trying to complete their tasks efficiently.

Users highly recommend Act-On for its ease of use and configurability, praising its resources, innovation, and accessibility. They suggest utilizing the available tools and resources provided by Act-On, such as training video courses, help documentation, and customer service. Users also appreciate Act-On's user-friendly interface and easy accessibility to information and tools.

Another common recommendation is to leverage Act-On's capabilities for email marketing. Users advise properly segmenting email lists and testing email blasts before sending. They find Act-On to be an excellent platform for personalization, targeting specific users, analytics, and automation.

Lastly, users recommend taking advantage of Act-On's support and return on investment. They suggest getting a demo, attending training sessions, and trying Act-On for a month or two to fully experience its benefits. Users find Act-On affordable and praise its fast interface for managing customer relations effectively.

In summary, the most common recommendations from users are to make full use of Act-On's resources and tools, leverage its capabilities for email marketing, and take advantage of the support and training provided to maximize the return on investment.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(51-75 of 219)
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November 30, 2015

Great experience

Sara Bergmanson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-On for email marketing, social media, and marketing automation.
  • Customer service - always quick to respond and always very helpful.
  • Product updates - constantly improving features and user experience.
  • Social media - very basic capabilities, I'd like to see it have features similar to Hootesuite.
Depends on what you are using it for or want to use it for.
November 30, 2015

Great Customer Service

Nancy Tinnel Emrick | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized

We are launching a new medical technology to a new international market; a double whammy. We are reaching out to medical professionals and can see right away the impact it's having by the open and click data. The ease of use in learning this new platform has made sending out our message much easier.

Act-On is being used by our marketing staff, with input from the whole organization. The biggest impact it is having is helping with lead generation.

  • Great customer service: questions are answered quickly and accurately. If our CSM didn't know the answer, he was quick to find someone who did.
  • Email composer is intuitive and easy to use, especially for someone who has used any sort of email program before.
  • Reports are easy to access and comprehensive. It's great having the data at my fingertips to show my manager.
  • Their spam checker was not always accurate, especially when it came to Outlook (all of our test messages went straight to our Outlook junk folder, while those to Gmail were spared the trip to spam).
  • The landing page composer is not as intuitive as the email composer. This is changing but could be further tweaked to make it work as intutitively as the email composer.
  • Sometimes Act-On seems to operate a bit slowly, even for our CSM, so I know it's not our internet!
How much customer support is standard? We used our customer success manager extensively and he was great!
Richard Evans DipM MCIM Chartered Marketer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized

Act-on is being used by the marketing and sales team here to promote products, understand customers and leads and generate leads. As I am within the first year of my employment here I am not yet using Act-On to measure effectiveness and as a part of the strategy decision making process. As a chartered marketer I can see that the system will easily integrate into the strategic decision-making process.

The sales team uses Act-on (integrated with Salesforce) to measure client activity and deliver information based on the product views of customers. This seems to work well with the alerts.

  • Easy to use and navigate platform - the platform is easy to use and navigate - along with the brilliant Act-On University and customer support service.
  • Email automation - you can easily automate based on whatever strategic requirements you have - these are measurable and modifiable.
  • Email promotion - you can easily create segments of data for email promotion; the emails themselves and measure the outcomes. It is difficult to put a value to these activities with the complexities of our business model.
  • Embeddable forms - this works really well, from creation to embedding on the website - it actually works better than rerouting a click to Act-On.
  • You need to think strategically on set up - things move really fast in the world of marketing and, when challenges arise, it can be a little difficult to solve the problem.
I was not involved in the selection - however having used automation systems before, the usability and learning side of the programme works in its favour versus other providers.
Mikaela Kjell | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We are proud resellers of Act-On. The lead to revenue process is being solved with Act-On and the related CRM system (Salesforce, SugarCRM and Microsoft Dynamics are the top three we are working with). We are able to track and follow up leads within new sales but also maintain a good relationship with existing customers. We're creating a transparent view for both marketing and sales, who can now work more closely together.
  • This is a really easy-to-use marketing automation platform that is constantly evolving. We can see a lot of drag and drop functionality that our customers find helpful!
  • The endless segmentation possibilities. Act-On is built up around lists and segment (basically different stages of a lead) and the leads move on to the next segment on their own pace and based on their buying journey.
  • I also want to highlight the beneficial CRM integrations, which entails the funnel-report, multitouch attribution report and a kick ass syncing experience.
  • If you don't have a CRM that Act-On already has a built integration for - you will not be able to measure the ROI or any report with CRM data. You really will miss out on some valuable information, BUT they have a FTP-sync which at least entitles you to sync leads and their information.
  • The landing page-builder could need some improvements (have heard that something around this is coming soon..).
How well is it integrated with the selected CRM? What will a lead look like? How easy is it to build automated (drip) programs? How will marketing and sales work together with the same KPI goals - creating new sales-ready leads? How will the distribution between the systems (Act-On and CRM) work? How is Act-On different from any other marketing automation platform? AND last but not least, what is the price module?
Jovana Ljiljak | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Act-on is used by the marketing and commercial department. At Forbidden these departments work as one. Act-on helps with brand awareness, lead generation and lead nurturing.
  • Great customer support.
  • Easy to use.
  • Great value for the money you spend.
  • Mobile/ responsive email design is not very good - this is for forms, emails and landing pages. We need to use extra code for this.
  • Embedding forms into landing pages is not very flexible, it is impossible to do this without help of and experienced developer. Marketing users don't have these skills and if you don't have an in-house developer, this is a limiting design.
N/A
Stefan Grootendorst | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-On to get a better understanding of our clients'/prospect's needs and track the actions that take place on our website (downloading whitepapers and brochures, submit newsletter, reading specific content). This gives us a better insight in what our clients' interest are. We also use Act-On for drip campaigns and to nurture our subscribers on specific topics. With all this information we can make a detailed profile of each of our clients/prospect and share this as a lead to our sales department. With this specific client/prospect profile, our account managers can interact better with the needs of our clients/prospects.
  • Act-On support response is quick on questions and provides solutions to make Act-On a success.
  • Easy to use tools for customizing forms and landing pages to our needs.
  • Easy to use A/B testing.
  • The new landing page builder is easy to use, but there are still some functions that need more developing to make it a really good page builder.
  • Better e-mail opt-in integration. For example: pop-ups for website visitors for subscribing to the newsletter.
  • Website data is limited in comparison to Google Analytics. I still use Google Analytics next to Act-On.
Act-ON is an easy to use marketing system and it can save you a lot of time for setting up campaigns, newsletters and landing pages.
Bob Balm | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We implement Act-on for our clients as one of our primary marketing automation tools. We provide campaign support or even create them from scratch, set up CRM integration, and help clients implement ideas into the system. The business problems it addresses are mostly a lack of lead nurturing. Act-On makes it possible for clients to get insight into their prospects' digital body language, and to act on said body language to produce results. Tools like the website prospector have already allowed many of our clients (ourselves included as we use it too) to pick up on opportunities that would otherwise have been missed.
  • It has a low learning curve compared to other more complex systems.
  • The website prospector gives you quick insight into the value of your website visits.
  • Compact and easy to use interface.
  • There are a couple of quality of life features / interface options that are missing or counterintuitive, although this is part of what makes the platform more accessible to SME users. If they could add these without affecting pricing too much, Act-On would be even better.
I'd definitely look at the scale and flexibility of a client's project before recommending Act-On. A large organisation with a robust inbound marketing strategy will probably still find success in Act-On, but might benefit more from quality of life features found on bigger competitors. A smaller organisation, or one that is new to marketing automation will benefit from Act-On's more compact feature set and ease of setup. In my mind, I often name it the MailChimp of marketing automation.
November 29, 2015

Act-On - Fantastic people

Mark Terry | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Act-On is being used to fully identify and attribute the successes marketing is delivering to sales and the wider business. It was first rolled out to marketing, then sales and now to the wider business and we are able to understand prospects and customer activities then send personalised messaging to them. We are able to score and prioritise leads and to know what is successful and where to apportion budget.
  • I have used a number of marketing automation systems over the years from Oracle to Salesforce. However none of these have been as easy to use from a platform perspective.
  • Its very intuitive and in a short period of weeks we have been able to set up the platform, fully integrate it with our systems and create lead scoring and funnel reports.
  • If I am ever stuck our amazing customer success manager is there to help us with weekly calls and demos which focus on our business needs and requirements.
  • As with all new entrants into the market, there are features to make it better...however there is a product request hub which is regularly monitored, for me its acceleration of these ideas into the platform.
  • Deeper integration with Google Analytics to understand traffic coming onto the site, from what channel/source and attributing this to the contact/lead and funnel reports.
  • Out-of-box data out integrations with BI solutions such Tableau and MS Power BI.
  • A full marketplace of vendors who can connect with Act-On e.g. SMMS, IP Tracking, Call Tracking.
Act-On is at the moment very much an SME platform, however it it moving in the right direction with its recent overhauls e.g. email and landing page creation, data studio and multiple lead scoring.
Helen Farrell | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Act-On is being used by our marketing team. It helps us to communicate with customers and prospects, and provides information on our website activity.
  • It is easy to use. The email templates are very intuitive and help you to build a message quickly.
  • The level of support is excellent. Your contact is available to help with any issues and offer guidance when requested. I think this is something Act-On does very well, and was an important element for us when chosing the product. They haven't disappointed in their delivery.
  • Information about contacts who have downloaded material from our website is buried quite deep in the system, and takes a few clicks to get to.
If ongoing and personalised support is important to you, then I would definitely recommend Act-On.
Damian Leslie | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Act-On is the core component of our in house marketing platform. When I joined Anachron, one of my key goals was to professionalize the marketing department - almost starting from scratch. Act-On enables me to monitor, maintain and execute a range of internal, inbound and outbound marketing activities through a single platform. It is the cornerstone of our entire marketing platform and its excellent integration with Salesforce and robust sales user functionality has enabled us to strengthen the relationship between marketing and sales greatly.
  • Behaviour Analysis. Anachron allows me to monitor all user behaviour on our websites, landing pages, emails webinars and other items. This knowledge, even the anonymous company data around who is on our sites and what they are doing is invaluable.
  • Email marketing and list management. Act-On's list management and email capabilities compare very favourably with some of the higher end automation tools I've used in the past. Although it has its quirks, it stands up strong against its biggest competitors in this regard.
  • Sales Support. The Act-On Anywhere Chrome Extension has rapidly become a must have item for our entire sales team. This recent addition to Act-On gives much greater insight into prospect behaviour to sales and most importantly enables the to get access to that information without having to log into another system, It's included right there in their emails and their web browser. The Act-On tab in Salesforce is also of great interest to our sales team.
  • Program automation: the only feature I miss from Eloqua, which I used in a previous role, is the drag and drop canvas for building out a drip campaign. Act-On's functionality works perfectly, but the fact it's all listed in one vertical line makes it slightly more difficult to visualize the flow. Having said that, the tools are all there, it could just do with some extra visualization when it comes to making complex programs.
  • Website prospector. This is one of the features I use very heavily and although the new version recently launched is a big improvement, there's still room for more info. It's by no means bad, but I'd like to see some extra info in here.
  • Forms: Id like to see a more visual formbuilder, in line with the landing page improvements recently made. The form works great but are quite plain visually. This could be improved and remove the need for extra tools in WordPress/other programs.
Actually, I think Act-On is suitable for almost any business as its pricing structure enables you to remain in control and join up at a level that suits your organization. You get most, if not all, of the features you would get from some of the bigger players, like Marketo, HubSpot and Eloqua, without any of the cumbersome hassle of cost that comes with them.

For mid-sized enterprises, Act-On is a no brainer but I'd even recommend it to some larger corporates as if they really compare what they're getting with Eloqua/Marketo etc., I think they'd be surprised to see what Act-On has to offer.
November 28, 2015

Simply the best

Tim Ogle | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Act-on provides transparency to who has clicked on your emails, which without Act-On it's a guessing game, "did the prospect receive the email". The only other option we had was to call the prospect and enquire "did you receive our email?" not professional from my perspective. For us it's allowing us to see what our prospects are looking at so we can then target them specifically.

The platform is being used by all our staff, mind you we are a small 8 member team.
  • CSM support is above and beyond. I have never had support liked this with any product. Regular check ins, answers emails promptly and knowledgeable.
  • Customer support is fantastic. Fast, professional and always willing to go the extra mile.
  • List segmentation is great, simple to use.
  • Customer behaviours are now clear with Act-on.
  • The automated program setup is fantastic. Set and forget.
  • Sorry to say social media is not the best. Room for improvement for sure.
  • I find the site sometimes seems to run slowly.
  • Other CRM's would be nice.
I believe Act-on is great for the small to medium business area. You certainly need to be dedicated to understand the product. The university is a fantastic tool so this takes the pressure off, if you're wanting to run before you can walk and think again. I love Act-On, it's a great product with great support all round. Well done Act-On.
John Scott, DipM MCIM, Dip DigM | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We can now generate leads and automate processes - our business never received this from marketing until now. Our sales team has actually said that they now have too many engaged leads and contacts to deal with so we have built them dashboards in our CRM system to help!
  • Plugs into other technologies
  • Generates information on contacts and leads
  • Provides simple reports
  • Set-up is difficult and lengthy
  • The social and search information provided is not strong
For an SME like us, Act-On is about right.
Jodie Burch | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Act-on everyday and couldn't be happier with it. It really has changed how we do marketing. Scott Wallace our CSM is a great help and always goes that one step further.
  • Email Marketing - easy to use
  • Social Sharing - can link everything
  • Reporting - so easy
  • Contacts - finding them isn't that easy
N/A
Amber Taal | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Most of our clients know by now that inbound marketing in general will improve their lead generation results. The big question for them is: how? How can I share knowledge? How can I manage my budget? How can marketing become accountable for its results? Together with Act-On we help our clients to facilitate the next level in B2B marketing / lead generation. We managed on average to cut in management and telemarketing hours and gain far better leads.
  • When connecting Act-On to a CRM it improves the communication between marketing and sales and makes it possible to combine the forces.
  • Superb technical support.
  • Multiple lead scoring sheets is not yet possible.
  • Reporting is not optimal.
Act-On is well suited when the company is ready for the next level in B2B marketing / lead generation and is looking for a way to nurture their customers and leads. And when they want to improve the communication between marketing and sales and combine their forces.

There has to be time or budget to produce content in order to make this a success.

Kartik Krishnan | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Act-On is used by marketing mainly. Sales is slowly starting to use to send out template emails and initiate marketing actions.
  • Email marketing - It is quite well set up to send multiple emails, with nice personalisation in a sequential manner.
  • Support - a success manager is on hand to help set up marketing automation programs, guide around general use and strategies.
  • Their customer support team seems to be ready and awaiting a call at all hours, and almost always help find a solution even if it means escalating the issue.
  • Website prospector tool - is supposed to be able to show who visited and thus provide another lead channel, but it's too cluttered with ISPs and other useless non-leads.
  • Integration with CRM - is generally strong but it does have limitations and has needed troubleshooting.
Act-On is cost-effective for email marketing automation. It is great for marketing managers/lead generators who are relatively new to the space and want to trial this. It is not so great with all round user tracking and integrated marketing - for instance, I haven't been able to use it to track a lead through our blog and social media and into the sales funnel.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

We're using this software in the UK & Ireland mainly to address 2 problems:

1) interacting with our current customers via emails and e-newsletters

2) generating leads with landing pages and social media posts

  • Fantastic customer service & support.
  • Easy to use.
  • Never had any downtime.
  • It's being developed and updated all the time and Act-On communicates this to users regularly via webinars and e-newsletters.
  • They actually do listen to their customers' feedback.
  • I'd like to be able to post an image to Twitter.
  • Posting to Google+ would be nice.
  • It would help if I could upload images directly from the social publish page, rather than having to save my draft and go to the image library.
I am the only marketer in my organisation and I find Act-On really useful. I can easily create emails, e-newsletters and social media posts. And can also monitor website activity. It's great for generating leads. However I think it would also work well for larger marketing teams, everything is in one place.
Barrie Vredeveld | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-on mostly to create digital newsletters, landing pages and forms for our customers. "We" is in this case a department of two: myself and a colleague. Sometimes customers create their own stuff in Act-on, with our account.
  • It's easy to send emails to a list of contacts, multiple lists or just parts of a list.
  • The rough layout of emails and landing pages is set up in a few minutes.
  • The designing parts are very extensive.
  • Support is great; quick, detailed answers to questions (including screenshots or video calls).
  • Act-on is a program with lots of features; so many that it takes a while before you find out what everything exactly does and when it's the best thing to use.
  • It would be great if complete rows in a template could be copied, and not just the blocks inside. That way I don't have to set backgroundcolors and padding everytime.
  • Forwarding email should be easier; I know personalizations fields become empty when forwarded to a person who's not in the database (maybe there should be a solution for that too, "if empty, display ..." or something - everything but the codes), but I've never seen an email where I had to click special buttons to forward instead of the "normal" forward.
It's a great program if you email a lot, or to a lot of persons. By the reports of Act-on you get a very detailed image of what your clients do and what they like. It's good to know some html (terms as well as code) if you want to work with Act-on, but if you don't it's not a huge problem. If you want to personalize your mail there are a lot of options with photos, senders and other self created fields.
November 28, 2015

good email marketing tool

Carme Ventayol Aguiló | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-On across the whole organisation, being one of the essential tools for our daily activity. We use it for email marketing, lead generation and scoring and website tracking. We also have it connected with our CRM to integrate our whole marketing activity, for both our clients and internally. It helps us identify and qualify leads, making the sales activity much more efficient.
  • Great technical support and assistance.
  • Clear interface / user experience.
  • Salesforce/CRM integration is very useful to manage data more efficiently.
  • Act-On University is a great tool - it solves pretty much any problem.
  • The account setup can be a bit confusing and technical - however the technical team will always assist.
  • Could improve for business models that work a bit differently (multiple scoring, multiple accounts).
  • Deliverability is not always great - but this may be related to spam filters from recipients. However it seems like there are some technical requirements/tips for better deliverability that we may be missing out on.
For us the main issue was our specific setup - we needed an email software to send emails out, make our business development activity more efficient and intelligent but also understand that we are an outsourced agency who will use Act-On on behalf of different clients. Although the set up process was a bit confusing we finally got it thanks to the account and support team who was there to assist.
Nick Holt | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Act-On allows us to manage our entire inbound and outbound marketing strategy from one tool. It integrates seamlessly with our CRM solution (SugarCRM) and this means that we have full visibility of prospect engagement with our outbound emails, website pages, forms, webinars and more right from within the CRM solution. When coupled with the automated lead scoring this arms the sales team with information about who to focus on and what those prospects are engaged with.
  • CRM integration, pulling in all contact data including segmentation to easily build marketing segments in Act-On
  • Automated drip-campaigns - totally fire and forget. Just load in the prospects at the top of your nurture programme and let the campaign take care of drip feeding regular targeted content.
  • Webinar integration - schedule webinars within Act-On, handle all of the invites, landing page, sign-ups, attendee follow up etc.
  • The website prospector is one area which could be improved. It's good but it is tedious to keep filtering out all of the ISP hits that cannot be linked to a real company. It would also be useful to be able to tag visitors with your own tags (such as supplier or competitor)
Where:
  • There are issues defining how leads should be treated as qualified and ready for sales
  • There is no effective nurture programme in place
  • Current marketing processes are not as effective as desired
  • Multiple marketing tools are being used
  • It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns
  • There is no visibility of the names of the people and companies visiting the website
  • Sales say they are not getting enough leads
  • Sales complain that marketing leads are not properly qualified
  • Sales would benefit from seeing the prospects "digital footprint" - i.e. what they have looked at, downloaded, attended
  • There is no common definition of "marketing qualified lead" and "sales qualified leads"
November 25, 2015

Act-On 10/10

Anders Fredborg Nielsen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Marketing department utilizes the tool and educates sales team on the benefits. All automation problems are being addresses as well as lead nurturing and all email related tasks. Events and webinars are used and creates great results. Marketing automation has become very easy with the integration of Act-On. Highly recommend the tool!
  • - Easy to use
  • - Options available
  • - Quality support from CSM
  • - Quality of the tool
  • - Constant evolution within the tool
  • - Transparency between marketing and sales
  • - Better nurturing of leads
  • - Email Marketing, website tracking and event+webinar actions significantly improved
  • - More involvement and focus on SugarCRM integration rather than focusing on SalesForce
- Enhancing quality of digital marketing
- Combining everything in one tool
- Time saving
- Cost saving
Andrew Smith | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Act-On is used across the whole of our business, it is predominantly used to align the marketing and sales teams, but we also utilise the software for client communications and use the platform as part of our inbound marketing service. In terms of our marketing activity, the platform is crucial in terms of executing our current inbound and content marketing strategy and has helped to revolutionise our lead nurturing and management process, while developing and improving our sales funnel execution.
  • Lead nurturing
  • Marketing list segmentation
  • Providing an insight into user behaviour, allowing for a more granular analysis of your current prospects
  • Reporting
  • Speed of unsubscribing contacts
  • Email building requires a high understanding of html if you face any issues with design or layout
The platform is best suited to organisations that have a very strong and well executed content marketing strategy, a well engaged audience and a healthy sales pipeline to get the most out of what the platform can offer.
Steven A. Levano | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Act-On is being used to transition our email marketing process. We used to take a batch and blast approach to a blanket segment from Salesforce. Now we are trying to focus on super targeting our prospects. We are able to dynamically reach everyone from emails to landing pages..it's great! We also addressed the fact that we had limited visibility into our own marketing efforts. With act-on, every touch point is recorded and both the marketing and sales teams are able to review you it.
  • Data Studio - This data reporting tool truly allows you to play around with all data points that are either brought in from your CRM or live in the automation software itself.
  • Automated Programs - Are very easy to manage and edit
  • Editing tools - Act-On makes constant updates to their editing tools. This allows everyone on the marketing team who have very levels of creative skills to create great looking templates.
  • Buggy - The website bogs down sometimes. I'm not sure if it's an internal issue but there are many hang ups.
  • Lack of a full featured search function - Current search only allows you to search marketing assets. Does not include prospects.
  • Log-in - Resetting your password is a nightmare because errors in entry aren't clearly communicated. If you set difficult parameters, make sure you remember them because the log-in screen wont tell you what you're doing wrong!
This software is well suited for small-medium businesses. Larger businesses with larger marketing team may require more features as they would have the bandwidth to use them.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
This is the first marketing automation tool our company has ever used. Act-On has completely revolutionized the way we send emails to our contacts and host our content. It has helped us learn things about our customers and prospects' online presence across our website, something that until we started with Act-On we had absolutely no insight into.
  • All of the features are really user-friendly, and the Act-On University knowledge base is absolutely fantastic. That, combined with regular meetings with our Customer Success Manager (Matthew Paddick is a star!), means any problems or confusions with the software can be quickly overcome.
  • Email reports available in an instant.
  • Integration and two-way connection with Salesforce.
  • Sometimes the site runs really slowly and it can be a bit frustrating, say if you're trying to send out a quick email to a few contacts.
  • Sales and Marketing user screens are quite different, so being the only marketing user in my company it can be quite difficult to get points across to the sales users.
Act-On would be absolutely ideal if you are looking to use a standard marketing strategy using several different digital reach tools.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are an in-house marketing department that provides marketing services for a range of events across the globe. Act-On provides an excellent solution to send e-mails, build landing pages and show very detailed analytics and ROI for our clients. The system is cost effective when spread across clients and brings the marketing to a higher level of professionalism.
  • E-mails are easy to design, send and it's easy to report results.
  • Landing pages could not be easier to develop and have saved us a lot on paying a digital designer.
  • Reporting looks good and is easy to understand. When combined with Google Analytics a lot of detail can be passed to the client for recommendations.
  • It takes some time to get to know the software so it requires a dedicated person to learn it. But to be fair, you have a dedicated customer success manager on call all the time when you get stuck plus a massive library to get the answer when you have forgotten.
I would say this is the best product for an agency type setup, considering costs. It has excellent functionality and when the cost is spread across clients you can really show a huge improvement in marketing standards for a small investment. When deciding on a product we wanted something with no hidden costs and that several people could use and understand. The added value in terms of client leads is what makes this a real winner. My favourite features are the e-mails and landing pages which have saved a lot of costs in terms of design. It is also easier to use than most other software and is scalable. We were able to grow the service at our own pace.
Diogo Cabral | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
We use it across the whole organization, from the technical teams who collaborate with marketing to build content all the way to sales. We use Act-On both as customers and as partners, selling and deploying it to other organizations. This means we need deep knowledge of the product and how to present it in various business situations. Act-On solves problems like lead nurturing, marketing empowerment and independence from IT, ROI and marketing activities cost calculation. For small marketing teams to look big, it's an indispensable tool.
  • Constant evolution of the product.
  • Fantastic landing page and email builder.
  • Great handling of email sending, bounce and traffic.
  • Great website website analysis tools.
  • As a company, Act-On is always willing and eager to listen to customer feedback and incorporate it into the product.
  • A more coherent interface.
  • Data studio needs to be a bit more mature.
  • A more contact oriented, less list oriented approach could be useful.
I believe it's a flexible product, that can be fitted into most business environments. Of course, with any tool of this sort, you gain a lot by integrating it with a CRM tool, so make sure yours is supported during the selection process. Also make sure that you have ideas of what you want to do and achieve, as it greatly speeds up the adoption process.
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