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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)
    8.2
    82%
  • 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 7.7

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 Lead nurturing automation and Lead scoring and grading highest, with a score of 8.2.

The most common users of Act-On are from Small Businesses (1-50 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

(1-25 of 133)
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Sourov K Chowdhury | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Act-On's interface offers more functionality and flexibility. Simple to use requires no coding knowledge to use or navigate. It provides pre-built templates for automated programs that can be customized to meet our specific lead generation requirements. The drag-and-drop, list segmentation, and lead scoring options make the user-friendly interface appealing. It is possible to incorporate integrations. Our company uses this software both as an administrator and as a user. Switching between HTML and visual views is straightforward. With the integration of our CRM with our instance, we can create dynamically populated segments that are used to populate our automation. It is beautiful to download our data into more specific and affluent reporting tailored to our requirements. We could also create a proactive pipeline development program using MS Dynamics. It enables us to learn more about how our customers use our content (or not) to identify high-quality prospects.
  • The templates are easy to use and set up campaigns.
  • It's simple to use, and the email editor features a drag-and-drop interface.
  • It's easy to set up a drip campaign or a series of scheduled emails.
  • It has the flexibility of having a variety of scheduling options and the use of user experience automation.
  • A more straightforward UI and faster loading times are needed.
  • User direct communication within the platform would be fantastic.
  • There are a few areas where the functionality could be improved.
Act-On simplifies the creation of landing pages, web forms, email campaigns, and other types of marketing automation. Designing a customer journey using the workflow builder (a nurturing flow) is possible. It is used in various ways and in a variety of contexts. Tactical's knowledgeable support team helped us unlock Act-On's potential for complex integrations and marketing campaigns. In some areas, it would be beneficial to improve functionality.
Gerald Gorman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Through Act-On, we can keep in touch with potential customers and customers, track their progress, and actively participate. Solve marketing performance issues by helping us create successful email campaigns. Setting up the workflow is very simple, and the logic is very reasonable. Thanks to Act-On, we could solve marketing problems and improve our activities, which is excellent.
  • Act-On is very useful for creating, managing, and sending effective marketing campaigns.
  • The use of landing pages has attracted many potential customers.
  • The reporting function is integrated and is easy to access and understand.
  • The landing page allows you to customize the page for any activity or reason you need.
  • Its reporting helps to understand audience engagement.
  • This is a program that meets all requirements, our performance has no problems, and all results are positive.
I recommend Act-On to users and companies that want to increase interaction with customers. You can divide them into different categories and focus on the specific goals of each type. It's easy to set up and various campaigns; you can use a custom landing page. When you need help, Act-On's customer service is excellent, fast, and comprehensive.
September 25, 2019

Act-On review

Christi Moses | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We are using Act-On to reach our customers through email blasting. We also use landing pages and forms to support our website. Currently it is accessed mainly by our marketing department, but the plan is to integrate it into other systems to provide additional customer information to sales soon. We are able to see if our email marketing campaigns are successful through easy reporting setups built within the system.
  • Representatives are responsive to customer needs.
  • Act-On continuously works on improving their system - using customer feedback to help them know where to focus.
  • Technicians are friendly and responsive.
  • I would like to see a way to schedule a single email to multiple groups at different dates & times by accessing the email just once, instead of programming a new email every time.
  • I would like to see easier features with mapping hyperlinks - where you could use your mouse to draw out areas to link to a url.
We loved that the reporting features are built-in and so easily accessed and understood. We also love that our usage level is based on the number of addresses we email to, not by the number of emails we send. This is a key point when you are segmenting your customers into smaller focused areas of focus. I like that we can schedule an email at any time and can schedule them in advance.
Jose Aguilar | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Marketing and support teams use Act-On daily at our shop. I provides a central place to create and publish most interactive communications.
  • Email and Landing Pages, great feature set. Flexible for different skill level users. Easy integration to CRM.
  • Robust list and contact management allowing complete communication cycle to take place in one place.
  • Solid lead scoring platform and follow up tools.
  • Social Media tool needs development.
Great integration to WebEx! If you are running WebEx webinars, you have to evaluate Act-On as your automation tool.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-On for all of our email efforts. Currently, just the email department is using Act-On. We needed a platform to send one-off emails and automation tracks. Currently, we have over 8 automated nurture tracks. For example, if someone is added to our lead database they will instantly receive a welcome email followed by a demo email. We needed an easy to use solution to set up these automated tracks and chose Act-On based on the intuitive level of service it offers.
  • Act-On excels with its Salesforce integration. We haven't had any issues and it's always in sync.
  • Easy automation. It's really easy to set up workflows and the smart logic just makes sense.
  • One of my favorite features is the ability to change links and images after an email has been sent. For example, if you have the wrong link after the email has been sent it's easy to go into Act-On, change the link, and Act-On will automatically create a redirect.
  • The database is a mess. Currently, there is no way to search the database for an individuals profile. You have to go into the list you think the individual resides in and do a search. This causes a lot of wasted time if you are using multiple lists.
  • RSS feed is lacking. Certain design limitations make the RSS to email feature pointless. It looks like it was designed in the early 2000s.
  • My biggest complaint is that the software is buggy. Sometimes the email won't be sent out in time.
Act-On is great for email sends and automation. It's very intuitive and easy to use. Setting up forms is a breeze and plugging in social aspects is easy as well. It's not well suited as an all-in-one. For example, if you are trying to use it for building landing pages you will be very disappointed.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our sales and marketing departments use ACT as our main hub for contacts. It is a database that holds all our leads and clients with detailed information and the ability to tag for segmenting and note so other team members know what is going on. It is a simple way to look up and sort contacts.
  • Sort by select fields
  • Edit templates to view clients info
  • Ease to see other users notes
  • Slow
  • Outdated
  • Hard to sort with multiple topics
Well suited: helps us see what other team members have made notes. Ability to each have our own layout to mold to our specific needs. Less appropriate: It becomes harder to sort when people enter multiple answers for multiple fields. Can't group by multiple fields at once, which I would like for our team.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-On to set up marketing campaigns, marketing automation, and consumer analytics. We use it in specific regions as of now and we are in talks to expand it throughout our organization. Lead scoring is one area where Act-on has really helped us a lot. Also, it has helped us a lot with dashboards and reporting.
  • Powerful SEM and email marketing tools are its biggest advantage. Automated program templates are easy to use.
  • The consumer analytics feature is really good and the dashboard is super cool and intuitive. Drag and drop blocks are super easy which also allows you to add images and edit texts.
  • Open API feature adds a lot of value to Act-on.
  • Adaptive scoring is intelligent enough in scoring the leads.
  • They can work on the pricing, a bit expensive compared to other tools.
  • Small learning curve, which will be fine over a period of time.
Well suited for lead integration and lead intelligence. You can connect multiple CRM systems and it has the ability to show the top priority leads. Well suited when you would need an easy to use marketing automation tool and when you want the deployment to be faster compared to other tools. Not well suited for a smaller organization who is looking for a cost-effective marketing automation tool. If you are looking for a marketing automation tool with great social media integrations.





Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My company used Act-On to collect customer/prospect/partner data, view trends based on industries and titles, send marketing email campaigns to different levels of our engagement "funnel", design and send both internal and external newsletter emails, set up resource pages for our website and special events, and use forms to gate resources or facilitate sign-ups for events.
  • I liked their functionality for creating landing pages and forms. They looked nice, had plenty of options, and were easy to embed in websites.
  • Creating email campaigns was easy and effective through Act-On. With A/B testing, automated campaigns, and sleek design, it felt very professional.
  • It connected well with Salesforce, provided we had matching contact criteria. It was fast and easy to sync up.
  • The automation function within webinars was always efficient and convenient. They synced with GoToWebinar as well as Salesforce to make for a smooth invitation / follow-up / attendee tracking process every time.
  • The designer tools, especially for emails, were often difficult to use. The formatting of the text would be all over the place and change / refuse to change at random. Moving boxes around was shifty and sometimes nearly impossible. It just wasn't customizeable enough. No "undo" functionality either.
  • The only way to collect information expansively over time (there's a term Act-On uses for it, I can't recall) where it adds questions to the form each time a user fills it out, is if the person were to fill out the same form multiple times. I know this does happen for some websites/resources, but as a company that wanted to collect new information each time someone filled out any form, regardless of the resource or the URL, that was simply not an option, and that doesn't really make a lot of sense. I know it's not really possible to track someone but if they filled out the first part of the form and then it added new questions to answer, and then they submitted and got through the gating, that would actually be helpful.
  • There was no "trash can" of sorts in case you deleted something by mistake. This could be so stress-inducing if it was a major project. My coworker did this once, contacted Act-On, they couldn't even recover it.
There are so many ways it could improve with just smoother functionality and UI/UX, mostly in the ways I said it needed improvement that are quite major. But overall I think it has the right ideas and tries to offer a lot of options for marketing tasks and a solid system for working with a marketing funnel.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Act-On has been used by our marketing team to help us manage our email marketing, automation, and lead scoring efforts to improve the efficiency of our marketing campaigns. The software allows us to set up campaigns to segment our prospective customers, current customers, and closed-lost deals to help us build, retain, and try to reengage our database.
  • Easy to use. The UX is simple and you can easily navigate the program.
  • Marketing automation.
  • Customer service/help has been amazing with all of our questions.
  • Our server went out several times when we were in the renewal period.
  • Lead scoring constantly broke.
  • It's not as robust as other competitors.
I like Act-On and I think it's a good program for someone that is starting out in email marketing or has some experience with it. I feel like this is the intermediate solution for email marketing. It's great for setting up simple email marketing/automation campaigns with basic reporting needs. If you want super customizable or really advanced list features, you'll want to look at a different tool.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-On in our marketing department. We primarily use it for email marketing, customer retention, and webinars.
  • Good integration with Webex for webinars. We're able to schedule webinar events, schedule invitation emails + reminder emails, and launch and conduct webinars all through the program. It's very easy to set up, manage, and use.
  • Users can set up solid email marketing campaigns with workflows, identify hot/warm leads, and push to Salesforce with the integration.
  • Customer support is responsive and easy to work with, and their Act-On Academy is a comprehensive resource for learning about the platform.
  • The automated email programs could be more intuitive to set up and manage.
  • I find their landing page templates lackluster. We've opted not to use them because we couldn't get them to look the way we wanted them to.
  • We had some trouble with list cleanliness and getting stuck in spam folders, with our opens decreasing and bounce rates increasing. Even after hiring Act-On to consult and help us clean up our lists, the same problems persisted.
If you have a mid-size to large marketing team who will take the time to figure out how to use all of the features and integrate everything carefully with other tools like Salesforce and Webex, etc. then Act-On could be right for you. It's been a good tool for us for integrated email nurture campaigns, customer retention campaigns, and events. I do not know how strong a tool it is for inbound marketing campaigns -- at least, we haven't had much success here.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Act-On is being utilized by Progressive as our principal marketing software directed to our agents. It is used across our agency distribution marketing department. We use Act-On to create our marketing messages and direct them to our agents. It addresses the business problem of how we get our messages out to agents. Act-On is great because it allows us to quickly segment and get our messages to agents quickly if needed. The segmentation is good because we can import lists with demographic and business data allowing us to segment our messages to the right agents.
  • Act-On gives us flexibility to create high quality emails because we have the ability to import images and create links to websites or PDFs to increase agent engagement.
  • Act-On has a great survey tool that allows me to create survey so that I can quickly gather information from our customer base for our business needs. The data is delivered in spreadsheet format so it can be easily analyzed.
  • Act-On gives me the ability to create landing pages, which I can link our agents to more information with by an email. We have the same flexibility to create high-end landing pages.
  • Act-On has great engagement reporting of our email sends. I look forward to reviewing the reports with my internal customers to show how the emails have performed from an open and click standpoint.
  • I think Act-On could have a better folder system for marketing lists.
  • I think Act-On could offer a faster way to clean up lists and images. Right now you have to remove one at a time.
  • Act-On could make it easier to pull in personalized data to an email from an extension list. It is a two-step process right now.
You will find Act-On suitable for many agent communications that are both targeted and broad reaching. It gives you the flexibility to create high-quality emails and surveys that allow for quick engagement from your targeted prospect or customer base. Act-On is good for quizzes right now but my guess is that they will build this functionality down the road.
Danielle Armour | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our organization used Act-On for over two years as a whole. Act-On became our main source of emailing all of our constituents through our newsletter, gaining new donors through campaigns, providing information and so much more. We not only used the email campaign but we also used the landing page feature, the survey feature, the automated series feature and the form feature. Each of these functions were used at least on a bi-weekly basis. Being able to create aesthetically pleasing emails ourselves solved the issue of having to hire a company to outsource our emails. Being able to use the landing page feature solved the same issue and also allowed us to create pages on a quick turn around when we needed information out urgently. Having these landing pages was a saving grace on multiple occasions when the information was needed to be resolved or communicated more clearly. Having the forms options not only saved us from outsourcing but also let us collect data in a clean way through the same email campaign we emailed from. The automated series was one of my favorite aspects of Act-On as it allowed us to plan ahead with campaigns and set them up automatically.
  • Act-On's customer service is exceptional, they are quick and thorough when you are needing help. For example, we could not figure out how to automate a birthday date for our birthday campaign and the representative was able to walk through the process with myself and another team member. This is a strength of Act-On because many other companies do not have customer services that will speak with you, they direct you to blogs or informational sessions.
  • The landing pages that Act-On has created for use on the web is exceptional. The formatting is very user-friendly and the templates are great to navigate. The landing pages allow you to make the page fit whatever campaign or reason you are in need of. This is a strength of Act-On because the landing pages resolve the issue of having to create actual web pages.
  • The spam feature of Act-On's emails is a great add on. This feature allows you to test how the spam alerts are triggered in your email and how you can fix it. This has helped many emails be developed in a way so that they reach many more people than they would have without this feature. many other programs do not have this feature.
  • They can greatly improve how you are able to place photos in emails. The current way is very archaic and takes a long time to navigate to find your photo. Once your photo is in the email, you cannot crop or adjust the size. This should be upgraded.
  • The A/B testing or dynamic emails needs to be worked on. You can not currently test emails before placing them in a series to go to contacts, the testing route is long and usually ends up in frustration. There needs to be a way to test dynamic emails so that you can ensure success before sending.
Act-On is a great program for organizations who are on the smaller end. The system is easy to navigate and teach to others, which is crucial to the success of an organization that values time and efficiency. Each of the platforms are important in the success of marketing campaigns and gathering information to then succeed down the line. Act-On was able to sync with our database giving us information on multiple layers.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-On across the membership portion of our association & across all of our trade shows. We recently integrated Act-On with our new CRM, Sugar. This allows us to integrate even more data sets into our everyday marketing analysis.
  • Very intuitive, easy to use. You don't need a strong coding background to be able to set emails up.
  • The ability to set-up long or short forms and add them to a landing page.
  • Extremely helpful and timely support staff available 24/7.
  • You can't mass delete images.
  • Their reporting as a whole is lacking.
  • You can't edit the code/font behind the calendar widget.
The Act-On Software is well suited for any company that sends out numerous sends with a variety of creative logos. This tool would also be well suited for companies with smaller marketing departments, we don't have the biggest department so this helps pick up some of the slack where we are lacking; landing pages, forms, beacon tracking.
Dave Moll | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As an agency, we use Act-On to manage all our clients' marketing automation efforts. And that covers a lot of ground: web and social tracking, form submissions, content downloads, list management, lead scoring, landing pages reporting and, of course, email programs. The Act-On ecosystem is solid and each of the pieces complements each other well enough to create a marketing automation whole if that makes sense. So your emails "know" who visited what landing page and your forms "know" if this person has downloaded other content. This connected system allows you to build complex marketing campaigns, all within the Act-On system.

That said, we use for all of the above. Mileage varies from client to client, but we certainly use every part of Act-On. We will build our client landing pages in Act-On, we house our email templates in Act-On, we upload marketing content to Act-On -- I'm in it all the time! In fact, I have it open in one of my browser tabs as I am writing this review.

Overall, it is a solid marketing automation platform. Act-On manages lists, segments, email programs, and sync's with SalesForce very well, but in some areas like landing page design and reporting it falls short.
  • List Management. Act-On has some powerful segmentation tools that complement the automated programs very well. Act-On lets you really slice and dice your lists however you see fit. Connected to Salesforce, Act-On becomes super-charged.
  • Automated Programs. You can then take your targeted segments and create robust automated programs that can be tailored into specific tracks for your targeted audience.
  • Webinar Programs. If you use GotoWebinar or WebEx, managing the webinar is a breeze. Act-On will handle the invitations, registrations, reminders and post-event follow-up for you. It works really well.
  • Landing Page Design. The drag and drop builder is OK. But it feels very limited for someone who has a good knowledge of HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc. Inevitably, there will be something that you simply can't do in Act-On that you could do in a standard web design environment.
  • No Server Side Scripts. There isn't any way to retrieve data in your lists and add it to a landing page. Basically, you can't use any data stored in an Act-On list and add it to a landing page.
  • It's limited. There is simply some data you can't pull from Act-On and into a 3rd Party Reporting app.
Act-On is great for companies who have multiple people managing marketing and sales programs. Each person will get their own log in and access to certain (or all) areas of the software. Alerts can be created when prospects reach certain stages of programs which means marketers don't need to constantly monitor lead scores or anything like that. Also, designers can log in and create landing pages, copywriters can login in and upload content and managers can login and build programs. There's no stepping on each other's work either. Team management is very good. Act-On is also great if you have multiple customer profiles. Act-On allows you to create programs designed to capture many leads across your customer profile.

Act-On would be overkill for the small B2C client. A small business that uses email to manage newsletters and product announcements will find Act-On to be much, much more than they need. Act-On can certainly do these things but so can MailChimp at a much lower price point. There would be many features in Act-On that this client simply would never use.

If your company uses a custom CRM, Act-On won't be the best fit. I imagine you would need to hire a developer (or commit an in-house developer) to a large project of integrating your CRM with Act-On. Otherwise, you'll be importing and exporting list data on a regular basis.
Christian Banach | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our organization uses Act-On to deploy email marketing campaigns to generate leads for advertising agencies and marketing services companies. It provides us with the capability to set up automated email programs and send thousands of emails to our clients' prospects.
  • Manage multiple clients and segment the client accounts
  • Activate multi-step automated email campaigns
  • Track recipient engagement such as opens, clicks, and website visits
  • Set-up requirements and steps are complicated
  • Customer service could have been better
Act-On is well suited for activating complex automated email programs but requires a significant investment of time to learn the platform. Act-On is not well-suited for basic email campaigns since the set-up process and capabilities are complex.
Brittney Collier | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Act-On is mainly used by the marketing department, but our sales team occasionally uses it with our help. We mostly use the platform for email marketing, automation, and to create landing pages for our marketing content. We’ve also started using Act-On to collect web data for lead generation.
  • My favorite Act-On feature is the web prospector. It allows you to gate your marketing content so that anyone viewing the content on your website provides information about their location, contact info, title, etc. It really helps us to generate leads for the sales team and has helped us get in contact with prospects who are highly interested in our products.
  • The feature that we use the most is the outbound content section for creating emails. The templates and different sections you can add to emails enables us to create very organized, versatile emails while sticking to our own branding and color guidelines.
  • After an email is sent in Act-On, the platform begins counting which links in an email were clicked the most. This really helped us to test how engaging certain emails were over others. It also helped us understand how to present certain content in a more engaging way. Something as simple as changing the color of a button can make our subscribers click on it, and we wouldn't have that insight without Act-On.
  • The most obvious con when using Act-On is that it’s not very intuitive. The menu options don’t always seem to correlate with what’s on that page so, I get lost on the platform often - even after using it for a year.
  • I wish there was an easier way to organize content added to Act-On by other users within my organization. I often have to sort through emails and drafts that were created by other people on my team to be able to find my own drafts.
I would definitely use Act-On if you’re a marketing team that supports a sales team and does a lot of client sales/up-selling. The platform does a great job at engaging a currently existing set of customers and prospects. However, I wouldn’t recommend this for companies seeking to expand their customer base. You would be better off using SEO tools to attract people to your website.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We recently rolled out Act-On as our new marketing automation platform with our marketing department as the primary users. Our organization uses Act-On for sending out marketing content; to capture and manage lead scores and organize marketing campaigns.
  • Act-On is very strong in behavior based messaging, drip and nurture campaigns.
  • Easy to use email design through WYSIWYG designer.
  • Act-On handles volume of data quite well
  • Act-On's system navigation and overall UI could be improved as this is not intuitive at all. Often times, even after having used the system for some time it can be hard to find certain features or abilities of the platform. This turns out to be time intensive and could be better.
  • Act-On is not at all set up to handle multiple teams working in 1 instance of the platform. Initially during the roll out of our platform we didn't know about this and we have 6 different teams working in the same instance which causes a lot of data management issues since the system's search capabilities are limited.
  • Act-On's out-of-the-box connections to CRM system's is not ideal and could better. Our organization is using MS Dynamics 365 and there have been some issues in the set up, maintenance and continuous use of the Act-On connector
  • Because of the way Act-On seems to be designed for a centralized structure rather than decentralized marketing teams, the reporting through their data studio creates a big gap. Act-On reports well per initiative, however aggregating data can only be through a 3rd party BI tool s.a. Tableau, MS Power BI, Qlik, etc.
If you have a centralized marketing structure and a robust CRM platform to do all the things Act-On cannot, Act-On is a great tool for all your email and webinar outreach. Although the design capabilities are limited with the WYSIWYG and therefore the emails don't look pretty, the tool is every easy to use and allows you to reach a large audience in any way you want to segment that audience.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our marketing team sends out communications to various parts of our database on a weekly basis. I use Act-On to monitor what is getting action, where users are clicking, and this gives me a reason to reach out to see if these individuals would like to have a deeper discussion. We don't automate this process (although I believe you can) because we want our BDDs to have targeted and specific messages with each follow-up.
  • Quick view of who clicked
  • What they clicked on
  • How many pages the user visited on our site
  • Also like the Act-On Score - where you assign a value to various activities to track "value of a contact"
  • The pages/reports tend to load slow
  • When viewing a click report online -it would be very helpful to have another column of information that shows company name - rather than having to click on the user -- email right on that page would be helpful as well
Very good for understanding how your targets are interacting with your content
Sam Nedimyer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Act-On for all of most of our marketing needs. This includes email, social media, analytics, webinars, and gated content, among others. It is mostly used by the marketing department, but our partner (customer) success department also uses it. It satisfies our needs for demand and lead gen, as well as helps leads in the buying process and sustains customers longer by directly sharing our content with them.
  • Customer Support. This team goes above and beyond normal customer support. The support team is very friendly, always answers my questions immediately, and sends follow up emails. Their support team is so great that we've connected them with our customer support team to learn a thing or two!
  • We have a very niche targeted audience that has a lot of weird email addresses (think info@address.com). Act-On's flexible suppress/bounce lists (spam) is truly impactful for our business. With other software, our account would probably have been suspended a few times due to sending to these email addresses. It's truly invaluable for our business.
  • I truly feel that like a business partner of Act-On's. They regularly ask for feedback and we're happy to be beta testers for a lot of new features. Also, it's rewarding to not feel like "a customer" and instead feel like we're in business to grow together.
  • I don't have a lot of coding experience, both in HTML and/or CSS. Since I am in a content marketing department of one (startups!!), creating branded forms/landing pages/etc. can take a while.
  • The interface isn't as beautiful as some of the other softwares. Not a big problem for us, but I suppose some other companies could be turned off by that.
Act-On is perfect for companies that share similar goals/missions as us at LeagueApps, or as Act-On. If you're looking to join a true partnership with a marketing automation company that actually cares about your growth, look no further.
October 21, 2016

It's like they know us.

Lydia Fine | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We were using an antiquated CRM to do email marketing for several academic programs. We were struggling with list management, segmentation challenges that no users could decipher, no A/B testing capability, and horrible WYSIWYG editors. Act-On solved these problems and we've been delighted. It also addressed our major issue of needing subscription preferences that could be managed by the customer... up to this point they could either universally opt out or opt in, but they couldn't take control of their own subscriptions. Act-On has that capability standard and you can customize it like crazy. It's working for us, very well.
UPDATE: After a year of using ActOn, we've discovered some hurdles that are difficult to overcome. ActOn can only build lists off two objects in Salesforce--Leads and Contacts. To send emails/automated programs based on information in any other object, including Campaigns, we have to create a report in Salesforce and then bring in the results to ActOn. It makes things pretty complicated, but we're working through it.
  • The onboarding process. I had personal attention from my CSM and access to a "bat line" that I could call anytime I needed a quick answer. Act-On University, their comprehensive support site/forum, is so thorough and has clear instructions for every process. I've never had such a pleasant experience learning new software as I did with Act-On. I felt incredibly supported!
  • The software itself is intuitive, simple, and easy to use. Every time I think of a feature I wish it had, I do a quick search in the help (aka Act-On University, which is incredible), and turns out, it DOES do that! I have been delighted over and over again.
  • The automation features are wonderful; it's simple to create an automated program with their drag/drop interface.
  • The integration with Salesforce is clean, but the process of adding information from SFDC to my lists in Act-On could be clearer. I struggled for the first few weeks understanding what all I needed to do to include new information from my CRM.
  • I loved my CSM, but her schedule was packed so full that I could only get on her calendar once a week. We needed to get up and running really quickly so I ended up having to do a lot of my onboarding myself, which meant I missed some things. We rectified them eventually, but I wish I'd had better access to my CSM in the early days.
  • It would be helpful to more easily push subscription information back to my CRM system. We had to do this with a "hack" and it isn't pretty.
Appropriate for: small to medium size shops without majorly sophisticated email marketing needs, it's perfect. We may outgrow Act-On in 4-5 years, but it was exactly what we needed to get to the next level in automation and functionality.
Sue Maldonado | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Act-On is being used by the marketing department in our company. It is being used to organize our content and our e-communications to our marketing research audiences. The system is useful for high-quality, segmented communication. We deploy the automation solutions for webinars and event registrations and engagement with our online content and for general automated communication by our team of users.
  • Customer service. Act-on is the leader in client support for training, basic tips and trouble shooting to planning our Act-On strategy. The Act-On team is flexible, friendly, engaged and collaborative.
  • Act-On does not over-complicate its offering. It is visually appealing and intuitive. Some platforms are just too complicated to keep on top of. We are a small team with a busy marketing schedule. We do not depend a great deal on online lead generation for our growth, however Act-On is still a good fit for us.
  • Trust. No surprises once we had signed our agreement. In fact, our expectations were exceeded.
  • Value - price for service.
  • Being able to attach images to social posts
  • More contemporary templates
I think Act-On would work equally well for small to large companies. If you are less confident or experienced in automation and funneling, Act-On genuinely invests in the expertise to guide and support you so you can be continually learning and developing your skills and application for the platform. You never feel you are in the deep end.
Pamela Colby | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We signed on with Act-On in early 2016 and are very pleased with our experience so far and we've only just begun! The Act-On team helps walk you through the process and keeps you on track with your implementation goals. Plus their support team is quick to respond with your questions and troubleshooting needs. So much helpful information is at your fingertips with their webinars, on-demand courses and white pages.
  • Assigned Customer Success Manager is available to you to help reach implementation goals, get set up correctly and give expert advice.
  • On-demand online courses, webinars and white pages at your fingertips - so much helpful information when you need it!
  • The email composer is easy to use and looks professional. Plus they don't advertise themselves on our emails.
Act-On is well suited for both those new to marketing automation and also those very experienced with digital marketing. Seems to work well for all levels of marketing experience!
Johanna Adolfsson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Our initial purpose with Act-On was to improve our work with leads - before we had no clear overview or strategy for potential new customers. We didn't really know how many leads we had in the pipeline and definitely did not have a strategy in place on how to nurture them. However we have now also moved over many of our regular marketing activities to Act-On and been able to gather our work in a better way compared to before when we had many different systems.
  • It's been really easy to get started with Act-On! There are great step-by-step guides inside the platform on what you need to do in order to start using the system, and if any of the steps are unclear you can simply go to Act-On University to get a more detailed description.
  • So far I've been in contact with my CSM (customer success manager), technical support, the area manager and the creative team and everyone has provided competent and friendly service.
  • It's really simple to re-use assets such as forms, emails and landing pages. It saves our team a bunch of time since you almost never need to start over from scratch. To edit the assets is really simple through drag and drop functionality with great flexibility.
  • The available reports are quite static, so there is not much you can change. However I do know that this is a function that is more advanced if you go up to the Enterprise version.
  • The alerts to sales people could be developed further, at the moment they are mainly based on demographic's of the visitor but I would like to be able to connect them to lists as well.
  • The calendar provides a good overview of what has been done, but to fully optimize it I would like to be able to add planned activities. This would give the team a better possibility to plan and coordinate.
I think it's a great platform to get started with, it's easy to manage things by yourself and you therefore can decrease your dependence on an (expensive) third party. For us who have an IT department in house as well as a content team it's been working great to be able to manage the majority of the setup on our own, However, don't hesitate to use additional services since this can really give you a boost forward.
Regina Kosa | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
At the moment the marketing team uses Act-On for email marketing and sending out surveys. It helps us with creating and sending more personalised and targeted emails with a better response rate than we had before.

We are planning to integrate Act-On with our bespoke CRM system so that we could also use it for lead generation and nurturing as well as sending our proposal emails via Act-On.
  • I love the straightforward list management features of Act-On. It is easy to update and manage lists and the fact that segments are 'live' means I do not have to worry about updating individual segments as long as I have an up-to-date master list.
  • The use of the email composer could not be easier. With the drag & drop email builder it is really easy to design an email and change the content around if I change my mind.
  • I find it useful that we can not just create email templates but also create our forms and landing pages in Act-On, so I do not need a web developer to create a landing page for an offer in my mailer any more.
  • Form composer needs improvements as it is not as easy to use as the email and landing page composer at the moment.
  • More articles on automated programmes at the Act-On University would be useful.
It is a brilliant marketing automation tool for a medium size business with a smaller marketing team, where they want to make sure that they send the right message to the right people at the right time.
February 23, 2016

Act-On-It!

Amanda Hurley | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Business Development and Marketing teams of MedXM use Act-On for email marketing purposes. We are able to create and implement content announcements, press releases, trade show outreach and so on to support the sales efforts of MedXM. The Business Development team is able to utilize and track their own personal emails through Salesforce with Act-On, making it easier for the team to capture and nurture their leads.
  • Synchronization with Salesforce is convenient and effective
  • Customer Support is always very helpful
  • The email composer is easy to use
  • Menus and tabs could be better organized for quicker locating
  • The segmented list option could be more user friendly
  • The automated program generator is not user friendly and can prove quite difficult
I think Act-On is better suited for small teams and small businesses.
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