November 29, 2015
User Review: "Act-On - Fantastic people"
Implementation
9
TrustRadius
https://media.trustradius.com/product-logos/0o/ED/B44SZIS8EMTA.PNGAct-OnAct-On - Fantastic people2015-11-29T19:11:50.305ZAct-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.,10,Increased efficiency of marketing program build
Improved analytics and insight
More visibility of prospect and customer interactions,Marketo, Oracle Marketing Cloud - Oracle Cross Channel Marketing to Businesses (Eloqua), Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, Salesfusion, HubSpot and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email,Power BI For Office 365, Google Analytics, Progress Sitefinity,10,000 to 25,000,B2B,5,1,Tracking of prospect to customer
Speed to implement Marketing Programs
Platform ease of use,Ability to pull data out and visualise in PowerBI next to Dynamics, Google Analytics and other data sources,Trigger emails based on field changes within other systems,10,Yes,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Analyst Reports,Not much, it was a long process and done with a lot of detail meaning the best company won.,Implemented in-house,Yes,Change management was minimal,Email template creation took a long time to ensure the responsive issues
CRM integration (due to legacy Microsoft/internal issues),9,Email and Landing Page Creation
Data Studio Reporting,Social Publishing
Form Creation,Yes,10Mark TerryA great product and a great company to work with.2015-11-24T22:55:09.606ZWe 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.,10,We now know how digital campaigns perform.
Marketing is much more agile going to market and promoting specific messages.
We have a specific knowledge of where opportunities came from. How we converted them from anonymous visitors to leads, to customers.,Pardot,SugarCRM,Less than 10,000,B2B,5,3,Lead nurturing
Website tracking
Social Publishing,As a multi company marketing automation tool.,As a full blown CMS for microsites, fully driven by landing pages.,10,Yes,Price
Product Features
Existing Relationship with the Vendor
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor,I don't think I would, actually.,Implemented in-house,No,Change management was minimal,Migration of marketing assets from Pardot was manual.,10,9,Yes,A few times a bug became a non existing feature, and then it became an existing feature. Mostly concerning CRM integration.,Landing page editor
Email editor
Website Prospector
Drip/Automated program editor,None strikes me.,Yes, but I don't use it,8Diogo CabralAct-On - Marketing Automation for the Small Business2014-10-07T17:06:51.491ZWe use Act-On for all of our email marketing, tying in our webinars, and for working with Salesforce to help manage leads. It's being used across the entire company, and it helps us keep track of our leads and our customers. It helps us to track all of our leads automatically and integrates lead scoring so we know where we stand.,Allows us to segment lists from Salesforce for particular email campaigns
It integrates really well with GoToWebinar so we can use our GoToWebinar registrations and easily email this segment when needed
Their support team is incredible,I would like to see a little more ability to custom code CSS under the hood. However, this is not a deal-breaker
I would like to see more modern email marketing templates
I would like to see agency account cloning (note: hardly any MA companies can do this, and for those that offer it the price is very steep) -- so this is a "wish list" item,7,Keeping track of our leads -- it's infinitely more efficient when combined with SF vs. our old system. But you could do it still w/o SF.
ROI is very hard to measure, but because a lot of the benefit of Act-On is in the time it saves us -- which is worth a lot
I haven't taken advantage of all that Act-On has to offer, and as I do I think the ROI will keep improving. If I didn't feel it was worth it I would not stay on board as a client.,Marketo,ActiveCampaign,HubSpot,Leadformix,Less than 10,000,B2B,2,0,Lead management
Email marketing
Marketing automation campaigns
Webinar integration with marketing and lead scoring,We tie in all of our marketing to Act-On - whether it's an email campaign or a tradeshow/seminar
It's nice to see lead/customer interaction across our marketing as we can wrap it all up in lead scores
Segmenting lists is a fantastic way to focus marketing efforts,More agency work,10,No,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation
Vendor Reputation
Third-party Reviews,I would not change anything. I always re-evaluate the products we use and I would pick Act-On again if I had to right now!,Vendor implemented,Yes,I wanted to get up and running faster and faster, but it just takes time to learn any system,9,10,No,Every single day. There was a complex coding issue I had asked, and the rep was not 100% sure that he had the solution handy. So he let me know, went to his team, and came back with some possible solutions. I didn't mind that he didn't know immediately (it was an uncommon scenario). So instead of making something up or blowing it off, he let me know he needed to do more digging, check-in with me while he was investigating, and came back to me with answers. Bravo!,One has to understand that ALL marketing automation platforms are complex to learn -- it's the nature of the product.
I enjoy selecting lists for my emails, and I like the ability to time when the emails will go out
I like that my staff can setup an email campaign and leave it for my review (and I get notified when it's ready for my final review).
I also like that it's easy to host media so that I don't have to use my own servers,Agency cloning (but nobody has that at this price point)
Sometimes customizing emails can be tricky, but overall I'm satisfied. I'd like a bit more granular control.
Trying to cancel can be tricky and was very frustrating for me. Read your contract VERY carefully regarding:
the advance notice you have to give to cancel
and billing terms so that you are not re-billed.,8David Wank, DMDAct-On is the RIGHT SOLUTION for 98% of companies out there...2014-09-15T16:02:41.034ZWe use Act-On for sales and marketing. We run about 15 - 18 different contextually relevant email drip campaigns, we invite people to dinners at Regional shows we attend, and we leverage the tracking / scoring that Act-On provides. And we especially like that we can build a template in Act-On that can also be leveraged by the sales team.,Ease of use
Value for the money
Customer Success Team is the best in the industry,A few more integrations such as with ON24 would be nice to have (not need to have)
A bit more w/social media would be nice, although what they do have is pretty amazing
And the ability to tie Act-On emails to ROI would be nice.,10,We get 100% attendance to all dinners when we travel (NYC, Vegas, Atlanta, San Francisco, etc).
Act-On has improved our ability to control the messaging that goes out by sales (99% of the time, the messaging is "marketing approved"!
We have over 50,000 active emails going out each month,Marketo Marketing Automation,Eloqua,Silverpop Engage,25,000 to 100,000,15,3,Email invites to regional dinners
Drip campaigns for contextual based marketing campaigns
Sales Reps to email to their prospects using pre-defined/approved templates,To track web site traffic
To clean up our data with bounced email data,Bigger databases
More with Social Media,9,10Chad BurmeisterGetting our ACT together, A SmartThought Review of ACT-ON2014-07-19T01:01:49.271ZACT-ON is being used by the entire organization to manage our inbound and outbound marketing efforts. For example, we use it to analyze who is visiting our site, how our CTA's are being used and their effectiveness, SEO audits, web forms, landing pages, email campaigns, list management, social publishing, integration with our CRM (Nimble CRM) and competitor tracking.,Inbound Marketing: We use this extensively to determine the activity on our web site. We get a good sense of which search terms are working, Google Paid Per Click tracking, referring sites (so that we can say thanks in some cases), and alert us when someone of significance is back on our site.
Marketing List Management: The segmentation aspects are very nice. We are able to easily segment lists and be sure that we are targeting specific people or groups.
Dashboard: The main screen for all things going on. It's a good quick read on what's happening on various marketing campaigns and initiatives.
Ease of Use: The system is just easy to use. I was concerned about not knowing enough when we embarked on this journey but the system is designed so that most can get up and going fairly quickly due in large part to it's user interface which is very clean.,Templates: If you are coming from some email marketing systems (like Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, SwiftPage) you won't find a very heavy library of visually pleasing starter templates to modify and configure. It's very basic but does get the job done.
Partner Program: There is not a large partner channel set up right now. They are working on it and have efforts to build this out in short order but it is something to be mindful of in your evaluation. They have a super staff and onboarding experience but if you are looking for more than "how to" in terms of working in the program and need "marketing best practices" or moving beyond "where to click" guidance, the supply of trusted providers is short.,9,Increased SEO capabilities
Better segmentation which has allowed us to improve our focus and opens/click thru
Reporting: This tool has made us better at marketing because it provides us key areas to analyze and act on now (pardon the pun)
Increased site visits and conversions: We have now begun to be able to pull more people in and know when it's best to react to a buyers journey. For example, with Lead Scoring we can register a hot prospect based on what they are doing on our site and not waste time. For a small team, this is extremely valuable.,,10,000 to 25,000,B2B,2,1,Web Site Traffic and Conversion Tracking
Email Marketing
Segmentation,We use Nimble CRM and use Cazoomi to integrate with the tool.,Progressive Profiling
Get into more campaign automation,8,Yes,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation
Vendor Reputation,We work with clients who go through evaluation of software so the actual evaluation process was not an issue. We would not change anything.,Implemented in-house,No,Our own lack of knowledge of what to expect,8,No,8,No,Our support account manager has always been attentive to our needs. She has grabbed very technical developers in to address issues while on the phone. This is something that says a lot about their behind the scenes environment in a positive way.,Inbound Marketing
Reports
Segmentation of Lists,Templates not very comprehensive,No,8Chad StewartAct-On Software = Great Results!2014-10-09T16:56:51.312ZOur business lacked the technology and expertise to nurture interest among clients, prospects, and leads. With the addition of Act-On software, we're able to integrate marketing automation with our CRM and provide the sales organization with marketing qualified leads that are ready to buy. The ability to lead score and provide timelines of interactions with clients, prospects, and leads has enabled the sales team to become more relevant with each customer touch and produce a level of value that puts our business on the level of a resource versus just another vendor.,Automated Campaigns - Save the time of manually keeping track of individuals and sending them appropriate follow-ups. Set up conditional statements, so that the follow-up you send to a particular individual is based on their profile or behavior. Create early exit conditions, so leads that convert or become hot prospects can move into another program, or be sent straight to sales.
Email Marketing Engine - Create and launch high quality email marketing campaigns with a simple drag and drop interface. No need to know HTML. Optimize your email using list segmentation and lead scoring to ensure relevant messages go to the right people. Use dynamic content so that an email message will change according to the recipient's profile. Integrate forms and landing pages with email campaigns to encourage higher conversion rates. Set trigger emails that respond immediately to prospect actions with personalized messages. Test and optimize your campaigns with A/B testing. Determine the best converting campaigns even before you go live by running A/B tests to segments of a target list across a broad range of parameter. Include trackable links so you can track and measure performance results, including opens, click-throughs, bounces, and other data.
Lead Scoring - Work with your sales department to determine which buying signals to score, and with what values. Use negative scoring to identify and people who are least likely to buy, such as job seekers or people with low authority. Lead scores become part of a lead or contact's dynamic history, providing more intelligence for follow-up. Leads that pass a certain threshold can be automatically sent to the sales team.
CRM Integration - Keep raw or top-of-funnel leads in your marketing database and nurture them until they become qualified. Move only qualified leads into your CRM for sales to work with, so sales isn't distracted by low-priority leads. Return sales-qualified leads that don't close to marketing for further nurturing.
Database - Import and export lists easily, without creating duplicate records. Segment lists for targeting by any number of characteristics or actions. Import a list from a CRM, and export chosen data to a CRM, updating without overwriting data improperly.,Our experience with Act-On Software has been nothing but positive.,10,Better qualified leads fed into sales
Increased volume of leads
Significantly higher open rates and clicks
We're just beginning to utilize attribution from the point of introduction to the point of conversion which will give us insights into what is effective in producing qualified sales leads.,HubSpot,Eloqua,Marketo Marketing Automation,Pardot Marketing Automation,25,000 to 100,000,20,1,Nurturing
Lead Scoring
Automated Campaigns
CRM Integration,Automated Campaigns
1:1 Conversations between Account Executives and Clients
Webinars,Social Media,10,Yes,Price
Product Features
Product Usability,We would have interviewed Act-On Software first and ignored the rest!,Implemented in-house,No,Change management was a minor issue with the implementation,None,10,10,No,Every time I reach out to them I have an exceptional experience! They're that good.,Contacts
Campaigns
Settings,WYSIWYG Editor can sometimes take a few uses to figure out nuances.,Yes,10,10Jim LoveladyBridging the GAP between Sales & Marketing2014-05-07T19:37:53.653ZCurrently using Act-On for several clients marketing campaigns. By leveraging Act-On we were able to connect our clients CRM (Dynamics CRM) to Act-On and bridge the gap between sales and marketing by making sure the hot leads were front and center,Connection to Dynamics CRM (not all email automation tools connect)
Customer Service is amazing - we have been treated the same way from them wanting our business to now being a customer
Building Emails, Landing Pages and Forms has been very easy even without a designer or developer,Marketing List should be able to be sorted by the client, we should be able to move most used lists up to the top
Additional Webinar connections,10,Sales and Marketing teams are working together (Priceless!)
One programs ROI has increased from a 17 to 1 to a 25 to 1 because of the lead scoring and following up first with them and in addition to Instant Alerts that reps can respond to right away,Marketo,ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub,10,5,1,email deployments
lead scoring
database management,Landing Pages and being able to track hot leads
Registrations forms and accrediting them a lead score
Using external lists and being able to apply lead score,Unknown at the moment,Yes,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
Third-party Reviews,I built a need, want and wish list and I would do the same again, but there might be new things on my lists.,Implemented in-house,Yes,Change management was minimal,wanting to try all the new bells and whistle right away,9,No,10,Yes,All the time, we have "special needs" client that have a lot of rules and regulations that make my request sometimes very crazy like and Act-On has always smiled and with a 'Can Do' approach solved it.,email deployment
building forms
lead scoring,automated programs at first, but now it is second nature,10,9Angie J AndersonAct-On: The outstanding marketing system for my small business needs2014-10-06T22:17:13.038ZI started a company to assist OEM buyers with custom manufacturing sources. Success requires creation of a data base of contacts, and then a robust system to communicate with them as well as organize responses. After a great deal of research I chose Act-On in 2012, and have had zero reasons to think it was not the very best choice. The system is comprehensive, fairly easy to use (even for an old guy like me) and the best thing is infinite access to my success counselor, who's been wonderful. As one-man company heavily involved in marketing (not a skill area), the success counselor has been essential in the company's progress.,Since I have experience with only Act-On, I cannot compare them to other alternatives. However, the price is fair and reasonable. The tools for creating messages are all I ever would need, and easy to use.
Segmenting the total data base, add or subtract contacts, and keep track of all the above is pretty easy to do. Tracking the results of a message campaign is also pretty easy to use.
A problem with absolutely any aspect of Act-On can be swiftly addressed via the success counselor I'm assigned. This is the 3rd one I've had; all have been outstanding. When they don't know the answer, further Act-On assets are deployed, and I ALWAYS have gotten satisfied with results. This is the #1 reason I chose Act-On, and it was a good decision for me.
There are very many features I've not yet used, but are available when I am. Thus, it looks like Act-On will meet my needs for as far as the eye can see.,Manipulating the data base is pretty easy and well designed. But choosing actions to track could be improved--for example, if I wanted to know results in a particular month over several years I don't think I can do that. It is also cumbersome to select individual web pages' visitors for tracking. I think it would be relatively simple to allow some segmentation/organization of a website and then use that organization's results for tracking. Now, only individual web pages can be chosen.
I'm not sure if I can alter my data base, which has been grown over several years using different sources. As a result, fields are duplicated and some redundant ones are present. I'm not aware of a method to tell the system to consolidate "these named fields" and put all into "this field". This capability would be helpful.,10,Act-On is the only system I've used, other than my CRM. in fact, I have not used the CRM very much, since the Act-On data base is sufficient for my needs at this point, since I'm able to create contact segments easily.
Since I'd be comparing Act-On to nothing, there is no useful ROI data. I'm also the only employee, although I have contract people using different features of Act-On.,,10,,1,What's a use case? I use Act-On to send newsletters to my data base.
Act-On is useful in sending RFQ's to several different organizations.,If I wish to send an email to someone, and know if it's opened, Act-On makes that easy. I maintain a data base segment of such people for this very reason.,There are many features of Act-On I've not gotten into yet; mostly these have to do with lead scoring, competitors (I don't have any exact competitors), and automated programs.,No,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Third-party Reviews,I'm very happy with my decision and am unaware of any missing feature with the Act-On system I'm using.,Implemented in-house,No,Change management was minimal,I needed extensive hand-holding learning email creation, data base segmentation, and simply how to use all the tools needed to create an outbound marketing program.,10,No,10,Yes,I rate their support outstanding all the time. Whenever I have a question, problem, or complaint, I have instant access to a specific individual who's responsible for keeping me happy. He does, every time. Occasionally I've had some issue requiring more advanced knowledge, and these people communicate with me by name and do so FAST. The Act-On customer service is about as good as it gets.,Organizing/reorganizing the entire data base is simple.,Nothing I've tried so far.,10Charles HarteAct-On - great for one-man-bands like me2013-09-26T18:48:36.501ZAutomated programs and emailing are fantastic - can automate the sending of program messages, or pushes and pulls to Salesforce, automatically.,I would say the UI isn't the prettiest I've seen,9,Shortened sales cycle (leads to sales faster), and more measurable results in email campaigns (reporting).,,10,2,1,Email marketing, signups and forms, landing pages, automating complex email programs, great integration with our CRM (Salesforce),,Implemented in-house,10,Online training
Self-taught,9,It was pretty easy to learn - there are a few exceptions. Emailing, list management, forms and landing pages are all pretty intuitive and easy to use (with a nice editor). For advanced features like the Automated Programs, it's good to look at the training.,No,10,9,10,9,Not yet.,I didn't really need to - they came in at an excellent price point, and the terms are month to month - which is brilliant. No contract, so they pretty much care about me every month, not just when I'm up for renewal.Ian NateExperience with Act-On use for email campaigns and inbound contact/lead capture from website traffic2014-10-06T21:42:39.063Z1. For outbound email campaign for generating contacts and turn them into leads.
2. For capturing in bound leads who visited our company website
3. Historical data capture regarding email campaigns sent.,Act-On can monitor traffic to our web pages, when the same contact visits our site more than once, the email address, and possibly additional information is captured for generating in bound leads.
Daily auto generated of inbound traffic from various regions of the world provides international geographical interest in our company
Generate metrics from Act-On to measure the efficacy of our marketing campaigns.
Templates of graphics and email letters creation is very simple.,Can not think of any. It met all the requirements that I had in my job.,10,We did not make any calculations of ROI, however, emails sent generated ample conatcts quickly and continued to generate contacts as time went on.
Act-On made it very easy to manage email campaigns and historical information on campaigns are always available at fingertips.,,10,4,2,Email campaign planning and execution
Capture of contacts/leads from inbound traffic to company web site
Campaign metrics capture and historical reporical reports
Opt-out capture and auto implementation for future campaigns
Hard bounce-soft bounce information allows to alert need for keetiong email addresses up to date,Capturing inbound leads. In bound leads are much more likely to convert ot customers since they are looking for information regarding a problem they might wish to solve.,Our company has just started use of social media for marketing, but is not yet making use of this feture built into Act-On.,Implemented in-house,Change management was minimal,Intially there were some issues in setting up auto loading of data from our CRM into Act-On. Act-On worked with us, identified the technical issues and helped with completing the implementation.,10,No,10,Many times. We needed immidiate support, and many times the technical support manager, when contacted personally intervened to insure our questions were answered quickly.,Opt-out feature automatically implemented for future email campaigns.,Can not think of any,10Prabal RoyAct-On has transformed our sales and marketing.2013-10-02T22:03:18.166ZList management is very strong, with ability to segment and create segments of segments, allowing very detailed targeting.
Act-on today gives a live, accurate overview of our entire 50,000 customer and lead database and allows us to respond incredibly quickly to any trends
The templates for landing pages, forms and emails allow us to send impactful and persuasive communications quickly and at no cost.
Automatic reports have greatly increased the quality of information I can give to directors.,The templates lack some flexibility and perhaps impact.,Over the year, I am confident of a 300% ROI.,8,10,Communicating to customers.
Communicating to prospects and leads.
Automating communication to customers and prospects.
Defining customer segments.
Monitoring prospect and lead interaction with us.
Guiding work of sales team.
Creating landing pages and emails.
Event booking.
Lead nurturing.
Inbound marketing.
SEO of website and all digital communications.
Increasing information sharing between sales team and marketing team.
Sharing best practice across sales and marketing function.,,,Implemented in-house,9,Online training
Self-taught,10,I would recommend you use a combination of self-training and guided, because the Act-On team have a lot of ideas and neat tricks that you might not discover on your own...the system really does much more than you might realise at first!,No,8Katherine PomfretGood starter marketing automation product.2013-01-02T20:46:10.730ZLead Scoring
Tracking Online behavior
Integration with Salesforce & GoToMeeting,Social Intelligence,Streamlines hot leads
Nurtures cold leads,9,9,15,15,Marketing
Sales,No,,Implemented in-house,9,Online training
In-person training
Self-taught,10,8,I would not recommend trying to jump in without training...though it's an easy product to understand I would still make sure you take the time and set up trainings with your account manager to make sure everything you're doing is being done correctly.,Created new custom fields through different objects within SFDC along with writing a few formulas to follow lead source and adding in views.,No,10,9,10,9,Saleforce.com
GoToMeeting,None at the moment,,I was able to get an extra thousand contacts as they were running a special. Other than that their pricing is pretty straightforward and there is not a ton of wiggle room, but you can talk about getting a custom package built for your organization.Vinny PolisenoStrong product but survey module is weak.2013-03-19T16:29:45.112ZAct-On's analytic data is spot on and gives me the ability to take meaningful action when clients and potential clients interact with our content. My biggest headache with software similar to Act-On is how to engage other departments and business units. Act-On's simple and robust connect to other software platforms allows our teams to work in the software programs that work best for them while still representing strong data.
For example, I don't want our sales team to have to learn Act-On. Because the system they use every day - Salesforce - is tightly integrated with Act-On, they can see from within Salesforce what path a prospect has taken thorough our website, and what offerings they have been looking at. This allows them to have a much higher-oder conversation with the prospect. Because they have a lot of knowledge about what the customer wants, they can be much more targeted in their messaging and shorten the time to sale.
Act-On does email marketing management very well. Not only am I getting analysis from the email, but also the traffic patterns my clients and potential clients are creating once they enter my site. This is powerful when engaging directly with my market - they feel we have tailored our approach just for them.,My biggest issue is that the survey module is not great. In particular, the survey analytics are not detailed enough for us to make business decisions. We survey our customer base quite a bit to understand what is important to them, so this is important. It would be great if the survey analytics were integrated with the excellent Act-On analytics. But they are separate.
Because of the survey weaknesses, we use Survey Monkey and Act-On unfortunately does not provide a connector to this product.,10,We ran our Black Friday campaign to our current clients and netted more than $30,000 off the campaign alone, and with each month that passes we net more than $5,000 on a recurring offer related to that campaign. Had it not been for Act-On we would have not had the bandwidth to manage the campaign.
With another unbelievably simple campaign launch, we generated a $8,700 sales from a simple email address capture. As time passes, I'm certain we will garner even more powerful RIO.,Marketo,HubSpot,Pardot,Less than 10,000,7,1,Act-On helps us with our marketing automation and content delivery.
The primary use case is producing email campaigns and testing our messaging with different market segments, and different landing pages to optimize conversion. Essentially we do content marketing: We make content available and encourage prospects to insert themselves into the sales pipeline.
Relevant digital interaction with clients and potential clients.,Optimizing digital properties for marketing and search engines.
Deep insight into habits and trends of clients.
Launch and maintain quick digital campaigns with very little ongoing facilitation.,Deeper engagement with clients and potential clients
Launching multiple, targeted sales funnels
More sophistication within market segmentation,10,,Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor,If I were to do it over again, I might have spent a little more time on the difference in features among the various softwares. The great thing... I don't have to do it over again. Should there ever be a feature I truly need, the Act-On team is willing to consider adding the feature.,Implemented in-house,Yes,Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled,Didn't know all the features upfront so wasn't completely sure how to take best advantage of the software.
Personal time to actually do the implementation was limited due to other duties.,10,Online training
In-person training
Self-taught,10,10,Because it's very intuitive and their support is so amazing, I felt comfortable learning some of it on my own.,10,Work with Act-On's customer service reps as much as possible. They will help you grow your campaigns quickly and easily.,No - we have not done any customization to the interface,Some - we have added small pieces of custom code,It was very easy for us to build our specific sales funnels with automation based on clients/potential clients interactions.,No,10,No,I was building an automated sales funnel and wasn't sure about the logic for the campaign. The customer support agents worked very quickly with me to resolve the logic issue and got my campaign launched within a 10-minute phone call.,Email broadcasting
Landing pages
Search engine/marketing optimization
Automated sales funnel campaigns,No feature is so cumbersome that I would deem it as such,9,10,10,9,Salesforce.com
Website,I'd like to see a deeper integration with surveying software at some point.,AppExchange or similar marketplace,9,Work with the Act-On reps. They want you to succeed and want you up and running very quickly.,10,10,$500 monthly rate. No tips/advice needed. They are fair and let their service stand for itself.,Let them know some specific needs for which you plan to use the system. The reps will guide you in the right direction.,Yes,More features
Better search engine/marketing optimization
Watch the competition when they make a move and respond quickly,Awesomeness... and they're delivering it!,No,NoVerified UserFantastic product!2013-04-02T20:37:28.281ZEverything in the system is extremely user friendly, and I love that everything you need for email creation etc. is all in one place. I can create emails in a fraction of the time it took me before, can easily convert these emails to landing pages to post on the website, and insert links to downloads that I no longer have to gate - but can still get detailed click information on.,There are a few features that we really loved in Hubspot that are missing from Act-on. One of them is time spent on a page - Hubspot could tell you how long a web visitor stayed in a page or the site, giving an indication of level of interest. I also think that the "anonymous leads" in Hubspot were easier to look thru, search etc.,10,We have been able to increase the number of communications we are sending, because it is so much easier to send emails and segment the list as needed.,,10,000 to 25,000,Email marketing, marketing automation, lead scoring and targeting,9,,Vendor implemented,9,Online training,8,No,8Verified UserSocial media integration not fleshed out.2013-03-25T15:24:09.839ZThis system is best for small businesses who need to align their sales & marketing teams. It instantly improved our workflow processes and started driving more qualified leads to our sales team almost immediately.,The social media integration is not completed fleshed out yet. Would love if it was more like Hootsuite, Adobe Social, or Sprout Social. Though you can currently publish and "listen" -- it is very buggy and not very intuitive.,10,The lead score processes and website visitor tracking can be immediately used to show leadership the software's ROI.,,10,5,1,We have integrated our system with Salesforce to help nurture leads and deliver more qualified leads to our sales team.,,Implemented in-house
Professional services company,10,Online training
Self-taught,10,Yes, but I am usually pretty savvy when it comes to tech/software.,Yes,7,8,10,10,Salesforce,NoVerified UserAgency version allows us to use with multiple clients.2013-03-28T19:49:49.094ZSolves all the typical automation needs.
Integrates seamlessly with Salesforce
Lead scoring and website tracking
Best-in-class email engine
Integration with gotowebinar,Social sharing is not as advanced as Hubspot, but it keep getting better. A recent new update, in particular, has improved it quite a bit.
Hubspot has something similar to Hootsuite built-into the product platform. This includes things like its own proprietary URL shortening tool. Act-On uses bit.ly, which is adequate but not as good. Although we can publish to social media channels from Act_on, it does not have the more sophisticated management features that you find in Hubspot.,10,Shorter sales cycle
More qualified leads to sales
Better identification of leads in general,,10,B2B,5,1,Act-On was an all-in-one solution for our digital marketing needs. It became our email marketing tool, gave us the ability to create web forms for lead capture and connected with our CRM system seamlessly to keep sales involved to close the loop.
Website visitor tracking and lead scoring.,,Implemented in-house,9,Online training,10,10,10,10,10,Salesforce
Gotowebinar
Microsoft Dynamics (on-premise)
Sugar CRM,Wordpress,File import/export
Single Signon
API (e.g. SOAP or REST),7,Obviously, understand what apps you need to integrate with and use that as your basis for selecting an automation platform. Prioritize which ones are must haves and which ones are nice to haves. Act-On could use a few new additions, but for the most part they have the major ones covered.,They have a standard month-to-month modelVerified UserMarketing Automation That Isn't Overkill for Your Department2013-10-15T22:27:19.029ZIt helps us generate leads and help nurture them so we can help better qualify them for sales whether that be through monitoring lead scores or education through email campaigns.,The inability to create real custom forms is a bit troublesome and could be improved.,Ability to capture how many of our leads are turning into sales and putting a dollar value to sources we use.,8,8,3,2,It helps run our marketing campaigns and improve our lead nurturing. It has helped us identify areas in our pipeline that need to be examined to help move leads along.,,,Implemented in-house,6,Online training
Self-taught,6,Yes for the most part.,No,9,7,5,7,Yes,,We were able to negotiate a great reasonable price as we were transitioning from Marketo.Verified UserWould like more form customizability.2013-03-18T15:46:51.622ZAct-On is easy to use and offers so many powerful tools beyond just email campaigns. My sales team loves the lead scoring and activity history because they can really evaluate a lead's level of interest before having to pick up the phone. My executive team loves the high-level reporting that shows campaign effectiveness beyond the first email because it includes subsequent activities including web visits, form submissions, webinar attendance and more. I love Act-On because it has greatly reduced my workload in terms of manual intervention with campaigns and data management between platforms.,We have not found anything lacking from Act-On's included features. If I were to create a wish list it would include greater customizability of form layout and styling without having to upload custom HTML stationery. I would also like to see the out-of-the-box reporting be more customizable.,Increased number of leads converted to opportunities and increased closure rate.,10,10,5,1,Act-On enables us to conduct large-scale email marketing campaigns, automated emails, and drip campaigns. The integrated lead scoring and web visitor analytics help us to better evaluate our leads and give our sales team the information they need to reduce time spent chasing cold leads. We no longer have to merge statistics from multiple sources to see the ROI on our campaigns as everything now seamlessly integrates into Salesforce.,,,Vendor implemented
Implemented in-house,10,Online training,10,No,10,10,10,10,Salesforce,,Having a free-trial period really helped my executive team to feel confident about the purchase.Verified UserGreat, but CRM integration could be better.2013-03-18T14:15:50.761ZAct-On handles a content marketing strategy to perfection. Deploying emails with white papers for prospects to download (among other content types) is simple and not time consuming. It makes a marketing "team" of one be able to handle all the details of a complicated campaign and lead scoring process -- without the complicated interface.,I feel Act-On could integrate better with my CRM. Specifically - it uses a report to generate the basic building blocks for my email campaigns. Other than that, it's performed very well, and the Act-On dev team is always cranking out new, useful tools.
I'd also like to see multiple lead scoring models. I have a manual workaround to produce a lifetime lead score.,Almost all of our revenue has started from the marketing campaigns using Act-On,10,10,,1,In addition to sending over one million emails per year, Act-On fuels our sales pipeline by way of a lead score. We also use it for website visibility (inside sales reps are trained to call prospects after getting a visitor alert), and to send individual, targeted emails to high priority suspects. In sum, Act-On does the heavy lifting for all of our marketing and sales activities on the front end of our sales funnel.,,,Vendor implemented,9,Online training
In-person training
Self-taught,9,8,Yes. I'd say 85-90% of the system is extremely easy to learn. There are some parts that even experienced professionals will want some guidance on, though.,No,10,8,9,7,Salesforce.com
GoToMeeting,no,,The terms were simple - month to month pricing, and very affordable. No negotiating necessary. Best of all - you get every bit of functionality for the one price. No additional costs for a premium model. No extra fees for stellar customer service.Verified UserFirst-rate tool. Excellent client service.2013-03-15T23:13:21.095ZThe streamlined platform puts first-rate marketing tools at our fingertips, making campaigns and programs easier and faster. We integrate our CRM, webinar management and other tools so our analytics are accessible. with one click.,Our company would benefit from more detailed ROI reports for offline campaigns in Salesforce.,Better open / click thru rates on email campaigns, increased website visitor conversions.,9,9,We use the platform for email marketing, website tracking, reporting, lead scoring, automated drip campaigns, and webinars. Act-On syncs with Salesforce which enables us to measure results and track leads.,No,,Implemented in-house,9,Online training
In-person training
Self-taught,9,9,Yes. Users can access Act-On University for training on-demand.,No,9Verified UserFantastic product has really made an impact.2013-03-14T22:07:37.086ZAct-on has been a revolutionary product for us as it has given us transparency into the top of our funnel. We've been able to fine tune our value propositions and marketing messaging to learn what each segment of our prospect base identifies with and then turn this into actionable leads for our sales team. Through the lead score process we know which of our prospects are responding to our marketing and that allows us to contact them and engage them in further development with the ultimate objective of moving them to a sales ready lead.,The product is fantastic at mass email marketing, webinar integration, social media marketing, CRM integration and providing transparency into your sales and marketing funnel,We've developed our sales and marketing process to the point that virtually 100% of our sales funnel and closed deals start out in Act-On.,10,10,10,1,Act-On gives use visibility into the top of our sales funnel through their lead scoring process. Additionally, it helps us nurture leads and move them to sales qualified leads.,,,Implemented in-house,10,Online training,10,We customized templates for each of our inside and outside reps,No,10,10,10,10,Salesforce.com and Go-To-Webinar,No other systems planned,,The month to month agreement makes trying Act-On a no risk decision.Verified UserHighly recommended for email automation.2013-03-12T19:02:09.494ZEmail automation. This is so easy to use. We've been using for about a year now and it's very intuitive and easy to set up campaigns. Segmentation requires a little learning bit of a learning curve, but it's not hard. I was walked through how to do it by an Act-On trainer.
Visitor tracking. This tells us who visited the website. Not just the person's name, but also the fact that they visited this page and read this content, and are interested in this product, etc. We relay this data to the sales team so they can they follow-up. We also use Google Analytics, which is useful, but does not provide us with this level of granularity.
Integration with salesforce is seamless. This works very well indeed.,The HTML editor is a little wonky - we have to mess with it quite a bit as content doesn't always look the way we want it to. IT has a WSYWIG editor which is fine for most things, but if we want to write custom HTML for more complex templates, it doesn't work well. The tool does let you write in HTML, but it doesn't always work very well.,Not sure actual numbers, but it saves me hours of time. If I had to manage email campaigns manually, it would involve building the content in Word and then managing multiple mail merges and importing spreadsheets for sends. This is extremely time consuming and Act-On takes all the drudgery out of this process.,9,9,2,2,The primary need is email campaign automation.
Our use case is relatively simple. We host events and then send out email blasts to contact lists which are imported from Salesforce.
We build a large number of different email campaigns based on things like geographical location, whether or not they have opened a previous email, whether they have clicked on a specific piece of content etc. Our campaigns are highly segmented and there is some quite complex "if/then" logic behind the campaigns.
We have used the product to build landing pages a few times, but with mixed results.,,,Don't know,9,Self-taught,Absolutely, everything is very intuitive.
However, it would be great if they offered monthly webinars to help us understand more advanced features. I feel that the product is capable of more than we actually use it for.,No,10,9,10,9,Salesforce,Verified UserTracking and analytics spot-on.2013-03-12T17:00:19.523ZThe tracking and analytics capabilities are spot-on and it is very useful for large marketing lists and for interfacing with Salesforce. (We don't actually use Saleforce however - we use a custom CRM system). Act-On helped a lot in building a simple integration to our custom CRM.
Tracking is particularly helpful for our ad-word campaigns. Act-On allows us to capture information even if someone doesn't enter specific data. Analytics provides us better data than we would get from Google.,The product does not emphasize all of the functionality clearly enough at times. we struggle in the beginning in not knowing exactly what the product could do which hampered our initial campaigns. Training is too rushed and does not cover all the details you need to know. You really need to spend a week to 10 days using the system to really understand all the functionality before going live.
For example, we struggled with email templates. Their training module on this (forms) was very light. After that, they added a lot more functionality and variation and templates. Although we were not aware of it, one month in, they had added many more templates which I was not aware of and which would have given us some of the template flexibility I needed. Also, we didn't even realize that it was possible to design our own templates by writing HTML directly.,It has helped with warm leads by increasing them by almost 30%.
Warm leads are those for which we know not just name and phone number. We also know company location, training library they are interested in, detailed contact info /position.
Before implementing Act-On, we would know only very basic data such as the country in which a website visitor is located. Because of analytics, we knew a lot more.
SInce we knew so much more about our leads, it was much easier to talk to them and set up demos. I knew what they had been looking at on our website, which products they are interested in, whether they are the likely decision maker, etc.,4,8,3,1,It is used to create and track email campaigns. We also use it to target website and ad visitors and for lead scoring.
Prospects are identified either from our CRM system or from purchased lists. Another smaller bucket of prospects are from our ad-word campaigns and website visitor id. For leads identified through web analytics, we generally make a direct call and follow-p with an email.
We use Act-On to build landing pages for specific campaigns (which are really just extra pages on our website). Our campaigns are highly segmented. For example, we target specific vertical industries like oil and gas / manufacturing / distribution a d use different email templates and landing pages for each (both Act-On templates and ones we have designed ourselves). We also have different campaigns depending on prospect behavior.
Their training module on email templates (forms) was very light. After that, they added a lot more functionality and variation and templates...a month in, they had templates that I wasn't aware of.,,,Implemented in-house,,Online training,7,No,6,6,8,8,Yes.,,We negotiated a month-to-month agreement at a good rate. I would advise buyers to focus more on training and implementation, because I felt we lost some time trying to figure out all the functions of the system when we went live.Verified User
Unspecified
Act-On Software
364 Ratings
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