Overview
What is Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM?
Constant Contact delivers for small businesses with tools to simplify and amplify digital marketing. Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM is a marketing and sales platform developed to help businesses build their pipeline, nurture leads and close more deals. …
Powerful, yet cost-effective and easy-to-use marketing automation platform
Great streamlined option for companies that don't want the complexity of Salesforce or similar tools
SharpSpring Has Moved Our Marketing Business To The Next Level
SharpSpring, the definitive marketing automation solution for agencies!
The BEST value for money of anything you might be comparing.
SharpSpring became unprofitable after the Constant Contact purchase
Decent Platform
SharpSpring works for us
Align Marketing and Sales teams with SharpSpring + Salesforce integration
SharpSpring - All-in-One for Business ROI
SharpSpring is a must have software for every Business looking to utilize efficient email marketing automation and CRM
Best solution for Marketing Automation
Great for B2B focused companies! Amazing support team/resource center
SharpSpring - Great Marketing Automation & Lightweight CRM
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
- List management (498)9.292%
- Email deliverability reporting (496)8.989%
- Lead scoring and grading (490)8.686%
- Dashboards (486)8.383%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Video Reviews
2 videos
Pricing
Lead Gen & CRM
Starting at $449
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee required
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $449 per month
Features
Email & Online Marketing
Using software to manage lists, send emails, automate email campaigns, and track results.
- 7.8WYSIWYG email editor(468) Ratings
Users can create html emails through a drag-and-drop interface, without html coding knowledge.
- 7.4Dynamic content(452) Ratings
Users can tailor email, website or landing page content depending on the viewer or recipient (e.g., email salutations that include the recipient’s name).
- 6.6Ability to test dynamic content(433) Ratings
Users can test dynamic content prior to launching a campaign.
- 6.3Landing pages(440) Ratings
Users can create web pages that are customized to a particular email or campaign. Landing pages often include web forms which can capture visitor information and integrate it back into the MA software.
- 7.5A/B testing(395) Ratings
Users can experiment with different variations of a campaign and measure results. Testable aspects might include subject lines, header images, or landing page copy.
- 4.3Mobile optimization(426) Ratings
Users can easily optimize emails and landing pages for mobile devices.
- 8.9Email deliverability reporting(496) Ratings
The software helps ensure inbox delivery of email campaigns, through features such as deliverability tests, opt-in management, bounce handling, suppression lists, dedicated IP addresses, and delivery monitoring.
- 9.2List management(498) Ratings
This involves creating, filtering, editing, merging and de-duping lists of contacts.
- 9.3Triggered drip sequences(473) Ratings
The software allows users to set up automatic / drip email campaigns triggered by certain events.
Lead Management
The process of tracking and managing prospective customers from lead generation to conversion.
- 9.5Lead nurturing automation(484) Ratings
Users can set up targeted drip email campaigns based on time intervals or prospect behavior, to automate the lead nurturing process and move them further down the sales funnel.
- 8.6Lead scoring and grading(490) Ratings
Users can set up the software to automatically rate leads based on calculations such as buying signals, such as form submissions, or page views, and automatically qualify leads based on demographic factors.
- 8.4Data quality management(466) Ratings
The software helps store, manage, and organize data around each lead, and avoid data problems such as duplicate contacts or non-standard formats.
- 8.9Automated sales alerts and tasks(462) Ratings
The software helps ensure that a sales person is notified of lead activity and can act on the information in a timely fashion.
Campaign Management
Users can schedule campaigns and/or events with reminders, announcements, etc.
- 8Calendaring(338) Ratings
The software helps users maintain a calendar of all marketing activities.
- 8.1Event/webinar marketing(318) Ratings
Users can streamline event marketing with features such as personalized invitations, registration, reminders and post-event follow-ups.
Social Media Marketing
Using social media networks to help amplify marketing endeavors.
- 7.2Social sharing and campaigns(316) Ratings
Users can incorporate social share buttons into campaigns to allow recipients to easily share content. Users can track shares as well.
- 7.5Social profile integration(362) Ratings
The software incorporates social profile data and social share histories to enhance segmentation and scoring of contacts.
Reporting & Analytics
Users can report on and analyze usage, performance, ROI, and/or other metrics of success.
- 8.3Dashboards(486) Ratings
Users can create, customize and share dashboards, which provide an overview of the most important metrics.
- 8.4Standard reports(486) Ratings
The software offers pre-built reports with metrics standard to the category.
- 8.8Custom reports(447) Ratings
Users can create custom reports.
Platform & Infrastructure
Features related to platform-wide settings and structure, such as permissions, languages, integrations, customizations, etc.
- 7.9API(364) Ratings
An API (application programming interface) provides a standard programming interface for connecting third-party systems to the software for data creation, access, updating and/or deletion.
- 7.9Role-based workflow & approvals(403) Ratings
Permissions to perform actions or access or modify data are assigned to roles, which are then assigned to users, reducing complexity of administration.
- 8.5Customizability(439) Ratings
Users can customize their instance with features like custom fields and custom objects.
- 8.1Integration with Salesforce.com(217) Ratings
The software can integrate with Salesforce.com bi-directionally, allowing for data syncs, activity alerts, campaign triggers, enhanced reporting, and lead assigning.
- 7.1Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM(98) Ratings
The software can integrate with Microsoft Dynamics CRM bi-directionally, allowing for data syncs, activity alerts, campaign triggers, enhanced reporting, and lead assigning.
- 7.2Integration with SugarCRM(91) Ratings
The software can integrate with SugarCRM bi-directionally, allowing for data syncs, activity alerts, campaign triggers, enhanced reporting, and lead assigning.
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM?
Attract
- Acquires hot leads faster with email & social marketing, plus retargeting ads. Leads are automatically scored based on their activity and passed to sales.
Nurture
- Helps deliver the right message to the right people, at the right time. With a flexible centralized CRM and customizable automations, tasks like nurturing leads and sales follow-ups are easier.
Grow
- Insights and real-time analytics that connect marketing spend to sales results, pipeline, and revenue.
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM 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: Calendaring
- 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
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM Integrations
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM Competitors
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM Technical Details
Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Unspecified |
Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone |
Supported Countries | Available Internationally |
Supported Languages | English, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian, Turkish, Portuguese, Romanian |
Frequently Asked Questions
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM Customer Size Distribution
Consumers | 0% |
---|---|
Small Businesses (1-50 employees) | 56% |
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees) | 43% |
Enterprises (more than 500 employees) | 1% |
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(670)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM is a versatile CRM tool that offers a wide range of features, making it a valuable asset for managing customer relationships and capturing every interaction. Users appreciate the breadth of features available within Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM, which allows them to efficiently guide clients in marketing automation and lead generation. With its user-friendly interface and excellent tutorials, Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM proves to be a cost-effective solution that offers exceptional customer service. Marketing agencies and businesses alike rely on this software to effectively manage growth, engage with customers, and address their marketing and sales strategies in one centralized platform.
The primary use case for Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM is email marketing, including the sharing of newsletters and nurture content with targeted lists. Sales teams also benefit from the software's ability to automate basic emails and marketing campaigns, freeing up time for higher-value tasks. Additionally, Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM serves as a powerful tool for marketing automation, website submissions, sales management, and account management. It helps gather leads, send targeted emails to leads and opportunities, and address lead management needs.
Users find that Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM provides the right information at the right time, enabling them to easily understand their sales process and identify areas for improvement. The software facilitates lead database management, tracking, follow-up, and account management. While reporting accuracy can sometimes be a challenge, Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM offers white-labeling options and integration capabilities by combining CRM, email marketing, and landing page building into one comprehensive solution.
By utilizing Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM, businesses have been able to solve various problems related to lead capture, user identification and tracking, CRM functionalities, as well as lead management. The software's lead scoring system allows users to prioritize leads effectively and take focused actions. Sales and marketing teams rely on Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM to track new business prospects, manage contacts efficiently, and gain an overview of their marketing and sales activities and results.
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM has proven valuable for agencies managing websites for multiple clients through its partner portal. It effectively tracks ROI and progress with sales leads, aids in social media planning and automation, and provides lead scoring capabilities. Furthermore, Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM assists in identifying opportunities, understanding prospects' stage in the pipeline, facilitating projections, budget planning, and determining priorities.
The software has also played a crucial role in tracking marketing efforts such as social media post engagement, email analytics, and landing page development. Users appreciate Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM's ability to reach out to prospective clients, maintain communication with current clients, and prevent anything from falling through the cracks. Marketing automation, CRM functionalities, persona segmentation, recent interaction history analysis are among the various uses of Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM. Users have found success in using Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM for marketing automation, CRM, sales functions, and making calls to numerous countries. The software is used daily for handling incoming leads and contacts, managing and monitoring the sales pipeline, automating workflows, creating custom forms and landing pages, managing email subscriber lists, and deploying email marketing campaigns. It offers flexibility and allows users to maintain a consistent brand experience throughout the client/customer journey.
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM has proven effective in optimizing sales through onboarding sales teams and creating sales pipelines, resulting in fewer lost leads and better client and prospect engagement. Users have consolidated their CRM, email marketing, landing pages, and social media tools into Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM, enabling them to utilize behavioral data for targeting their marketing efforts. As a centralized software solution for managing marketing, sales, and lead management within agencies and businesses, Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM provides automation capabilities across various teams, including marketing, sales, and finance. It also facilitates contact management and internal communication.
For ad agencies and clients alike, Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM has become the primary software for lead generation, nurturing, and selling. The live chat feature has been successful in engaging visitors on users' websites. Additionally, the affordability and ease of use make Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM a good fit for marketing agencies and B2B companies. Organizations rely on it to conduct email marketing campaigns, drive users to landing pages, and manage account notes and vital information.
Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM helps keep sales information together in one place while strengthening communication between sales and marketing teams. Customers appreciate its native connection with common tools as well as the variety of resources available for digital marketing. With a wide range of marketing and tracking capabilities integrated with third-party platforms, Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM provides users with a complete view of the customer's experience.
Users have praised the responsive live support team for providing necessary steps and solutions to any issues faced. In summary, Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM has proven to be an indispensable tool for businesses seeking effective lead management strategies, streamlined communication between teams, and a centralized platform for managing marketing and sales efforts. Its feature-rich capabilities and user-friendly interface make it a valuable asset for both marketing agencies and businesses looking to enhance their customer engagement and drive growth.
Intuitive User Interface: Users have consistently praised the intuitive user interface of Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM, with many stating that it makes tasks easy to accomplish. Several reviewers have expressed their satisfaction with how easily they can navigate through the platform and perform various marketing activities.
Wide Range of Marketing Capabilities: Many users appreciate the extensive range of marketing capabilities offered by Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM. They have highlighted features such as automation workflows and personalized messaging, which allow them to create targeted campaigns for their audience. The platform's versatility in managing multiple campaigns has also been commended by several reviewers.
Reliable and Insightful Reporting Tools: Reviewers value the reliability of Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM's software and its ability to provide insightful reporting tools. The CRM system effectively tracks leads and interactions, allowing users to gain valuable insights into their marketing efforts. This feature has received positive feedback from a significant number of users who appreciate the comprehensive reporting feature provided by Constant Contact Lead Gen & CRM.
Confusing and unintuitive user interface: Users have found the email builder's user interface to be confusing and unintuitive, making it difficult for them to efficiently complete tasks. They have expressed frustration with navigating through the software and understanding how to use its features effectively.
Cumbersome design in menus: The design of the email builder has been criticized for being cumbersome, particularly in the menus for the database and HTML editors. Some users have mentioned difficulties in finding specific options or functions within these menus, which has hindered their workflow and efficiency.
Lack of flexibility and variety in templates: Several users have expressed disappointment with the lack of flexibility and variety in email templates provided by the builder. They feel that there are limited options available, which restricts their ability to create visually appealing and engaging emails.
Users recommend utilizing SharpSpring for its customized reports and other features that cater to individual marketing needs. It is advised to thoroughly learn the system before implementation, taking advantage of the automation features during the 30-day free trial. Users also suggest seeking guidance from the support team, account manager, and onboarding specialist for seamless onboarding. Another important point to consider is to align your CRM requirements with SharpSpring's specialization in marketing automation rather than a comprehensive sales CRM tool. Users propose consolidating campaigns into multiple lists for optimal organization. Overall, users appreciate SharpSpring's customer-centric approach and advanced technology, considering it a cost-effective solution with extensive functionality. It is worth noting that Sharpspring is particularly recommended for businesses heavily reliant on email marketing. Furthermore, users encourage feedback submission to customer service when specific desired features are absent. SharpSpring is deemed suitable for managing sales and marketing activities efficiently while providing robust reporting capabilities. To fully harness its potential, users highlight the importance of investing time in understanding and mastering all of its offerings.
Attribute Ratings
- 8.1Likelihood to Renew32 ratings
- 7.8Availability2 ratings
- 3.2Performance2 ratings
- 6.7Usability70 ratings
- 8.3Support Rating71 ratings
- 4.5Online Training2 ratings
- 6.5Implementation Rating10 ratings
- 4.5Configurability1 rating
- 2.9Product Scalability2 ratings
- 4.5Ease of integration2 ratings
- 1Vendor pre-sale1 rating
- 8.2Vendor post-sale1 rating
Reviews
(426-450 of 522)SharpSpring review from Holland
- Onboarding was really good. Tailored to our specific needs and usually very vast replies on questions and answers.
- It is easy to manage your clients and work in the accounts of your clients.
- Once you get the hang of using flows, there are a lot of possibilities to work with
- The sales process (pipeline) has no automation functionality. It would be great if this could be automated to some extend as well.
- You can only create triggers on actions that people take. Not on actions people do not take. To create this it often takes a workaround. For example, it is not possible to create a trigger on 'did not open e-mail'.
- We are a Dutch agency, and the tooling SharpSpring uses for recognizing who visits your website is quite poor in Holland. We do not get a lot of data. Would be great if the could partner up with a Dutch party for this. That would give us a bit more value.
- Some things could use an update. For example button creation in e-mails, this has limited possibilities.
- Some things are not adjustable. Like the message people get whet they unsubscribe. We would like to make this a bit more personal / friendlier but this is not possible.
Connects the Dots Between Marketing and Sales
- Easily integrates with your website to give powerful insights on visitor interests and behaviors--and can send automated follow-up messages to return visitors to cultivate the relationship.
- A powerful CRM platform that shows every step, or "touch point" of the prospect/customer journey with you.
- A "Visitor ID" feature that can identify business visitors' organizations based upon their IP address--don't think many platforms do that.
- When I send someone an email, in most cases it can alert me when the recipient opens it. That's powerful.
- It's constantly improving, based on feedback from users like me.
- I would also like to see some improvements on the mobile app--it's too cumbersome to open up and access which prevents me from using it as much as I may otherwise.
- I would like to see stronger integration with ThriveThemes--which is the conversion-focused platform I use for my WordPress websites and those of my clients.
- I use LinkedIn exclusively for prospecting, and stronger integration with that platform would be welcome (much of that is on LinkedIn). That said, it does have strong connectivity with all three social media platforms: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
SharpSpring up and running in one day
- Ease of use in getting data into SharpSpring
- Customer support and on-boarding was second to none
- Creating leads is super fast: name, email that's it
- We don't have a dedicated marketing team and therefore the MA side seems a little daunting for us.
- The mobile experience is adequate, but could have better integrations to my phone.
- Would love to see a integration with LinkedIn
Best value for money and fun to use
- Easy to use
- Good support
- Great value for money
- Visual workflow does not support all sort of workflows
- Social integration needs some improvement
SharpSpring is great for an Information Technology company
- Simple and Easy to use
- Quick and fast templates to use
- Support is AMAZING
- Live Chat feature would be amazing
Ace!! Cost effective, Easy to use and most importantly proves value.
- UX and navigation are really easy. The email funnel builder is particularly good.
- Finally. An automation solution with a good CRM attached to the automation side.
- Social media integration and touch points through the user journey
- Excellent Lead scoring capabilities
- Mobile phone offering
- Not suitable for Enterprise but wouldn't surprise me if they improved that
Small Agency Growth with Marketing Automation by SharpSpring
We no longer need to use multiple vendors for email (like MailChimp), A/B testing of landing pages (Unbounce) and other third-party apps and tools. It's all within SharpSpring. And I've been hearing that social integration is coming soon!
- Dynamic page content - we use this to build a one-to-one landing page for leads that are in our nurture campaigns.
- VisitorID - know your anonymous page visitors with SharpSprings VisitorID feature. Uncover contacts at businesses that visit your site anonymously. This has been as great tool to enable us to find key decision makers and reach out directly to them.
- In my option, SharpSpring is still seen as a maturing platform for marketing automation. It's great for the small to mid sized businesses.
- In the past year I struggled with using the visual email builder. It was a little glitchy in the early stages but seem to have fixed the bugs lately.
Marketing Automation Is A Must
- Very intuitive and easy to use.
- Great support. SharpSpring has not just been a vendor but a partner that has allowed us to grow our business.
- SharpSpring has allowed us to give our clients a simple and clear picture of their ROI on all marketing campaigns.
- The manual data entry is a little clunky.
- If you have not used marketing automation you need to understand the commitment it takes. You have to be all in and set aside a good amount of time and resources to implement and be committed to use 100%.
Excellent and affordable solution
- It is so easy to build forms and embed them onto your own webpage. Not only static, but also dynamic forms that allows you to gather more and more information about your leads.
- The timeline is very useful and gives a nice overview of what your leads are doing on your websites.
- Lead scoring allows you to do dynamic segmentation of leads.
- The new visual work flow builder allows you to easily build advanced automation.
- At the moment there is no SoMe integration.
- Some minor bugs around in the system.
Good for us and our clients
- Ease of use - really easy to set up and use, it's uncomplicated but can be as sophisticated as you wish.
- Price - vey cost effective especially as a reseller - allows us to resell at a competitive rate as well as support without having to charge all the time.
- Support - the support is very responsive, sometimes things go wrong but the response time is very quick.
- The email interface is old fashioned - our technical people have few issues but our designer gets very frustrated with it.
- No social - it's on the roadmap.
Super effective, Super Pricing and Super Support!
- The Life of the lead is great - a timeline of when the lead first became tracked then when they became a registered lead, the day and time these activities happened are shown, it tells you when the lead owner was assigned and when they were called - the outcome of the call along with emails and what they clicked on if they opened it etc. It holds a lot of detail so you can know exactly when they were last contacted.
- The email builder is great there are so many layout options and it is completely customizable! It allows you to add dynamic content anywhere you wish! You can design the background and borders to completely match your theme. It gives you the option to text send, View in a pop out screen all to ensure it looks exactly how you wish! If you get a design you really like you can set it as a template so you can save time next time you want that design again instead of starting from scratch!
- The vast array of analytic choices on SharpSpring appear endless they have several report you can build just on the sales pipeline side which is just one aspect of SharpSpring. you are able to export everything you do in SharpSpring which is really helpful as there is no complicated spreadsheets, on top of this you can schedule and send over reports via email to your colleagues to save more time and keep everything electronic.
- I would like to be able to access a calendar within SharpSpring to help with planning and booking in Meetings etc.
- The ability to add manual events/notes to the life of lead not just the notes section.
- Social Media Scheduling - However I believe this is a new feature coming in the future.
A great agency tool for marketing automation and CRM
- SharpSpring is cutting-edge in terms of marketing automation capabilities. As a firm who delivers this level of smart marketing to our clients, we take these capabilities very seriously- and are very impressed with the level of detail and smart coding that have been done, to make our jobs easier and more intelligent.
- Customer service is top-notch. It's unlimited and personal. We had daily meetings with our onboarding coordinator and she never once tried to charge us. It was truly unlimited. And they have tons of tools and resources so we can quickly find our own answers- and a cool ability to suggest new features to their development team.
- Their sales and pipeline reporting is the best we've seen. We can create limitless pipelines- so we have a pipeline per product, region and event. It's amazing insight- and just what my finance team was looking for.
- It's a robust platform and you need to dedicate serious time upfront to learn and roll it out. We have experience in marketing automation but every tool is different- and this has a lot of new functionality as well that's unique to SharpSpring- so each and every week of the 6-week onboarding process was definitely needed and worthwhile.
- SharpSpring offers partner-preferred licenses and other agency-exclusive benefits.
- Agencies are able to custom-build, scale, and efficiently manage a client’s entire or partial digital marketing stack.
- Helps agencies and digital marketers transition from time-intensive manual reports to easy, integrated reports with charts and graphs - and available in seconds.
- Don’t jump the starting gate. Build training into your schedule for all marketing and IT staff. Give your team some time to fully integrate before activating services with clients.
- Transitioning an existing SharpSpring agency client to your agency account can be a hassle.
Multiple pay-per-user tools at one flat price!
- Price point
- no per-user fees
- Onboarding attention
- support attention
- Mobile App could use a bit of improvement
- Month-to-month billing and open structure make it easy to kick the tires at a fraction of the cost of other services.
- Agencies are able to open a new client service / revenue channel with ongoing subscriptions that increase a client’s understanding of customer data through the customer lifecycle.
- This fully integrated use of marketing data gives us an invaluable compass as we help clients plan long-term and real-time sales/marketing strategy based on that data.
- The only con is if you neglect SharpSpring’s training / onboarding process. It’s quite a time commitment to get ramped up but I’d imagine the most satisfied SharpSpring clients are also the most trained and experienced.
SharpSpring just blows others out of the water
- Email Marketing Automation - A simple trigger engages the client or prospect on their own respective path down our email chain.
- Team Filtering - Filter lead lists for each team member to avoid duplicate efforts.
- Pipeline Tracking - Track all pipeline activities to stay on top of leads and deals.
- Add the ability to search for client profiles with only the phone number.
Earn scale!!
- I really like landing pages. There are many good resources and I love each one. The service is also very good.
- I am very satisfied nowadays
- Customise many different options—it's great to have the flexibility to customise at such a good price point.
- Extremely powerful—you can do lots of different things across the CRM, lead scoring, emails, campaigns etc.
- Great price point—comparable to Hubspot but at a fraction of the price.
- Excellent service—as an agency, we've been blown away at how helpful SharpSpring has been.
- Steep learning curve.
- Need help setting it up.
- Not as intuitive as other software because of how powerful and flexible it is.
SharpSpring allows me to use it's powerful tools to promote my business and also market my clients' businesses. I can use it on their behalf or give them a user account and train them to use the tools themselves.
SharpSpring also, offers me agency pricing and allows me to white label their interface and decide for myself what to charge them to use it.
Right now, I mainly use SharpSpring's CRM feature to collect customer data from the various ads I run. I also use it to collect customer data from things like chat applications, Facebook Messenger, and text message applications.
I collect the information and segment it into campaigns and lists using SharpSprings automation features. Then I follow up with these prospects through email drip campaigns.
- SharpSpring supports marketing agencies like no other automation provider. They offer agency pricing that is a fraction of what companies like Infusionsoft and HubSpot charge. They don't compete for my customers. And they have my back at every turn with amazing customer service.
- SharpSpring makes automation available to companies of all sizes. Small to mid-sized businesses are used to seeing Google Analytics and Facebook Insights. But, with SharpSpring, suddenly those numbers and graphs become people, faces, and profiles. It gives a business owner a clearer view his or her customer which, in turn, focuses his or her marketing efforts like never before.
- SharpSpring listens to its partner agencies and responds with serious hustle. Digital Marketing is always evolving. That means the needs of agencies are always evolving. SharpSpring values input from its customers and uses that input to drive the development of new features. I truly feel that when I make a suggestion, it is received and valued by the SharpSpring team.
- SharpSpring provides fast and reliable support for any technical issue. Any time I have called for tech support, my call has been treated with earnest concern. My issues have been addressed immediately and are often fixed before my call has ended. The support staff is kind, courteous, and a pleasure to talk to.
- SharpSpring is easy to learn and enjoyable to use. The onboarding process (which costs significantly less than the competition) is thorough and fun. I looked forward to my calls with Justin. He was knowledgable and patient. He allowed me to explore at my own pace while guiding me through all of the necessary skills I would need to learn.
- I would love to see SharpSpring develop integration with popular chat platforms. Right now I have to connect it through Zapier links and custom form fields. I can get the job done, but a native integration would be better.
- I would like the ability to duplicate things more easily within the interface. It's simpler to edit a duplicate action group than it is to start from scratch. There are ways to duplicate many things, but the duplicate commands are sometimes hard to find, because there isn't a standard way to perform this action across the whole platform.
- The things I would like to see are all minor additions or improvements. All in all, there aren't many things that I find SharpSpring lacking. It's an amazing tool at an amazing price run by amazing people.
People would click the ad, but leave the landing page when they saw the complexity of the application. I was able to craft a different ad that ran to a landing page containing just some information and a SharpSpring form requesting a name and an email address. Soon people began filling out the form because it was easier. Their contact information was collected in SharpSpring and the proper HR representative was alerted via email. The applicant received a call back very quickly and, after a short conversation with a real human being was more willing to complete the online application.
As a result, one of my clients was able to hire 48 people in less than 90 days.
- Comprehensive set of tools - landing page builder, email campaigns, site visitor ID, sales insight, funnel builder, form builder, CRM and more.
- Amazing value - it's such good value that when you first look at it, it seems too good to be true! Compared to Pardot and Hubspot it is a fraction of what they charge and you get free licenses included to use with clients. It's incredibly generous and also removes all the barriers to entry which are financially very high for companies like Hubspot that I was evaluating for over a year before I discovered SharpSpring.
- Superb onboarding - I was assigned Matthew for a period of around 6 weeks and he could not have been more helpful. The onboarding is unlimited and very comprehensive and a credit to the company.
- Great support - the technical and general support is brilliant. Although I am based in the UK and the company is in Florida, I always get a reply the same day from a technical person and am kept informed until it is resolved. SharpSpring have really invested in their support infrastructure after you sign on and it really shows. I have also suggested a few product features and receive a comprehensive reply back from the product team as to whether they see value in my suggestion and if it is going to be added to the work stack or not.
- Onboarding prep - onboarding is great but you need to be aware that after about 3-4 weeks you will have explored all the features and then are expected to begin running campaigns. if you have not built a database or created good content for yourself then you could be naval gazing. This is not a criticism of SharpSpring but generally a warning they new users need to have the materials in place to start their own campaigns about 3 weeks in.
- The landing page builder can be maddeningly frustrating to use and the email builder has a few glitches. These tools are not as WYSIWYG as they aspire to be but once you get the hang of them then you can create nice-looking emails and landing pages. Just be prepared to want to throw your laptop against the wall at times.
- The actual materials that are there to help us as an agency to sell the SharpSpring/marketing automation proposition to clients could definitely be improved. This is in terms of volume and quality of design. That said, I have fed this back to them and they have been very receptive and acknowledged it is a core area that they are working on.
SharpSpring Is Our First Choice!
- Segmenting our lists by lead score / buyer interest
- Using dynamic text on landing pages for a more fulfilling/customized visitor experience
- Strong marketing automation features such as dynamic lists and tracking
- Strong reporting features
- There's really nothing that I would recommend improvement on. They have great live support that so far has always been available, they continuously update their documentation -- it's all very current, which I love and rarely see in other companies.
SharpSpring from a Partner Perspective
- Simple automation implementation. I am the writing side of our agency, but of course, I jump in to help with the technical stuff as needed. I learned fairly quickly how to load emails and set automations. SharpSprings system is pretty self-explanatory and easy to use if you are familiar with computers in general. Being user-friendly is a huge strength in this field, because for someone like me who is not particularly technically inclined, if a program is too hard to use I will just look for a simpler competitor.
- Custom fields for segmenting email lists. I do not have a lot of experience with competitors, but I know that SharpSpring's customer field capabilities allow me to exactly what I want with no limitations. I have created custom fields for my clients that I am onboarding, as well as created custom email lists for our clients to help them better market to their customers.
- From a Partner perspective, SharpSping has amazing resources and is always changing and growing. They listen to our feedback and change with the needs of the industry. They also have an extensive Partner Portal with loads of articles and webinars, as well as amazing customer service. Any issues have always been responded to and resolved in a very timely manner.
- One feature in reporting I noticed missing was being able to separate campaign by email send dates. We have a client that launches 120 new emails to his client list each day, which sparks a 30 email automation. While we can see the overall reporting, it would be nice to see them segmented by date so we can track data based on day of the week, etc. I know I can do this by copying the automation and creating a separate campaign, but I like to avoid extra steps.
- A navigation function (that I'm sure has been reported and is being worked on) is the ability to navigate via a back and forward button. Currently, if you are inside an email, to go back to a list you have to navigate from the start at the navigation bar.
- I know this issue is probably universal, and exists for good reason, but I wish there were an easier way to have two emails listed for the same contact. Obviously, there can only be one email per contact for list eailing to work properly, but instead of created a John Smith-Work and John Smith-Personal, maybe there could be a way to combine the two somehow. When email lists get large, as they often do, I might end up with two John Smiths and get confused! A way to link separate contacts would be ideal.
A platform that drives results
- Customer Service: SharpSpring's staff is always an email or phone call away, with a typical response time of minutes, rather than days!
- Robust Feature Set: SharpSpring allowed our organization, and our clients, to be able to combine multiple platforms into one concise, cost effective platform.
- Ongoing Feature Development: As an Agency partner, I love how feature requests are listened to and honored. As a business owner, I appreciate it when a feature request is turned down because it's not in line with the core plan of the company. What blows me away is when a feature request is turned down, in most cases a 3-party solution or API integration is suggested by SharpSpring.
- Robust Feature Set: With so many features and options available in SharpSpring there is a bit of a learning curve to the platform.
- Visual Workflow Builder: Unlike some other platforms there is no Visual Workflow builder for automations....BUT...I do hear that functionality is currently in development
Our default tool for digital marketing activities
- The Lead Score features are so helpful. We can set custom behavior rules, use them in automation and define how much value attribute to each step of the lead in the storyline in our website.
- We really put inbound marketing fundamentals in practice using the Personas feature. We can use forms with persona fields, create dynamic landing page content for personas and email content dynamic for personas. It's a game changer.
- It's possible to track any campaign using the tool to better understand what marketing efforts are generating the highest ROI.
- Despite the SharpSpring Landing page builder being an excellent feature, it only allows us to use it in one subdomain. Most of the times we need more than one.
- The "logical" in automation flows is different than other marketing automation platforms, and there's a learning curve to understand the relation between tasks, triggers, and workflows. As you learn it, it goes well.
- We're having troubles with integrating Typeform forms and SharpSpring via Zapier. We simply can't do it.
By the way, even if you're a digital agency or an SMB with a few leads, it will cost you less than what you 'll probably pay for other solutions.
Excellent tool for inbound marketing
- Very easy to use
- Professional Software
- Excellent Support
- There could be a keyword tracking area