Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Top Rated
Score 7.9 out of 10
Top Rated
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio

Overview

What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email is an email marketing platform formerly know as ExactTarget before being acquired by Salesforce in 2014. Its key features include integration with other Salesforce solutions, drag-and-drop tools, A/B testing, real time tracking, and graphical reporting.
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Recent Reviews

Complex but Powerful

6 out of 10
September 15, 2021
I use Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio to support and manage my clients' email marketing programs with a 360 degree view—from …
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Verified User
Project Manager
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Awards

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

Popular Features

View all 12 features
  • Dynamic content (43)
    8.5
    85%
  • A/B testing (43)
    8.3
    83%
  • Email deliverability reporting (6)
    8.0
    80%

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Pricing

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Basic

$400

Cloud
per month

Pro

$1250

Cloud
per month

Corporate

$3750

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.salesforce.com/content/dam/w…

Offerings

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

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $400 per month
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Features

Email & Online Marketing

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

7Avg 8.0

Reporting & Analytics

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

4.3Avg 7.6
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Product Details

What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email is an email marketing platform. It used to be called ExactTarget and was rebranded after its acquisition by Salesforce.

This email marketing platform allows companies to build relationships with their clients with speed, precision, and flexibility. This solution enables the creation of tailored and relevant content in any language. With the drag-and-drop tools, you can create an email in minutes and send real time transactional emails such as cart abandonment and shipping confirmations. Additional key features include A/B Testing Tools, Real Time Tracking and Graphical Reporting.

Whether you're looking for standard email marketing features or sophisticated cross-channel campaigns, you'll never outgrow our capabilities. From increasing email send volume and empowering users around the world to adding new customer communication channels to your brand strategy, we can help. Connect to your customers in a whole new way with the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio Features

Email & Online Marketing Features

  • Supported: Dynamic content
  • Supported: A/B testing

Additional Features

  • Supported: Deliverability Tools
  • Supported: Email Tracking and Reporting
  • Supported: Playbooks
  • Supported: Advanced Content Management
  • Supported: Drag-and-Drop Segmentation
  • Supported: Triggered Messages
  • Supported: Automation Solutions
  • Supported: Distributed Sending

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio Screenshots

Screenshot of Deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time with targeted, 1:1 messagingScreenshot of Automate messages triggered by customer actions, such as an abandoned cartScreenshot of Easily draft emails to capture your customers' attentionScreenshot of Quickly and easily send emails to build real-time relationships with your customersScreenshot of Keep track of - and - optimize every message you send with advanced tracking options

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio Integrations

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio Competitors

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android
Supported CountriesAsia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, Germany, India, Japan, Latin America, Mexico, Middle-East and Africa, United Kingdom, United States
Supported LanguagesChinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish

Frequently Asked Questions

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email is an email marketing platform formerly know as ExactTarget before being acquired by Salesforce in 2014. Its key features include integration with other Salesforce solutions, drag-and-drop tools, A/B testing, real time tracking, and graphical reporting.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio starts at $400.

Cheetah Messaging, Emarsys, and Epsilon PeopleCloud are common alternatives for Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio.

Reviewers rate Dynamic content highest, with a score of 8.5.

The most common users of Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

 (529)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-2 of 2)
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Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
January 21, 2014

Lisa's Thoughts on ExactTarget

Lisa Franks | TrustRadius Reviewer
Lisa Franks
Marketing Manager
Stens Corporation (Furniture, 5001-10,000 employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
ExactTarget was used by the marketing department to send email campaigns to the entire dealership base. Marketing is done primarily as B2B. Office furniture (industry where I used it at two separate companies) is somewhat of a commodity and tends to look very similar and be close in price point. Differentiating with marketing efforts was one way to stand out. ExactTarget made email communication to mass groups and segments easy.
Pros and Cons
  • Susbscriber list import and management is simple and easy to maintain.
  • Tracking/monitoring success of campaigns is thorough and relevant for both marketers and management.
  • Creation of text-based emails based on HTML (graphical) emails is simple.
  • Design and layout of emails - very tough to create lists or tables of information in the body of emails. To get formatting to look right, have to use HTML scripting.
  • Reactivating a subscriber who has unsubscribed accidently is not a simple feat!
  • Pricing! For a small to mid-size company that could benefit from ExactTarget, the pricing can be prohibitive.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is great for larger corporations with a larger budget, have experience with HTML or IT support on staff, and have numerous subscribers (email recipients) to send email campaigns. It is easy to create lists (sub-sets of subscribers) in ExactTarget. Very easy to manage numerous subscribers with the tool. Complex emails can be enhanced with IT help or if the user of the tool has some general or mid-level HTML experience.
Return on Investment
  • For repeated emails sent that are similar and sent to different groups, modifying the emails and creating a personalized set of recipients is very easy - great ROI.
  • Easy to tell click-through rates for effectiveness of the email look and call to action. My experiences are not online purchasing, rather B2B overall marketing, so no direct sales ROI is possible.
  • Based on the pricing I experienced of cost per email sends, the price can be a deterrent to using ExactTarget, and why it has not been implemented at my current company....yet.
Alternatives Considered
Spam checking, ease of subscriber list management and overall experience and knowledge of email marketing were at the top of the list when selecting ExactTarget. At my current company we have chosen a less sophisticated solution based on price, and do not have some of the list management or testing options available to us.
Likelihood to Renew
7
At this stage in my current company I have not been able to get the budgeting funds to justify ExactTarget, although I do believe there are extensive benefits to the ET solution. Having a solution that could be personalized by sales rep for their correspondence to dealers with variable contact information would be highly beneficial and less manual than what we are doing today with our current solution. Having the ability to setup templates and take the marketing interaction out of the email campaigns would be idea.
Users and Roles
5
Marketing is the primary department that uses ExactTarget. IT assistance, specifically web developers, as also used as support for the tool for HTML coding logic. Graphic designers create our email heading images that are visually appealing, with text behind the images, should the recipient only have text based email or their company's spam filter block images.
Support Headcount Required
4
Knowledge of ExactTarget by the marketing group is necessary for use of the tool. IT assistance, specifically web developers, as also used as support for the tool for HTML coding logic. Graphic designers create our email heading images that are visually appealing, with text behind the images, should the recipient only have text based email or their company's spam filter block images.
Business Processes Supported
  • Communication of new products and new product introductions
  • Promotional opportunity communication
  • Reseach of information (surveys) for preferences of our customer base
Innovative Uses
  • Employee surveys
  • linking to videos
  • Social media following by recipients
Future Planned Uses
  • Personalized email campaigns by sales territory
  • Direct integration with Salesforce.com
  • have more template emails that are sent by the sales team without marketing interaction
Products Replaced
No
Key Differentiators
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Analyst Reports
Industry reputation, which was very positive, confirmed that the features we needed and wanted were available with Exact Target. We wanted a reliable product that could assure we were sending legally compliant emails and would manage our subscribers appropriately. Email design and administration of the tool were important as well and adequately met our needs.
Evaluation Lessons Learned
I would evaluate the price per email spend compared to the actual number of emails that are planned over the course of the contract year compared to other product offerings. I would also include design capabilities and request a test period prior to signing a contract for the tool. Although I don't feel our choice would be different, it would confirm that is the best product for the price and the effort of using.
Implementation Details / Implementation Partner
  • Implemented in-house
Implementation Phases
No
Change Management Lessons
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled
It was important to communication and get buy-in from the sales team that corporately developed emails would be created and distributed by the marketing team - making sure the brand consistency, look, messaging, and intent were similar between campaigns. Random, less well-thought-out emails from sales or other groups without marketing involvement were highly discouraged...that directional change did take some transition time to accomplish.
Implementation Issues
  • Learning the tool - design of email usage
  • Subscriber cleansing
  • HTML knowledge needed
Implementation Rating
8
Easy to implement, with simple emails and solutions initially created. More advanced usage of the tool and more advanced subscriber attribute usage was implemented during later phases when the knowledge of the tool increased. Monitoring success and results of email campaigns were done at a high level initially, but not fully used until the tool and email marketing as a whole was better understood in the corporation.
Training Types Used
  • Online training
  • Self-taught
Premium Support
No
Online help, as well as support staff assistance is adequate to answer questions. Typically support is a "how to" situation, rather than an actual problem that needs to be addressed. Paying for additional support and services was not necessary, as the information available is sufficient to solve the everyday questions that we have had.
Support Rating
8
Support from ExactTarget is very responsive and helpful. The follow-up is timely and the online help actually answered most of my questions and gave information that I needed without having to file an actual help ticket with the support desk. It is also nice to be able to email or CALL (with real people) for support, when needed.
Bug Resolution
No
Exceptional Examples of Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio Support
When trying to get a subscriber (email recipient) who had unsubscribed accidently to be an active subscriber again for our company, I called the customer support line and filed an issue. I had also looked at the online help, but needed more information to help get things resolved. With the help of the support person, they quickly assisted and we got the subscriber back to an active status so they could receive communication from our company.
Easy Tasks
  • List management
  • Spam checking
  • text-email creation from html emails
Difficult Tasks
  • formatting body of emails
  • reactivating a subscriber who unsubscribed accidently
  • pricing!
Usability
8
I think the tool is easy to use, protects a company from the spam legislation and manages subscribers very well. It is simple to create a non-complex email. I like the survey function on the email tool as well. Overall usability is quite easy and no necessary to have an IT background or extensive knowledge to use. It is helpful, though, to have an understanding of HTML for formatting at this point.
Scalability
9
We had approximately 20,000 recipients of most email campaigns, with some higher amounts and some smaller campaigns. The tools is easy to use and the recipient list size is really not a factor in the complexity or work to create and email campaign. Our campaigns could just have easily been sent to many more people, with virtually no additional work.
Reliability and Availability
9
Upgrades and timing of the upgrades were communicated well and planned during off hours for our work. If we did have a campaign scheduled during that time, it would kick-off after the system was back active. There were a few unplanned system down times, but it was a rare occurrence and those times were also short in duration.
Performance
8
Exact Target performs well and is relatively easy to learn. It handles subscriber management well, and is easy to organize lists and segregation of those subscribers. Emails are easy to classify and group together for re-use or resending to different demographics of the recipients. The product is reliable, and metrics of the campaign results are easy to obtain and interpret.
February 27, 2013

Clunky UI. Strong analytics.

Verified User
Manager in Marketing
Apparel & Fashion Company, 51-200 employees
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Pros and Cons
  • Analytics on click-throughs and opens are very strong.
  • It's really easy for a non-technical user to seamlessly set up complex automations without having to do any technical programming. This is not always the case. Other tools often require assistance from technical staff to build complex automations.
  • Ability to do re-mailing just from the initial send. If we sent an email to a consumer who had abandoned their shopping cart and that consumer had not opened the email 24 hours later, we send another email with a different call to action, or a different subject line. In order to do this, we have to re-create the campaign - we have to pull a list and essentially recreate the campaign manually.
  • Drip campaigns are also manual and require another datafeed and data extension; they can't be based on opens/clicks or specific subscriber behavior.For example, if someone signs up on our website and receives a welcome email It might include an incentive to purchase like free shipping. If they dont use the offer or don't click through the email, they get another email within a week, perhaps showcasing other products. In other words, emails are sent in a drip sequence based on consumer behavior to prompt primary or secondary purchase. This all has to be managed manually. We pull a report, take all the contacts who have not taken any action, upload a new email file and re-create a new email. This is very time-consuming.
Return on Investment
  • Increased conversion on potential lost sales.
Likelihood to Renew
2
Some of this dissatisfaction is related to the functionality issues described above regarding re-mailing and drip campaigns, but a big part of the reason is customer support. When I was at an agency, I had used this product many times with different clients and the support definitely seemed to be getting worse, and was also quite variable depending on the size and clout of the client company. This was very problematic.
Likelihood to Recommend
Make sure when negotiating your contract, that they include Inbox Deliverability tools such as IP reports, etc. I would also maintain a working relationship with your rep; when you submit tech cases, CC your rep - so that they are in the loop.
Users and Roles
2
One developer and myself.
Support Headcount Required
2
Business Processes Supported
  • The primary use case was to develop an abandoned cart program. In other words, prompt customers who had placed items in the shopping cart, but not actually purchased them to make a purchase. Every morning we would send a data file of cart abandonments to ExactTarget. Automated emails would then be sent out to consumers who had abandoned purchase with incentives to encourage them to buy (e.g. free shipping).
Products Replaced
We switched from Constant Contact to Exact Target.
Alternatives Considered
Bronto, Delivra
Implementation Details / Implementation Partner
  • Vendor implemented
Implementation Rating
6
Training Types Used
  • Self-taught
Ease of Salesforce Marketing Cloud Email Studio Training
It can be difficult to read and understand their documentation without having some sort of walk through training first.
Premium Support
No
Support Rating
6
Although support was not terrible, they have grown rapidly in last couple of years and bad service is an unfortunate by-product of that growth. The company has grown too fast.
Usability
2
ExactTarget had just launched Interactive Marketing Hub when I started using it. Before they didn't have anything similar and their other tools were much more developer back end focused. This legacy clearly showed in the product which was quite clunky and technical looking. It dod not have a clean marketing-like UI.
Pre-Sale Experience
Great - during the sales process.

Post sales - my rep fell off the radar. There were multiple missed connections both on the phone and even scheduled in-person meetings. This was a big issue.
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