Getting our ACT together, A SmartThought Review of ACT-ON
Updated June 16, 2015
Getting our ACT together, A SmartThought Review of ACT-ON
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Latest
Modules Used
- All in One System including Inbound Marketing
Overall Satisfaction with Act-On
ACT-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.
- 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.
We are software selection advisers, therefore, we are constantly working with organizations searching for various tools to help them. That noted, the decision to go forward with ACT-On as opposed to others options was a bit unique. The key factor was we knew what we wanted and needed. We defined our requirements and based our decision on what we were attempting to accomplish. The other marketing automation software tools offer some great features so it was a tough decision. The key for us was finding an easy to use tool, a marketing automation platform which provided both inbound and outbound capabilities, and a tool which we could grow with long term in our respective business interests.
Using Act-On
2 - Marketing, Sales, Management
1 - Basic understanding of Marketing & Sales. It is helpful to have a creative person involved due to the nature of marketing and the creativity involved in setting up, running, maintaining programs.
- 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
Evaluating Act-On and Competitors
Yes - We were using SwiftPage email marketing. Most organizations are finding that email marketing is a half cycle approach to the marketing equation. They require more than just the reports from emails. They need to integrate it into all aspects of marketing and the website is key. Further, they need to understand what activity and where the buyers are in the journey or relationship with your organization. Therefore, we wanted to move up into something more than what our provider could do.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Vendor Reputation
Usability. We were concerned that the system was going to be too difficult. We found the demonstrations and trial to be very easy to work with and in "real life" it's the same. The "how to" is easy and logical. And, the onboarding support was very good as well.
We work with clients who go through evaluation of software so the actual evaluation process was not an issue. We would not change anything.
Act-On Implementation
- Implemented in-house
- Our own lack of knowledge of what to expect
Act-On Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
No - I have not found that it was necessary. However, I would say that having a support partner channel is quite necessary when you get into the strategy behind marketing automation not necessarily the tool itself.
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.
Using Act-On
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Inbound Marketing
- Reports
- Segmentation of Lists
- Templates not very comprehensive