Item: Conductor
Rating: 8
Author: Meghan MacDonald

Overall Satisfaction with Conductor Searchlight

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Conductor is being used by our marketing department to take a close look at our organic performance across areas we cover as a research company. The insight pulled from the platform not only helps us drive our content marketing efforts, but is also shared with our research department so gauge what areas we should focus on in research to improve mindshare.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Identifies keywords driving traffic to your website (in many cases where Google Analytics has no data, Conductor has a lot)
Surfaces areas of organic strength without requiring any digging on our part
Customer service and onboarding - theirs is probably the best I've seen in SaaS

Cons

The names for different reporting areas can be confusing and easy to forget if you're only in the platform once every few weeks

Return on Investment

Uncovered issues with SEO we were unaware of before using Conductor
Reinforced the need to focus on organic marketing
Identified areas where we can actually beat our largest competitors

Support Rating

I haven't yet engaged with professional services, but I feel Conductor's onboarding and CS programs are the best I've seen. We even transitioned to new success managers and account managers throughout the year which can frequently be a headache with vendors, but they managed the entire process smoothly and gave me no cause for concern.

Alternatives Considered

We use Google Analytics and SpyFu for various projects but no products that directly compete with Conductor.

Likelihood to Recommend

I fought very hard at my company in early 2017 to purchase Conductor, and it's not a decision I regret. I think their tool offers amazing insight and super-simple workflows that make focusing on organic marketing a breeze. Their dashboard capabilities are impressive and something I try and share with my executive team as often as possible.

One issue we've struggled with at 451 this year is team downsizing and having enough time to devote to organic marketing in general (not just the platform), so I would caution anyone who's concerned about their inability to focus on organic from a bandwidth perspective. Conductor is a relatively expensive option compared to what else is in the market (with good reason, but expensive nonetheless) and for me, with less time to focus on organic, it's been hard to show our investment paid off this year.

Conductor Feature Ratings

Using Conductor Searchlight

Usability

I think Workspaces (plus the ability to easily add widgets to them without creating them yourself) are the best features. InsightStream is really helpful when I don't have time to dig into any particular area.

Comments

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Joe Taylor
commented 8 years ago
Meghan, thanks so much for this thoughtful review. I'm sorry to hear that your team downsized but am encouraged to hear that we've been able to help by increasing efficiency. We've worked with plenty of companies who've been in your position, so feel free to lean on us if we can be helping more during the adjustment period. As we continue to build and improve our customer experience, our goal is to be the best partner you've ever worked with. Hearing that we have hit that goal on a few fronts for you and 451 is great to hear. We will keep working hard to provide you with the best experience possible and if we are ever off he mark, never hesitate to tell us. Thanks for the feedback on the UI, specifically the naming conventions. We continue to focus on making things simpler and have some updates coming soon that will help. The line is always open for more feedback here. Thank you again, Joe Taylor Director of Customer Success jtaylor@conductor.com

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