Item: GoTo Webinar
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use GoTo Webinar for hosting recurring and individual webinars; the majority of our use cases are for recurring training webinars for our client base. We have no less than 8 recurring webinars we run on a weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly basis. We use the design customization and the automated reminder/follow-up emails that also include the recording of the respective webinar.

Pros and Cons

Reminder and follow-up emails
Custom color schemes/logos per webinar
Ability to automatically send recording of webinar to both attendees and registrants who did not attend

Can't schedule recurring webinars twice per week or every other week--must manually add or delete instances.
Can't schedule recurring webinars more than 'x' number of instances (less than a year's worth).
If you want a recurring webinar to continue past the last instance (in order to keep the same link), your only option is to manually add future instances before the last one occurs. If the last instance occurs, the webinar (and corresponding link) are archived with no recourse and you must recreate it from scratch and update every bit of external collateral with a new link. So I have to have reminders on my calendar every 6 months to go in and add additional dates for all my recurring webinars in order to keep my links active.
Canceling/changing seats is a huge pain.
The default 'join' screen is app-based rather than web based, so registrants often have to download GTW. I have a lot of clients whose computers are locked down from unapproved apps and have missed the webinar because the ability to join on the web is very unintuitive.

Return on Investment

Good: We've been able to keep various client teams trained up on our product
Good: It helps us automate communication about the webinars, as well as follow-ups
Bad: There is a time suck that shouldn't exist surrounding the recurring scheduler which needs to be rethought and retooled with more than the most basic real world use cases in mind

Usability

Every platform like this has areas of improvement that need to be focused on--modernized interfacing or buggy functionality. I think the in-webinar toolbar is helpful, but could use a refresh. The most impactful negative on usability is definitely the lack of logic in the scheduler, as I've mentioned ad nauseum.

Alternatives Considered

Zoom Events & Webinars

While Zoom has similar functionality, the interface on GTW is more friendly and easier to navigate. They are both very similar on price-points, too.

Key Insights

Do you think GoTo Webinar delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with GoTo Webinar's feature set?

Yes

Did GoTo Webinar live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of GoTo Webinar go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy GoTo Webinar again?

Yes

Other Software Used

ActiveCampaign, Animoto, Zapier

Likelihood to Recommend

It's great for one-time/on-demand meetings and for very standard recurring webinars (e.g. once per week or once per month), but the the number of instances you can schedule at once is so few compared to what we're all used to being able to do in a simple Outlook scheduler. Adding instances to keep a link active is a big pain point, and the screen where you add more future instances doesn't even remember the last month you were scheduling within, or the time of every other webinar, so let's say it is May and I'm now adding instances in November, each time I save one, the calendar brings me back to May and resets my webinar time. It's a little thing, but having to constantly scroll back to the month I was adding to and remembering to update my time again is annoying. I do like being able to customize the look & feel of the registration page per webinar with logos and brand colors because I host webinars for different companies, so it's nice for them to see their own branding. I like the automated reminders and follow-ups. I like that I can include the recordings automatically.

GoTo Webinar-- the good and the not as good

Overall Satisfaction with GoTo Webinar