Item: Ion, by Rock Content
Rating: 8
Author: Ken Ugel

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use ion interactive for specific clients' webpages, landing pages, mobile pages, and emails. It is currently only used in the performance content department, which is responsible for creating content for our clients. We are able to put our designs and creations together and onto ion interactive, and have the client help add links, clickTags, TFNs, Promo IDs, etc. This allows for the project to be created, tested, and pushed live very quickly rather than many back-and-forth communications that would be present in basic workplaces.

Pros and Cons

Organizing campaigns, portfolios, and creatives.
Flexible editing within the creative studio.
Testing and pushing creatives live while giving thorough analytics and reports.

The layout and design of its main interface.
Easier to use frameworks; they always seem harder to edit and configure to function properly with Ion's creative studio capabilities.
Missing the ability to gather emails for a database.

Return on Investment

Faster lead conversion.
More click-throughs.
Quicker project management and timelines.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce, Exact Target and Optimizely

The ability to edit the original creative and create many variations of those gives this a much higher capability than other sites and programs.

Other Software Used

Adobe Photoshop, SharePoint Designer, Optimizely

Likelihood to Recommend

ion interactive is great for website creatives: editing, testing, and pushing live.

Users and Roles

10 - Website creation and management

Support Headcount Required

6 - Designers and developers

Business Processes Supported

Website creation
QA
A/B Testing

Innovative Uses

Duplicating content for variations

Future Planned Uses

More mobile capabilities for clients

Likelihood to Renew

10

Products Replaced

No

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Existing Relationship with the Vendor

Money makes the world go round...

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I would try to have a trial period for each product to see which product is best suited for our clients' needs.

Support Rating

9

The support team 9 times out of 10 have the perfect solution to my problem. The only other time that doesn't work is when the solution isn't capable for our client's needs, for example: changing a template to an updated ION template when we aren't allowed to switch from the client's framework. Other than that, the team is very responsive and helps us out whenever possible.

Ion, by Rock Content Customer Support Pros and Cons

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

Bug Resolution

Yes

Exceptional Examples of Ion, by Rock Content Support

One of our pages stopped functioning properly, and within a few minutes, their support team was able to find the problem and instruct us on how to fix it. So they have definitely been a major help when last minute emergencies have popped up from time to time. I usually feel more at ease when things like this happen because I know I'll be able to get help from them.

Usability

7

I believe that the entire system is fairly easily to pick up and learn quickly for most tech savvy people. There are a few things that may be harder to figure out if you are not familiar with how a fully functional website is set up, but for building basic web pages and simple microsites, this interface is very usable.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using	None

Easy Tasks

Organization
Page Layout
Creative Layout

Difficult Tasks

Framework organization

Great Webpage Creator and Manager

Overall Satisfaction with ion interactive