Item: Blackbaud Luminate Online
Rating: 1
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Luminate

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Luminate Online to generate weekly e-newsletters. It is used by our communications department but we aggregate content from various departments throughout the Library. We also use it to send out the occasional special news blast. We use it to communicate news about upcoming programs, classes, and events, announce collection news, and advertise upcoming exhibits.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Attempts to adapt to various browsers and email servers.
Customer service was sometimes helpful.
It was easy to end our contract.

Cons

The content management system is extremely glitchy. It does not function as it is supposed to.
We were charged for exceeding our list limit because 1) no one notified that we were nearing that ceiling and b) all bounces and non-functional email addresses counted towards the total.
I often had to wait for a very long time to speak to a customer service representative, and occasionally they would end the call and email me a non-helpful PDF from the "help" tab.
The system is not intuitive.
If you accidentally click out of the "edit" tab without saving, you are not prompted to save your work and you can lose everything.

Alternatives Considered

Constant Contact

I would highly recommend Constant Contact over Luminate. The interface is easier, the customer service is better, and it's so much cheaper. We use a separate payment processing system (Stripe) and are now in the process of switching from Luminate to Constant Contact. Constant Contact also gave us a hefty discount for being a non-profit.

Other Software Used

Adobe Photoshop, TimeForce, Pinnacle

Likelihood to Recommend

I would not recommend Luminate to anyone unless they are looking to waste a lot of time doing something that can be done much more simply with any of the other myriad email marketing systems available. Luminate is also ludicrously expensive. I do not think it is well-suited to any function.

Luminate Training

Online Training

Configuring Luminate

Product Configurability

Comments

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Kathryn Hall
commented 8 years ago
Thank you for your feedback about Luminate Online. I'm sorry you haven't found the value in the system during the time you've been using it. Luminate Online Marketing is designed to track and enable all online interactions with your nonprofit supporters. So while individual modules like email can be used separately, the real value in the system comes when used holistically as a part of a digital engagement strategy. So for instance, the Donate links in your emails automatically direct people to a donation form that displays a "dynamic ask", with suggested giving amounts tailored to the individual supporter based on their past giving history. Our Customer Success team exists to help people get the most use out of the system and I'd be happy to connect you with a Luminate Online software strategist. If you'd like to have further discussion, please contact me at kathryn.hall@blackbaud.com.

Looking for a glitchy time-waster? Try Luminate Online!

Modules Used