Marketing automation at a price that won't kill your ROI
February 03, 2017
Marketing automation at a price that won't kill your ROI
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Overall Satisfaction with SharpSpring
We use SharpSpring for both internal and client marketing automation. SharpSpring lets us build and analyze automated digital marketing campaigns. The system is built off of a powerful email service provider backbone, and builds in a landing page with a form builder, VisitorID tools; a light-weight CRM, and a laundry list of other vital marketing automation features.
On the marketing automation side, SharpSpring allows us to identify qualified web traffic faster than we would be able to with standard analytics tools.
On the marketing automation side, SharpSpring allows us to identify qualified web traffic faster than we would be able to with standard analytics tools.
- Excellent lead scoring capabilities. SharpSpring has strong built-in lead scoring and (just recently added) a persona manager. These tools can be used effectively in their default configurations, but are fully customizable as well.
- The built-in CRM is great for many of the small and mid-size businesses we talk to. For teams that don't have a complex sales structure, the SharpSpring CRM is an excellent choice, and actually more streamlined than some better known tools like Salesforce.
- The landing page builder is great; it provides strong landing-page building options without the need to invest in stand-alone landing page services.
- The email service needs to build in a web-hosted version. While it's not vital, many people still click the "view this email on the web" links in email—once this is added, there really won't be anything important that you can't do in SharpSpring.
- On the analytics side, you can't yet knock out IP addresses or ranges from results. This means that internal staff will show up in web traffic reporting. This issue becomes less important for larger companies with more visitors—but it can skew results with smaller businesses.
- SharpSpring is still building up its library of tutorials, but they don't have quite as many on file as the bigger, pricier marketing automation tools like HubSpot.
- SharpSpring has helped us identify more prospects, qualify more leads, and through these efforts increase sales.
- We've been able to reduce the time between a client submitting a contact form or request for information and response through use of SharpSpring email automations.
- SharpSpring has allowed us to better manage both internal and client email marketing through deep list segmentation. Our messages are getting more precise, and we're starting to observe trends with which customers are interested in which content.
SharpSpring provides the marketing automation features that typically require a big spend with a tool like Pardot or HubSpot. The more expensive tools can be great for big, enterprise activations that require deep integration with resource management software or that need to closely manage sales rep territories. But, SharpSpring is an extremely effective, affordable option for just about everyone else. On the other end of the spectrum, SharpSpring is better assembled and thought out than other lower-priced offerings like Hatchbuck.