STAY AWAY FROM ZOHO CAMPAIGNS IF YOU VALUE YOUR SANITY!
August 24, 2018
STAY AWAY FROM ZOHO CAMPAIGNS IF YOU VALUE YOUR SANITY!
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Zoho Campaigns
We use Zoho Campaigns for lead generation and communicating with existing customers. It is solely used by the marketing department.
- I use it because it is a "free" program that "comes with" our CRM tool. I don't find this to be a useful tool at all. It is a major pain to use and I don't recommend it to anyone who does "real" email marketing. I've been doing email marketing for 18 years and I have never used a worse program than this one. Seriously - take my advice and use MailChimp. The marketing automation that Zoho claims this feature has, is awful. After using it for almost two years, I dread every time I have to create a new email.
- Zoho should start by throwing this tool in the trash and then recreate it from scratch. There are so many flaws I would be here all year trying to list them all. Start by the fact that creating templates is an absolute nightmare. You'll find over and over again that something that should be easily executed can't be done. It is NOT a plug and play program. Everything is trial and error.
- The reporting SUCKS bad. It gives you basics, but if you want any real insights... I have to export all my data into my own spreadsheets to compare results from multiple campaigns.
- Customer service is B.A.D. You'll spend HOURS upon HOURS with a tech support team that knows less than you. The only time anything gets accomplished is when you work with a programmer. BUT, you'll seriously waste 1-2 hours explaining a problem to someone who is only taking notes. You'll get so frustrated when they try to show you how they think it works and you respond with... "I know how this works because I have used it for a year - the problem is that it stopped working the way it always did before. They will argue with you. You will respond accordingly. They will close tickets without resolution. Speaking of tickets, you'll never get one. They say they will take care of it and a week later you will follow-up and no one will have any idea what is going on. You'll start from scratch and be even more frustrated. You will learn to "fix" it on your own or deal with it, broken.
- After two years, I'm still not sure if my emails even make it to an inbox. When asked, you'll be told that you need to write better subject lines. I call bull****. Don't rely on this product to deliver your email. And don't question Zoho, as it will always be your fault.
- You can't use this tool to send to ANY group email addresses. You can't even override the system. I have a lot of clients that use info@xxx.com or sales@xxx.com, etc. and I have to send them personal emails since this will not allow them to be sent. They say it is to protect them from getting blacklisted. I call bull**** again.
- The templates offered by the system are crap - unless you only send holiday emails. Not a large selection of just generic templates. You'll be pulling your hair out trying to use their builder to create your own. In the end, you'll end up sending emails with nothing "pretty" about them.
- Our sales team is doing really well because of the CRM tool. The campaigns tool has made zero difference to our bottom line. If I sent more emails I would have switched to a service provider like MailChimp over a year ago.
Campaigns came with Zoho CRM, so that's the ONLY reason I use this product. I can't justify paying for MailChimp when I have a free product. BUT, if I paid for this I would have switched a long time ago. In fact, I would have never picked it because it doesn't even compare to what providers like MailChimp can offer.