Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) reviews

The marketing automation choice when value-for-money matters

Opmerkingen: We moved from HubSpot to SharpSpring primarily because of the price: HubSpot can be very expensive, particularly if you need to use the CRM and marketing capabilities. HubSpot is the market leader in usability and reporting (in my opinion) so we did notice a difference when moving to SharpSpring, but for 95% of the activities we undertake SharpSpring is at least as good as HubSpot and often better. The grouping of landing pages into funnels is one example of some great SharpSpring functionality that helps make your campaigns more effective.

Pluspunten:

SharpSpring does everything you would expect at a competitive price. The tool is a very capable marketing automation system, with good email and automation capabilities, as well as some great tracking and social media features.

Minpunten:

Reporting is good, but not as good as the best (which is HubSpot in my opinion). Although the capabilities don't hold us back, it would be nice to be able to have easy ways to measure the performance of landing pages/funnels.

SharpSpring is the Best of the Best

Opmerkingen: My overall experience with SharpSpring has been wonderful! While the platform still has kinks to work out (what platform doesn't?), their customer service is amazing and they move at a rate unseen by others to make the platform better every day. I highly recommend them not just for their platform, but their people are friendly as well.

Pluspunten:

I really enjoy the various features that are available within the platform! It allows us to quickly and easily identify our prospects, capture their information on the website, and then market to them in a way that is meaningful and generates new business for us.

Minpunten:

In their mission to make their platform compete, they often focus on getting new features out quickly but then have to go back and update later. I've seen this happen for them with tools like Video Calling, which became quickly available due to COVID-19 but lacks the robustness of other dedicated video platforms that I would imagine most companies already use.

Not worth it

Opmerkingen: Not good. Lots of "oh yeah, sure, it does that." Only to find out that the software doesn't actually do what they just said it does or no one from sharpspring knows how to make it do that.

Pluspunten:

Seemed like a great and more affordable option compared to HubSpot. Not much else to say here since we had a boat load of issues with it.

Minpunten:

Everything was cumbersome. From onboarding to implementation. Even getting someone on the phone from the right department to help us when we had issues with email was a problem. Overall, really clunky and outdated. We ended up going to Hubspot and it's SO much better and not even that much more expensive especially when we think of all of the time we all wasted trying to get sharpspring to work.

My Review

Opmerkingen: Overall SharpSpring is a helpful tool for my marketing needs. It offers features like email marketing, lead generation, social media management, and detailed analytics at a reasonable cost.

Pluspunten:

SharpSpring is user-friendly, so I can easily use its features without needing a lot of technical knowledge. I can customize the platform to fit my specific marketing needs, making it easier to reach my goals. The analytics tools provide valuable data and insights into my marketing campaigns, helping me track performance and monitor leads.

Minpunten:

There are a limited number of email templates available, and they may not look as visually appealing. Apart from that, I don't have any other concerns or complaints about the platform.

SharpSpring a full marketing automation platform everyone

Opmerkingen: Our experience with Sharpspring has been very satisfactory, since it gives us control over each client from the moment they are born as a lead until they become a client. has given us to reduce response time to a client and have better control of all actions taken with them through Automation

Pluspunten:

Powerful tools for lead generation to pretty good customer management, tons of options to personalize a lot of aspect of the company. very good tools for building email marketing and landing pages with out third parties

Minpunten:

I think one point where sharpspring lose flexibility is on landing page creations, how designer we need more tools for layout.

Sharp Spring - A great email marketing tool and more!

Opmerkingen: SharpSpring is a complete email marketing tool that we use to reach out to clients and market to new leads. We use the automation tools to create drip campaigns and re-marketing campaigns for potential leads. We also use the page builder to build simple landing pages and sales funnels. The contact manager has the ability to mange our list of 30,000+ without any extra costs. It used by both our sales teams and client care teams to help the business grow. As a marketer I use SharpSpring to create campaigns that convert to sales and retention.

Pluspunten:

SharpSpring is a great tool for small to mid range companies looking to build email marketing campaigns. It has great templates which allow you to create emails that look great and are functional sales tools. There are also great automation tools for drip campaigns and re-targeting.

Minpunten:

The visual email builder can be finicky at times, resulting in editing directly in the code. If you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable formatting HTML code it can be overwhelming. Also, the social media tools are weak. It would be nice if I could schedule and post content directly from SharpSpring.

Full-featured marketing automation on a budget

Opmerkingen: Prioritizing leads for Salesforce, collecting customer feedback, and better tracking the effectiveness of marketing efforts are the key things we get out of SharpSpring. We are able to collect leads using SharpSpring forms and then deliver them to the right salesperson using their visual workflow tools. We can make lists and campaigns based on ANY criteria in the system, which is super impressive. The Life of the Lead is a revelation: Being able to see all digital interactions of our customers is a complete game-changer for Sales. With Life of the Lead, Sales is more informed and can take on calls armed with the right information to best serve the customer.

Pluspunten:

The support is top-notch. They go above and beyond to ensure all questions are answered. If there is a key feature needed in the software, they'll work to make sure that you get that feature or have a workaround. They respond quickly, and they are incredibly knowledgeable. It's hard to list just one thing I like best! It's the most competitively-priced tool on the market... and it's a fraction of the cost of nearly any other marketing automation tool on the market.

Minpunten:

With their constant upgrades, SharpSpring occasionally can be a bit buggy while features get ironed out. Nearly all issues have easy workarounds, and the fixes come fast. It's a minor quibble for a service that is basically as good as it gets.

SharpSpring user for 4+ years

Opmerkingen: We really are able to do so much more with our marketing. We can see the interaction of clients with our marketing as a whole, not just off of one campaign. We can trigger emails and actions based on their behaviors which is very beneficial.

Pluspunten:

Being a Partner for 4+ years has allowed us to grow with them. When they were a startup, we were able to really see the changes the partners were requesting and the software has come a long way. They really value their Partners (agencies).

Minpunten:

Sometimes SharpSpring likes to release new features, while they need to also work on continually improving their existing features.

SharpSpring Great Platform With Amazing Support

Opmerkingen: Overall the platform is powerful at a great price, and the team at SharpSpring wants you to succeed, and that shows in their support, courses, documentation, and forums. Not only does SharpSpring benefit Right to Evolve internally, but our clients and the work we do see the benefits as well.

Pluspunten:

SharpSpring has features to create marketing operations and track those campaigns either manually or automatically. Considering I can tie all the potential avenues of a campaign into one spot and see how users interact with is a great win. At a glance, it is essential to read the data and make the right decisions; SharpSpring brings all the data to one platform. It makes work more enjoyable that we can create a single campaign with a list of contacts, email templates, unique forms, dynamic pages, trackable media, automation, and analytics in one spot. Not to mention, once we create this base campaign and all its numerous pieces, I can then quickly use all the parts as a template to do another or a third, and so on. Making it very efficient over time. SharpSpring has a lot of features, but I am thrilled with our CRM, email marketing, ads, funnels, all in one location. All this and the support team have been top-notch every step of the way. I also like to learn myself, which they provide via courses, updated videos, and documents that my team and I can reference.

Minpunten:

Interface and design consistency are my two significant cons for this platform. Like most, once you know the platform and its interface, you can be very successful. No difference here except that the design process between creating emails, pages, and forms all have their unique process. I believe it would improve user efficiency if the page and email creator, for instance, had a standard procedure and the same layout of tools. The platform has a lot of features with more coming, so you have to know where all the pieces are between the settings, marketing, and sales menu layout.

Marketing Automation - at a fraction of the cost of Hubspot

Opmerkingen: I'm enjoying using it as being able to do everything in one platform makes life much easier and it's much more affordable than Hubspot. There are enough tools to keep the most experienced marketer busy to help attract leads through chat, emails, forms, landing pages etc...

Pluspunten:

The ability to create a clear sales funnel and track your client through the sales process is really easy and highlights areas where more work and focus might be needed in your sales process. There is a ton of features to engage users and build your audience, you just need to spend time and be open to exploring ideas. Implementing dynamic content which changes depending on the customer persona is cool. The support team always reply same day, there is online chat (US times) too.

Minpunten:

There are some definite bugs such as data fields 'locking' when creating a landing page and the later it becomes editable again. Strangely the design side of emails and landing pages is not cohesive. So you have a limited range of fonts in forms but lots of customisation for colours for headings, then the reverse for landing pages. Thinks like buttons for GDPR can't currently be customised which looks odd. Also, the onboarding process for Squarespace websites is different and this is not mentioned anywhere. Just needs to have someone invest some time to deal with all these issues and implement a decent upgrade. Generally, all very minor things but stacked up can provide a bit more challenging onboarding process than what it needs to be.

A great software alternative to Marketo or Pardot

Opmerkingen: It's a great platform overall. Expect great customer support, but also plan for a lot of time setting up automation workflows and action groups. But the tool will do what you need it to do, and then some.

Pluspunten:

The biggest plus is its affordability - all the features you need at a price that is accessible. It has all the core functions one needs in a marketing automation platform, with a powerful sales pipeline and lead management component that provides an exceptional, integrated experience. Added bonuses are chatbox and book-time features included in the price, and the ability to sync Outlook emails to a contact's record. Lead scoring

Minpunten:

The email editor can be a bit clunky and formatting copy and layouts can be finicky. The email previewer can be cumbersome. Visual workflows can be arduous to make

Sharpspring made sales tracking so much easier for me and my team

Opmerkingen: What really makes Sharpspring stand out from other platforms is their excellent customer service and constant improving of the features within the platform. Although the platform still has a few improving points, my experience overall has been very satisfying. I would recomend this 100% to other coleagues.

Pluspunten:

What I mostly appreciated about using sharpspring was the diverse range of features within the platform, since they identify and capture prospect information much easier; wich is very valuable in terms of sales optimization.

Minpunten:

Sharpspring has a very accelerated rate for putting out new features, to keep up and compete with other platforms, wich is a pro; however, the new features often need updates. Video Calling, for instance, was great by the time the pandemic began; however, it might not be as established as other video conference competitors.

We moved ourselves and our clients over from Hubspot

Opmerkingen: The support is always there for us if we need them, but any new feature is introduced with great support materials (how-to guides/videos etc) so the need for my team to refer to them is minimised. The pricing is great when you compare to others with similar functionality and they go from strength to strength.

Pluspunten:

Originally it was transparency and pricing that made us move. But since then it's the fact that Sharpspring have continued to develop the platform with great new features (like the inbuilt CRM, Sales Automation and integrated Meeting booking functionality) many of which at no additional cost (unlike Hubspot) that means we continue to use and recommend Sharpspring over any other platform for our SMB clients.

Minpunten:

I would like SMS functionality to be built in as well as email (I appreciate it's not as big in the USA where Sharspring's biggest customer base is) but it's big here in the UK

Comprehensive Marketing Automation Software

Opmerkingen: SharpSPring has been a massive help to our business. We are agency partners and we have grown our business by using the software and demonstrating the power of the software to others. SharpSpring themselves are always looking to improve the software and often realse new features or updates which improve the overall experience. They are constantly evolving and I like that. It's what is needed to keep at the forefront of today's marketing.

Pluspunten:

SharpSpring has a comprehensive range of tools to help you get the most from Marketing Automation. It integrates with your website easily and can track visitors to your site from all your differing campaigns. The tools are easy to use, once you have been through the training and can be manipulated to work together to suit your business. Delivering insights and analytics to help you tweak your marketing and increase your ROI.

Minpunten:

The software is comprehensive, so there is a learning curve. You can get started easily with it, but you have to continue to learn to get the real powerful insights from it. Setting up takes quite a lot of tweaking to get the results you need, but it is simple and powerful to use and delivers results right from the get go.

SharpSpring as our CRM

Opmerkingen: SharpSpring listens to its clients and provides an easy to use CRM. When I have a question, they have the answer! I enjoy my CRM experience with SharpSpring.

Pluspunten:

SharpSpring is extremely user friendly. It allows for automation through the entire sales funnel. From its Social Media capabilities to its impactful email marketing feature, SharpSpring improves our productivity from management to rep usage!

Minpunten:

In doing research, there was supposed to be an automatic integration with Qwilr. We have found that is not the case.

Must have for marketing and sales in growing business

Opmerkingen: I can't speak highly enough for the great staff. I have mentioned them in another part of this review, but they really have been a lifesaver going above and beyond. For example, I am not really comfortable with CSS and wanted a certain form to be two columns. I asked for reference material on how to make it happen. They sent me the materials AND the code to place in my form. AWESOME!!!!!

Pluspunten:

Everything you need to grow a business is in one place. The interface is easy to use and very intuitive. However, my favorite part of the company is the awesome support staff! Migrating from another platform, there is always a learning curve and workflow adjustment. If there was something we didn't know how to achieve in SharpSpring their friendly staff would explain with great detail how to get it done and integrate into the workflow we created.

Minpunten:

Their social posting, responding section of the software is still a bit weak and we do utilize another piece of software to get this done, but we remember their software is about the automation and converting leads to customers and it does that very well, so this is an easy area to compromise.

A lucrative alternative to other marketing automation platforms.

Opmerkingen: We use SharpSpring in two ways: to help generate and manage our leads to aid in our company business development efforts and to sell/offer the service to our clients to help them do the same. Currently, our digital marketers, account executives and business development teammates use the platform. SharpSpring helps us keep a close eye on where prospects are in their purchase journey.

Pluspunten:

The pricing model is favorable. We were able to onboard 2-3 clients almost immediately as compared to really struggling trying to sell HubSpot. The sightline on data and our sales pipeline is good and shows us that we are seeing value (however, our company needs to do more on our end to really leverage the tool).

Minpunten:

We haven't found a use for the content calendar function, compared to other methods we use. Lead scoring could be improved.

I love this CRM

Opmerkingen: I love that fact of being able to add buyer personas to the contact info and I love the personalization that is used on the Software. Oh and the templates that they provide are great and easy to use.

Pluspunten:

I like that I can do everything in one location. Also, I love the fact that Sharpspring is always adjusting with new things adding the system. If the software does not do something that you want to do. They put in to start working on that method or idea.

Minpunten:

If you get a hard bounce you can not update that contact with the new info on your own - you have to deal with support and send them the list of changes to be done.

SharpSpring is a phenomenal marketing automation platform.

Opmerkingen: SharpSpring is a superior marketing automation platform, with a very intuitive interface and offer the kind of support we have rarely seen in tech companies. They have worked harder to earn and keep our business than any other vendor we've ever worked with.

Pluspunten:

SharpSpring is a sleek system that offers outstanding tools for marketing automation. We researched a lot of platforms ranging from free to $1000s before going with SharpSpring. They have just the right amount of features that makes it the most useful for all of our clients, leaving off the bells and whistles that would inflate the price. Their interface is top-tier which makes using their system a breeze. The dashboard gives you a comprehensive look at everything you're running. Moving around the system is super simple and they make it easy to jump to different areas when you're building a sales program. I'd urge you to check out all the features on their website because there are too many to list, but I can say that what they have offered us is unbelievably comprehensive. We've also taken full advantage of their support which is outstanding. They have always been knowledgable and very friendly. Moreover, they won't let you off the phone until they are sure that the problem has been resolved! They also offer FREE continuing education programs like webinars to help make you more proficient at their program. SharpSpring is a superior marketing automation platform, with a very intuitive interface and offer the kind of support we have rarely seen in tech companies. They have worked harder to earn and keep our business than any other vendor we've ever worked with. You would do yourself a giant favor to give their system a test drive.

Minpunten:

I was not prepared for the steep learning curve that is required to take full advantage of this platform. I was a bit discouraged at first by everything there was to learn but I realized it's part of working with such a comprehensive platform. It's like moving to a new town and trying to figure out all the roads and highways. I don't know if that's really a con but it is something you must be aware of. You're going to need to spend some serious time learning it but once you do, navigating the system easily becomes second nature.

An Invaluable Tool, Though Not Perfect

Opmerkingen: We've been using SharpSpring for nearly a year at our agency, and have used almost every feature of it (SalesForce integration, automated workflows, API for custom reporting, full-on CRM, etc.). We love SharpSpring. In fact, in the past few months, SharpSpring has been responsible for helping us close nearly one million dollars in new business. As a B2B tool, the fact that we can see what businesses are browsing our site and reach out to them even if they don't submit a form is invaluable, and worth 10x cost. Every client we bring in gets put on the platform, and it's an indispensible part to growing their business. We are able to verify leads which instills confidence in our reporting, but also helps us evaluate the quality of leads and ROI through lead scoring and campaign assignments. We've used SharpSpring as white-labeled companion and even migrated some clients over to use it as their CRM. It's extremely versatile. SharpSpring's breadth of tools means you could be using it for a year and still not have used some of its features to the fullest of their ability (Dynamic Emails, Dynamic Web Content), and that's great... but it is also the cause of some frustration, as they sometimes rush out products to tout they have a new product, but that product will still feel very "beta" in nature. When dynamic landing pages were introduced we tried to use it for two weeks, and there was a bug that would wipe out whatever changes you made. We eventually abandoned using that tool, but came back several months later and it worked as it should have. The flip side of this is that SharpSpring is constantly working to improve. It is not a platform that rests on its laurels. You can also submit a feature or improvement to their team directly. Anytime we have had an issue, Customer Support has been great. Their agents have resolved our numerous issues quickly, whether its answering a quick implementation question or testing bugs for a larger issue. Overall, SharpSpring has been an integral tool to both our agency's growth but our clients' growth. And, though new tools sometimes feel buggy, we can easily overlook it due to the value it provides us.

Pluspunten:

Being able to leverage anonymous web user data to create actionable insights way before they fill a form out is invaluable. For an agency/B2B company, it is the most reliable new lead generator of any tool out there.

Minpunten:

New features roll out and feel like they should still be in beta. It has a few quirks like a lack of global date range filter that don't necessarily hinder reporting/analysis but are a slight inconvenience.

SharpSpring won me over from HubSpot

Opmerkingen: A couple of years ago our agency was a relatively happy HubSpot customer. We sold inbound services via HubSpot to our web development clients most often, but it was a hard sell and required a certain client profile to be successful. The most important aspect of an inbound client for us was deep pockets! Why? Simply because of the cost of the HubSpot platform. If a client had sufficiently deep pockets, AND was convinced of the business validity of inbound marketing versus traditional methods, the full court press was on. To give HubSpot credit, they got very involved in the client sales process and they provided a lot of tools to aid agencies in the inbound sales process, BUT, all of that comes at a cost. A significant cost. While HubSpot gets a lot of credit for pioneering the inbound marketing platform space, they have become, in this agencies opinion, a bit bloated over the years. What we mean is that they provide so much it is sometimes difficult to choose what is most important to push and provide for each client. The net effect is, however, that whatever your client does want to do, Personas, email marketing, automation, web site development, contact list management etc., it's all included. So what's the downside? Their strength is their biggest weakness. No matter how little or how much of HubSpots resources you use, the cost is the same. Of course there are tiers of cost, but even the lowest tier is roughly ten times the cost of SharpSpring. So use a little, pay a lot. Use a lot, pay a lot. Now we at CX3 Group don't necessarily sell on price, however, if the tools that you bring to the table for your clients are less expensive, but still as, or more, effective, it gives the agency a lot of flexibility when customizing various packages to promote. While generally content with HubSpot back in the day, we are extremely pleased with SharpSpring. Approaching our two year anniversary with them we take every opportunity to sing their praises, and it's NOT just about pricing.
While SharpSpring is a fraction of the cost, of HubSpot (& others) the features it includes are all the features we ever really used with HubSpot. That is to say, we are paying for what we use, and not paying for anything that sits in the cupboard looking pretty, but we don't need.
If I had more space here I'd go into the newest features that SharpSpring has rolled out over the past 6 months. Suffice it to say, we're a very happy and satisfied SharpSpring client! -CX3 Group

Pluspunten:

Cost vs. benefit. Has all of the features our clients want or need, without a bunch of stuff we have to pay for that they don't need.

Minpunten:

It's a struggle to find something I don't like, but if it was one thing over the past two years, it would be the lack of support on the sales side for our clients. More customized training and presentations for client side would be great.

SharpSpring is a Gamechanger for Campaign Tracking

Opmerkingen: SharpSpring has been a successful decision for our agency since we got it in 2017. Within the first month it was making a huge positive difference for us and our clients. Their support has been a big part of our success with it and it continues to be an essential part of our digital marketing offering.

Pluspunten:

The biggest benefit of SharpSpring is having visibility into the leads we generate. In the past we could see impressions and clicks and website visits from our campaigns. Now we are seeing the actual leads and being able to follow activity after the initial contact. The added visibility has been an absolute game changer in the value we can provide our clients. I really like the Life of the Lead feature where once you have a lead in the system you can track all their activity in great detail, seeing when they came back to the website, what pages they went to, if they opened emails, etc. We've even had instances where clients claimed they were not getting leads from our campaigns and once SharpSpring was installed, not only could we now provide reports of leads we were generating, but we caught a hole in their customer service where leads we were providing were not getting responses from scheduling staff. So we not only provided reports of the leads we generated, but helped close a gap in a serious customer service issue that was happening.

Minpunten:

It takes quite a bit of effort to get up to speed on SharpSpring as there are a lot of moving parts. But their support is great and always gets back to us quickly and efficiently to keep us on track.

SharpSpring is YES for my company, e-Intelligence.in

Opmerkingen: I recommend to use the software as it: Provides customized reports and other features that fit your marketing needs Comes with powerful features of marketing automation with easy functionalities Offers cost-effective pricing plans Updates itself continuously Combines with most CRM, eliminating the concerns of the type of hosting platform Gives amalgamation of functions in one platform for delivering marketing results, lead conversions, and easy ROI measurement However, you need to spare some time to understand the software’s deliverables. But they offer free webinars to help you to understand the tool.

Pluspunten:

SharpSpring is an automated marketing platform with features of third-party CRM integration, universal CMS compatibility, fully integrated call tracking, landing pages, blog builder and much more. It provides unlimited users for all plans, unlike its competitors. What it says vs. what it delivers: It says: It offers behavioral-based email automation with “after-the-click” tracking for personalized messaging. Yes, it delivers: With the feature, we were able to identify the cost of a lead. It also helped to decrease the unaddressed customer complaints It says: It offers in-depth analytics with statistics of clicks, bounces, and deliveries. It also enables to track the visitor’s conversions, the life cycle of a lead – from click to attending social events. No, it does not deliver: The reports and analytics are not in detail, though they provide the performance of campaigns. It misses the specifications on minute details of the strategy. It says: It offers customization in every feature such as customized conversion forms, buyer personalities, reports and much more. Yes, it delivers: My team at e-Intelligence were able to customize the tool for lead preferences, campaign performance, and email automation

Minpunten:

Nothing that I can think of! I suggest making the most of this tool for your marketing needs. You can overlook minor glitches as they are not affecting the tool’s performance to a large extent.

SharpSpring is Coming Up The Ranks for Our Automation & Analytics!

Pluspunten:

At first, I was hesitant to jump on board with SharpSpring as I have used the bulkier parent company software from Constant Contact and did not love... I thought this would be similar and I was already familiar with HubSpot's array of marketing automation applications; however, I was a little wrong! I still prefer HubSpot for larger, more profitable or sizable I guess I should say, companies. For my non-profit and social enterprise ventures, however, it is actually very much aligned to the effectiveness as the aforementioned competitor but for half the price. I like that I can get detailed analytics while setting up true smart content triggers for pre-existing materials in a way that makes sense and is strategic for my audience at the right time in the right way.

Minpunten:

The interface to me feels almost too simplistic as if it is dumbed down, even aesthetics wise. I am big on the look and feel of a system, especially if I'm going to be in it regularly. Also the social media capabilities and deeper, detailed analytics for lead management and creation at the top of the marketing funnel (or circulating flywheel if you're into more "modern times" industry lingo) are not up to snuff in comparison to HubSpot. But in comparison to the rest of the product market, SharpSpring is up there within the ranks!

More stable solutions exist

Opmerkingen: overall application works OK, however, the non operational automations (workflows that do not fire, automated lists that do not self-populate) make the use of this application frustrating and annoying. If it were up to me, I would migrate away to a more stable/solid digital marketing application... To be fair, there is no perfect software solution and as a user we must expect "odditites". Of all the software solutions we have used, SharpSpring has the most bugs and "oddities" of the lot...

Pluspunten:

Easy to use Great support team - tickets are handled in a timely fashion Easy to implement Great Documentation Great for small, uncomplicated implementations - If your implementation will involve more complex requirements and/or CRM functionalities, stay away from SharpSpring CRM works Ok

Minpunten:

Automations are not always automatic - work flows sometimes do not work, expect to do manual work. List segmentations do not always populate automatically - automated lists do not alwys self populate according to their rules Custom reports are not custom (you cannot filter by custom fields, for example) Reporting in SharpSpring is very poor It is easier to export information to Excel to generate useful reports Social functionalities are very shallow