Act-On

A Solid Marketing Automation Platform

Opmerkingen: We are a media publisher that used Act-On primarily for sending out marketing emails — about 20+ a month, supporting a white paper site, and hosting 2 webinars a month. Act-On made it super easy to set up and market webinars from the initial thought, through sending a copy of the webinar to attendees when done and every step along the way. I've used about 4 different marketing automation platforms and I can tell you that Act-On was by far the easiest to send email campaigns in, from initial email creation to sending.

Pluspunten:

I liked that over the past four years I have worked with the product I have seen it grow leaps and bounds. They have a team that is dedicated to making smart improvements with the product.

Minpunten:

Like all products this isn't perfect. I had the most problems with our sales rep kept changing. Also, once in a blue moon a feature would change without proper notification.

If you take advantage of all of its features, you will succeed.

Pluspunten:

We chose Act-on as our marketing automation software because of its native integration with Salesforce, our CRM at the time. We made the move from Marketo, and Act-on has a much easier user interface. There were so many things we could track and do. We had great customer service, including weekly calls with a customer experience rep.

Minpunten:

Like most marketing automation software, the key to success is learning all of the ins and outs of the system, then create a strategy surrounding it. If you don't have someone on your team willing to take advantage of all of the features, the price might outweigh the benefit. Our customer experience rep could have helped more in overall strategy and campaign building, but they were incredibly busy, too busy to go in depth on those items. The team ended up moving to a simpler and cheaper product because they weren't taking advantage of everything Act-on had to offer.

Over-promising and under-delivering are key traits of Act-On

Opmerkingen: Overall I would give Act-On a low pass. The issues with customer service, slightly overpriced and the lack of proper development plagued my experience. If I could go back, I would have used HubSpot or Marketo. At the moment, we have cancelled our Act-On account after 3-4 years and are using a stack of SaaS solutions tied into our practice management system. This is far more cost efficient, easy to use and with better customer service. My advice would be for businesses considering using Act-On due to the price of the above-mentioned competitors to use a stack approach instead of using this system. Using Vision6/Campaign Monitor/MailChimp in tandem with a better landing page provider (Unbounce, Instapage) linked to a CRM would be far better. Stay away, particulalry due to the service - this is even more important for Australian based consumers.

Pluspunten:

The system was pretty easy to use. The set-up process for lead nurturing, forms, creating newsletters and other tools were pretty useful.

Minpunten:

Customer service, account limits, aesthetics were below average. The customer service was woeful, the original salesperson who on-boarded me and two referral partners promised the world features wise. Lots of nice looking mocks and promises were made yet nothing provided. On the customer service side of things, on two occasions when the unique contacts and email limit was exceeded the entire system shuts-down. All nurturing campaigns cease and there is no ability to send any emails at all. It took two weeks for someone to be able to apply a temporary increase to allow our marketing efforts to continue.

ACT-ON customer service is fading fast

Opmerkingen: I was looking for an email tool that integrates with MS CRM and this product fits the bill. It allows you to drip campaigns, which is nice (albeit not intuitively). Just make sure you give yourself ample time for their assistance.

Pluspunten:

In the landscape of marketing automation systems, ACT-ON is not the most powerful solution, but it is not the most expensive. It works quite well for our needs.

Minpunten:

I generally don't need a lot of support, but if I can't find a solution on their knowledge base, I have no choice but to call them directly. Ever since ACT-ON closed one of there offices a few months ago, it has been taking me an hour to get through on their support line. I had someone email in June and said they would get back to me very soon. After 6 weeks, I emailed them back and then received a response.

This is really a marketing tool that has build some features for salespeople

Pluspunten:

I like that it will track my emails and log them to our CRM (Microsoft Dynamics). I like that I can get a daily email letting me know of known and anonymous visitors to our website.

Minpunten:

It's clunky to try and track down a specific email to see if the recipient has interacted with it. This is really a tool that is more valuable to marketing, but has built some features that are being sold as a sales tool. It's a nice to have, but not a need for sales.

A good beginner tool for email automation, but overall is falling behind other, inexpensive software

Pluspunten:

The software interface is mostly drag and drop, which is helpful for non developers and non designers alike to create modern, effective emails. With automation and A?B testing, it is great for marketing research and drop or nurture campaigns. Each account is attached to a customer service representative, and they are very helpful and attentive.

Minpunten:

The functionality compared to the price is a concern. While it can handle thousands of users, free automation softwares are offering more email design functionality than this software. The user interface isn't the most friendliest, with emails, landing pages, templates and content all divided up into multiple folders. The software boasts that it is custom HTML friendly, but it is very difficult to execute properly. The software also has issues formatting for Outlook.

Some great features but a lot of big flaws (haven't used it for 2 years)

Opmerkingen: It did some things really well, but other things really poorly. I'm not sure how much they've improved these past couple years, but I would only use them again if I were to lock in a heavily discounted rate and needed an instant bi-lateral sync between Salesforce and my automation platform.

Pluspunten:

- Their support team was stellar - Their Salesforce integration is the best I've seen in a Marketing Automation Platform - Their list segmentation system features were fantastic - We were early subscribers to act-on so we had a really cheap rate

Minpunten:

I haven't used this software for a couple years, so they may have improved a lot but here were some of my major gripes: - Extremely difficult to track lead sources - Integration with ad platforms wasn't very good - Landing page builder was terrible - Lots of limitations with forms - Email builder was quite painful to use but they made some improvements along the way while I was using them

Blagh!

Opmerkingen: Their sales department is good at selling this product, the reality is that it's not very good.

Pluspunten:

We started using this as an alternative to similar features in SalesForce. It does have a ton of features and integrates with many other systems.

Minpunten:

We've had nothing but trouble with this since the beginning. Even after two years we still have random issues (services disconnecting) which can take hours to repair. The bulk emails we send from Act-On consistently end up in spam folders and customer support gives us the run around about how to fix it, usually we end up spending hours just to prove to them that this is actually happening.

Act-On's strengths are it's customizability and robust features.

Opmerkingen: Great piece of marketing and survey software. Very powerful and can have multiple uses in almost any organization.

Pluspunten:

Act-On's back end really customizable and you're able to make your emails look exactly how you want. The landing pages you make are able to capture documents (like jpgs or PDFs) so participants can upload files making it really easy to download all the attachments along with their responses at once. I also appreciated the ability to schedule survey reminders to participants in advance and to cross check that with live results. This means that you could schedule a reminder to go out at 8AM tomorrow, but if someone completed the survey at 7:59AM, they wouldn't receive the reminder. Great feature.

Minpunten:

It's very admin and training heavy. The software is not intuitive and you need to setup the pieces of the survey/email first (I.e landing pages, contact list, etc) before you start working on the actual survey or email.

Act-On Review

Opmerkingen: I was pretty satisfied with the quality and number of potential leads.

Pluspunten:

I sued Act-On to find new leads and create a database for potential customers.

Minpunten:

It needs daily updates that can take a long time before you can actually use it.

A strategic tool to build successful marketing campaigns

Opmerkingen: Having a marketing automation tool such as Act-on is a really benefit to run successful marketing campaign. When we started using Act-On, we realized we were not as organized as we thought we were; It kind of "forced" us (in a positive way) to rethink our campaigns, how we built them and what we expected from them. We were able for the first time to really segment and target our audience. We saw a significant increase in our opening and click rates, we could trigger more interest by sending relevant content to our audience, and this led us to more qualified and interested leads. This tool allowed us to track our audience and create reports on our tasks and projects such as events, webinars, digital campaign (including google adwords, social media posts, emails, website, landing pages). It is a must-have in our marketing tech-stack.
We would advise to really define your needs and do some benchmark; Act-On is a great tool to build segmentation, automated programs, nurturing programs and it can be integrated with many other tools, to create a great and efficient tech stack. It definitely is a tool worth having, but it requires to know where you want to go and what you want to achieve.
It took us a few months before understanding and mastering most of what you can do within the platform, and we’re still learning. So be persistent and don’t be afraid to “play with” and test the tool, it’s totally worth it.

Pluspunten:

Act-On’s automation platform is intuitive, I like the way the menu is built, it’s been made in a logical order so that when you move from one section to another, you go down the logical path to build automation. The support team is great, they’re efficient and patient ! There are many ways to find answers and tips; the Act-On community, the Act-On university, the online training courses, the webinars, everything is made for us to easily learn and efficiently use the platform.

Minpunten:

Sometimes it takes us quite some times to do some simple tasks, for example when editing a step in an automated program, we have to wait a few seconds for the system to record what we edited and allow us to move to the next step. When there are many steps, it can become frustrating. Another example is when editing an image using Act-On editor, it can time many minutes before we can see the changes on the image where it’s being used (in emails, landing page, etc). These delays can be a bit frustrating when you are working on a template and you can’t finish it because some of the assets are still being processed by the system. The marketing calendar is a bit confusing sometimes, I see messages that have not been sent marked as sent, and we can only have a month view unless we export the details.

One of the Best Marketing Automation Programs I've Ever Used

Opmerkingen: My sales and marketing team had so many benefits from this software. The marketing and data analysts had high-level, quality reports that were as detailed or as broad as they wanted. The sales team had live information about their hottest leads and could rely on the lead-generation process to do things automatically. They didn't have to worry about information not being part of the CRM from Marketing because the integration made that seamless. Truly a great program and I didn't even have enough characters to talk about all of the other features too!

Pluspunten:

I liked everything about this software! It was truly an all-in-one deal. First of all, it integrated with our CRM (we used SugarCRM). The features related to this integration were: lead generation from our web forms, lead generation from our email campaigns, lead generation based on user action. It also pulled information in from our CRM, so any lead lists we created in our CRM (manually or automatically based on file status, etc) could be pulled into ActOn for campaigns. Next, it integrated with our website - it also has the ability to design your own website within ActOn that allows for even more neat features. It tracked users across emails & webpages and the reports allowed us to drill down to specific geographical areas of activity, key words used, which pages they were on and for how long, etc. It also gave a numerical value (that you can custom set) to each action and at a certain point could put that contact into a sales cycle or send an alert to the sales team to reach out to them. Lastly, the automated marketing feature was THE BEST. You have the ability to design a multi-faceted campaign that could run for a set amount of time, or indefinitely. What I found to be the cherry on top was that you could set actions for contacts who didn't do certain things (didn't click, didn't open, etc) and then repeat steps or put them into different tracks. As huge as this program seems, it was also incredibly easy to navigate. Saved our teams a lot of time and energy.

Minpunten:

The most challenging features were the design elements. It was very template based and it took some CSS or HTML skills to make them less-standard. This was true for everything - emails, web pages, landing pages, etc.

Invaluable Marketing Asset

Pluspunten:

Act-On is a robust, yet easy-to-use solution that combines multiple marketing applications into one. It has been a workhorse for us. While it can serve more than a dozen vital functions, including social media management and ABM, I most appreciate its integration with our CRM system (Microsoft Dynamics 365) and how it can be used to automate nurture programs, score leads based on behavior/engagement, and monitor web site visitor activity. I’m also very impressed by members of the tech support team who are very patient and have bailed us out of an after hours pinch more than once.

Minpunten:

Keeping up with the constant evolution of Act-On is a full-time job. I often feel like we’re 5 steps behind in understanding newly released features and everything it can do. Of course, that’s a good problem. My only true critique is that the organization seems to have gone through some growing pains and lost its personal touch along the way. When I first selected and implemented Act-On at my previous company 4 years ago, I felt like our sales rep and implementation team were truly invested in our success. I was so impressed by the product and Act-On’s customer success team that I implemented it again at my next company and recommended it to several peers. However, faces began to change quickly, and we had 3 different reps in the same year. Our new contacts were less interested in our success and more interested in what we could do for them. One became obsessed with recruiting our company as a reseller. Things have settled down, but I don’t feel like they value our business as much as they once did.

Dynamics Compatible, Great Value

Opmerkingen: An unexpected benefit has been in the customer support department. Proactive email drips for recent purchasers helps that team provide great service consistently through scheduled email programs with tips and tutorials.

Pluspunten:

The Dynamics integration was a crucial part of my decision to adopt this software for my company. Ease of use is comparable to any other robust marketing automation tool. We've seen huge value in this purchase.

Minpunten:

Unfortunately the software does not function well on iOS devices.

Act-On Is An Excellent Tool

Opmerkingen: Act-On is the engine that my marketing success runs on.

Pluspunten:

It's functionality and diverse tools makes it the top-of-class when it comes to marketing automation platforms.

Minpunten:

In recent months, the customer service has not been as strong as in the past. It seems like it takes more than 48 hours to get questions/concerns of mine answered.

Great product

Opmerkingen: Act-On is a mainstay of my marketing team. If I could keep only one product or service it would be Act-On. Great team behind it in my experience.

Pluspunten:

Good set of features and functions. Good product team and exciting roadmap. Easy to implement.

Minpunten:

Onboarding could have been better (but that was some time ago now and I know they have improved it). Feature request facility feels like a black hole at times!

Satisfied with product

Opmerkingen: I think Act-On is a great tool for marketing. I've been using it for the past year and a half and finally feel confident with it. It does take time to understand everything, but customer service and the free webinars have been a huge help.

Pluspunten:

Once you figure it out, it's a very simple tool to use and can be easily accessed.

Minpunten:

The form set-up. I think the set-up is complicated & could use some tweaking. I don't like that you have to create a new form (when pulling the data) if you add anything new into the original form.

A repeat customer

Opmerkingen: Act-On allows us to do some next level segmentation and marketing.

Pluspunten:

Act-On has been my go-to solution for the last 5 years. They may not be as well known as some, but they offer great value and a deep bench of functionality. Incredibly innovative too.

Minpunten:

Customer service has gone through hiccups of late

A 2nd tier product in the race of Marketing Automation

Opmerkingen: In my experience with using Pardot, Marketo, Hubspot, and Act-On (email marketing only solutions such as MailChimp and Constant Contact as well...), Act-On is still playing catch-up with the bigger, more enterprise companies in terms of technical capabilities. Its support system is great, however.

Pluspunten:

Support team, the fact that Act-On is growing quickly

Minpunten:

Inability to sort information on the platform itself, rigid reporting and display of data, certain key functions that should be given to everyone are add-ons, has no predictive, real-time adjustment, automated insights, multi-channel marketing funnel value analysis, etc. yet.

I use Act-On to do marketing work for a consulting firm

Opmerkingen: Overall it's been a great experience. I think I need more training.

Pluspunten:

The ease of use and clear structure of saving my files and documents

Minpunten:

connectivity with my crm is difficult and i still dont think its working properly to be honest

Best Marketing Automation for sales teams not using a CRM

Opmerkingen: I am a big fan of Act-On and have implemented it for a variety of small to medium size companies.

Pluspunten:

I love the ease of use and the sales tools.

Minpunten:

I would like to be able to have a seed list category, so my seeds don't keep opting out.

Act-On is a great platform and partner in educating users on marketing automation best practices

Pluspunten:

The most beneficial aspect of Act-On for my team and me is the ease in which you can create attractive templates for emails, landing pages and forms.

Minpunten:

I do not have any major dislikes as far as the software platform is concerned. There have at times been minor issues, but support always does a great job quickly rectifying the situation.

Review from T. Currie

Opmerkingen: I send out a lot of emails using Act-On. I also love the reports as we have to generate a lot of them to send to our clients.

Pluspunten:

User friendly, quick and convenient! I use it everyday and I enjoy how easy it is to use and also train others to use.

Minpunten:

The customer service when you have a question/issue hasn't been the greatest.

Easy to Use Marketing Automation Platform

Opmerkingen: We've built all of our landing pages in Act-On, and every marketing emails is sent through the software.

Pluspunten:

Very easy to learn and use the platform. The drag-and-drop Landing Page and Email composers can your team productive with Act-On in no time.

Minpunten:

The interface is a inconsistent (some modules have been updated more than others), and there are a few missing nice-to-have options (like the ability to add anchors to CTA buttons - this can be done but by manually adding a button with HTML).

A good, but slightly old vendor

Pluspunten:

This software is good, offer great functionality and its fairly priced.

Minpunten:

The UI/UX is old, it seems like legacy software.