Mailchimp vs Act-On

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Our analysts compared Mailchimp vs Act-On based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Marketing Automation Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Act-On Software Tool

Product Basics

Mailchimp is a web-based marketing platform that specializes in email marketing, sending, monitoring and personalizing communications. Given its pricing point, it’s great for small or medium businesses who want a fully-featured marketing implementation.

Standout features include an intuitive website builder with a drag-and-drop interface, an integrated database, as well as robust landing page builders for web and social media traffic. It also facilitates the creation of digital ads as well as physical postcards to reach customers via postal services.
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Established in 2008, Act-On is a comprehensive platform that offers marketing professionals all the standard features in an automation tool, alongside several other unique features.

Sophisticated email automation, landing page construction, analytics, automated campaigns, useful templates, and social channels are just some of the features that are available to users. This product is ideal for medium to large enterprises, especially those that have dedicated marketing departments.

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$13 Monthly, Freemium
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Tailored to your specific needs
$1,000 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

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Product Insights

  • Free Version: A free version includes features such as an audience dashboard, tags, segmentation and more.
  • Multivariate Campaign: Test up to eight campaign variations and send improvised emails every time. View the impact of small changes to email campaigns on subscriber engagement.
  • Mobile App: Access reports, manage audiences, create campaign content and work on email campaigns on the go using an app for iOS and Android devices.
  • Retargeting Digital ads: Retarget website and landing page visitors when they use Facebook and Instagram, in order to bolster revenue and stay in constant contact with customers.
  • Website Builder: Build websites for free without coding skills, saving time and money. A built-in sign-up form and an option to claim a custom domain name enhance branding.
  • 24/7 Support: Support team and resources are available 24/7. Unlimited access to tutorials and marketing guides, as well as assistance in contact management, template design and website development are available.
  • Account Security: Leverage two-factor authentication that includes Mailchimp’s login credentials and a one-time passcode via text message, ensuring system security and authentication.
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  • Make Sense of Digital Breadcrumbs: Better track and score campaigns with this piece of software. This tool helps marketers attain a high-level overview of their campaigns and enterprises.
  • Inbound Marketing: Act-On provides support for inbound marketing techniques, enabling users to organically and dynamically pull in leads from across channels.
  • Outbound Marketing: Automated campaigns, lead scoring and list management are built into the software to support outbound marketing techniques and conversion tracking.
  • Sales Effectiveness: The software helps to unify sales and marketing teams effectively by providing a sales-funnel overview and campaign attribution, assisting users in scoring their leads.
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  • Audience Dashboard: Store contact data and track trends to understand the audience better. Clickable sections in the dashboard help instantly launch campaigns based on that data.
  • Segmentation: Ready-made segments based on campaign activity, purchase history and more are offered to send campaigns. Enable up to five layers of segmentation filtering, and update data automatically. Add a set of nested conditions facilitating different combinations of data collected such as purchase activity, gender, age range and more.
  • Behavioral Targeting: An API enables pulling custom event data or actions performed by users, to send targeted messages based on specific activities, such as downloads or account renewal.
  • Lookalike Audience: Works with social ads and postcards to reach more people. Find new people similar to contacts using marketing CRM data and an audience network. Create Facebook and Instagram ads, and target people interested in the company’s products.
  • Content Studio: Stores assets such as photos, documents and other files. Upload or sync assets, edit them directly in the content studio and use them for marketing.
  • Templates: More than 100 predesigned templates are available. Customize templates to launch campaigns.
  • Email Builder: Create posts for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter directly from the email builder. Also add photos, write copy and share the post after the email is sent.
  • Landing Pages: Create a place for contacts or potential contacts to land on when they click through from an email, ad, social post or other location on the web.
  • Email Automation: Automate welcome messages after user subscription, and emails based on dates and events. Drag and drop RSS content into any template to pull in the latest posts.
  • Schedule Campaigns: Send a campaign or schedule it for a specific date and time. Includes: 
    •  Send time optimization, which recommends a time for subscribers based on click time activity. 
    •  Timewarp to send campaigns to recipients based on their time zone. 
    •  Batch delivery to send campaigns in timed batches. 
    •  Ability to pause campaigns. 
  • Reporting: Monitor trends and track performance. The growth, engagement and revenue reports facilitate viewing who’s interacted with marketing, along with their clicks, buys and downloads. Compare open, click and unsubscribe rates to industry peers.
  • Real-Time Analytics: Keep tabs on all marketing campaigns including emails, automations, social ads and more. Manage marketing budget using real-time stats. Track sales from a campaign to purchase by finding out who made a purchase after opening the campaign, viewing what they bought and seeing the money earned by the campaign.
  • Integrations: Integrates with apps and web services including Xero, Zapier, Square, LiveChat and more.
  • A/B Testing: Test up to three variations for campaign and build a working strategy.
  • Security:Includes data center security, protection from data loss or corruption, application-level security, internal IT security and more.
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  • CRM Integration: Act-On can integrate with SalesForce, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM, NetSuite, Infor and Simpleview. Using any of these integrated CRMs, marketers can engage segmented contacts through targeted account activity.
  • Account-Based Marketing Automation: Account profiles provide an overview of accounts and buyer behaviors, giving users a clear picture of aggregate customer behavior.
  • Progressive Profiling: Collect information without making customers fill out a large number of forms. Adaptive forms, which present and collect information incrementally over time, help users gain valuable insights without being intrusive.
  • Targeted Email Automation: With easy-to-use templates, code-free interfaces and a diverse template catalog, users have access to a variety of content to push out through automated email campaigns. Act-On also integrates its analytics platform into its email outreach, letting users track open rates and measure success.
  • Report Sharing: The solution’s analytics platform can generate robust and interactive reports for users to easily share with decisionmakers.
  • Data Studio: This program comes equipped with an analytical engine called Data Studio, which can pull data from a variety of sources such as CSV, Excel, Amazon, Google and Microsoft Azure.
  • Social Media Engagement: Build brand awareness with automated social posting and metrics aggregation. Act-On’s content curation engine provides insights into content that can generate higher levels of engagement for a user’s business.
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Product Ranking

#20

among all
Marketing Automation Software

#50

among all
Marketing Automation Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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AI-Based Capabilities Campaign Management Compliance And Data Security Dashboard And Reporting Email Campaign Management Lead Generation Lead Management Lead Nurturing Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Social Media Campaign Management Text Campaign Management 86 90 83 83 93 82 100 83 93 100 100 55 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 41542 reviews
Great User Sentiment 656 reviews
88%
of users recommend this product

Mailchimp has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 88% when considering 41542 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

84%
of users recommend this product

Act-On has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 84% when considering 656 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

4.3 (10702)
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4.48 (15519)
4.26 (250)
4.5 (13246)
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4.5 (222)
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4.1 (1853)
4.15 (406)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Mailchimp and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Lead Management, Platform Capabilities, Social Media Campaign Management and Integrations and Extensibility.

Lead Management Award
Platform Capabilities Award
Social Media Campaign Management Award
Integrations and Extensibility Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Easy to Use: The platform has a simple interface and can easily be understood by anyone with basic knowledge of email marketing, observe 95% of reviewers referencing this feature.
Easy Email and Templates: It’s easy to create and understand emails using templates, send professional email flyers, and run campaigns automatically, according to 83% of users who mention this feature.
Email Marketing: Everyone referencing this aspect thinks it’s a comprehensive email marketing tool with features like campaign management, customer journey, transactional email, integrations and more.
Customization: Almost 80% of reviewers who talk about this feature feel the built-in templates are easily customizable, and editing them doesn’t require graphic design experience.
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Intuitive Interface: Act-On's user-friendly interface streamlines campaign creation and management, reducing the learning curve for users.
Robust Reporting: Advanced reporting capabilities provide detailed insights into campaign performance, allowing users to track results and optimize future efforts.
Email Marketing Automation: Automated email sequences nurture leads, deliver targeted content, and improve campaign efficiency.
Social Media Integration: Act-On seamlessly integrates with social media platforms, enabling users to manage campaigns and track engagement across multiple channels.
Excellent Customer Support: Act-On provides responsive and knowledgeable customer support, ensuring users receive assistance when needed.
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Paid Version: More than 85% users mentioning this aspect observe that the free version doesn’t include all features and the premium version is expensive compared to other email marketing services.
Email Spam: Every user talking about this feature mentions that sometimes clients' e-blasts end up in the spam folder for recipients.
Glitches: There are glitches such as difficulty signing in when logged in from another device, frozen modules, slow editing process, poor compatibility with Outlook and more, as every review on this feature mentions.
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Unintuitive Interface: Act-On's user interface is often criticized for being complex and difficult to navigate, leading to a steep learning curve for new users.
Limited Integrations: Act-On lacks integrations with popular third-party applications, making it challenging to connect with other systems used in the marketing ecosystem.
Costly: Act-On's pricing can be prohibitive for small businesses and startups, with limited flexibility in pricing options.
Lack of Reporting Capabilities: Users have reported that Act-On's reporting features are limited, making it difficult to gain insights into campaign performance.
Poor Customer Support: Some users have experienced delays and unsatisfactory responses from Act-On's customer support team.
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Stepping into the realm of email marketing, Mailchimp emerges as a prominent contender, captivating businesses with its user-friendly interface and extensive features. User feedback from the past year sheds light on Mailchimp's strengths and weaknesses, offering valuable insights for potential adopters. Mailchimp's intuitive design empowers users of all skill levels to craft visually appealing email campaigns. The platform's drag-and-drop editor and diverse template library simplify the creation process, enabling businesses to maintain brand consistency and engage their audience effectively. Affordability is another hallmark of Mailchimp, with tiered pricing plans catering to businesses of varying sizes and budgets. The availability of a free plan further enhances accessibility, making it an attractive option for startups and small businesses. However, Mailchimp's automation capabilities have drawn mixed reviews. While the platform offers basic automation features, such as welcome emails and abandoned cart sequences, some users find them to be less robust compared to competitors like ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo. Additionally, Mailchimp's segmentation options, while functional, may not provide the same level of granularity as more specialized email marketing platforms. Despite these limitations, Mailchimp's ease of use, affordability, and comprehensive feature set make it a compelling choice for businesses seeking a reliable email marketing solution. Its intuitive interface and extensive template library empower users to create professional-looking emails without extensive design experience. The platform's scalability ensures that it can accommodate the evolving needs of growing businesses, making it an ideal choice for those embarking on their email marketing journey.

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Act-On consistently receives high praise for its intuitive user interface, which allows marketers to quickly create and automate campaigns without extensive training. It is also lauded for its robust reporting capabilities, which provide detailed insights into campaign performance. However, some users have reported occasional bugs and glitches, and its customer support has been criticized for being slow to respond at times. Compared to competitors like HubSpot and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Act-On is often seen as a more affordable and user-friendly option, particularly for small and mid-sized businesses. Its focus on ease of use and affordability sets it apart from more complex and expensive solutions. Act-On's intuitive drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create automated workflows, and its pre-built templates help users get started quickly. Overall, Act-On is a solid choice for businesses looking for an affordable and easy-to-use marketing automation solution. Its strengths lie in its user-friendly interface, robust reporting capabilities, and affordability. While it may not have all the bells and whistles of more expensive solutions, it offers a comprehensive suite of features that can meet the needs of most businesses.

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