Marketing Cloud Account Engagement vs Act-On

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Our analysts compared Marketing Cloud Account Engagement 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

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) aligns marketing and sales to meet KPI goals. A variety of tools help users measure and optimize efforts to produce better results. It offers powerful features like lead management, automated email marketing, analytics generated by AI to help augment the user experience, landing page generation, lead generation and more.

As part of the Salesforce ecosystem, it can seamlessly connect with other offerings to enhance data flow and more easily extend capabilities.
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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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$1,250 Monthly
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$1,000 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

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Product Insights

  • Generate Leads: Ensure pipelines which are fully stocked with leads using automation, smart forms, landing pages and more. 
  • Customizable Dashboards: Access a bird’s-eye view of the marketing workflow and reports with custom views and shareable insights. 
  • Enable Re-Engagement: Re-engage dormant leads by sending automated emails based on triggers such as time, interactions and other custom parameters. 
  • Improve Analysis: Associate webinars and live events with revenue and analyze customer interactions across channels. Leverage Google AdWords to track prospects for paid search. 
  • Streamline Lead Management: Find the right leads and deliver targeted messaging for seamless digital marketing. 
  • Align Sales and Marketing: Unify the efforts of marketing and sales teams using engaging campaigns, CRM integration and real-time alerts. 
  • ROI Reporting: Track, evaluate and measure campaign performance to tweak variables on the fly and meet KPIs. 
  • Lifecycle Reporting: Analyze a sales funnel, identify stuck opportunities and adapt marketing efforts according to requirements. 
  • Improve Marketing Performance: Discover insights quickly with campaign health metrics and then make adjustments in real time. 
  • Visualize Campaigns: Visual tools make it easy to see where intervention might be needed or how customers travel through the sales funnel. 
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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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  • Campaign Visualizer: Tracks marketing and sales efforts as customers move through the sales funnel and provides a high-level overview of a campaign. 
  • Dynamic Content: Improve lead generation and customer experiences with dynamic and useful content specifically tailored to a target audience’s needs, wants and interests. 
  • Landing Page Builder: Standard, easy-to-use and customizable templates enable better customer service and increase lead counts. 
  • Smart Forms: Collect information at every interaction and enrich data pools with a simple drag-and-drop form builder. 
  • Organic and Paid Search Tools: Integrate with Google AdWords to determine ROI and then analyze keywords to improve performance. 
  • Social Posting: Track prospects and leads in social platforms. Schedule posts at optimal times for the greatest impact. 
  • Email Builder: The email builder is simple to use, yet powerful, and can be attached to any number of automated tools and tracking measures. 
  • Einstein: Gain insights on campaigns to optimize marketing assets and find new audiences using machine learning. 
  • Email Reporting: Track metrics like clicks, opens and more. Provides SPAM analysis and preview services to extend email reporting. 
  • Auto Segmentation: Deliver a personalized experience with dynamic content by leveraging automatic contact segmentation. 
  • Activity Tracking: Track prospect activities and maintain an activity history from a CRM, Gmail or smartphones. 
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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

#3

among all
Marketing Automation Software

#50

among all
Marketing Automation Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
Act-On
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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 100 85 100 92 94 90 100 67 40 72 50 50 0 25 50 75 100
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 3522 reviews
Great User Sentiment 656 reviews
79%
of users recommend this product

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 79% when considering 3522 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.

3.9 (1740)
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4.12 (587)
4.26 (250)
4.1 (532)
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4.0 (26)
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3.8 (637)
4.15 (406)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for AI-Based Capabilities, Compliance and Data Security and Lead Management.

AI-Based Capabilities Award
Compliance and Data Security Award
Lead Management Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Integration: More than 90% of users who mention integration noted the benefit of being able to connect Marketing Cloud Account Engagement with the wider Salesforce ecosystem.
Email Marketing: Users can seamlessly set up emails, create content, measure performance and report results, according to all reviews about email marketing.
Lead Generation: It offers robust tools for lead generation and nurturing, as reported by 85% of user feedback on these features.
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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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Cost: The product costs more than the functionality it offers, according to all the users who mention this aspect.
Complexity: It’s difficult to understand and involves a lot of clicks, as observed by 95% of users mentioning this aspect.
Reporting: The lack of vigorous reporting tools is a matter of concern, according to 85% of user feedback on the topic.
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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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Marketing Cloud Account Engagement is liked among users for the seamless integration it offers with Salesforce, leading to stronger marketing capabilities. It also offers various functionalities to make email marketing more powerful and is relied upon for lead generation. However, the cost of the product might be too much for smaller companies, especially given the lack of reporting options. The complexities of the platform also make it difficult to get used to according to the majority of reviews. Overall, the product is a good pick for larger enterprises seeking robust marketing automation, particularly those already using Salesforce that can leverage the tight integration for enhanced marketing.

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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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