Salesforce Marketing Cloud Reviews

Pros

The most likable feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the Journey Builder feature, which allows businesses to automate their marketing campaigns and engage with their customers throughout their journey.

Cons

One of the things I dislike about Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the pricing model, which can be quite expensive for small and medium-sized businesses. However, we believe that the platform's features and capabilities justify the cost, especially for larger businesses.

Pros

Salesforce Marketing Cloud has been a great all-in-one solution for my team as we previously relied on multiple tools for customer journey management, email campaigns, and analytics, not to mention updating the CRM after. The UX was pretty easy to understand and the platform and the list feature has made pipeline management so much more efficient

Cons

One of our campaigns bugged and contacts received duplicate emails. When I tried to contact customer service, it was almost impossible to get in touch so we had to figure out the solution internally which took a while. The price is also pretty high if your company is not paying for it

Pros

I like that Send Time Optimization was included, this was extra with the previous e-mail marketing product we used.

Cons

First, we ended up in Google's black hole even when following the plan laid out by our integration partner. That you need an integration partner to get a small business setup should have been a huge red flag, but we thought we were stepping up to a more powerful e-mail product.

There are bugs everywhere. Our integration partner had many tips like making sure to unselect an e-mail reselect it and stop and start a trigger to make sure the new e-mail is used, these are things that should be handled by the UX and not tribal knowledge. We used alias in our e-mails to aid in reporting, but sometimes they show up in the report and sometimes it shows the original URL. We opened a ticket and months later it was closed with no resolution, because there's a back end bug in their system that they believed was causing the issue.

There's a lot of duplicated functionality that has different features. Want to manage your data extension you can do it in Email Studio or Contact Builder, BUT the features are different between the two. You can only easily add records in one of them so you have to remember which one you can do a specific action in.

Their reporting is limited on Journey's and you'll need to extract all the data to do any deep dives. You'll need to use Journey's if you want to use send time optimization or any of the AI logic, so you're guaranteed to have to build your own reporting in your own tools. We needed this to realize we were in the Google black hole.

Pros

If your company has the resources to implement SFMC, it has the ability to do everything you need it to do with email, marketing automation and analytics... The flexibility in emails and templates is the most appealing part.

Cons

If you have decent developers, there are cheaper options than SFMC. You are basically paying for the name. A lot of the features are overdeveloped and to implement, you have to pay staff a bunch of money to set it up or an implementation partner a bunch of money to set up the system.

Alternatives Considered

Total Expert and HubSpot CRM

Pros

This software makes it easy to build professional looking emails that add all the information you need with drag and drop

Cons

IT is sometimes hard to organize and sort files

Pros

I don't like anything about this software.

Cons

The integration with Salesforce is WAY oversold in the marketing materials. Moving data back and forth between the two products is extremely finicky and prone to breaking. Expect lots of duplication of data and lists that will invariably be out of sync. Managing email opt out lists with two systems of record from the same company is a CAN-SPAM nightmare. The integration's administrative tools can't be accessed in lightning. The customer facing unsubscribe and profile management pages look like shit and can't be branded or customized. They are so old, they still provide customers a warning about using HTML emails with AOL. Your Salesforce users will see email sends and interactions in contact records for some but not all emails sent via marketing cloud. If you try to send to a campaign or report from Salesforce, email personalization won't work. Same thing for transactional emails. You will have to send every single piece of personalization data in the API call to marketing cloud, because MC won't be able to find it on its own, even though it has a list of all these attributes and is supposedly syncing with Salesforce. There is single sign on, but only by request, and provisioning of accounts is not supported. Journeys will break the minute you make the slightest change to them. Trying to split journeys based on Salesforce attributes often just doesn't work. Because it's Salesforce, anything you would actually want to do with this software comes at an additional cost.

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub, ActiveCampaign, SendGrid and Mailchimp

Reasons for Switching to Salesforce Marketing Cloud

We chose MC over other tools because we were sold a native, deep integration with Salesforce. What we received was hacked together and barely functional. We can't wait to switch to another platform, even though it will result in a lot of rework on our end.

Pros

It is possible to manage schedules, customers, projects, etc., but it is excellent that it is possible to customize reports and create systems flexibly. The information needed and the management contents differ for each company and center, but I think the service is agile. At first, getting members to enter data is difficult, but as the number of items entered correctly increases, each salesperson's activities become more apparent. Since it has been possible to capture the characteristics of each member, sales productivity has improved in several ways, such as advice on which items to improve and knowledge sharing if things grow.

Cons

Although bugs occur infrequently, they can temporarily disrupt work because they are irreplaceable and essential tools for the business.

Pros

What I like most about this tool is its ease of implementation, this being a good tool to get to know the specific customer we are referring to, it is a system that stores and compiles information to better reach customers and maintain more direct with them

Cons

I have no criticism or anything negative to contribute because for the functions it has it is one of the most efficient in this type of industry, it is also quite easy to understand and add to business tools

Pros

Very robust system. I use the email studio platform the most, followed by SMS studio. These platforms provide enterprise level email and sms deployment and campaign management.

Cons

Very expensive to implement and use, but at the enterprise level, it is one of, if not the top player.

Pros

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is critical to managing our Marketo forms and making sure they turn into actionable next steps for our CX team that we can then track.

Cons

Salesforce is extremely complex and requires a salesforce admin to really help us make the most of the tool.

Pros

I’ve spent more than 3 years administrating/ consulting for many companies on salesforce implementation and continue to find ways to make it work even better. Salesforce provides one of the most well-integrated, predictable and feature-rich CRM that I’ve worked with and implemented. There are so many ways that I can tailor Salesforce to businesses. This product is one of the most robust platforms out today and is great for any sales team. This CRM helps companies by keeping track of all sales related information. It also offers custom reports which is one of the best features, This will provide companies with business analytics to understand where we need to improve sales processes. I will say as an administrator of this product there is a little learning curve to help a company utilize all of the functionality of this product, but once you have a grasps you will see a huge difference in company sales!!!

Cons

This CRM can be expensive for small-scale business. There are a lot of customizations that would be needed in the implementation process, which adds to cost of development. I would recommend hiring a SalesForce Administrator/Developer for your team for the implementations process and general maintainenece. This would help cut down the cost by not using SalesForce to do it for you, plus I do think their customer support is lacking.

Pros

Salesforce Marketing Cloud integrates seamlessly with Salesforce CRM, providing a comprehensive view of customer interactions across multiple channels and offers advanced segmentation and personalization capabilities, allowing businesses to deliver targeted and relevant content to their customers it also provides a comprehensive platform for multi-channel marketing automation, including email, mobile, social media, and web.

Cons

Can be expensive for small businesses and startups, as it is primarily designed for enterprise-level businesses, it may have limited integrations with other tools.

Pros

As a provider of digital marketing automation (email, social, ads) and analytics, is great when it comes to connecting the dots between what you know about customers and what marketing materials you should send to them. The Journey Building feature is incredible for this. This also allows you to set triggers and make intelligent automation decisions.

Cons

Make sure you have an infrastructure in place that will allow for the immense amount of data entry and data maintenance necessary to keep the CRM up-to-date and allow intelligent marketing insights and automation to even be possible. You don’t want to make marketing decisions based on an accurate CRM information.

Pros

Salesforce is a powerful CRM tool that is widely used in a variety of industries. It has a lot of features and integrates with many other types of software.

Cons

Data entry can be cumbersome. The system is not intuitive and neither is the layout of screens, though some of that can be customized. When it comes to running reports, there are a lot of pre-built ones, but most of those aren't useful. I usually find myself having to build my own, and that process is cumbersome and not at all intuitive. There are many different types of reports and it's hard to find the one needed to get the data that I seek. Also, it does not do a great job of tracking contacts who are associated with multiple accounts (such as a representative of multiple companies), and there is not a way to show affiliations between multiple accounts (such as divisions of a large company).

Pros

This product poses itself as top of class, but that's only in pricing. It is complicated and not marketing friendly. The interface is not userfriendly and the tool does not support multiple brands without a heavy pricetag.

Cons

The price, the user experience, the lack of multibrand use. When I threatened to take my business elsewhere we had one call with the VP but then he stopped responding to calls and emails.

Pros

As a day salesforce user this makes time management easy. I can respond to emails right in the platform which saves me time. Very advanced system that can do almost everything if you are willing to learn. I found the learning curve to be somewhat of a challenge as the is very unique to any other marketing software but anything in salesforce is unique which is what sets it apart from its competition. Overall the customer reps are helpful and training is endless making this software something that you can alter to work for your needs.

Cons

This can be costly for smaller companies and can offer many features that may never be used if not implanted or trained properly.

Pros

If you are using other Salesforce Cloud solutions this easily integrates into your overall marketing strategy. The support team is very helpful and answers question in a timely fashion. They are great to work with!

Cons

If you don't use other Salesforce Cloud solutions you won't get all the benefits of this tool. It really helps to use all Saleforce products if you want synergy among all of your initiatives. It is a costly investment, but if you are willing to spend the money the cloud solutions can really help grow your business and make your team more efficient.

Pros

I like nothing other than the fact that I now know how to use Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which apparently is a great accomplishment. I'd personally rather use ANY other ESP.

Cons

The UX is absolutely terrible. Can't make segments easily, everything is so unbearably slow. I cannot believe SFMC is so "talked about" in the industry. It's awful.

Pros

There are many great features about SalesForce, including the AppExchange. It gives us a lot of flexibility with regards to events, volunteer management and donation recordings. The feature of recording contacts is easy and prominent, unlike other systems where it is hidden.

Cons

Although it advertises itself with a feature to compose and create newsletters, the feature is not user-friendly and it is awkward to use. It is easy to create text but tough to format. Several apps in the product are repetitive when creating a contact, especially in the Auctions for SalesForce feature.

Pros

The whole baked out process is easy to understand and roll out, using the tool to manage email campaigns and other selling tools is a real revenue generator!

Cons

As with anything Salesforce, it looks good until you sign the contract, then you see all the hidden add-ons and expenses you need to get the tool actually doing what you want. Be prepared to spend more than they tell you!

Pros

Salesforce continues to maintain its leadership position in this space by constantly bringing new & improved functionality to the table that meets it users needs. Additionally there are 3rd party products that work hand in hand with Salesforce that enrich its capabilities

Cons

Salesforce is somewhat pricey but if you utilize all of its functionality it will deliver an ROI and help you scale by automating a number of your key functions

Pros

Once you get used to it, it is an easy to use platform. Tracking is laid out in an easy to digest way. Spam blockers are efficient.

Cons

At-a-glance reporting is not as robust as in other platforms. Things like spam by email, which is essential to track, needs a custom report built rather than it being available with all other tracking. There are also a lot of nuances within the emails and the way they render for email platforms, like Outlook. For example, links do not show as bold.

Pros

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a powerful tool for businesses looking to create personalized, targeted, and engaging marketing campaigns across multiple channels.

Cons

sometimes for new user it is difficult to manage and it takes time to apply the filters

Pros

Email software is easy to use which is nice

Cons

Customer Service is terrible. Our account rep has changed several times (internally they have a lot of confusion around WHO are account rep is), the company sends us around and around to different people when we have an issue. Long time to get issue resolved. Responsiveness is quick when they want to upsell you something though.

Pros

everything worked, at least for me. some people felt it was a struggle to setup - I view these frustrations mostly as poor CRM administration and guidance

Cons

I liked the software; I like the customizability of Sugar CRM

I want to see Salesforce rather than compete - reimagine crm. perhaps buy sugarcrm