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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Adobe Marketo Engage

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/AAdobe Marketo Engage (acquired by Adobe in 2018) is a marketing automation platform whose basic features include email marketing, drip nurturing, landing pages, and lead scoring, but other editions offer additional advanced features. Typical customers are B2B firms with complex sales cycles.N/A

    HCL Unica

    Score7.9 out of 10
    N/AHCL Unica is available as a cloud or on-premise solution that provides fully integrated marketing automation software for enterprise. It includes enterprise marketing automation tools that optimize marketing activities, to ensure excellent customer experiences and data privacy.N/A
    Pricing
    Adobe Marketo EngageHCL Unica
    Editions & Modules
    Growth
    Pricing based on database size.
    per month
    Select
    Pricing based on database size.
    per month
    Prime
    Pricing based on database size.
    per month
    Ultimate
    Pricing based on database size.
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Adobe Marketo EngageHCL Unica
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Adobe Marketo EngageHCL Unica
    Considered Both Products
    Adobe
    Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
    Out of all the tools mentioned above, the very features which stand out Adobe Marketo Engage are lead management, lead nurturing, ABM, and Nurture campaign.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
    Marketo features and integration are commendable. Below are the features and integration that show why Marketo is a great competitor with other MA and Ops tools.

    Marketo Features:
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
    Marketo is a very strong platform and was ultimately chosen because of its ability to drive improved outbound and inbound campaigns at scale for a multi-business unit global organization.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
    Marketo's depth of integration and customization seemed to edge out its competition. Their community is larger than most other systems and easy to engage with.
    Incentivized
    Chose Adobe Marketo Engage
    HubSpot is the most "easy" as far as getting going and fits its niche of low-complexity business use-cases (and their UI for design is great, with good version control). HubSpot is like an "easier" and less sophisticated Marketo.

    Marketo is a great mid-company to large company …
    Incentivized
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    90%
    Would buy again
    232 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    191 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    90%
    Happy with the feature set
    237 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    91%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    150 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    90%
    Implementation went as expected
    137 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Adobe Marketo EngageHCL Unica
    Email & Online Marketing
    Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Adobe Marketo Engage and HCL Unica
    Feature
    Adobe Marketo Engage
    7.8
    993 Ratings
    3% above category average
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    WYSIWYG email editor8.2902 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic content6.8878 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ability to test dynamic content6.8857 Ratings00 Ratings
    Landing pages7.8920 Ratings00 Ratings
    A/B testing8.3905 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile optimization7.9877 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email deliverability reporting6.3961 Ratings00 Ratings
    List management8.8958 Ratings00 Ratings
    Triggered drip sequences9.1868 Ratings00 Ratings
    Lead Management
    Comparison of Lead Management features of Adobe Marketo Engage and HCL Unica
    Feature
    Adobe Marketo Engage
    7.8
    961 Ratings
    0% below category average
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Lead nurturing automation8.4936 Ratings00 Ratings
    Lead scoring and grading8.7911 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data quality management6.6909 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automated sales alerts and tasks7.4863 Ratings00 Ratings
    Campaign Management
    Comparison of Campaign Management features of Adobe Marketo Engage and HCL Unica
    Feature
    Adobe Marketo Engage
    7.7
    889 Ratings
    4% above category average
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Calendaring7.1719 Ratings00 Ratings
    Event/webinar marketing8.4850 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social Media Marketing
    Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Adobe Marketo Engage and HCL Unica
    Feature
    Adobe Marketo Engage
    7.5
    556 Ratings
    0% below category average
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Social sharing and campaigns7.8547 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social profile integration7.2375 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Adobe Marketo Engage and HCL Unica
    Feature
    Adobe Marketo Engage
    8.0
    962 Ratings
    9% above category average
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Dashboards8.3904 Ratings00 Ratings
    Standard reports7.9942 Ratings00 Ratings
    Custom reports7.8897 Ratings00 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Adobe Marketo Engage and HCL Unica
    Feature
    Adobe Marketo Engage
    7.9
    953 Ratings
    6% above category average
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    API8.0821 Ratings00 Ratings
    Role-based workflow & approvals7.8698 Ratings00 Ratings
    Customizability7.9844 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with Salesforce.com9.3822 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM7.3283 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integration with SugarCRM7.2185 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Adobe Marketo EngageHCL Unica
    Small Businesses
    Vbout
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Vbout
    Score9.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Iterable
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Iterable
    Score8.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Adobe Marketo EngageHCL Unica
    Likelihood to Recommend
    6.9
    (1145 ratings)
    9.0
    (15 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.0
    (146 ratings)
    8.7
    (11 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (98 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    9.0
    (25 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (30 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.6
    (89 ratings)
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    10.0
    (12 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    6.7
    (29 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (37 ratings)
    7.2
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    6.0
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    7.9
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    1.1
    (9 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    7.0
    (10 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    9.4
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    8.2
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Adobe Marketo EngageHCL Unica
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Adobe
    Adobe Marketo Engage is an excellent tool for hosting registration forms and sending out tokenized emails based on a particular person's information within your database. For example, if someone attends an event or webinar and indicates that they'd like to learn more about your product, then Adobe Marketo Engage can easily trigger a specific email template to that person that will be personalized with tokens about them. The pixel tracking that can be applied to any web page is also very helpful. If you want to focus on a more 1:1 type of follow up with a Lead, then the automated emails are not going to be as useful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    I think it is wel suited for a business with a lot of one on one relations in the database. For example a supermarket that sells products to a client and gives a reduction on that product. It is nice if the selection process is not to complex and does not involve to many calculations. It is also nice if it is very clear what you want to follow up. In our environment we have lots of many-to-many relations. for example one product is held by more then one client. And that client might have more of those products with other clients. These kind of situation demands for a lot of calculations with derived fields(*), and there things go far too slow. Unica is probably not such a good solution for us, because our environment is too complex, and so is to process of creating the selection, we often have to change things in the selection flows. Because of the complexity it is difficult to see what the flow is exactly doing afterwoods, it also takes to much time to modify existing campaigns. The interface is not handy to work with, if you have long lists of variables, of tables or derived fields(*) you have to scroll through trough them, you can not really search them or reorder them. You can not drag and drop fields or other objects like derived fields in the flow, what would be easy if you have to make frequent changes to the proces flow. When you copy objects something the content of the object changes because the links with other objects or lost. (*) derived field: field to calculate something
    Read full review
    Pros
    Adobe
    • It keeps all of our very important lead data in one place. It's very flexible, allows us to do a lot of different things around list building and segmentation. It deploys our email campaigns for us and it's also where our landing pages are built. So it does a lot of the things that we need to do from a data and deployment perspective.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • Ability to translate Multiple SQL queries into a very easy to use visual GUI.
    • Provides the ability to pre-define segments, run them once in off hours, store them in their own system tables for quick youth and a significant reduction in CPU utilization on the database.
    • It’s use of Reusable objects. Including user variables to pre-define calculations one time, macros that you can create and pass values to parameterize the SQL code And the creation of templates to easily replicate work.
    • It’s ability to bring in external data on the fly that can very easily be mapped into any flowchart.
    • It’s flexibility and creating UNIX script via triggers to automate sending of files to multiple vendors with different FTP sites
    • It’s flexibility in the output layouts that it can create.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Adobe
    • Adobe Marketo Engage crashes a lot or freezes. We don't have many users and less than 300k contacts so there's no reason it should ever crash.
    • It's really expensive! It would be nice to pick which features we want a la cart versus being stuck paying more for a feature and not using the others in the package.
    • Because of our integration with Dynamics, we had to use a 3rd party tool called Scribe for field matching. No one at Adobe will help us now that we have a 3rd party tool
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • Greater integration of real time (Interact) capabilities with outbound channels, in particular IBM eMessage Email & SMS delivery.
    • Additional outbound channels to be integrated into eMessage, including Facebook Fanpage & Twitter DM broadcasts. At the moment these are possible only through custom additional integration.
    • Support for additional marketing database technology, e.g. MySQL, Exasol, ParAccel, WX2.
    • Provision of database technology with software purchase, as Web technology (IBM WebSphere Express) is supplied for free, but no database is supplied - since IBM also market DB2, which is a supported technology it seems a shame.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Adobe
    We're likely to renew for several reasons:
    • Now that it's been implemented, I can't imagine not having marketing automation and the easy interface that Marketo provides to run our campaigns
    • Marketo's community and customer service is fantastic; I know that when I need help, I'll get it
    • Marketo continues to improve the product, so I know that I can expect it to be even more useful in the future
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    There are three main factors to renew a licence: 1) Cost to migrate to another platform would be rather expensive and time consuming, plus the requirement of retraining employees to use a new tool 2) It has been proven time and time again that it is a market leader in the space (10 years +) 3) It can be built upon, with the addition of additional IBM EMM modules - despite theories it does have very strong digital capabilities.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Adobe
    In some aspects, the tool can feel quite clunky in parts. But with the rich feature set it has, it's understandable. There is a lot of room for improvement for the user interface. The system itself doesn't have a slick or modern feel, so the usability could feel nicer to use with these areas considered.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    I think it is easy to use, if you don't have to do to complex selections.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Adobe
    Marketo provides different way and abilities to connect. If you are having product support or unexplained errors you can get someone on Marketo support 24 hours a day. One of Marketo's greatest assets in my opinion however would be the community. Often times our company is just looking for case success stories from someone else. In the community you can search for problems you are currently facing and see others having the same issue and solutions for those issues. If not, you can pose a question to the whole community and champions of the product and others can chime in to provide suggestions to fix your needs. The community is truly a 24/7 place to get your answers quickly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Adobe
    There are times when it is slightly slow for us, where we sit on a screen waiting for it to load. This could be our internet since we have had the same issue occasionally with other systems, but it is enough to make you crazy.
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Adobe
    On multiple occasions we've had Marketo support (technical and license based) issues. Technical issues were minor and resolved within a day. License based issues (even things encouraged by Marketo for partners, like provisioning another license) took WEEKS. They actually took so long to respond that the client we were working with withdrew from the contract because they were no longer convinced Marketo was capable of supporting their business. As an agency trying to sell the software, you can only explain away so much before they just made us look silly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    I didn't use the Unica support since it is with IBM, only before.
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Adobe
    Our account rep stopped out in Lincoln, NE to ensure we were properly set up and running. This was very much appreciated. I was very, very new at this point, so I can't comment very much on the extent of what was taught because I was still brand new to the company and the system
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Adobe
    I had never used Marketo prior to taking this job so online training was my starting point. I was able to follow along, it was interesting and quickly and efficiently taught me what I needed to know without a lot of fluff. It was far from boring and really helped me get my hands dirty with Marketo.
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Adobe
    1. Have a content marketing plan to run in parallel with the marketing automation installation--you'll need a lot of content to make full use of Marketo's capabilities. 2. Work with sales (and ISRs) to define and document a workflow--build your Marketo installation around how you do business--not figure out how to apply your business to the tools 3. Spend time of data cleaning--both an initial project as well as a strategy for ongoing data management. We found some change manaement issues (no more appending ZZZ to the first name to identify contacts who have left the company, for example, or prohibiting the entry of "info@company.com" email addresses). 4. Find some champions in the sales and ISR teams. You'll have both fans and detractors--work with the fans to build some success stories
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    - We had to rebuild a part of the datamart afterwards to tighten up and simplify the selection process. But as it was too time consuming to rebuild all the existing campaigns, we no run campaigns on different versions of the datamart. - The response tracking of the campaigns never worked out well, it was impossible to implement a direct response where there is a link between the lead and the response in our operational process
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Adobe
    Adobe Marketo Engage is one of the best email sending platforms I have worked with, because there is so much you can do on a lead scoring area and also then connect this to other platforms such as Salesforce. It allows for seamless reporting and working alongside sales colleagues. We chose Adobe Marketo Engage because it allows for more sophisticated audience segmentation and management of ongoing large scale nurture flows across a number of complex criteria.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    The contact history and the response history are so powerful. You can track whatever you want to help the call center to push relevant offers to our customer. In addition, predictive models can be built, with patience, in IBM Campaign. If you have some complaints from the call center about any campaigns, you can easily validate it into the contact or response history.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Adobe
    The total cost is a little bit higher than we expected.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Scalability
    Adobe
    We look at scaleability in a few different ways. First, the speed while using Marketo has remained relatively the same as our database has grown. Though I would say Marketo is slow at times, it has not gotten slower over the last few years. If anything, it has improved, and they are working to improve it. Second, the amount of programs we have developed in Marketo has exponentially grown as well. Marketo has allowed us to drastically increase our output without having to drastically increase our headcount.
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Adobe
    • Generated a 35% higher return on investment (ROI) in demand generation in the company.
    • The focus on the accounts that presented a greater sales potential, allowed us to prioritize and reduce costs by 20 Million USD.
    • Being personal and optimized. reduced efforts towards a more personalized customer experience, in working hours by almost 100 h.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    HCLSoftware
    • It helps my clients drive their business which in turn, drives more profit for them.
    • It helps my clients determine what works, and what doesn't work, in terms of their social marketing campaigns.
    • It helps navigate proper budgeting through determining what clients' users respond to, and what they find unique.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Adobe Marketo Engage Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Contact Timeline in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of the Audience Feature in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of Progressive Profiling in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of the Insights Dashboard in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of Sources in Adobe Marketo EngageScreenshot of Metrics in Adobe Marketo Engage