ClickDimensions vs. Customer.io

ClickDimensions is great for SMB companies looking for an easy to use, robust platform especially in situations where there are only a few people within the Marketing Department.

Incentivized

This tool is well-suited for companies looking to run email marketing campaigns or send out newsletters regularly to their users/customers. The workflow setup is especially useful for companies who want to send specific emails based on user behavior - i.e. they've not logged in recently, have bought a specific product, haven't opened any emails, etc. This could also be useful for freelancers like me since you can create different workspaces within Customer.io. I have configured it this way to handle email marketing for a few of my clients, and the software keeps everything organized and separate. This might not be the best tool for small businesses, considering the price. It may be better to start out with a cheaper email marketing tool, and then if/when necessary, scale-up with a tool like Customer.io.

• The nurture campaign builder was great. Easy to use and to follow along with.
• The drop and drag editor was easy to use and you could start using it with no training.
• I always like when a service offers a certification for their product. ClickDimensions training was easy to follow, gave good content/tips/tricks and really helped me learn the platform.

Incentivized

• Ease of use, a good tool for non programmers, or not so tech savvy people.
• Great support, willing to help a lot, by chat, calls, or screen sharing.
• Fast updates, it's a newer tool, but they are coming with fixes and updates fast.

Incentivized

• Intergration with Dynamics CRM actually turns out to be a disadvantage, as the system is constrained heavily in its utility by how Dynamics runs. For example, creating marketing lists for segmentation is particularly arduous if Contacts and Lead entities are in use.
• Clickdimensions relies on Dynamics business processes to run automation events, which means if there's a lot going on then it can snarl up the CRM server significantly.
• Getting data imported into CRM and Clickdimensions is extremely clunky - when it doesn't fail entirely, it is often buggy.
• Drag and drop email editor is not great, often introducing undesired stylings due to cut and pasting.
• The real power in this system is being able to monitor key metrics, such as email clicks or page views. However, all of these have to be set up manually in Dynamics to truly leverage the system. And to act on these metrics requires business processes in CRM, as only email clicks and form submissions can be used as triggers from within CRM.

Incentivized

• I may be missing it in the UI, but a place to see the list of emails who qualify for a certain email.
• One easy to view chart of all our automated/lifecycle emails to see what a given user would see over their customer journey. (This is really just a feature request/idea - the product itself is really awesome.)

Incentivized

I see no reason for us to deprecate use at this point. It is important for us as a business to maintain our partnership with them and keep on the pulse of leading technology. ClickDimensions is a marketplace leader for the world of marketing automation, and in coordination with CRM, it's all the more relevant.

Incentivized

Easy to use! Although we are still using Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, the interface is still extremely usable and functions without flaw.

Incentivized

It is really difficult to leverage all the neat features without a developer. I actually think the base software could be really great for a small business if the price is right, but there are so many things you *can* do but have to know how to do them or have access to your website and the ability to code.

Incentivized

You submit a ticket and they will always come back asking for more information. So the next time you try to be proactive and add that information to the original ticket, but then they come back and ask for something else. It gets to the point where you have to believe it is a stall tactic. You ask for more detail into their processes and you get the runaround. 9 times out of ten they will point the finger at Dynamics 365 as the culprit. It is like pulling teeth to get to Tier 2 support and then the questions start all over again, even if you send screenshots.

I did not select ClickDimensions, this business decision was made by previous team members, who were not digital or marketing specialists, due to its integration with Dynamics. I'm sure the demo was great, but operationally it was not great.

Incentivized

We used Autopilot in the past. It worked well but the integration wasn't very good, considering they only used cookies. We have a very complex system right now to be able to track every customer, and it was expensive but worth it. Autopilot worked very well when we were starting, but then it didn't track purchases, it wasn't easy to change a customer attribute, and so on (this was a few years ago, probably they have improved a lot). It was more visual and better to create huge workflows. . Mailchimp was the first program we used. It's very basic but good at what it does: sending a newsletter to your small database. It has integrated very well with other services and we haven't used in a lot of time, but certainly was grown a lot so it must be doing things fine. I also tried Active Campaign but it was almost the same as Autopilot.

Incentivized

• We experienced data loss on multiple occasions from forms on our website, which impacted webinar attendance and possibly other communications we may not be aware of.
• Email statistics were not reliable, and these are the foundation of marketing.

• Helped increase our new user engagement with our cloud-based software
• Helped our sales team identify clients who had dropped off and stopped interacting with our software
• Helped our sales and customer service team track which clients were completing their full registration process
• Helped our marketing, sales, and customer service team identify key features and messaging with A/B testing for different campaigns

Incentivized