TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    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

    OutboundEngine

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AOutboundEngine provides a hands-off way for small business owners to market and grow their business. The product aims to provide small businesses with what big companies have achieved with marketing automation. The service aims to help users keep in touch with clients and prospects with professionally designed, branded campaigns. Benefits include: driving engagement, surfacing warm leads from current contacts, generating referrals and repeat business from their existing contacts, social…

    $199

    per user

    Pricing
    HCL UnicaOutboundEngine
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Essential
    $199
    per user
    Value
    $299
    per user
    Premium
    $499
    per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    HCL UnicaOutboundEngine
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptional$99 per user
    Additional Details—More information is available on the vendor's website.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    HCL UnicaOutboundEngine
    Considered Both Products
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    Elm Street Technology
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    75%
    Would buy again
    41 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    74%
    Delivers good value for the price
    37 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    75%
    Happy with the feature set
    41 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    67%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    84%
    Implementation went as expected
    46 Answers
    Features
    HCL UnicaOutboundEngine
    Email & Online Marketing
    Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of HCL Unica and OutboundEngine
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    OutboundEngine
    8.0
    49 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Mobile optimization00 Ratings8.643 Ratings
    Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings7.649 Ratings
    List management00 Ratings7.943 Ratings
    Lead Management
    Comparison of Lead Management features of HCL Unica and OutboundEngine
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    OutboundEngine
    5.2
    38 Ratings
    26% below category average
    Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings5.238 Ratings
    Social Media Marketing
    Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of HCL Unica and OutboundEngine
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    OutboundEngine
    7.8
    47 Ratings
    17% above category average
    Social sharing and campaigns00 Ratings7.847 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    HCL UnicaOutboundEngine
    Small Businesses
    Vbout
    Score9.9 out of 10
    monday marketer
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Bloomreach - The Agentic Platform for Personalization
    Score8.4 out of 10
    LocaliQ
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Iterable
    Score8.7 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    HCL UnicaOutboundEngine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (15 ratings)
    8.3
    (60 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.7
    (11 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    6.4
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.8
    (27 ratings)
    Support Rating
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.9
    (24 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    HCL UnicaOutboundEngine
    Likelihood to Recommend
    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
    Elm Street Technology
    OutboundEngine does a referral campaign and I've been able to close a couple of deals based on getting in touch with people who engage with this campaign and state they could use my services in the next 6 months. This is a great follow up tool for those you may or may not know are going to be needing your services.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    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
    Elm Street Technology
    • The content that they generate to send to our clients is relevant and the clients want to engage with us. It makes us appear more professional and consistent, even though we are a smaller company.
    • It helps us stay in touch with clients and helps us stay top of mind. We are able to generate more new business leads if we are in consistent contact with current, former, and potential clients.
    • Their customer service and support is outstanding. All my questions were answered and I went into the program feeling confident and knowledgeable.
    Read full review
    Cons
    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
    Elm Street Technology
    • I do not like the use of drawings to attract new customers, and they have ignored my requests to eliminate that for my personal emails.
    • I do not like it when a competitor in my immediate market has the same posts. It cheapens the service or makes it appear that I am simply sharing another's post.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    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
    Elm Street Technology
    The biggest issue is poor ROI. The second biggest issue is rigid customer service process, lack of a sense of urgency, and inability to reach out to upper management with issues.
    Read full review
    Usability
    HCLSoftware
    I think it is easy to use, if you don't have to do to complex selections.
    Read full review
    Elm Street Technology
    Overall, OutboundEngine is very user friendly. It is simple to set up and explore, and if there are any issues or questions, the customer service team and account managers are always available to help. They are very knowledgeable and were able to explain everything in detail to me. The program is easy to navigate and helps me stay organized, and an uncomplicated and straightforward solution was exactly what I was looking for
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Elm Street Technology
    I haven't had to contact Outbound Engine because I haven't had any application errors or unplanned outages. I basically have had such a trouble free experience with them that I haven't had to call. Everything is automated and I get a notice to review every isse. I suppose if I personalized the newsletter a bit more and added some of my own articles, I would need to contact them, (which I should really start to do) but so far things have been so on point, I haven't felt the need.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    HCLSoftware
    I didn't use the Unica support since it is with IBM, only before.
    Read full review
    Elm Street Technology
    The customer service was excellent! Everyone I spoke to was kind and knowledgeable. My account manager was easily reachable. Setup of the OutboundEngine program was explained really thoroughly, and we knew how we could best use the product to meet the needs of our clients and get our online and social media presence off the ground.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    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
    Elm Street Technology
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    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
    Elm Street Technology
    I selected it for the ability to have an automated system do 3 things all at once, social media posts, emails and the instant communication with the chat box. I have never seen a chat come through that lead to a helpful client touchpoint. I have never used another product but have since begun to weigh some of the less expensive options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    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
    Elm Street Technology
    • One client identified how one article I sent that he read saved him from having to replace his entire AC system.
    • One client actually thought I was sending this to him personally because I valued him
    • One of the above transacted with me twice for over $3M in sales
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    OutboundEngine Screenshots

    Screenshot of Automated Social Media MarketingScreenshot of A personalized snapshot of your account activity and warmest leads.Screenshot of Personally designed, tested, and automated emails