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    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

    Salesforce Marketing Cloud

    Score8.1 out of 10
    N/AMarketing Cloud is an AI-powered, cloud-based digital marketing platform within the Salesforce Customer 360 ecosystem. Marketers can segment their audience, deliver personalized messages, track campaign performance, engage leads and accounts, and optimize strategies based on real-time insights.

    $1,250

    per month per installation

    Pricing
    HCL UnicaSalesforce Marketing Cloud
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Account Engagement
    $1,250
    per month
    Engagement
    $1,250
    per month
    Intelligence
    $3,000
    per month
    Loyalty Management
    $20,000
    per month
    Personalization
    $100,000
    per year
    Data Cloud for Marketing
    $108,000
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    HCL UnicaSalesforce Marketing Cloud
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    HCL UnicaSalesforce Marketing Cloud
    Considered Both Products
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    Salesforce
    Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    Pardot's ease of use and native integration with SFDC was key to the selection. HubSpot didn't quite measure up from a global capability, while Unica was too complex. Eloqua was the next choice by a narrow margin.
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    86%
    Would buy again
    76 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    88%
    Delivers good value for the price
    64 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    81 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    87%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    52 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    82%
    Implementation went as expected
    47 Answers
    Features
    HCL UnicaSalesforce Marketing Cloud
    Email & Online Marketing
    Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of HCL Unica and Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    7.9
    167 Ratings
    4% above category average
    WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings8.1118 Ratings
    Dynamic content00 Ratings7.6149 Ratings
    Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings7.7108 Ratings
    Landing pages00 Ratings7.8117 Ratings
    A/B testing00 Ratings7.9147 Ratings
    Mobile optimization00 Ratings7.3107 Ratings
    Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings8.2128 Ratings
    List management00 Ratings8.6125 Ratings
    Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings8.191 Ratings
    Lead Management
    Comparison of Lead Management features of HCL Unica and Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    8.3
    121 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Lead nurturing automation00 Ratings8.3107 Ratings
    Lead scoring and grading00 Ratings8.2108 Ratings
    Data quality management00 Ratings8.1113 Ratings
    Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings8.699 Ratings
    Campaign Management
    Comparison of Campaign Management features of HCL Unica and Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    7.8
    111 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Calendaring00 Ratings8.3100 Ratings
    Event/webinar marketing00 Ratings7.394 Ratings
    Social Media Marketing
    Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of HCL Unica and Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    8.2
    85 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Social sharing and campaigns00 Ratings8.480 Ratings
    Social profile integration00 Ratings8.036 Ratings
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of HCL Unica and Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    8.2
    121 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Dashboards00 Ratings8.4115 Ratings
    Standard reports00 Ratings8.4120 Ratings
    Custom reports00 Ratings7.997 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of HCL Unica and Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    Feature
    HCL Unica
    -
    Ratings
    Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    7.6
    121 Ratings
    2% above category average
    API00 Ratings7.087 Ratings
    Role-based workflow & approvals00 Ratings7.586 Ratings
    Customizability00 Ratings7.4108 Ratings
    Integration with Salesforce.com00 Ratings8.3110 Ratings
    Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM00 Ratings8.713 Ratings
    Integration with SugarCRM00 Ratings7.610 Ratings
    Third-party software integrations00 Ratings6.921 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    HCL UnicaSalesforce Marketing Cloud
    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
    HCL UnicaSalesforce Marketing Cloud
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (15 ratings)
    8.1
    (325 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.7
    (11 ratings)
    8.1
    (114 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    4.1
    (35 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (11 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.6
    (9 ratings)
    Support Rating
    3.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.0
    (36 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (4 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (7 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.2
    (2 ratings)
    3.0
    (17 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.6
    (34 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (3 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    HCL UnicaSalesforce Marketing Cloud
    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
    Salesforce
    I rated this a seven because I love Salesforce, and it is excellent on the sales side. However, the marketing side has some pros and cons. It is terrific for keeping track of lead, customer, and dealer information, but it is not easy to automate workflows, integrate other software, or create well-designed emails. It is also straightforward to generate reports, which is very helpful in keeping track of lead progression to better market those leads and turn them into customers.
    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
    Salesforce
    • Filter relevant content so you can priorize those that are more relevant and resolve it first
    • Measure the traffic in the different social networks, as well as the response rate, average response time and other relevant metrics
    • Configure automation rules to order the work of those who must interact with the customer
    Incentivized
    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
    Salesforce
    • The email builder does not offer any way to catch/check bugs across different email service providers
    • Creating SQL is not as easy as drag-and-drop; a lot of technical knowledge is required
    • Salesforce Marketing Cloud is sold as a marketing tool, but to be honest, you need a LOT of technical IT support to run the tool
    • Einstein metrics are across the board; if you have multiple audiences in one instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can't segment the data.
    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
    Salesforce
    As of right now we have not seen any other program that integrates as seamlessly into our Salesforce platform. We have barely scratched the surface of all the features and use cases. It would be irresponsible to make a move to another platform in the near future. We have not come up against any limitations that would prompt a need to switch
    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
    Salesforce
    You won't find another solution that has as many features as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Interaction Studio. We all know Salesforce, we all know how big they are and it's not for nothing... Their tools do most of the things you want, need and even imagine. Using it is complicated, but the usability is infinite.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Salesforce
    Upgrades and timing of the upgrades were communicated well and planned during off hours for our work. If we did have a campaign scheduled during that time, it would kick-off after the system was back active. There were a few unplanned system down times, but it was a rare occurrence and those times were also short in duration.
    Read full review
    Performance
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Salesforce
    Though the make up of MA apps is not built this way today, it would be nice to see them become more real-time. The integration between Salesforce and Pardot is not a true real-time integration. If I modify something in Salesforce, those changes are not automatically reflected in Pardot immediately. There is a delay of about 15 minutes before the systems sync. This delay, although not long, is less than ideal We would love the systems to be integrated real time such that changes are propagated from one system to the other immediately.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    HCLSoftware
    I didn't use the Unica support since it is with IBM, only before.
    Read full review
    Salesforce
    They are really responsive and more than not solve the problem or give you insight to how you can manage the solution yourself. I do find however sometimes a long delay on the more complex issues when they need to loop in other departments. but overall a good experience with support
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Salesforce
    The trainers at the Pardot user conference (Elevate and Connections) were very knowledgeable and presented the material well. Again, the content was targeted to more of a new user audience, and was not really relevant for folks who had been using the product for 2+ years.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Salesforce
    Pardot's online training touches on all topics briefly and vaguely without much indepth exploration into how a final outcome could look, such as Nurturing Campaigns, Email templates, landing page templates, etc... The only true way to uncover Pardot's full capabilities is to have Front End design and coding experience. Without this key skill set, I would not recommend Pardot to another business.
    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
    Salesforce
    From an IT perspective, once you set up the Javascript beacon and start collecting data there is a waiting game. During this time you can start labeling your site actions which can be labor intensive for a single person, but you don't really have the final end-users on the platform yet. We did a lot of training so users were experienced, but it wasn't until they had their first tasks to accomplish that they started using the system and had questions. I'd recommend setting up some immediate goals for an end-user to start segmenting for the purpose of displaying message campaigns so you can jump start end-user action.
    Read full review
    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
    Salesforce
    I think that all of the marketing platforms I have evaluated and used in the past serve different markets and purposes. Salesforce Marketing Cloud was more palatable to our team because of our existing tech stack where we had Salesforce CRM already deployed and in use. Compared to Marketo and Hubspot, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a bit dated in terms of the UI/UX and the overall experience but still meets the needs of our organization. Mailchimp, however, isn't even playing in the same arena and is meant for small organizations and companies that don't have a need for a full fledged offering that SFMC brings to the table.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Salesforce
    was not involved with this part but i have not heard about clompaints
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    HCLSoftware
    No answers on this topic
    Salesforce
    Prior to this, we had no solution and literally were doing things on paper in a world where technology is outpacing paper. Having this process optimized has made it easier for the sales and marketing people to change information. From the training perspective, it has allowed us to see holes in where we could create additional support training, so the ROI here has been a lot more than just the optimization of a process.
    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
    Salesforce
    • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to more efficiently reach out to a higher number of prospects.
    • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to nimbly communicate important messages in a timely fashion to facilitate conversion.
    • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to track who is opening our messages so that we can stop sending to those not interested and focus on the most engaged audiences.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Salesforce Marketing Cloud Screenshots

    Screenshot of Pardot Analytics - Pardot's reporting and analytics can be used to perform true revenue impact analysis and closed-loop reporting.Screenshot of Pardot Email Analytics - The reach and impact of  email marketing efforts are displayed in real-time with advanced reporting and analytics by device, and email client.Screenshot of Pardot Forms and Landing Pages - Pardot's form and landing page builders are used to turn online traffic to leads with targeted offers and content marketing.Screenshot of Pardot Email Marketing - Lead nurturing flows are defined via an interface that enables definition of the simplest or most complex segmented and targeted campaigns.