HubSpot Content Hub vs. Ion, by Rock Content

HubSpot CMS HUB is a great fit for $1 Million+ orgs looking to take the next step in their online marketing and presence. If you need a more streamlined approach to your website, with more purposeful tools to convert online visitors, HubSpot CMS HUB is definitely at the top of the list. The only scenario where HubSpot CMS HUB would not work well is for e-commerce sites looking to sell directly on their main site. HubSpot does not cater to e-commerce and would be a poor fit for online stores selling their products

Incentivized

I don't give 9 ratings easily. Anyone wanting greater user engagement would benefit from ion interactive. I can slap together a simple interactive tool for a social post easily. I also have a plan selector with complex logic built in that would have cost me $50k to build without ion. Now I'm able to duplicate it and make adjustments to use it for various other applications. We've created a couple dozen fun interactive tools for social posts and now we simply re-purpose them easily to create new ones frequently. I just created a new page for our website that we'll want to be fluid; so the site developers suggested we simply embed an ion tool to give us real-time flexibility. Marketers in other divisions are jealous when they see all the fun stuff we're doing--they're gradually becoming ion converts

Incentivized

• Search engine optimization is a major strength of this software as it helps content writers in creating effective content.
• It is fully equipped with marketing tools.
• We give much importance to reporting features and HubSpot CMS Hub reports are very useful.

Incentivized

• I love that ion interactive autosaves. So many of these platforms leave me terrified of disconnection or closing my laptop.
• This WYSIWYG actually works. I've yet to have a translation or code glitch.
• Fast load times are a huge bonus, as well as mobile-optimized display.

Incentivized

• Although you can integrate it with Google Analytics, there is still a significant difference between what each tells you about [a] number of visitors to a given page, etc.
• There's a lot to the program and it's not always intuitive where to go for a feature. Though the help center and academy are good and usually have the answers, having to look things up isn't.
• It's expensive.

Incentivized

• no revert option/revision history if you make a bad mistake
• some simple styles that should be just there for you have to be made through custom CSS
• some of their template options have some pretty bad designs and are not usable beyond a basic functionality level/have to be completely reskinned

Incentivized

I don't think we justify the amount of usage we have of CMS Hub professional. We might discontinue it to save some bucks. But if we ever need an extensive solution, we'll come back to it, as we already other products of Hubspot (Sales Hub, Reporting, Automations)

Incentivized

Because unless I find something better to replace it with, we're probably going to renew our contract. Ideally, Ion interactive can update Liveball so it's easier to use, more functionality that includes forms and javascript options currently not in place

HubSpot CMS Hub provides small, medium and even large companies with the basic requirements to launch their marketing business, but to provide an all-in-1 solution will take some more time and creativity to avoid the necessity of working with competitors to complete the package.

Incentivized

Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported

Incentivized

As of now we didn't face any application errors and unplanned outages.

Incentivized

Yes the pages load fastly and this tool is pretty good in integration with other tools like zapier, calendly and so on.

Incentivized

Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.

They are always there to help in any way possible. Our account manager works out any situations we may encounter during business hours

Incentivized

The ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.

Incentivized

Pretty easy and resources available at fingertips.

Incentivized

They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.

Incentivized

Yes, recreation of landing pages, forms and email templates.

Incentivized

There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.

Incentivized

it is a much much simpler tool to use, the pick up and go nature of the software lends well to a busy team. with minimal training almost everyone can figure out the software just playing around with it. and if you want to learn more complex parts of the system there is the academy to help

Incentivized

I haven't had a lot of experience with templated CMS systems and was not involved in the original selection, though I was part of the renewal discussions. Most of the templates I've used have been html and created in house on an as-needed bases

Incentivized

Because it aligns with our goals and streamlined all the hubspot at one place.

Incentivized

Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.

Incentivized

• When I was using it I couldn't see the direct return on investment since I was only seeing web development.
• Practicality when creating articles and content
• Efficiency when creating landing pages, basically content and interactions, but no return on investment in money.
• Cuando lo estuve usando no pude ver el retorno de inversión directa ya que solo veía desarrollo web
• Practicidad al momento de crear artículos y contenido
• Eficiencia al momento de crear landings, basicamente contenido e interacciones pero no retorno de inversion en dinero

Incentivized

• So far the impact has been positive, but as we are new to the platform that opinion is based on relatively few interactive assets.
• There hasn't been any negative reactions or impact from Ion as of yet, but as I said before it's still early for us in terms of usage (less than a year).
• We do really appreciate the level of complexity and customization available in the platform.

Incentivized