TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Act-On

Score8 out of 10

408 Reviews and Ratings

What is Act-On?

Act-On is an adaptive marketing platform designed to drive personal and purposeful multi-channel marketing. Its foci are inbound and outbound marketing, for enabling a tighter alignment with sales and turning data into actionable insights.

Media

the Automated Journey Builder. Here, users can personalize customer interactions from awareness to loyalty.
the Analytics Dashboard. This is used to compare performance over time, filter by segment, and export report components.
the Email Composer. Here is where users design emails optimized for desktop and mobile with a drag and drop builder.

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Top Performing Features

  • WYSIWYG email editor

    Users can create html emails through a drag-and-drop interface, without html coding knowledge.

    Category average: 8

  • Dynamic content

    Users can tailor email, website or landing page content depending on the viewer or recipient (e.g., email salutations that include the recipient’s name).

    Category average: 6.9

  • A/B testing

    Users can experiment with different variations of a campaign and measure results. Testable aspects might include subject lines, header images, or landing page copy.

    Category average: 7.9

Areas for Improvement

  • Mobile optimization

    Users can easily optimize emails and landing pages for mobile devices.

    Category average: 8

  • Integration with SugarCRM

    The software can integrate with SugarCRM bi-directionally, allowing for data syncs, activity alerts, campaign triggers, enhanced reporting, and lead assigning.

    Category average: 7.7

  • Calendaring

    The software helps users maintain a calendar of all marketing activities.

    Category average: 7.5

Act-On: A great e-marketing solution

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Act-On every day to send emails out to our client base. They make it simple to put together cohesive campaigns with forms, landing pages, and emails. We also have several marketing automation programs running so that we can focus on the day-to-day. I love the reporting for every message so you can improve your efforts.

Pros

  • Easy Interface - the WYSIWYG interface makes it extremely easy to build out marketing campaigns in a short amount of time. Just place your text and images and you've got a beautiful cohesive design.
  • Wonderful customer support - I have had very few problems with Act-On, but those I did have were resolved very fast by my customer care rep. They are very hands on with their customers and do whatever they can to help you succeed.
  • Integration - smooth integration with our Salesforce account allow us to build out elaborate campaigns with specific lead lists, and then add qualifying data back to customer accounts.

Cons

  • We send several weekly emails out to the same customer lists and it would be convenient if when we duplicated the message it would duplicate the list selection as well.

Return on Investment

  • Better customer service and stronger relationships with our customers - being able to stay in contact with our customers and provide them with the targeted content they want has been a boon for us.
  • Better lead conversion - emailing leads with content they would find useful has increased interest in our company.
  • Increased employee efficiency - I can build out campaigns including e-mails, landing pages, and forms in a fraction of the time!

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Marketing Cloud and HubSpot Marketing Hub

Other Software Used

Asana, Trello, Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator CC, Adobe Dreamweaver

Act On is Solid.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Send templated emails to our financial advising prospects and clients. Monitor website and open rate activity. Email automation sequences.

Pros

  • Pretty easy to use.
  • Integrates with my CRM sorta.
  • Monitor prospect activity.

Cons

  • Need more options on Zapier. There are additional triggers and actions that could improve the integration.
  • Need native integration with WealthBox, one of the biggest CRMs in fintech. You have it with everyone else. I made a call with you where you wanted $5,000 to build it. Just build it.
  • The 'true open' revelation is disappointing. There are users I've told colleagues were opening and clicking eblasts, only to find out that may not have been true. I feel stupid, but that's just the tech I guess.

Return on Investment

  • Can't put a number on it, but it's been a time-saver.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Intuit Mailchimp and ConvertKit

Other Software Used

Wealthbox CRM, Zapier, Calendly

Act-On Software Dependable and Flexible Email Marketing Solution

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Act-On Software to communicate news, updates, and website content to our customers and those who have signed up for our mailing list. As a marketing team, Act-On Software solves the problem of reaching all of our customers (or segments of our customers) in all 17 countries. It allows us to integrate and organize our contacts and touch points.

Pros

  • It is dependable.
  • It integrates well.
  • Act-On Software has excellent customer support, and informational resources.

Return on Investment

  • Improved visibility through email campaigns
  • .

Usability

Other Software Used

Microsoft SharePoint, Google Analytics

Act-On Software Powerful Intuitive and Effective Marketing Automation.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My organization has used Act-On for more than 10 years. We use Act-On to communicate with our internal associates, customers, suppliers, and prospects. Many of our customers have limited marketing resources. To help them, we utilize the Marketing Network capabilities to offer email marketing programs. We share personalized content that is relevant to their business. The emails connect directly to their e-commerce site so their customers can purchase what they need. We also offer a variety of behavior-based targeted automated programs that they can use to market to their end customers.

Pros

  • The support team is very responsive and helpful. They communicate well and follow up until an issue is resolved.
  • Act-On is always looking to improve its product and make it worthwhile to more customers. There are so many features!
  • The product is very intuitive. When a new feature is added, it is easy to learn about it and understand how to use it.

Cons

  • The interface has been improved on an ongoing basis. Preparing for new releases so that we are fully up to speed to train our customers on the new changes is challenging when supporting our customers.
  • We would have preferred that the enhancements be fully implemented and the software switched over once completed rather than having gradual rollouts of each feature.
  • There are some limitations to the new composer that require finding workarounds. (i.e., inserting an informational table in an email, editing HTML).

Return on Investment

  • Due to the product's ease of use, our team of three sends over 1,200 unique emails, landing pages, forms, etc., each year.
  • We provide email support to over 200 of our top customers, who use the product to generate millions of dollars in sales each year.
  • Our suppliers are clamoring to be included in our programs because of their reach to end customer eyeballs. Delivering targeted messages via automated programs each month has been a key driver in our company's success with our supplier partners.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub and Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Other Software Used

sales-i, Airtable, Google Analytics

Come for the integration, stay for the ease of use!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Act-On Software for multiple email avenues. We use their email automation for customer service emails based on product categories (and a general one that links to a survey), and we use the email automation for nurture campaigns based on specified product categories that we have within our sales. We also use it for monthly newsletters or product launch sends, and for LinkedIn social media connection and distribution.

Pros

  • Syncs with MS Dynamics
  • Ease of setup for automations/emails
  • Detailed marketing lists that we can segment

Cons

  • Some extra ease of use would be nice (like a pause all automations button)
  • Updating the footers in individual emails isn't fun every year
  • Constant changing of our Act-On contact

Return on Investment

  • Visibility of Cisco-Eagle offerings
  • Sales rescued with customer service
  • Ease of use

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Other Software Used

Microsoft Dynamics 365, D&B Hoovers, Paycor