TrustRadius Insights for Marigold Engage+ are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Business Problems Solved
Cheetah Messaging offers a range of use cases that have proven valuable for various companies. Users have found that the segmentation feature of Cheetah Messaging allows for the creation of different segments for promotional and trigger campaigns, enabling the sending of dynamic campaigns to users. This has resulted in a good click-through rate for various campaigns. Additionally, CheetahMail, which is utilized as the current solution for email marketing across all areas of a company, has been beneficial in sending out emails to the masses and for specific remarketing purposes. The tracking and internal management system provided by CheetahMail is helpful for managing email programs and reporting on promotional campaigns. It is particularly useful for day-to-day marketing and editorial emails, promoting newsletters, events, etc. Multiple publications within companies have used CheetahMail to cater to their varying communication needs. The program enables professional communication with subscribers, offering features such as unsubscribing and attribute management. Furthermore, CheetahMail assists in ad operations by allowing easy tracking of clicks and opens for sponsored emails. With the ability to schedule and automate email deployments, even during non-business hours, CheetahMail helps to organize and streamline communications with subscribers, ensuring professionalism and efficiency. It has been widely used across organizations to provide email management for each specific product brand/website. Its integration with the OMS/fulfillment warehouse facilitates transactional communications and automated marketing email deliveries. By enabling data-driven workflow and segmentation based on customer data, CheetahMail enhances the effectiveness of email marketing efforts. Users have noted that the program saves time as it allows small teams to manage email marketing for all lines of business in the organization. It has been utilized by most departments within organizations, often requiring tech support and design team involvement. From sale emails to subscriber base management, CheetahMail serves cross-departmental purposes effectively while managing a large volume of email records and facilitating messaging dissemination. It has also been used as one of multiple ESPs by agencies for transactional messaging and batch email delivery.
Cheetah Messaging solves all kinds of promotional and trigger campaigns by creating different segmentation, while taking into account sending dynamic campaigns to the users. It is easy to use. The segmentation allows a good click through rate to almost all of our campaigns. So I would say it is a very good tool for marketers.
Pros
Segment Campaigns
Trigger Campaigns
A/B Testing
Personalization
Reporting
Analysis
Cons
User Interface
Customer Support
Bulk Email Sending
Slightly Expensive
Likelihood to Recommend
Cheetah Messaging is great tool for marketers in order to manage different campaigns. Various aspects of the tool such as personalization, reporting & analytics, bulk user management, segmentation help the marketers a lot with their day to day work. Cheetah Messaging would be less appropriate for user having bulk databases.
CheetahMail is our current solution for emails for all areas of our company, especially marketing. For sending out emails to the masses or for specific remarketing purposes, CheetahMail is our answer. The segmentation and customization of when/what email is sent is what CheetahMail is primarily used for. The tracking and internal management system that CheetahMail also provides is helpful as well.
Pros
Internal management - This is a great web-based tool that allows our users to see what emails go to whom.
Organization - Many layers of organization for templates since there are many types of remarketing emails that we send out.
Historical Records - CheetahMail sends us the raw text files of all email actions so we can upload them to our database.
Cons
Missing column values in the historical records sent are sometimes missing and have to be fixed by Cheetah and resent to us.
There are many email ids that are not correctly passed in our own web data and there is some struggle finding the correct email that lead to web data.
Likelihood to Recommend
The customization options are nice and the templates are plentiful and endless. The one drawback is that their web-based system can be very finicky and annoying, especially when first trying to log in.
The historical records are also a big plus, but the missing column values really slow down analyses and raise lots of questions by the marketing team.
We are using CheetahMail as our email platform for all promotional and transactional email programs. We are a full-service client of CheetahMail. Our account team does the set-up of our email program, pulls segmentation lists based on our direction and reporting of our promotional email campaigns. They also provide recommendations on improved customer contact strategies, re-engagement and overall best practices.
Pros
They offer a best-in-class view of the customer email experience - through all levels of a customer journey.
Our account team has taken the time to dedicate to our brand and understand our goals and objectives. They tailor recommendations to what is best for our unique customer experience.
The CheetahMail platform is user-friendly and is continuously going through enhancements to improve the experience.
Cons
We could use a local account rep for in-person meetings. However, our account team does a phenomenal job at making themselves available via conference call, whenever needed.
CheetahMail was being used only in my department. It sent sale emails to our subscriber base.
Pros
Easy to understand.
Can be used across department easily.
Great support system within CheetahMail company.
Cons
Subscriber list issues.
More modern templates.
Likelihood to Recommend
CheetahMail is a great tool to get your message out easily and fast. Scheduling campaigns is helpful when you have a small ecommerce team working on one to two emails a day!
VU
Verified User
Former Employee in Marketing (1001-5000 employees)
Cross departmental. We use CheetahMail to facilitate transactional and marketing emails for both B2B/C. It helps us manage a vast amount of email records and disseminate messaging.
Pros
The interface is generally comfortable to use with a few exceptions of naming conventions.
Segmentation is generally pretty simple when properly assigned. The drag and drop is a nice feature.
Cons
Customer service is certainly a weak point. Response times are too long. Knowledge base of certain features seems scattered amongst employees.
Form creation is very chunky and not intuitive.
We've had issues in the past where mailings were firing or not firing for no reason or accounts were set up improperly. The overall system is confusing and needs to be improved to warrant the cost and or time to invest.
Likelihood to Recommend
Customer service and help desk was a big issue. Smaller businesses will not fit here well. Too long for a response, not enough information on the products, etc... I think CheetahMail might be a good fit for "hands-off" businesses looking for managed platforms but not for boutique mailings. There are much better platforms, for cheaper that can handle nearly any volume smaller business are willing to send.
I worked at an agency that used multiple ESPs and CheetahMail was one that we had expertise in a pool of 10 ESPs that we developed in to support our clients. It solved transactional real time messaging for order and shipping confirmations and batch and blast to large lists very quickly. This was an excellent tool to get out a lot of emails quickly.
Pros
CheetahMail has grown their platform from just a batch and blast of large quantities of email to one that allows for strategic consumer profiling and targeting. The tool has made strides towards getting to the analytical data so we can do some granular targeting.
CheetahMail's strength is and has always been in sending out large quantities of email quickly. They have also enabled actionable consumer profiles for more granular targeting.
The platform lends its self to deliver more effective campaigns and measureable results by matching clients’ audience data to display, video, social, mobile and media activating the audience or consumer.
Cons
I would like to see more intuitive features to easily switch between the different modules of CheetahMail. Moving from the different tabs are not as easy as I would like.
I would like to see more features around scoring user data. It would be great if CheetahMail could have an intelligence engine that could be used for setting up dynamic content based on past behavior.
Likelihood to Recommend
For clients that are looking to send a lot of emails quickly, millions of emails - this is the platform for you. If you are looking to do advanced targeting using behavioral activity from the past, this is not the best platform for making these types of strategies work. It has made strides in that direction but still has a bit to go.
<p>We utilize CheetahMail to send our day to day marketing and editorial emails to our client base of subscribers. It is mainly used by the marketing department in marketing emails that are sent out to promote newsletters, events, etc. It used in the this capacity several times a day, and we also follow up and keep track of metrics using the excellent metrics tools. In addition, the editorial team uses it to send out newsletters on a daily basis and track their performance. Our company has several publications and all of them use CheetahMail. Some use the program more than others as they have a higher level of communication needs.</p><p>The program works really well for our particular department because it allows us to communicate with our subscribers in a professional manner on a daily basis. We have it setup to allow unsubscribing and management of attributes for our subscribers across our website. It is very useful when it comes to ad operations because they can easily track the clicks and opens for any email that was sponsored by an advertiser. These metrics are hugely important when it comes to showing clients that their ad dollars are paying off.</p><p>CheetahMail has also been very useful in allowing our team to set up email deployments ahead of time and schedule them to go out without having to actually be online for the actual send. This is very important because we sometimes send out newsletters that are going out in the middle of the night so this automation step is very convenient.</p><p>Overall, CheetahMail has helped us to be organized, professional and streamlined in the way we send and track our communications with subscribers.</p>
Pros
Allows to easily track metrics to see results clearly
Allows the scheduling of email sends in advance so you do not have to be present during the send
Very user friendly and could easily be self taught
Cons
The organization of CheetahMail could at times be better, as you create more and more mailings, they just pile up in a long list. It would be useful to be able to create folders to store specific mailings in. (ex. editorial, newsletters, marketing, etc.)
Likelihood to Recommend
CheetahMail is perfect for a company that sends a lot of email communications. If you send at least 4-5 emails per week to your clients, this is a must.
CheetahMail is being utilized across the entire organization, supplying email management for each specific product brand / website. Its main integration is with the OMS / fulfillment warehouse to facilitate the ongoing transactional communications (confirmations, notifications). The integration then extends into automated marketing email deliveries for each brand's overall customer relationship management strategy. This implementation and data-driven workflow allows for more in-depth focus on results and ongoing improvements of the program, as baseline segmentation and product advertising mixes are based on customer data, rather than ongoing manual segmentation/list pulls for day to day email marketing efforts. The efficiency of people's time to really maximize the program is the biggest win, and also allows for a very small team to manage the entire program for all lines of business in the organization.
Pros
CheetahMail's core strength is its data expertise and services. Without their vast knowledge working with so many clients, it would be much more difficult to integrate and create these automated programs. Their development teams for these types of projects are well versed in data set needs per client and mapping to CheetahMail-specific formats.
Their client services team (especially if you are contracted in a higher plan) is quite good. They are quite responsive and always try to make sure that the client is doing well. This would include the senior manager (initial contracts / reviews); day to day manager (campaign assistance/troubleshooting) and the other specialty teams I mentioned previously.
Investigations. The teams there are fantastic at answering issues and/or doing analysis to help their clients. For instance, a critical issue with delivery of emails required extensive analysis by all sides, and the CheetahMail team's work was critical in finding the issue with the data sets we were providing the system.
Cons
Although my personal preference is for a bit "older" styled web UI because of my experience, I can see that the CheetahMail main UI system could be improved for better user experience, incorporating more of the recent web standards for code. It can come across a bit "clunky" at first and only after using it for time is it easier to navigate.
Their online support / guide to use the tool needs updating. This may be more impactful for folks trying to utilize more of their advanced functionality (custom preference center form coding, subscriber report management). Although their client teams are welcome to answer questions, sometimes the need is for self-service, and the user guide isn't the best.
I mentioned that if you're on one of the higher, dedicated-account manager contracts, your support is quite full. However, if you're on a lower priced tier / essentially a self-service model, it's a bit difficult to get a hold of the general support team (you have more of a "pool") than is desired. I should say that these things are up/down depending on what's happening to their other clients (so basically this isn't really different than most 3rd-party vendors.)
CheetahMail needs to incorporate / help clients with newer responsive email design capabilities for non-technical users, ie. similar to my first comment regarding overall UI improvements.
Likelihood to Recommend
I think CheetahMail, being one of the main ESPs in the market, is a quality choice. However, I would suggest that it's really only valuable for a bit larger of an organization, generally having staff of 100+ and revenues in tens of millions -- this is mainly to justify the amount of investment required, so may be cost-prohibitive to some. You also need to make sure that you understand the entire "level of support" you will gain through your specific contract.... the key is understanding what types of resources are within your organization (who's doing the coding? who comes up with the next campaign? What's the overall strategy?) Depending on these questions and resources, may help determine your final needs from a services point of view. CheetahMail can provide a wealth of various services specific to needs (and changes over time as your business changes), but a clear understanding of what you have before you bring them on will really help getting up and running quickly. Also be sure to truly understand the costs for the initial integrations, setups, IP senders, etc.
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology (51-200 employees)
CheetahMail is used across most departments within our organization. We use their self-service option and to do so requires tech support and your own design team.
Pros
Has many refinements for segmentation such as location, transaction data, opens...
Tracks many metrics for reporting such as transaction data, open data, click data...
Much flexibility for design
Cons
Navigation is not intuitive.
Tech support is lacking. An account representative with no technical knowledge is your main contact and there is a long lag when technical issues arise because the account representative has to wait on their tech team. There also often is a communication gap as to what the technical issues are as you are not allowed to talk directly to tech support and the account representative must mediate.
Most innovative solutions require much more money and are not included in the basic (self-service) CheetahMail package. For example, integrating with other data sources and having advanced segmentation require you to purchase an outside service that is compatible with CheetahMail but not included in the CheetahMail package. CheetahMail is drastically behind in terms of technology. So much so that we had an experience where we've tried to integrate with certain third parties but were unable to because CheetahMail was not as advanced as the other email providers.
Extremely manual process for setup and reporting. There is no automation or anything easily accessible to the marketers without tech support. They are significantly worse than any other competitor.
Likelihood to Recommend
In exploring other email service providers, I have found CheetahMail to be the most lacking. While CheetahMail has a lot of functionality, it is all completely manual so you better have a lot of tech support on your hands to make it work. All of CheetahMail's innovation comes from the use of third parties, which is extremely costly. Their service is not very good and they do not provide any training for someone trying to learn the program from scratch. Many other email providers do a better job at giving you a simpler navigation with more accessible sets of metrics/segmentation for less money. If you are a small business with not a large budget, I would not recommend this service unless you go with a full service rather than self service contract. If you are a large company, I would suggest looking into Experian's Cross Marketing Platform rather than CheetahMail as they are spending more time and energy on that platform.
