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Act-On

Growth marketing automation platform

(19)

Act-On Reviews

Overall rating

4.3

/5

253

Rating criteria

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend7.98/10

Reviews by rating

Pros and cons

Act-On is extremely easy to use and starts providing working data immediately. Act-On has a quality product with a friendly UI and wonderful support when the occasional question comes up.
I like the breadth of capabilities with superior customer support by both the Customer Success Manager and Technical Support.
There may be other big brands out there, but this is a great solution at an affordable price.
In some cases, metrics are just a bit confusing. In particular, there's a metric that compares SEO-type things, but the explanation is inadequate.
It could have better designed templates for emails and landing pages; the ones provided are dreadful. There is a major shortcoming, though, and I think it's a fatal one: e-mail deliverability.
As a small business testing out systems this is horrible.
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253 reviews

Recommended

AK
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Andrew K.

Senior Program Manager

Information Technology and Services, 1,001-5,000 employees

Review source

Overall Rating

Easy to use, but not our top choice

Reviewed a year ago

Transcript

Andrew K.: My name's Andrew. I'm a program manager. And I would give Act-On a four out of five rating....

AR
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Verified reviewer

51-200 employees

Used daily for 1-2 years

Review source

Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend10/10

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One of the Best Marketing Automation Programs I've Ever Used

Reviewed 6 years ago

My sales and marketing team had so many benefits from this software. The marketing and data analysts had high-level, quality reports that were as detailed or as broad as they wanted. The sales team had live information about their hottest leads and could rely on the lead-generation process to do things automatically. They didn't have to worry about information not being part of the CRM from Marketing because the integration made that seamless. Truly a great program and I didn't even have enough characters to talk about all of the other features too!

Pros

I liked everything about this software! It was truly an all-in-one deal. First of all, it integrated with our CRM (we used SugarCRM). The features related to this integration were: lead generation from our web forms, lead generation from our email campaigns, lead generation based on user action. It also pulled information in from our CRM, so any lead lists we created in our CRM (manually or automatically...

Cons

The most challenging features were the design elements. It was very template based and it took some CSS or HTML skills to make them less-standard. This was true for everything - emails, web pages, landing pages, etc.

Vendor response

Thanks so much for your enthusiastic review of Act-On! We really appreciate it and are glad to hear about your excellent experience with our solution. Happy Marketing! Sarah

AR
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Verified reviewer

Furniture, 51-200 employees

Used other for less than 6 months

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend8/10

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Powerful and user friendly marketing automation suite with excellent customer support

Reviewed 6 years ago

We've been able to bring our marketing data into one place and create a more unified platform from which to send out our marketing campaigns.

Pros

We just started using Act-On a few months ago. We had debated marketing automation companies to go with for years. Overall, Act-On was able to go toe-to-toe in most regards with the other vendors we were considering, at least. The deciding factor was the pricing model, which is a bit unusual. They only charge you for "active" contacts, which are contacts you are actually reaching out to. You can import...

Cons

You'll get out of Act-On what you put into it. The support and university is there to guide you in that process, but it's ultimately up to you. That's how it is with any platform that doesn't offer in-house services, but with a marketing automation suite, you will really get more out of it if you have knowledgeable staff that have experience implementing and using these platforms. It can be daunting if it's your first time using a marketing automation suite. While Act-On is working on some new things, I don't know that they are putting as much effort behind investing into the product as some of the leading companies in the space. Also, some of the tools are a little rudimentary, and the UI could certainly use some modernizing. It feels too much like Windows XP at times.

AT
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Andre T.

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
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This reviewer only left a rating

Reviewed 10 years ago

Our company is an insurance brokerage firm specializing in employee benefits (health, dental, life, pensions) for midsize companies in Brazil. Our sales process is based on inside sales cold calling clients to schedule face-to-face visits with our sales consultants. We already have a great telemarketing platform, and we wanted to extract more value from the interactions we have with our prospects,...

Pros

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Cons

No cons were added to this review

AR
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Verified reviewer

Computer Software, 11-50 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

Review source

Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend10/10

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Excellent Segmentation and Automation Tools

Reviewed 5 years ago

Act-On is instrumental for meeting our company's revenue goals with email marketing campaigns.

Pros

Act-On gives me the ability to get extremely specific with my target prospects and customers. It's easy to build new segments and immediately see the size of those groups. It's very useful for data mining and determining where to focus your marketing efforts. For example, in just a couple of minutes (assuming you've done the work to collect the information from customers and store them properly in...

Cons

The UI in some areas of the platform could use some design enhancements for aesthetics and for consistency throughout.

Vendor response

So great to hear that you're a fan of Act-On. Sounds like you're using it exactly as intended and seeing great results. That's fantastic! Thanks for sharing your review.

AR
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Verified reviewer

Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 11-50 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend10/10

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Great Automation Program, Especially for SugarCRM Users

Reviewed 4 years ago
Pros

Great support and product learning program. The integration with our CRM and overall features/ease-of-use was excellent. It was a pleasure working with their team.

Cons

I'd like to have more in-person user group opportunities to discuss best practices.

Vendor response

Thank you so much for the positive feedback! We actually did a user group series this fall (London, Irvine, Chicago) and will do many more in 2020. Hopefully, you can join us in 2020. In the meantime, I would encourage you to leverage Act-On Connect, our customer portal and the vibrant community to share best practices and pose your questions. You can find it here: https://connect.act-on.com/hc/en-us Cheers! Sarah

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Datis M.

Events Services, 11-50 employees

Used daily for 1-2 years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend7/10

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Some great features but a lot of big flaws (haven't used it for 2 years)

Reviewed 4 years ago

It did some things really well, but other things really poorly. I'm not sure how much they've improved these past couple years, but I would only use them again if I were to lock in a heavily discounted rate and needed an instant bi-lateral sync between Salesforce and my automation platform.

Pros

- Their support team was stellar - Their Salesforce integration is the best I've seen in a Marketing Automation Platform - Their list segmentation system features were fantastic - We were early subscribers to act-on so we had a really cheap rate

Cons

I haven't used this software for a couple years, so they may have improved a lot but here were some of my major gripes: - Extremely difficult to track lead sources - Integration with ad platforms wasn't very good - Landing page builder was terrible - Lots of limitations with forms - Email builder was quite painful to use but they made some improvements along the way while I was using them

AR
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Verified reviewer

Publishing, 51-200 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

Review source

Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend10/10

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Dynamics Compatible, Great Value

Reviewed 5 years ago

An unexpected benefit has been in the customer support department. Proactive email drips for recent purchasers helps that team provide great service consistently through scheduled email programs with tips and tutorials.

Pros

The Dynamics integration was a crucial part of my decision to adopt this software for my company. Ease of use is comparable to any other robust marketing automation tool. We've seen huge value in this purchase.

Cons

Unfortunately the software does not function well on iOS devices.

Vendor response

We love hearing your feedback. Thanks for sharing your review! Great to hear that you're benefitting from the new customer tutorials, tips and tricks. If you haven't already, please check out the Act-On User Community as another great resource for best practices and product suggestions. https://community.act-on.com/home

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Layne L.

Publishing, 51-200 employees

Used daily for 1-2 years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend5/10

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This is really a marketing tool that has build some features for salespeople

Reviewed 5 years ago
Pros

I like that it will track my emails and log them to our CRM (Microsoft Dynamics). I like that I can get a daily email letting me know of known and anonymous visitors to our website.

Cons

It's clunky to try and track down a specific email to see if the recipient has interacted with it. This is really a tool that is more valuable to marketing, but has built some features that are being sold as a sales tool. It's a nice to have, but not a need for sales.

Vendor response

Hi Layne, Thanks for posting your review of Act-On. We value your feedback and really appreciate your candor. If you haven't already, I'd encourage you to check out the Act-On User Community at https://community.act-on.com/home It's a great place to share feedback and product suggestions with the Product team and exchange best practices with fellow users. Thanks!

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Brian W.

Airlines/Aviation, 51-200 employees

Used daily for 1-2 years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend7/10

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Good alternative for Pardot, but not as comprehensive

Reviewed 5 years ago
Pros

Act-On is great for most tasks. I can create emails, forms, and drip campaigns with ease. It syncs really easily to Salesforce and I haven't seen a single issue with that yet.

Cons

It's not as comprehensive and contemporary as some platforms. The forms aren't dynamic, and the emails are in a modular form instead of an easier drag-and-drop format.

Vendor response

Hi Brian, Thanks for taking the time to share a review on Act-On. We really appreciate your feedback. If you haven't done so already, I'd encourage you to check out the Act-On User Community for great tips, tricks and best practicing sharing. https://community.act-on.com/home Thanks! Sarah

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Stephanie C.

Research, 51-200 employees

Used daily for 6-12 months

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend4/10

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I use this software regularly (almost every day) for work as a marketing specialist.

Reviewed 6 years ago
Pros

Building mailings is relatively straightforward. There are a decent amount of functions that allow us to customize our mailings in different ways based on content and branding for our various campaigns.

Cons

The sorting and filtering functions for sent mailings isn't very robust. The mailing builder is actually really quite finicky sometimes. Adding borders around image blocks causes extra white space around mailings. Also, buttons and other smaller elements render differently in the mailing builder than in Outlook, which is one of the primary email clients people use. Mailings end up looking less polished in Outlook.

Vendor response

Hi Stephanie, Thanks for posting your review. We really appreciate your honest feedback and take it to heart. Best, Sarah

RJ
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Rick J.

Insurance, 10,001+ employees

Used daily for 2+ years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend10/10

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ActOn -- act on it!

Reviewed 5 years ago

ActOn allows me to get important professional messaging out to my target audience in a timely basis. I am impressed with their can-do customer support team. They always help me figure out a solution to building content. The software wear offers so much in terms of content marketing, form building and automated drip campaign functionality. The email content reporting and tracking is also very good.

Pros

I think you will find ActOn easy to use. I can quickly develop an email and define a target list and send as easily to 10 people or 100,000 people. I also like the reporting and graphs associated with a campaign. I also find the Form editor very valuable b/c I can quickly create a business need survey in a matter of minutes for my internal customers. The responses are easy to analyze b/c they are in spreadsheet form.

Cons

ActOn recently rolled out a new forms editor and they did not bring over the reporting URL feature from the Classic Form editor...this would make it easier for my internal customers to pull data vs having me pull the data for them.

Vendor response

Hi Rick, Thanks so much for posting your review! We appreciate your candor and will share your feedback with the product team. They continually work to improve Act-On for customers like you. All the best, Sarah

MK
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Matt K.

Retail, 501-1,000 employees

Used daily for 1-2 years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend7/10

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Good marketing automation, with some catches

Reviewed 4 years ago

Overall, Dynamics CRM is the biggest problem; however, if Act-On is going to support its integration with the platform, it has to better understand it. Besides that, I like the tool. It has a lot of bells and whistles and is competitively priced against similar marketing automation programs.

Pros

Once you learn it, you realize how nice of a tool it is. Email campaigns, lead scoring, assessing total voice of customer -- it's all there.

Cons

Unless you get the white glove setup service, it's tough to really figure out what you're doing at first. I would not recommend for Dynamics CRM (it's missing features that other CRMs have). The Outlook email template plugin is nice when it works, but more often than not, there are problems. I do wish they help you better understand what data fields are required in both Act-On as well as the CRM, and how to add/edit what is being integrated.

Vendor response

Hi Matt, Thanks so much for posting a review of Act-On. I would encourage you to check out Act-On's customer portal, Act-On Connect. It's full of great resources for customers and includes a customer community for sharing best practices. https://connect.act-on.com/hc/en-us Cheers, Sarah

AR
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Verified reviewer

Management Consulting, 11-50 employees

Used daily for 1-2 years

Review source

Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend2/10

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Terrible email delivery, customer support issues not fixed, but huge promises by sales for lock in

Reviewed 6 years ago

No benefits when looking back, lots of time, and money lost.

Pros

The company's main advantage (whether they market it or not, but they definitely use it during a sale) is they allow for companies to BUY lists and bring in cold contacts. Almost every other provider prohibits this. Well, that's why for good companies, your marketing performance and emails drop wayyy down. And worse, their support imagines nothing is wrong, and everything is going OK. They will also negotiate your price far lower than others, to lock you into an annual contract.

Cons

- Email delivery is terrible - Their support tried to help, but makes false promises on waiting - Locked into a major contract, which even with their lack of performance, is tough to leave - Their UI is really, really bad - Barely any templates for things like landing pages, emails, etc. - General data between modules is not easy to gather, collect or use for additional sales.

AM
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Amber M.

Used daily for 6-12 months

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  • Value for money
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clunky, mediocre, customer support is hit or miss and hard to get a hold of

Reviewed 6 years ago
Pros

I like that I can build drip campaigns or send one-time emails. I also like using the send over time feature. I like the variety of options in how to customize email content.

Cons

The tool is clunky-not very user friendly. It takes too many clicks to get to the screen you want, whether it's changing a step in an automated program or checking email opens on a report. The reporting is very limited and makes my reporting process very manual because it doesn't provide what I need. Whenever I call customer service, there is at least a half an hour wait to get through. If I leave a voicemail, they do not call back. They email instead and provide very limited answers in the responses, so it takes multiple emails back and forth to get the information I need. The whole email process takes several days until my issue is resolved.

Vendor response

Hi Amber, Thanks for your honest feedback. We appreciate it and take it to heart. I'm sorry you've had some frustrating experiences. I will be sure to let your Account Manager know so that we can address your concerns. Thanks, Sarah

GL
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Grace L.

Computer Software, 11-50 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend9/10

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Budget-friendly marketing automation that does what we need

Reviewed 6 years ago

We've worked with Act-on for more than three years and have appreciated what it accomplishes for us. Customer service has always been responsive, as well. If you can't necessarily affort one of the major players in the market, Act-on is a great alternative.

Pros

The automated programs make staying in touch with customers and prospects very easy. You can set up quite complicated programs that incorporate not only emails to the target audience but that also notify internal staff and other functions.

Cons

It's not as complete as some other systems. For instance, the website info you can get is not super detailed or useful. As well, connecting with a CRM that isn't already integrated is not a simple task.

AR
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Verified reviewer

Hospitality, 11-50 employees

Used weekly for 1-2 years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend7/10

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Great but with a learning curve

Reviewed 4 years ago

It’s been a great tool but because we couldn’t utilize all the features internally, we had to hire a consultant.

Pros

This is a very robust email marketing program with marketing automation capabilities. We switched to Act On to be able to take advantage of setting up automated campaigns based on user behavior both in our emails and on our website.

Cons

Because the automation capabilities are so robust, this software has a very steep learning curve. It would not have been feasible for us to use this for marketing automation in-house without a full time person just using Act-on. We had to hire a consultant to be able to use this software.

AR
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Verified reviewer

Financial Services, 11-50 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

Review source

Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend9/10

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Act-On Is An Excellent Tool

Reviewed 5 years ago

Act-On is the engine that my marketing success runs on.

Pros

It's functionality and diverse tools makes it the top-of-class when it comes to marketing automation platforms.

Cons

In recent months, the customer service has not been as strong as in the past. It seems like it takes more than 48 hours to get questions/concerns of mine answered.

Vendor response

Love hearing that "Act-On is the engine that your marketing success runs on"...that's awesome! The Support Team is working around the clock to help customers. Thanks so much for your patience. Please check out the Act-On User Community for additional resources here: https://community.act-on.com/home Cheers!

SM
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Sara M.

Writing and Editing, 51-200 employees

Used daily for 6-12 months

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend8/10

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Easy to use

Reviewed 5 years ago

Overall great experience with the platform. The ease makes the biggest difference.

Pros

Very simple user interface. With a team spread out across the country, there was no problem in teaching everyone how to use this platform. Really like that I can schedule out my email for time zones, that is a great feature.

Cons

Sometimes painfully slow to run. Also, help desk would take a long time to respond to a request that would be marked as urgent. While I understand a small company is not biggest fish to fry, it would be nice to have responses within an hour if marked urgent during normal business hours.

Vendor response

Thanks for your feedback, Sara. We've made recent updates that have greatly improved the speed and performance of the platform. The Act-On User Community is another great resource for your questions, tips, tricks, and best practices. You can access it here: https://community.act-on.com/home Cheers!

CD
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Constant D.

Marketing and Advertising, 10,001+ employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend4/10

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surprised (not a good way)

Reviewed 5 years ago

Let met take an example. You want to create a decent marketing automation campaign. For this, you need to create landing pages but first, landing pages templates. oh, I want forms in it so lets create some forms templates to create a form for this landing page template. You do your landing page etc.. and you need to change something in the form. You must go to forms, edit the form to modify it in...

Pros

We like the fact that is it powerfull and we have so much possibility with it

Cons

BUT the way to get things done is not very straight foreward. for example, you don't have any customer support - just deal with the manual and the community (this business model is used by sub brand of big brands), the fact that it is not very user friendly (no possibility to edit pictures directly in the landing pages / emails..).

AR
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Verified reviewer

Wholesale, 201-500 employees

Used daily for 1-2 years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend5/10

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Satisfied with product

Reviewed 5 years ago

I think Act-On is a great tool for marketing. I've been using it for the past year and a half and finally feel confident with it. It does take time to understand everything, but customer service and the free webinars have been a huge help.

Pros

Once you figure it out, it's a very simple tool to use and can be easily accessed.

Cons

The form set-up. I think the set-up is complicated & could use some tweaking. I don't like that you have to create a new form (when pulling the data) if you add anything new into the original form.

Vendor response

Thanks for posting your review. I hope you'll check out the Act-On User Community...it's a great resource for best practices, tips, tricks and sharing your product suggestions. https://community.act-on.com/home Cheers!

TM
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Terri M.

Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend8/10

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ActOn rocks

Reviewed 5 years ago

as our Marketing automation platform we use ActOn daily for lead gen email campaign send, as well as client communications.

Pros

Ease of use from start to finish- fairly intuitive software so it is easy to train new folks on, too!

Cons

the layout has some glitches every once & a while- looks one way in review pane & then totally different in the test send.

Vendor response

Hi Terri, We think YOU rock! Thanks so much for posting a review for Act-On. We value and appreciate your feedback. Cheers! Sarah

MD
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Michael D.

Real Estate, 11-50 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend10/10

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Act-On Review

Reviewed 5 years ago
Pros

The ease of reporting and how well it integrates with Salesforce

Cons

the customer service can take a while to resolve an issue

Vendor response

Hi Michael, Thanks so much for posting a review for Act-On. We really appreciate your feedback. We've recently added chat support as an additional channel for help. Initial feedback has been very positive. Check it out... https://university.act-on.com/Your_Account/Act-On_Support/Contacting_Act-On_Support Cheers! Sarah

AR
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Verified reviewer

Translation and Localization, 51-200 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend8/10

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Act-On review

Reviewed 5 years ago
Pros

Act-On is a very good Marketing tool which has been very helpful in my emailing campaigns, creation of forms, polls, landing pages, lead generation, media library hosting, and integration with our CRM.

Cons

Sometimes the Customer support can be a bit slow. We have also found the tool stalls at times, though rarely.

Vendor response

Thank you for your feedback. We love hearing from customers.

AF
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Amy F.

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
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  • Customer support

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This reviewer only left a rating

Reviewed 10 years ago

When it came to a marketing automation solution, our organization took the Goldilocks approach: First, we tried Pardot and found that it really didn't deliver what we were looking for. Their lack of lead attribution functionality just didn't work for us. We wanted to be able to connect the dots on sales and marketing touches but ultimately know which touch landed us the business. The process that...

Pros

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Cons

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Kasey M.

E-Learning, 51-200 employees

Used daily for 2+ years

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Overall Rating
  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Features
  • Customer support
  • Likelihood to recommend7/10

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Act-On Review

Reviewed 5 years ago
Pros

The customer support, they are very quick to respond and follow-up.

Cons

The ease of use you could be improved. More tutorials on new features.

Vendor response

Hi Kasey! Thanks for your review. I encourage you to check out Act-On's User Community for additional resources and best practice tips. You'll find it here: https://community.act-on.com/home