Marketo Engage Reviews

Pros

Marketo Engage is easy to understand software, I really like being able to devise different marketing strategies by segmentation, marketing campaigns are automated, which generates productivity and a greater increase in sales and customers. The collection of customer data is very effective, since based on that we can devise better advertising campaigns and adapt to the needs of customers, it is a highly customizable software.

Cons

The price is a drawback for small businesses, but it is the best software to improve marketing strategies in the short term. For large companies, price is not an issue. Marketo Engage capabilities positively increase sales and customers.

Pros

It is extremely powerful. But as Spider-Man says, with great power comes great responsibility. You definitely want someone who knows what they're doing managing this thing.

Cons

Relatively high cost of ownership. I'd suggest it's best for enterprises or marketing requirements that call for very sophisticated automation. It's not easy for end users to do much self-service, so you'll definitely need an admin with experience. And depending on your workload one or multiple ops specialists up to an entire team.

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot CRM

Reasons for Choosing Marketo Engage

We felt we needed more flexible automation options as well as better integration with Salesforce.com.

Switched From

Drip

Reasons for Switching to Marketo Engage

For the flexibility and power of the platform. We also had operators who were more comfortable with the platform.

Pros

Marketo had a lot of potential in terms of its lead tracking, automated workflows and contact management capabilities. We were thrilled to be on board with using the application, but soon realized we would never get to use the extra bells and whistles it offered since the core components were a constant frustration. It's also a very expensive platform.

Cons

Marketo provides templates for emails and landing pages that are difficult to customize, especially with our company logo and branding. We constantly were hitting road blocks and their support always very slow to respond days later after a technical issue was reported.

Alternatives Considered

Act-On

Reasons for Choosing Marketo Engage

We needed a new marketing platform for creating and sending emails, creating event registrations and tracking leads.

Reasons for Switching to Marketo Engage

Marketo had a lot to offer and it was expensive, but at the time we were evaluating other applications, we believed it had everything we needed.

Pros

The ability to customize and scale has been the biggest benefit of Marketo, paired with the levels of complexity that can be used to refine audiences and reporting in ways that cannot be acheived in other platforms.

Cons

There is a significant rampup and onboarding period, the tool is designed for a more technical user, which can cause some frustrations and leads to a learning curve

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Reasons for Choosing Marketo Engage

We outgrew the system and it's capabilities very quickly.

Switched From

ClickDimensions

Reasons for Switching to Marketo Engage

The way the system is structured really clicked with my way of thinking, and some of the capabilities and flexibility felt like something that would scale far more easily with our organization's growth and future plans.

Pros

I love the deep native integration with Salesforce that allows us to sync data and both company and contact records to communicate through marketing and sync up with our account based marketing campaigns and enabling sales to follow up at the exact right time based on lead scoring and actions take by prospect when consuming our content we deliver in the form of email opens, email clicks and % video views with the amazing integration with Wistia. The Strategies you can deploy are only limited by your creativity as a marketer and sales architect and revenue officer at your company and I absolutely love Marketo!!

Cons

The platform is very robust and takes learning and using it and clearly understand best practices through executional experience running campaigns and this takes an investment of time and it's absolutely worth it and the return on that time investment is the most important revenue driver in our company when combining the power of your sales reps and your sales enablement tool in your tech stack!!

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub, ActiveCampaign, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement and HubSpot CRM

Reasons for Choosing Marketo Engage

We had to connect Infusionsoft with a 3rd party integration platform that had built a custom integration and it was a significant monthly investment and Infustionsoft is an inferior platform compared to Marketo Engage. It was a no brainer to make the switch.

Reasons for Switching to Marketo Engage

Marketo offers an agency level account allowing us to connect our clients Salesforce with a license of Marketo under our single Agency level account with Marketo Engage which allows us to provide marketing services along with our sales services, aligning both and providing maximum return on our clients investment working with us and a win/win for everyone. Also, Marketo doesn't try and be everything to everybody, they set the standard for marketing CRMs and have an excellent, deep integration with Salesforce and other platforms just didn't match up in comparison.

Pros

Marketo is robust and can be configured to meet most business cases. It integrates well with many systems/services. For example, Marketo integrates better with Salesforce than Salesforce Marketing Cloud. There is a solid user group/community. Things like Content AI and Web Personalization take personalization across your digital marketing to the next level. Training is required to use a lot of features.

Cons

You have to build your own preference center. This doesn't come out-of-the-box. UI is bad, and Marketo Sky will help fix this, but it's taking forever for Marketo Sky to get to a point where I can actually use it. Many features do cost extra but you can pick and choose. Landing page templating is lacking without a dedicated devloper.

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Switched From

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Reasons for Switching to Marketo Engage

Robust enterprise solution that can be customized

Pros

One of my company employee suggest me this Adobe Marketo software for email automation and social media marketing. After using it, i found that this software is very helpful for email automation, email marketing, social media marketing, B2B marketing etc. It creates very engaging and responsive emails. Overall, i personally suggest that it's a brilliant software for email automation and social media marketing emails.

Cons

Adobe Marketo is not available for desktop Mac, desktop linex, and desktop chrome book. It has no free trail and free version before purchasing it. I personally felt that, there should be a atleast three days free trail for beginners.

Pros

1. Ease of use
2. Drip campaigns triggered on behaviors of leads
3. Lead management (inquiry to close)
4. Ubiquitous in the 100-1000 employee segment, SaaS business

Cons

1. Customer support lacks
2. New feature functionality is questionable in the 2015-2018 vintage (pre-adobe) - eg Sky doesn't work as one example
3. Limitations on API use
4. Mobile responsive templates are not mobile responsive!
5. Anything account based related

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Reasons for Switching to Marketo Engage

Most flexible, best integration, best deliverability, best feature functionality - scales the best.

Pros

Marketo is easy to use once implemented well. The set-up, filters, data management etc is very intuitive and caters well to automate customer journey mapping, email marketing, lifecycle management, lead scoring etc. It is easily integratable with most CRM, other analytics tools, social media platforms etc. which makes it easy to build a unified martech stack.

Cons

Marketo's analytics section has very limited customization. Unlike SFDC which is heavy on customization, the same is not possible on Marketo. If yo want to build dashboards etc. you need another tool which is also not very easy with all platforms. Additionally, while the helpdesk is responsive, customer service in general is not as great! They also don't come up with upgrades that often or atleast dont communicate it to customers. Its more self-help system here. Last but not the least, their trainings and certifications are super expensive.

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Reasons for Switching to Marketo Engage

Ease of use and great UX

Pros

I've been using Marketo Engage and it's been helpful for our email campaigns. This platform offers a variety of tools to properly target our audience, create emails with visually attractive landing pages and analyze the results of the campaign, this gives us a better visualization of performance. The best part is that it is quite intuitive, making it accessible to both new and advanced users.

Cons

The cost can be high, which could be a concern for smaller businesses. Additionally, the wide range of features can be a bit daunting for newcomers as it takes some time to learn and get used to.

Pros

Marketo is the "Porsche with a manual transmission" of marketing automation platforms. It's full of cool features and is incredibly powerful. The strengths: 1) Workflow flexibility that is unmatched by other platforms. Building complex data management, lead scoring, and organizational processes (such as lead routing) is very achievable in Marketo. They basically give you every function they can possibly code and let their customers piece them together as they like (more on this in #7). 2) The engagement programs, primarily meant for lead nurturing, are truly best-in-class. It's a little bit of an adjustment at first, but it really simplifies complex nurturing tracks and saves marketers from putting prospects into multiple tracks at once (which happens more than most admit) 3) The vision is impressive. Marketo has a clear, long-term vision that they continually deliver on. Examples being advances in personalization, ABM, ect. I'd bet on them to lead the way (or buy the way via Vista ) to whatever is next in marketing automation, such as AI or machine learning.

Cons

I love Marketo. But, there are some things I don't love. 1) The landing page builder has made improvements but still, leaves some to be desired. Unless a template available for import matches what you'd like to do, you pretty much have to hire a developer to build your templates. 2) The reporting is somewhat overhyped. They REALLY sell revenue cycle analytics, but in reality, it's tough to implement and even tougher to accurately maintain. Since data is essentially timestamped and not stored in an external record (i.e. like Salesforce has for a campaign member), if you mess it up, you're SOL. Marketo's advice to me was "don't mess up."

Pros

The reason why I referred the application as an ultimate platform is that it gathers all information about your digital marketing campaigns emails, online forms, marketing material etc. at a single place. It is a user-friendly interface which is easily understandable by you and it has a very brilliant capability of automating almost everything. In this, one can build a variety of things like email templates, landing pages, etc. It supports multi-touch campaigns and multichannel. It is broad and very useful for CRM Integration and most importantly Analytics. It increases efficiency in a variety of ways (like the ability to create a tokenized template) as well as its Lead management process is also brilliant!! Its capabilities are very vast, Comprehensive campaigns capabilities are one of them.

Cons

Here are a few cons which shouldn’t be ignored. Reporting of Analytics of Marketo is very bad and in addiction smart list designs are not flexible and it is very difficult to design them. Most importantly it is not within the range of all types of people, as its rates are little bit higher. Its interface should be improved for new users as well as some software bugs should also be fixed regarding auto-saving. It loads the previewing list very slowly. Its Spam Identification feature also very poor as well as email and landing page analytics are also not enough. But at last, I want to say that the major issue with it, is regarding its speed of loading the application which needs a lot of improvement

Pros

1. Easy-to-use interface: Marketo Engage has an intuitive user interface that makes it easy to quickly build complex marketing programs and campaigns.2. Advanced segmentation capabilities: Marketo Engage provides a powerful segmentation engine to target the right audiences and ensure maximum engagement.3. Automation and integration: Marketo Engage provides a wide range of automation capabilities, enabling users to save time and improve efficiency. It also allows for easy integration with other systems, such as Salesforce and Google Analytics.4. Flexible and customizable: Marketo Engage allows for easy customization of all marketing programs and campaigns, enabling users to tailor their activities to their specific needs.5. Comprehensive reporting: Marketo Engage provides comprehensive, real-time reporting on all activities, enabling users to track and measure their results.

Cons

One of the cons of Marketo Engage software is that its user interface is not always intuitive. It can be difficult to navigate or find the features or settings you’re looking for. Additionally, the integration with existing business processes can be tricky and may require additional time and resources to ensure a successful integration. Additionally, the software can be quite expensive, which might be cost-prohibitive for some businesses. Finally, some features are missing from the software that could be useful, such as an AI-powered analytics engine or a more comprehensive CRM system.

Pros

- Workflow: the logic behind the workflows allows to automate manual activities
- Lead gen: we improved the engagement of the visitors on our website and we manage the entire lead generation process on Marketo integrated with our CRM.
- Programs: it is easy to create and manage emailing and nurture programs with the ability to set rules when the email should be sent.
- Forms: we are using Marketo forms and we embedded them on our website.

Cons

- Integration with Dynamics: after 3 years we still have some issues on the integration with MS Dynamics... the 2 systems are not well integrated.
- Support: sometimes we had some issues with getting quick replies from support.
- Landing pages: it is missing a validation workflow on the thank you pages (to be sure that those who will access the thank you page have successfully filled-out the form included in the landing page).

Pros

Easy to track different engagement programs at every stage across multiple steps.
Robust criteria for building lead nurturing.
Like their lead scoring feature - great way to segment leads based on how they interact with you.
Their real-time personalization feature is impressive. Great feature once it's configured correctly.

Cons

The email builder is pretty basic.
Leveraging the full capabilities requires a full-time internal resource.
Steep learning curve. We needed to invest in a Marketo specialist to help with integration.
Marketo is super expensive & that's before taking the extra cost of hiring a Marketo Specialist to help with implementation.

Pros

Marketo has the ability to do so many things which is a pro and con. It takes a while to get the hang of things but Marketo can really make this happen for your company.

Cons

I wish Marketo was more visual. It’s sometimes hard to get from start to finish on a project without realizing how you May be affecting other campaigns and lead funnels.

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot CRM

Reasons for Switching to Marketo Engage

Price and training

Pros

Definitely the wide range of features. From lead scoring and nurturing to email marketing, to hosting webinars, creating landing pages, and using forms, the platform has everything we need to execute complex campaigns and track our results. Integrations with a wide range of platforms and marketing tools are also a strong point of Marketo.

Cons

I feel that there is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to using the platform. It's not the most intuitive system and it can take some time to get the hang of all the different tools and settings. Also, the user interface and some of the functionalities seem to be a bit old or outdated. The reporting section seems a bit complex and difficult to use. Difficult to keep the database healthy due to syncing errors with our CRM.

Pros

Marketo allows you to automate anything. Whatever action you want to trigger from - you can. We were a large publishing group sending millions of emails each month. We needed ways to segment and identify the exact user we wanted. Marketo gave us those tools to do that quickly and easily!

Cons

Some of our team struggled to understand some of the terms and systems. It came very quick to some of the team and slower with others. I mention this because it seemed more like a mental block than ignorance. I also felt like we needed a developer to help make the dreams happen. It was just outside of our skillset so we needed some extra hands in the early days making all the connections perfect.

Pros

I used Marketo in my last role for about three years and was always impressed. Marketo does a great job of integrating very seamlessly with Salesforce and in a sales role, this is imperative to your success. You are able to track not only your emails, but develop sophisticated campaigns to drive engagement in a particular market or across a broad spectrum. Above all, Marketo gave you the flexibility to develop an idea and execute on it successfully.

Additionally, the system was great in providing the engagement reports key prospects had with our organization. As a sales professional, quality leads some times make or break a quota. Marketo feeds you quality leads that you're able to rank based on many algorithms. Having an understanding of what your prospect is most interested in, creates a much more effective first conversation, rather than attempting to connect cold.

Overall, Marketo was a crucial part of our sales processes and truly assisted in your achievements as an organization. I would highly recommend.

Cons

We only encountered some occasional problems when uploading smart lists. This would sometimes take quite a long time when Marketo was running updates or changes, that would slow the system.

Pros

i like that the tool is scalable and has a load set of comprehensive features which helps us deal with email marketing and customer engagement.

Cons

The user interface is relatively not friendly and might be challenging for new users.

Pros

1. We didn't have to set up a single API connection to integrate Marketo with our marketing platforms. We were able to connect our tools with it very very quickly thanks to the native integrations.

2. The campaign monitoring works great and has a lot of customization options. We can easily navigate between campaign types and we were able to add a lot of additional metrics onto the reports that weren't available out of the box.

Cons

There's the odd issue with reports syncing late or not workng properly, but other than that, we haven't had anything that caused much trouble so far.

Pros

I like that the tool provides a centralized and flexible solution to handle email marketing and lead generation

Cons

The learning curve is complex especially to people new to marketing.

Pros

I I like the flexibility that comes with the tool which helps us to scale our marketing activities

Cons

The tool works perfectly and we have not encountered any technicalities

Pros

Marketo has robust lead scoring and lifecycle management solutions. Lead scoring can be tokenized to create efficient and scalable.models.
Triggered MQL and Sales Alert Emails enable Sales to follow up with highly qualified leads.
Engagement programs that allow you to easily nurture leads through the customer journey.
Segment your audience and send dynamic content that is personalized to each segmentation
Smart list logic and campaigns allow for many different types of triggered campaigns

Cons

Some minor UX improvements: Be able to view a subject line without opening the email.
Improve Text version editor - Even MailChimp's is superior.
Create stronger de-duplication technology native to the platform.

Pros

The good thing about Marketo is that it does automate a lot of emails and nurtures a prospect through the whole sales cycle. Since it's also one of the bigger marketing automation platforms, it also integrates fairly well with nearly all other marketing platforms/tools we use.

Cons

Marketo is so incredibly clunky. Just trying to edit a line in one email can take you up to 5 minutes. The look and feel of it is also stuck in the 90s. They don't provide any decent templates so my team is often forced to look elsewhere and then integrate email and landing page templates with Marketo. It's a bear to use but it's simply too much of a hassle to look for another provider.