Campaign Monitor by Marigold Reviews

Pros

I am a web developer and their API is fantastic to use. It is easy and straightforward.

Cons

Some things within their GUI are hard to find and some extra logging features for developers would be handy.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Sales Cloud and Mailchimp

Reasons for Choosing Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Watson was far too complicated and buggy

Switched From

Watson Campaign Automation

Reasons for Switching to Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Ease of use and features

Pros

I have been using Campaign Monitor for almost 10 years now and I love the consistent updates available and that the software is always on the edge of what is trending in email marketing. I also love that it is super user-friendly and anyone can learn how to use it with very little training. My favorite feature is the fact that it takes the guesswork out of wondering whether your email will preview on a phone or tablet. The built-in mobile device/tablet view is fantastic and I use that every time I send an email out to make sure it looks good on desktop and mobile. I also like the reporting feature that lets you see who opened your email and who didn't and other useful stats.

Cons

As a designer, I wish I could customize the emails a little more and that CM provided more formatting options when creating the email, but I understand it has to meet the need of the masses more than my niche market.

Pros

Extremely solid and reliable ESP. Doesn't go down often, and there are minimal issues with deliverability. The features are basic, but solid and there aren't many bugs.

Cons

There's a strong lack of features. For example, there are no simple ways to send emails to an unopened segment. There's also no way to easily clean/prune inactive email subscribers. And third, there are limitations on automation triggers.

Pros

Campaign Monitor is an excellent email automation tool that is user-friendly and easy to use. It has an intuitive interface, great customer support, and comprehensive analytics. I appreciate that I can easily customize my emails and track their performance.

Cons

The only downside of Campaign Monitor is the cost. It is quite expensive compared to other solutions. Additionally, some features are limited, such as the ability to personalize emails based on customer segments.

Pros

Easy to use, very intuitive and has everything and more. You learn so much by using the software.

Cons

Compliance and setup can take some time, so planning ahead is vital to avoid delays in campaign sends if you a new to the software or have a large database to send to.

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Mailchimp and Everlytic

Reasons for Switching to Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Easy to onboard, with the correct structures in place to ensure my emails land in the inbox and not junk. Great tools that come as standard and not additional such as automation and Transactional.

Pros

We used Campaign Monitor for many years with multiple clients and it worked really well. Segmentation of clients was easy and setting new ones up was all self-initiated​, no need to contact support. List management​ was a breeze as well as segmentation. Campaign creation was also easy, we never used the drag and drop editor​ as we crated bespoke HTML emails ourselves.

Cons

The reason why we chose to move away from CM was the segmentation was slightly limiting for us. We basically needed to segment based on relative dates, i.e from now until 3 months ago. This could only be achieved by entering exact dates, which you would need to change on a​ daily basis if using for automation purposes. If that doesn't bother you I would recommend using CM.

Alternatives Considered

Mailchimp

Reasons for Switching to Campaign Monitor by Marigold

The agency aspect was enticing as well as the self-management process meaning we weren't paying overheads for account managers.

Pros

I like how easy it was to set up email automation campaigns. We had a custom template and I thought Campaign Monitor worked pretty well with it. Organizing and segmenting our lists was also a breeze.

Cons

The main reason we left and switched to Hubspot was because Hubspot was an all-in-one CRM tool that connected to many of our other programs that we use.

Pros

Campaign Monitor recently bought Conversio Emails. The price is very competitive for all the things it offers. Email campaigns, reviews, pop-ups, newsletters​, Abandon Cart functions. I have sent out multiple individual newsletters and abandon carts with success rates.

Cons

The Workflow function on the site was a little hard to set up and its why I do not send more out. When I turned it on it sent an email to every single person on my list.... when I just wanted it to send one to the new subscribers from that time forward.

Pros

Importing an email is really easy and having the preview is good too ! The assistant is a good tool, helping to improve the code / rendering of the email.

Cons

Mobile preview of the email doesn't see to work on my browser (Brave), looks like it's not reading my media queries.

Alternatives Considered

Sender and Mailchimp

Reasons for Switching to Campaign Monitor by Marigold

I like how fast i can create and test a campaign compared to alternative.

Pros

I really like the simplicity of Campaign Monitor. It is easy to use and understand. The drag-and-drop editor makes it really easy to create beautiful, responsive emails. I also appreciate the ability to segment and personalize emails to target different user groups. The reporting interface is also very helpful for tracking email performance. The customer service has been excellent. Whenever I have had any questions, the team has been quick to respond and very helpful.

Cons

Their templates were limited and customization of those templates was limited too. The design elements were not user-friendly and navigating the user interface was a hassle. Additionally, their support options were lacking and customer service was not always very helpful or knowledgeable. Furthermore, Campaign Monitor lacked in reporting and analytics capacities, making it difficult to measure the performance of campaigns and to make informed decisions based on the data.

Pros

We've used other email marketing tools for different reasons over the years, but still always came back to read Campaign Monitor's excellent email marketing advice on their blogs and articles about best practices. Finally took the plunge a year ago and moved all our subscribers over. No regrets whatsoever!

Just the amazing email editor and template manager is enough to make me leave everything else and use Campaign Monitor. The extensive segmentation tools, super clear and well-formed APIs to connect with our CRM and outstanding customer journey setup is above and beyond what i've seen from other tools in the market. Oh and their brilliant responsive all-platform templates!!

Also, when they say 'award-winning' and round the clock support / success teams, they mean it! Definitely and whole-heartedly recommended!

Cons

I'm nit-picking, but how Campaign Monitor counts subscribers (in order to bill us) is different from some of the other tools out there. For e.g. if the same subscriber is in two mailing lists, it counts as two for billing purposes. If you have many lists, it tends to balloon your billing subscription out a bit.

Pros

Campaign Monitor provides a wide range of advice on email design. That it takes so little time to get here and send out a message is wonderful. It's always there for you. This is a great tool for writing and distributing email newsletters, and it's simple to use. It works perfectly with Salesforce and provides you with the finest possible outcomes. So when it comes to making a choice, I always go with Pardot over it. Email automation campaigns may be set up in a matter of minutes.

Cons

This program has nothing to complain about. In my opinion, alternative Pre-design templates that can be readily altered and that pique the curiosity of people should be made available. It's a fantastic tool. If there are any mistakes that can be quickly remedied, we will do so.

Pros

You get a:
> WYSIWYG email editor (making responsive email design & development a piece of cake).
> Conditional email blocks based on list segmentation or conditions.
> Easy to setup email drips to your list, based on when they joined, segmentation rules or custom conditions
> User management to limit access to the lists and control actual email deployment
> Ability to run unlimited basic Spam Filter, Firewall and Email Client tests
> New reporting tab makes monitoring email performance much easier

Cons

The transnational emails are great for basic requirements. Anything more needs custom development and support. I was disappointed when I found there's no way to limit Transactional Emails to run on specific lists out of the box.

Pros

I love that this software lets you either upload your own custom coded emails OR you can use their email builder. We manage a lot of different clients and for some, we have our own, custom programmed email campaigns, and for others, we use the builder. The builder is a lot more customizable than one might think. sometimes you have to get creative with how to make it look a certain way, but it can be clean, minimal, and on-brand in minutes. I also love that when you upload your own coded emails, it checks to make sure all of the files add up and will tell you if there is an error.

Cons

Sometimes I wish the custom builder software was even MORE customizable, but I understand that in order for it to be that easy to use, you can't make it too much more complicated with customizing.

Pros

I liked the documentation, it's nice and easy to read as well as follow. Integrating with their API was also easy, I had no issues with that and works well. The responses are great and errors that you do get are easy to understand and resolve.

Cons

I can't fault Campaign Monitor on anything regarding our use case, it has fulfilled our desired use cases.

Pros

As mentioned, I would give their customer service a +++. I am a very small user. I'm sure they have much more important clients. But that's not how they treat me when I have a need. They are right on top of things and and I believe they treat me the same as a major user.

They also send periodic "lessons" on how to improve email content and they are worth reading.

Embedding photos/images is a breeze and you get quality true to that of the original image.true

Cons

If you are a savvy, tech-smart user you can navigate and use the service with few problems. If you are a 3/5 like me, it is sometimes a challenge to get around. After a while you can learn it, but the initial phases can be daunting.

They might consider creating a glossary for some of the technical terms.

There are a few options I wish they would incorporate in their text capabilities.

Pros

Campaign Monitor lets me create, send, manage and track eblasts with great ease. It has a high number of quality templates and automation is very easy.

Cons

The customer service is average and there's no integration with Outlook or Canva

Pros

Campaign Monitor makes it really easy to set up and deliver email campaigns and analyse the results of each campaign. The templates are brilliant for creating quality emails which look professional and clean all you need to do is put your content in. Campaign Monitor basically holds your hand every step of the way and make it easy for you to insert pictures, links, text, call to action buttons and more into your templates.

Cons

The biggest problem that I've been having lately is trying to send a preview email to myself...it never seems to work on a Friday! It can be really frustrating if I have something that I need to get done that day and I can preview it in my own inbox first. It seems to work every other day of the week though.

Pros

There are a dozens of templates to choose from, or you can build your own campaign. Easy to get started, easy to set up deployments.

Cons

I've never been able to upload prebuilt html into the platform. Supposedly you can, but we had a designer, and two managers all sitting around the computer for nearly an hour trying to figure it out to no avail.

And a more robust search feature would be great - like the ability to search by subject line or key word.

Pros

I love the email builder. That's what did it for me. But I also like Worldview, it's amazing. I also really like the reports, they are so easy to navigate and give deeper insights than I saw with other ESPs.

Cons

It's a little pricey compared to the alternatives, but I think it's worth it. One time I had a very bad issue which they apologized for and gave me a credit for, but it was really bad. Things happen, still a great company.

Pros

Recenetly Campaign Monitor has improved in terms of how easy their software is to use. In the past templates were a hassle to construct. Now there are quick presets which make things quicker and easier.

Cons

No real cons, but I have recently moved to Mailchimp. I have found Mailchimp to be a much nicer tool to use

Alternatives Considered

Mailchimp

Pros

Campaign Monitor has every feature you need. If you want automated campaigns, a/b testing, api specific campaigns, it's got it all. It's got so much flexibility to fit whatever your use case is.

Cons

It can be challenging to use. It's not as simple as other drag and drop platforms. To design a really great campaign, you really HAVE to know a little HTML.

Pros

It has a lot of power and flexibility. A user with little computer expertise can make it work, or more complex efforts are possible, too. User support is excellent, regardless how large or small you might be. I don't think it would be possible to find a better communications vehicle for the cost.

Cons

I would like to see more WORD functions included in the email text options. I would include underlining, bullet lists and few other options.

Pros

Very easy to get started with setting up your initial email lists for targeting.
Can easily customize lists based on customer attributes

Cons

Somewhat limited functionality. We still use Campaign monitor, but we split our time between this product and one of their competitors since we like the reporting features of one of their competitors.

Pros

It has excellent controls over our team's access. It is easy to make up templates and have our team modify them to use. I like the way it saves as you build the template. Great features.

Cons

The cost for small companies with low volumes is high. We have a large data base that is divided into 40 or more lists in different languages. We send out targeted marketing to selected real estate groups so the volume sent out per month is low. We only use lists appropriate for the property to avoid unsubscriptions but because our total number of subscribers is high, the monthly cost is higher than I believe is fair.