Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Avantages

Seemed like a great and more affordable option compared to HubSpot. Not much else to say here since we had a boat load of issues with it.

Inconvénients

Everything was cumbersome. From onboarding to implementation. Even getting someone on the phone from the right department to help us when we had issues with email was a problem. Overall, really clunky and outdated. We ended up going to Hubspot and it's SO much better and not even that much more expensive especially when we think of all of the time we all wasted trying to get sharpspring to work.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

price.

Avantages

The integration of the software with our internal systems took less than an hour. The comprehensive training was great - we were able to dive right in and now run all our emails and social media through SharpSpring. We are just starting to evaluate the journey of our contacts and their scores - to better target them.

Inconvénients

The analytics could be better - it would be nice to be able to review metrics on a monthly. weekly, daily basis. Right now all metrics appear as a lump in 1 selected time frame.

Alternatives envisagées 

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Ease of use, strength of features, price

Inconvénients

After being an agency partner for 2+ years, our company has yet to make a dime off of this investment.

First of all, the training they "supply" is almost non-existent. When we first became a partner, we had a couple of calls but then, nothing. There were many "learning pains" that we endured with SharpSpring even so much so as, demos I do with clients being times that "sharpspring is down."

It is very difficult to sell a product that does not work when you are trying to show clients the power of the system.

We also had a MAJOR real estate brokerage use the site for recruiting and, when messages were not being sent as they were scheduled to send, the client left our company and the SS product.

The platform is over priced and does not provide the support you would expect from a company as such.

SharpSpring has cost us as a business for our choice to invest in them. Had we gone with a platform that actually worked when it was needed and had the kind of training for us that they should have, we would be way ahead of the game. Instead, we are starting fresh with a new company that will hopefully fulfill their part in our agreement.

I would never recommend this product to anyone that is looking for an automation system.

Avantages

Su facilidad de uso y facilidad de implementar. Además los flujos automaticos son faciles de crear.

Inconvénients

Que su valor parte en los $350.- No es escalable.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

No entendi el funcionamiento de active campaign

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Por su facilidad de uso, soporte y la oportunidade de generar ingresos pasivos.

Avantages

es la posibilidad de llevar un seguimiento y organización eficiente de los clientes , lo cual facilita la labor de ventas y permite maximizar las oportunidades de negocio

Inconvénients

complicado de manejar y poco efectivo. es el trabajo repetitivo y tedioso que implica generar leads y mantener un CRM actualizado

Avantages

its great for analytics and building a brand

Inconvénients

its not the best app and kinda pricey but not bad but there is better ptions

Avantages

The system is easy to use and the customer service is stellar. Whenever I have a question I have someone there to help. I can live chat, or schedule a 1:1. This is very important.

Inconvénients

There are a few missing features but they listen, take note and work to add in new features.

Avantages

It is an easy-to-use platform that allows me to access and use its numerous features without requiring extensive technical knowledge. I like that the platform is adaptable, I can simply tailor the platform to my specific marketing requirements, allowing me to streamline my marketing efforts and get greater outcomes. also, The reporting and analytics tools are robust and extensive, providing me with loads of data and insights into my marketing campaigns. I value the platform's extensive analytics, which allow me to track performance and monitor lead activity.

Inconvénients

While the email templates are limited in number and may not be as visually appealing, I don't have any other concerns or complaints about the platform.

Avantages

SharpSpring has a plethora of tools and is always introducing new ones to assist you in creating an effective email marketing campaign. SharpSpring's customizability is excellent, which simplifies all tasks. Additionally, importing and configuring contact lists is a breeze. SharpSpring You may construct unique campaigns by utilizing the numerous concepts and custom templates that it generates, as well as editing and saving them as drafts for future use. You'll receive notifications and data about client replies in real time. This exact approach is easily replicable in subsequent marketing initiatives. I appreciate the ability to conceal and reorganize unnecessary dashboard elements. As a consequence, the business team will be able to more effectively manage and cooperate with the customer database, as well as all stages of advertising, email marketing, customer tracking, contact pages, and marketing job automation, among other things.

Inconvénients

I encountered no technical difficulties when using it. SharpSpring is a critical component in optimizing email marketing operations for both small and large enterprises. For optimal utilization, additional training is required; SharpSpring developers provide numerous videos and tutorials, and the support team is always available to answer your questions.

Avantages

I think sharpspring is very complete and helps our organization to do marketing automation and sales in only one software with every information integrated and tracked. I highly recommend to all organizations who need a good sales CRM and marketing automation.

Inconvénients

The landing page creation tool is not very easy to use, and demands some time do learn because It has a lot of functionalities, but when you do, it turns very useful.

Avantages

For the money, this is a robust solution with many features that make marketing job easier

Inconvénients

In 2021, it is a basic expectation that marketing automation software should have many good looking landing and email templates

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub et Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

SharpSpring is cheaper and more flexible

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

SharpSpring is cheaper and more flexible

Avantages

I like that SharpSpring is intuitive and easy to use. I've used CRM's that require a lot of training and have error messages that are basically unreasonable. Not the case with SharpSpring. I did receive a training from my manager which was helpful but SharpSpring can be learned on your own. I really like the searching capabilities, setting reminders through tasks, the Life of the Lead section which allows me to see all campaigns that clients have interacted with, and the clear layout of the opportunities page.

Inconvénients

For additional security, our company has set it up that codes are occasionally needed to sign onto SharpSpring. This is actually a nice feature and I can see that it's critical, but remembering where I've stored the codes is a minor inconvenience.

Avantages

The biggest plus is its affordability - all the features you need at a price that is accessible. It has all the core functions one needs in a marketing automation platform, with a powerful sales pipeline and lead management component that provides an exceptional, integrated experience. Added bonuses are chatbox and book-time features included in the price, and the ability to sync Outlook emails to a contact's record. Lead scoring

Inconvénients

The email editor can be a bit clunky and formatting copy and layouts can be finicky. The email previewer can be cumbersome. Visual workflows can be arduous to make

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

I left one company where I used Marketo (as a Certified Marketo Expert) and advocated for a cheaper solution at the company where I now work. It's been an excellent choice and the platform has not disappointed.

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Purely for the cost. It's so much more affordable and it makes it accessible to a lot more companies without a huge financial commitment. The tool's functionality, the onboarding, and the customer support has been second-to-none.

Avantages

When choosing a marketing automation platform for my agency, I knew I wanted something robust and customizable. I'm very hands on, and I don't like being constrained by the limitations of drag-and-drop editors or controlled interfaces. I want to be able to tailor my tools exactly to each client I work with, without compromising on functionality or efficiency. That's why SharpSpring has been a perfect fit for me! Not only is it affordable for a small agency like mine, who works with small businesses, but it's extremely powerful, and capable of executing any strategy my team or my clients require. The most complete and functional marketing automation platform out there!

Inconvénients

Because of the large range of features, it can be a little intimidating to learn for some. But the onboarding team does a great job of walking you through implementation and getting you set up for success! Our agency focuses a lot on providing social media and content marketing services to our clients, and the SharpSpring content calendar is definitely not as robust or streamlined as some other platforms I've used. However, it's definitely not the focus of the platform, and there are workarounds for most of the issues I've run into with it. The SharpSpring team is also super responsive to feedback, and are constantly improving their product. I've already seen some great changes in the time I've been using the platform, and I'm confident the content calendar and scheduling tools will only continue to improve!

Alternatives envisagées 

Zoho Social, HubSpot Marketing Hub et Zoho CRM

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

It was the most affordable option for my agency. It was also the only one which allowed me to effectively implement it for all my clients as well, without exorbitant costs to me!

Avantages

SharpSpring is a great tool for small to mid range companies looking to build email marketing campaigns. It has great templates which allow you to create emails that look great and are functional sales tools. There are also great automation tools for drip campaigns and re-targeting.

Inconvénients

The visual email builder can be finicky at times, resulting in editing directly in the code. If you are unfamiliar or uncomfortable formatting HTML code it can be overwhelming. Also, the social media tools are weak. It would be nice if I could schedule and post content directly from SharpSpring.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Constant Contact did not have the functionality of automation and drip campaigns that we needed.

Logiciel antérieur 

Constant Contact

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

SharpSpring has all of the functionality of Hubspot at a fraction of the cost. I used Hubspot at a previous position but I have found that I can do everything I want to do in SharpSpring without having to pay a fortune. SharpSpring also offers significantly more functionality than MailChimp or Constant Contact.

Avantages

Pretty easy to figure out, if you're just using it as a glorified email marketing list building and automation tool.

Drag and drop email template manager is easy to use. So is the visual automation builder.

Forms can be customized and embedded on websites easily to capture lead information.

Out of the box stuff is pretty simple, but you can always get to the CSS to customize everything if you're a developer and want a deeper dive.

Inconvénients

Support has become horrible since launch. You can never get anyone on the phone, it's become a call back system. If you're an agency and managing client accounts, usually you need help immediately, not by end of day or via a random email.

Their billing platform is absolutely ridiculous. They bill your clients directly, and not the agency using the platform saying that the client is the end user, not the agency managing the account. This makes retainer fees or internal billing a nightmare. You'll also have to talk your client into putting their banking routing numbers into a platform they don't understand. If you manage SparpSpring on behalf of your client (like they never login) - Good luck selling it.

There is no Facebook connect to capture lead information!

They keep changing how you export reports by date range. Annoying if you need monthly reports for your client. Sometimes they work, sometimes they move them.

The certification videos and courses are currently outdated after a year of feature pushes.

Biggest annoyance - lead history. You can view lead history in a timeline, but if a lead fills out a form multiple times requesting different information on different dates, you can not scroll through that history in the contact view, it only updates the leads custom fields with the latest information. You can only export the most recent custom fields too, even though you can still see the history and different information in the lead history timeline.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, ActiveCampaign et Drip

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Our agency network started moving to it and someone drank the hype Kool-Aid so we did too.

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, ActiveCampaign, Drip et Leadpages

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

1/3 the cost of other comparable platforms - but you get what you pay for.

Avantages

SharpSpring has features to create marketing operations and track those campaigns either manually or automatically. Considering I can tie all the potential avenues of a campaign into one spot and see how users interact with is a great win. At a glance, it is essential to read the data and make the right decisions; SharpSpring brings all the data to one platform. It makes work more enjoyable that we can create a single campaign with a list of contacts, email templates, unique forms, dynamic pages, trackable media, automation, and analytics in one spot. Not to mention, once we create this base campaign and all its numerous pieces, I can then quickly use all the parts as a template to do another or a third, and so on. Making it very efficient over time. SharpSpring has a lot of features, but I am thrilled with our CRM, email marketing, ads, funnels, all in one location. All this and the support team have been top-notch every step of the way. I also like to learn myself, which they provide via courses, updated videos, and documents that my team and I can reference.

Inconvénients

Interface and design consistency are my two significant cons for this platform. Like most, once you know the platform and its interface, you can be very successful. No difference here except that the design process between creating emails, pages, and forms all have their unique process. I believe it would improve user efficiency if the page and email creator, for instance, had a standard procedure and the same layout of tools. The platform has a lot of features with more coming, so you have to know where all the pieces are between the settings, marketing, and sales menu layout.

Avantages

1. Customer service is highly responsive.
2. Templates for emails and landing pages are easy to use without design or development expertise.
3. Incredibly easy to customize: add fields, pipelines, dashboards, automations particular to your processes without coding or other specialized knowledge.

Inconvénients

1. Landing page builder is kind of basic. However, new releases come regularly and is probably not a big deal if you have an html developer handy.
2. Integrated social scheduler functionality is a bit basic.
3. If you have significant custom complex report needs, this is not the platform for you. They have great canned reports that any layman can find value in, you can download csv files of many things, and you can customize a dashboard with report "widgets." But not a lot of ability to dig into raw data.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement et Salesforce Sales Cloud

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Creating additional sales pipelines required an upgrade to another Salesforce product. For the B2B tech startups our agency served, Salesforce was already a bit much for what they needed -- even before adding on needed marketing automation platforms like Marketo or Pardot. They just didn't have the dedicated resources needed for managing those complex systems.

Logiciel antérieur 

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

1. SharpSpring's unlimited user model was a big plus for my clients. No need to get in touch with Sales and create a contract addendum. Takes 60 seconds to add a new user. 2. From the agency perspective, being able to manage multiple client instances from a single platform made it easy for my small team to administer. 3. The all-in-one platform makes it easy to connect marketing to sales to upsells for a complete view of the customer experience. 4. Adding a new field to the contact record or a new pipeline is super simple. No development or platform expertise needed. A huge bonus, especially when these requests turn out to be of negligible value and/or rarely used.

Avantages

Marketing automation features are very helpful.

Inconvénients

- There is no escalation process for customer support requests that are above a customer support reps expertise
- Email report data is BS and one of the heads of IT at SharpSpring admitted it. The report data within SS differs from the data exported; the excel file has duplicate headline titles with different meanings/data; email data is shit - we sent test emails internally and didn't open them and it shows we opened them 3 times in SS and 4 times in the exported report
- Life of the Lead is the most valuable data within SS and yet you cannot automate based on any of it
- Life Of The Lead duplicates email "opens" and "clicks" based on how many people are in the chain, giving a false view of engagement from customers
- Email clicks are a load of BS - it shows that emails were opened and every link clicked within 10 seconds of sending because of spam bots/filters. SharpSpring doesn't filter this data out, so we can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not. "Can't we export the excel sheet and do that filtering ourselves?" Nope - as stated before, one of the head IT guys at SharpSpring validated our concerns that the excel email report is indeed, shit data. None of it is usable
- Rather than creating a backlog of needed updates and releasing them as a batch update on non-business-hours, SharpSpring product development teams push updates during work hours, breaking crucial functionality for 3+ hours/week, leaving our sales staff twiddling thumbs and complaining.

Avantages

Looking all around the market, you will find sharpspring, with a slightly different business model that can make some eye turn but after you understand you will love it.

The fact that you can buy directly from agencies that know the product and already know your objectives and product, is brilliant since no one will understand more your client than their selves and you that is emerging on his market, some platform forces you to buy their onboarding package that in the end, you don't leave with much.

A platform with that many features on the begging can be a little overwhelming, but with time, you understand the reason for each feature.

I use them for lead management, campaign, sales pipeline, and don't feel that i am using their potential 100% already

Inconvénients

the learning curve needed for the platform, all platform have their learning curve, but once you pass it, this service is awesome!

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Mid-tier price with top-tiers features.

Logiciel antérieur 

ActiveCampaign

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Mid-tier price with top-tiers features.

Avantages

The system is easy to use, is priced really well for all that is included, and has wonderful support!

Inconvénients

Template features could be improved and integrations with other tools could expand.

Avantages

Ease-of-use: SharpSpring is very user-friendly and intuitive. It's easy to edit or create an email, set up workflows, and navigate around the platform.
Versatile: SharpSpring is an all-in-one tool that you can use for your email program, sales pipeline, CRM, marketing automation, and social media.
Customer service: I often frequent the online help center that has a lot of easy-to-understand solutions to many questions that come up. If this doesn't solve the issue, tech support is very responsive and the account management team is also very accommodating.

Inconvénients

Reporting: There are some basic reports that you can pull from the data in SharpSpring, but I would love to see some more robust reporting overall, especially with the sales feature. Aggregated reports across multiple pipelines, for example, would be great to have access to.
Customer segmentation: The platform could use a bit more in-depth customer segmentation features. I sometimes feel the list-building is not as intuitive as it could be.

Alternatives envisagées 

Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

We were looking for a more agile, better UI product for our Marketing Automation/Email Marketing program.

Logiciel antérieur 

Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Of the alternate products, SharpSpring was the best fit for our needs in the organization and we felt we could utilize this tool well. The pricing model was also the most straightforward and matched our needs the best.

Avantages

The functionality of the Dashboard and the multifunctionality of it as a whole. I can use it as a sales employee as well as an account manager. The notes as well as the lead tracking makes daily tasks and client interactions a breeze to notate and collaborate with team members.

Inconvénients

The most daunting obstacle is with the mobile app it is noticeably behind the actual interface. As I am constantly on the fly and not always In front of the computer it'll be a welcomed update when the app is brought up to speed with the rest of the interfaces.

Avantages

SharpSpring is extremely user friendly. It allows for automation through the entire sales funnel. From its Social Media capabilities to its impactful email marketing feature, SharpSpring improves our productivity from management to rep usage!

Inconvénients

In doing research, there was supposed to be an automatic integration with Qwilr. We have found that is not the case.

Alternatives envisagées 

Zoho CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud et HubSpot CRM

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

SharpSpring was easier to use and allowed our agency to "White label" the solution to our clients.

Logiciel antérieur 

Pipedrive

Avantages

Cost vs. benefit. Has all of the features our clients want or need, without a bunch of stuff we have to pay for that they don't need.

Inconvénients

It's a struggle to find something I don't like, but if it was one thing over the past two years, it would be the lack of support on the sales side for our clients. More customized training and presentations for client side would be great.

Avantages

The Launchpad feature works pretty well from a daily task management perspective

Inconvénients

Clunky and slow UI with dismal reporting and analytics.

Avantages

I love using this software on a daily basis and using it to manage my leads. As a salesperson, it is challenging to find a CRM that actually works for you, not where you have to work for it. I like the ease of use with the kanban boards as well as the marketing automation for drip campaigns.

Inconvénients

The mobile app is inoperable and not relevant. Sometimes the search feature is challenging to use- sometimes you need to use the companies name, sometimes you have to use the contacts name. When working in the drip campaigns you have to be really specific about which dates you select.

Alternatives envisagées 

Salesforce Sales Cloud et HubSpot CRM

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

The ease of use for marketing automation and ability to synchronize emails for communication transparency.

Logiciel antérieur 

Zoho CRM

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Pricing, ease of use, and presentation from the SharpSpring staff. Hubspot made us feel like we were taking up their time and not valued. Salesforce was too much for what we needed. SharpSpring made us feel valued and explained their product well by asking us questions first and tailoring their presentation around our needs, not just sending us through a powerpoint.

Avantages

SharpSpring approached me with a very interesting mailer. It was enough to get my attention and learn who they were and what they did. After they bought my crew lunch and I sat through a presentation I decided to join. The minimum monthly bought me 3 accounts plus a free one for my agency. There are a lot of features in SharpSpring and they appear to be adding more, which is nice. They represent themselves as marketing automation for agencies. They offer a lot of white labeling which is a requirement for me when working with 3rd party softwares.

Inconvénients

Late 2019 it was announced that SS would change their billing policies to require that THEY bill my clients. WAIT, WHAT? You're a whitelabeled SaaS service, why the **** would YOU bill MY clients. That's the opposite of the point. Since I haven't set up my clients in their billing interface they've locked me out of my account. And when I went to cancel they reminded me of the 30 days cancellation notice I'm required to give. OH, AND, they decided to up the rate $75/account. I'm so unhappy with where they're going as a company I can't even consider the new features that they're bringing in.

Avantages

The ability to create a clear sales funnel and track your client through the sales process is really easy and highlights areas where more work and focus might be needed in your sales process.

There is a ton of features to engage users and build your audience, you just need to spend time and be open to exploring ideas.

Implementing dynamic content which changes depending on the customer persona is cool.

The support team always reply same day, there is online chat (US times) too.

Inconvénients

There are some definite bugs such as data fields 'locking' when creating a landing page and the later it becomes editable again. Strangely the design side of emails and landing pages is not cohesive. So you have a limited range of fonts in forms but lots of customisation for colours for headings, then the reverse for landing pages. Thinks like buttons for GDPR can't currently be customised which looks odd.

Also, the onboarding process for Squarespace websites is different and this is not mentioned anywhere.

Just needs to have someone invest some time to deal with all these issues and implement a decent upgrade.

Generally, all very minor things but stacked up can provide a bit more challenging onboarding process than what it needs to be.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Cost, ease of use of platform and the support.

Avantages

The support is top-notch. They go above and beyond to ensure all questions are answered. If there is a key feature needed in the software, they'll work to make sure that you get that feature or have a workaround. They respond quickly, and they are incredibly knowledgeable.

It's hard to list just one thing I like best! It's the most competitively-priced tool on the market... and it's a fraction of the cost of nearly any other marketing automation tool on the market.

Inconvénients

With their constant upgrades, SharpSpring occasionally can be a bit buggy while features get ironed out. Nearly all issues have easy workarounds, and the fixes come fast. It's a minor quibble for a service that is basically as good as it gets.

Alternatives envisagées 

Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Better support. Better functionality. Better interface. Better price.

Avantages

Marketing automation - We have built a great rapport with our leads allowing us to nature and seamlessly turn leads into customers.

Sales CRM - As we monitor the performance of the lead from sales consultants we can optimise marketing campaigns to improve sales figures

Inconvénients

Sharpspring is not the easiest platform to learn, the eCommerce integration can be very intricate, however, once you master it, through their virtual classrom which is a comprehensive guide to the products offered.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub et Salesforce Sales Cloud

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

SharpSpring offered more value for money

Avantages

Consolidating functionality is more important all the time. Having the ability to do so many things in one platform is a big benefit.

The media center is good and the calendar function is great. For planning social media campaigns and seeing synergies with other channels, it is very good.

Creating and managing lists is super easy. So is managing the opportunities and the pipeline.

Sales and marketing jointly selected SharpSpring.

Inconvénients

Because it is such a big platform, it can be hard to remember how to do everything. If you don't consistently perform a specific function, it may take a little time to remember how to do it. It isn't always intuitive.

They used to have a campaign cost capability so you could run your cost per lead and cost per sale. That feature disappeared and so you can no longer do that.

Avantages

Easy to use
Great support team - tickets are handled in a timely fashion
Easy to implement
Great Documentation
Great for small, uncomplicated implementations - If your implementation will involve more complex requirements and/or CRM functionalities, stay away from SharpSpring
CRM works Ok

Inconvénients

Automations are not always automatic - work flows sometimes do not work, expect to do manual work.
List segmentations do not always populate automatically - automated lists do not alwys self populate according to their rules
Custom reports are not custom (you cannot filter by custom fields, for example)
Reporting in SharpSpring is very poor
It is easier to export information to Excel to generate useful reports
Social functionalities are very shallow

Avantages

The email builder, landing page builder and form builder are all straightforward and fairly easy to learn. There are also help/support articles for pretty much anything I need help with or get stuck on. The "life of the lead" view is helpful to see a contact's interactions with our brand.

Inconvénients

The email and landing page builders offer a lot of flexibility in layout/design, but sometimes they are a bit too restrictive in terms of moving elements around.

Alternatives envisagées 

Insightly, NetSuite, Zoho Mail, GreenRope et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

The previous platform was a lot more expensive and under-utilized.

Logiciel antérieur 

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

The abundance of features for the price. Specifically, number of contacts allowed, emails sent and ability to manage clients in addition to our agency business.

Avantages

The software is easy to use and is constantly being updated with new features. Within our first year of using the tool, at least 4 new features were rolled out, all of which were useful. Their live support is great. They are thorough and they followup. There have been several instances where the team has followed up after the fact to check in and see if additional support was needed

Inconvénients

I would love more training. The videos are good and useful, but would love more virtual webinars or if being a partner allowed for more 1-on-1 type training. I also wish some of the CRM fields had more customization instead of being default/standard.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Zoho CRM was expensive, bulky and useless. Everytime you wanted to do something you had to add-on a new feature or upgrade. Plus there were lots of limitations and having to jump to different platforms within the CRM.

Logiciel antérieur 

Zoho CRM

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

We liked their Agency model more. It gives our clients more flexibility and freedom and their pricing model made the most sense for us and our clients.

Avantages

As you grow within the platform, there are numerous free resources readily available. If you have a question about a specific feature or capability, you can simply search their online resource library and you'll find an in-depth, step-by-step article with the answer. For more complex or strategy items, they host frequent webinars that you can access at any time. And, of course, it is very easy to submit a support ticket with an extremely quick and thorough response.

Inconvénients

Limited social listening depending on the social platform

Avantages

Being able to leverage anonymous web user data to create actionable insights way before they fill a form out is invaluable. For an agency/B2B company, it is the most reliable new lead generator of any tool out there.

Inconvénients

New features roll out and feel like they should still be in beta. It has a few quirks like a lack of global date range filter that don't necessarily hinder reporting/analysis but are a slight inconvenience.

Avantages

We like the fact it is much cheaper in cost as compared to HubSpot and other marketing automation platforms. The ease of using the platform has made it easy to early adoption of the end users and we are able to fully track our MQL and ROI.

Inconvénients

SharpSpring has an extremely high demand on email accuracy rate of 98% so quite often we get suspended due to bounced back emails. Sometimes it is difficult to have an almost 100% list when people leave companies. We have as a solution, pay for 3rd party email checker services,to help mitigate this and we also send a larger portion of emails though mailchimp.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Dynamics 365 et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

We wanted to have a solution that could do more analytics and tracking on engagement. SharpSpring was able to do this.

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Dynamics 365 et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

cost, no locked in contract, larger user base capability and ease of use

Avantages

SharpSpring has enabled my team and I to actively create multiple drip campaigns to target our newest and existing prospects. It allows us to monitor how new and existing users interact with our website, what pages they go to, and how much time they spend on each page. This has assisted us in refining our retargeting strategies and the type of content we need to create to keep our prospects engaged and interested in our services.

Inconvénients

It would be nice to have a few more pre-made templates available when crafting email templates. SharpSpring enables you to basically drag, resize and drop different elements into your email templates, but it is not as customizable as other platforms. The social media scheduling portion is good, but it is not as robust as other platforms. Cross-posting might sometimes display differently than expected, for example posting a link that contains a featured image might show differently on SharpSpring than the actual social media platform, so we always check the actual post on the social media platform to make sure it posted as desired.

Avantages

You can Track all visitors, Contacts, Opportunites, Account and track your campaign! All features at the same place! The support is really fast and really good.

Inconvénients

The only little thing I like less (and I know SharpSpring is working to improve this) is the email campaigns. But I know that the team work on that!

Avantages

The email tracking, life of the lead of lead, lead scoring, personas, customizable contact manager, .. many things I love about SS.

Inconvénients

I would love for the email automations to be a little bit easier to set up. Currently they're a little burdensome so I try to get in there, do it once, and avoid updating them as I often as I probably should.

Avantages

I like that Sharpspring combines the best of digital marketing with an excellent easy to understand CRM platform. It is intuitive and is very accurate when providing quality leads. The customer service team is always there when you need assistance with the program. It also integrates rather well with other Applications. The platform is good.

Inconvénients

I would like to see several more features included. Would like to be able to book mark or tag certain contacts and also have a pull down tab that would show you sent an email not just contacted, no answer or voice mail. May a little more color.

Avantages

SharpSpring is a sleek system that offers outstanding tools for marketing automation. We researched a lot of platforms ranging from free to $1000s before going with SharpSpring. They have just the right amount of features that makes it the most useful for all of our clients, leaving off the bells and whistles that would inflate the price.

Their interface is top-tier which makes using their system a breeze. The dashboard gives you a comprehensive look at everything you're running. Moving around the system is super simple and they make it easy to jump to different areas when you're building a sales program. I'd urge you to check out all the features on their website because there are too many to list, but I can say that what they have offered us is unbelievably comprehensive.

We've also taken full advantage of their support which is outstanding. They have always been knowledgable and very friendly. Moreover, they won't let you off the phone until they are sure that the problem has been resolved! They also offer FREE continuing education programs like webinars to help make you more proficient at their program.

SharpSpring is a superior marketing automation platform, with a very intuitive interface and offer the kind of support we have rarely seen in tech companies. They have worked harder to earn and keep our business than any other vendor we've ever worked with. You would do yourself a giant favor to give their system a test drive.

Inconvénients

I was not prepared for the steep learning curve that is required to take full advantage of this platform. I was a bit discouraged at first by everything there was to learn but I realized it's part of working with such a comprehensive platform. It's like moving to a new town and trying to figure out all the roads and highways. I don't know if that's really a con but it is something you must be aware of. You're going to need to spend some serious time learning it but once you do, navigating the system easily becomes second nature.

Avantages

Where do I begin?! SharpSpring is a high functioning, easy to use marketing automation system. It has a wide range of functionalities and helpful automation capabilities.

SharpSpring allows us to monitor our user interactions with our website and paid social campaigns. This allows us to better understand and track our users and help determined the best platforms to promote our campaigns. The campaign manager is a great tool, it allows you to effectively track your leads and determine where they came form.

To top it off, the support team is phenomenal. They are very professional, responsive and provide solutions to any issue you may have. I can always count on the support team to provide quick and easy solutions when I am having difficulties.

Inconvénients

The only con I can think of is the lack of display/functionality options in the form and landing page builder. SharpSpring give you the option of building a custom stylesheet but it can become time consuming. Other than that, I haven't run into any issues with the software.

Avantages

All the marketing automation is incredible and so easy to use. We have been using the chatbot feature and love it! It is easy to set up and we have it integrated with Slack to make the ability to manage it simple. The email automation and workflow automation makes me day to day job so easy as well. I can set up new prospects in my sales workflow and they get moved down my funnel with just automation. It saves me a ton of time.

Inconvénients

I love SharpSpring but the overall user interface is not the most beautifully designed one. However, I am getting so many features and resources for an incredible price that this is not a big issue at all. And it really isn't that bad.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Sales Cloud et HubSpot Sales Hub

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

HubSpot is a great service and is beautifully designed but I felt that I was being overcharged for tools that I didn't need and the ones I did need I couldn't scale it without paying an arm and a leg. For a smaller marketing agency, SharpSpring is the way to go. Great price, great service, and great tools!

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Better price, better service, and better tools!

Avantages

Lead Scoring, Visitor ID, Automatizaciones, lo bien que están alineados la parte de ventas y marketing, el media center me encanta

Inconvénients

Deben mejorar los filtros de campos personalizados para oportunidades, es un poco molesto tener que exportar a una Excel para poder hacer filtros y tomar decisiones.

El proceso de facturación de los clientes de la agencia, España es diferente a USA, no están acostumbrados a pagar con tarjeta de crédito este tipo de importe por separado, trabajan mejor con trasnferencia bancaria

Los onboarding deben ser más profundos y ayudar a las agencias de marketing a saber usar mejor la herramienta, nosotros hemos dedicado muchas horas a aprender como usarla y cuánto mejor la usamos es más fácil venderla. El crecimiento de nuevos clientes que usan la plataforma depende de lo bien que le enseñemos a usarla y para ello, debemos convertir a mi equipo en expertos.

Avantages

The system is easy to use -from training to the online help docs (i.e., self-training) - to the excellent support team, I feel very confident when using the system and making modifications. I know if I can't figure out how to do something I want to do - I can either jump on live chat or call support and someone will happily help me figure it out.

Inconvénients

Reporting capabilities are still growing. They recently launched a new reporting dashboard with canned "custom" reports but I would like the idea to select the variables myself and run a report on my data - including my custom fields. If the fields exist, I'd like to run reports on them. I have figured out, however, that, I can export a lot into excel and create my own reports when needed.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Basecamp et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Cost, support and customization

Avantages

SharpSpring integrates well with Salesforce, which is key to our Marketing team being able to support our Sales team. We now have insight into where our leads come from and how they engage with our content - something we never knew before! Life of the Lead is our favourite feature because it gives our Account Managers context when engaging with a lead. We have more lead generators on our website (like a chatbot, free trial request, and opt-in forms) that we never had before. We also have access to more powerful (and easier!) reporting, which makes month-end reporting cycles more enjoyable.

Inconvénients

There is a lot to learn but the onboarding process helped to ensure we had the support we needed from both a strategic and technical perspective. We've had some technical issues with not being able to use emojis for social posts and with not receiving email notifications for some workflows. The technical support team was very helpful, but unfortunately, there are still some outstanding tickets. The landing page builder is frustrating but the email builder is more intuitive.

Avantages

Initially, the biggest feature was the lack of sticker shock associated with purchasing this software. We are a small marketing agency that drank the HubSpot Kool-aid so to speak. We signed on and went through all the training to become an Agency Partner. While it's great software, the price tag puts it outside the realm of feasible for most small business budgets. We found ourselves having to cut our own profits to get people to sign up for it and then they were frustrated at the year contract.

SharpSpring solves that problem. They have the main automation product that goes head to head with HubSpot for features in every way for significantly less monthly investment and no lengthy contracts. Then they have the Mail+ product that's great for the really small clients. It has some limits on features, but offers a way lower price point for baby-stepping a client into the platform.

And the most impressive thing was their onboarding process. They gave me unlimited access to a dedicated human while I was getting things set up and learning to use it for the first 60 days. The coolest part to me was that he was able and willing to deviate from the typical onboarding script. Instead of putting me through the usual paces, we spent our sessions diving into my client's needs and getting things set up. That saved me so much time and allowed me to onboard 8 clients in the first 2 months.

Inconvénients

The landing page builder stinks- but honestly, I use Thrive Architect and WordPress anyway, so this didn't matter to me. When I pitched a feature request at them to look at Thrive Architect, the dev team said they were already talking to the owner of Thrive Themes and looking at how to either integrate it or build a similar tool. If they do anything even close, it would be awesome.

And they don't have social publishing yet, but I'm told it's coming soon... fingers crossed.

Avantages

Being a Partner for 4+ years has allowed us to grow with them. When they were a startup, we were able to really see the changes the partners were requesting and the software has come a long way. They really value their Partners (agencies).

Inconvénients

Sometimes SharpSpring likes to release new features, while they need to also work on continually improving their existing features.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement et Act-On

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Marketo was very expensive and did not allow us to resell to clients. Also not user friendly.

Logiciel antérieur 

Marketo Engage

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Much less expensive and really built for agencies like us. The others also really charged a lot for the number of contacts we would have, making them not feasible.