Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Avantages

Lots of options for the price tag. More marketing automation than what we originally thought this would bring.

Inconvénients

SharpSpring simply did not have enough support people to assist in the start up of the system.

Avantages

My favorite thing about Sharpspring is the ability to track and analyze the entire life of a lead, from start to finish. It allows us to optimize our funnels and nurture prospects from interest to sale. It is a really powerful tool and offers (almost) everything you need for marketing automation from automated workflows to landing pages and forms to email design. I also love their lead scoring.

Inconvénients

Though it offers a lot of features, it's not all that usable compared to similar products. There are countless small usability issues. Landing pages are pretty difficult to create. Support is usually great – but can at times be entirely unhelpful. Automation has some key features other tools allow. Overall, there are just a lot of features that still need to be added in order to really compete.

Alternatives envisagées 

ActiveCampaign et Keap

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Price was the primary reason.

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

We really needed a robust CRM for longer B2B buying cycles. Though all other tools were awesome, Sharpspring won out there.

Avantages

Very easy to use, extremely powerful, collaborative, and backed by an incredible support team.

Inconvénients

Could use a little more horsepower in the email design department.

Avantages

If you are searching for a cloud software to manage marketing automation, Sharpspring got you covered at a much lower price than other competitors. You don't need any design skills to be able to make it work. They have a good training program and support is also very effective.

Inconvénients

Although you can get results pretty quickly, usability could be better when building landing pages or emails. Social posting is in my experience still not reliable. Nonetheless, they offer good support and constant improvement.

Avantages

It is a platform that cover the manage of the commercial proccess and the use of information from the salers, this feed our Marketing Strategies and give us a continous improvement. Is easy to share tools between commercial and marketing teams about new campaings and we can obtain all the data to support, if a campaing was succesfully with a ROI that has the detail of each lead, opportunity and sales earned.

Inconvénients

There is not automation proccess to include automatically changes in account's flelds. Sharpspring is working constantly in improving features, that is why we do not worry.

Avantages

Everything! It does everything we could ever as a CRM to do. I love how everything is customizable to what fits my company's needs.

Inconvénients

I would make some changes to the reporting tools and creation of emails.

Alternatives envisagées 

Salesforce Platform

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Keap sucked and SharpSpring could do everything any business would need in the digital business world.

Logiciel antérieur 

Keap

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

SharpSpring gave us everything we needed and more at a great price

Avantages

At first, I was hesitant to jump on board with SharpSpring as I have used the bulkier parent company software from Constant Contact and did not love... I thought this would be similar and I was already familiar with HubSpot's array of marketing automation applications; however, I was a little wrong! I still prefer HubSpot for larger, more profitable or sizable I guess I should say, companies. For my non-profit and social enterprise ventures, however, it is actually very much aligned to the effectiveness as the aforementioned competitor but for half the price. I like that I can get detailed analytics while setting up true smart content triggers for pre-existing materials in a way that makes sense and is strategic for my audience at the right time in the right way.

Inconvénients

The interface to me feels almost too simplistic as if it is dumbed down, even aesthetics wise. I am big on the look and feel of a system, especially if I'm going to be in it regularly. Also the social media capabilities and deeper, detailed analytics for lead management and creation at the top of the marketing funnel (or circulating flywheel if you're into more "modern times" industry lingo) are not up to snuff in comparison to HubSpot. But in comparison to the rest of the product market, SharpSpring is up there within the ranks!

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Ortto, ActiveCampaign et HubSpot CRM

Avantages

In order to make the most of Marketing Automation, SharpSpring offers a complete set of tools and resources. It's simple to use and can track visits from all of your different marketing initiatives. Once you've gone through the training, the tools are simple to use and can be customized to fit your company's needs. Making it easier to alter your marketing strategy and get a better return on investment (ROI).

Inconvénients

The email editor might be a touch clumsy and formatting prose and layouts can be problematic. The email previewer might be problematic. Visual processes may be laborious to make

Avantages

SharpSpring lets us manage a wide variety of marketing and client management activities in one easy-to-use platform. Everything from marketing automation, to transparent sales pipelines, to persona-focused automated (and adjustable) messaging tools, we can save hundreds of hours on marketing tasks, while regularly engaging our clients' prospects and increasing overall sales.

Inconvénients

SharpSpring could work on improving their help files significantly. While their live support staff are excellent, I feel like for most questions, I have to contact them, rather than simply look up a well-written help article to get many answers.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

The agency focus was the major thing. Instead of having our team log out and log into dozens of different client accounts, we can manage the major details from our master account, and then quickly switch into a client account and interact with their particular needs.

Avantages

With SharpSpring, my team and I are able to stay on top of our prospects, analyze which pages they're visiting on our website, measure their engagement levels from the content we send out to them. Additionally, we also have marketing analytics at our disposal to review which traffic sources are generating the most traffic. The ability SharpSpring gives you to create, manage and measure your campaigns is beyond useful.

Inconvénients

The social media publishing aspect could be a little more robust with real-time analytics. Sometimes the content you're trying to post does not exactly translate the way you want it to on the actual social media platform. Also, the trackable links don't always display an accurate representation of the number of clicks on media attached to your posts. The links to the trackable links should also be a lot shorter to motivate users to click on these links.

Avantages

Once we signed up with SharpSpring you are given a 60 day onboarding process. This is where you are assigned to a onboard specialist and he essentially trains you. My onboard specialist was Deontae Lafayette who was fabulous, so knowledgeable and so patient with me. I really liked that I could have as much time with him as I needed. I made two one hour meetings every week. He would train me on something then I would work on that component and then we would review with our next meeting. After my 60 days ended he assured me that the support team is available as I need it. Also, SharpSpring has video tutorials that are accessible anytime I need to figure out how to do something. I really have enjoyed my time with SharpSpring so far as I feel they are really a very knowledgeable company and very easy to work with.

Inconvénients

I really have not found anything I dislike. Some functions are not in formats i am used to with other platforms but one thing SharpSpring allows you is to send in a product feature that you would like them to consider and so far I have sent in two and they have used my suggestion and made that feature available.

Avantages

Powerful tools for lead generation to pretty good customer management, tons of options to personalize a lot of aspect of the company. very good tools for building email marketing and landing pages with out third parties

Inconvénients

I think one point where sharpspring lose flexibility is on landing page creations, how designer we need more tools for layout.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Keap et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

We are simply looking for a more robust alternative

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Easy to use, unlimited user with out pay more for each user, Price

Avantages

What I mostly appreciated about using sharpspring was the diverse range of features within the platform, since they identify and capture prospect information much easier; wich is very valuable in terms of sales optimization.

Inconvénients

Sharpspring has a very accelerated rate for putting out new features, to keep up and compete with other platforms, wich is a pro; however, the new features often need updates. Video Calling, for instance, was great by the time the pandemic began; however, it might not be as established as other video conference competitors.

Avantages

The only reason to be on sharpspring is because the lower price compare to hubspot.

Inconvénients

The lack of support, they don't care your problems.

1.- On February 28, 2020 they erase 2,154 contacts from the CRM of one of my clients and they don't solve the problem, the only justification they have is that their system doesn't allow massive deletion of contacts.

2.- The price increment of 45% to their agencies because the new features only available in US, so all the other agencies have to pay more even if you are not allowed to get those features.

3.- The constant failure of the system, the automations fail. They are not fixing the bugs.

Avantages

I like the fact that it does what it says on the box. More often than not you sign up and then find out if you want to do this or do that, it's additional cost - not with SharpSpring. Although they have a 3rd party APP Marketplace for plugins or API connecting codes, SharpSpring has native access to GA, Google Adwords (Optional) and Social connectors such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter - still waiting for Insta to be available.

No minimum commitment, no lock in contracts, unlimited partner support (phone & email), healthy number of contacts and emails each month and most importantly no forced tiered pricing approach - everything can be available from day 1.

With a dedicated on-boarding representative for the first 60 days, you have every opportunity to get off on the right foot.

But the biggest PRO is the fact that it has been built with a business like mine at the forefront of their GTM thinking, allowing me to build a business using some very affordable and powerful software for my clients to adopt MA without being charged like a wounded bull!

Inconvénients

There's not many 'Cons' but simply a couple of teething problems like you would expect and get with most SaaS platform- my thoughts - you can't be everything, to everybody, every time.

Areas such as fonts, layout and the landing page construct could be improved but you've always got support on hand to help you through it plus they have a product development page you can view.

Avantages

The SharpSpring Marketing Automation Software provides the following features and benefits that make it a stand out product for my business;
1. The 24/7 support incorporated into the monthly fees; Ensuring no surprises down the line.
2. No requirement to pay fees annually upfront.
3. New landing page feature.
4. Blog page feature.
5. New integration with the Litmus test.
6. Link up with Zapier integration to allow connection to hundreds of 3rd party software providers with the Zapier integration and SharpSpring APIs.
7. Training platform library; In-depth and with video availability to walk through processes. This along with 24/7 support, in my opinion, are the two most important features out with cost of course which set SharpSpring apart as the right platform for our boutique digital marketing agency.

Inconvénients

1. Monthly fees in dollars do not convert via local UK sterling currency rates, unlike other US marketing software providers. You pay in £ sterling the same monthly fee as in US $ dollars.
2. Email builder while it is satisfactory it could be even more user friendly.

Avantages

We have never regretted joining forces with SharpSpring! We decided on SharpSpring after leaving one of their very expensive competitors. Basically SS did everything we needed them to do and more. The customer service of our account reps are outstanding. They helped us create some things that were never done before. Love the workflows on the forms.

Inconvénients

There really isn't that much not to like about SharpSpring. So far they have met every need for me and my team

Avantages

Last year my company decided to switch from Hubspot -where we'#39;d been for three years- to SharpSpring. We knew the transition would be tough, but SharpSpring seemed like a great, and less expensive, alternative. Now, a few months in, we only wish we switched sooner. While SharpSpring doesn'#39;t have everything Hubspot does, it has a lot of things Hubspot does not, and it has everything we need as a small business. My only complaint originally was that there was no social media calendar, but they just added one in December, which means we can use SharpSpring as our complete marketing and sales hub. Part of onboarding with SharpSpring includes one-on-one calls with a member of the team where you are taught about features of the program. At first, we thought this was unnecessary, but we really benefited from the guidance we got during onboarding. Here'#39;s a recent example of the kind of customer service you get from SharpSpring: He was our onboarding contact and when we had our last call he told me that, while onboarding was over, we were welcome to contact him if we had any questions. Yesterday I had a question about a workflow that customer support may have been able to answer, but that I thought the may be better able to help me with since he knows our company and our strategies. He wrote back by the next morning with detailed instructions on how I could achieve what I wanted to. This kind of support really sets SharpSpring apart and I would absolutely recommend it to others, especially those with small businesses like ours.

Inconvénients

My only complaint with SharpSpring is that some tools can be a bit buggy sometimes, but customer support has always been very helpful.

Avantages

When i used constant contact it was really good. It has everything you need!!

Inconvénients

NO cons really. For me it had everything

Avantages

The amazing customer support that is offered. Anytime I have a question I can either look it up myself in their library of resources with tutorials and instructional videos, or I can call their partner support line and speak to a real person who even follows up after the call to make sure all of the needs were met.

Inconvénients

I wish you could edit Life of Lead to be able to put custom events in there. We uploaded a prospect database we had been tracking since 2017 and it had every time we touched a prospect. Unfortunately, once we uploaded this list into SharpSpring we were not able to edit their Life of Lead prior to the upload date. While this is barely an issue, it would be nice to see how long we have been tracking some of these prospects to give us a better prediction at how many touches it takes for a prospect to convert to a customer.

Alternatives envisagées 

Lead Forensics

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

SharpSpring seemed like the best deal on the market by far. For only a few hundred dollars a month we were able to start using our first marketing automation/CRM software. With SharpSpring you are able to cut off using other services, so we are actually paying less than we did before, but getting so much more in return!

Avantages

Sharpspring is not just a tool, a CRM or automation of Leads and Inbound Marketing is all that and more ... it is made up of people ... people who care about you, people who care about you your business, even if your agency is ridiculously small, like mine ... they are people who take pains, dedicate themselves and get mad at me, because I didn't do my “homework” ... and with that, I keep skating in my evolution ... they want me to grow ... they want me to earn more ... even I think sometimes they want my success more than me ;-) ... (just kidding)

Inconvénients

that she doesn't have points that I can call weak ... so if what I tried to do didn't work ... it's because I didn't do it right
and it hurts ... talk to the technical team and they find the error!

Avantages

The value for what you're getting is going to be hard to find elsewhere. They do a great job of email workflows, integration and tracking of various strategies and campaigns, and getting a quick view of the path of the lead. Plus, their model is well suited for agencies.

Inconvénients

It's no secret that their email builder is not the best. You can make it work, but it often takes more work to get them looking the way you want them than with other email builders. To their credit, they do try to improve them over time, but what is assumed simple on other email builders is a workaround solution on this one. That being said, the annoyance of the email builder has yet to outweigh the value the software brings in other areas, so it's an annoyance that can be put up with or worked around.

Avantages

Sharpspring has an easy interface and do a great integration between marketing automation and CRM, helping these teams to work without any gaps, fully integrated. Reports are very easy to generate and personalize.

Inconvénients

The Email designer and Landing Pages Designer is not the ideal yet, is a little difficult to use.
Other problem is the incapacity to separate invoices and charges to my clients in Brasil. I need to receive from my clients separately and pay for all Sharpspring licences.

Alternatives envisagées 

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Sharpspring is better and have a complete solution.

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Because it offers all tools I need in one.

Avantages

Everything you need to grow a business is in one place. The interface is easy to use and very intuitive. However, my favorite part of the company is the awesome support staff! Migrating from another platform, there is always a learning curve and workflow adjustment. If there was something we didn't know how to achieve in SharpSpring their friendly staff would explain with great detail how to get it done and integrate into the workflow we created.

Inconvénients

Their social posting, responding section of the software is still a bit weak and we do utilize another piece of software to get this done, but we remember their software is about the automation and converting leads to customers and it does that very well, so this is an easy area to compromise.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

The price point was the biggest initial reason. We moved from another large product that pieced everything together making it out of reach for the smaller businesses. SharpSpring has all the major pieces as one at a lower cost. Had I known about the great customer service... I would have moved over a long time ago!

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Sales Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Price Price Price.... and now... Service Service Service!!!!! They really care about my business doing well and help with non-product related questions. As I mentioned prior, they go above and beyond!

Avantages

Originally it was transparency and pricing that made us move. But since then it's the fact that Sharpspring have continued to develop the platform with great new features (like the inbuilt CRM, Sales Automation and integrated Meeting booking functionality) many of which at no additional cost (unlike Hubspot) that means we continue to use and recommend Sharpspring over any other platform for our SMB clients.

Inconvénients

I would like SMS functionality to be built in as well as email (I appreciate it's not as big in the USA where Sharspring's biggest customer base is) but it's big here in the UK

Alternatives envisagées 

Dynamics 365

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Pricing and poor client support. As an agency "WE" were the client, but they treated as merely as someone selling their product.

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Pricing mainly

Avantages

Looking to get the best out of my email marketing, Sharpspring gives me the chance to reach out to my whole list with a modicum of effort. The best part is the automation--triggers and the ability to build out a complex program make a big difference in efficacy and efficiency.

Inconvénients

The email builder inside of the program--WYSIWYG. You can do this, but it's frustrating to make the thing look like you want it to.

Avantages

- Price
- Easy of use
- Easy to implement and learn
- Fast support
- Active community and many updates
- Possible to have skype calls and team sessions with SharpSpring to spar.

Inconvénients

- The Social Media part in the software is not optimal, we still use other software next to it.
- CRM feature is small, great for small companies, but bigger ones can come short.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

After running the demo of each software, the price, easy of use, and SharpSpring had a better fit with our type of costumers.

Avantages

While the functionality is extremely powerful, SharpSpring itself is easy-to-use. Like any software, there is an initial training period where you have to get comfortable with the platform, but I found it pretty intuitive, especially after participating in the on-boarding training classes. The best thing about the software is the results it's generating for my clients. Our email marketing campaigns have been extraordinarily successful and the reporting functionality makes it easy to demonstrate these results to our clients.

Inconvénients

I've been very satisfied with the software and don't have any complaints. One wish-list item would be for SharpSpring to integrate with survey tools so I could seamlessly administer campaigns requesting customer feedback.

Alternatives envisagées 

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

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Value for the dollar. SharpSpring offers the same functionality as many of the larger, more well-known marketing automation platforms for a fraction of the cost, but what really sets them apart from their peers is their customer service, which includes extensive live and on-demand training classes and a dedicated call center focused on your success.

Avantages

I love the great e-mail marketing campaigns, show the statistical analysis of the conversions through each campaign, and find what clients are clicking, viewing, and making them convert. We also can achieve this through using their media import section for when we add in video testimonials, client reviews, and any visual data to get a potential client hooked.

Inconvénients

I'm not a massive fan of the CRM. The tasks aren't great, you don't get to see the e-mails that you sent if they are not a "smart mail" that has been pre made. Logging calls and tracking them in the system seems impossible as well. But for the benefits of the marketing, and for the price, its suitable enough. Just expect frustrations with the CRM side.

Avantages

Easy-to-use platform that makes marketing automation simple for both our agency and our clients. Great partner agency program that provides huge value for us.

Some of the best SharpSpring features include: VisitorID (the ability to see which individuals and companies and looking at your website), detailed email reports, visual workflows, and pre-designed email templates.

Inconvénients

SharpSpring is not as robust as other marketing automation platforms. As a result, it lacks many features that other systems have and the site often glitches. It's difficult to automate drip campaigns, notifications, etc. as the automation functionality is missing a number of key features. CRM is also not intuitive and lacking a lot of basic search/filtering functionally. Additionally, you may have to know a bit of HTML to design emails, as the pre-built templates can be a bit finicky.

Avantages

SharpSpring filled a void in our content marketing program, enabling us to better understand which resources impact our lead-gen and sales process. It also allows us to follow up with leads in intelligent ways, sharing relevant, personalized information and tracking response.

The SharpSpring platform is very easy to use and configure, and their customer service is top-notch. We especially appreciated their Onboarding process, which equipped us with the skills and knowledge we needed to manage the platform on our own. That self-reliance was crucial in our decision to move forward with SharpSpring.

We feel that the pricing is more than fair, and we are seeing tremendous value from the platform. SharpSpring helps us to have a truly integrated marketing and sales function.

Inconvénients

We'd like to see more flexibility in the reporting--the ability to create a personalized dashboard with the precise metrics we need to monitor on a daily basis. The information is available in SharpSpring, but we have to look in several different places to find it.

Avantages

SharpSpring is an automated marketing platform with features of third-party CRM integration, universal CMS compatibility, fully integrated call tracking, landing pages, blog builder and much more. It provides unlimited users for all plans, unlike its competitors. What it says vs. what it delivers: It says: It offers behavioral-based email automation with “after-the-click” tracking for personalized messaging. Yes, it delivers: With the feature, we were able to identify the cost of a lead. It also helped to decrease the unaddressed customer complaints It says: It offers in-depth analytics with statistics of clicks, bounces, and deliveries. It also enables to track the visitor’s conversions, the life cycle of a lead – from click to attending social events. No, it does not deliver: The reports and analytics are not in detail, though they provide the performance of campaigns. It misses the specifications on minute details of the strategy. It says: It offers customization in every feature such as customized conversion forms, buyer personalities, reports and much more. Yes, it delivers: My team at e-Intelligence were able to customize the tool for lead preferences, campaign performance, and email automation

Inconvénients

Nothing that I can think of! I suggest making the most of this tool for your marketing needs. You can overlook minor glitches as they are not affecting the tool’s performance to a large extent.

Avantages

- Marketing automation tool easy to use after a few passes, and has a lot of flexibility around triggers and options.
- Forms are great for collecting lead information elsewhere (we use largely with Leadpages) and automatically pulling that data into SharpSpring/contacting the appropriate rep within our company.
- Reporting is pretty good; I really appreciate the ability to drill into the email reports on an individual basis.
- Self-help documents are pretty good.

Inconvénients

- Customer service is weak (aside from onboarding). It took a long time (over a month) to resolve an integration issue, and in general customer support is slow to respond and not very knowledgeable.
- Email builder is just OK, and customization options on forms are limited. I would love to be able to better manipulate the look of the forms we use.
- Landing Page tool is new, and I expect it to improve, but it's clunky and hard to build what I want at this time.
- There is sometimes a lag in reporting that makes it hard to confirm in real-time if an email has gone out/an import is loaded, etc.

Avantages

The automation features, they are very powerful. You can set up nurturing sequences, lead qualification, segmenting, all done automatically and by your rules. It saves a lot of time and you get done so much more.

Inconvénients

The interface is a bit bulky and can get time to get used to. But once you know how to navigate it it's easy.

Avantages

I love the ease of use and flexibility of SharpSpring for my company and for my customers.

Inconvénients

Since I use this to manage customers and my sales team I really need the ability to have more control over being able to have the sales team see all customers and contacts but only the name and contact so they can see this is a current client. The only way they can do that is by giving them the ability to also access all other contact information including emails. If you manage a competitive sales team that can cause problems. I need them to focus on their customers and not have the ability to look at what other salespeople are doing with their customer's interaction, etc. but they do need to know who is a customer so they know who to and who not to call on.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot CRM

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Flexibility and easy of use. Also the price point and contract terms are much more favorable.

Avantages

Sharpspring is totally focused on the important features of being able to deliver a world class marketing automation system at a incomprehensibly low price. With new features being added on a very regular basis this powerful platform really does it all.
Our business would probably not exist without Sharpspring as it has become central to to most of our business processes. Having previously used other systems I can testify to Sharpspring's ease of use and effectiveness.

Inconvénients

When we initially implemented the software there were a couple of features which were not available; however, over the past couple of years these issues have been addressed and the rate of developed is really impressive. Our initial concern that, compared to other platforms, Sharpspring might not keep pace with market developments have been completely dispelled and in fact they exceed the development of their industry peers

Avantages

Onboarding and set-up guidance. They help during a window of time however, there is a lot required to get you up and going. They refer often to the EDU and Classroom hours for help. This actually helps but you should anticipate 30-60 days with your current schedule to be up and running. Validation of leads, the assignment from leads to opportunities and the lead scoring, with automation helps salespeople realize where they are in the pipeline with prospects. We wanted to have more integration from forms to collecting leads, company and associated sub-accounts organized with individual opportunities. The ability to replace MailChimp, Lead Pages and Pipedrive while adding more functionalities was beneficial and outweighed the cons. This puts us in a good position to walk other customers through the process correctly and have longer-term contracts with them.

Inconvénients

Onboarding and set-up. We underestimated all that would be needed to get this up and going and likely they know the challenges a company can face. I'd imagine that hinders sales but they should really let a user know the team and tasks to consider/ required based on the company size.

Avantages

It's nice way of adapting for every situation. It's a software easy to use but not limited. Also the strong evolution of the software monthly updates and growing system makes it grow with your business while technology rapidly changes.

Inconvénients

It's looking so easy that people tent to forget that you have to work in it. It's marketing automation, but it doesn't do the work for your business. More CEO, CFO en marketing department leaders have to be informed, engaged and encouraged to work on it together and it becomes magic.

Avantages

We moved to SharpSpring from another leading marketing automation software provider and SharpSpring provide 95% of the features for less than half the cost. The software itself is easy to understand and navigate (much easier than our previous system) and the support team are responsive, friendly and helpful. We've been very happy with our migration to SharpSpring and intend to be a user for the foreseeable future. It meets our needs as a specialist life science marketing agency perfectly.

Inconvénients

There are some features that are missing from SharpSpring vs our previous provider, but on balance we felt that either 1. We wouldn't use them 2. We could live without them for the cost savings and other benefits of SharpSpring. Dynamic forms would be great to have, and the analytics sometimes don't match our other analytics software. What I will say is that SharpSpring seem more responsive to requests for new features vs our old provider.

Avantages

Customer/Partner support is simply amazing. Over the last 4 years working with Sharpspring, partner support had helped us in many and different ways solving 100% of our questions and cases that we need additional help. The support team replies incredibly fast and always friendly.

Inconvénients

The landing page editor. Minor coding knowledge may be required.

Avantages

Complete integrated tech stack for marketing and sales that includes the core functionality a business needs to execute full-funnel marketing and sales campaigns and manage the sales pipeline.

Inconvénients

SmartMail provides 1:1 direct IMAP email, but it would be nice if there was a sales-driven email automation feature for low volume 1:1 emails to prospects.

Alternatives envisagées 

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement, Keap et Marketo Engage

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Price performance and the agency model. SharpSpring provides lartely equivalent functionality for 1/3 the cost and the agency model is better.

Logiciel antérieur 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Cost effectiveness, ease of use, full stack functionality (CRM and Marketing Automation) and the strong agency model

Avantages

Ease of use, good templates, built in CRM (although you can integrate with 3rd party CRM if you need.) Cost saving compared to competing products - especially if you can dispense with a full-fat CRM like Salesforce which is bloated and over priced for SME market in my opinion.

Inconvénients

Occasional glitches. Sometimes you have to refresh the page to see the result of a change that you have made. For example - the number of members in a list - can take a few minutes after saving the query to report a true number. But you soon learn to live with minor issues like this.

Avantages

Sharp Spring provides me and my clients with several advantages over its competition (like Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, Infusionsoft). First of all, you can not beat their licensing value. Each license comes with unlimited users. This alone beats all the competition. Secondly, they have integrated an awesome CRM (missing in all the other marketing automation tools) so you do not have to go out and buy licenses for that. Lastly, it is a COMPLETE marketing automation system with true behavioral marketing capabilities.

Inconvénients

At first, I had a hard time understanding how they do automation. I was used to using a drag and drop "visualization" interface to build drip campaigns. I also had a bit of a hard time getting used to their nomenclature. The way that automation processes are set up in Sharp Spring are through two things... Tasks (which I was used to calling triggers) and Workflow (which I was used to calling task automation). You can see how it was confusing for me. Well I learned it, it was not that hard, and I actually see now how it is a way superior way to program automation then using visual aids that would be cumbersome to try to set up and manage in large scale automation projects.

Avantages

The features are easy to use. There is assistance available for ever feature - step by step instructions. Particularly, I like the new features that are added continuously. This allows our agency to stay on top of the changes in the marketplace while offering the new features to our clients.

Inconvénients

There is absolutely nothing that I don't like about the product.

Avantages

SharpSpring has grown by leaps and bounds over the past three years. Its team is nimble and responsive, and feature sets continue to grow and improve. The UI is much more intuitive than Hubspot and well organized into two main action sets: marketing and sales.

Inconvénients

SS still lags behind Hubspot in the email editor, in the page editor, and in the blogging system. That said, they're not that far behind, and if you're passingly familiar with html, you'll be fine. Add the always available support, and you're in good shape.

Avantages

What I like most about SharpSpring is how much you get for the money. It packs every feature you'd expect from the expensive marketing automation platforms but doesn't throw exorbitant costs on those features. I also like the ease of integration with other platforms.

Inconvénients

I highly dislike the recent shift in having clients pay for their own accounts with separate billing. We were sold this platform as one we could completely white-label for clients, but now we are required to put a client CC on file.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

We chose SharpSpring solely because it was cheaper than HubSpot.

Avantages

The core marketing automation functionality in SharpSpring is excellent. If you're looking for Visitor ID tracking, better email communication, personalization, a landing page builder, or a CRM, SharpSpring is definitely worth a look.

Even though it's a "soft" feature, it's worth noting that the customer service team has been great to work with. I've been able to give my clients solid timelines for when to expect a fix or help.

Inconvénients

The email and landing page builders are solid, but they lack some of the intuitive features that you might get from a dedicated email service provider like Campaign Monitor or Mail Chimp. There might be a few things you'll miss migrating over from one of these platforms, though nothing important for obtaining the same end results.

Avantages

SharpSpring is a game-changer! Getting an all-in-one platform that allows us to go from capturing lead information and behavior all the way through to identifying qualified leads through marketing campaigns is amazing. Having one place for marketing emails, landing pages, social media, blogging, meetings, video chats, and more is almost unheard of. Match that with a really robust CRM that tracks leads, beautifully outlines the life of a lead, and allows you to easily manage the sales pipeline and one-on-one engagements with pre-qualified leads with lead scoring is amazing.

Inconvénients

Seriously, there isn't much negative to say about this platform. The onboarding was amazing, the self-guided trainings were awesome, it's a great platform. The only downside is it's not as "pretty" as some platform, but hey, I'd rather have a functioning product helping me make more money and something pretty to look at.

Avantages

I'm a 15-year agency veteran. I've purchased and used many marketing automation/CRM platforms ... Most of which cost several factors more. The email builder/designer is far above the "blue cloud" companies platform. Reporting is a breeze. Automation is drag and drop. The interface is very intuitive and easy to learn. SharpSpring compares to the most expensive platforms at a fraction of the price. I only wish I had discovered it much sooner.

Inconvénients

The only con is with the landing page builder. It is still far above several platforms that cost more money but it is a little quirky if you haven't used it before. But, once you are familiar with the tool, you learn how to work around it, and overall it works pretty well. The ability to edit the page code makes it easy to get the outcome you want.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub et ActiveCampaign

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

The platform was incredibly expensive, support was slow, features were poor for the money you are spending.

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

The best combination of price and features available today.

Avantages

The "life of lead" feature is a view of the customer's engagement with the company that is unlike any other platform we've seen. The automation features are easy to use, intuitive and logically planned out.

Inconvénients

Although the ability to publish to social media platforms from within SharpSpring, we're hoping they'll progress to being able to integrate Instagram along with the other platforms and to integrate full social advertising and paid search into the tool.

Alternatives envisagées 

HubSpot Marketing Hub, Zoho CRM et Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Pourquoi choisir Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring) 

Feature set and full automation

Logiciel antérieur 

Zoho CRM

Pourquoi passer à Lead Gen & CRM (formerly SharpSpring)

Full feature set, ease of use and cost to implement.