Marketing is the backbone of success, from attracting new customers to fostering lasting relationships and boosting sales. When faced with a multitude of tasks, marketing automation software can be a useful solution. Choosing a suitable tool can significantly affect your efforts. This article looks at the most popular automation instruments and how they can transform businesses.
A good solution should offer helpful features and capabilities to help you make data-driven decisions. Making the wrong choice can complicate your work, decrease efficiency, and impede your success.
Our team has experience with a range of marketing tools, and we've tested two top contenders: Ontraport and Infusionsoft (now known as Keap). Get ready to make an informed decision with our expert insights!
Ontraport is an all-inclusive marketing platform for CRM and automation that offers robust features ideal for small to medium-sized businesses.
Ontraport's functionality, powerful automation, and insightful analytics make it a standout choice. From CRM to email marketing, landing pages, and more, you'll find everything under one roof.
Infusionsoft, now known as Keap, is a robust all-in-one sales and marketing subscription-based SaaS product built for businesses of all sizes. It's a great choice for entrepreneurs who want simple marketing management.
Keap is designed for medium-sized and large companies with high expertise, while Ontraport is better suited for personal and professional service providers. Both platforms offer comprehensive features, including marketing automation, CRM, reporting, and e-commerce capabilities. However, considering the overall assessment and everyday marketing tasks, Ontraport is the preferred choice in this comparison.
Usability is a crucial factor when comparing all-in-one marketing tools. Based on our own experience and the other users' G2 reviews, Ontraport and Keap have different levels of ease of use. Ontraport is praised for its extensive features and flexibility. The dashboard interface is relatively simple, but there are some navigation issues.
Infusionsoft got a major upgrade with a more user-friendly interface. Users like the customization options and the ability to remove irrelevant sections. Yet, some find it challenging to master due to its complexity. Keap's mobile app and WordPress plugin receive positive feedback, but they may have some limitations in capabilities.
Ontraport is known for its comprehensive customer relations management services, including content management, lead tracking, traditional marketing approaches, online payment management, and workflow automation.
The software is user-friendly and has an intuitive interface. It offers useful features like email content preview, as well as easy reverting to previous automation versions. Users value the availability of training resources and the option to customize the platform to their specific needs.
Yet, some clients mention occasional issues with messages, sequences, and rules not running. Nevertheless, Ontraport is considered a tool that provides a smooth user experience for managing marketing tasks.
Keap, a renowned platform, specializes in lead tracking, online payment management, and much more. It offers extensive features and contributes to running users’ operations smoothly.
But, some clients mention that Keap has a steep learning curve, particularly in mastering all the software's features.
The interface is relatively simple, but there are limitations, like difficulty navigating back to the homepage and needing to upgrade for full feature access. Keap offers detailed information and contextual help to assist users. Overall, it's a strong contender in usability, but beginners may need some initial adjustments.
Winner: Ontraport wins out in terms of overall usability, particularly for beginners, while Keap still offers a comprehensive feature set and customization options. In the past, Keap was considered very difficult to learn, but now it offers advanced features, which reflects in its UI and UX.
Keap and Ontraport both offer robust email marketing features, but there are some differences in their offerings.
Ontraport offers a comprehensive set of email marketing and marketing automation features for businesses of all sizes. It provides opt-in forms, advanced segmentation, targeting, and rules to target specific audiences. Additionally, Ontraport boasts industry-leading email deliverability rates.
While both platforms offer email marketing automation, Ontraport's focus on advanced features and customization options suits businesses with more complex digital marketing needs.
Keap focuses on providing essential email marketing and automation features tailored to small businesses. It enables users to automate follow-ups with leads, collect data through landing pages and forms, manage leads effectively, send broadcasts, and incorporate text messages into automation. Keap emphasizes simplifying the process of engaging with contacts and automating marketing efforts.
One notable feature of Keap is its email automation capability, which saves time and streamlines the process of connecting with customers. This tool enables personalized nurture series using segmentation to ensure customers receive targeted messages at the right time. As soon as a lead registers, they are tagged and segmented based on your specified criteria. This allows you to send a personalized welcome or confirmation emails, creating a positive and tailored experience for your leads.
Keap offers A/B testing, reporting, and analytics to provide data-driven insights. The platform also provides appealing templates that can enhance your brand newsletters.
When it comes to migrating from competitors like Mailchimp and Constant Contact, Keap offers seamless transition support without interrupting your business operations.
Winner: Keap provides comprehensive email marketing capabilities, including automation, stunning email templates, personalized segmentation, data-driven insights, and seamless migration. However, for businesses with more complex marketing needs, Ontraport might offer other advanced features and customization options. The most suitable choice will depend on your needs.
CRM features track interactions and offer personalized experiences, while segmentation enhances their effectiveness. Companies can boost customer relationship management, increase loyalty, and drive sales by choosing a platform with robust CRM and segmentation capabilities.
Ontraport and Keap offer such tools. Let’s dive deeper into its features.
Ontraport provides a built-in CRM system that handles contact details. One helpful feature is the ability to add short notes on each contact, which aids salespeople in follow-up tasks. The platform also offers the convenience of tags, making it easier to filter and organize them, when dealing with many tags.
Ontraport keeps your contact list dynamic and up-to-date by managing contacts based on qualifications. It also allows manual segmentation, giving you more control over email marketing campaigns by dragging people to specific segments.
Like Ontraport, Infusionsoft allows you to categorize subscribers using different tags. The platform also includes lead scoring, enabling you to assess the quality and potential of each lead. This feature helps refine your funnels by creating different tag categories based on existing tags. Another notable feature is conditional funnels, which guide contacts along their buyer's journey and enable targeted communication for potential conversions.
Furthermore, Infusionsoft allows you to collect social media account details and phone numbers to enhance your email campaigns with multi-channel marketing.
Winner: When choosing between two platforms, we preferred Ontraport based on features and general experience. Both platforms offer valuable CRM and segmentation options, although their focus and user experiences vary.
Analytics features should provide a centralized location to access all the necessary reports. Both platforms offer huge analytics capabilities. Ontraport presents in-depth and immersive analytics, as well as advanced tools. Keap provides CRM and marketing reports of different types.
The platform offers various types of reports, data visualization tools, and easy methods for generating insights.
Types of reports:
Ontraport offers visual data representation through custom metrics dashboards and real-time visual automation maps. The metrics dashboard allows users to create a personalized display of measurable statistics. Additionally, line graphs in the Trends Dashboard show changes in important business metrics over time. The platform's integration with various tracking methods and tools simplifies the process of generating insights.
Keap provides powerful analytics features that help businesses analyze their data.
Types of reports:
The platform offers extensive data visualization, customizable reports, and actionable insights inside the dashboard.
Winner: Based on the reports’ variety and integrations, it seems that Ontraport may have stronger reporting and analytics capabilities.
Ontraport and Infusionsoft offer many features for e-commerce businesses to help sell products and services online. Ontraport provides users with tools for content management, SMS marketing, workflow automation, and more. Keap also offers e-commerce capabilities it worth checking in detail.
Ontraport provides robust e-commerce features enabling businesses to sell digital and physical products online. Companies can process transactions with order forms and integrate with trusted payment gateways.
The platform supports various payment types, including subscriptions and payment plans, coupon codes, one-click upsells, and order bumps. Ontraport simplifies post-purchase processes such as refunds, collections, and managing declined or expired credit cards.
Users can easily customize payment settings and integrate with payment gateways. The platform also enables manual transaction handling when necessary. Ontraport provides tools for creating custom invoice templates and coupon codes.
Platform also allows contacts to use many credit cards. It facilitates transaction management, handling existing transactions, subscription plans, and credit card collections. Sales reports offer insights into deal performance, and integration with Google Analytics provides valuable website traffic data.
Keap, in turn, offers a range of e-commerce possibilities to help businesses achieve good conversion results. The platform enables the efficient lead gathering, appointment setting, and payment processing.
Keap allows for automated follow-ups as leads progress through sales pipelines, customized stages, and lead scoring. E-commerce automation features include launching custom platforms with embedded checkout forms, subscription services, recurring payments, and integration with payment gateways.
Winner: Ontraport can be considered a winner in the realm of e-commerce due to its universal platform and versatility. It offers a set of features for selling both digital and physical products.
Marketing features are essential for automating sales and marketing efforts. These include landing pages, email and form builders, and omnichannel instruments. Ontraport and Infusionsoft offer these features to streamline marketing strategies and boost sales.
Keap provides an easy-to-use platform for creating beautiful landing pages and forms. The drag-and-drop functionality and customizable templates enable to creation of visually appealing landing pages without the need for coding.
On the other hand, Ontraport offers a more comprehensive suite of automation and analytics features, providing a broader range of capabilities beyond the design of landing pages.
Ontraport offers more features that provide flexibility and convenience when comparing form builders. Its builder allows users to embed forms on any page within Ontraport Pages or external website builders. With various trigger options, forms can be displayed based on specific visitor actions, optimizing engagement and conversions.
Ontraport provides various display options that can be customized to suit your needs. You can choose from full-page coverage, floating bars, or corner placement. One of the standout features is automatic lead source tracking, capturing UTM variables, Google Analytics IDs, and referrers.
Yet, Keap's integration with its own CRM ensures that lead form data flows into the system. Users can set-up personalized follow-ups.
Both platforms offer SMS messaging. In Keap, you can send various messages, including discounts, purchase confirmations, appointment reminders, etc. In Ontraport, you can automate SMS messages within your marketing campaigns simply by adding the "Send an SMS" element to your automation maps. You can also set up automation to respond to incoming SMS based on specific keywords or content.
To protect users from unwanted notifications, Ontraport filters and blocks certain SMS messages that contain problematic content. Service also offers the option to include images in your text messages for US and Canadian numbers, making your messages more engaging.
Winner: Ontraport can be considered a winner due to its comprehensive set of marketing features.
Having robust support features and an onboarding process is crucial for platforms like Ontraport and Keap. Efficient support systems, including live chat, ticketing systems, knowledge bases, and community forums, enable users to resolve their queries and optimize the platform's usage quickly.
Ontraport provides support through their over-the-top-helpful support team, available anytime you need it. Ontraport also has a very helpful academy and a highly active Facebook group where you can find a strong community of entrepreneurs and marketers and even interact with the founder and CEO.
Keap offers a range of support options to its users. You can chat with a Success Advocate 24/7 or speak with the sales or customer support team. Keap also provides a Help Center, user community, and customer webinars.
Winner: It depends on your needs and the level of accessibility you need from the customer success specialist. Based on user reviews, Ontraport is the preferred option for ongoing product support.
Both Ontraport and Infusionsoft provide various pricing options that cater to the diverse requirements of different types of businesses.
Ontraport offers four pricing plans:
Each plan has specific features and capabilities to support online marketing automation, CRM, pages, payments, and platform support.
Keap offers three pricing plans:
Winner: The winner in pricing policy for marketers would depend on their specific needs and budget, but Ontraport offers more flexibility, again. Its pricing plans cater to different requirements and budgets.
According to our research, Ontraport is the top choice for several reasons. It offers different pricing plans to fit various business needs and budgets, which is great for marketers. Ontraport has many features for marketing automation, CRM, pages, payments, and platform support, allowing marketers to handle different parts of their campaigns and interactions with customers.
The platform provides a single solution to manage business operations, and customer relationships, automate marketing campaigns, track analytics, and get insights. It focuses on customization, automation, and data-driven decision-making, making it a great choice for businesses that need versatile solutions.
Moreover, Ontraport has received positive ratings and reviews from reliable sources like G2 Crowd, Trustpilot, and Capterra, showing that customers are satisfied with the platform. It's a strong option for marketers who need a reliable and versatile solution. Still, it's important to consider specific business needs and do thorough research before making a final decision.
Irina is a Founder at ONSAAS, Growth Lead at Aura, and a SaaS marketing consultant. She helps companies to grow their revenue with SEO and inbound marketing. In her spare time, Irina entertains her cat Persie and collects airline miles.
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