A Research Guidefor Marketers

SharpSpring vs. Act-On2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

Act-OnAct-On offers enterprise-level marketing automation, website management tools and a basic partner system for agencies, relying heavily upon integration with other CRM platforms and services. Marketing and sales teams at more than 3,000 companies use Act-On.

SharpSpringLaunched in 2014 to deliver powerful and affordable marketing automation, SharpSpring is a flexible platform that integrates easily with other tools. SharpSpring is billled monthly with no annual contract and is a fraction of the cost of competitors.

Reviews

Terms

Annual Cost20K Contacts(Get Started)

$27,600($28,600 Get Started)

Annual contract paid up frontMonth to month

Features

8.1/10 5/5

Trust Radius MarTech

7.3/10 4/5

Trust Radius MarTech

Comparable

$9,600($2,600 Get Started)

SharpSpring vs. Act-On

Steve Buck, Black Tie Digital Marketing

“I've used other automated marketing platforms at another agency, however

they are wildly expensive and more geared towards large business.

SharpSpring was affordable enough for our agency and our business clients.

SharpSpring is by far my favorite 3rd party vendor. Truthfully it is the

product as a whole that really made us decide we NEEDED to use it.”

What one SharpSpring client says:

Real Results

GetIT Comms is a fast-growing B2B marketing agency that operates in 19 countries, providing regional services to some of the world’s leading technology organizations. After implementing SharpSpring for its clients, GetIT Comms experienced an average revenue increase of 20-30% per client.

Demodia is a digital marketing agency that specializes in demand generation, digital marketing, website development, and channel enablement. The agency got up and running with SharpSpring for lead generation in just over one month, and then began using it for clients and getting results in under three months.

SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT 2WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM

Contacts

API Calls Included Per Day

Commitment Due At Signing

Annual Cost

Onboarding (One Time)

Monthly Cost

SharpSpring wins on cost and contract type.SharpSpring comes in substantially lower than Act-On when it comes to monthly costs and is slightly lower for onboarding. In addition, Act-On locks customers into a full-year contract with payment up front, while SharpSpring customers only pay month to month and can cancel at any time.

WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 3SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

$9,600

$1,800

Emails Included Per Month

Marketing Users

Sales Users

Unlimited

Unlimited

$800/moNo Annual Contract

20k

$2,600

20K

5k 25K

100K

$27,600

$1,000

Unlimited

6

100

$2,300/moAnnual Contract Paid Up Front

$28,600

Pricing & Terms

$9,600

$27,600

20k Contact Plan Enterprise

ANNUAL COST FOR 20K CONTACTS

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WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 4SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

Email FeaturesEmail Features

TOTAL

Drag-And-Drop Editor

WYSIWYG Interface

Dynamic Content

Responsive Templates

Render Testing

After-The-Click Tracking

RSS Email Syndication

A/B Testing

Feature parity in email marketing.Email marketing is at the core of all marketing automation platforms. SharpSpring and Act-On both excel in this area by offering all of the features that help agencies use email as an effective campaign tool for their clients.

All Plans Enterprise

EMAIL FEATURES

8/88/8

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WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 5SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

Email FeaturesAutomation Features

TOTAL

Unlimited Workflows and Tasks

Triggers and Filters

Branching Workflows

Time-Based Automations

Advanced Lead Scoring

Behavior-Based Automations

Adjustable Universal Lead Scoring

� �Dynamic Lists

� �Advanced Segmentation

�Personas

� �Dynamic Landing Pages

AUTOMATION FEATURES

Parity in automation, but edge to SharpSpring.Automation is another area where SharpSpring and Act-On both have a rich feature set and match up evenly. SharpSpring offers personas, though, a feature that helps marketers know prospects better and target them with ultra-personalized content via dynamic emails and landing pages.

All Plans Enterprise

11/11 10/11

Edge to Act-On, but SharpSpring’s auto-fill can be more effective.Act-On offers progressive profiling to gather data incrementally from leads, but this is due to a philosophical difference between the two platforms. SharpSpring’s approach is to use auto-complete to fill in information previously provided, but it continuously allows leads the option to update their email, phone or other information that has changed since their last visit.

Form Features

WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 6SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

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Enterprise

TOTAL

Drag-And-Drop Form Builder

Dynamic Forms

Use CSS To Match Your Site

Customized Fields

Auto-Complete

Custom Calls To Action

Form Analytics

Progressive Profiling

� �Third-Party Forms Supported

� �Third-Party Post-Back

� �WebEx Connected

� �GoToWebinar Connected

All Plans

PARTNER SUPPORT

12/1211/12

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WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 7SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

Email FeaturesContact Tracking

TOTAL

Identify Anonymous Site Visitors

Contact Info From Anonymous Visitors (e.g., Reverse IP Look-Up)(ZoomInfo)

Track Behavior History Of Known Leads

Timeline Of Lead Interactions

Important Page Visit Tracking

Daily Email Of Site Visitors

Adjustable Universal Lead Scoring

Advanced Lead Scoring

CONTACT TRACKING

8/88/8

Contact tracking features pair up.Both platforms track information on anonymous site visitors and then tie those histories to their respective leads upon form fill-out. Both providers also offer reverse IP lookup to see visitors’ companies.

All Plans Enterprise

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WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 8SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

Email FeaturesLanding Page Builder

TOTAL

Point-And-Click Editor

WYSIWYG Interface

Dynamic Content

Library Of Responsive Templates

Build Single Landing Pages

Optimize For Mobile

Build Landing Page Funnels

SharpSpring wins with funnels.SharpSpring goes beyond basic landing pages and offers pre-built and customizable funnels - a series of landing pages designed to work together to convert and transform visitors into leads.

All Plans Enterprise

LANDING PAGE BUILDER

7/7 6/7

REQUEST A DEMO

AGENCY FEATURES

Blog builder unique to SharpSpring.If content is king, SharpSpring wins. Its blog builder is designed to give your top-of-the-funnel marketing and lead acquisition efforts the royal treatment. SharpSpring’s blog builder is also dynamic, allowing a blog to automatically respond to a lead’s attributes.

Blog Builder

WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 9SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

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7/7 0/7TOTAL

Point-And-Click Editor

WYSIWYG Interface

Dynamic Content

Library Of Responsive Templates

Advance Post Scheduling

RSS Email Syndication

Social Sharing Widget

All Plans

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Enterprise

0/77/7

BLOG BUILDER

REQUEST A DEMO

Edge to Act-On in social features.Both solutions offer social media profiling and the ability for the sales team to interact with leads through social channels. More importantly, both platforms can track social media conversions/ROI. Act-On provides additional publishing and monitoring capabilities, which are on SharpSpring’s roadmap but aren’t currently available within the platform.

Social Media Features

WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 10SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

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3/5 5/5TOTAL

Social-CRM Integration

Social Profiling

Social Monitoring/Interactions

Social Publishing

Social Media Conversions

All Plans Enterprise

SOCIAL MEDIA FEATURES

5/53/5

REQUEST A DEMO

Edge to SharpSpring in sales feature set.SharpSpring sets itself apart from competitors by providing a free CRM that’s also optional (i.e., it plays nice with other CRMs). Only SharpSpring offers integrated call tracking to tie leads that come in by phone back to the original campaigns.

Sales-Focused Features

WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 11SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

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6/6 4/6TOTAL

Built-In CRM

Advanced Lead Scoring

Adjustable Universal Lead Scoring

Shopping Cart Integration

Native Salesforce Integration

Built-In Call Tracking

All Plans

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SALES FOCUSED FEATURES

6/6 4/6

REQUEST A DEMO

Parity in platform features.The platforms stack up well here, with both offering key integrations that are of value to marketers.

Platform Features

WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 12SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

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7/7 7/7TOTAL

CMS Compatibility

Open API

Zapier Integrations

Multiple Device Tracking

Native Salesforce Integration

Third-Party/Native Form Compatibilty

Advanced Reporting/Data Exports

All Plans

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PLATFORM FEATURES

7/77/7

REQUEST A DEMO

Migrations – two vs. all.Act-On only supports migration from Marketo and HubSpot. Whether you’re coming from HubSpot, Marketo or any other marketing automation platform, SharpSpring will guide you through the process.

Customer Support

WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM 13SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ON

2016 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS REPORT

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4/4 3/4TOTAL

Dedicated Customer Success Manager

Platform Migration Support

In-App Contextual Support Videos

Phone, Email Support

All Plans

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Enterprise

All Platforms Marketo/HubSpotonly

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

3/44/4

REQUEST A DEMO

SHARPSPRING VS ACT-ONNOVEMBER 2016WWW.SHARPSPRING.COM

REQUEST A DEMO

Drive More Leads.Convert Leads to Sales.Optimize Your Spend.

Reviews

Terms

Annual Cost20k Contacts(Get Started)

$27,600($28,600 Get Started)

Annual contract paid up frontMonth to month

Features

8.1/10 5/5

Trust Radius MarTech

7.3/10 4/5

Trust Radius MarTech

Comparable

$9,600($2,600 Get Started)