Item: Campaign Monitor by Marigold
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We focus on opt-in email as a way to increase engagement with our followers and fans. Campaign Monitor by Marigold is great way for us to do just that. We appreciate that the pricing is tiered to scale as we grow the list, and the built in templates are all mobile optimized and easy to use.

Pros and Cons

Pros

It was super easy to set up a welcome series for when people subscribe
The analytics are useful and easy to review in aggregate or by campaign
The template options are all beautifully designed and mobile optimized

Cons

Sometimes the editor can be a bit finicky when you click in to edit/swap out an image or link
The documentation can sometimes be tricky to follow, but does seem to cover everything we've thought of
I would love to see sequence templates

Return on Investment

We have seen continued engagement in our newsletter translate to continued on-site engagement with our content
We have also had direct interest in our services come based on email newsletter content

Usability

The WYSIWYG editor is truly wonderful, and the templates work so well. Gone are the days of having to dig into the HTML to fix something that got wonky based on making a change in the editor. The WYSIWYG editor is really that good!

It was super easy to set up a welcome sequence, and we've also set up limited-use opt-in lists which were easy to get going as well.

Alternatives Considered

Intuit Mailchimp and Adobe Marketo Engage

I appreciate that for a smaller but growing company, Campaign Monitor was more of a just right size for us compared to Marketo, but had more functionality to grow with us than MailChimp.

I've used both before, and Campaign Monitor stood out as being both better suited for us right now, but also with the ability to grow with us.

Key Insights

Do you think Campaign Monitor by Marigold delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Campaign Monitor by Marigold's feature set?

Yes

Did Campaign Monitor by Marigold live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Campaign Monitor by Marigold go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Campaign Monitor by Marigold again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Matomo Analytics, CoSchedule Marketing Suite, Rebrandly

Likelihood to Recommend

Campaign Monitor by Marigold is great at both scaling up as you grow (i.e. for a startup or if you're starting fresh on building a subscriber list) and providing more than just basic templates and tooling.

We vetted across a lot of different options to account for where we were starting and where we hope to grow into with our opt-in email marketing, and Campaign Monitor stood out.

Campaign Monitor by Marigold Feature Ratings

Using Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Users and Roles

2 - Marketing and specifically head of marketing and senior content manager

Support Headcount Required

3 - This includes the head of marketing, the senior content manager, and our operations director who helps with the API integration for our website email list signups.

Business Processes Supported

Opt-In Email Newsletter
Welcome Email automation to new subscribers
Limited-time special opt-in series

Innovative Uses

I was surprised at just how good the templates are from a design and functionality perspective
It was super easy to set up automated welcome series across list segments
Mobile responsive design is very on point

Future Planned Uses

Further segmenting our subscribers into lists based on their interests
Opt-in nurture series based on interest in specific topics
Automations applied to the opt-in series

Likelihood to Renew

It flexes with us both because of the tiered pricing, and due to the comprehensive tools available.

We're able to go from one newsletter to many, and few automations to many very easily while not paying for a Cadillac when what we need is a sturdy crossover.

Evaluating Campaign Monitor by Marigold and Competitors

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Scalability
Integration with Other Systems
Ease of Use

We needed something that could scale with us as we grow as a company and as we grow our subscriber list.

That means tiered pricing and having both easy to use basic newsletters, but also the ability to set up automations in the future.

Campaign Monitor has all of that.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I might have asked our operations person to check out the API integration for several first. I suspect Campaign Monitor would have still stood out, but there are some quirks to the integration process. I think that's the case with all of them, though! Still, that would have been a good thing to include.

Campaign Monitor by Marigold Implementation

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Change Management Lessons

Change management was minimal

Implementation Issues

No real issues, but we were setting up the API integration

Campaign Monitor by Marigold Training

Training Types Used

No Training

In-Person Training

Online Training

Ease of Campaign Monitor by Marigold Training

Campaign Monitor was very easy to learn without training. There is great documentation available. Admittedly we're a smaller organization focused on a few opt-in newsletters, but setting up automated welcome series was a breeze.

Even working through understanding what our options were on analytics tracking to inform the API integration was well-documented and easy to understand and follow.

Configuring Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Product Configurability

We decided to configure what email metrics are tracked because our audience is very privacy minded. We reviewed the documentation for the API integration and followed the steps, which were clear. Later when we decided to modify this, the documentation was also super helpful to understand what the options where, how that impacted analytics, and how to make changes.

Configuration Lessons

Always check the documentation resources first. The search function is great for finding what you need, and we found the documentation itself to be very clear on both steps to follow and providing context for what certain settings will do.

UI Customization

Some - we have done small customizations to the interface - We modified the initial form sign up to be within our site design/brand look and feel. This was easy to do.

Extensibility and Customization

No - we have not done any custom code

Additional Customization Considerations

We did not add any additional configuration or customization to our Campaign Monitor setup.

Campaign Monitor by Marigold Support

Support Rating

We haven't had to use support yet.

Campaign Monitor by Marigold Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	Difficult to get immediate help Need to explain problems multiple times

Premium Support

No, it didn't seem necessary. Since then we have also not needed to contact support, so it seems even less necessary now than it did then. The product is easy to use, there's great documentation if we're working on something more complicated, and we haven't run into a reason to need basic support, let alone premium.

Bug Resolution

Exceptional Examples of Campaign Monitor by Marigold Support

Again, we have not had to contact support for help at all yet.

Using Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Modifying the existing well-designed templates
Creating my own template with those modifications
Creating a campaign from the template and then editing

Difficult Tasks

I have not found any difficult functions yet, but I've been working in email marketing for 20 years
API integration is a thing, but developers who know what they are doing can assist with that

Campaign Monitor by Marigold Reliability

Scalability

It is so easy to use, and the things you'd want to have as you scale and get to a more complex email marketing approach are all there. From automations to lots of mobile responsive templates, it's easy to set up what you need and then customize for your brand.

Reliability and Availability

There have only been a couple of instances where it's been down and this has typically been middle of the night type situations that were planned downtime so they could work on maintenance. They provide notice well ahead of these instances. I've never noticed a surprise outage.

Performance

I have noticed no slow page loads within the design interface or reports. It's all quick, even with list uploads which are notorious for being clunky in other systems. It's all been quick and easy for us.

Integrating Campaign Monitor by Marigold

Ease of Integration

We used the API integration to connect Campaign Monitor first to a headless CMS site and then later to a Webflow site. This did require an assist from a developer, but was pretty straightforward. It would be super nice if Campaign Monitor set up a plug-in relationship with Webflow, which is becoming increasingly adopted by brands of all sizes. But in the meantime we were able to figure it out.