Intercom Customer Communications Platform vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

Intercom and Salesforce are both solutions in the Social CRM category. Intercom is ranked #6 with an average rating of 9.0, while Salesforce is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.7. Intercom holds a 2.8% mindshare in SC, compared to Salesforce’s 13.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Intercom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Salesforce users who would recommend it.

Intercom Customer Communica...

Read 1 Intercom Customer Communications Platform review

82 Views
47 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Read 56 Salesforce Marketing Cloud reviews

326 Views
198 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Intercom Customer Communica...

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Intercom Customer Communications Platform are competing solutions in customer engagement and communication. Intercom gains an advantage with its comprehensive features, offering significant value for price despite Salesforce's favorable pricing and support reputation.

Features: Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers robust automation, extensive integration capabilities, and is ideal for large-scale operations. Intercom focuses on conversational interactions, with tools enhancing personalized engagement and innovative messaging and chat-based solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Intercom provides a straightforward deployment model with accessible support for agile implementations. Salesforce, while offering comprehensive educational resources, presents a more complex setup process.

Pricing and ROI: Salesforce Marketing Cloud features higher setup costs but promises substantial ROI for larger enterprises. Intercom, with a flexible pricing model, often delivers quicker ROI by streamlining communication processes, highlighting Salesforce's appeal to large organizations and Intercom's value in cost-efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Social CRM Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Social CRM

April 2025

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Helped 849,190 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Intercom Customer Communica...

Ranking in Social CRM

6th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (12th), CRM (28th)

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Ranking in Social CRM

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Marketing Automation (1st), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Social CRM category, the mindshare of Intercom Customer Communications Platform is 2.8%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 13.9%, up from 10.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Social CRM

Featured Reviews

Karan-Singh

Account Executive at Speak Ai

A good tool that can be used to capture inbound leads and manage all customer interactions

Sometimes, the solution lags and takes time to update something. If I put a specific tag on an inbound lead, it would take around five minutes for that tag to reflect throughout the solution for all the users. If my colleague and I are using the solution simultaneously and I create a tag for a specific lead, then that tag would not be visible to my colleague for about three to four minutes. Since the solution is great at capturing leads and giving me an overview of all the people interacting with our platform, I would love to see a CRM structure created. We can create a pipeline in the solution itself, and then it can give us that CRM experience.

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SantoshKrishna

Director at BMO Financial

Easy to deploy, stable, and scalable

The encryption and decryption have room for improvement. We need to be confident that the customer's data is secure when shared outside of the organization. I would like to request additional mobile app features that go beyond push notifications. As the mobile development industry continues to advance with new technologies, such as AI components, it is important to consider these advancements when setting up campaigns. Currently, campaigns are scheduled to be sent to customers at a prescribed time, but they may not be relevant to the customer unless they see them as valuable. For example, if I want to run a campaign offering loans, I would need to consider the customer's needs and balance. In the future, I hope Salesforce can incorporate an AI component that utilizes the shared data, rather than just scheduling campaigns.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The live chat is pretty good because you can create a macro, which is a predefined input we can give customers."

"It is easy to use."

"Marketing Cloud offers a 360 customers experience as it integrates with Service Cloud and Sales Cloud, the CRM portion of Salesforce. The different platforms integrate easily which makes it easy to manage customer communication using a single point of truth."

"We use this solution for reporting, pipeline generation, and forecasting."

"We haven't had any issues with integration."

"In Salesforce Marketing Cloud, the ability to send emails effectively is very valuable."

"The most valuable features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud are the ease of use of the basic features."

"Datorama is part of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which is quite a valuable feature that provides customer analytics."

"The most valuable part of the solution are the selling features."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud pros

Cons

"Sometimes, the solution lags and takes time to update something."

"The performance is sometimes sluggish, but I think that's to be expected with a heavy CRM tool because they're running reports in real-time on the data that you have entered."

"We would like an improvement to the 'Einstein Engagement Frequency'; the optimal range of emails that our subscribers will engage with."

"The dashboards should be more intuitive, as there are far too many items on them. You're not always sure what you're looking for."

"An additional feature needed would be better capacity for personalization."

"The technicality of the solution can be streamlined."

"We need a development environment for Marketing Cloud. Currently, there is no development environment for this solution. Other Salesforce products, such as Sales and Service Cloud, have a development environment in which the developers can do some things and then post them in production. Currently, everything happens in the production for Marketing Cloud. There is only one environment, and the developers and the end-users have to work in the same environment, which seems to be challenging. If Salesforce can bring a developer environment for Marketing Cloud, it will be good."

"There could be easier tools to configure the product and to create landing pages to better handle large data sets."

"Marketing Cloud should change the script language that it uses because it's not good. It's tricky and difficult to develop."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a highly expensive solution, it needs to be less expensive. We are on an annual license to use the solution."

"We did a yearly license. We negotiated and got a great deal. I don't think we would have gotten far with the regular price, but they negotiated, so it was worth that."

"Salesforce is an expensive solution."

"The solution is paid for monthly."

"Salesforce Marketing Cloud is affordable, considering the significant improvements it brings to our campaign results."

"Its licensing is on an annual basis. Customers are okay with its licensing cost, and they don't find it expensive."

"I don't know if my company pays for Salesforce Marketing Cloud monthly or yearly. It's a SaaS, so it's a recurring cost, but I have no information on its price."

"It is a license per user."

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Educational Organization

57%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Intercom Customer Communications Platform?

The live chat is pretty good because you can create a macro, which is a predefined input we can give customers.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Intercom Customer Communications Platform?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Intercom Customer Communications Platform?

We use the solution to capture leads and interact with them. Our company manages all the customer interactions through the solution.

See all answers

What do you like most about Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

Datorama is part of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which is quite a valuable feature that provides customer analytics.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

The cost is cheaper compared to other tools.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

In the SMS area, it is not up to the mark, compared to what has been developed for email.

See all answers

Comparisons

No data available

Marketo vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 20% of the time

SAP Marketing Cloud vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Eloqua vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

HubSpot Marketing Hub vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 10% of the time

Zeta Marketing Platform vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Compared 9% of the time

More Salesforce Marketing Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CRM Customer Engagement Centers

March 2025

Intercom Customer Communications Platform report

Download Intercom Customer Communications Platform product report

Buyer's Guide

Salesforce Marketing Cloud

March 2025

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Also Known As

Intercom

ExactTarget

Overview

Intercom Customer Communications Platform enhances interactions by offering robust tools designed to streamline customer engagement and support, effectively catering to modern business communication needs.

Providing a comprehensive approach to customer interaction, Intercom facilitates seamless conversation management through its adaptable suite of messaging, logistical, and analytical features. Frequently utilized for customer support and marketing, its flexibility and user-friendly design encourage efficient communication. While offering valuable insights through analytics, some users note areas for improvement in customizability and pricing models, pointing towards a potential enhancement in fine-tuning its cost-effectiveness and adaptability to diverse business strategies.

What are the standout features of Intercom?

Live Chat: Immediate customer support through real-time messaging.
Automated Bot: Streamlines inquiries by handling routine questions.
Integration Capabilities: Connects seamlessly with third-party tools.
Inbox Management: Organizes conversations for efficient response.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: Faster resolutions lead to happier clients.
Improved Team Efficiency: Automation reduces manual workload.
Actionable Analytics: Data-driven insights optimize strategies.
Scalable Solutions: Adapts to growing business demands.

Industries such as e-commerce, SaaS, and tech-driven businesses often implement Intercom for its ability to provide personalized customer journeys. Its messaging platform excels in maintaining customer relationships and resolving issues quickly, which is crucial in these fast-paced sectors.

Intercom

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive marketing automation platform that enables businesses to create personalized and targeted marketing campaigns across multiple channels.

With its robust set of tools and features, marketers can easily manage and automate their email marketing, social media advertising, mobile messaging, and customer journey mapping.

The platform offers advanced segmentation capabilities, allowing marketers to segment their audience based on various criteria and deliver tailored messages to each segment.

Additionally, Salesforce Marketing Cloud provides powerful analytics and reporting features, enabling marketers to track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

With its user-friendly interface and seamless integration with other Salesforce products, Marketing Cloud offers a seamless and efficient marketing automation solution for businesses of all sizes.

Salesforce

Sample Customers

Expensift, Moz, Invision, Salesforce, Droplr, Vend, BugHerd, Ghost, Put.io, Codeship

American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips

Find out what your peers are saying about Sprinklr, Salesforce, Qualtrics and others in Social CRM. Updated: April 2025.

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