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SAS Marketing Automation vs Salesforce Marketing Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 6, 2025

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

Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Ranking in Marketing Automation
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Social CRM (2nd), Marketing Management (1st), Social Media Management Solutions (2nd)
SAS Marketing Automation
Ranking in Marketing Automation
12th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Marketing Automation category, the mindshare of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is 22.8%, down from 25.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAS Marketing Automation is 1.8%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Marketing Automation
 

Featured Reviews

SantoshKrishna - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Trini Olivan - PeerSpot reviewer
It's good at visualizing large amounts of data
You need to buy connectors to integrate Marketing Automation with various suppliers. For example, if I want to see the data through Power BI, I need a connector to see the data directly. Otherwise, you need to do everything manually. You have to download information from SAS and then save a text file, and then I can import it into Power BI. I would like Marketing Automation to have this native functionality without the need to pay more for connectors.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The automation is great. It saves us a lot of time and it makes us move faster."
"We have found the solution to be scalable."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"The Journey Builder and the Email Studio features are most valuable."
"The most valuable part of the solution are the selling features."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its automation. We can integrate data with the Salesforce hub. Its Einstein feature tells us whether our campaigns are on the right track. It also helps with ideas."
"It is easy to send emails and SMS's."
"The most valuable feature of Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the reporting engine. Reports are very good and easy to build."
"You can enable it for business users or marketing users to use it in a self-service way. So, the technical team is needed to build the features or processes, and then those processes can be used in a self-service way by your non-technical users."
"SAP Marketing Automation is user-friendly. The interface is nice and clear. You can see the different diagrams and define various filters and targets. You can also export the customer information you collect to make the campaign. It's easy to understand how this information is entered. There are also a lot of platforms that show the results of campaigns. You can customize your data and define different reports, but SAS also provides a standard report."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more ways to accomplish specific tasks."
"The majority of my clients are happy, but when it comes to the CDP of Salesforce, the client gets confused. They have no clue that Salesforce has a CDP platform too. If my clients want to go ahead with the same vendor, Salesforce, they get confused about the different marketing suites which are available. There is no clear marketing done for the suites available for the clients, this is where the client is facing the real challenges."
"The quality of support for this solution has been decreasing over time and the support team are sometimes more focused on closing tickets that resolving issues. Often the support team is not well trained or aware of the new features or products released by Salesforce."
"The general setup and understanding of how to use it can be improved. There should be easier self-service for setting up dashboards. Currently, we have someone setting them up for us. I wish it was easier."
"The UA could be better designed for a mobile connection."
"In the SMS area, it is not up to the mark, compared to what has been developed for email."
"Salesforce Marketing Cloud could improve by having more graphical options because a lot of tables are now only numbers and percentages and data. I prefer graphs, lines, and pie charts. I know there are ways to receive this from Salesforce Marketing Cloud. It doesn't play a huge role in my daily work to invest the time to figure it out. I feel that it would be time wasted. They could make the graphical options easier to find and use in the future."
"They could improve the product's data integration functionality for larger companies."
"The product is highly customizable, but the marketing and business teams want a lot of things to be built out of the box. A lot of features that could be out of the box aren't there. The main concern is to keep the system in such a way that it provides you with some out-of-the-box features and some customizable features as well."
"You need to buy connectors to integrate Marketing Automation with various suppliers. For example, if I want to see the data through Power BI, I need a connector to see the data directly. Otherwise, you need to do everything manually. You have to download information from SAS and then save a text file, and then I can import it into Power BI. I would like Marketing Automation to have this native functionality without the need to pay more for connectors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a license per user."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Salesforce has different versions of the solution and some are more suitable for smaller clients. However, Salesforce is expensive."
"My company pays to use this solution."
"This solution is priced in the medium to high price range."
"On a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive, I rate the solution an eight out of ten."
"We have two types of licensing. We have a yearly license for end users and we have a concurrent login for selling."
"The solution's pricing is very high and should be more flexible for smaller companies."
"I'm not aware of the full cost. The financials are not with me. In terms of additional costs, there are always OpEx and CapEx. That's one way to look at it. You also need separate hardware to deploy the product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
59%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
22%
Comms Service Provider
17%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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.
What do you like most about SAS Marketing Automation?
You can enable it for business users or marketing users to use it in a self-service way. So, the technical team is needed to build the features or processes, and then those processes can be used in...
What needs improvement with SAS Marketing Automation?
The product is highly customizable, but the marketing and business teams want a lot of things to be built out of the box. A lot of features that could be out of the box aren't there. The main conce...
What is your primary use case for SAS Marketing Automation?
I'm using it for micro-segmentation-based campaigns and inbound and outbound campaigns. I'm using its latest on-prem version.
 

Also Known As

ExactTarget
SAS Campaign Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

American Express, Financial Conduct Authority, KPN, Merck KGaA, Peterborough City Council, The Chapar, ADP, Financial Times, Stanley Black & Decker, SureFlap, Western Union, Philips
Staples
Find out what your peers are saying about SAS Marketing Automation vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.